"The Old Time Religion, of course. The virtues of the simple life. The glories of the home. Puritanism.
Once it got under way, we'd lay heavy stress against ostentatious display of wealth such as in foreign travel. Stay at home and cultivate the simple virtues, that's the pitch."
Jones was shaking his head. "It wouldn't work. It might for awhile, as a fad; they're great for fads, but then something else would come along. Some other fad."
Mike pressed his point. "That's all we need. A couple of years. Stop the tourist trade for only two or three years and the Russkies would stop dumping their products on the world market. They wouldn't need the foreign exchange. That would revive commerce between the Western countries. A new boom would start. Once under way, boom begets boom. New factories, at least as automated and computerized as the Russkies, would go up. By the time the Russkies had become interested in tourism again, we'd be under full sail."
Mike shrugged. "What'll happen then, I don't know. We can face that problem when it arrives."
Jones was shaking his head again. "The NATO council would never accept it. You can't toy with something as vital as religion."
Mike was contemptuous of that opinion. "Don't be ridiculous, Frank. I'm not suggesting that we teach them voodooism. This isn't the first time plain, ordinary religion has been used as an economic lever. And how can the Russkies lose? When it's all over, it will only mean that religion has been reintroduced into the Soviet Complex. Those Russkies that like it will adopt it permanently, those that don't, won't.
Nobody's twisting anybody's arm. Once the movement starts, undoubtedly other religions will be re-established, Judaism, Mohammedism, the various branches of Christianity."
Jones slapped the table with the palm of his hand. "I think it's worth a try, at least. We can put it before the higher-ups."
Mike said, "Yeah. And if they accept and it works, I'll be looking for another job. Come to think of it, possibly as an evangelist in Moscow. Besides spreading the gospel to our friends, the benighted Russkies, I have in mind some personal business to attend to there."
He looked at his watch. "I've got to get going now. Tomorrow, one of my groups terminates its vacation and returns north. We hold a masquerade for them at La Manana nightclub tonight. I've got to get into my matador costume. I've worn it to so many of these masquerades that it's beginning to need patching."
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He brightened. "Maybe the holes in it will look like places I've been gored.
"It couldn't happen to a nicer guy," Jones said, beginning to feel skepticism about Mike's idea, all over again.
Actually, it was Catherina's last evening and Mike couldn't allow himself to miss it. Especially since the rumor was that she was to appear in the costume of a Cretan Goddess of the Minoan period. Mike Edwards would no more have missed witnessing Catherina Saratov as a Cretan Goddess than he would have, well, than he would have anything…
Chapter IX
As a Cretan Goddess of the Minoan period, Catherina Saratov turned out to be a wow. Mike Edwards'
duty called upon him to protest her decolletage, in view of Spanish mores. Decolletage wasn't quite the word for it. Some more extreme terminology was called for. It seemed as though Cretan women of the Minoan period went topless, or so nearly so that it made no difference. Evidently, they were vain of their bosoms and didn't mind showing them.
And evidently Catherina Saratov was also proud of her bosom and didn't mind displaying it. As a matter of fact, not a man present protested, neither Spaniard, Russkie nor the sole representative of America-Mike Edwards.
Mike was nothing if not masculine. He didn't have it in him to suggest that she at least utilize a little gauze in concession to Spanish codes of modesty.
Well, there were precious few Spaniards around, if any, besides the bartenders and waiters. The Russkies had taken over the establishment en masse. Ordinarily, at one of these masquerades, Mike Edwards let the guests go to hell in their own way, but this time there was a Machiavellian quality in his arrangements. He put place cards on the tables; not that most of them paid much attention, preferring to seek out the friends they'd made during their Spanish weeks. His place card, obviously, was at the same table with her two friends, Nick Galushko and Ana Chekova. Vovo Chernozov was seated at the far end of the nightclub-as far away as possible. Vovo didn't seem to mind. He was already feeling no pain. But then, Mike had never seen the two-ton Cossack in a state of less than complete intoxication. The other was costumed, now, as the Siberian plainsman he was, and looked somewhat like Tamerlane or Genghis Khan, complete to a bullwhip, which he was having a time flourishing off and on.
Ana Chekova, with a great lack of taste, was attired as a ballet dancer, which made not only Mike Edwards wince, but everyone else in the room. Nick Galushko was done up as a capitalist. Or at least what the Russkies thought a capitalist ought to look like. He had a formal silk hat on, and formal morning suit. Mike wondered where in the hell he could have got the outfit.
Catherina Saratov beamed in friendly smiles as Mike took his chair next to her. She said, "How nice it turned out that you were to be seated with us. But it is on my conscience. We have taken up so much of your time this past few weeks that I am afraid you have neglected the others."
Mike made every effort in the world to keep his eyes from her pink tipped breasts. Holy smokes, the Cretan man must have been driven frantic.
He cleared his throat and looked out over the room of laughing, shouting, roaring Russkies. He said,
"They don't seem to be neglected. Our original plans for these parties were to serve free Sangria, but nobody seems to go in for Spanish wine punch."
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"For babes," Nick Galushko snorted overbearingly. He waved at a waiter. "Another bottle of vodka and two magnums of your horrible champagne. Tonight we must celebrate a return to the Soviet Complex and real Armenian champagne, sweeter and with twice as much alcohol."
Mike Edwards shuddered. It was going to be a long night. He could see that it was going to be one of those nights. If, after a couple of more years of this life, he still had a liver he'd be lucky.
He said, "A little later the band will come in and it will be possible to dance."
"Oh, how wonderful," Catherina said, honoring him with a smile that produced certain sexual reactions in him that he couldn't possibly have fulfilled here and now. "Do you dance… Mike?"
He was glad she had gotten over the Mr. Edwards bit. He was about to tell her that if he didn't dance, he would have learned tonight. He wasn't going to miss the chance of holding those two things of her's up against his chest, if it was the second to the last thing he ever did. The last being to kick off.
"Yes," he said. "I did quite a bit when I was a teenager and when I was in college."
"You'll have to teach me some of the new American steps," she told him. "The Americans are always in the forefront when it comes to new dancing. What a wonderful opportunity. I refuse to dance with anyone but you this whole evening. I understand that in the newest dance step from Ultra-New York that both sit on the floor. It seems a very strange manner in which to dance, but I would like to try."
AH of which was okay with Mike Edwards, except that he had no intention of sitting on the floor. He had every intention of letting her know that the very latest of steps from that font of new steps, America, involved holding the girl-very closely.
Nick Galushko had a sizeable camera in hand and was merrily banging away in all directions, though the room was as dim as gloom, taking this last opportunity to get snapshots of friends made on this vacation.
_Mike said, trying to make his voice such that it wouldn't set the other off, "I… I'm afraid there's not enough light in here, Nick, for pictures without flash."