Dimka’s mother, Anya, wanted to meet Nina. This surprised him. His relationship with Nina was exciting, and he slept with her every chance he got, but what did that have to do with his mother?
He put that to her, and she answered in tones of exasperation. “You were the cleverest boy in school, but you’re such a fool sometimes,” she said. “Listen. Every weekend that you’re not away somewhere with Khrushchev, you’re with this woman. Obviously she’s important. You’ve been seeing her for three months. Of course your mother wants to know what she’s like! How can you even ask?”
He supposed she was right. Nina was not just a date nor even merely a girlfriend. She was his lover. She had become part of his life.
He loved his mother, but he did not obey her in everything: she disapproved of the motorcycle, the blue jeans, and Valentin. However, he would do anything reasonable to please her, so he invited Nina to the apartment.
At first Nina refused. “I’m not going to be inspected by your family, like a used car you’re thinking of buying,” she said resentfully. “Tell your mother I don’t want to get married. She’ll soon lose interest in me.”
“It’s not my family, it’s just her,” Dimka told her. “My father’s dead and my sister’s in Cuba. Anyway, what have you got against marriage?”
“Why, are you proposing to me?”
Dimka was embarrassed. Nina was thrilling and sexy, and he had never been anywhere near so deeply involved with a woman, but he had not thought about marriage. Did he want to spend the rest of his life with her?
He dodged the question. “I’m just trying to understand you.”
“I’ve tried marriage, and I didn’t like it,” she said. “Satisfied?”
Challenge was her default setting. He did not mind. It was part of what made her so exciting. “You prefer being single,” he said.
“Obviously.”
“What’s so great about it?”
“I don’t have to please a man, so I can please myself. And when I want something else I can see you.”
“I fit neatly into the slot.”
She grinned at the double meaning. “Exactly.”
However, she was thoughtful for a while; then she said: “Oh, hell, I don’t want to make an enemy of your mother. I’ll go.”
On the day, Dimka felt nervous. Nina was unpredictable. When something happened to displease her—a plate carelessly broken, a real or imagined slight, a note of reproof in Dimka’s voice—her disapproval was a blast like Moscow’s north wind in January. He hoped she would get on with his mother.
Nina had not previously been inside Government House. She was impressed by the lobby, which was the size of a small ballroom. The apartment was not large but it was luxuriously finished, by comparison with most Moscow homes, having thick rugs and expensive wallpaper and a radiogram—a walnut cabinet containing a record player and a radio. These were the privileges of senior KGB officers such as Dimka’s father.
Anya had prepared a lavish spread of snacks, which Muscovites preferred to a formal dinner: smoked mackerel and hard-boiled eggs with red pepper on white bread; little rye bread sandwiches with cucumber and tomatoes; and her pièce de résistance, a plate of “sailboats,” ovals of toast with triangles of cheese held upright by a toothpick like a mast.
Anya wore a new dress and put on a touch of makeup. She had gained a little weight since the death of Dimka’s father, and it suited her. Dimka felt his mother was happier since her husband had died. Maybe Nina was right about marriage.
The first thing Anya said to Nina was: “Twenty-three years old, and this is the first time my Dimka has ever brought a girl home.”
He wished his mother had not told her that. It made him seem a beginner. He was a beginner, and Nina had figured that out long ago, but all the same he did not need her to be reminded. Anyway, he was learning fast. Nina said he was a good lover, better than her husband, though she would not go into details.
To his surprise, Nina went out of her way to be pleasant to his mother, politely calling her Anya Grigorivitch, helping in the kitchen, asking her where she got her dress.
When they had had some vodka, Anya felt relaxed enough to say: “So, Nina, my Dimka tells me you don’t want to get married.”
Dimka groaned. “Mother, that’s too personal!”
But Nina did not seem to mind. “I’m like you, I’ve already been married,” she said.
“But I’m an old woman.”
Anya was forty-five, which was generally considered too old for remarriage. Women of that age were thought to have left desire behind—and, if they had not, they were regarded with distaste. A respectable widow who remarried in middle age would be careful to tell everyone it was “just for companionship.”
“You don’t look old, Anya Grigorivitch,” Nina said. “You might be Dimka’s big sister.”
This was rubbish, but Anya liked it all the same. Perhaps women always enjoyed such flattery, regardless of whether it was credible. Anyway, she did not deny it. “I’m too old to have more children, anyway.”
“I can’t have children, either.”
“Oh!” Anya was shaken by that revelation. It upturned all her fantasies. For a moment she forgot to be tactful. “Why not?” she asked bluntly.
“Medical reasons.”
“Oh.”
Clearly Anya would have liked to know more. Dimka had noticed that medical details were of great interest to many women. But Nina clammed up, as she always did on this subject.
There was a knock at the door. Dimka sighed: he could guess who it was. He opened up.
On the doorstep were his grandparents, who lived in the same building. “Oh! Dimka—you’re here!” said his grandfather Grigori Peshkov, feigning surprise. He was in uniform. He was nearly seventy-four, but he would not retire. Old men who did not know when to quit were a major problem in the Soviet Union, in Dimka’s opinion.
Dimka’s grandmother Katerina had had her hair done. “We brought you some caviar,” she said. Clearly this was not the casual drop-in they were pretending. They had found out that Nina was coming and they were here to check her out. Nina was being inspected by the family, just as she had feared.
Dimka introduced them. Grandmother kissed Nina and Grandfather held her hand longer than necessary. To Dimka’s relief, Nina continued to be charming. She called Grandfather “comrade General.” Realizing immediately that he was susceptible to attractive girls, she flirted with him, to his delight, at the same time giving Grandmother a woman-to-woman look that said You and I know what men are like.
