Free Last Call for Blackford Oakes by William F.; Buckley Page B

a stellar moment for me. I am Harry.”
    There was a clinking sound—Gus tapping his glass with a ballpoint pen. Eyes turned to the host. “Everybody who is not seated, kindly find a seat. Take your glasses with you—Pyotr will keep them filled.”
    Gus Windels went on for a while on the theme of the United States’ interest in making available to Soviet scholars whatever material might be useful to them in their work. He was careful to make his way around unguarded expressions hailing a free press, or routine praise for the idea of the uninhibited circulation of books. After all, Gus reminded himself, he was speaking in the center of Moscow, where even Solzhenitsyn’s last novels had not been published. He trod on no ground that was disputed, or that would arouse ideological resistance. “The efforts of the USIA in the scheduled cultural exhibit in Gorky are aimed simply at making available desired critical and historical material,” etc. etc. etc.
    Blackford turned his eyes to Ursina Chadinov, seated alongside. She was not quite listening. Her eyes did not turn from Gus, but her head was in slight, constant motion, as if concerned to permit the eyes to perform their civic duties, while expressing progressive impatience with the text she heard being recited.
    â€œDo you have any questions that I or Mr. Doubleday could try to answer?”
    Blackford leaned over and whispered to Ursina. “I have a most urgent question. Can you free yourself to have dinner with me?”
    She turned her head, while Gus began an answer to a question from Comrade Ivanov. She gave the slightest nod, followed by a smile of mischievous pleasure.
    They talked like old friends at the restaurant she led him to, candle-lit, the mirrors old, and appropriately smoky. It was clearly a favorite of men and women of the university. The conversations were nearly all in Russian, though the couple at the table immediately behind the one assigned to Ursina and Blackford was a font of endless French, from both the vigorous young woman and the elderly man.
    Ursina sat, and the waiter asked, “The usual?”
    â€œDo you trust me?” she asked. “—Harry?”
    â€œNot entirely, but yes, in the matter of wine.”
    â€œSome day, before I die, I want some person, male or female, who is given to drink the wine I select, to say, ‘I don’t like it.’”
    â€œI promise to try to dislike it.”
    â€œDo you speak French?”
    â€œNot really. Just the kind of French one can’t escape running into, if …” His hesitation momentarily unnerved him. “If you’ve, you know, been around.”
    â€œWell, I want to know about your background, where you’ve been around. To show you I’m prepared to do as much: My father was a civil servant, he died when I was twelve, I grew up in Leningrad, then I went to medical school in Moscow, and I have been quite successful—but you know that. Oh yes, I am a member of the Communist Party. I don’t suppose you can match that , can you?”
    â€œWell, no. I was never a member of the Party. And I have disagreed with Soviet policies over the years—”
    â€œSo have I.”
    â€œWell, I guess it’s easier, where I come from, to express these disagreements.”
    â€œYou haven’t told me anything about yourself that is interesting. Everybody in America is anti-Communist, so what makes you so special that I changed other plans in order to have dinner with you?”
    â€œMaybe the fascination I feel for you.”
    The wine came, and the menu. She managed to talk even while going over it and expressing her preferences. “The lyulya kebab is quite good, also the ham, and the shashlik. You were going to tell me how you picked up French.”
    â€œI was going to tell you that my French is only just good enough to get me through French-speaking restaurants. Are there such things in