“But your poll numbers are higher than the President’s.” I remembered hearing that in a Moscow briefing. She was rated “good” by 67 percent of Americans polled, as opposed to her husband’s 58 percent.
“I’ve still been called impudent, presumptuous, meddling. A traitor to my class, a bucktoothed horror, a Negro lover, a Jew lover.” She shrugged. “I have heard it all.”
“Have they called you a cold-blooded killer?” I couldn’t repeat the worse ones to her: Red bitch, communist slut . . .
“ ‘A cold-blooded killer with no mercy for the poor enemy soldiers who are merely following the orders of their senior command’？” Eleanor quoted. “I thought that one bothered you the most.”
“What do these journalists think I should do, nicely ask all those enemy soldiers to leave? Do they think that would work?”
“I believe they didn’t know what to think, meeting you. But they’re beginning to change their tune, thanks to all your recent public appearances.”
“What, because they are starting to get to know me? To like me?” My words came out mocking, but she nodded.
“Is that so impossible? I wasn’t at all sure I would like you when I first met you, but I have gotten to know you . . . and now I do like you. The American people are beginning to do the same. Which is why, if you wish to help sway public opinion about sending American soldiers to Europe to aid the USSR, you should consider extending your speaking tour even further.”
“I do as my delegation and the Party dictate,” I said, heart sinking. Yuri wasn’t the only one who had to follow a directive.
“I know you don’t want to. I know you dislike the spotlight.” The First Lady bit off a thread. “I disliked it, too. I remember my knees shaking the first time I gave a speech.”
I could not imagine it, not at all. “How did you do it? Become good at it?”
“I reminded myself that you must do the thing you think you cannot do,” she said simply. “Always. And generally you find out you can do it, after all.”
“But what if you can’t?” I burst out. “What if you fail?”
“You try again—”
“No.” I shook my head, reflexive. “It does not work that way. You cannot count on the world giving you second chances when you fail.”
She looked thoughtful. “Is that a rule you’ve made for yourself?”
“The most important rule there is.” I quoted the words that breathed in my bones. “Don’t miss.”
“Oh, my dear. That is no rule to live by.”
“It is for a sniper!”
“You think such a rule is exclusive to snipers? Most women are haunted by the fear of missing. Of failing.”
I blinked, taken aback. “It kept me alive.”
“And clearly made you into a brave soldier, but a frightened woman.” The First Lady laid down her needle, looking at me with those piercing eyes. “Everyone fails, Lyudmila. I’ve failed. My husband has failed—you think all his New Deal proposals were dazzling successes? He has proposed initiatives that have fallen flat; he has espoused positions for which he has rightly been condemned; he has hosts of enemies who would happily see him dead.” A shadow crossed her face at that. “He has failed at more than most men ever try . . . but better that than not to try at all.”
“He is a man,” I said harshly, “and an American. He makes mistakes, and the world makes him the only three-term president in your history. The world is not so kind to a woman’s mistakes.”
“Agreed,” she said, surprising me again. “Which is why we women are especially prone to believe we must never stumble. But constant perfection is something at which we will always fail, all of us. And despite what you may think, the world won’t smite you for the occasional misfire. I daresay you didn’t down every enemy you ever had in your sights on the front—yet you’re still here, alive, wearing my pajamas. You lost the man you loved—yet I daresay you don’t regret loving him, and you may very well have another chance for love someday, because you are very lovable.” She picked up her needle and began stitching again. “If at first one doesn’t succeed . . . well, I’ll spare you the somewhat obnoxious little rhyme I learned in childhood, but trying again is something we Yanks believe in very strongly.”