The Ivan Spruce: A Novel

By Gordon Zima

A woman steps out of a steamy Yellowstone panorama into the perspective of another fisherman. She is Marta Senkova, daughter of high level Soviet officials. He is Jonathon Masters, New York engineering entrepreneur. Their fly rods, and then the intrigue of his special trout fly, are the first threads of the bond that draws him toward this beautiful, mercurial, girl. This bond will also pull him, and his men, into an orbit with her diplomat father that takes them inside a brotherhood of Western style expediters, a hidden vitality of the Soviets since Lenin, and then onto a central stage of the perestroika. Marta will also be in this collaboration of talents, and in a way that reawakens the bond between her father, Ivan Senkov, and her mother—the redoubtable Marta prototype, Natalia Senkova. This nose-poke of the Masters’ crew will provoke a massively impetuous put up or shut up gauntlet from the subterranean Soviet talents it has bumped into—a challenge that Jon Masters can’t untangle from the new trends Russian woman who matched him on a trout stream, and now is exercising her other intrigues on behalf of this new challenge—and love for the American man.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Sunstone Press
• Release date: May 10, 2015
• ISBN: 9781611393040

Gordon Zima

Gordon Zima trained as a chemical and mechanical engineer at Stanford and the California Institute of Technology. His engineering career is largely grounded in the defense laboratories of the West Coast of the USA, where he engaged materials problems in nuclear power plants, nuclear devices, and rocket and torpedo propulsion. As an Army Air Force weather officer in the Pacific during World War II, he served in Hawaii and Iwo Jima, and on Okinawa when Japan surrendered. In addition to The Red Garnet Sky, he has written Nuk-Chuk Tales for children and young readers, as well as two adult novels: Other Whispers, a partial fiction of an engineer’s life; and The Ivan Spruce, a love story of an American engineering entrepreneur who tangles with the Russian Underground after meeting a Russian aristocrat in the Yellowstone. He calls Pasadena, California his hometown and has lived for several years in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

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The

IVAN

SPRUCE

A Novel

Gordon Zima

This story owes inspiration and sustenance to many sources, principally written ones of Soviet and Western authors. Interpretations, claims of character and reputation not yet cast in historical concrete—and the palette of optimism—are my responsibility.

Some accessible Soviet figures have been used to reinforce story lines.

Any resemblance of the story characters to real persons is unintentional.

© 2014 by Gordon Zima

All Rights Reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or

mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems

without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer

who may quote brief passages in a review.

Sunstone books may be purchased for educational, business, or sales promotional use.

For information please write: Special Markets Department, Sunstone Press,

P.O. Box 2321, Santa Fe, New Mexico 87504-2321.

eBook 978-1-61139-304-0

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Zima, Gordon.

The Ivan Spruce : a novel / by Gordon Zima.

pages cm

ISBN 978-1-63293-016-3 (softcover : alk. paper)

I. Title.

PS3626.I4868I93 2014

813’.6--dc23

2014023740

www.sunstonepress.com

SUNSTONE PRESS / Post Office Box 2321 / Santa Fe, NM 87504-2321 /USA

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To P²AM

BOOK ONE

The Grizzly Spruce

1

The Yellowstone

He broke into the air and sunshine, carrying his own rainbow—then he cleaved the water again going the other way and left with the grizzly spruce. The finny one had used too small a stage to advertise and the first cast had nailed him.

During the part of the game where the fisherman was looking for a way to follow his hissing shooting line downstream, he barely noticed someone on the bank, watching his progress. A low angled sun made navigation of the stream bottom largely illusory, so after a few seconds the Firehole gave him a hole deep enough to hide everything but his hat. He found some purchase for his feet and scrambled to a sand bar, cradling his fly rod. On his hands and knees he made a quick inventory of his equipment, pieces of the Firehole decorating his nose and chin. Then he was startled by the shadow of the observer he’d forgotten.

The angle of his perspective, a colony of steam vents on a nearby mound, and the low sun wove a mystery of light in front of him. This situation, the frustration of his wetness, denied him first speech with the woman who’d now partially materialized.

Oh...and what will you do about him—or her? She was pointing to a spot in mid-river where the rainbow had just jumped again, shaking the leader, and the orange tip of the fly line moved in accord with a still hooked fish. He scrambled to his feet, starting to reel slack line, and then he waded into the wet arena again. Fortunately, he didn’t have to reassert his mastery of the Firehole in the presence of a witness because the trout succumbed gracefully several minutes later on the same sandbar that had saved its conqueror.

He carefully removed the fly, moved the fish slowly in the shallows until it seemed recovered, then he gave it back to the river. The woman had missed none of this from several vantages on the bank.

A very fine trout, she said.

"A damn fine trout," he said, fixing the old faithful grizzly spruce to the keeper on his rod butt, tightening the line on the reel, and otherwise taking the posture of a man going to relaxation.

He stood his rod against the far end of a nearby log. After inviting his auditor to the nearby social end with a small bow, he sat down there. The definitely other angler remained standing and returned his inspection with a smile that was only slightly smaller than his. She posed a fly fisher rather a cut above the dilettante—a bamboo rod of at least his quality; a Hardy Zenith reel; well fitted waders cinched, like his, by a webbed belt; wading shoes signed by rougher ground than the casting lawns of the lodges. A broad brimmed felt hat with a woven rawhide band, a veteran fishing vest, whose miscellany of unnatural bulges matched his, and a dark blue plaid shirt, finished out her obvious ensemble. An errant strand of black hair told on more of it tucked under her hat. From his distance of about ten feet, he could also see dark eyes and a suntanned face that seemed to have room for beauty and intelligence.

