Georgetown was a neighbourhood 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 parlour, 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 parlour 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 parlour 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 make-up.
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’ information 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 build-up, 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 goodnight,’ 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 afterwards. 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.’