Excerpt

Just as they had spent that first evening on the street, Jennifer and Volodya spent the next afternoon mostly on the street, in the peculiar privacy that Soviets find in large crowds. She bought him cognac and cigarettes at Beryozka the foreign currency souvenir store. He bought her Russian language books, stories of the city, and corrected her sentences. She showed him her contact lenses and how they worked. He marvelled. Such things were unheard of in the Soviet Union, he told her, but he had seen some Japanese tourists use them. That night Jennifer returned to the hotel, Volodya to his home.
The next day as they were passing the Hotel Europe, another accommodation reserved solely for visitors from the west, he grabbed her hand, glanced around to see if they were being followed and walked into the lobby, saying in English, “I want to show you something. Go along with me to the restaurant.” They strolled to the elegant restaurant portal and waited in the foyer. There was no one in sight.
“Hey, if you’re pretending to be an American, you’re holding your cigarette all wrong,” she whispered. “Don’t curl it under your hand. Just let it sit between your fingers. Like so.” She surreptitiously straightened his fingers, rearranging the cigarette. He grinned at her. She felt the warmth of the smile and let her hand linger on his.
“Thank you,” he said in English. “Now look over at that table under the light. I will not point. You see?” Jennifer peered. “See the centre arrangement? That is a microphone—how they listen. Only the ones with that arrangement—and some of the others there, that table and that one.”
Jennifer stared but couldn’t see the difference in the various tables.
“How do you know?”

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1926763246