Grandfather asked her about her job. She had recently been promoted, she told him, and now she was publishing manager, organizing the printing of the steel union’s various newsletters. Grandmother asked about her family, and she said she did not see much of them as they all lived in her hometown of Perm, a twenty-four-hour train journey eastward.
She soon got Grandfather onto his favorite subject, historical inaccuracies in Eisenstein’s film October, especially the scenes depicting the storming of the Winter Palace, in which Grandfather had participated.
Dimka was pleased they were all getting on so well, yet at the same time he had the uneasy sensation that he was not in control of whatever was happening here. He felt as if he were on a ship sailing through calm waters to an unknown destination: all was well for the moment, but what lay ahead?
The phone rang, and Dimka answered. He always did in the evenings: it was usually the Kremlin calling for him. The voice of Natalya Smotrov said: “I’ve just heard from the KGB station in Washington.”
Talking to her while Nina was in the room made Dimka feel awkward. He told himself not to be stupid: he had never touched Natalya. He had thought about it, though. But surely a man need not feel guilty for his thoughts? “What’s happened?” he asked.
“President Kennedy has booked television time this evening to talk to the American people.”
As usual, she had the hot news first. “Why?”
“They don’t know.”
Dimka thought immediately of Cuba. Most of his missiles were there now, and the nuclear warheads to go with them. Tons of ancillary equipment and thousands of troops had arrived. In a few days the weapons would be launch-ready. The mission was almost complete.
But two weeks remained before the American midterm elections. Dimka had been considering flying to Cuba—there was a scheduled air service from Prague to Havana—to make sure the lid was screwed on tight for a few more days. It was vital that the secret be kept just a little longer.
He prayed that Kennedy’s surprise TV appearance would be about something else: Berlin, perhaps, or Vietnam.
“What time is the broadcast?” Dimka asked Natalya.
“Seven in the evening, Eastern time.”
That would be two o’clock tomorrow morning in Moscow. “I’ll phone him right away,” he said. “Thank you.” He broke the connection, then dialed Khrushchev’s residence.
The phone was answered by Ivan Tepper, head of the household staff, the equivalent of a butler. “Hello, Ivan,” said Dimka. “Is he there?”
“On his way to bed,” said Ivan.
“Tell him to put his trousers back on. Kennedy is going to speak on television at two A.M. our time.”
“Just a minute, he’s right here.”
Dimka heard a muttered conversation, then Khrushchev’s voice. “They have found your missiles!”
Dimka’s heart sank. Khrushchev’s spontaneous intuition was usually right. The secret was out—and Dimka was going to take the blame. “Good evening, comrade First Secretary,” he said, and the four people in the room with him went silent. “We don’t yet know what Kennedy will be speaking about.”
“It’s the missiles, bound to be. Call an emergency meeting of the Presidium.”
“What time?”
“Very good.”
Khrushchev hung up.
Dimka dialed the home of his secretary. “Hello, Vera,” he said. “Emergency Presidium at ten tonight. He’s on his way to the Kremlin.”
“I’ll start calling people,” she said.
“You have the numbers at your home?”
“Yes.”
“Of course you do. Thank you. I’ll be at the office in a few minutes.” He hung up.
They were all staring at him. They had heard him say “Good evening, comrade First Secretary.” Grandfather looked proud, Grandmother and Mother were concerned, and Nina had a gleam of excitement in her eye. “I’ve got to go to work,” Dimka said unnecessarily.
Grandfather said: “What’s the emergency?”
“We don’t know yet.”
Grandfather patted him on the shoulder and looked sentimental. “With men such as you and my son, Volodya, in charge, I know the revolution is safe.”
Dimka was tempted to say he wished he felt so confident. Instead he said: “Grandfather, will you get an army car to take Nina home?”
“Of course.”
“Sorry to break up the party . . .”
“Don’t worry,” said Grandfather. “Your work is more important. Go, go.”
Dimka put on his coat, kissed Nina, and left.
Going down in the elevator, he wondered despairingly whether he had somehow let out the secret of the Cuban missiles, despite all his efforts. He had run the entire operation with formidable security. He had been brutally efficient. He had been a tyrant, punishing mistakes severely, humiliating fools, ruining the careers of men who failed to follow orders meticulously. What more could he have done?
Outside, a nighttime rehearsal was in progress for the military parade scheduled for Revolution Day, in two weeks’ time. An endless line of tanks, artillery, and soldiers rumbled along the embankment of the Moskva River. None of this will do us any good if there’s a nuclear war, he thought. The Americans did not know it, but the Soviet Union had few nuclear weapons, nowhere near the numbers the USA had. The Soviets could hurt the Americans, yes, but the Americans could wipe the Soviet Union off the face of the earth.
As the road was blocked by the procession, and the Kremlin was less than a mile away, Dimka left his motorcycle at home and walked.
The Kremlin was a triangular fortress on the north side of the river. Within were several palaces now converted to government buildings. Dimka went to the senate building, yellow with white pillars, and took the elevator to the third floor. He followed a red carpet along a high-ceilinged corridor to Khrushchev’s office. The first secretary had not yet arrived. Dimka went two doors farther along to the Presidium Room. Fortunately, it was clean and tidy.
The Presidium of the Supreme Soviet was in practice the ruling body of the Soviet Union. Khrushchev was its chairman. This was where the power lay. What would Khrushchev do?
Dimka was first, but soon Presidium members and their aides began to trickle in. No one knew what Kennedy was going to say. Yevgeny Filipov arrived with his boss, Defense Minister Rodion Malinovsky. “This is a fuckup,” Filipov said, hardly able to hide his glee. Dimka ignored him.
Natalya came in with the black-haired, dapper foreign minister Andrei Gromyko. She had decided that the late hour licensed casual clothing, and she looked cute in tight American-style blue jeans and a loose-fitting wool sweater with a big rolled collar.
“Thank you for the early warning,” Dimka murmured to her. “I really appreciate it.”
