|
I figured that the woman might have been handpicked out of many for this particular assignment. Not only did she speak English fluently; she also looked somewhat English and had a touch of class about her that one might find at the heart of London if one looked for it long enough. In addition to that, she lacked nothing in charm to any woman in the world. What a treat the Russians had prepared for us, if that's what it was. It certainly went a long way to narrowing the East/West gap, at least on the personal level. Also, it reflected something of what Fred had talked about on the plane. She treated us as though we were family.
On the bus ride to the hotel a stout Scotsman sitting next to me, who might have made a fine circus announcer and never would have needed a microphone, commented on our tour guide; "Ladies and gentlemen, there is hope for ole Russia yet."
Everyone on the bus broke into laughter.
I grinned at him and nodded. Still, the laughter sounded hollow. I couldn't join in. The situation that we faced was too serious for such a reaction. We needed to get results at this conference. Results were hard to inspire in a world where no one was committed to lay aside entrenched positions in exchange for the common good. It seemed to me that I was the only person on the bus who came with those high expectation, hoping against all odds that something significant might yet be achieved.
+ + +
The call for the conference had come as a surprise to us, and more so since my presence had been requested by name. It came just a few months after the Venice affair and after the unofficial grand opening celebration of our beach project back home in the last days of the summer. A great deal had changed in the world during the summer months. America had been under attack, but had defended itself. Then came the Venice conference as an opportunity to soften the Cold War. That too, had been a success. Even our beach-project hearing back home had been a success and had ended with a celebration. It seemed as if the whole world was going our way. However, this string of successes was deceptive. In terms of real progress we hadn't achieved anything. We were in a dreamlike trance that was all bright but largely meaningless. Our celebration at the beach as the summer was coming to a close should have been dubbed a celebration of innocence. We were so 'innocently' ignorant of the vast scope of the problems that our own advances had increased. Those advances seemed to have posed challenges that isolated us into a world of our own.
Steve might have been aware of the unfolding trend and might have said so and we hadn't heard him, or he might have kept quiet about it all when he had been with us at our celebration, so as not to spoil our enthusiasm. We were exuberant then, though languishing in the sunshine of our successes as if the summer that drew to a close would never really end. But it did end.
Ross and Heather had invited all three of us, Tony, Sylvia, and I, to stay with them in their log house high above the beach as their guests, while our own 'castle by the sea' was being built. Our building had been started, but was interrupted many times when I was sent away on assignments. In this sense the 'summer' continued as it began with us all living together under one roof. Nor did any problems arise between us on the personal level, as one might have expected with five people being crammed into a log house even if it was a huge place for a log house. The only problem that arose was that our scientific advances towards greater freedoms, socially and politically, had gradually isolated us from world at large. The world hadn't changed, but we had. We had become freer and had moved ahead without really being aware of our advances. We had drawn ourselves away from society in that sense, which we were determined to elevate to a higher level of self-perception. In fact the resulting isolation of ourselves that reflected our physical isolation at the beach had happened so gradually that none of us became aware of it.
Next Page
|| - page index -
|| - chapter index -
|| - Exit -
||
|
