While Lenin Slept

"As we are now flying over Soviet territory, let me remind you that taking photographs from the airplane, or at Moscow's Sheremetyevo Airport, is strictly forbidden."

Our pilot's voice is nonchalant enough--he has delivered this announcement plenty of times before--but it carries an unmistakable "I'm not kidding" undertone. Most of the 20-odd passengers aboard British Airways flight 710 begin fidgeting in their seats. The captain might just as well have told us that a gang of jack-booted thugs, AK47s in one hand, rubber gloves on the other, was going to storm the plane and conduct a strip search. Across the aisle, a pallid Englishman begins eying his airsickness bag and motions for the steward to bring him another Scotch on the rocks. I make a note to scratch any future trips to the lavatory.

It's ridiculous, of course. The Pentagon has satellites cruising in geosynchronous orbit that can read postage stamps. And the Russians are worried about some tourist with an Instamatic? No, regulations like that one are intended solely as intimidation tactics. Reflexively, I pick up my camera, one of those surefire gadgets that do everything but buy your film, and fire off a few frames out the window. No matter that I'll get nothing but cloud cover and glare; one symbolic gesture deserves another.

A month before, in Los Angeles, the sun was shining its promise of spring. My phone rang and an eerily familiar voice came over the Record a Call.

"Ron, you there?" The voice was raspy, obviously cracking from strain. "Why don't you stop hiding behind the machine and pick up the phone?"

The raspiness gave him away. It was my Playboy editor. The strained voice came from years of having to juggle the output of hardened journalists along with editing Playmates' major turn-offs. The last time I'd seen or heard from him, he was acting vaguely disappointed that my foray to the Democratic Convention in San Francisco, chronicled in these pages [While the Democrats Slept, Playboy, December 1984], hadn't resulted in any permanent physical or psychological scarring.

"You bastard," I said, snatching up the receiver. "How did you get my new number?"

"Never mind," he growled. "Listen, how would you like to spend May Day in Red Square?"

"Sure. Then maybe I can do a story about how it feels to be lashed to the prow of an icebreaker crossing the Bering Strait."

"Ron"--his voice stiffened a notch--"I didn't want to bring this up, but there's a little matter of expenses incurred during the convention by a certain San Francisco belly dancer...."

"Whoa! Wait a minute. That was supposed to go on the Ranger's [my accomplice at the Dem Convention] expense account."

"Hmm... funny, we show it on yours." His voice cracked again. "The lady has put in claims for extended creative dancing."

Visions of lengthy and brutal litigation swam before my eyes. That son of a bitch Ranger and his foul proclivities!

"All right, you win. I'll go, but I'm not going alone. And this time, I pick my own partner."

I wasn't taking any chances in a country known for gunning down unarmed military observers and civilian airliners, to say nothing of harboring very little love for a certain relative of mine. After several tense phone calls, I secured the services of Misha, a fellow whose family had come from Russia. He is a former Yale hockey player who set the old Eli record for time spent in the penalty box. His utter disregard for sportsmanship and his demonstrated propensity for violence--plus fluency in Russian and his two previous trips to Moscow--made Misha a natural for this assignment. This will seem strange, but he is also my literary agent.

"Sounds dangerous." Misha eyed me warily over the foamy head of his draught lager.

We were sitting in a pit stop on the way to the Twilight Zone--the bar and grill of the bunkerlike Sheraton Heathrow Hotel, outside London. All about us, a motley crew of waiters scurried, babbling an incoherent Esperantolike dialect. Behind the bar, in a huge display tank, tiny prawns were being forced to copulate with thrashing Atlantic salmon. As a gruesome finale, both creatures would be ritualistically grilled, then, still locked in coital passion, served up piping hot to terrified patrons.

"Misha, there could be big money in it for you," I lied. He'd get his ten percent, not a penny more.

"Well, I guess it'll be OK. But she's gotta come with me." He motioned with a jerk of his head to a petite woman on his left. "She's a psychologist, a sex therapist. I don't go anywhere without her, ever since ... never mind."

"How do you do, Miss ...." I extended my hand.

"Dr. Sally." She declined the handshake and resumed poking at a prawn. Fair enough. After all, I was taking my wife, Doria, and I desperately needed Misha as a translator.

Our flight left the next morning.

An Auspicious Beginning

"Comin' into Sheremetyevo! Bringin' in a kilo of snow! Don't touch my bags, if you pleeease, Mr. K.G.Beee!"

