CHAPTER NINETEEN

The phone woke Dimka. His heart pounded: was it war? How many minutes did he have to live? He snatched up the receiver. It was Natalya. First with the news, as usual, she said: “There’s a flash from Pliyev.”

General Pliyev was in command of Soviet forces in Cuba.

“What?” said Dimka. “What does it say?”

“They think the Americans are going to attack today, at dawn their time.”

It was still dark in Moscow. Dimka turned on the bedside light and looked at his watch. It was eight in the morning: he should be at the Kremlin. But dawn in Cuba was still five and a half hours away. His heart slowed a little. “How do they know?”

“That’s not the point,” she said impatiently.

“What is the point?”

“I’ll read you the last sentence. ‘We have decided that in the event of a U.S. attack on our installations, we will employ all available means of air defense.’ They will use nuclear weapons.”

“They can’t do that without our permission!”

“But that’s exactly what they’re proposing.”

“Malinovsky won’t let them.”

“Don’t bet on that.”

Dimka cursed under his breath. Sometimes the military seemed actually to want nuclear annihilation. “I’ll meet you in the canteen.”

“Give me half an hour.”

Dimka showered fast. His mother offered him breakfast, but he refused, so she gave him a piece of black rye bread to take with him. “Don’t forget there’s a party for your grandfather today,” Anya said.

It was Grigori’s birthday: he was seventy-four. There would be a big lunch at his apartment. Dimka had promised to bring Nina. They were planning to surprise everyone by announcing their engagement.

But there would be no party if the Americans attacked Cuba.

As Dimka was leaving, Anya stopped him. “Tell me the truth,” she said. “What’s going to happen?”

He put his arms around her. “I’m sorry, Mother, I don’t know.”

“Your sister’s over there in Cuba.”

“I know.”

“She’s right in the line of fire.”

“The Americans have intercontinental missiles, Mother. We’re all in the line of fire.”

She hugged him, then turned away.

Dimka drove to the Kremlin on his motorcycle. When he got to the Presidium building, Natalya was waiting in the canteen. Like Dimka, she had dressed in a hurry, and she looked a little disheveled. Her untidy hair fell over her face in a way he found charming. I must stop thinking like this, he told himself: I’m going to do the right thing, and marry Nina and raise our child.

He wondered what Natalya would say when he told her that.

But this was not the moment. He took his piece of rye bread from his pocket. “I wish I could get some tea,” he said. The canteen doors were open but no one was serving yet.

“I’ve heard that restaurants in the United States open when people want food and drinks, not when the staff want to work,” said Natalya. “Do you think it’s true?”