There had never been any confirmation from Washington or the Embassy that Bobby’s message had gotten through to Nathan Wolfowitz. But two days before the Russian election, a White House spokesman had released the text of what he called an open letter to Constantin Gorchenko from the President of the United States.
“He’s gone all the way,” Bobby exclaimed, after they had read through the text in the Herald Tribune a second time. “He’s actually used this to openly endorse Gorchenko. He’s betting the farm on a Eurorussian victory and he wants the world to know it. What have those two guys been cooking up together?”
But Jerry hadn’t paid any attention to the political message in the Wolfowitz letter, though the commentaries in all the papers were full of it. Even the hope that he might now get his chance to walk on water after all, if the world survived, was emotionally distant in the face of the strange emotion that brought the tears to his eyes.
For the first time in his life, he found himself loving a politician, a man he had never met, and not just because Nathan Wolfowitz was championing his cause. For the President of the United States had spoken for the justice of that cause, and while Jerry understood that his statement had been carefully crafted to serve his own political ends, his words rang true, they had been written from the heart. He was using his power to right a wrong, and he was taking genuine pleasure in it.
And that was a thing to love in a man, politician or not. Was this what politicians meant by real leadership? Was this why all of Europe loved this man? Was this why the world believed beyond all reason that Nathan Wolfowitz would see them through?
Perhaps it was. And perhaps that was why, in that moment, Jerry had the entirely irrational feeling that Nathan Wolfowitz had done it already.
A feeling that grew even stronger when Constantin Gorchenko answered the President during a final televised campaign rally in Leningrad on election eve.
Gorchenko spoke from the very railway station where Lenin had proclaimed the Bolshevik Revolution, there was a big Soviet flag behind him, and either a breeze or a wind machine dramatically ruffling his thinning gray hair. He wore a sharply tailored black suit and a white peasant blouse and looked like a Hollywood actor playing an old farmer, in short, like the Russian version of an American media-consultant’s tailored image of a political winner.
And like an American politician, he went on and on, in rolling, roaring Russian simultaneously translated into florid singsong French.
They all sat there in the living room while Gorchenko recited his version of the entire history of the Soviet Union as an epic struggle for social democracy and political freedom—the overthrow of the Czars, the fight to survive as the first socialist state in a hostile capitalist world, the perversions of Stalin, the lost new beginning of Khrushchev, the dawning of glasnost, the flowering of the Russian Spring, the fraternal entry at long, long last as respected equals in the community of Europe.
Finally, he worked himself up to the climactic election-eve pitch.
“Is all that our parents and our grandparents and our great-grandparents worked and bled and died for to be swept away by primitive chauvinistic passions that have no place in a society that would live up to the transnational idealism of Marx and Lenin and Gorbachev?” he shouted at the top of his lungs.
“What kind of Russian patriots are willing to see Mother Russia herself devastated in the name of Russian honor? In what manner does the illegal action of the Red Army serve the principles of Socialist Legality that have at long last allowed the people of the Soviet Union to stand hand in hand with the rest of the civilized world?”
And then Gorchenko had lowered his voice and spoken in a much softer tone. “Two days ago I received a request from my good friend President Wolfowitz asking me to assist in getting an American a ride into orbit on a Soviet Concordski. A simple request, easily granted by the next duly elected Soviet President, and one which I shall certainly honor if the Soviet people choose to make me that man.
“I promise this because I know it will make me more popular. Oh yes, I’m a politician, and our sort of animal wants to be popular, even with people who cannot vote for us. But a responsible politician wants to be popular for doing the right thing. And just now, the world needs a Soviet government that can be popular for doing the right thing. And the world needs to see what truly lies in the Russian heart. So I stretch out my hand to Mr. Reed, as I stretch it out to President Wolfowitz. Let this be the first of many candles we light together in the dark.”
“Jesus, the same exact phrase, that can’t be an accident!” Bobby exclaimed. “They’re talking to each other in some kind of code, we’ve been part of some elaborate put-up job!”
But Jerry didn’t care if he had been a pawn in the game of politique politicienne this time. He had certainly been screwed by it often enough before, but this time he was going to come out a winner if anyone did, and this time, it seemed the players really did seem to be trying their best to make sure it wasn’t a zero-sum game.
And so here he sat with his half-Russian, half-American family, watching the election returns from the Soviet Union and actually rooting for a Eurorussian victory harder than he ever had for the Dodgers or the Lakers or the Rams.
For in rooting for Gorchenko’s team, he was rooting for his own team too, for Franja’s chosen country and for Bobby’s, for Sonya’s homeland and his own, and, like any rabid rooter watching breathlessly from the stands, for himself too.
There was only one home team now.
They smiled together as the early projections showed the Eurorussians way out ahead. The smiles grew broader when early returns began to confirm them. They started slapping each other on the back when CBS and Agence France-Presse and StarNet called the election, giving the Eurorussians at least 67 percent of the seats in the new Supreme Soviet.
“Th . . . th . . . th . . . that’s all, folks!” Bobby said when Gorchenko went on the air to claim victory, and he turned off the wall screen.