I can't believe it. Three minutes on Russian soil and, till now, everything has gone smoothly. We landed safely. No one confiscated our cameras. Arthur Hartman, the American Ambassador, is smiling at the top of the terminal ramp. And Misha has lost his mind.

"If you act crazy," he whispers between choruses, "they'll leave you alone."

"You fool," I hiss. "We don't need crazy; we've got an Ambassador." He abruptly stops. The silence, as they say, is deafening. Strange. This is, after all, the U.S.S.R.'s busiest airport. But as I look around the place--bare, devoid of any decoration--I notice that we are the only travelers (continued on page 104) While Lenin Slept (continued from page 92) in sight. It could be Peoria at three in the morning.

Ambassador Hartman's limo, a stretch Caddy that draws stares from the locals, whisks us along the Leningradsky Prospect toward downtown Moscow. Everything is gray: weather, slablike apartment complexes, faces peering from the few cars we pass.

As we draw close, splashes of red appear--trappings of the upcoming May Day celebration. Strung from lampposts, the lighted stars look incongruously like Christmas decorations. Welcome to the 27th Party Congress! proclaim banners hanging limp in the cold, damp air. May Lenin's Contributions last forever! the fight for peace is the fight of one and all!

Before leaving the U.S., I had slipped a couple of banned publications--Trotsky's Russian Revolution and Playboy--into my bag to test the alertness of Soviet luggage searchers. Standing in our room at Spaso House, the Ambassador's residence, I'm a bit disappointed to find them intact. On closer inspection, however, the pages of Playboy reveal large, greasy thumbprints.

Spaso House was not originally on our itinerary. My editor's idea was to have me cross the border as "just another journalist" or, failing that, "just another tourist." No way. I might as well try parachuting into the Urals and hitchhiking to Moscow. My family name on a passport was sure to set off bells. After several conversations with high-placed friends in Washington, it seemed I had two options: (1) Pretend I was on a more or less official diplomatic venture and resign myself to a dog-and-pony show, plus guided tours by the Intourist branch of K.G.B., or (2) play it straight as a journalist and resign myself to a dog-and-pony show, plus guided tours by Intourist. I chose option three.

I first secured an invitation as a personal guest of Ambassador Hartman's, enabling me to enter the country without the usual delay and to enjoy sanctuary at Spaso House. Then I turned down all offers from Intourist on the grounds of allergic reaction to propaganda and tedium. Last, I filled in the excessively prying visa application with scrupulous honesty, confessing that I was a writer on a research mission. As Frank Gifford might say, I "split the seam of the defense." In Soviet terms, I'm neither diplomat nor journalist but, paradoxically, a little of both. What consternation this has caused in official circles, I can only imagine. The upshot is, I'm a temporary non-person: intensely scrutinized by the K.G.B. yet allowed to travel freely; totally ignored by the Kremlin but unencumbered by stage-managed interview opportunities with "average" citizens.

We've chosen a good night to arrive. Vladimir Feltsman, perhaps the finest young pianist in the Soviet Union, is favoring about 30 Spaso House guests with a private recital. You will not see this extraordinary artist in the U.S., nor will you catch his performance in a Moscow concert hall. Since applying with his wife, Anna, to emigrate to Israel, Volodya, as his friends call him, has been refused permission to travel abroad, and his concert appearances inside the U.S.S.R. have been severely curtailed. Record stores no longer stock his albums. Radio stations don't play his music. His name is not mentioned in officially sanctioned music circles. He is a refusenik.

After a breath-taking program of Schumann and Schubert, we settle down to dinner. Another refusenik, Sergei Petrov, is on my left. Four years ago, Sergei, a free-lance photographer, married a visiting American student and applied for emigration to the U.S. He was turned down on the basis of national security. A while back, fresh out of college, he spent three months working at a military research center. He had no access to classified information and, even if he had, could easily have passed it on by now. No matter. His emigration is "undesirable."

"You must not look for rational reasons here," warns Sergei in nearly flawless English. "There are none."

For the next half hour or so, over Russian potatoes and French asparagus the size of my forearm, Sergei dissects the Russian character and the Soviet state.

"I don't think it's possible," he says, "for the Soviet Union to have long-term cooperation with the United States. You see, Russians, even in one-to-one dealings, do not see the possibility of mutual benefit. Always, one side must win.

"I used to be a different person," he continues. "I changed when I married my wife. I was resigned, but now I see possibilities. You can say no. Once you say that first no, however, you can't go back."

For an Indian exchange student across the table, this is all a bit too gloomy. "Surely, some people here have faith in communism," he ventures, his voice betraying exasperation.

