Excerpt
Joiner stared out of the window, having abandoned his study of a map of the Soviet Union on which he had marked their route: Moscow, Leningrad, then Rostov and by boat up the Volga River.
Jennifer glanced again at the glacially cool Lona. “She’s so calm,” she commented to Paul. “I’ll bet her hobby is skydiving.”
Paul laughed and opened his eyes. “I hear she’s going to school in New York and living in a ghetto. That’s got to make you brave.”
It had been hard to get a fix on Lona. Ever since the woman had called the Russian department from New York State University to register for the trip just two weeks before departure, Jennifer had been both repelled and fascinated by her, particularly the smirking glances from her vivid green eyes and an irritating habit of always being under foot. The college had balked at allowing her to participate at that late date because this study tour to the Soviet Union had been in demand—the first of its kind in Canada and somewhat of a diplomatic and academic coup aimed only at serious language students. However, there had been a last-minute cancellation and Lona had pleaded. She was Canadian by birth, she explained, and could arrange her visa herself through the New York consulate. Then she had volunteered a large sum of money—or so Chopyk had told Jennifer.
“It was for a single room supplement at the hotel,” he had said, “although I believe she overpaid.”
There had been no time to check her academic qualifications. It seemed to Jennifer that the other qualifying students had been rigorously screened and had vastly more knowledge than Jennifer had at their age. Like, for example, the kid they called Hank with his shock of bright red hair who had to fold his lean six-foot frame into the cramped airline seat. He was a bit too loud and adolescent for her tastes but maybe he would shape up. He caught her glance and winked. Cheeky, too. His real name was Winston Henry Jones, Jennifer knew from reading his application, but she suspected he didn’t want the others to know that. He had already struck up a friendship with Marty Miller, an equally adolescent 20-year-old who had reported his hobbies as frisbee and pub crawls. Surprisingly, he had managed to field straight A grades in the University of Vancouver’s Economics Department. Russian language had been an elective for him yet he had come very far, very fast.
Libros Libertad 