“Us.” Just as he’d said when I rejoined him in Sevastopol after being evacuated from Odessa. “Just us.”
How I wished for a bottle of vodka and a little privacy. We could have got utterly smashed as we did when Lyonya died, cried it out on each other’s shoulders, grieved and raged and come out the other side. That was what you did when you lost your friends in war. But here we were on a Washington balcony, about to be called away any minute now for some blasted official function, and I didn’t know how to fight through the grief that thickened the air between us like amber.
“Kostia,” I began, not even sure what I was going to ask him. I still have your copy of War and Peace if you want it? Do you forgive me for yanking you along on this trip, when you’d probably rather be at the front avenging our friends? Do you think I want to be here, either, with all the lights and the idiotic questions?
“There you are.” Krasavchenko’s loud voice made us both jump. “We’re leaving for Mrs. Haabe’s house, only the Cadillac won’t hold the three of us delegates and the interpreters.”
“I thought perhaps Mrs. Pavlichenko might travel with me,” the First Lady was suggesting as I stubbed out my cigarette and came back inside, the frustration hastily wiped off my face. “I drove myself over, and my car has room for a passenger.”
“Me?” I hadn’t forgotten her words that morning: It will be hard for American women to approve of you. I’d taken that to mean that she didn’t approve of me. So why was she inviting me to ride in her private car?
I looked at her now, really looked: such a tall woman, neat rather than fashionable, an air of energy around her like the crackle of a coming storm. Her teeth prominent, her eyes kind, her smile as she looked down at me unmistakably friendly. “I would welcome the chance to know you better, Lyudmila dear.”
IT WOULD BE fair to say that I do not frighten easily. I’d lived through the siege of Odessa, I’d survived the fall of Sevastopol. I’d earned the nickname Lady Death.
Well, Lady Death had never been so certain she was about to die.
“Harry Hopkins will be present at dinner; he has been a great advocate of rapprochement between our countries.” The First Lady rocketed her little two-seat convertible down the broad Washington avenues like she was piloting a tornado. We’d left the embassy Cadillac and both the Soviet and American security patrols behind at the first stoplight; it was all I could do to hang on and try to follow her English. Were presidents’ wives allowed to do this? I tried to imagine Comrade Stalin’s wife （should he have one） zooming around Moscow like an unescorted missile, and my imagination failed utterly. “Harry is keen to speak with you about the fighting at Leningrad, Odessa, and Sevastopol.”
“I did not fight at Leningrad, Mrs. Roosevelt.” I squeezed myself back into the seat as we approached a turn. For the love of Lenin, she had to slow down to turn, right?
“Wherever you’ve fought, he’ll be glad to hear details.” She threw the convertible around the curve very nearly on two wheels. I gripped the door handle. “He’s long been advising the President that though you Russians may have withstood a blow of unprecedented German force, the time has come to offer help.”
“Past time,” I couldn’t help saying, trying not to scowl.
“We do understand your country’s dire need of a second front, Lyudmila dear.” Mrs. Roosevelt’s voice was mild but very firm, even as she flung the car down another long avenue. “Perhaps you are not aware of the difficulties we face in taking such a measure. We have our hands full in the Pacific—the fall of Singapore, the retreat from the Philippines. There are those who argue we must concentrate upon Japan, not split ourselves between the Pacific and Europe, and such concerns must be addressed.”
I blinked. It was not something I had really considered—that the Americans too might be struggling to allot their resources in this war. They had so many resources that sending us aid had seemed a simple matter to me, something to be accomplished with the wave of a presidential hand. Of course it was not. In the dark, I felt myself reddening—maybe I’d knocked the First Lady off-balance at breakfast, but she’d done it to me now with a few deft words.