Edge of Eternity (103 page)

“Wrong.” Opotkin liked to tell people they were wrong. “It's been scrapped. There's a new approach, the Ipatovo Method. They send fleets of combine harvesters all over the region.”

“Central control again, instead of individual responsibility.”

“Exactly.” He took the cigarette from his mouth. “You'll have to write a completely new article about the Ipatovo Method.”

“What does the regional first secretary say?”

“Young Gorbachev? He's implementing the new system.”

Of course he was, Tanya reflected. He was an intelligent man. He
knew when to shut up and do as he was told. Otherwise he would not have become first secretary.

“All right,” she said, stifling her anger. “I'll write a new piece.”

Opotkin nodded and walked away.

It had been too good to be true, Tanya thought: a new idea, bonuses paid for good results, improved harvests in consequence, no input required from Moscow. It was a miracle the system had been permitted for a few years. In the long run, such a system was totally out of the question.

Of course it was.

G
eorge Jakes wore a new tuxedo. He looked pretty good in it, he thought. At forty-two he no longer had the wrestler's physique he had been so proud of in his youth, but he was still slim and straight, and the black-and-white wedding uniform flattered him.

He stood in Bethel Evangelical Church, which his mother had been attending for decades, in the Washington suburb he now represented as congressman. It was a low brick building, small and plain, and normally it was decorated only with a few framed quotations from the Bible:
THE LORD IS MY SHEPHERD
and
IN THE BEGINNING WAS THE WORD
. But today it was decked out for celebration, with streamers and ribbons and masses of white flowers. The choir was belting out “Soon Come” while George waited for his bride.

In the front row, his mother wore a new dark-blue suit and a matching pillbox hat with a little veil. “Well, I'm glad,” Jacky had said when George told her he was getting married. “I'm fifty-eight years old, and I'm sorry you waited so gosh-darn long, but I'm happy you got here in the end.” Her tongue was always sharp, but today she could not keep the proud smile from her face. Her son was getting married in her church, in front of all her friends and neighbors, and on top of that he was a congressman.

Next to her was George's father, Senator Greg Peshkov. Somehow he was able to make even a tuxedo look like creased pajamas. He had forgotten to put cuff links in his shirt, and his bow tie looked like a dead moth. No one minded.

Also in the front row were George's Russian grandparents, Lev and Marga, now in their eighties. Both looked frail, but they had flown from Buffalo for the wedding of their grandson.

By showing up at the wedding, and sitting in the front row, George's white father and grandparents were admitting the truth to the world; but no one cared. This was 1978, and what had once been a secret disgrace now hardly mattered.

The choir began to sing “You Are So Beautiful” and everyone turned and looked back toward the church door.

Verena came in on the arm of her father, Percy Marquand. George gasped when he saw her, and so did several people in the congregation. She wore a daring off-the-shoulder white dress that was tight to midthigh, then flared to a train. The caramel skin of her bare shoulders was as soft and smooth as the satin of her dress. She looked so wonderful it hurt. George felt tears sting his eyes.

The service passed in a blur. George managed to make the right responses, but all he could think was that Verena was his, now, forever.

The ceremony was folksy, but there was nothing modest about the wedding breakfast thrown afterward by the bride's father. Percy rented Pisces, a Georgetown nightclub that featured a twenty-foot waterfall at the entrance emptying into a giant goldfish pond on the floor below, and an aquarium in the middle of the dance floor.

George and Verena's first dance was to the Bee Gees' “Stayin' Alive.” George was not much of a dancer, but it hardly mattered: everyone was looking at Verena, holding up her train with one hand while disco-dancing. George was so happy he wanted to hug everyone.

The second person to dance with the bride was Ted Kennedy, who had come without his wife, Joan: there were rumors that they had split. Jacky grabbed the handsome Percy Marquand. Verena's mother, Babe Lee, danced with Greg.

George's cousin Dave Williams, the pop star, was there with his sexy wife, Beep, and their five-year-old son, John Lee, named after the blues singer John Lee Hooker. The boy danced with his mother, and strutted so expertly that he made everyone laugh: he must have seen
Saturday Night Fever.