I accept your adjective. She’d kept the smile and added a slight bow which, with his, suited their moment. Her radar was still on line, but her little play tended to relax him.

She set her rod near his and then accepted his invitation. She removed her hat, then the lustrous blackness spilling into the strong sunlight as she shook her hair a little and moved her head in a side-to-side relaxation, added to the inventory that was piling up for him. Head back, she savored the Firehole world around them.

Her sudden, almost apparitional appearance, her revelation of qualities that fitted his man here and elsewhere, didn’t make casualness easy.

The old Firehole...some good browns and rainbows, mud pots, geysers, playful bison, elk, bear—what a combination. Like her, he’d kept his look toward the river But, for a moment, the new vision beside him had to compete with a memory...an old bull bison, eyes like a plains ghost’s, shaggy coat steaming with the Firehole, challenging him for a piece of a sandbar.

She hadn’t moved, and she continued to look into the Firehole panorama—a Daliesque masterpiece of a verdant, streamed, forest laced with steam vents waving against a sky of startling blue. He tried casual again, using a stick to sketch the sand in front of them:

Have you fished here before?

I have been on these waters, several times, with my father and brother. Her voice was mostly what he called upper-class British, with fascinating tints of other foreignness.

Another crutch, or not, after his Firehole bath he had to inspect his flies. He disgorged the boxes and pouches from his soggy vest and spread them on the ground in front of them.

Please...I would like to see the fly of your recent victory. She was looking at him now. He brought his rod back to the social end, unfastened the fly from the keeper and the leader, and held it out to her, covering the hook with the tips of two fingers. She leaned forward to inspect the offering, then she picked it from his fingers for better viewing. She held the fly to the sky and started to move it in simulated enticement. Several times she brought it close to her eyes as she diagnosed some particular of it.

"It’s a mean little devil—with very few pretensions. Her serious study forced a laugh from him. I am not familiar with this fly." She returned it to him and started to stand.

It’s my principal secret weapon—I insist on showing you a better version. He picked up a leather pouch from the array in front of them and from its fleece-lined interior he selected a virgin version of what he’d named, grizzly spruce. This brought her back to the log. Again she held a fly to the sky, moving it against the blue vault, appreciating the points of light from its pristine feathered and silked structure.

"Ah...I thought I’d seen some peafowl before. And that red body, the hackles and streamer feathers—this is beautiful...and you’ve touched some sparkles to the body and head!"

That estimation could keep this conversation going. He moved his hand toward the fly, offering to explain the construction. Instead of handing him the fly, she moved closer to him.

"...The principal features are the grizzly saddles, slightly opposed, and the grizzly hackles framing a conventional spruce fly body—except for those touches of sparkles."

Your American grizzly hackle is superb, she murmured, missing no part of his explanation of the streamer fly. In this fervor of kindred spirits, their heads had moved quite close together. He was confident that she was now capable of duplicating the fly on her bench, probably with some of her own concessions to truth and decoration. This had been a dispassionate student-teacher exercise. But as she returned the fly to him there could have been more...but reflections off a beautiful woman’s face can be tricky.

He glanced at his wrist watch. I’d like to be your gillie for a while—then we could look for some solid and liquid sustenance at your pleasure. They were standing on equal ground without their hats. Making allowance for her wading shoes, he estimated her at about seven inches over five feet, a good match for his six feet, plus a little.

You would give me the privilege of your grizzly spruce fly?

Of course, and I also pledge the careful posture of a true gillie—at all times.

You’ve evidently fished in Scotland. She’d already taken the lead position on their walk toward a log bridge that was near a covey of two cars.

A little...any success I’ve had with Scottish salmon and trout is owed entirely to my gillies. Her strong striding impressed him, but not so much as the way her waders failed to mask tantalizing symmetries of her. She stopped and turned to him.

But the eating...I don’t know. My brother was indisposed this morning at the hotel...I must look in on him. A slight frown didn’t discourage more of his overture.

Jonathon Masters at your service, milady. His best smile came along. He could still feel that radar, but she obliged him, again.

I am Marta Senkova. The pronunciation and presentation opened a little more of the Slavic shading than she’d allowed so far, also a tiny peek at antecedents that might suggest more caution with her—but he couldn’t back away now.

Ah...a Russian princess with classic fly fishing credentials. Most of his guess was on target. As he made it one up in the bowing business, there might have been a little negative transient flowing his way, but she kept their Firehole business moving along:

"My Cossacks may have to deal with you if I don’t discover the secret of your personal grizzly spruce fly." When he showed her his favorite knot for the fly, there was undoubtedly some mutual excitement over and above another learning exercise. She quickly mastered the knot and, before he could lecture on the subtleties of the immediate water, had waded into it and was truly swimming the grizzly spruce in enticement. She threw a fine line, working both sides of the river with a deft touch that needed no gillie service, careful or otherwise.

She shouted something unintelligible to him when she had her first response—a good rainbow had flashed and then taken after she’d shown several different personalities of the grizzly spruce.

Brava! he shouted, as she worked with the fish and vocalized her delight—sometimes in English. She managed to avoid the local pitfalls of the Firehole and she gradually led her fish to a shallow where he waited with a net. But she refused his service, and with some expert rod and wading work she netted her own fish under the nose of her frustrated, but enchanted, gillie. A careful return of this gift to the Firehole completed a virtuoso performance.

"I’m desolate—how much are your lessons?" They were walking toward the bridge. Her sudden laughter upset his quiet speech like a trout kind of rainbow marking a millpond at twilight. Then she scolded him for a teacher’s sadness in front of a pupil’s triumph.

My rental car, such as it is, is at your disposal. He nodded toward the cars near the bridge.