A smile flickers beneath Sergei's bristly mustache. "I don't know." He pauses. "I've never met one."

The Wax God

Mussolini, it has been noted, made the trains run on time. The Soviets, for all their failures, have built an efficient, dual-purpose subway system. Six miles underground, at the end of mine-chute escalators, are clean, graffiti-free, often ornate bomb shelters. Trains pass through often, and five kopecks (about seven cents) will buy a ride.

On the train, passengers stare furtively at my high-top Converse All Star sneakers. In fact, all of us draw stares directed at our feet. No wonder. Everyone else is wearing nearly identical boot-shoes stamped from the same batch of cardboard. This country is ripe for a Reebok outlet.

Popping up at Marx Prospect, we make a beeline for Red Square. Huge red banners bearing the likenesses of Lenin, Engels and Marx, as well as the standard Socialist-realism vignettes--smiling proles with brawny arms humping stalks of wheat--are being hauled into place over the arcade of the GUM department store. Lenin's tomb is a blaze of scarlet flowers. Saint Basil's Cathedral, its spires and minarets glowing despite the overcast, looks spit shined. On the front of the Museum of History, a large sign announces, May First!

Everywhere, little babushkas (grandmothers) with twig brooms trundle about beneath layers of quilted clothing, sweeping, polishing, occasionally pausing to berate bystanders. These tiny women are unavoidable. As fierce as maggots, they patrol art galleries and museums, stand guard in metro stations and cruise the streets, shrieking mercilessly at the unwary. Couples publicly embracing (an unseemly display of affection), women of childbearing age sitting on cold stone steps (danger of infertility) and mothers walking their young sons to church (revanchist religious tendencies) incur their special wrath. Among other functions, the babushkas serve as shock troops for K.G.B. Let a Soviet citizen boldly invite a foreigner home for a drink, and the baba in his apartment lobby will surely make a call to the appropriate authorities. She may get a medal for her trouble. What these decorations are called--Medal of Meanness? Order of Orneriness?--I have no idea, but a frightening number of old women sport them on their lapels.

Lenin's tomb is zakrytie na remont (closed for repairs). Among Muscovites, the joke is that at such times, all the candles in the city disappear: A long time ago, they say, the official state embalmers dropped a stitch and ended up with something the size of a Barbie doll and the consistency of beef jerky. The Lenin on display, many believe, is actually a wax recreation by Madame Tussaud--a tough break for a guy the Soviets refer to as the (continued on page 226) While Lenin Slept (continued from page 104) Most Human of Humans.

A small crowd has gathered to watch as a procession of World War Two veterans files up to pay respects. Uniformed guards part and let them lay their flowers. They beam proudly and someone snaps a picture. As they troop off around the back of the mausoleum to inspect the graves of lesser luminaries entombed in the Kremlin's red-brick walls, an old man approaches and tries to join their ranks. A young officer brings him up short.

"You can't go in."

The old man seems perplexed and tries once more to pass.

"You can't go in," the guard repeats, taking the fellow by the arm.

"And why not?" the little man asks lamely. "I've been a good Communist for over 30 years!"

The guard laughs and turns away.

After perusing the lunch fare at a couple of native eateries, we decide to pass on the watery gruel and lymph-node sausage and head for the Intourist Hotel.

You do not just waltz into the Intourist as you would, say, a Holiday Inn. First, you must prove your out-of-towner status. Like all establishments catering to foreigners, the Intourist enforces a strict policy of "No Russians allowed." God forbid some Muscovite should strike up a conversation with a visiting Parisian. He might be infected with a sudden bourgeois longing to French-kiss an escargot. A doorman is on duty to prevent just such a catastrophe.

"Say, whaddaya think of the Mets' new right-hander?" I drawl, sidling up to said doorman. With a sneering glance at my sneakers, he motions us in.

Upstairs, at the "smorgasbord," we find... the same insipid borscht and rubbery wieners. It looks like used food.

After lunch, Misha and I cross the street to a couple of phone booths. Because the phones at Spaso House are tapped, Misha has waited till now to contact a friend from his last trip, Lev, living in the city.

As Misha makes his call, I watch pedestrian traffic. Maybe it's the weather, but there's a striking lack of joie de vivre. Gravity tugs hard at the corners of eyes and mouths. People walking in pairs or groups rarely talk. There is no laughter, only the sound of heavy shoes clomping on concrete.

So far, I haven't been able to spot our K.G.B. tails. I know they're around, but I'm not sure what to look for. Are their guys the fashion plates that our Secret Service guys are? Does a Soviet tail also wear mirrored sunglasses and three-piece suits? Or white socks and black cop shoes?

