Mitch Silver - The Bookworm

With that, a peaceful heaviness came over her, and she fell asleep there in the chair.

The muted sound of the “Hunters’ Theme” announced itself. “Good morning Lara, this is your wakeup call from the other side of the washroom. Do I snore so much you had to sleep in my office? No one’s ever told me that I was that bad. Anyway, I put some of Tatiana’s things out for you; your stuff is still wet. Get dressed as quickly as you can and meet me downstairs on the sixth floor, in the studio. We have to get you into Makeup no later than 8:00.”

“Da. Is there anything there to eat?”

“A whole spread for the American and his people. Hurry up, okay?”

“Okay.”

In the predawn light she moved over to the small pile of women’s clothes and underthings, last worn by the wife of the Director (who doubled as the weekend weatherperson on Channel One), with a note on top. “Larissa Mendelova, these should work on camera.—G.”

The blouse alone was probably a week’s pay. She picked up the underwear and the pantyhose. Wear another woman’s lace panties after making love to her husband? A woman whose vodcast aimed to deny democracy to 150 million Russians for the foreseeable future? No, she thought, not Dr. Klimt.

Lara looked over to the window. There was some kind of arrangement she couldn’t fathom to close the blinds. She was lucky it was still dark, hating to think what some anonymous engineer looking up from his dials in the old broadcast tower across the way would make of the view: a totally naked Eurasian woman, her black hair sticking out in all directions, with a bruise that was starting to look like something by Chagall on a right arm that was still too painful to lift.

Ten minutes later, a somewhat exotic-looking woman in a flattering jacket-and-skirt set emerged from the executive washroom and, rolling a still damp overnight bag with its “on-camera wardrobe” behind her, walked through the empty offices of Gosteleradio sans underpants.

The voice of the man holding Lev said they’d release him if she did what they said. He’d given her very precise instructions, and she intended to follow them to the letter. With just a little… punctuation… of her own.

By the time the elevator opened on the sixth-floor studio, Gerasimov was busy dealing with the First Lady and the rest of the American advance party, making small talk in his Intermediate English and describing all the various Russian foods on the craft table.

Lara knew she looked a fright and hurried into the Makeup Room before she was spotted. The cosmetician took one look at her, swore a Georgian oath under his breath, and immediately set about washing her hair. She‘d have to call Viktor when she was out of the dryer.

Forty-five minutes later, Lara emerged from Makeup just as the US leader stepped off the elevator with his bodyguards. Though no band was playing “Ruffles and Flourishes,” everyone in the room stopped in mid-sentence. The man was tall, taller than Gerasimov, wearing a dark suit and a tie of red dots on blue. His skin was tanned from golfing in the sun at the Florida White House. He had black reading glasses, without a case, tucked in his breast pocket. In short, he seemed altogether presidential.

Tea had been prepared in a large silver samovar. While the president shook hands with the assembled Russians, Lara moved over to it and poured the man a cup by way of introduction.

“I understand we were once neighbors in New York, Dr. Klimt,” the leader of the free world said, helping himself to two spoons of sugar. “And now, halfway around the world, we’re going to be neighbors again, at least for the next hour. Funny the way life works out.”

Lara smiled. “Yes, Mr. President, isn’t it?”

The woman who would be directing the town hall—one who regularly directed educational programming—went over the procedures of the broadcast with them, seating them in two identical club chairs before the camera. Then she walked back to the glassed-in booth to confer with the TelePrompTer man, a prematurely balding techie of thirty or so, who would type the students’ questions for Lara to read on the lens of the special camera.

It was time. The large monitor set up for the other guests in the booth showed a ten-second countdown followed by “ v efire. ” Gerasimov leaned over to the First Lady and whispered, “It means ‘on the air.’”

She whispered back, “I know, I was born in Slovenia. They taught us Russian in school.”

Gerasimov had forgotten, and just managed to get out, “Sorry,” before the recorded Russian and American anthems began the show.

Finally, it was Lara’s turn. She welcomed her young viewers tuning in across the nation and introduced the most powerful man in the world sitting next to her. The president gave them all a telegenic smile and settled himself expectantly in his chair, just another pupil ready for his test.

Lara proceeded to invite the students to have their teacher text in questions for the president during the telecast. Thousands had already been received at the Broadcast Center, and they would start with a few of those. Turning to the smiling world leader next to her, Lara was startled to discover the man’s eyeglasses—which he had put on, giving his face an intellectual aspect—had no lenses in them.

She asked, “Are you ready, Mr. President?”

He smiled back. “Shoot.”

In Russian, Lara told the camera, “Question number one is from Sverdlovsk Primary School Number 6: ‘Mr. President, when you arrived here this week, you remarked how much bigger the Kremlin is than your own White House. As someone who constructed buildings for a living before running for office, are you jealous?” Then she turned to her right and repeated it in English for the guest.

The query had deliberately been chosen as an open-ended icebreaker, a softball the president could easily connect with and do with as he pleased. And so he did, happily and at length.

The second question, “Are all American women as beautiful as your wife?” elicited a smile and a simple “Almost, but not quite.”

By now the live texts were pouring in. The topics became more serious, covering Iran and the United Nations; governing in a politically divided democracy; how America was dealing with the worldwide immigration problem.

Lara knew it was now or never. To all outward appearances she was merely an interpreter sitting in a Moscow television studio. Inwardly, though, she had become the embodiment of The Motherland Calls , the statue commemorating the Battle of Stalingrad: a heroine with a sword, imploring her countrymen to join the fight for freedom.

She turned back to the camera and, more certain of what she was about to do than she had ever been, silently read the sixth question, typed in Russian by the operator in the control room. “The Belgorod Gymnasium asks, “The continuing ‘Arab Spring’ poses many opportunities and difficulties, especially in Syria and Iraq. How do you assess the chances for permanent change in the region?”

But what Lara said to the president in English was, “From students on Kosa Andrianova, an island in the Chukchi Sea, comes this: “Mr. President, several of our parents work in the merchant marine here, traveling back and forth to trade with Americans in your state of Alaska. They tell us there is great activity in your Wildlife Refuge, and the rumor is that you’ve discovered an enormous new oil field there. Is that true?”