“Well,” Mary asked, “how was school?”
“I like it,” Beth replied. “Did you know there are kids there from twenty-two different countries? This neat Italian boy kept staring at me all through class. It’s a great school.”
“They’ve got a keen science laboratory,” Tim added. “Tomorrow we’re going to take some Romanian frogs apart.”
“It’s so weird,” Beth said. “They all speak English with such funny accents.”
“Just remember,” Mary told the children, “when someone has an accent, it means that he knows one more language than you do. Well, I’m glad you had no problems.”
Beth said, “No. Mike took care of us.”
“Who?”
“Mr. Slade. He told us to call him Mike.”
“What does Mike Slade have to do with your going to school?”
“Didn’t he tell you? He picked us up and drove Tim and me there and took us in and introduced us to our teachers. He knows them all.”
“He knows a lot of kids there too,” Tim said. “And he introduced us to them. Everybody likes him. He’s a neat guy.”
A little too neat, Mary thought.
The following morning when Mike walked into Mary’s office, she said, “I understand that you took Beth and Tim to school.”
He nodded. “It’s tough for youngsters trying to adjust in a foreign country. They’re good kids.”
Did he have children? Mary suddenly realized how little she knew about Mike Slade’s personal life. It’s probably better that way, she decided. He intends to see that I fail.
She intended to succeed.
Saturday afternoon Mary took the children to the private Diplomatic Club, where members of the diplomatic community gathered to exchange gossip.
As Mary looked across the patio, she saw Mike Slade having a drink with someone, and when the woman turned, Mary realized that it was Dorothy Stone. Mary felt a momentary shock. It was as though her secretary were collaborating with the enemy. She wondered how close Dorothy and Mike Slade were. I must be careful not to trust her too much, Mary thought. Or anyone.
Harriet Kruger was seated at a table alone. Mary walked over. “Do you mind if I join you?”
“I’d be delighted.” Harriet pulled out a package of American cigarettes. “Cigarette?”
“Thank you, no. I don’t smoke.”
“A person can’t live in this country without cigarettes,” Harriet said.
“I don’t understand.”
“Kent soft packs make the economy go around. I mean—literally. If you want to see a doctor, you give the nurse cigarettes. If you want meat from the butcher, or a mechanic to fix your automobile, an electrician to fix a lamp—you bribe them with cigarettes. I had an Italian friend who needed a small operation. She had to bribe the nurse in charge to use a new razor blade when she prepped her, and she had to bribe the other nurses to put on clean bandages after they had cleansed the wounds, instead of using all the old bandages again.”
“But why—?”
Harriet Kruger said, “This country’s short on bandages, and every kind of medication you can name. It’s the same everywhere in the Eastern bloc. Last month there was a plague of botulism in East Germany. They had to get all their antiserum from the West.”
“And the people have no way of complaining,” Mary commented.
“Oh, they have their ways. Haven’t you heard of Bula?”
“No.”
“He’s a mythical character the Romanians use to let off steam. There’s a story about people standing in line for meat one day and the line was barely moving. After five hours, Bula gets mad and says, ‘I’m going over to the palace and kill Ionescu!’ Two hours later, he comes back to the line and his friends ask, ‘What happened—did you kill him?’ Bula says, ‘No. There was a long line there too.’”
Mary laughed.
Harriet Kruger said, “Do you know what one of the biggest black-market items here is? Videocassettes of our TV shows.”
“They like to watch our movies?”
“No, it’s the commercials they’re interested in. All the things we take for granted—washing machines, vacuum cleaners, automobiles—those things are out of their reach. They’re fascinated by them. When the movie starts again, they go to the john.”
Mary looked up in time to see Mike Slade and Dorothy Stone leave the club. She wondered where they were going.