"Of course," I said in full agreement.



      While the next morning unfolded an incidence happened of a type for which I grew more and more fond of our tour guide, so much so that when lunchtime came around I was able to congratulate her for her contribution. As I did, I sneaked a chocolate bar onto her table. The next day I became even more daring. I invited her out for dinner. To my surprise, she said yes.

      "At seven, on top of the tower?" I said cautiously.

      She nodded with a smile.

      I grinned.

      "Permit me to take care of the reservations," she said. She wrote her name onto the edge of the program sheet that I had in my hands.

      Wow! What was it about her that put me for the rest of the day into a tipsy? Ushi's words came to mind. "Each time we meet we must brighten the sunshine of our spring." But how does one uplift a person that one doesn't even know? The answer to that question was recognized immediately. It had three elements: love built on truth, science, and dialog. However, this was Russia. We were in a frozen land in more ways than one. Could such a project be pulled off in Russia? Indeed, could I pull it off at all now that I was living under the spell of her charm?

      + + +



      Getting to Moscow had been as easily accomplished as in the past, in spite of the still lingering effects of the western financial and economic crash. Tony had the air transportation arranged for us with his usual efficiency. An ancient floatplane came to the beach to pick us up, piloted by the famous Michael, a living legend that wouldn't die, the longest serving pilot of the American services now serving the Coast Guard, one of Tony's buddies from his early days in aviation. Tony said that the man should have been retired ages ago, but he refused to leave. He wanted to keep on flying. His plane, too, simply wouldn't quit either. Both he and his plane had become famously synonymous with dependability. That feature was eventually recognized as a valuable asset. Now, the man's services were one of the few that were still functioning reliably, apart from those that were absolutely essential and had priority government support.



      When Michael's old plane came in low above the water towards our bay, Fred remarked that what Tony had pulled off in these tough times was better than any response he himself would have gotten in Washington, even with his rank.

      Michael, our pilot, a stout man with a full beard, wearing his famous Yankee baseball cap, took us a few hundred miles southwest to the Marietta Air Force Base. Tony had found space for us from there on a supply plane of the US Air Transport Service that was on a mission to London via Thule. The aircraft for this flight was not quite as old as Michael's plane. We flew on a C-130 Hercules, one of the many of those crates that were still in operation because they likewise wouldn't quit. After a few stops along the way Aeroflot took us from London on its regular flight to Moscow.



      One aspect about the flight to Moscow struck me as odd, especially after we boarded the Aeroflot flight. It was Fred's relative silence. I couldn't figure it out. He was holding something back. "Are you afraid that we are going to fail?" I asked him. I told him he shouldn't be afraid. I repaeted, "Moscow will be a piece of cake compared to Venice."

      I brought this up to get an argument going. I asked him if he ever heard Gustav Mahler's Fifth Symphony. I suggested that this music reflects what our Venice mission was like. "The first movement of Mahler's Fifth is like a funeral march," I said. "This reflects how I saw our mission at first. I wasn't at all keen going to Venice, as you might recall. But out of the gloom came a significant victory for us even though it didn't solve the underlying problem. What we experienced with this missions is reflected well in Mahler's music. One reflects the other. Both reflect an underlying principle. Even the beautiful adagio movement near the end of the symphony was reflected in our mission at Venice and also in our private life there. The powerful rondo that ends Mahler's symphony was Steve's Ice-Age-Renaissance presentation that gave our trip to Venice a whole new purpose. What Steve and I put on the plate may yet change the world. The ending rondo reflects our daring declaration of war on the Fondi Empire. It opened up the horizon to a powerful new renaissance that the fondi cannot survive once it begins to unfold. While we blundered with the SDI cancellation, I think we put something better on the table than any of us expected. We broke new ice. That success should count for something, shouldn't it?"

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Stories about  Sex from novels by Rolf A. F. Witzsche