"That's not funny."
"It's not supposed to be." Hank pulled his bag from under the bunk and
from it drew pajamas and his dressing gown. "Check with the rest of
the tour if you want. The conductor couldn't care less. We were
evidently assigned compartments by Intourist and where we were
assigned we'll sleep. Either that or you can stand in the corridor all
night. I'll be damned if I will."
"You don't have to swear," Char bit out testily. "What are we going to
do about it?"
"I just told you what I was going to do." Taking up his things he
opened the door. "I'll change in the men's dressing room."
"I'll lock the door," Char Moore snapped.
Hank grinned at her. "I'll bet that if you do the conductor either has
a passkey or will break it down for me."
When he returned in slippers, nightrobe and pajamas, Char was in the
upper berth, staring angrily at the compartment ceiling. There were no
hooks or other facilities for hanging or storing clothes. She must
have put all of her things back into her bag. Hank grinned inwardly,
carefully folded his own pants and jacket over his suitcase before
climbing into the bunk.
"Don't snore, do you?" he said conversationally.
No answer.
"Or walk in your sleep?"
"You're not funny, Mr. Stevenson."
"That's what I like about this country," Hank said. "Progressive. Way
ahead of the West. Shucks, modesty is a reactionary capitalistic
anachronism. Shove 'em all into bed together, that's what I always
say." He laughed.
"Oh, shut up," Char said. But then she laughed, too. "Actually, I
suppose there's nothing wrong with it. We are rather Victorian about
such things in the States."
Hank groaned. "There you are. If a railroad company at home suggested
you spend the night in a compartment with a strange man, you'd sue
them. But here in the promised land it's O.K."
After a short silence Char said, "Hank, why do you dislike the Soviet
Union so much?"
"Why? Because I'm an American!"
She said so softly as to be almost inaudible, "I've known you for a
week now. Somehow you don't really seem to be the type who would make
that inadequate a statement."
Hank said "Look, Char. There's a cold war going on between the United
States and her allies and the Soviet complex. I'm on our side. It's
going to be one or the other."
"No it isn't, Hank. If it ever breaks out into hot war, it's going to
be both. That is, unless the extraterrestrials add some new elements
to the whole disgusting situation."
"Let's put it another way. Why are you so pro-Soviet?"
She raised herself on one elbow and scowled down over the edge of her
bunk at him. Inside, Hank turned over twice to see the unbound red
hair, the serious green eyes. Imagine looking at that face over the
breakfast table for the rest of your life. The hell with South
American senoritas.
Char said earnestly, "I'm not. Confound it, Hank, can't the world get
any further than this cowboys and Indians relationship between
nations? Our science and industry has finally developed to the point
where the world could be a paradise. We've solved all the problems of
production. We've conquered all the major diseases. We have the
wonders of eternity before us--and look at us."
"Tell that to the Russkies and their pals. They're out for the works."
"Well, haven't we been?"
"The United States isn't trying to take over the world."
"No? Possibly not in the old sense of the word, but aren't we trying
desperately to sponsor our type of government and social system
everywhere? Frankly, I'm neither pro-West nor pro-Soviet. I think
they're both wrong."
"Fine," Hank said. "What is your answer?"
She remained silent for a long time. Finally, "I don't claim to have
an answer. But the world is changing like crazy. Science, technology,
industrial production, education, population all are mushrooming. For
us to claim that sweeping and basic changes aren't taking place in the
Western nations is just nonsense. Our own country's institutions
barely resemble the ones we had when you and I were children. And
certainly the Soviet Union has changed and is changing from what it
was thirty or forty years ago."
"Listen, Char," Hank said in irritation, "you still haven't come up
with any sort of an answer to the cold war."
"I told you I hadn't any. All I say is that I'm sick of it. I can't
remember so far back that there wasn't a cold war. And the more I
consider it the sillier it looks. Currently the United States and her
allies spend between a third and a half of their gross national
product on the military--ha! the military!--and in fighting the Soviet
complex in international trade."
"Well," Hank said, "I'm sick of it, too, and I haven't any answer
either, but I'll be darned if I've heard the Russkies propose one. And
just between you and me, if I had to choose between living Soviet
style and our style, I'd choose ours any day."
Char said nothing.
Hank added flatly, "Who knows, maybe the coming of these Galactic
Confederation characters will bring it all to a head."
She said nothing further and in ten minutes the soft sounds of her
breathing had deepened to the point that Hank Kuran knew she slept. He
lay there another half hour in the full knowledge that probably the
most desirable woman he'd ever met was sleeping less than three feet
away from him.
* * * * *
Leningrad had cushioned the first impression of Moscow for Henry
Kuran. Although, if anything, living standards and civic beauty were
even higher here in the capital city of world Communism.
They pulled into the Leningradsky Station on Komsomolskaya Square in
the early morning to be met by Intourist guides and buses.
Hank sat next to Char Moore still feeling on the argumentative side
after their discussion of the night before. He motioned with his head
at some excavation work going on next to the station. "There you are.
Women doing manual labor."
Char said, "I'm from the Western states, it doesn't impress me. Have
you ever seen fruit pickers, potato diggers, or just about any type of
itinerant harvest workers? There is no harder work and women, and
children for that matter, do half of it at home."
He looked at the husky, rawboned women laborers working shoulder to
shoulder with the men. "I still don't like it."
Char shrugged. "Who does? The sooner we devise machines to do all the
drudgery the better off the world will be."
To his surprise, Hank found Moscow one of the most beautiful cities he
had ever observed. Certainly the downtown area in the vicinity of the
Kremlin compared favorably with any.
The buses whisked them down through Lermontovskaya Square, down Kirov
Street to Novaya and then turned right. The Intourist guide made with
a running commentary. There was the famous Bolshoi Theater and there
Sverdlova Square, a Soviet cultural center.
Hank didn't know it then but they were avoiding Red Square. They
circled it, one block away, and pulled onto Gorky Street and before a
Victorian period building.
"The Grand Hotel," the guide announced, "where you will stay during
your Moscow visit."
Half a dozen porters began manhandling their bags from the top of the
bus. They were ushered into the lobby and assigned rooms. Russian
hotel lobbies were a thing apart. No souvenir stands, no bellhops, no
signs saying _To the Bar_, _To the Barber Shop_ or to anything else. A
hotel was a hotel, period.
Hank trailed Loo and Paco and three porters to the second floor and to
the room they were assigned in common. Like the Astoria's rooms, in
Leningrad, it was king-sized. In fact, it could easily have been
divided into three chambers. There were four full sized beds, six arm
chairs, two sofas, two vanity tables, a monstrous desk--and one wash
bowl which gurgled when you ran water.
Paco, hands on hips, stared around. "A dance hall," he said.
"Gentlemen, this room hasn't changed since some Grand Duke stayed in
it before the revolution."
Loo, who had assumed his usual prone position on one of the beds,
said, "From what I've heard about Moscow housing, you could get an
average family in this amount of space."
Hank was stuffing clothes into a dresser drawer. "Now who's making
with anti-Soviet comments?"
Paco laughed at him. "Have you ever seen some of the housing in the
Harlem district in New York? You can rent a bed in a room that has
possibly ten beds, for an eight-hour period. When your eight hours are
up you roll out and somebody else rolls in. The beds are kept warm,
three shifts every twenty-four hours."
Hank shook his head and muttered, "They call me Dobbin, I've been
ridden so much."
Paco laughed and rubbed his hands together happily. "It's still early.
We have nothing to do until lunch time. I suggest we sally forth and
take a look at Russian womanhood. One never knows."