20
The smell of coffee woke Maria. She opened her eyes. President Kennedy was in bed beside her, sitting upright with several pillows propping him, drinking coffee and reading the Sunday edition of the New York Times. He was wearing a light-blue nightshirt, as was she. ‘Oh!’ she said.
He smiled. ‘You sound surprised.’
‘I am,’ she said. ‘To be alive. I thought we might die in the night.’
‘Not this time.’
She had gone to sleep half hoping it would happen. She dreaded the end of their love affair. She knew it had no future. For him to leave his wife would destroy him politically; to do so for a black woman was unthinkable. Anyway, he did not even want to leave Jackie: he loved her, and he loved their children. He was happily married. Maria was his mistress, and when he tired of her he would discard her. Sometimes she felt she would prefer to die before that came to pass – especially if death could come while she was at his side, in bed, in a flash of nuclear destruction that would be over before they knew what was happening.
She said none of this: her role was to make him happy, not sad. She sat upright, kissed his ear, looked over his shoulder at the newspaper, took his cup from his hand and drank some of his coffee. Despite everything, she was glad she was still alive.
He had not mentioned her abortion. It was almost as if he had forgotten about it. She had never raised it with him. She had called Dave Powers and said she was pregnant; and Dave had given her a phone number and said he would take care of the doctor’s fee. The only time the President had spoken about it had been when he phoned her after the procedure. He had bigger worries on his mind.
Maria thought about raising the subject herself, but quickly decided against. Like Dave, she wanted to shield the President from care, not give him additional burdens. She felt sure this was the right decision, though she could not help feeling sorry, and even hurt, that she was not able to talk to him about something so important.
She had feared that sex might be painful, after the procedure. However, when Dave had asked her to go to the residence last night, she had been so reluctant to decline the invitation that she had decided to take the risk; and it had been fine – wonderful, in fact.
‘I’d better move,’ the President said. ‘I’m going to church this morning.’
He was about to get up when the bedside phone rang. He picked it up. ‘Good morning, Mac,’ he said.
Maria guessed he was talking to McGeorge Bundy. She jumped out of bed and went to the bathroom.
Kennedy often took calls in bed in the morning. Maria assumed that the people who phoned either did not know, or did not care, whether he had company. She saved the President embarrassment by making herself scarce during such conversations, just in case they were top secret.
She peeped out of the door in time to see him hang up the phone. ‘Great news!’ he said. ‘Moscow Radio announced that Khrushchev is dismantling the Cuban missiles and sending them back to the USSR.’
Maria had to restrain herself from shouting for joy. It was over!
‘I feel like a new man,’ said the President.
She threw her arms around him and kissed him. ‘You saved the world, Johnny,’ she said.
He looked reflective. After a minute he said: ‘Yeah, I guess I did.’
*
Tania was standing on her balcony, leaning on the wrought-iron parapet, breathing deeply of the damp Havana morning air, when Paz’s Buick pulled up below, completely blocking the narrow street. He jumped out of the car, looked up, saw her, and yelled: ‘You betrayed me!’
‘What?’ She was astonished. ‘How?’
‘You know.’
He was a passionate and mercurial character, but she had never seen him this angry, and she was glad he had not come up the stairs to the apartment. However, she was baffled as to the reason for his rage. ‘I’ve told no secrets, and I haven’t slept with another man,’ she said. ‘So I’m sure I haven’t betrayed you.’
‘Then why are they dismantling the missile launchers?’
‘Are they?’ If that was so, the crisis was over. ‘Are you sure?’
‘Don’t pretend you don’t know.’
‘I’m not pretending anything. But if it’s true, we’re saved.’ Out of the corner of her eye she noticed neighbours opening windows and doors, to watch the row with unabashed curiosity. She ignored them. ‘Why are you angry?’
‘Because Khrushchev made a deal with the Yanquis – and never even discussed it with Castro!’
The neighbours made disapproving noises.
‘Of course I didn’t know,’ she said with annoyance. ‘Do you imagine Khrushchev talks to me about such things?’
‘He sent you here.’
‘Not personally.’
‘He talks to your brother.’
‘You really believe I’m some kind of special emissary of Khrushchev?’
‘Why do you suppose I have gone everywhere with you for months?’
In a quieter voice, she replied: ‘I imagined it was because you liked me.’
The listening women made sympathetic cooing sounds.
‘You’re not welcome here any longer,’ he yelled. ‘Pack your suitcase. You are to leave Cuba immediately. Today!’
With that he jumped back into his car and roared away.
‘It was nice knowing you,’ said Tania.
*
Dimka and Nina celebrated by going to a bar near her apartment that evening.
Dimka was determined not to think about his unsettling conversation with Natalya. It changed nothing. He put her to the back of his mind. They had had a brief fling and it was over. He loved Nina, and she was going to be his wife.
He bought a couple of bottles of weak Russian beer and sat beside her on a bench. ‘We’re going to be married,’ he said tenderly. ‘I want you to have a wonderful dress.’
‘I don’t want a lot of fuss,’ Nina said.
‘Nor do I, for myself, but that could be a problem,’ Dimka said with a frown. ‘I’m the first of my generation to get married. My mother and grandparents will want to throw a big party. What about your family?’ He knew that Nina’s father had died in the war, but her mother was still alive, and she had a brother a couple of years younger than she.
‘I hope Mother will be well enough to come.’ Nina’s mother lived in Perm, nine hundred miles east of Moscow. But something told Dimka that Nina did not really want her mother to come.
‘What about your brother?’
‘He’ll ask for leave, but I don’t know if he’ll get it.’ Nina’s brother was in the Red Army. ‘I have no idea where he’s stationed. He could be in Cuba, for all I know.’
‘I’ll find out,’ Dimka said. ‘Uncle Volodya can pull a few strings.’
‘Don’t go to too much trouble.’
‘I want to. This will probably be my only wedding!’
She snapped: ‘What do you mean by that?’
‘Nothing.’ He had meant it light-heartedly, and he was sorry to have irritated her. ‘Forget I said it.’
‘Do you think I’m going to divorce you as I did my first husband?’
‘I said exactly the opposite, didn’t I? What’s the matter with you?’ He forced a smile. ‘We should be happy today. We’re getting married, we’re having a baby, and Khrushchev has saved the world.’
‘You don’t understand. I’m not a virgin.’
‘I guessed that.’
‘Will you be serious?’
‘All right.’
‘A wedding is normally two young people promising to love one another for ever. You can’t say that twice. Don’t you see that I’m embarrassed to be doing this again because I’ve already failed at it once?’
‘Oh!’ he said. ‘Yes, I do see, now that you’ve explained it.’ Nina’s attitude was a little old-fashioned – lots of people got divorced nowadays – but perhaps that was because she came from a provincial town. ‘So you want a celebration appropriate to a second marriage: no extravagant promises, no newly-wed jokes, an adult awareness that life doesn’t always go according to plan.’
‘Exactly.’
‘Well, my beloved, if that’s what you want, I will make sure you have it.’
‘Will you, really?’
‘Whatever made you think I wouldn’t?’
‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘Sometimes I forget what a good man you are.’