Thank you—I am similarly equipped. Her nod filled out the car covey.

Where are you staying?

West Yellowstone, at the Inn.

We’re near neighbors—what time will our lunch occur?

I must attend to my brother and...I don’t know... Her frown didn’t have enough resolution.

If you’re any reflection of your brother, he’s probably piloting a troika down main-street—indisposition be hanged.

"You insist on this Russian business—a troika would be nonsense here!"

Possibly, but I think your brother is no excuse for you. Two o’clock at the Inn gives you a decent interval of compassion—if you insist on playing nurse. Her look at him was complex enough that they both gave up trying to decipher it. He started to peel off some of his layers of a stream angler. She was similarly occupied and he noticed that the intimations of her waders were further confirmed when she finally came forth in well-fitted slacks and proceeded to various motions for socks and the unadorned moccasins of the serious walker. She countered the fall bite of the Yellowstone with a fluffy sweater like he’d seen at the trading posts on Vancouver Island.

After completing her transition from the stream huntress, she started dismounting and stowing her equipment. She was quicker than he at this business because the peeking had been one-sided.

She watched him complete his transition, leaning against her car. Then she turned to the Firehole valley. When he was ready for travel, he took a similar attitude at his car, but his savoring continued to be more local.

Shall we say two o’clock at the Inn, then? That pulled her around enough to send a nod.

He followed her to West Yellowstone. She was a surprising, maybe troubling, dividend of his first contact with the old Firehole in several years. A one time loser in the matrimony business, he’d kept his guard up in his female social contacts—low enough to let some fun spill over, but enough to deny prospects for a second slugging. She might be married. The Russian business he’d promoted...he now knew he was close to the mark there. When he reached the rangers’ gate at West Yellowstone, he had about an hour before his date with her. He wasn’t well organized for it.

After a touch-up shave and shower, he lay naked on the bed, flexing arms and legs he’d used on the Firehole and Madison the last few days. At 37, he was in good shape, but he was reaching—hell, he was in the age where the inevitability of aging was getting easier to justify. She could be a dancer, maybe ballet, but she’d be pushing the size limit for that. Some discipline of dance, or other exercise had molded that body. She hadn’t promoted it...a full casing by waders, and then the slacks. She’d crossed fly rods with him, and that inquisitiveness—it had flicked between the stream buddy and the chatelaine on her own river...he’d have to be damn careful here.

He had changed to tan Western style slacks, a dark blue Viela shirt, jodhpur boots, and wore a suede jacket that had a few day’s veneer on it. His light brown hair needed trimming, but this was close to Wild Bill’s country. As he strode into the lobby of the Inn, he felt reasonably presentable to a Russian princess with whom he’d had a liaison of the grizzly spruce kind. He was a few minutes prior to her hour, but he resisted the call of the bar and found a chair in the lobby, feeling like a kid on his first date, sans gardenia.

He saw her across the lobby. She obviously had the advantage on him because she was striding toward him with a young man in tow. Her companion was a little taller than she, probably blue eyes and, within Masters’ burgeoning perspective, he seemed to tend more to the quill than the broadsword. Masters stood up and then he roughly doubled her approach velocity. Within polite recognition range he stopped and bowed slightly to her—this was getting to be a habit.

Peter...Jonathon Masters for you. A decided Russian inflection seemed to hang on her brother’s name. Jonathon...Peter Senkov for you. Masters managed to drag his eyes away from her long enough to service his end of the formalities, including Peter’s good grip. He shared some subtleties of the face with his sister, but there was less room for enigmas on his.

Very pleased to meet the brother of a super fly fisher.

Her precocities tend to sweep into that area, too. Mine...not so much.

"Thank God—I was afraid I’d have to confront two masters here."

She’d changed into a dark skirt that bore the hallmarks of conservative hand woven artistry. A long-sleeved dark red silk blouse, dark silk stockings and black pumps filled out another view for him. She wore small amber earrings and a thin gold chain bearing an amber pendant. Peter had made more concessions to the Yellowstone: veteran blue jeans, a dark red plaid shirt and Western boots with a good patina of careful aging. Blond hair, blue eyes, no excess baggage on the face—he was a good fit with Montana, USA.

Settled at their table, the menus occupied them for a minute...in Masters’ case, not to the exclusion of more surreptitious peeking. Her hair had acquired a small formality, and the artificial light didn’t service it as well as the sunlight of the Firehole, but these were no handicaps. He joined their glances, several times, during the menu bit. Peter found no distractions and he got a consensus on hamburgers from his seat mates.

A cocktail, a beer? Masters asked.

A Tuborg would be good, she said.

The drinks arrived.

"Do dna!" Masters exclaimed, remembering some fun he’d had at a Russian restaurant in New York. Marta Senkova was sipping her beer when Masters’ challenge to drain the glass erupted. She almost spilled her drink. Peter laughed.

My stomach won’t take beer that way. She used some of her own laughter. I see I’ll have to trade you Russian lessons for fly fishing ones. An elegant finger waved at Masters.

Again I’m chastised for pushing the Russian business. Masters denied his own toast and sipped his beer, looking at Marta Senkova, no smile, impatient for more of this woman.

It seems more games than fly fishing were played today. Peter’s smile to his sister lasted long enough to take some to Masters. He also had some British accent, but the Slavic component was strong, now that Masters was an instant student of British-Russian-X-American veneers.

I’ve been impertinent, Masters confessed. ...But I’ve had provocation.

Up to that point, Marta had a neutral face for him—but that raised an eyebrow. You will explain that, she ordered, glancing at Peter who was enjoying the deeper water.

There I was, up to my neck in the Firehole, a great trout fastened to me—suddenly everything went blank!

