them when suddenly they materialized, and our plan was under way.
Sweet Joe Newman gave us a cocktail party that lasted far into the night. Our plan was to leave at dawn for Kiev. The cocktail party picked up our spirits, and the spirits of about fifty other people.
We found that there was one difficulty about traveling in the Soviet Union. You cannot go from Kiev to Stalingrad, or from Stalingrad to Stalino. You must come back to Moscow every time and go out again, for the transportation system operates out of Moscow like the spokes of a wheel; and the roads are so torn up by the war that to travel laterally is nearly impossible, besides taking more time than we thought we had. Another difficulty is that since the planes fly only in the daytime, and there is no night flying, they leave very early in the morning. And after Sweet Joe's cocktail party, it seemed very early to us indeed.
CHAPTER 4
SWEET LANA COULD NOT go to Kiev withi us. Instead, Mr. Chmarsky went as interpreter and guide. A nice little man, and a student of American literature. His knowledge of English was highly academic. Capa, as usual, took liberties with his name and played tricks with it.
Chmarsky again and again would correct him, saying, "Mr. Capa, it is Chmarsky, not Chumarsky."
Whereupon Capa would say, "All right, Mr. Chomarsky."
"No, Mr. Capa, Chmarsky, not Chumarsky, not Chomarsky!"
That went on and on, and Capa joyfully found new pronunciations of his name everyday. Chmarsky was always a little worried by our speech, the curious kind of American double talk that we used. For a while he tried to track it down, and eventually just gave up and did not listen. On certain occasions his plans for us did not materialize-cars ordered did not meet us, planes we met did not fly. And we came to call him the Kremlin gremlin.
"What are gremlins?" he asked.
We explained in detail the origin of gremlins, how they started in the R.A.F., and what their habits were. How they stopped engines in mid-air, iced wings, fouled gas lines.
He listened with great intent, and at the end he held up one finger and said, "In the Soviet Union we do not believe in ghosts." Perhaps we played too hard with him. We hope we did not hurt his feelings.
There is one thing that you can never tell, and that is what time a plane is going to fly. It is impossible to know in advance. But one thing you can know is that it will leave some time early in the morning. Another thing you can be sure of is that you must be at the airfield long before it does fly. Any time you are to take a trip, you must arrive at the airfield in the chilly dark before the dawn, and sit and drink tea for several hours before the plane leaves. At three o'clock in the morning the bell in our room rang, and we were not happy about getting up, for we had been to Sweet Joe's cocktail party, and what we needed was about twelve hours' sleep, and we had had about one hour. We piled the equipment into the back of the car and drove through the deserted streets of Moscow into the country.
We now observed something that was to happen again and again. Drivers in the Soviet Union speed their cars, and then take them out of gear and let them coast. They take advantage of all hills to disengage their gears and coast. We were told that this saved gasoline, and that it is a part of the training of every driver. He is assigned gasoline which is computed to cover a certain distance, and he must make it cover that distance. Consequently he uses every possible trick he can to make his gasoline last. It is just another part of the huge bookkeeping system which is the Soviet Union. It compares with the bookkeeping in the restaurants. The wear and tear on clutch and gear is not taken into consideration, and the saving of gasoline must be very small indeed. To us the practice was rather nerve-racking. The car speeds up to about sixty miles an hour, and then suddenly the clutch is disengaged, and it coasts until it is
Sweet Joe Newman gave us a cocktail party that lasted far into the night. Our plan was to leave at dawn for Kiev. The cocktail party picked up our spirits, and the spirits of about fifty other people.
We found that there was one difficulty about traveling in the Soviet Union. You cannot go from Kiev to Stalingrad, or from Stalingrad to Stalino. You must come back to Moscow every time and go out again, for the transportation system operates out of Moscow like the spokes of a wheel; and the roads are so torn up by the war that to travel laterally is nearly impossible, besides taking more time than we thought we had. Another difficulty is that since the planes fly only in the daytime, and there is no night flying, they leave very early in the morning. And after Sweet Joe's cocktail party, it seemed very early to us indeed.
CHAPTER 4
SWEET LANA COULD NOT go to Kiev withi us. Instead, Mr. Chmarsky went as interpreter and guide. A nice little man, and a student of American literature. His knowledge of English was highly academic. Capa, as usual, took liberties with his name and played tricks with it.
Chmarsky again and again would correct him, saying, "Mr. Capa, it is Chmarsky, not Chumarsky."
Whereupon Capa would say, "All right, Mr. Chomarsky."
"No, Mr. Capa, Chmarsky, not Chumarsky, not Chomarsky!"
That went on and on, and Capa joyfully found new pronunciations of his name everyday. Chmarsky was always a little worried by our speech, the curious kind of American double talk that we used. For a while he tried to track it down, and eventually just gave up and did not listen. On certain occasions his plans for us did not materialize-cars ordered did not meet us, planes we met did not fly. And we came to call him the Kremlin gremlin.
"What are gremlins?" he asked.
We explained in detail the origin of gremlins, how they started in the R.A.F., and what their habits were. How they stopped engines in mid-air, iced wings, fouled gas lines.
He listened with great intent, and at the end he held up one finger and said, "In the Soviet Union we do not believe in ghosts." Perhaps we played too hard with him. We hope we did not hurt his feelings.
There is one thing that you can never tell, and that is what time a plane is going to fly. It is impossible to know in advance. But one thing you can know is that it will leave some time early in the morning. Another thing you can be sure of is that you must be at the airfield long before it does fly. Any time you are to take a trip, you must arrive at the airfield in the chilly dark before the dawn, and sit and drink tea for several hours before the plane leaves. At three o'clock in the morning the bell in our room rang, and we were not happy about getting up, for we had been to Sweet Joe's cocktail party, and what we needed was about twelve hours' sleep, and we had had about one hour. We piled the equipment into the back of the car and drove through the deserted streets of Moscow into the country.
We now observed something that was to happen again and again. Drivers in the Soviet Union speed their cars, and then take them out of gear and let them coast. They take advantage of all hills to disengage their gears and coast. We were told that this saved gasoline, and that it is a part of the training of every driver. He is assigned gasoline which is computed to cover a certain distance, and he must make it cover that distance. Consequently he uses every possible trick he can to make his gasoline last. It is just another part of the huge bookkeeping system which is the Soviet Union. It compares with the bookkeeping in the restaurants. The wear and tear on clutch and gear is not taken into consideration, and the saving of gasoline must be very small indeed. To us the practice was rather nerve-racking. The car speeds up to about sixty miles an hour, and then suddenly the clutch is disengaged, and it coasts until it is
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