She touched his arm. “I’m on your side,” she said. “You know that.”
Khrushchev arrived and opened the meeting by saying: “I believe Kennedy’s television address will be about Cuba.”
Dimka sat up against the wall behind Khrushchev, ready to run errands. The leader might need a file, a newspaper, or a report; he might ask for tea or beer or a sandwich. Two other Khrushchev aides sat with Dimka. None of them knew the answers to the big questions. Had the Americans found the missiles? And, if they had, who had let the secret out? The future of the world hung in the balance but Dimka, somewhat to his shame, was equally worried about the future of Dimka.
Impatience was driving him mad. Kennedy would speak four hours from now. Surely the Presidium could learn the content of his speech before then? What was the KGB for?
Defense Minister Malinovsky looked like a veteran movie star, with his regular features and thick silver hair. He argued that the USA was not about to invade Cuba. Red Army Intelligence had people in Florida. There was a buildup of troops there, but nowhere near enough for an invasion, he thought. “This is some kind of election campaign trick,” he said. Dimka thought he sounded overconfident.
Khrushchev, too, was skeptical. Perhaps it was true that Kennedy did not want war with Cuba, but was he free to act as he wished? Khrushchev believed that the American president was at least partly under the control of the Pentagon and capitalist-imperialists such as the Rockefeller family. “We must have a contingency plan in case the Americans do invade,” he said. “Our troops must be prepared for every eventuality.” He ordered a ten-minute break for committee members to consider the options.
Dimka was horrified by the rapidity with which the Presidium had begun to discuss war. This was never the plan! When Khrushchev decided to send missiles to Cuba, he had not intended to provoke combat. How did we get here from there? Dimka thought despairingly.
He saw Filipov in an ominous huddle with Malinovsky and several others. Filipov was writing something down. When they reconvened, Malinovsky read a draft order for the Soviet commander in Cuba, General Issa Pliyev, authorizing him to use “all available means” to defend Cuba.
Dimka wanted to say: Are you mad?
Khrushchev felt the same. “We would be giving Pliyev the authority to start a nuclear war!” he said angrily.
To Dimka’s relief Anastas Mikoyan backed Khrushchev. Always a peacemaker, Mikoyan looked like a lawyer in a country town, with a neat mustache and receding hair. But he was the man who could talk Khrushchev out of his most reckless schemes. Now he opposed Malinovsky. Mikoyan had extra authority because he had visited Cuba shortly after its revolution.
“What about handing over control of the missiles to Castro?” said Khrushchev.
Dimka had heard his boss say some crazy things, especially during hypothetical discussions, but this was irresponsible even by his standards. What was he thinking?
“May I counsel against?” said Mikoyan mildly. “The Americans know that we don’t want nuclear war, and as long as we control the weapons they will try to solve this problem by diplomacy. But they will not trust Castro. If they know he has his finger on the trigger they may try to destroy all the missiles in Cuba with one massive first strike.”
Khrushchev accepted that, but he was not prepared to rule out nuclear weapons altogether. “That would mean the Americans can have Cuba back!” he said indignantly.
At that point, Alexei Kosygin spoke up. He was Khrushchev’s closest ally, though ten years younger. His receding hair had left a gray quiff on top of his head like the prow of a ship. He had the red face of a drinker, but Dimka thought he was the smartest man in the Kremlin. “We should not be thinking about when to use nuclear weapons,” Kosygin said. “If we get to that point, we will have failed catastrophically. The question to discuss is this: What moves can we make today to ensure that the situation does not deteriorate into nuclear war?”
Thank God, Dimka thought; someone talking sense at last.
Kosygin went on: “I propose that General Pliyev be authorized to defend Cuba by all means short of nuclear weapons.”
Malinovsky had doubts, fearing that U.S. intelligence might somehow learn of this order; but despite his reservations the proposal was agreed on, to Dimka’s great relief, and the message was sent. The danger of a nuclear holocaust still loomed, but at least the Presidium was focused on avoiding a war rather than fighting it.
Soon afterward, Vera Pletner looked into the room and beckoned Dimka. He slipped out. In the broad corridor she handed him six sheets of paper. “This is Kennedy’s speech,” she said quietly.
“Thank heaven!” He looked at his watch. It was one fifteen A.M., forty-five minutes before the American president was due to go on television. “How did we get this?”
“The American government kindly provided our Washington embassy with advance copies, and the Foreign Ministry has quickly translated it.”
Standing in the corridor, alone but for Vera, Dimka read fast. “This government, as promised, has maintained the closest surveillance of the Soviet military buildup on the island of Cuba.”
Kennedy called Cuba an island, Dimka noticed, as if it did not count as a real country.
“Within the past week, unmistakable evidence has established the fact that a series of offensive missile sites is now in preparation on that imprisoned island.”
Evidence, Dimka thought; what evidence?
“The purpose of these bases can be none other than to provide a nuclear strike capability against the Western Hemisphere.”
Dimka read on but, infuriatingly, Kennedy did not say how he had come by the information, whether from traitors or spies, in the Soviet Union or Cuba, or by some other means. Dimka still did not know whether this crisis was his fault.
Kennedy made much of Soviet secrecy, calling it deception. That was fair, Dimka thought; Khrushchev would have made the same accusation in the reverse situation. But what was the American president going to do? Dimka skipped pages until he came to the important part.
“First, to halt this offensive buildup, a strict quarantine on all offensive military equipment under shipment to Cuba is being initiated.”
Ah, Dimka thought; a blockade. That was against international law, which was why Kennedy was calling it a quarantine, as if he were combating some plague.
“All ships of any kind bound for Cuba from whatever nation or port will, if found to contain cargoes of offensive weapons, be turned back.”
Dimka saw immediately that this was just a preliminary. The quarantine would make no difference: most of the missiles were already in place and nearly ready to be fired—and Kennedy must know that, if his intelligence was as good as it seemed. The blockade was symbolic.