Green and wet, she reminded.

Fortune put a sandbar under me. When I looked up...there was this apparition, garlanded in steam.

God—you make me like a ghoul, the enchantress said.

When it spoke to me, I was still in shock...visions of firebirds, that sort of thing. The Russian bit came out naturally. Their food arrived just in time.

The hamburgers were good and they limited conversation to the barest essentials.

I think I’ll make it now, Masters said just before the last of his beer. I’m almost afraid to ask...how long are you two going to be here? The question was up for grabs, but he was clearly interested in Marta’s answer. She looked at Peter, then Masters. Peter answered:

Our father is getting impatient with so much relaxation. Peter scratched his head and shrugged. Clearly he still had capacity for relaxation, if not rebellion.

"I used the word desolate today in fun. I think it’s going to pop up again—not so funny." It was still mostly between Masters and the lady.

We’ve had a fine vacation in the West...it’s time to return. Marta used the neutral face that Masters was beginning to believe was part of survival in some places.

I’ll not let you vanish as you came—in a cloud of steam.

Oh...we’ll be taking the plane from West Yellowstone to Denver, and then to New York. So you see...there’ll be no steam, hopefully. This had required more effort than Masters knew. This man had piqued her interest more than anyone since they’d come to America...maybe more than anyone, period. She barely knew him...she knew nothing about him. She and Peter had been given a precious bounty of freedom to seek their pleasures and rarely had the constraints interfered. They owed this to their father. Long ago, he’d told them that he had guaranteed their behavior. Marta now appreciated most of the implications in that and she was not disposed to jeopardize their equilibrium—nor was she ready to hide her trail from this man.

Such gravity here. Peter could blend laughter with other nuances, too. Having had more occasions to tests the quality of their constraints, he was acutely sensitive to situations that could compromise his sister. Also, upholding that guarantee was now a fixture of his maturity. As for this local situation, Marta had not masked her interest, excitement, in either their private moments, or here in the dining room. This accorded with Peter’s own assessment, and where Marta had been concerned, Peter could take some pleasure in the successes of his intuition.

Yes...too much I’m afraid. Then Marta took a long, fly fisher-like, draught of her beer. Her radar, which had been fine tuned on Peter, was not passive now and she appreciated the effort to pose a better vantage for them.

As for the third member of this triad that had stalled on emotion, he’d been unable to conjure a speech that offered grace, or promise. The fact that Marta had placed New York on her itinerary, possibly her destination, was a jewel that was late in winking at him.

The trouting around Manhattan is a little sparse now—maybe we could look into some upstate possibilities.

"You are returning to Manhattan?" It was her neutral face again, except for her eyes.

My home and business are there...which interrupts my fishing from time to time. He tried his own version of the neutral face. I struggle to keep what I laughingly call, Masters Associates, afloat on the quick sands of commerce.

Hey—that’s great! Peter showed some of his Yankee vernacular, and a tad more exuberance than Marta felt was appropriate.

Masters’ revelation of some of himself, of a surprising opportunity for their friendship, started a contest in her among purely pleasant prospects and vague and precise visions of maybe unpleasant reality. But this phenomenon was premature, her control was good...so she put on some of Peter’s exuberance.

"Jonathan...what is your company...I mean...what do you do?" This was the second time she’d used his first name without prompting. Had he known about a still warm private contention, he would’ve been more flattered.

He gave some attention to his beer. We’re engineering consultants.

"You consult," she concluded, giving him her undivided attention.

Yes. He’d let his face go into a mode that can be infuriating under the right circumstances. Some of her chatelaine had just peeked at him and he would enlarge the moment, a little.

I would come to you...if I had a problem with my...plumbing, or....

"If your plumbing was attached to a nuclear power plant...although in your case I could convince my associates that any problem of yours was also ours." Her eyes, he noticed, also had capacity for the less tender excursions.

Ah, Peter, we’re crawling close to another revelation. You work with nuclear power plants—when you’re not designing trout flies.

Please don’t disparage my trout flies. I know of one—the grizzly spruce—that caught an unimagined prize.

"Caught?" Czarina Catherine might have used that word, that way, on an impudent serf.

"Do you like intrigued and then fisherman...fisherperson, better?"

They are better—but Peter and I are still facing more shadow than substance here. Peter was enjoying his shadowy substance.

He’d pushed it too far. Let me flesh myself out...a little. Undergrad work at Stanford, grad work at Caltech. In both places I messed around with mechanical engineering and chemistry. Some people have called me ‘doctor’...I like your use of my name better. He’d rebuilt his best smile and she couldn’t find much exasperation in him now. I’ve joined with some friends in the venture I named. We like to poke into a lot of things, nuclear power plants included. We haven’t been bashed too much in the USA, so we’re starting to look abroad. Less shadow now?

Peter is studying engineering. Marta ignored his last question and tucked away his long answer to hers.

Perhaps someday I can visit your establishment. Peter had never been far from a smile.

I’ll insist on that. Also, I expect to petition your sister for guide, or escort service.

I’ll convey your petitions to my sister. Peter had agreed with Masters that a little obliquity wouldn’t do any harm here.

Marta alternated her look between the men and then decided to go along with them. "Peter, please give Doctor Masters our New York phone number in the interests of these... petitions."

Delighted, Peter said.

Masters was busy scribbling in a small notebook. He tore out the page and handed it to Peter. My home phone and address. I’ll expect your advice on petition protocol.

Delighted, Peter repeated. Now I must go to my packing. There was no barrier here to his departure, so Peter made a slight adjustment of his persistent smile and then completed his amenities with a slight bow that bisected the others.

