I said, "With all of Europe how do you pick Poland?"

"You wish to make trade?" said Nikolai.

"Also, in deal, you can have South Africa," I said.

"We will tell Reagan you are a progressive," said Orlonsky.

"P. Cheh. [P.J.] was making faces at the Pravda news today. I do not think he is a progressive," said Sonya.

"Oh, he is a progressive," said Nikolai. "You remember, Sonya, he has almost all Americans on ship ready to defect."

Marya made a strangled noise in the back of her throat. Sonya turned very sober. "Progressives," she sighed. "Everything must be made perfect for them."

THURSDAY, JULY 22.

Our first scheduled conference took place while we sailed through the remarkably sc.u.m-filled Tsimlyansky Reservoir. The conference coordinator was a short, broad, overvigorous American woman in her sixties. Let's call her Mrs. Pigeon, so she won't sue, and also because too much truth doesn't go with travel writing. Mrs. Pigeon was an authority on the education of children, and, in fact, had the personality of a teacher-the sort of teacher who inspires any feeling child to sneak back in school at night and spray-paint the halls with descriptions of the human love act.

Mrs. Pigeon introduced the Soviet experts and their two American counterparts, Reverend b.u.mphead (not his real name) and the volleyball coach, Nick Smarm (not his real name). Nick was a politician, but the sort who would run for city council in Youngstown on an antidevelopment, proecology ticket. He smiled too much. The Reverend b.u.mphead was a young man of Ichabod Crane lank. I never caught his denomination. My guess is Zen Methodist. He was either growing a beard or didn't know how to shave.

Mrs. Pigeon opened the proceedings in a patronizing tone that propelled me back through twenty-five years to the vile confines of the fourth grade. It was a beautiful afternoon, hot sun, clear sky, and just the right crisp breeze. The conference was being held on top of the cruise boat, but the 120 or so partic.i.p.ants had jammed themselves in under the shade deck, where they were surrounded by superstructure on three sides and the air was stifling.

The peaceniks took notes. I had a vision of newsletters, reams and reams of misstapled copier paper Xeroxed when the boss wasn't looking, vomiting forth from the tepid organizations these people represented. "My Interesting Peace Voyage Through the Soviet Union"; "An Interesting and Enjoyable Visit to the USSR with Peace in Mind"; "Not War and Peace but Peace and Peace" (one of the clever ones); "Peace in the Soviet Union and an Interesting Trip There Too." Maybe America could be bored into nuclear disarmament.

Nick Smarm began to speak. It was the standard fare. He laid the greater part of the blame for a potential international nuke duke-out on the American doorstep. What he was saying wasn't wrong, at least not in the factual citations he made. But suddenly and quite against my will I was angry. To stand in front of strangers and run your country, my country, down-I didn't care if what Nick said was generally true, I didn't care if what he said was wholly, specifically, and exactly true in every detail. I haven't been that mad in years. I had to leave, go below. I was ashamed of the man. And it occurred to me that I would have been ashamed if he were Russian and we were on the Mississippi. That big fellow with the medals down his suit coat, my ally, he wouldn't have done such a thing on the Delta Queen.

I had a drink and went back. Reverend b.u.mphead from the Princeton Coalition for Disarmament was speaking now. He said exactly the same thing.

"Now it's time for all of us to ask Nick Smarm and Reverend b.u.mphead some interesting questions," said Mrs. Pigeon.

"Mr. Smarm," said a fat man, "now this is just a hypothetical question, but the way you were describing how the arms race is mostly the fault of the United States, couldn't I, if I were a red-baiter type, say-just hypothetically now-that you were a paid Soviet agent?" And he hastily added, "Please don't anybody take my question literally!" They took his question literally. The fat man was smothered in literalism. Squeals of indignation wafted toward the banks of the Don.

"What a terrible thing to say!" shrieked one of the leftist ladies. I'll bet she was p.i.s.sed-all those friends of hers acting as Soviet agents for years, and no one ever offered to pay them.

I was about to put in a word for Pudgy, but it was too late. He was already overapologizing to Nick.

"What is the cost of housing in the Soviet Union as a percentage of worker wages?" asked a leftist. Reverend b.u.mphead didn't know the answer to that, so Mrs. Pigeon answered the rest of the questions.

VERY EARLY FRIDAY MORNING,.

JULY 23.

I tried to explain my patriotic seizure to Nikolai. "Wouldn't you feel the same?" But I didn't seem to be getting through.

I gave up. We had more drinks. About twenty minutes later Nikolai said to me, "I did not think Nick's speech was so interesting." He pulled a deadpan face. "I can read Pravda."

FRIDAY, JULY 23.