A young man in a navy-blue trench coat passes by, then returns and falls into line for the phones. Misha is taking his sweet time with the call, so the other booth gets most of the business. Before long, Mr. Trench Coat is at the front of the line. But when the adjacent booth is again vacated, he signals for the woman behind him to go ahead. Finally, Misha hangs up. Lev will have us to dinner tomorrow. As we wander off to find our companions, I notice The Trench Coat standing off to the side, watching us. When we're about half a block away, he abruptly turns and heads off in the opposite direction.

Princes and Princesses

Clemente Pandin, an Italian who heads the staff at Spaso House, is the man to know in Moscow. Whether it's caviar, concert tickets or just a decent meal you're after, look up Clemente. Tonight, he has invited us to a restaurant on the outskirts of the city. It is not a place most locals frequent, he tells us as we bump along past a cluster of wooden farmhouses tucked away in a stand of white birch. To begin with, the trains and buses don't go this far. You have to drive, and not that many people own cars. Then there's the clientele--mostly Party types. Get out of line here, drink a little too much, puke on somebody's shoes and you're likely to wind up with your tonsils wired to a portable generator.

From the outside, the place looks like a woodsy hunting lodge. Inside, a rock band drives away at everything from Stevie Wonder to Eurythmics--current stuff, not more than a year or three old.

The food is great--sweet butter and caviar on coarse dark bread, fresh cucumbers and pickled garlic, filleted sturgeon, tart cranberries, red Georgian cabbage, a whole roast piglet no one can bear to look in the eye and, of course, vodka, plenty of vodka.

Halfway through our meal, three big guys in somber suits stride in and take a table next to ours. They're the kind of lugs who crush walnuts on their foreheads because it feels good. Clemente gives me a wink. K.G.B. It's as if someone had thrown a mako shark into a tank full of tuna. Everybody's trying to act cool, but frightened fisheyes are rolling around in their sockets, straining to keep the Black Suits in view ... just in case.

After numerous vodka toasts, I'm feeling pretty expansive.

"Why don't we send them a bottle of wine?" I suggest loudly.

Clemente blanches. "No, no!" he says, shaking his head. "They are not here officially. They would take it as an insult."

And somebody would have to die for it, I suppose. To hell with them.

The owner, a jovial, bearded fellow named Vadim, invites us to his private bar, a small A-frame separate from the main restaurant. We knock on a sturdy door; a peephole opens and words are exchanged; we are allowed entry. I feel like a bootlegger during Prohibition. Above the bar, on a large TV screen, Prince is crotch-thrusting his way through 1999. What I'm seeing, obviously, are smuggled video cassettes. The crowd is mostly young, mostly chic in Italian designer clothes, mostly Kremlin kids. This video club, from which Vadim reaps a healthy profit, is technically outside the law. But the authorities wink at it, as they do at a few other such enterprises, and their children come to drink and have their Socialist values corrupted by rock 'n' roll.

Champagne and chocolates are brought to the table. The video clicks off and another tape is inserted. It looks oddly familiar, an awful lot like a German talk show I once appeared on ... yep, there I am. Julian Lennon and I are struggling with earphones while our effusive host prattles on about "life with a famous father." Vadim and Clemente--God knows where they got this tape--are beaming, waiting for a nod of admiration from me for their resourcefulness.

"You sons of guns ...." I try to pretend that this is the kind of thing that really makes my night.

The young couple behind us, a Valentino-clad blonde and her date, look confused and begin hollering for "Michael! Michael!"

Too much champagne. Too much video. I have to pee. Returning from the sole men's room back in the main restaurant, I hear a strange thumping coming from behind the peepholed door. Taking hold of the handle, I cautiously give it a pull. Out lurches the blonde, obviously tanked. She grabs at my neck and, for a moment, we're engaged in an ungainly pas de deux. Through fits of laughter, she whispers something Russian in my ear. Then, stumbling, giggling, this golden flower of Soviet youth careens off into the darkness, looking for a safe place to toss her blinis.

Where the walls bleed

Although hammered by 11 hours' jet lag, we reluctantly avail ourselves of an embassy car the next day. Word has it that all embassy drivers are supplied by K.G.B. and that the cars are fitted with homing devices.

Our driver, Anatoly, in brown-polyester trench coat and porkpie hat, is straight out of central casting. Spook city. Within minutes, he's referring to Misha as Mishinka, a diminutive so extreme, so cloying, so insulting as to mean "My little Twinkie lips."

