t borovika gin.

Somewhere in here they saw the Joseph Skupa puppets, and at this stage,
Ilya Simonov found only great amusement at the political innuendoes
involved in half the skits. It would never had one in Moscow or
Leningrad, of course, but here it was very amusing indeed. There was even
a caricature of a security police minister who could only have been his
superior Kliment Blagonravov.

They wound up finally at the U Kalicha, made famous by Hasek in "The Good
Soldier Schweik." In fact various illustrations from the original classic
were framed on the walls.

They had been laughing over their early morning snack, now Ilya Simonov
looked at her approvingly. "See here," he said. "We must do this again."

"Fine," she laughed.

"In fact, tomorrow," he insisted. He looked at his watch. "I mean
tonight."

She laughed at him. "Our great expert from Moscow. Far from improving our
operations, there'll be less accomplished than ever if you make a nightly
practice of carrying on like we did this evening."

He laughed too. "But tonight," he said insistently.

She shook her head. "Sorry, but I'm already booked up for this evening."

He scowled for the first time in hours. He'd seemingly forgotten that he
hardly knew this girl. What her personal life was, he had no idea. For
that matter, she might be engaged or even married. The very idea irritated
him.

He said stiffly, "Ah, you have a date?"

Catherina laughed again. "My, what a dark face. If I didn't know you to be
an automobile distributor expert, I would suspect you of being a security
police agent." She shook her head. "Not a date. If by that you mean
another man. There is a meeting that I would like to attend."

"A meeting! It sounds dry as--"

She was shaking her head. "Oh, no. A group I belong to. Very interesting.
We're to be addressed by an American journalist."

Suddenly he was all but sober.

He tried to smooth over the short space of silence his surprise had
precipitated. "An American journalist? Under government auspices?"

"Hardly." She smiled at him over her glass of Pilsen. "I forget," she
said. "If you're from Moscow, you probably aren't aware of how open things
are here in Prague. A whiff of fresh air."

"I don't understand. Is this group of yours, ah, illegal?"

She shrugged impatiently. "Oh, of course not. Don't be silly. We gather to
hear various speakers, to discuss world affairs. That sort of thing. Oh,
of course, _theoretically_