There was also a threat. “It shall be the policy of this nation to regard any nuclear missile, launched from Cuba, against any nation in the Western Hemisphere, as an attack by the Soviet Union on the United States, requiring a full retaliatory response upon the Soviet Union.”
Dimka felt as if something cold and heavy had settled in his stomach. This was a terrible threat. Kennedy would not trouble to find out whether the missile had been launched by the Cubans or the Red Army; it was all the same to him. Nor would he care what the target was. If they bombed Chile it would be the same as bombing New York.
Any time one of Dimka’s nukes was fired, the USA would turn the Soviet Union into a radioactive desert.
Dimka saw in his mind the picture everyone knew, the mushroom cloud of a nuclear bomb; and in his imagination it rose over the center of Moscow, where the Kremlin and his home and every familiar building lay in ruins, and scorched corpses floated like a hideous scum on the poisoned water of the Moskva River.
Another sentence caught his eye. “It is difficult to settle or even discuss these problems in an atmosphere of intimidation.” The hypocrisy of the Americans took Dimka’s breath away. What was Operation Mongoose if not intimidation?
It was Mongoose that had persuaded a reluctant Presidium to send the missiles in the first place. Dimka was beginning to suspect that aggression was self-defeating in international politics.
He had read enough. He went back into the Presidium Room, walked quickly up to Khrushchev, and handed him the sheaf of papers. “Kennedy’s television speech,” he said, clearly enough for everyone to hear. “An advance copy, provided by the USA.”
Khrushchev snatched the papers and began to read. The room fell silent. There was no point in saying anything until they knew what was in the document.
Khrushchev took his time reading the formal, abstract language. Now and again he snorted with derision or grunted with surprise. As he progressed through the pages, Dimka sensed that his mood was changing from anxiety to relief.
After several minutes he put down the last page. Still he said nothing, thinking. At last he looked up. A smile broke over his lumpy peasant face as he looked around the table at his colleagues. “Comrades,” he said, “we have saved Cuba!”
• • •
As usual, Jacky interrogated George about his love life. “Are you dating anyone?”
“I only just broke up with Norine.”
“Only just? That was almost a year ago.”
“Oh . . . I guess it was.”
She had made fried chicken with okra and the deep-fried cornmeal dumplings she called hush puppies. This had been his favorite meal when he was a boy. Now at twenty-six he preferred rare beef and salad, or pasta with clam sauce. Also, he normally had dinner at eight in the evening, not six. But he tucked in and did not tell her any of this. He preferred not to spoil the pleasure she took in feeding him.
She sat opposite him at the kitchen table, as she always had. “How is that nice Maria Summers?”
George tried not to wince. He had lost Maria to another man. “Maria has a steady,” he said.
“Oh? Who is he?”
“I don’t know.”
Jacky made a frustrated noise. “Didn’t you ask?”
“I sure did. She wouldn’t tell me.”
“Why not?”
George shrugged.
“It’s a married man,” his mother said confidently.
“Mom, you can’t possibly know that,” George said, but he had a horrible suspicion she might be right.
“Normally a girl boasts about the man she’s seeing. If she clams up, she’s ashamed.”
“There could be another reason.”
“Such as?”
For the moment George could not think of one.
Jacky went on: “He’s probably someone she works with. I sure hope her preacher grandfather doesn’t find out.”
George thought of another possibility. “Maybe he’s white.”
“Married and white too, I’ll bet. What is that press officer like, Pierre Salinger?”
“An affable guy in his thirties, good French clothes, a little heavy. He’s married, and I hear he’s up to no good with his secretary, so I’m not sure he has time for another girlfriend.”
“He might, if he’s French.”
George grinned. “Have you ever met a French person?”
“No, but they have a reputation.”
“And Negroes have a reputation for being lazy.”
“You’re right, I shouldn’t talk that way, people are individuals.”
“That’s what you always taught me.”
George had only half his mind on the conversation. The news about the missiles in Cuba had been kept secret from the American people for a week, but it was about to be revealed. It had been a week of intense debate within the small circle who knew, but little had been resolved. Looking back, George realized that when he had first heard he had underreacted. He had thought mainly of the imminent midterm elections and their effect on the civil rights campaign. For a moment he had even relished the prospect of American retaliation. Only later had the truth sunk in: that civil rights would no longer matter, and no more elections would ever be held, if there was a nuclear war.
Jacky changed the subject. “The chef where I work has a lovely daughter.”
“Is that so?”
“Cindy Bell.”
“What is Cindy short for, Cinderella?”
“Lucinda. She graduated this year from Georgetown University.”
Georgetown was a neighborhood of Washington, but few of the city’s black majority attended its prestigious university. “She white?”
“No.”
“Must be bright, then.”
“Very.”
“Catholic?” Georgetown University was a Jesuit foundation.
“Nothing wrong with Catholics,” Jacky said with a touch of defiance. Jacky attended Bethel Evangelical Church, but she was broad-minded. “Catholics believe in the Lord, too.”
“Catholics don’t believe in birth control, though.”
“I’m not sure I do.”
“What? You’re not serious.”
“If I’d used birth control, I wouldn’t have you.”
“But you don’t want to deny other women the right to a choice.”
“Oh, don’t be so argumentative. I don’t want to ban birth control.” She smiled fondly. “I’m just glad I was ignorant and reckless when I was sixteen.” She stood up. “I’ll put some coffee on.” The doorbell rang. “Would you see who that is?”
George opened the front door to an attractive black girl in her early twenties, wearing tight Capri pants and a loose sweater. She was surprised to see him. “Oh!” she said. “I’m sorry, I thought this was Mrs. Jakes’s house.”
“It is,” said George. “I’m visiting.”