"I think he's sweet on you," I whisper over the headrest to Misha.

"Got any spare neutron bombs?" he snarls.

First stop, the Tunisian ambassador's residence. Dr. Sally is paying a courtesy call on the ambassador's wife, Fazia.

We are ushered into a living room hung with modern Tunisian art. Malproportioned sheiks race across a vividly tinted desert aboard three-legged steeds. Fazia sweeps in, wearing a billowy caftan. Baklava and sweet, minty Tunisian tea are offered. Everything is "charming," "delightful."

As we prepare to leave, Fazia asks genteelly, "Do you know whose house this was?"

We don't.

"It belonged to Beria. You know, Stalin's chief of secret police." With a conspiratorial gleam, she inquires, "Would you like to see his torture chamber?"

In the rear of the house, beneath a stair well, is a low, heavy iron door. It opens onto a short, steep flight of steps, then another low doorway. Crouching down through the opening, we find ourselves in a small room with wooden floor boards, a single bulb the only source of illumination. For an untold number of people, this was the terrible end of the line.

"I've done nothing to change the room," says Fazia, flicking on the light.

There is an audible intake of breath. The dingy white walls are splattered with blood-colored droplets. Moisture, I tell myself, might have drawn the oil from the chipped paint. I don't know. On one wall, brow level, a smoke stain curlicues toward the ceiling. Beria, I remember reading, enjoyed using fire on his victims to extract confessions from them.

Fazia points out a secret passageway, long since sealed by the Soviets. Supposedly, this tunnel led to the Kremlin, the river or both. We stand for a moment, not knowing quite what to do. At last, overcome by the grisliness, we make our escape.

Back at Red Square, Anatoly hops out of the car to confer with a militiaman about the reopening of Lenin's tomb for tourists. He returns, a gold tooth gleaming from an apologetic smile. Mr. Lenin is still not receiving callers.

Anatoly's beginning to piss us off with his canned platitudes--"It's better to laugh than to shoot." Now he's feeling smug. Pointing to one of the myriad Ladas--basically, 12-year-old Fiats in Russian drag--he boasts, "Our factories produce 22 of those cars every minute."

"Really?" I say, and Misha translates, even though we know damn well he understands every word we say. "And how much do they cost?"

"Only 3000 rubles," he says, grinning. "Eight thousand for the more expensive models."

"Uh-huh. And how much does the average Soviet worker take home in a year?" I ask, knowing the answer is "About 2500 rubles." Misha suppresses a smirk and doesn't bother to translate. Anatoly grimaces. He says nothing for the rest of the drive.

•

"Born down in a dead man's town ...." Evening. Clemente at the wheel, Springsteen blaring from the stereo, we roar down a light-streaked Kutuzovsky Prospect. Having picked up Lev at a metro station, we're heading back to his apartment for dinner. "You spend half your life just covering up...." Clemente jerks the wheel and we bend into a high-speed, tire-screeching U-turn designed to throw off any K.G.B. tails, at least for the moment. "Born in the U.S.A ...."

Lev's wife, Zoya, her mother, Irina, and children, Boris and Natalya, greet us at the door. For a family of professionals, upper middle class by Soviet standards, their apartment is, by American standards, Spartan. At least they don't share bathroom and kitchen facilities with another family. Their hospitality is abundant, all out of proportion to the family's scant resources. We are fed a delicious meal, chased down by the inevitable vodka.

Lev tells us a joke currently making the rounds: "Some Americans were visiting a Soviet factory. They were shocked by the working conditions. How could the workers stand it? They decided to try an experiment. First, they gathered the workers together and told them, 'From now on, you'll work twice as long for half pay.' There were no complaints. Next day, they told the workers, 'You'll work three times as long for quarter pay.' No complaints. Finally, they said, 'Work 24 hours a day for no pay and, what's more, every tenth man will be taken and hanged from the factory gates.' A hand was raised at the back of the crowd and a voice called out, 'Do we need to bring our own rope?'"

"Ever think of trying to leave?" I ask later.

He shrugs. "I am Russian. I feel Russian. I don't think I could live anywhere else."

"As long as you're free in your mind," Zoya offers, "you're truly free."

Free to do what? I almost ask her. Travel abroad? Start your own independent newspaper? Stand in Red Square with a big sign saying, The Soviet Constitution is a bunch of Hypocritical Crap?

Instead, I offer a parting toast, thanking Lev for making Doria and me feel a part of his family.

"Think of who I'm related to now!" he laughs.

