Page 281 of Edge of Eternity (The Century 3)

"She's angry, because you caused her daughter such pain. But she also said that when she fell in love with Lloyd she was already married to someone else, so she does not feel entitled to too much moral indignation."

"Well, anyway, I'm sorry."

"Thank you."

"Except that I'm not really sorry."

"What do you mean?"

"I went to bed with Hank because I fell in love with him. Since that first time, I've spent almost every night with him. He's the most wonderful man I've ever met, and I'm going to marry him, if ever I can nail his foot to the floor."

"As your brother, I'm entitled to ask what on earth he sees in you."

"Other than big tits, you mean?" She laughed.

"Not that you aren't good-looking, but you are a few years older than Hank, and there are about a million nubile maidens in England who would jump into his bed at a snap of his fingers."

She nodded. "Two things. First, he's clever but undereducated. I'm his tour guide to the world of the mind: art, theater, politics, literature. He's enchanted by someone who talks to him about that stuff without condescending."

Jasper was not surprised. "He used to love to talk to Daisy and Lloyd about all that. But what's the other thing?"

"You know he's my second lover."

Jasper nodded. Girls were not supposed to admit this sort of thing, but he and Anna had always known about each other's exploits.

She went on: "Well, I was with Sebastian almost four years. In that length of time, a girl learns a lot. Hank knows very little about sex, because he's never kept a girlfriend long enough to develop real intimacy. Evie was his longest relationship, and she was too young to teach a man much."

"I see." Jasper had never thought this way about relationships, but it made sense. He was a bit like Hank. He wondered whether women thought him unsophisticated in bed.

"Hank learned a lot from a singer called Mickie McFee, but he only slept with her twice."

"Really? Dave Williams shagged her in a dressing room."

"And Dave told you?"

"I think he told everyone. It may have been his first shag."

"Mickie McFee gets around."

"So, you're Hank's love tutor."

"He le

arns fast. And he's growing up quickly. What he did to Evie, he will never do again."

Jasper was not sure he believed that, but he did not voice his misgivings.

*

Dimka Dvorkin flew to Vietnam in February 1965 along with a large group of Foreign Ministry officials and aides, including Natalya Smotrov.

It was Dimka's first trip outside the Soviet Union. But he was even more excited about being with Natalya. He was not sure what was going to happen, but he had an exhilarating sense of liberation, and he could tell she felt the same. They were far away from Moscow, out of range of his wife and Natalya's husband. Anything could happen.

Dimka was feeling more optimistic in general. Kosygin, his boss since the fall of Khrushchev, understood that the Soviet Union was losing the Cold War because of its economy. Soviet industry was inefficient, and Soviet citizens were poor. Kosygin's aim was to make the USSR more productive. The Soviets had to learn how to manufacture things that people of other countries might want to buy. They had to compete with the Americans in prosperity, not just in tanks and missiles. Only then would they have a hope of converting the world to their way of life. This attitude heartened Dimka. Brezhnev, the leader, was woefully conservative, but perhaps Kosygin could reform Communism.

Part of the economic problem was that so much of the national income was spent on the military. In the hope of reducing this crippling expense, Khrushchev had come up with the policy of peaceful coexistence, living side by side with the capitalists without fighting wars. Khrushchev had not done much to implement the idea: his quarrels in Berlin and Cuba had required more military expenditure, not less. But progressive thinkers in the Kremlin still believed in the strategy.

Vietnam would be a severe test.

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