“We can’t go back without the others,” Nina said; but a moment later Valentin and Anna emerged from the woods. They had been only just out of sight, Dimka guessed, and had heard the megaphone summons.

The boys moved a little apart from the girls and they all put on their outer clothes over their swimsuits. Dimka heard Nina and Anna talking in low voices, Anna speaking urgently and Nina giggling and nodding agreement.

Then Anna gave Valentin a meaningful look. It seemed to be a prearranged signal. Valentin nodded and turned to Dimka. Quietly he said: “The four of us are going to the folk-dancing evening tonight. When we come back, Anna will come into our tent with me. You’re to go with Nina in their tent. Okay?”

It was more than okay, it was thrilling. Dimka said: “You’ve arranged it all with Anna?”

“Yes, and Nina has just agreed.”

Dimka could hardly believe it. He would be able to spend all night embracing Nina’s firm body. “She likes me!”

“Must be the shorts.”

They got into the boat and rowed back. The girls announced that they wanted to shower as soon as they returned. Dimka wondered how he could make the time pass quickly until evening.

When they reached the dock, they saw a man in a black suit waiting.

Dimka knew instinctively that this was a messenger for him. I might have known, he thought regretfully; things were going too well.

They all got out of the boat. Nina looked at the man sweating in his suit and said: “Are we going to be arrested for keeping the boat too long?” She was only half joking.

Dimka said: “Are you here for me? I’m Dmitri Dvorkin.”

“Yes, Dmitri Ilich,” the man said, respectfully using his patronymic. “I’m your driver. I’m here to take you to the airport.”

“What’s the emergency?”

The driver shrugged. “The first secretary wants you.”

“I’ll get my bag,” said Dimka regretfully.

By way of a small consolation, Nina looked awestruck.

• • •

The car took Dimka to Vnukovo airport, southwest of Moscow, where Vera Pletner was waiting with a large envelope and a ticket to Tbilisi, capital of the Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic.

Khrushchev was not in Moscow but at his dacha, or second home, in Pitsunda, a resort for top government officials on the Black Sea, and that was where Dimka was headed.

He had never flown before.

He was not the only aide whose holiday had been cut short. In the departure lounge, about to open the envelope, he was approached by Yevgeny Filipov, wearing a gray flannel shirt as usual despite the summer weather. Filipov looked pleased, which had to be a bad sign.

“Your strategy has failed,” he said to Dimka with evident satisfaction.

“What’s happened?”

“President Kennedy has made a television speech.”

Kennedy had said nothing for seven weeks, since the Vienna Summit. The United States had not responded to Khrushchev’s threat to sign a treaty with East Germany and take West Berlin back. Dimka had assumed that the American president was too cowed to stand up to Khrushchev. “What was the speech about?”