"Everybody but my parents call me Chair. You spell it C-H-A-R but
pronounce it like Chair, like you sit in."
"That's better," Hank said. "Let's see. There it is, Dirty Dick's.
Crummy looking joint. You want to go in?"
"Yes," Char said. "I've read about it. An old coaching house. One of
the oldest pubs in London. Dickens wrote a poem about it."
[Illustration]
The pub's bar extended along the right wall, as they entered. To the
left was a sandwich counter with a dozen or so stools. It was too
early to eat, they stood at the ancient bar and Hank said to her,
"Ale?" and when she nodded, to the bartender, "Two Worthingtons."
While they were being drawn, Hank turned back to the girl, noticing
all over again how impossibly pretty she was. It was disconcerting. He
said, "How come Russia? You'd look more in place on a beach in
Biarritz or the Lido."
Char said, "Ever since I was about ten years of age I've been reading
about the Russian people starving to death and having to work six
months before making enough money to buy a pair of shoes. So I've
decided to see how starving, barefooted people managed to build the
largest industrial nation in the world."
"Here we go again," Hank said, taking up his glass. He toasted her
silently before saying, "The United States is still the largest single
industrial nation in the world."
"Perhaps as late as 1965, but not today," she said definitely.
"Russia, plus the satellites and China has a gross national product
greater than the free world's but no single nation produces more than
the United States. What are you laughing at?"
"I love the way the West plasters itself so nicely with high flown
labels. The _free world_. Saudi Arabia, Ethiopia, Pakistan, South
Africa--just what is your definition of _free_?"
Hank had her placed now. A college radical. One of the tens of
thousands who discover, usually somewhere along in the sophomore year,
that all is not perfect in the land of their birth and begin looking
around for answers. Ten to one she wasn't a Commie and would probably
never become one--but meanwhile she got a certain amount of kicks
trying to upset ideological applecarts.
For the sake of staying in character, Hank said mildly, "Look here,
are you a Communist?"
She banged her glass down on the bar with enough force that the
bartender looked over worriedly. "Did it ever occur to you that even
though the Soviet Union might be wrong--if it is wrong--that doesn't
mean that the United States is right? You remind me of that ... that
_politician_, whatever his name was, when I was a girl. Anybody who
disagreed with him was automatically a Communist."
"McCarthy," Hank said. "I'm sorry, so you're not a Communist."
She took up her glass again, still in a huff. "I didn't say I wasn't.
That's my business."
* * * * *
The turboelectric ship _Baltika_ turned out to be the pride of the
U.S.S.R. Baltic State Steamship Company. In fact, she turned out to be
the whole fleet. Like the rest of the world, the Soviet complex had
taken to the air so far as passenger travel was concerned and already
the _Baltika_ was a left-over from yesteryear. For some reason the
C.I.A. thought there might be less observation on the part of the KGB
if Hank approached Moscow indirectly, that is by sea and from
Leningrad. It was going to take an extra four or five days, but, if
he got through, the squandered time would have been worth it.
An English speaking steward took up Hank's bag at the gangplank and
hustled him through to his quarters. His cabin was forward and four
flights down into the bowels of the ship. There were four berths in
all, two of them already had bags on them. Hank put his hand in his
pocket for a shilling.