Don't Rain on my Demonstratsia

May Day dawns rainy, windy and miserably cold. Misha and I make the trek to Red Square, leaving our wiser female companions to watch the show on TV.

The day's event is not, technically, a parade. The Soviets reserve that term for military displays. Demonstratsia is the operative word when hordes of people march through the streets unarmed.

Carrying every conceivable form of identification, tickets at the ready, we proceed to check point number one, a line of militiamen stretched across the entrance to the square.

"Be sure the signatures match," growls a muscular officer to the grunt checking my credentials.

The young soldier looks first at my ticket, then my visa, then passport. He glances from the photo to my face and back again. He repeats the process in reverse. That done, he starts all over again. This routine is repeated at two more check points before we're allowed to enter our designated area.

The rain continues to pour. Standing with one foot in the diplomatic section, the other in that reserved for press, Misha and I are shielded by a canopy of umbrellas. The guy directly in front of me, however, keeps tilting his back, sending a cascade of frigid water down the bridge of my nose. Polite entreaties elicit nothing but a vaguely Eastern European grumble. The umbrella stays where it is. Finally, screwing on a broad smile, I attempt a more universal communication.

"Excuse me, sir. If you don't move the umbrella, I'll shove it where the monkey put the onion."

The corner of his mouth begins to twitch spasmodically; his ears turn red. Slowly, very slowly, the umbrella tilts forward.

Things could be worse. We could be members of the Politburo. One by one--Gorbachev, Gromyko, Romanov, et al.--they ascend to the top of Lenin's tomb and brace themselves against sheets of rain. No umbrellas. No awning. No wonder they drop like flies. Give them credit, though; a typical American politician would buzz in by chopper, spend five minutes in a glass-enclosed booth, then high-tail it for home. These guys stand for the full three hours, braving not only weather but boredom.

Once you've seen five minutes of a May Day demonstratsia, you have, indeed, seen it all. There's no drama, no glamor, no Bullwinkle balloons. No rose-covered replicas of the next five-year plan; no Grim Grom in silver-lamé chaps riding a pinto pony. Not a chance. Several million people tromp by, hauling floats in the shape of tractor parts. Lots of pictures of Lenin: wise old Lenin, fiery young Lenin, the baby Lenin, Lenin orating, Lenin meditating, Lenin looking like he's about to launch into a rendition of Blue Suede Shoes. Some of the stuff is rather aggressive: evil U.S. warheads threatening a peaceful Soviet heartland, repeated references to "the imperialistic NATO alliance" and "fascist America." All the while, martial music blares and an unctuous voice booms over a loud-speaker, chanting approved slogans: "Nuclear bombs--nyet! Nyet! Nyet! Peace on earth--da! Da! Da!"

"Pardon me." A hollow-eyed, grayish man taps Misha on the shoulder and introduces himself as an assistant deputy secretary at the Soviet Foreign Ministry. "I understand president Ronald Reagan's son is here today."

There is something unsettling, even vaguely sinister, in the man's countenance. Both of us give him a blank stare. This is not the place I'd expect to be asked for an autographed glossy of my folks.

"Nyet," says Misha. "I wouldn't know."

A short exchange ensues, with Misha repeating "Nyet" a lot and the sallow apparatchik shifting uneasily from foot to foot. Finally, he scurries off.

"Occasionally, I remember why you're my agent," I laugh. "You keep the rabble off my ass."

"It's what I live for," says Misha, smiling.

Down front, Soviet television is conducting man-in-the-street interviews. Nervous bystanders are dragged over to read prepared dogma from cue cards.

As the hours pass, the spirits of even the most loyal cadres begin to flag. One tier below the Politburo chiefs, the minister of appropriate crowd response swings into action. Waving his arms, gesticulating madly, he exhorts marchers and crowd alike to new heights of soggy enthusiasm.

Over in the diplomatic section, we're not buying his act. Chuckling, snorting, a trio of Africans nearby are having a grand time whacking one another with their complimentary red-carnation bouquets. Looks like a mescaline high to me.

After an eternity, the procession grinds to a halt. The minister of A.C.R. is hopping up and down with excitement, anticipating the big finale. He reminds me of one of those neutered high school band directors. Crescendo! Everyone waves paper flowers, and preprogramed huzzahs ring out. Gorbachev throws one last wave at the masses and sprints for the cozy warmth of the Kremlin.

Returning to Spaso House, Misha and I catch a glimpse of some marchers riding in the back of a flat-bed truck, gloomy, drenched, heading God knows where.

Red Arrow to Despair

Misha is standing in the door to my compartment, a demented look on his face.

