It was expressed as a suggestion, but in the Kremlin a suggestion from the leader was the same thing as a direct order.
‘This is dynamite,’ said Dimka. ‘They can’t possibly disobey.’
‘What should I do with it?’ said Volsky.
Dimka said: ‘First, make several photocopies, so that there’s no point in anyone tearing it up. Then . . .’ Dimka hesitated.
Natalya said: ‘Don’t tell anyone. Just give it to Bogolyubov.’ Klavdii Bogolyubov was in charge of preparing the papers for Politburo meetings. ‘Be low-key. Just tell him to add the extra material to the red folder containing Andropov’s speech.’
They agreed that was the best plan.
Christmas Day was not a big festival. The Communists disliked its religious nature. They changed Santa Claus to Father Frost and the Virgin Mary to the Snow Maiden, and moved the celebration to New Year. That was when the children would get their gifts. Grisha, who was now twenty, was getting a cassette player, and Katya, fourteen, a new dress. Dimka and Natalya, as senior Communist politicians, did not dream of celebrating Christmas, regardless of their personal beliefs. Both went to work as usual.
The following day, Dimka went to the Presidium Room for the Politburo meeting. He was met at the door by Natalya, who had got there earlier. She looked distraught. She was holding open the red folder containing Andropov’s speech. ‘They left it out!’ she said. ‘They left out the last paragraph!’
Dimka sat down heavily. ‘I never imagined Chernenko would have the guts,’ he said.
There was nothing they could do, he realized. Andropov was in hospital. If he had stormed into the room and yelled at everyone, his authority would have been reasserted; but he could not. Chernenko had correctly estimated Andropov’s weakness.
‘They’ve won, haven’t they?’ said Natalya.
‘Yes,’ said Dimka. ‘The Age of Stagnation begins again.’
Part Nine
BOMB
1984–1987
55
George Jakes went to the opening of an exhibition of African-American art in downtown Washington. He was not very interested in art, but a black congressman had to support such things. Most of his work as a congressman was more important.
President Reagan had enormously increased government spending on the military, but who was going to pay? Not the wealthy, who had received a big tax cut.
There was a joke that George often repeated. A reporter asked Reagan how he was going to reduce tax and increase spending at the same time. ‘I’m going to keep two sets of books,’ was the answer.
In reality Reagan’s plan was to cut Social Security and Medicare. If he had his way, unemployed men and welfare mothers would lose out to finance the boom in the defence industry. The idea made George mad with rage. However, George and others in Congress were struggling to prevent this, and so far they had succeeded.
The upshot was a rise in government borrowing. Reagan had increased the deficit. All those shiny new weapons for the Pentagon would be paid for by future generations.
George took a glass of white wine from a tray held by a waiter and looked around the exhibits, then spoke briefly to a reporter. He did not have much time. Verena needed to go out tonight, to a Georgetown political dinner, so he would be in charge of their son, Jack, who was now four. They had a nanny – they had to, for they both had demanding jobs – but one of them was always on duty as back-up in case the nanny should fail to show up.
He set his glass down untasted. Free wine was never worth drinking. He put on his coat and left. A cold rain had started, and he held the exhibition catalogue over his head as he hurried to his car. His elegant old Mercedes was long gone: a politician had to drive an American vehicle. He now had a silver Lincoln Town Car.
He got in, switched on the windscreen wipers, and set off for Prince George’s County. He crossed the South Capitol Street Bridge and took Suitland Parkway east. He cursed when he saw how heavy the traffic was: he was going to be late.
When he got home, Verena’s red Jaguar stood in the driveway, nose out, ready to go. The car had been a present from her father on her fortieth birthday. George parked next to it and walked into the house, carrying a briefcase full of papers, his evening’s work.
Verena was in the hallway, looking spectacularly glamorous in a black cocktail dress and patent high-heeled pumps. She was as mad as a polecat. ‘You’re late!’ she yelled.
‘I’m really sorry,’ George said. ‘The traffic on Suitland Parkway is crazy today.’