Elizabeth Taylor danced with her latest husband, the millionaire would-be senator John Warner. Liz was wearing the famous square-cut thirty-three-carat Krupp diamond on the ring finger of her right hand. Seeing all this through a mist of euphoria, George realized dazedly that
his wedding had turned into one of the outstanding social events of the year.

George had invited Maria Summers, but she had declined. After their brief love affair had ended in a quarrel, they had not spoken for a year. George had been hurt and bewildered. He did not know how he was supposed to live his life: the rules had changed. He also felt resentful. Women wanted a new deal, and they expected him to know, without being told, what the deal was, and to agree to it without negotiation.

Then Verena had emerged from seven years of obscurity. She had started her own lobbying company in Washington, specializing in civil rights and other equality issues. Her initial clients were small pressure groups who could not afford to employ their own full-time lobbyist. The rumor that Verena had once been a Black Panther seemed only to give her greater credibility. Before long she and George were an item again.

Verena seemed to have changed. One evening she said: “Dramatic gestures have their place in politics, but in the end advances are made by patient legwork: drafting legislation and talking to the media and winning votes.” You've grown up, George thought, and he only just stopped himself from saying it.

The new Verena wanted marriage and children, and felt sure she could have both and a career too. Once burned, George did not again put his hand in the fire: if that was what she thought, it was not up to him to argue.

George had written a tactful letter to Maria, beginning: “I don't want you to hear this from someone else.” He had told her that he and Verena were together again and talking about marriage. Maria had replied in tones of warm friendship, and their relationship had reverted to what it had been before Nixon resigned. But she remained single, and did not come to the wedding.

Taking a break from dancing, George sat down with his father and grandfather. Lev was downing champagne with relish and telling jokes. A Polish cardinal had been made Pope, and Lev had a fund of bad-taste Polish Pope jokes. “He did a miracle—made a blind man deaf!”

Greg said: “I think this is a highly aggressive political move by the Vatican.”

George was surprised by that, but Greg usually had grounds for what he said. “How so?” said George.

“Catholicism is more popular in Poland than elsewhere in Eastern Europe, and the Communists aren't strong enough to repress religion there as they have in all other countries. There's a Polish religious press, a Catholic university, and various charities that get away with sheltering dissidents and noting human rights abuses.”

George said: “So what is the Vatican up to?”

“Mischief. I believe they see Poland as the Soviet Union's weak spot. This Polish Pope will do more than wave at tourists from the balcony—you watch.”

George was about to ask what the Pope
would
do when the room went quiet and he realized that President Carter had arrived.

Everyone applauded, even the Republicans. The president kissed the bride, shook hands with George, and accepted a glass of pink champagne, although he took only one sip.

While Carter was talking to Percy and Babe, who were long-term Democratic fund-raisers, one of the president's aides approached George. After a few pleasantries the man said: “Would you consider serving on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence?”

George was flattered. Congressional committees were important. A seat on a committee was a source of power. “I've been in Congress only two years,” he said.

The aide nodded. “The president is keen to advance black congressmen, and Tip O'Neill agrees.” Tip O'Neill was the House majority leader, who had the prerogative of granting committee seats.

George said: “I'll be glad to serve the president any way I can—but intelligence?”

The CIA and other intelligence agencies reported to the president and the Pentagon, but they were authorized, funded, and in theory controlled by Congress. For security, control was delegated to two committees, one in the House and one in the Senate.

“I know what you're thinking,” said the aide. “Intelligence committees are usually packed with conservative friends of the military. You're a
liberal who has criticized the Pentagon over Vietnam and the CIA over Watergate. But that's why we want you. At present those committees don't oversee, they just applaud. And intelligence agencies that think they can get away with murder will commit murder. So we need someone in there asking tough questions.”

“The intelligence community is going to be horrified.”

“Good,” said the aide. “After the way they behaved in the Nixon era, they need to be shaken up.” He glanced across the dance floor. Following his gaze, George saw that President Carter was leaving. “I have to go,” the aide said. “Do you want time to think?”

“Hell, no,” said George. “I'll do it.”

•   •   •

“Godmother? Me?” said Maria Summers. “Are you serious?”

