Page 146 of Edge of Eternity (The Century 3)

Dimka went back into the room in high excitement. Malinovsky, the defense minister, was speaking. Dimka went up to Khrushchev and said in a low voice: "A cable from Dobrynin--he's received a new offer from Bobby Kennedy."

"Tell everyone," Khrushchev said, interrupting the speaker.

Dimka repeated what he had been told.

Presidium members rarely smiled, but Dimka now saw broad grins around the table. Kennedy had given them everything they had asked for! It was a triumph for the Soviet Union and for Khrushchev personally.

"We must accept as quickly as possible," Khrushchev said. "Bring in a stenographer. I will dictate our letter of acceptance immediately, and it must be broadcast on Radio Moscow."

Malinovsky said: "When should I instruct Pliyev to start dismantling the missile launchers?"

Khrushchev looked at him as if he were stupid. "Now," he said.

*

After the Presidium, Dimka at last got Natalya alone. She was sitting in an anteroom, going through her notes of the meeting. "I have something to tell you," he said. For some reason he had a feeling of discomfort in his stomach, though he had nothing to be nervous about.

"Go ahead." She turned a page in her notebook.

He hesitated, feeling he did not have her attention.

Natalya put down the book and smiled.

Now or never.

Dimka said: "Nina and I are engaged to be married."

Natalya went pale and her mouth dropped open in shock.

Dimka felt the need to say something else. "We told my family yesterday," he said. "At my grandfather's birthday party." Stop gabbling, shut up, he told himself. "He's seventy-four."

When Natalya spoke, her words shocked him. "What about me?" she said.

He hardly understood what she meant. "You?" he said.

Her voice dropped to a whisper. "We spent a night together."

"I'll never forget it." Dimka was baffled. "But afterward, all you would say to me was that you were married."

"I was scared."

"Of what?"

Her face showed genuine distress. Her wide mouth was twisted in a grimace, almost as if she were in pain. "Don't get married, please!"

"Why not?"

"Because I don't want you to."

Dimka was flabbergasted. "Why didn't you tell me?"

"I didn't know what to do."

"But now it's too late."

"Is it?" She looked at him with pleading eyes. "You can break off an engagement . . . if you want to."

"Nina is going to have a baby."

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