“My father asked me to drop this off as I was passing.” She handed him a book called Ship of Fools. He had heard the title before: it was a bestseller. “I guess Dad borrowed it from Mrs. Jakes.”
“Thank you,” George said, taking the book. Politely he added: “Won’t you come in?”
She hesitated.
Jacky came to the kitchen door. From there she could see who was outside: it was not a large house. “Hello, Cindy,” she said. “I was just talking about you. Come in, I’ve made fresh coffee.”
“It sure smells good,” said Cindy, and she crossed the threshold.
George said: “Can we have coffee in the living room, Mom? It’s almost time for the president.”
“You don’t want to watch TV, do you? Sit and talk to Cindy.”
George opened the living room door. He said to Cindy: “Would you mind if we watched the president? He’s going to say something important.”
“How do you know?”
“I helped write his speech.”
“Then I have to watch,” she said.
They went in. George’s grandfather, Lev Peshkov, had bought and furnished this house for Jacky and George in 1949. After that Jacky proudly refused to take anything more from Lev except George’s school and college costs. On her modest salary she could not afford to redecorate, so the living room had changed little in thirteen years. George liked it this way: fringed upholstery, an oriental rug, a china cabinet. It was old-fashioned, but homey.
The main innovation was the RCA Victor television set. George turned it on, and they waited for the green screen to warm up.
Cindy said: “Your mom works at the University Women’s Club with my dad, doesn’t she?”
“That’s right.”
“So he didn’t really need me to drop off the book. He could have given it back to her tomorrow at work.”
“Yes.”
“We’ve been set up.”
“I know.”
She giggled. “Oh, well, what the heck.”
He liked her for that.
Jacky brought in a tray. By the time she had poured coffee, President Kennedy was on the monochrome screen, saying: “Good evening, my fellow citizens.” He was sitting at a desk. In front of him was a small lectern with two microphones. He wore a dark suit, white shirt, and narrow tie. George knew that the shadows of terrible strain on his face had been concealed by television makeup.
When he said Cuba had “a nuclear strike capability against the Western Hemisphere,” Jacky gasped and Cindy said: “Oh, my Lord!”
He read from sheets of paper on the lectern in his flat Boston accent, hard pronounced “haad,” and report pronounced “repoat.” His delivery was deadpan, almost boring, but his words were electrifying. “Each of these missiles, in short, is capable of striking Washington, DC—”
Jacky gave a little scream.
“—the Panama Canal, Cape Canaveral, Mexico City—”
Cindy said: “What are we going to do?”
“Wait,” said George. “You’ll see.”
Jacky said: “How could this happen?”
“The Soviets are sneaky,” George said.
Kennedy said: “We have no desire to dominate or conquer any other nation or impose our system on its people.” At that point, normally Jacky would have made a derisive remark about the Bay of Pigs invasion; but she was beyond political point-scoring now.
The camera zoomed in for a close-up as Kennedy said: “To halt this offensive buildup, a strict quarantine on all offensive military equipment under shipment to Cuba is being initiated.”
“What use is that?” said Jacky. “The missiles are there already—he just said so!”
Slowly and deliberately, the president said: “It shall be the policy of this nation to regard any nuclear missile, launched from Cuba, against any nation in the Western Hemisphere, as an attack by the Soviet Union on the United States, requiring a full retaliatory response upon the Soviet Union.”
“Oh, my Lord,” said Cindy again. “So if Cuba launches just one missile, it’s all-out nuclear war.”
“That’s right,” said George, who had attended the meetings where this had been thrashed out.
As soon as the president said, “Thank you and good night,” Jacky turned off the set and rounded on George. “What is going to happen to us?”
He longed to reassure her, to make her feel safe, but he could not. “I don’t know, Mom.”
Cindy said: “This quarantine makes no difference to anything, even I can see that.”
“It’s just a preliminary.”
“So what comes next?”
“We don’t know.”
Jacky said: “George, tell me the truth, now. Is there going to be war?”
George hesitated. Nuclear weapons were being loaded on jets and flown around the country, to ensure that some at least would survive a Soviet first strike. The invasion plan for Cuba was being refined, and the State Department was sifting candidates to lead the pro-American government that would take charge of Cuba afterward.
Strategic Air Command had moved its alert status to DEFCON 3—Defense Condition Three, ready to start a nuclear attack in fifteen minutes.
On balance, what was the likeliest outcome of all this?
With a heavy heart, George said: “Yes, Mom. I think there will be war.”
• • •
In the end the Presidium ordered all Soviet missile ships still on their way to Cuba to turn around and come home.
Khrushchev reckoned he lost little by this, and Dimka agreed. Cuba had nukes now; it hardly mattered how many. The Soviet Union would avoid a confrontation on the high seas, claim to be a peacemaker in this crisis—and still have a nuclear base ninety miles from the USA.
Everyone knew that would not be the end of the matter. The two superpowers had not yet addressed the real question, what to do about the nuclear weapons already in Cuba. All Kennedy’s options were still open, and as far as Dimka could see, most of them led to war.
Khrushchev decided not to go home tonight. It was too dangerous to be even a few minutes’ car journey away: if war broke out he had to be here, ready to make instant decisions.
Next to his grand office was a small room with a comfortable couch. The first secretary lay down there in his clothes. Most of the Presidium made the same decision, and the leaders of the world’s second-most powerful country settled down to an uneasy sleep in their offices.
Dimka had a small cubbyhole down the corridor. There was no couch in his office: just a hard chair, a utilitarian desk, and a file cabinet. He was trying to figure out where would be the least uncomfortable place to lay his head when there was a tap at the door and Natalya came in. She brought with her a light fragrance unlike any Soviet perfume.
She had been wise to dress casually, Dimka realized: they were all going to sleep in their clothes. “I like your sweater,” he said.
