Page 44 of Edge of Eternity (The Century 3)

"He's down by the sea," a guard told Dimka, jerking his head toward the far side of the house.

Dimka found his way through the trees to a shingle beach. A soldier with a submachine gun looked hard at him, then waved him on.

He found Khrushchev under a palm tree. The second-most powerful man in the world was short, fat, bald, and ugly. He wore the trousers of a suit, held up by suspenders, and a white shirt with the sleeves rolled. He was sitting on a wicker beach chair, and on a small table in front of him were a jug of water and a glass tumbler. He seemed to be doing nothing.

He looked at Dimka and said: "Where did you get those shorts?"

"My mother made them."

"I should have a pair of shorts."

Dimka said the words he had rehearsed. "Comrade First Secretary, I offer you my immediate resignation."

Khrushchev ignored that. "We will overtake the United States, in military might and economic prosperity, within the next twenty years," he said, as if he were continuing an ongoing discussion. "But, meanwhile, how do we prevent the stronger power from dominating global politics and holding back the spread of world Communism?"

"I don't know," said Dimka.

"Watch this," said Khrushchev. "I am the Soviet Union." He picked up the jug and poured water slowly into the glass until it was full to the brim. Then he handed the jug to Dimka. "You are the United States," he said. "Now you pour water into the glass."

Dimka did as he was told. The glass overflowed, and water soaked into the white tablecloth.

"You see?" said Khrushchev as if he had proved a point. "When the glass is full, no more can be added without making a mess."

Dimka was mystified. He asked the expected question. "What's the significance of this, Nikita Sergeyevich?"

"International politics is like a glass. Aggressive moves by either side pour water in. The overflow is war."

Dimka saw the point. "When tension is at its maximum, no one can make a move without causing a war."

"Well done. And the Americans do not want war, any more than we do. So, if we maintain international tension at the maximum--full to the brim--the American president is helpless. He cannot do anything without causing war, so he must do nothing!"

Dimka realized this was brilliant. It showed how the weaker power could dominate. "So Kennedy is now powerless?" he said.

"Because his next move is war!"

Had this been Khrushchev's long-term plan, Dimka wondered? Or had he just made it up as a hindsight justification? He was nothing if not an improviser. But it hardly mattered. "So, what are we going to do about the crisis in Berlin?" he said.

"We're going to build a wall," said Khrushchev.

CHAPTER NINE

George Jakes took Verena Marquand to the Jockey Club for lunch. It was not a club, but a swanky new restaurant in the Fairfax Hotel that had found favor with the Kennedy crowd. George and Verena were the best-dressed couple in the room, she ravishing in a gingham check frock with a wide red belt, he in a tailored dark-blue linen blazer with a striped tie. Nevertheless, they were given a table by the kitchen door. Washington was integrated, but not unprejudiced. George did not let it get to him.

Verena was in town with her parents. They had been invited to the White House later today for a cocktail party being given to thank high-profile supporters such as the Marquands--and, George knew, to keep their goodwill for the next campaign.

Verena looked around appreciatively. "It's a long time since I was in a decent restaurant," she said. "Atlanta is a desert." With parents who were Hollywood stars, she had been raised to think lavish was normal.

"You should move here," George told her, looking into her startling green eyes. The sleeveless dress showed off the perfection of her cafe-au-lait skin, and she surely knew it. If she were to move to Washington, he would ask her for a date.

George was trying to forget Maria Summers. He was dating Norine Latimer, a history graduate who worked as a secretary at the National Museum of American History. She was attractive and intelligent, but it was not working: he still thought about Maria all the time. Perhaps Verena might be a more effective cure.

He kept all that to himself, naturally. "You're o

ut of the swim, all the way down there in Georgia," he said.

"Don't be so sure," she said. "I'm working for Martin Luther King. He's going to change America more than John F. Kennedy."

"That's because Dr. King has only one issue, civil rights. The president has a hundred. He's the defender of the free world. Right now his major worry is Berlin."

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