‘This dinner party is really important to me – three members of Reagan’s cabinet will be there, and I’m going to be late!’
George understood her irritation. For a lobbyist, the chance to meet powerful people socially was priceless. ‘I’m here now,’ he said.
‘I am not the maid! When we make an arrangement you have to keep it!’
This tirade was not unusual. She often got angry and screamed at him. He always tried to take it calmly. ‘Is Nanny Tiffany here?’
‘No, she’s not, she went home sick, that’s why I had to wait for you.’
‘Where’s Jack?’
‘Watching TV in the den.’
‘Okay, I’ll go and sit with him now. You go on out.’
She made a furious noise and stalked off.
He kind of envied whoever was going to sit next to her at dinner. She was still the sexiest woman he had ever met. However, he now knew that being her long-distance lover, as he had for fifteen years, was better than being her husband. In the old days they had had sex more times in a weekend than they did now in a month. Since they got married their frequent and furious rows, usually about childcare, had eroded their affection for one another like a slow drip of strong vitriol. They lived together, they took care of their son, and they pursued their careers. Did they love one another? George no longer knew.
He went into the den. Jack was on the couch in front of the TV. The boy was George’s great consolation. He sat next to him and put his arm around his small shoulders. Jack snuggled up.
The show featured a group of high-school pupils involved in some kind of adventure. ‘What are you watching?’ George asked.
‘Whiz Kids. It’s great.’
‘What’s it about?’
‘They catch crooks with their computers.’
One of the child geniuses was black, George noticed, and he thought: How the world turns.
*
‘We’re really lucky to be invited to this dinner,’ said Cam Dewar to his wife, Lidka, as their cab pulled up outside a grand mansion on R Street near the Georgetown Library. ‘I want us both to make a good impression.’
Lidka was scornful. ‘You are an important person in the secret police,’ she said. ‘I think they need to impress you.’
Lidka did not understand how America worked. ‘The CIA is not the secret police,’ Cam said. ‘And I’m not a very important person by the standards of these people.’
Cam was not exactly a nobody, all the same. Because of his past experience in the White House, he was now the CIA’s liaison man with the Reagan administration. He was thrilled to have the job.
He had got over his disappointment with Reagan’s failure in Poland. He put that down to inexperience. Reagan had been President for less than a year when Solidarity was crushed.
In the back of Cam’s mind, a devil’s advocate said that a President ought to be smart enough and knowledgeable enough to make confident decisions from the moment he takes office. He recalled Nixon saying: ‘Reagan is a nice guy, but he doesn’t know what the Christ is going on in foreign policy.’
But Reagan’s heart was in the right place, that was the main thing. He was passionately anti-Communist.
Lidka said: ‘And your grandfather was a Senator!’
That did not count for much either. Gus Dewar was in his nineties. After Grandmama died he had moved from Buffalo to San Francisco to be near Woody, Beep and his great-grandson, John Lee. He was long retired from politics. Besides, he was a Democrat, and by Reaganite standards an extreme liberal.
Cam and Lidka walked up a short flight of steps to a red-brick house that looked like a small French chateau, with dormer windows in the slate roof and a white stone entrance topped by a small Greek pediment. This was the home of Frank and Marybell Lindeman, heavyweight donors to Reagan’s campaign funds and multi-million-dollar beneficiaries of his tax cut. Marybell was one of half a dozen women who dominated Washington social life. She entertained the men who ran America. That was why Cam felt lucky to be here.
Although the Lindemans were Republicans, Marybell’s dinners were cross-party affairs, and Cam was expecting to see senior men from both sides here tonight.
A butler took their coats. Looking around the grand hall, Lidka said: ‘Why do they have these terrible paintings?’
‘It’s called Western art,’ Cam said. ‘That’s a Remington – very valuable.’
‘If I had all that money, I wouldn’t buy pictures of cowboys and Indians.’
‘They’re making a point. The Impressionists were not necessarily the best painters ever. American artists are just as good.’
‘No, they’re not – everyone knows that.’
‘Matter of opinion.’
Lidka shrugged: another mystery of American life.