“It’s called a Sloppy Joe.” She used the English words.
“What does that mean?”
“I don’t know, but I like how it sounds.”
He laughed. “I was just trying to figure out where to sleep.”
“Me, too.”
“On the other hand, I’m not sure I’ll be able to sleep.”
“You mean, knowing you might never wake up?”
“Exactly.”
“I feel the same.”
Dimka thought for a moment. Even if he spent the night awake, worrying, he might as well find somewhere to be comfortable. “This is a palace, and it’s empty,” he said. He hesitated, then added: “Shall we explore?” He was not sure why he said that. It was the kind of thing his lady-killer friend Valentin might come out with.
“Okay,” said Natalya.
Dimka picked up his overcoat, to use as a blanket.
The spacious bedrooms and boudoirs of the palace had been inelegantly subdivided into offices for bureaucrats and typists, and filled with cheap furniture made of pine and plastic. There were upholstered chairs in a few of the larger rooms for the most important men, but nothing you could sleep on. Dimka began to think of ways to make a bed on the floor. Then, at the far end of the wing, they passed along a corridor cluttered with buckets and mops and came to a grand room full of stored furniture.
The room was unheated, and their breath turned to white vapor. The large windows were frosted over. The gilded wall lights and chandeliers had sockets for candles, all empty. A dim light came from two naked bulbs hanging from the painted ceiling.
The stacked furniture looked as if it had been here since the revolution. There were chipped tables with spindly legs, chairs with rotting brocade upholstery, and carved bookcases with empty shelves. Here were the treasures of the tsars, turned to junk.
The furniture was rotting away here because it was too ancien régime to be used in the offices of commissars, although Dimka guessed it was the kind of stuff that might sell for fortunes in the antique auctions of the West.
And there was a four-poster bed.
Its hangings were full of dust but the faded blue coverlet appeared intact and it even had a mattress and pillows.
“Well,” said Dimka, “here’s one bed.”
“We may have to share,” said Natalya.
That thought had crossed Dimka’s mind, but he had dismissed it. Pretty girls sometimes casually offered to share a bed with him in his fantasies, but never in real life.
Until now.
But did he want to? He was not married to Nina, but she undoubtedly wanted him to be faithful to her, and he certainly expected the same of her. On the other hand, Nina was not here, and Natalya was.
Foolishly, he said, “Are you suggesting we sleep together?”
“Just for warmth,” she said. “I can trust you, can’t I?”
“Of course,” he said. That made it all right, he supposed.
Natalya drew back the ancient coverlet. Dust rose, making her sneeze. The sheets beneath had yellowed with age, but seemed intact. “Moths don’t like cotton,” she remarked.
“I didn’t know that.”
She stepped out of her shoes. In her jeans and sweater she slipped between the sheets. She shivered. “Come on,” she said. “Don’t be shy.”
Dimka put his coat over her. Then he unlaced his shoes and pulled them off. This was strange but exciting. Natalya wanted to sleep with him, but without sex.
Nina would never believe it.
But he had to sleep somewhere.
He took off his tie and got into bed. The sheets were icy. He put his arms around Natalya. She lay her head against his shoulder and pressed her body to his. Her bulky sweater and his suit coat made it impossible for him to feel the contours of her body, but all the same he got an erection. If she felt it, she did not react.
In a few minutes they stopped shivering and felt warmer. Dimka’s face was pressed into her hair, which was wavy and abundant and smelled of lemon soap. His hands were on her back, but he got no sense of her skin through the chunky sweater. He could feel her breath on his neck. The rhythm of her breathing changed, becoming regular and shallow. He kissed the top of her head, but she made no response.
He could not figure Natalya out. She was just an aide, like Dimka, and not more than three or four years his senior, but she drove a Mercedes, twelve years old and beautifully preserved. She usually dressed in conventionally dowdy Kremlin clothes yet she wore costly imported perfume. She was charming to the point of flirtatiousness, but she went home and cooked dinner for her husband.
She had inveigled Dimka into bed with her, then she had fallen asleep.
He was sure he would not sleep, lying in bed with a warm girl in his arms.
But he did.
It was still dark outside when he woke up.
Natalya mumbled: “What’s the time?”
She was still in his arms. He craned his neck to look at his wrist, which was behind her left shoulder. “Six thirty.”
“The Americans didn’t bomb us.”
“Not yet.”
“We’d better get up,” Dimka said; and he immediately regretted it. Khrushchev would not be awake yet. And even if he was, Dimka did not have to bring this delicious moment to a premature end. He was bewildered, but happy. Why the hell had he suggested getting up?
But she was not ready. “In a minute,” she said.
He was pleased by the thought that she liked lying in his arms.
Then she kissed his neck.
It was the lightest possible touch of her lips on his skin, as if a moth had flown out of the ancient hangings and brushed him with its wings; but he had not imagined it.
She had kissed him.
He stroked her hair.
She tilted her head back and looked at him. Her mouth was slightly open, the full lips a little parted, and she was smiling faintly, as if at a pleasant surprise. Dimka was no expert on women but even he could not mistake the invitation. Still he hesitated to kiss her.
Then she said: “Today we’re probably going to be bombed to oblivion.”
So Dimka kissed her.
The kiss heated up in a flash. She bit his lip and pushed her tongue into his mouth. He rolled her onto her back and put his hands up inside her baggy sweater. She unfastened her brassiere with a swift movement. Her breasts were delightfully small and firm, with big pointed nipples that were already hard to his fingertips. When he sucked them she gasped with pleasure.
He tried to take off her jeans, but she had another idea. She pushed him onto his back and feverishly undid his trousers. He was afraid he would come right away—something that happened to a lot of men, according to Nina—but he did not. Natalya pulled his cock out of his underwear. She stroked it with both hands, pressed it to her cheek, and kissed it, then put it in her mouth.