She objected to continuing their talk in the bar, so he found soft leather chairs in an alcove of the lobby. The positions and orientations of the chairs gave them a close, nearly frontal, situation.

I’m at a disadvantage, he finally said. I’ve confessed some of my madness and home particulars to you—you can’t really challenge the size of my shadow, now. He’d touched her hand during the Firehole introduction. He very much wanted to touch her now. She must have known this...she extended her left hand and touched the back of his right hand...only momentary, but its accessory smile continued.

Jonathon, I...I feel that I must flesh out...as you say, this Russian business...just a little. She looked toward a window whose flux had been vesting her amber with intrigues of translucence, her hair and eyes with transients that tantalized his look at her.

The little tension here—different than their playing around with his shadow—was a stranger, so he borrowed some of Peter’s prerogative and stepped in front of her words:

"My impertinence will choke me someday...you don’t owe me any explanation. He also took some refuge in the window light. When he returned to her, he said, I’m looking forward to the discoveries ahead of us...I..." Only an attentive, close, listener could follow that.

"You Americans have an expression...play it by ear? We will do it—and God help us!"

2

Stavropol

This late summer day in Komsomolskaya Gorka Park, in the city of Stavropol, in the Soviet territory of that name, made some dreaming come easily around a chess game for the players and a kibitzer.

Restructuring and openness have given power to letters to the editors.

"Some of our nomenklatura brethren can write when their cradle gets knocked... and some of it gets to Gorbachev."

The fact that negative crap like that gets published is encouraging—I think.

You’re thinking that maybe a more positive type letter might make it to Moscow and a bigger piece of the royal carpet?

"He needs all the help he can get. Maybe we should formalize some bullshit and wing it toward the power center...put in some laughs, we could pick up more crowd."

"I don’t like that more crowd bit—some of those laughs could freeze into damn scary positions." The speaker ‘s head made a quick instinctive sweep of their sylvan surround.

Boris, student of agriculture, happened to have a notebook with uncommitted pages, and a pencil. Overriding the scary potential, he slapped the notebook on the table, and with an impish look that was almost his trademark, he made a bow to local history: Your Sultanic Imperiousness, we Cossacks would like to lay some words on you.

You’re a few years too late for that.

Dear Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev...

"He says he talks to Raisa about everything. Why not, ‘Dear Mikhail Sergeyevich and Raisa Maximovna Gorbachevna?’"

"He may not be around when our letter gets to Moscow. Better we make it, ‘Dear General Secretary’ and hope to God openness ain’t dead at the time—or we may be, after our letter."

Composition that was mostly conversation had a large aura. Other citizens of Stavropol were attracted to the table, bringing a spectrum of calendar ages, mentalities, and services rendered the USSR. Two women were now included in the congregation that had ballooned to a better target for surveillance.

These little pigeons have a way with words. Olga, the older of the ladies, was a stocky citizen clutching an opportunity bag that’d had few opportunities that day.

"They’ve been goosed by the new trends; they just had to let some of the crap out." Vasili was a tough old bean. He’d been a farmer for himself before Stalin’s ministrations to the State, had survived the bloody rivers of collectivization in the Stavropol territory, and he still had enough left of himself to work for one of the local farm cooperatives.

"This crap of Mikhail and Raisa may be the closest we’ll get to encouragement for a long time." The pigeon, and medical student, called Viktor said that.

"Ah, .so you’ve swallowed enough glasnost to make it Mikhail and Raisa, eh?" Josef was a pillar of one of the processing lines at a local canning plant.

"Raisa doesn’t sound like czarina, but it means the same. So much for your damn familiarity—it still spells shit for us." Marina, the younger of the ladies, was a good looking woman who’d obviously plumbed the Stavropol apparel troves more successfully than Olga.

"If he does talk to her, can’t we credit Raisa—if you’ll pardon the familiarity, Mother—with some of the movement away from the shit?" Felix, another pigeon, a foreign language student, was young enough to be Marina’s son, but the appreciative look she gave him may have slipped outside the maternal perimeter.

We got a feminist here. Fedor was a teacher exposed to waves of local teenagers. But I could move a little in that direction, myself. Gutsy, bright females have been scarcer in our government than Reagan’s autographed picture in the Kremlin. Our pile—mountain—of shit, has accumulated almost 100% from male orifices.

"Ura! No wonder my granddaughter said you were good!" Olga sat close enough to the chess set that she could move a piece. She gave a bishop a small kick in the ass.

"Jesus, Grandmother, another centimeter and you could have given feminism a big boost," Boris stated, staring at the present chess array. Olga returned with a mumble about not having had any complaints lately...about her share, under Boris’ topic.

Viktor watched the shit develop and he was not about to let it dissolve into a defense of feminism of the Soviet kind. He stood up, walked the occupied length of the table and stopped at a point giving him a view of all the faces. What we’re talking about here is shit architecture. His look had caught on Fedor’s....

And deep foundations, maybe going back to Vladimir Ulyanov , according to Gorbachev himself. Fedor was almost an unattributable mumble here.

Ulyanov—Lenin—tried to make some corrections, but by that time he was damn near dead...too weak to cope with the wolf pack. Josef’s pack didn’t need specifics.

"Corrections? Fuck the stars! The corrections he, or any other Party son of a bitch, ever thought of were never meant to trickle down more than a couple centimeters from the top of their mountain. Even your hero—Gorbachev—gets coy when he talks about that flood." Vasili’s rumble had parts that were old long before the October 1917 epiphany of equality, and he spit Gorbachev at Viktor.

He’s taken the lock off the cock of a big tank of democracy gas and given it some twists. That gas can be permeable as hell—down to the lowest level of the shit eaters. Krushchev knew something about the power of that gas, but he never got to twist that cock as much as Gorbachev.

