Edge of Eternity (26 page)

“We would have to assume that, sir,” said Taylor.

The president looked bleak, and George had a sudden vivid sense of the dreadful weight of responsibility he bore. “Tell me this,” said Kennedy. “If one missile landed on a medium-size American city, how bad would that be?”

Election politics were driven from George's mind, and once again his heart was chilled by the dreaded thought of nuclear war.

General Taylor conferred with his aides for a few moments, then turned back to the table. “Mr. President,” he said, “our calculation is that six hundred thousand people would die.”

D
imka'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?”

“In an hour.”

“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.