Sonya went into the kitchen for a bottle of champagne.
It foamed all over the rug when she popped the cork, but no one gave a damn. She filled the glasses, and they all stood there in front of the dead wall screen holding them high.
“To Nathan-fucking-Wolfowitz!” Bobby shouted.
“To Constantin Gorchenko!” said Franja.
“To the Russian Spring!” Sonya declared.
“To the Soviet Union!”
“To the United States!”
“Down with the gringos!”
“Down with the Bears!”
They all laughed, and then they all looked at Jerry, who had offered no toast.
And Jerry looked back at them. At the wife he had found again at the end of his life. At the son who had come home to him against the odds in his hour of need. At the daughter who had understood a foolish father’s dream.
He was dying. They all might die before he had the chance to live that dream. But they were all together now, as they had never been before, and out there there were men of goodwill fighting not to destroy each other but to keep hope alive.
“To the impossible come true,” he said. “To walking on water!”
They clinked glasses, and downed their champagne. Tonight was a night when everyone could drink to that.
Sonya found herself unable to fall asleep that night. She lay in bed beside Jerry, thinking of all that had come to pass. A son returned to her as a man to be proud of. A daughter and father reunited. A world pulling back from the brink of nuclear war. A Russian Spring not yet extinguished by the winter frost. A dream that might yet be fulfilled before it was too late.
Was she happy? It was hard to know. Gorchenko might never be allowed to take office. Jerry would probably not live out the year. What right did she have to be happy?
Perhaps it was the champagne, though she hadn’t drunk that much, but, yes, she did feel happy, whether she had a rational or moral right to that happiness or not. And she felt something else, something th
at she had never thought to feel again.
“Jerry, are you awake?” she whispered. And then, when he didn’t answer, louder. “Jerry, are you awake?”
“I am now,” he said.
“Jerry, I love you,” she said.
“I love you too, Sonya,” he muttered groggily.
“No, I really love you,” she said, and reached out to touch his thigh.
“What is it, Sonya?” Jerry said in a clearer voice.
“I don’t know, Jerry,” she said, “but I want to make love to you. Maybe it’s because I’m happy. Maybe because I’m afraid the world could still end tomorrow. Maybe because I’ve just remembered what it felt like. Maybe because . . . because I know I’m going to lose you.”
For a long moment, she could hear nothing but his breathing beside her in the darkness, breathing that would not even be possible were it not for the machine beside the bed. In her mind’s eye, she could see nothing but a mysterious stranger across a dull and stupid party. A bedroom in their first apartment on the Île St.-Louis. A comatose figure in a hospital bed. A distant face on a videotel screen. The father of her children. The man whom she had betrayed. The love of her life.
“Wot do ya say, ducks, ya think we can still do it?” she said in a hokey English accent. “I’ve always wanted to have a bit of the old in-and-out wiff a bloody cyborg.”
Jerry felt his heart racing as the hibernautika tried to cope with the blood rushing southward from his head. He could feel himself losing capillaries, he could imagine brain cells starving for oxygen, but that didn’t prevent his long-dormant manhood from rising to the challenge.
He hadn’t had a real sexual thought since the accident, and indeed, he had not felt anything that could really be called desire since Sonya had left him. But accident or not, whatever it was costing him, he had a hard-on now.
He could feel the blood humming behind his eardrums. He could feel his breath going short. He knew that what he was going to do might cost him weeks of life span, but he didn’t care.
“Don’t mind if I do, luv,” he said, and carefully unreeled a loop of his life-support cable and draped it over the nightstand, to give himself slack to move.
Then he rolled over onto his side and hugged her to him, kissing her gently, and let her guide him home.
They lay there side by side, only their hips moving, and it was very slow and easy, and it took a long sweet time to happen, but still, when it did, it left him gasping for air, with his heart thumping and a million stars occluding his vision, and he could feel brain cells dying and blood vessels popping, and a little bit of his life spurting out of his cock.
But it didn’t matter. He had been willing to give up that and more to walk on his own water alone.
And tonight a dying space cadet and the girl who had been his English porn star, against all the odds, and with the whole world against them, had walked on water together again too.
* * *
WILL DEAL ONLY WITH GORCHENKO, WOLFOWITZ DECLARES
The American President, Nathan Wolfowitz, has warned the Red Army Central Command to fulfill its promise to return the government of the Soviet Union to full civilian control.
“I will deal only with Constantin Gorchenko, the duly elected President of the Soviet Union,” he declared. “The United States may have been supporting tin-pot military dictators all over Latin America for longer than anyone cares to think about, but as long as I’m President of the United States, this country is going to stand up for what we profess to believe in, namely democratic governments elected by the people, throughout the world. The peoples of the Soviet Union have elected Constantin Gorchenko President, and that’s good enough for me. And if it’s not good enough for the Red Army, well, don’t call me, Marshal Bronksky, and believe me, I won’t be calling you.”