"Have you been to the bathroom yet?" he screeches.

I've just spent the night in a bunk the size of a duffel bag and I'm not in the mood for toilet jokes. The entire previous day, May second, was a nightmare. Ambassador Hartman returned from his regular meeting at the Foreign Ministry to report that the Soviets were very curious about "this fellow traveling with Mr. Reagan." Misha turned the color of a dirty ashtray and insisted we leave Moscow immediately--he wouldn't say why.

After much frantic scrambling, we secured four rail tickets to Leningrad. Our train, the Red Arrow, left at midnight. On board, I filled Misha with cognac, and out poured a confused tale of an earlier trip to Moscow--something about someone or other's teenaged daughter and how it was really a frame-up, but in return for the American embassy's (previous Administration) saving him from being buried up to his ears in permafrost, he'd agreed to always travel with a sex therapist.

I must give off some pheromone that attracts this kind of deviate. Bumping down the passageway toward the bathroom, Misha is gibbering about "the horror, the horror." He's right. A herd of bilious goats must have passed through while we slept. Crusty, ocher-colored filth coats every available surface. There's no toilet paper. Press a foot pedal and the entire bottom of the toilet drops out to reveal tracks whooshing by below.

"I was marked for death in this hellhole," whimpers Misha.

Back in the cabins, Doria and Dr. Sally are impersonating pit vipers. Men can pee into beer cans, but women need a real bathroom. Now!

Inspired ingenuity and a revolving towel dispenser enable us to rig up a trapeze over the toilet. The women swing safely above the crud.

"A window on Europe"--that's what Peter the Great had in mind when he founded St. Petersburg, a.k.a. Leningrad, nearly 300 years ago. To that end, he commissioned some of the finest architects in Europe and Asia to work their magic. And it is magical: Serpentine canals wind under gently arching bridges. The graceful facades of buildings lining the waterways are reminiscent of Venice. While Moscow is the political capital, it's clear that Leningrad remains the heart of Russian culture. Look closer, though, and you see garbage rising to the oil-slick surface. Behind the façades, filth and decay. Even the tap water poses a threat. The color of strong tea, it harbors parasites just waiting for an unguarded orifice. Take a bath and you risk being eaten alive from the inside out.

Proximity to the free world (Finland is less than 100 miles away) has made Leningrad authorities even more wary than their paranoid Moscow brethren about Russians' rubbing elbows with foreigners. Penalties can be severe. Not long ago, two Finnish rowdies got drunk and danced naked in a fountain. The sentence: two and a half years in a labor camp making little ones out of big ones.

The plate-glass doors of the Hotel Astoria are locked tight against the natives. Once more, my high-top sneakers gain us entree. Inside, on every floor, stern "key ladies" keep a sharp eye peeled. Walking down to the lobby, we overhear a routine call from one key lady to another--"They're coming down. Four of them. Taking the stairs." Posted prominently, a notice warns, to avoid misunderstandings, Please inform the Key lady whenever you expect outside visitors. I assume the rooms are bugged.

We have not adjusted easily to the Soviet Experience. At every turn, the watching, following, eavesdropping, the needless regulations, the plodding grimness of it all are beginning to chafe our psyches. Inexorably, we drift into a mist of rage and despair. Misha sinks into a deep funk. He locks himself in the bathroom and starts dismantling lamp bases, all the time rumbling about "lousy Commie rat bastards." Later, I catch a glimpse of myself in a mirror ... standing on a chair beneath a chandelier, making obscene noises.

Clearly, it's time we returned to Moscow to prepare for our trip home. I book four tickets to Moscow on the next morning's Aeroflot shuttle.

•

"Arise! Your selfless toil will build our great nation!"

I'm jolted awake by an insistently shrill female voice that seems to emanate from within my pillow. "Work hard! Strive! Increase productivity!" For a moment, I imagine I'm dangling by my heels in the vortex of an Orwellian nightmare. "Remember the sacrifices of the Great Patriotic War!" All over the city, loudspeakers are rousing the public. On a Saturday? Ah, but today is the Subbotnik. Workers are "voluntarily" donating a day of free labor to the state. I flip on the TV and catch a newscaster sitting in front of a map of the U.S. The only word I can make out is fascist.