When he felt himself about to explode he tried to withdraw, pushing her head away: this was how Nina preferred it. But Natalya made a protesting noise, then rubbed and sucked harder, so that he lost control and came in her mouth.
After a minute she kissed him. He tasted his semen on her lips. Was that peculiar? It felt simply affectionate.
She pulled off her jeans and underwear, and he realized it was his turn to please her. Fortunately Nina had tutored him in this.
Natalya’s hair was as curly and plentiful here as on her head. He buried his face, longing to return the delight she had given him. She guided him with her hands on his head, indicating by slight pressure when his kisses should be lighter or heavier, moving her hips up or down to tell him where to concentrate his attention. She was only the second woman he had done this to, and he luxuriated in the taste and the smell of her.
With Nina this was only a preliminary, but in a surprisingly short time Natalya cried out, first pressing his head hard against her, then, as if the pleasure were too much, pushing him away.
They lay side by side, catching their breath. This had been a totally new experience for Dimka, and he said reflectively: “This whole question of sex is more complicated than I thought.”
To his surprise, this made her laugh heartily.
“What did I say?” he said.
She laughed all the more, and all she would say was: “Oh, Dimka, I adore you.”
• • •
La Isabela was a ghost town, Tanya saw. Once a thriving Cuban port, it had been hit hard by Eisenhower’s trade embargo. It was miles from anywhere, and surrounded by salt marshes and mangrove swamps. Scraggy goats roamed the streets. Its harbor hosted a few shabby fishing boats—and the Aleksandrovsk, a fifty-four-hundred-ton Soviet freighter packed to the gunwales with nuclear warheads.
The ship had been headed for Mariel. After President Kennedy announced the blockade, most of the Soviet ships had turned back, but a few that were only hours from landfall had been ordered to make a dash for the nearest Cuban port.
Tanya and Paz watched the ship inch up to the concrete dock in a shower of rain. The antiaircraft guns on deck were concealed beneath coils of rope.
Tanya was terrified. She had no idea what was going to happen. All her brother’s efforts had failed to stop the secret getting out before the American midterm elections—and the trouble Dimka might be in as a result was only the least of her worries. Clearly the blockade was no more than an opening shot. Now Kennedy had to appear strong. And with Kennedy being strong and the Cubans defending their precious dignidad anything could happen, from an American invasion to a worldwide nuclear holocaust.
Tanya and Paz had become more intimate. They had told one another about their childhoods and their families and their past lovers. They touched each other frequently. They often laughed. But they held back from romance. Tanya was tempted, but she resisted. The idea of having sex with a man just because he was so beautiful seemed wrong. She liked Paz—despite his dignidad—but she did not love him. In the past she had kissed men she did not love, especially while she was at university, but she had not had sex with them. She had gone to bed with only one man, and she had loved him, or at least she had thought she did at the time. But she might sleep with Paz, if only to have someone’s arms around her when the bombs fell.
The largest of the dockside warehouses was burned out. “I wonder how that happened,” Tanya said, pointing.
“The CIA set fire to it,” said Paz. “We get a lot of terrorist attacks here.”
Tanya looked around. The quayside buildings were empty and derelict. Most of the homes were one-story wooden shacks. Rain pooled on the dirt roads. The Americans could blow the whole place up without doing noticeable damage to the Castro regime. “Why?” she said.
Paz shrugged. “It’s an easy target, here on the end of the peninsula. They come over from Florida in a speedboat, sneak ashore, blow something up, shoot one or two innocent people, and go back to America.” In English he added: “Fuckin’ cowards.”
Tanya wondered if all governments were the same. The Kennedy brothers spoke of freedom and democracy yet they sent armed gangs across the water to terrorize the Cuban people. The Soviet Communists talked of liberating the proletariat while they imprisoned or murdered everyone who disagreed with them, and they sent Vasili to Siberia for protesting. Was there an honest regime anywhere in the world?
“Let’s go,” said Tanya. “It’s a long way back to Havana, and I need to tell Dimka that this ship has arrived safely.” Moscow had decided the Aleksandrovsk was close enough to reach port, but Dimka was anxious for confirmation.
They got into Paz’s Buick and drove out of town. On either side of the road were tall thickets of sugarcane. Turkey vultures floated above, hunting the fat rats in the fields. In the distance, the high chimney of a sugar mill pointed like a missile at the sky. The flat landscape of central Cuba was crosshatched with single-track railway lines built to transport cane from the fields to the mills. Where the land was uncultivated it was mostly tropical jungle, flame trees and jacarandas and towering royal palms; or rough scrub grazed by cattle. The slim white egrets that followed the cows were grace notes on the dun landscape.
Transport in rural Cuba was still mostly horse-drawn, but as they approached Havana the roads became crowded with military trucks and buses taking reservists to their bases. Castro had declared a full combat alert. The nation was on a war footing. As Paz’s Buick sped by, the men waved and called out: “Patria o muerte! Motherland or death! Cuba si, yanqui no!”
On the outskirts of the capital she saw that a new poster had appeared overnight and now blanketed every wall. In simple black and white, it showed a hand clutching a machine gun and the words A LAS ARMAS—“To Arms.” Castro really understood propaganda, she reflected; unlike the old men in the Kremlin, whose idea of a slogan was: “Implement the resolutions of the twentieth party congress!”
Tanya had written and encoded her message earlier, and had only to fill in the exact time that the Aleksandrovsk had docked. She took the message into the Soviet embassy and gave it to the KGB communications officer, whom she knew well.
Dimka would be relieved, but Tanya was still fearful. Was it really good news that Cuba had another shipload of nuclear weapons? Might not the Cuban people—and Tanya herself—be safer with none?
“Do you have other duties today?” Tanya asked Paz when she came out.
“But in this crisis . . .”
“In this crisis, nothing is more important than clear communication with our Soviet allies.”