George Jakes smiled. “I know you're not very religious. We're not, either, not really. I go to church to please my mother. Verena has been once in the last ten years, and that was for our wedding. But we like the idea of godparents.”

They were having lunch in the Members' Dining Room of the House of Representatives, on the ground floor of the Capitol building, sitting in front of the famous fresco
Cornwallis Sues for Cessation of Hostilities.
Maria was eating meat loaf; George had a salad.

Maria said: “When's the baby due?”

“A month or so—early April.”

“How is Verena feeling?”

“Terrible. Lethargic and impatient at the same time. And tired, always tired.”

“It will soon be over.”

George brought her back to the question. “Will you be godmother?”

She evaded it again. “Why have you asked me?”

He thought for a moment. “Because I trust you, I guess. I probably trust you more than anyone outside my family. If Verena and I died in a plane crash, and our parents were too old or dead, I feel confident that you would make sure my children were cared for, somehow.”

Maria was evidently moved. “It's kind of wonderful to be told that.”

George thought, but did not say, that it was now unlikely Maria
would have children of her own—she would be forty-four this year, he calculated—and that meant she had a lot of spare maternal affection to give to the children of her friends.

She was already like family. His friendship with her had lasted almost twenty years. She still went to see Jacky several times a year. Greg liked Maria, too, as did Lev and Marga. It was hard not to like her.

George did not give voice to any of these considerations, but instead said: “It would mean a lot to Verena and me if you would do it.”

“Is it really what Verena wants?”

George smiled. “Yes. She knows that you and I had a relationship, but she's not the jealous type. Matter of fact, she admires you for what you've achieved in your career.”

Maria looked at the men in the fresco, with their eighteenth-century coats and boots, and said: “Well, I guess I'll be like General Cornwallis, and surrender.”

“Thank you!” said George. “I'm very happy. I'd order champagne, but I know you wouldn't drink it in the middle of a working day.”

“Maybe when the baby is born.”

The waitress picked up their plates and they asked for coffee. “How are things in the State Department?” George asked. Maria was now a big shot there. Her title was deputy assistant secretary, a post more influential than it sounded.

“We're trying to figure out what's happening in Poland,” she said. “It's not easy. We think there's a lot of criticism of the government from inside the United Workers' Party, which is the Communist Party. Workers are poor, the elite are too privileged, and the ‘propaganda of success' just calls attention to the reality of failure. National income actually fell last year.”

“You know I'm on the House intelligence committee.”

“Of course.”

“Are you getting good information from the agencies?”

“It's good, as far as we know, but there's not enough of it.”

“Would you like me to ask about that in the committee?”

“Yes, please.”

“It may be that we need additional intelligence personnel in Warsaw.”

“I think we do. Poland could be important.”

George nodded. “That's what Greg said when the Vatican elected a Polish Pope. And he's usually right.”

•   •   •

At the age of forty, Tanya became dissatisfied with her life.

She asked herself what she wanted to do with her next forty years, and found that she did not want to spend them as an acolyte to Vasili Yenkov. She had risked her freedom to share his genius with the world, but that had done nothing for her. It was time she focused on her own needs, she decided. What that meant, she did not know.

Her discontent came to a head at a party to celebrate the award of the Lenin Prize in literature to Leonid Brezhnev's memoirs. The award was risible: the three volumes of the Soviet leader's autobiography were not well written, not true, and not even by Brezhnev, having been ghostwritten. But the writers' union saw the prize as a useful pretext for a shindig.

Getting ready for the party, Tanya put her hair in a ponytail like Olivia Newton-John in the movie
Grease,
which she had seen on an illicit videotape. The new hairstyle did not cheer her up as much as she had hoped.

As she was leaving the building, she ran into her brother in the lobby, and told him where she was going. “I see that your protégé, Gorbachev, made a fulsome speech in praise of Comrade Brezhnev's literary genius,” she said.

“Mikhail knows when to kiss ass,” Dimka said.

“You did well to get him onto the Central Committee.”

“He already had the support of Andropov, who likes him,” Dimka explained. “All I had to do was persuade Kosygin that Gorbachev is a genuine reformer.” Andropov, the KGB chief, was increasingly the leader of the conservative faction in the Kremlin; Kosygin the champion of the reformers.