As the only foreigners, we are the last to board the plane. Four seats have been blocked off for us. In our seat pockets, someone has thoughtfully left a bit of reading material--courtesy of the Novosti Press Agency, the chief propaganda mill. Leafing through something called Do the Russian People Stand for War,? I discover that "the U.S.S.R. has a highly developed and stable economy steadily moving ahead without crises or recessions." No wonder it can afford to "have no claims either on Afghanistan's territory or on its resources." As for the U.S. Government, well, "the most dangerous example of the Reagan Administration's irresponsible attitude toward the future of the world was the reckless way the American leadership conducted itself during the incident involving the South Korean airliner in 1983." Probably the result of the pervasive "Hollywood mentality" in Washington.

Day of the Babushkas

The balmy weather back in Moscow does nothing to lighten our spirits.

"I can feel the net closing around us," confides Misha nervously.

"You just need a little fresh air," I tell him. "Stop worrying. Anyway, we're leaving tomorrow. What could happen now?"

We decide to pick up our two refuseniks for an outing to a park. I figure they could use some fresh air, too. In the car, on the way to the Moscow Botanical Garden, Volodya and Sergei argue whether or not the worst excesses of the Stalin era are likely to be repeated.

"All I'm saying is that it could happen," warns Sergei.

"No, no." Volodya shakes his head. "Gorbachev is no Stalin, but he is a practical man. The problem of people like you and me will be solved ... one way or another."

The spring thaw has brought out the nature buffs--still swathed, however, in winter woolens. Shirtless, yipping and sloshing across the soggy grass, we try to instruct our friends in the intricacies of Frisbee. The babushkas on patrol take a dim view of the proceedings. Lips curled, hackles raised, like arctic wolves fresh off the tundra, a pack gathers at the edge of the lawn. Their fuming and grumbling takes on the tone of a Cossack death chant.

An errant toss and Misha belly-flops onto the sod at the old women's feet. This is the opening they've been waiting for--a wounded elk has dropped from the herd. With a cry of what may be "Umree!" ("Die!"), the lead baba takes a vicious cut at Misha's head. He ducks, and her knobby cane whizzes past his left ear. Another steps forward, swings from the ankles and plants a tremendous left hook in his ribs. Misha lets out a bloodcurdling scream and begins floundering back across the wet field, the babushkas in pursuit.

Sergei grabs my arm. "Leave him. He's finished. We can save ourselves if we make it to the woods."

Eyes wide with panic, Misha is just managing to stay ahead of the pack. Their walking sticks are sinking into the soft turf, slowing them down.

I can't leave him. Not even a deviate literary agent deserves such a death. Sloshing back, I take hold of his wrist and pull him forward. One baba, using her cane as a vaulting pole, springs toward us, legs flailing, but falls short. I drag Misha into the safety of trees.

"This just proves they're after me," he gasps. "That was a trained K. G. B. hit squad."

Fast Exit

The next morning, at the airport, I've got other things to worry about--like the two dozen jars of caviar I'm smuggling out of the country. In the Soviet Union, everything of value--aesthetic, monetary or otherwise--is classified as a "national treasure." To leave with more than the allowed minimum amount is to risk spending the rest of your life being shot out of a cannon in some Siberian circus. I'm way over the limit.

Meanwhile, Dr. Sally, with her smattering of Russian, has struck up a conversation with a Soviet psychiatrist on his way to a conference. Seems they're in the same field. As they speak, I hear the word sukhostoy used several times, which makes the Soviet doctor smile. I figure the friendly word sukhostoy may come in handy.

Actually, any friendly thing I could say would probably come in handy, considering the glares I'm getting from a burly guard by the airport gate. The clacking of jars in my carry-on bag is beginning to attract attention, and we're ready to board.

"Spasibo," I say, handing the guard my ticket. I smile ingratiatingly at him. "Thank you. And sukhostoy."

I suddenly feel a frantic clawing at my sleeve and turn to find Misha with a terrified look on his face.

"Holy shit!" he whispers. "You just wished him a prolonged male orgasm!" Without another word, the four of us break into a high-speed, modified Groucho Marx shuffle and scramble for the plane. Over my shoulder, it seems to me I see the guard grappling with his holster.

"Comin' into London, Heathrow! Bringin' in a kilo of roe!" Never has the dirty industrial fringe of London been so endearing. I feel like kissing a sooty hedgerow. Tripping through British customs, I belt out another chorus. A group of old ladies, English tourists wearing funny straw hats, give me a quizzical look. A chill attacks my viscera and I flinch involuntarily.

"You Yanks," one says, smiling warmly. "You'd think you had just returned from the underworld."

"'You must not look for rational reasons here,' warns Sergei in nearly flawless English. 'There are none.'"

"'Listen, Ron,' growled my editor, 'how would you like to spend May Day in Red Square?'"