"I hear Krushchev did plenty of cock twisting, not too far from here, in the spas as a matter of fact." Olga showed good teeth during her caress of Josef’s tidbit.

I think Gorbachev doesn’t know yet how much of that gas to let out...but he may get some inspiration when more of the comrades pull their noses out of our golden mountain and get a whiff of fresh air. Damn—I wish I had some vodka. Well it was the seventh day of the week, permitting some unstrained relaxation of Gorbachev’s plea for sobriety. Fedor’s wish caused at least three people to run their tongues along their lips when he mentioned the mother liquid. Vasili rolled his eyes and snapped two fingers against his neck.

The transit from the park to the table in Olga’s kitchen was a product of the power of threads of conversation to bind strangers or friends in the USSR, Fedor’s call for sustenance, and Olga’s tacit and then explicit estimation that she could fit all of them around her table with a glass in every hand.

Olga was finally satisfied with the fit at her table and with Marina’s help she added a decoration of bread, cheese and sausage to that of the vodka bottles.

Those poor Armenian fuckers in Karabakh...sad, sad. Just trying to put together a little nationalism, Felix mumbled, between swallows of bread and vodka.

I saw another very sad thing today, Boris said, somewhat less encumbered by Olga’s largesse.

"What was this sad thing?" Vasili halted the vodka glass at his lips and leaned across the table so that Boris had a better view of eyes that were connoisseurs of sadness.

I...I saw a truck carrying chickens to market. Boris looked away from Vasili.

"And you saw chicken shit running all over the road." Vasili still denied himself the vodka as he played with the boy.

"I saw a chicken, a young rooster, its head hanging down through a slat of its crate...the head swinging with the truck—dead, God damn it! Never a chance to do anything except die on that fucking truck." Boris matched Vasili’s look, then he took some vodka without uncoupling from the old farmer.

If I had seen that chicken...I don’t think I could have found so much sadness there. Vasili could make soft pillows with his voice. He touched his vodka glass to his lips, then set it down. He continued his leaning position, but he had lowered his head and was staring at the patterns of grains and stains on Olga’s table.

And where could you find sadness, Grandpa? Grandma Olga asked. Her table position gave her scope over most of the conversation.

Vasili looked up at Boris, and then turned toward the sound of Olga’s voice. "I was on a station platform in Krasnoyarsk in the late 30’s, chained to some of my fellow citizens. One of Stalin’s luxury trains pulled in, filled with more of my fellow citizens...on their way to a Kaganovich spa. The way he mouthed that name pulled up the hair on some necks at that table. His voice had stopped the others’ words. This train had some cars with slatted sides—like your chicken truck. He glanced at Boris. I happened to look up as one of these cars came by me. I saw an arm and a hand...and part of a leg hanging through the slats. These things belonged to a young girl. From what I could see of her...she had long blond hair...beautiful. I couldn’t see her face—thank God, but I knew she was dead. The room was silent. Finally, the quiet voice started again. ...There were some others, younger, older—but I’ve never forgotten what that child told me about hopeless misery...I think she gave me some strength for my time in the camps. He restored a small part of his Boris contact, no intimidation. ...That is why I couldn’t say what you said...about that chicken." Then Vasili used his vodka glass, his eyes private.

Now we’ve struck the essence of our mountain. Viktor’s voice was appropriate to Vasili’s theme. It had some tailoring by the vodka, but it was accessible to everyone. "Hopeless misery is what it makes—it warps the shit-eaters away from anything better."

Ah, but we have the glass of roses to make it better. Felix held his glass to the light bulb above Olga’s table, then he used it.

Lord Vodka? Marina’s face was flushed, partly from her devotions to this very lord, partly from the stimulation of the Olga companions.

Not so much now...at least not officially, teacher Fedor said. "But I think our young friend has other glasses in mind...maybe spelled like party."

"Spelled part crap."

"Spelled party lies about everything except what they can’t hide about the lives of the fucking bureaucrat aristocrats—and the rest of the pretties under that nomenklatura umbrella. These lives are the closest any of us will ever get to the socialist paradise." Olga’s voice, tied to this view of glasnost and perestroika, started a chorus that started to pick at other threads of their Soviet tapestry.

The proposed inspirational letter from the hinterland needed more specifics. You ladies don’t have it so bad. Viktor looked at Olga, and then noted Marina’s progressively improving cleavage. Felix had gone to that landscape before him.

Hah! This rag wouldn’t be used to clean toilets in Budapest, or Riga. Olga fingered her blouse and then moved her hands downward toward a bigger field of mediocrity. —And the intimate apparel!

Underwear? Vasili was suddenly invigorated.

"Yes, underwear, God damn it! Most of our stuff feels like parchment. I’ve seen goods in the museum—from the very old times—that treat women better than they do now."

Our sanitary goodies are like corncobs. Marina had just struck deeper into the mountain. Olga grunted in assent.

"It would take a corncob to crack that fossil of yours." Vasili said that, and he was staring at Olga.

I can still bend your banana—you old fart!

And shoes! Viktor persisted.

I wait for opportunities from Czechoslovakia Marina said. "Sometimes from Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia...even Poland, never ours. Oh...OK for mud, but nothing serious."

Good for walking in shit, someone, probably Vasili, said.

Now wait a damn minute. As a devoted Party member I resent these sneers at our quality. Fedor hitched himself up to the table and tried to command attention with hypocrisy. "The State Committee for Standards has awarded the State Mark of Excellence to thousands of our products. I don’t know about underwear...or sanitary napkins, but..."