Ash.o.r.e in Volgograd we were taken to Momayev Hill, where umpteen million people died defending the place when it was still named after Stalin. One of the leftists chaffed me for wearing a suit and tie again. I mean, we were going to visit a ma.s.s grave.

The leftists had their wreath, but watching them present it in their bowling shirts was more than I could bear. Besides, there was a fifty-two-meter-high statue of "Mother Russia" on top of the hill, and it's pretty interesting if you've never seen a reinforced-concrete nipple four feet across.

It wasn't until that afternoon, after four days on the boat, that I discovered there were real Americans aboard. Some ordinary tourists had stumbled into this mora.s.s of the painfully caring and hopelessly committed. By price or by accident they had picked this tour, and they were about as happy as if they'd signed up for a lemming migration.

When I came back from Momayev Hill, I saw a normal-looking, unagitated person stretched out on the sundeck in a T-shirt from Air America, the old CIA-run Southeast Asia airline. "What got you on this tour?" he asked, when I stared at the logo.

"I guess masochism," I said and looked again at the T-shirt.

He puffed out his chest. "This ought to shake the b.a.s.t.a.r.ds up."

He was one of a dozen New Mexicans, all friends, traveling together on a private tour. Until now they'd had a wonderful time in the USSR. They said it was a fine place as long as you could drink like a Russian and leave like an American. But they'd taken this cruise without any idea of the peace that lay in store for them, and since they'd come on board they'd barricaded themselves in the promenade-deck lounge and had kept the leftists out with loud western accents and the peaceniks away by smoking cigarettes. Smoking cigarettes seems to alarm peace activists much more than voting for Reagan does.

The New Mexicans had become special pets of the barmaid. They were allowed to take gla.s.ses, ice, bottles, and china forward to the lounge. She wouldn't take tips from them, but Billy, a Santa Fe architect, had gone to the market in Rostov and brought the girl an armload of flowers. She blushed to the clavicle.

The New Mexicans were amazed at their fellow pa.s.sengers, not in the matter of politics, but because the pa.s.sengers were so rude to the crew. "And to each other," said Sue Ann, a real-estate developer. "I've never heard husbands and wives c.r.a.p at each other like that in my life."

When it came to politics, Tom, a former AID officer with the State Department in Vietnam, said, "After all, there hasn't been a great big war since the A-bomb was invented."

"I live in Alamogordo," said Sue Ann. "I'll bet that shakes the b.a.s.t.a.r.ds up." Indeed, that did bother some of the peaceniks, though the Air America T-shirt didn't-not one knew what it was.

SOVIET-AMERICAN RELATIONS IN.

ACTION.

That evening at dinnertime, seven or eight young Russians from the local Soviet-American friendship club were ushered on board by Mrs. Pigeon. I noticed they gobbled the meat. Their president was a stiff young fellow, a future first secretary of the Committee for Lies About Grain Production if ever there was one. He had a guitar about two times bigger than normal and a watchful mien. But the others were okay. I sat between Alexei, a construction foreman who looked to be twelve, and Boris, an engineer (practically everyone in Russia is an engineer, just like our sanitation engineers are).

Alexei wanted to talk about rock V roll. His English was no worse than the average Rolling Stone reviewer's. "Abba-too nothing. Hard rock! Yay! Led Zeppelin! Yay! And Kiss!! I most like-hard, hard rock! You know of Time Machine?" He was very excited that an American recognized the name of the top Russian rock group. "Good like Beatles. But is best hard rock America, yay! Is only too bad always rock stars so many dying of too much liquor and"-he shot a glance at the president-"and of other things."

Boris wanted to talk about cars. In his opinion Russia needed much, much faster cars. "I want fast car," he said.

The Americans wanted to talk about peace and Soviet-American relations.

We went to the boat-deck music room after dinner with about ten Americans, mostly leftists, and Marya to help translate. There was one lady among the leftists I had not noticed before, though she was markedly ugly. It was not the kind of ugliness that's an accident of birth but the kind that is the result of years of ill temper, pique, and petty malice. These had given a rattish, shrewish, leaf-nosed-bat quality to her face.

The president said, "We are thankfully welcomed of being here. English ours is not so well. But is practicing now you with more." Then each of the Russian kids introduced himself and said his profession as best he could.

The ugly woman took aim at Alexei and said with great acerbity, "How many women construction workers are there in the Soviet Union?"

Alexei tried to answer. "Is construction worker training in mostly male, men I am meaning, but is also some girls if. . ." He got no further.

"Girls?!" shrieked the old b.i.t.c.h. "Girls?! We don't call women girls! That's an insult!" The Russian kids stared at her, mystified. The hag turned on Marya. "You explain to them that calling women girls is a demeaning thing to do."

