Red Square was, somehow, disappointing. It was crowded with men and women, all looking very Russian in an undefined sort of way, and the big glass windows sparkled from every side. “I know it’s silly,” Luba said in a baffled voice, “but, somehow, I always expected Red Square to be red.”
“And why should that be?” the MVD man next to her said. He was a burly man with a sour expression, as if he had eaten too many onions the day before.
“Well,” Malone said, “it is Red Square, after all.”
“But red is symbolic only,” the MVD man said surlily. “Is not color. Only symbol of glorious Russia.”
“I suppose so,” Luba said. “But it’s still disappointing.”
“You expect, perhaps, that we recruit our glorious Red Army from American Indian tribes?” the MVD man said sourly. “You are literal-minded bourgeois intellectual. This is not good thing to be.”
“Somehow,” Malone mused, “I didn’t think it was.”
“But this is different,” Luba said. “The Red Army is made up of Russians. But this is just a square. You could paint it.”
“After all,” Malone offered, “the White House is white, isn’t it?”
“White is cowardly color,” the MVD man pointed out with satisfaction.