—Tass
RED ARMY CENTRAL COMMAND RETURNS POWER TO PRESIDENT GORCHENKO
With a tersely worded memorandum, the Red Army Central Command has returned full control of the Soviet government to the Administration of President Constantin Semyonovich Gorchenko.
“We have fulfilled our duty to preserve peace and order through the election, and now that our stated mission has been accomplished and the Soviet people have made their democratic choice, we relinquish all control of governmental functions to the duly elected representatives, as promised,” the short communiqué declared. “The Red Army now awaits its orders from the Soviet President to do its patriotic duty in a normal manner, and as quickly as possible.”
—Tass
* * *
XXIX
Sonya, despite all the dire speculation, had seen it coming all along, and so had most of the Russian bureaucrats in Paris.
How could the Red Army be expected to hand back power to the very man it dragged off Lenin’s tomb at gunpoint in the first place?
How could it not?
To a Soviet career bureaucrat, the move was inevitable. Just as Harry Carson had painted America into a corner—and then died before he had to face the consequences—so had Bronksky and the generals painted themselves into their own corner by issuing a toothless ultimatum that Nathan Wolfowitz had thrown back in their faces.
They might have used the election to save face by delaying the inevitable, but now that it was over, they were still sitting on the same hot stove.
If they sent the Red Army into the Ukraine, the Ukrainians would launch missiles at the fleet off their coast and the invading troop formations. If they attempted a preemptive strike at the Ukrainian missiles, the chances were excellent that the Americans would use Battlestar America to thwart it, while the Ukrainians made a nuclear strike at Russian population centers. After which, the Americans might even launch a preemptive strike at the Soviet Union themselves, thanks to Bronksky’s stupid threat to launch a strategic strike at them if the Ukrainians launched any of their American missiles.
But if they backed down, if they spinelessly acceded to the Ukrainian secession, other nationalities would only be encouraged to declare their own Soviet Socialist Republics independent sovereign states, and the Soviet Union would disintegrate within months or even weeks.
Whatever happened, the consequences would fall on the heads of whoever was in power. Surely rather than die their way out of it like Carson, the generals would much prefer to drop the mess they had made back in the lap of Constantin Gorchenko. If he failed, well, no one could blame the Red Army, could they? And if he somehow managed to avert catastrophe, why they could all give themselves medals for their patriotic dedication to Socialist Democracy.
The Red Army Central Command, was, after all, a bureaucracy, and even generals understood the first law thereof—cover your own ass!
Nathan Wolfowitz, however, not being a career Soviet bureaucrat, had perhaps never heard of the first law of bureaucracy, or at any rate had obviously been unwilling to leave things to chance. His support for Socialist Legality had dispelled any lingering thoughts of clinging to power on the part of the Red Army, and made him an unofficial Hero of the Soviet Union, but Sonya could not imagine what his own bureaucracy and his own people must be calling him now.
“What an amazing man this Wolfowitz is!” she declared as they all sat before the wall screen waiting for Constantin Gorchenko’s fateful first address to the Supreme Soviet since his restoration to power. “Never have I heard a politician use such blunt language or admit so openly to his own country’s crimes!”
“What about a guy named Gorbachev, Mom?” Robert reminded her.
“He calls himself the ‘American Gorbachev,’ doesn’t he, I had forgotten that,” Sonya said. “But even Gorbachev never got this far out ahead of public opinion in his own country. Won’t the jingo press and the American majority that voted for Carson crucify Wolfowitz for disowning their own criminal acts in Latin America, especially at a time like this?”
“Nat Wolfowitz never did give a shit about what people like that said about him,” Bobby told her. “ ‘The opprobrium of assholes
is a badge of honor,’ he told me one time.”
Constantin Gorchenko approached the outsized podium to the thunderous applause of two thirds of the Delegates. The Bears quite literally sat on their hands as a gesture of contempt while the Ethnic Nationalists sat there staring stonily into space.
Marshal Bronksky met Gorchenko at the foot of the podium, said a few words to him, actually shook his hand, and then departed, looking less like a dictator surrendering power than a small boy who had just escaped punishment for his misdeeds by the skin of his teeth.
Gorchenko himself looked grimly determined as he mounted to the speaker’s stand, but there was an ashen cast to his features visible even on television, a certain bloodlessness that gave Sonya a sudden chill, that made her wonder to what extent Gorchenko was really his own man, and to what extent he would be speaking words that the Red Army had put in his mouth.
“Citizens of the Soviet Union, Delegates to the Supreme Soviet, I thank you for the confidence you have placed in me, and I wish to assure you that I shall not waver in dedication to the task before us, which is to secure, once and for all, the territorial integrity of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and the unity of our great community of peoples against internal insurrection and the nefarious meddling of external powers.”
“What?” exclaimed Franja, as loud boos and hisses erupted from the Ethnic Nationalist seats, as the Bears stood up and applauded, and the Eurorussian majority sat there staring at each other in horror and befuddlement.
As Franja was staring at Sonya.
“What’s happening, Sonya?” Jerry said. “What’s gone wrong? You two look like you’ve seen Joe Stalin’s ghost.”
Russian Spring Page 70
