The journey on Aeroflot to Zurich was an exciting beginning. She had never flown before. She landed at the international airport in Zurich, filled with anticipation. There was something in the air that was different. Maybe it is the smell of real freedom, Olga thought. Her finances were strictly limited, and she had made reservations at a small, inexpensive hotel, the Leonhare, at Limmatquai 136.
Olga checked in at the reception desk. “This is my first time in Switzerland,” she confided to the clerk, in halting English. “Could you suggest some things for me to do?”
“Certainly. There is much to do here,” he told her. “Perhaps you should start with a tour of the city – I will arrange it.”
“Thank you.”
Olga found Zurich extraordinary. She was awed by the sights and sounds of the city. The people on the street were dressed in such fine clothes, and drove such expensive automobiles. It seemed to Olga that everyone in Zurich must be a millionaire. And the stores! She window-shopped along Bahnhofstrasse, the main shopping street of Zurich, and she marvelled at the incredible cornucopia of goods in the windows: there were dresses and coats and shoes and lingerie and jewellery and dishes and furniture and automobiles and books and television sets and radios and toys and pianos. There seemed to be no end to the goods for sale. And then Olga stumbled across Spriingli’s, famous for their confections and chocolates. And what chocolates! Four large store-front windows were filled with a dazzling array of them. There were huge boxes of mixed chocolates, chocolate bunnies, chocolate loaves, chocolate-covered nuts. There were chocolate-covered bananas and chocolate beans filled with liqueurs. It was a feast just to look at the display in the windows. Olga wanted to buy everything, but when she learned the prices, she settled for a small box of assorted chocolates and a large candy bar.
Over the next week, Olga visited the Zurichhorn Park and the Rietberg Museum and the Gross Miinster, the church erected in the eleventh century, and a dozen other wonderful tourist attractions. Finally, her time was running out.
The hotel clerk at the Leonhare said to her, “The Sunshine Tours Bus Company has a fine tour of the Alps. I think you might enjoy that before you leave.”
“Thank you,” Olga said. “I will try it.”
When Olga left the hotel, her first stop was to visit Spriingli’s again, and the next stop was at the office of the Sunshine Tours Bus Company, where she arranged to go on a tour. It had proved to be most exciting. The scenery was breathtaking, and in the middle of the tour they had seen the explosion of what she thought was a flying saucer, but the Canadian banker she was seated next to explained that it was merely a spectacle arranged by the Swiss government for tourists, that there were no such things as flying saucers. Olga was not completely convinced. When she returned home to Kiev she discussed it with her aunt.
“Of course there are flying saucers,” her aunt said. “They fly over Russia all the time. You should sell your story to a newspaper.”
Olga had considered doing it, but she was afraid that she would be laughed at. The Party did not like its members to get publicity, especially the kind that might subject them to ridicule. All in all, Olga decided that, Dmitri and Ivan aside, her vacation had been the highlight of her life. It was going to be difficult to settle down to work again.
The ride from the airport into the centre of Kiev took the Intourist bus one hour, driving along the newly built highway. It was Robert’s first time in Kiev, and he was impressed by the ubiquitous construction along the highway, and the large apartment buildings that seemed to be springing up everywhere. The bus pulled up in front of the Dnieper Hotel and disgorged its two dozen passengers. Robert looked at his watch. Eight p.m. The library would be closed. His business would have to wait until morning. He checked into the huge hotel, where a reservation had been made for him, had a drink at the bar and went into the austere whitewashed dining room for a dinner of caviar, cucumbers and tomatoes, followed by a potato casserole flavoured with tiny bits of meat and covered with heavy dough, all accompanied by vodka and mineral water.
His visa had been waiting for him at the hotel in Stockholm, as General Hilliard had promised. That was a quick bit of international cooperation, Robert thought. But no cooperation for me. “Naked” is the operational word.