That’s for sure, Olga said, but your wife does.

But those awards... Fedor continued, practiced innocence from decades of teaching marking his face.

Are made from the same stuff as our mountain, Josef said. "When you’re ready to get deep into the factory stuff—put your tall boots on because it starts to get real deep, real fast. If it wasn’t for the pushers, the whole damn factory network would freeze up with our mountain stuff before you could holler ‘Lenin!’"

"Why don’t you say shit?" Vasili was still paying attention.

I find it refreshing that some of us can stay away from it, Fedor, the pedagogue, replied.

"Ah, but who can do that?" Anonymous.

It’s goddamn amazing how well you people can keep to the central theme of our petite soviet here. Felix had suddenly cast a semi-official aura on the congregation.

"Our soviet has addressed some negatives. How about some positives—good, solid positives?" Viktor closed on bread, cheese and vodka in about that order. Then he took a standing position at the head of the table, next to Olga, a maximum vantage for inspiration.

Positives...negatives...shit is shit, Vasili grumbled.

We claim full employment, free medical treatment, cheap living necessities...food, housing, et cetera, et cetera, come on—help me!

Rest and relaxation facilities all over Siberia and some of the sunnier parts of our sunny southern territories, too, Josef added.

We got plenty of free entertainment in those camps—lots of good flogging, some hangings. Sometimes we got to see the guards fucking, or buggering the female vacationers, some of the prettier young males, too. By God—we never had it so good! Vasili pushed scarred hands and arms to the heaven he’d once called long ago.

Maybe those places have died by now, like Stalin and the wolf pack, Boris, the one who could pluck sadness and chicken feathers from the same truck, said.

I don’t think so, Vasili said. I’ve seen some letters, not so old, either, that say we still got plenty of people hung up in... he moved a hand toward an old memory.

Special Party R&R, Josef said.

I’ve heard rumors running up to thousands on Radio Armenia. Fedor dug into his vodka for a moment. Jesus...maybe still a good piece of that ghost army waiting for Mikhail and Raisa’s tender treatment.

They’re talking about a monument to Stalin’s victims, something big in Moscow—Red Square stuff.

"That ghost army piece of Fedor’s is a living, talking, monument."

"Talking monuments are very bad for those hypocritical ass holes hanging around the Kremlin waiting to get restructured."

They’ll probably try to make real ghosts out of some of them poor bastards, boiled into a fucking statue in Red Square—good silent heroes of the camps.

"The whole fucking country is a camp. You can’t silence that. You can’t move your ass without papers for this, papers for that. They’ve got us stuck in boxes—like in a zoo." Marina dabbed at a pearl of sweat on her bosom.

"Ah, she’s hit a nice point. How do you tell the prisoners from the citizens on our side of what’s left of the Iron Curtain?" Josef asked between his vodka.

The prison, work camp, administration is delegated to the Administration Organs Department of the Secretariat. Fedor’s vodka flush still wasn’t good enough to overbear his teacher. "Our destinies are controlled by the beneficent sages in the Politburo and the Central Committee." He moved his arms in an expansive gesture to measure the scope of this beneficence and nearly dethroned his close seatmates.

This is a difference? Josef asked. "These heads all feed on the same heart, some name changes in that administration lately—but the same heart."

Precisely, Fedor replied. "All of us—us, he slammed his fist against his chest, and the ghosts still living, enjoy the fruits of a philosophy that the Party calls the technology of behavior."

"Where’s the difference?—what’s it mean for God’s sake?"

"Ah...the difference. We are getting into oily words here that make that difference too big a problem for me—I’m just a teacher, for God’s sake." Fedor let a drop of vodka come to his lips and then he pushed it off with a finger and let them try to read his eyes.

"Keep talking—you bastards will come up with a real difference yet." Olga reached for a vodka soldier that was nearly dead.

Prisoners get big cricks in their necks from looking over their shoulders. Boris remembered his impish grin. Olga leaned toward him, pulled his head toward her with one hand around his neck:

"All of us get cricks in our necks, sonny—unless we’re too damn dumb to know where to look." She shoved a sausage in his mouth and somehow managed to close his jaws on it, all of this with her other hand.

The material part of Olga’s hospitality was nearly gone. But her togetherness, an old resource in Stavropol, had been solid all the way.

Fedor walked toward the three students who were tending toward Olga’s front door. You kids may see some changes. He put a hand on Felix’s shoulder. This damn letter of yours...don’t get too cute with the symbolism. It might find some harmless laughs for you. He brushed them all with his eyes and started for the door.

Don’t you think you’ll see any changes? Viktor asked.

That democracy gas is heady stuff. The lids are coming off Marina’s boxes all over the USSR. If enough people get a good enough sniff of the real unadulterated stuff, the Party could be in real trouble. He combed a hand through his hair, and then moved it slowly down his face to his chin. For his recapitulation, he locked on Viktor. "As for the when of it...nobody can say. Those bastards have finally made a revolutionary situation out of their revolution. You kids remember the French—an arrogant, unfeeling blanket thrown over poor slobs who finally lit a fire under it." He started for the door.

"The local militias and the army let go their corners of that blanket—the fire liked that." Boris’ quiet statement stopped Fedor again.

He looked at each boy, then he moved doorward, resolutely, his face away from all of them. "I pray to the various religious souvenirs here in Stavropol that we can find a better way to move our blanket." The voice of this enigma man of the Party had some of Vasili’s soft pillows, but local reception wasn’t any problem.

3

Manhattan

One of the men leaned closer to the striking, businesslike woman across the small table. Can’t get much out of him since the Yellowstone fantasy. The voice, like a stage whisper, accorded with the graying-black locks, exuberant eyebrows, and the eyes that, for a technical man, seemed to step a tad too close to the custom of the classical actor.