Marya said something placating in Russian. The president tried a halting apology, but the ugly woman interrupted. "One thing I'd like to know." She glared at Alexei's denim trousers. "Why do young people all over Europe, even in the socialist countries, pick up that awful American popular music and those sloppy blue jeans?"

Marya made what sounded like a pained verbatim translation. All the Russian faces in the room froze into the great Russian public face-serious but expressionless, part poker face and part the face the troops made on You'll Never Get Rich, when Phil Silvers asked for volunteers.

It isn't easy to get a sober Russian to do anything on impulse, but I took Marya by the cuff and convinced her we'd better get some beer from the bar. The room was still silent when we returned. The president wouldn't take a drink, but the rest of the Russians seemed glad enough to bury their faces in beer. The ugly woman sat smugly, still waiting for a reply. The other Americans were getting embarra.s.sed. Finally, the woman's husband spoke up. He was wearing his running shorts and Kenneth Patchen T-shirt again. "What is the cost of housing in the Soviet Union as a . . ."

Something had to be done. I stood up. "I think it's very unfair for us to monopolize the comradeship and international goodwill of these Soviet young people," I said. "There is another group of Americans in the lounge who are eager to discuss Soviet-American relations with our guests, and-"

"Oh, yes!" said Marya, and she began to point to the hallway and chatter in Russian. The New Mexicans were a little surprised to see us, but their hospitality didn't falter.

"We are thankfully welcomed of being here," said the president. "English ours is not so-"

"The h.e.l.l with that," said Tom. "Play us a song on that thing." And it was a pretty good song, and Sue Ann even got him to have a drink when he finished.

SAt.u.r.dAY, JULY 24.

There was another peace conference under the shade deck, and this time it was the Russians' turn to speak. I was slightly late, due to sheer reluctance. Mrs. Pigeon was opening the session. "It is better to get these answers from Soviet experts than from our press," she was saying as I walked in. I walked back out again and had a beer. Actually, I had three.

When I returned, Guvov, the buffoon, had wound up his speech and was answering a question about whether Solzhenitsyn was just a bad writer or a spy too. He was wearing a hilarious pair of ersatz Levi's with TEXAS JEAN printed on a salad-plate-sized plastic patch on the a.s.s. "Solzhenitsyn painted the Soviet Union only in dark colors," he said. The leftists clapped vigorously. "Criticism," said Guvov, "leads to the problems of democracy."

Time for more beer.

It seemed to be dawning on a few of the peaceniks that something was askew. When I returned from the bar the second time, one of them was addressing Guvov. "A lot of the Americans on this trip have admitted the errors of American foreign policy. How come none of the Soviets have admitted any Soviet errors?"

"We don't criticize the foreign policy of our government," said Guvov, "because we hundred-percent agree with it and approve of it." The questioner gasped. But the leftists all clapped, and so did quite a few of the peaceniks.

That was it for me and peace conferences. I apologize, but this reporter did not attend any more peace functions of any kind.

LOATH BOAT.

The leftists and peaceniks spent most of every day talking. They were not arguing. They were not a.n.a.lyzing. They were not making observations. What they were doing was agreeing with each other-in feverish spasms of accordance, mad confabs of apposition, blathers of consonance. On Reagan, on the weapons freeze, on the badness of Israel, on the dangers of war, on the need for peace, they agreed.

I finally decided these people were crazy.

I watched my cabin mate write a letter to his wife. It was a political exhortation. "We Americans must repudiate the Reagan administration . . ." This to his wife of thirty years.

Crazy. And stupid too.

One, who was from the deep Midwest and looked like Millicent Fenwick, told me, "You know, if the people who put Reagan in office prevail, they're going to take the vote from women."

As we were going through the locks of the Don-Volga ca.n.a.l the woman with the direct connection between her cerebral cortex and her mouth came nattering up beside me at the rail. "Isn't it marvelous?" she said, staring at a gigantic blank wall of concrete. "They're such wonderful engineers in the Soviet Union." I agreed it was an impressive piece of work. "Marvelous, marvelous, marvelous, marvelous," she said. She peeked over the side. "And where do they get all the water?"

The Intourist guides were at wits' end, the Soviet experts were becoming testy, and the crew was clearly disgusted and getting into the grog ration earlier each day.

The ship's doctor, a blowsy, mottle-eyed, disbarred-looking fellow, had taken to experimenting on the diarrhea symptoms half the Americans were suffering. Marya gave an elaborate burlesque of accompanying him as the translator on his rounds. The Russians would not explain the joke, but I know one peacenik had gone to him with the malady and received a laxative and a gla.s.s of 200-proof neutral grain spirits. I did not see that person again for thirty-six hours.

SUNDAY, JULY 25.