“Then let’s walk along the Malecón together.”
They drove to the sea front. Paz parked at the Hotel Nacional. Soldiers were stationing an antiaircraft gun outside the famous hotel.
Tanya and Paz left the car and walked along the promenade. A wind from the north whipped the sea into angry surges that crashed against the stone wall, throwing up explosions of spray that fell on the promenade like rain. This was a popular place to stroll, but today there were more people than usual, and their mood was not leisurely. They clustered in small crowds, sometimes talking but often silent. They were not flirting or telling jokes or showing off their best clothes. Everyone was looking in the same direction, north, toward the United States. They were watching for the yanquis.
Tanya and Paz watched with them for a while. She felt in her heart that the invasion had to happen. Destroyers would come slicing through the waves; submarines would surface a few yards away; and the gray planes with the blue-and-white stars would appear out of the clouds, loaded with bombs to drop on the Cuban people and their Soviet friends.
At last Tanya took Paz’s hand in her own. He squeezed gently. She looked up into his deep brown eyes. “I think we’re going to die,” she said calmly.
“Yes,” he said.
“Do you want to go to bed with me first?”
“Yes,” he said again.
“Shall we go to my apartment?”
“Yes.”
They returned to the car and drove to a narrow street in the old town, near the cathedral, where Tanya had upstairs rooms in a colonial building.
Tanya’s first and only lover had been Petr Iloyan, a lecturer at her university. He had worshipped her young body, gazing at her breasts and touching her skin and kissing her hair as if he had never come across anything so marvelous. Paz was the same age as Petr but, Tanya quickly realized, making love with him was going to be different. It was his body that was the center of attention. He took his clothes off slowly, as if teasing her, then stood naked in front of her, giving her time to take in his perfect skin and the curves of his muscles. Tanya was happy to sit on the edge of the bed and admire him. The display seemed to excite him, for his penis was already fat with arousal and half erect, and Tanya could hardly wait to get her hands on it.
Petr had been a slow, gentle lover. He had been able to work Tanya up into a fever of anticipation, then hold back tantalizingly. He would change positions several times, rolling her on top, then kneeling behind her, then getting her to straddle him. Paz was not rough but he was vigorous, and Tanya gave herself up to excitement and pleasure.
Afterward Tanya made eggs and coffee. Paz turned on the TV and they watched Castro’s speech while they ate.
Castro sat in front of a Cuban national flag, its bold blue and white stripes appearing black and white in the monochrome television picture. As always, he wore battle-dress drab, the only sign of rank a single star on the epaulet: Tanya had never seen him in a civilian suit, nor in the kind of pompous medal-encrusted uniform beloved of Communist leaders elsewhere.
Tanya felt a rush of optimism. Castro was no fool. He knew he could not defeat the United States in a war, even with the Soviet Union on his side. Surely he would come up with some dramatic gesture of reconciliation, some initiative that would transform the situation and defuse the time bomb.
His voice was high and reedy, but he spoke with overwhelming passion. The bushy beard gave him the air of a messiah crying in the wilderness, even though he was obviously in a studio. His black eyebrows moved expressively in a high forehead. He gestured with his big hands, sometimes raising a schoolmasterly forefinger to forbid dissent, often clenching a fist. At times he grasped the arms of his chair as if to prevent himself taking off like a rocket. He appeared to have no script, not even any notes. His expression showed indignation, pride, scorn, rage—but never doubt. Castro lived in a universe of certainty.
Point by point, Castro attacked Kennedy’s television speech, which had been broadcast on live radio beamed at Cuba. He scorned Kennedy’s appeal to the “captive people of Cuba.” “We are not sovereign by the grace of the yanquis,” he said contemptuously.
But he said nothing about the Soviet Union and nothing about nuclear weapons.
The speech lasted ninety minutes. It was a performance of Churchillian magnetism: brave little Cuba would defy big bullying America and would never give in. It must have boosted the morale of the Cuban people. But otherwise it changed nothing. Tanya was bitterly disappointed and even more scared. Castro had not even tried to prevent war.
At the end he cried: “Motherland or death, we will win!” Then he jumped out of the chair and rushed out as if he had not a minute to lose on his way to save Cuba.
Tanya looked at Paz. His eyes were glistening with tears.
She kissed him, then they made love again, on the couch in front of the flickering screen. This time it was slower and more satisfying. She treated him the way Petr had treated her. It was not difficult to adore his body, and he undoubtedly liked adoration. She squeezed his arms and kissed his nipples and pushed her fingers into his curls. “You’re so beautiful,” she murmured as she sucked his earlobe.
Afterward, as they lay sharing a cigar, they heard noises from outside. Tanya opened the door leading to the balcony. The city had been quiet while Castro was on television, but now people were coming out onto the narrow streets. Night had fallen, and some were carrying candles and torches. Tanya’s journalistic instincts returned. “I have to go out there,” she said to Paz. “This is a big story.”
“I’ll come with you.”
They pulled on their clothes and left the building. The streets were wet but the rain had stopped. More and more people appeared. There was a carnival atmosphere. Everyone was cheering and shouting slogans. Many were singing the national anthem, “La Bayamesa.” There was nothing Latin about the tune—it sounded more like a German drinking song—but the singers meant every word.
To live in chains is to live
In dishonor and ignominy
Hasten, brave ones, to arms!
As Tanya and Paz marched through the alleys of the old city with the crowd, Tanya noticed that many of the men had armed themselves. Lacking guns, they carried garden tools and machetes, and had kitchen knives and meat cleavers in their belts, as if they were going to fight the Americans hand-to-hand on the Malecón.
Tanya recalled that one Boeing B-52 Stratofortress of the United States Air Force carried seventy thousand pounds of bombs.
You poor fools, she thought bitterly; how much use do you think your knives will be against that?