Feathers?

No.

Glassy stares?

Bingo.

"What is it out there, Bill? I used to get the same thing...no feathers, same stares. You can’t pull a Mandan maiden out of that bit—but something was sure sucking more substance out of the matrimony. Marcy Patterson was the other principal of Jon Masters’ only venture into matrimony. The separation turbulence hadn’t been much and they’d rediscovered some parts of useful friendship, unencumbered by statutory baggage. Give me something intelligent he’s said...lately." Marcy’s request sailed past the second man, who’d been in an identically sexed triad only a few days before—farther west.

Mumbles into his computer station, ditto his secretary about a client conference agenda and a minimal presence at a staff meeting...that’s about it.

"Been meaning to talk to you about your minimal presence at that meeting." Masters had strained the triad back to life.

That’s my exit line. This tab’s on you, Boss. Bill Grenwold stood up. "Marcy, poke some. If you strike anything pertinent to Masters Associates—call me."

Bill’s detected unseemly preoccupation in you. Marcy nursed her martini and took advantage of the extra space left by Grenwold.

He’s got a big imagination, thank God. Having saved our collective ass many a time and oft...I’m inclined to suffer his slings and...

Jesus—your sparse Shakespeare again. A harbinger...but I forget of what.

"You look good to me, Marcy. If you could only fish I might get caught in your net again."

"No you couldn’t. And don’t slip off the present question...I’ve noticed preoccupation in you, myself, from my limited vantage. She was trying to quit smoking, but occasionally a cigarette seemed to bolster her reporter’s aura. He lighted one for her, and then activated a pipe. Straining my intuition, I’ll say there’s some ambiguity crowding your last safari. Marcy was a blue-eyed blond, with most of the tantalizing accoutrements of that species. Also, she’d never had any tendency to retreat from him. Well?" she prompted.

I’m not one of your damn investigative reporting targets, he mumbled, prodding a stubborn pipe.

"I’ve got a small gap in my agenda. Maybe I should poke a little, like Billy suggested. We have one of possibly two friendships of our kind in Manhattan—I don’t like perturbations to it I don’t understand."

I don’t deserve you.

I’ll judge that. I’ve got some new CD’s, including Dvorak’s cello concerto with Rostropovich. I propose taking you to my pad for some music, wine and quiet poking.

"I thought we say platonic now."

Poking—in the Grenwold sense.

Marcy’s mention of the great Russian cellist refluxed some Russian essence he’d tried to keep patted down. He’d been back in Manhattan for a week and his several phone calls to the Senkov residence, at least to the number Marta had given him, had been answered by a female of obviously Russian persuasion, telling him that his subject was not available...but she would inform Miss Senkova of his call.

This day has exhausted its formal possibilities, he said, glancing at his Omega. I think your hospitality appeals to me. He helped Marcy envelop herself in her camel’s hair coat, assumed his topcoat, and then he was buffeted by both déjà vu and Russian essence as they left and took up the challenge of transit on the surface of Manhattan.

Marcy’s apartment was manageable for a news service reporter with a habit of world-wide travel. Her income from this and her extraction, what she called her divorce arrangement, didn’t deny her many of the attributes of the Manhattan she admired.

Masters enjoyed visiting one part of his largesse. Nice amontillado...those Spaniards know how, he murmured over the edge of her crystal, ensconced in one of Marcy’s big black leather chairs.

Skip the trivia. Before Rostropovich, let’s explore your problem a little.

"I wish you’d stop pushing that Russian business. He’d broken the playful rhythm. He tried to smile that remark away and then searched for new panoramas of color within his amontillado. When he’d found a quiet voice, he said, You always had a nasty tendency of putting my foot in my mouth. As a matter of fact, the phrase—Russian business—can jolt me like one of Pavlov’s dogs—so now I’m making my own jolts."

Jon...I... Marcy could have reminded him that he had a tendency to extend his foot, feet, even so far as her mouth, too.

Shut up! This confessional is close to the absolutely unilateral stage.

"Not even any heavy breathing through the lattice—both ways?" Marcy was almost a whisper.

He started to push himself out of the soft leather and then he settled back again. But Marcy had to devote a lot of attention to her sherry before he spoke.

I was minding my own business on the Firehole, busting my ass and wetting my pants, as per usual. Marcy accepted this without comment, with her version of the neutral face. She refurbished his glass and then recuddled into her share of the leather.

Then this fisherman suddenly materialized—sort of spooky.

Spooky?

She’d been watching me. But after I swam ashore, I got a funny sight line on her...with the sun and steam vents working on it.

"I thought you said you were fishing."

I fell in, God damn it! I crawled ashore damn near at her feet.

So...you established a proper servile posture early in the relationship. Marcy didn’t really feel this flippant: Firehole, she, Russian business, long face tendency, didn’t equal undiluted joy in her algebra. She had to wait for him again.

"She’s a hell of a fly fisherman. She’s got a brother named Peter. I think she’s a Soviet citizen—and she came back here." His explosive recitation omitted any physical attributes of his subject, but Marcy could file that part away under redundancy.

Does this fisherperson have a name?

Marta Senkova. He’d restored his appreciation of her amontillado before her last question and his reply was a soft breath into her crystal.

Marta Senkova. Marcy picked up some of his voice quality. I’ve heard the name, Senkov, before. Her vocational travels had included some of the European land within the Soviet orbits and some touches of the USSR proper. A few Soviet names were staples of the media, and persistent bulwarks against inquiries, foreign and domestic, of various urgencies. In the background of substantive action, other Soviet names couldn’t