The Summer Garden (122 page)

“Being signed is not arms reduction,” interjected Harry. “But whatever. One of the reasons SALT II has a good chance of being signed is because this President approved the deployment of the MX missile and the installation of the Pershings in Europe to bring the Soviet Union to the negotiating table by telling them in no uncertain terms that their arms build-up was not going to fly with him. Four wars this century was all this President was going to go for.”

“The MX and the Pershing were instrumental, Harry,” said Alexander. “They brought the Soviets to the table. But the SDI is what’s making them stand on this table on their heads.”

“Oh, what does SDI have to do with SALT?” Anthony exclaimed, struggling to keep his voice low.

“This is what I mean by completely missing the point!” returned Alexander, not keeping his low at all. He put his glass down and turned to his son. “Don’t you get it? SDI is everything! And it’s not about what Harry thinks about SDI, or what you think and your journalist supporters think about SDI, or even what our President thinks about SDI. It’s only about one thing—what do the Soviets think about SDI?”

“Who the fuck cares? Sorry, Mom.” Anthony barely apologized—as if she needed it, having lived with a soldier for 44 years.

“Anthony.” This was Tatiana and her voice was mild, and Anthony took a breath, and took a drink and, shaking his frustrated head, turned his face to his mother. “Don’t get defensive. You’re not listening to your dad. Listen. He is saying it doesn’t matter if
you
think SDI can’t work—no, Harry, let me finish,” she said across the island to her son, who was already opening his mouth in protest. “I know
you
think it can. I’m saying that for Anthony’s purposes, it doesn’t
matter
if it can. The only thing that matters,” said Tatiana, “is whether the Soviets think it can.” She gazed at Alexander across the island. “Shura, tell me, do the Soviets think it can work?”

“Fuckin’a they think it can work,” said Alexander, slapping the island with the palm of his hand. “The Soviets have panicked so thoroughly, it would be funny if it weren’t so shocking. Ant, the Soviet Union has bent over to accommodate the United States with regard to SALT II. Just in our preliminary discussions, they have agreed to dismantle a whole range of their atomic weapons, which as you know they have not agreed to do in forty years. They have agreed to move their ICBMs out of Europe! I mean, that’s fucking astonishing,” said Alexander, not apologizing to anyone for anything. “They’ve agreed to almost all of our other demands with respect to reducing their nuclear arms. And do you know what they want in return?” Alexander paused and stared intently at his son. “
All
they want in return is that we do not pursue SDI.” Alexander laughed. “I mean, come on! I have never heard of a louder bell ringing for supporting anything.”

Tatiana laughed, too.

“Yes, Dad,” said Harry, “but just one small addendum—”

“Yes, son, I know, I know,” said Alexander, putting his paternal, affectionate arm around Harry. “Our resident nuclear physicist thinks it will work. That’s great. It doesn’t matter. The Soviets think it will work, and that’s
all
that matters.”

Anthony sat quietly. He smoked. He finished his drink. Alexander poured him another. He looked at Pasha, at Harry, who mouthed to him,
It will work
, rolled his eyes, and said in a thoughtful voice, “I’m hearing something from you here that I’m not quite sure I’m understanding.” He looked at Alexander. “Tell me this. SDI is slated to be a defense system, right, but this is the part I don’t get: how is development of
our
nuclear defense system supposed to promote
their
nuclear
disarmament
? How is SDI going to help spur the Soviets to want to disarm? I would think it’d be just the opposite. They’ll just be developing new weapons that can penetrate the shield, no?”

Alexander was very quiet. Tatiana was very quiet. They looked only at each other. Then it was Tatiana who spoke. “No. They’ll just be trying to build their own SDI, Ant.”

“Excuse me?”

“Son,” said Alexander, “do you know why the Soviets are so frantic? Because they think we are not building a defense system but an
offense
system. That we’re hiding behind words like disarmament, and SALT, and treaties, and accommodation, just as they hide behind their civilian steel plants while using those plants to produce a hundred thousand tanks to invade Afghanistan. They think that we’re going to hide behind the shield of SDI and nuke them back to the stone age as soon as it’s operational. This is why they want us to abandon working on it. If they didn’t think it could be successful, they wouldn’t care how much money we poured into it. But they sense our imminent superiority of nuclear weapons systems that their pride and sense of self-preservation simply cannot allow—the same way that at the end of World War Two they killed an additional million of their men to get to the enriched uranium factories around Berlin just days before the Americans did, and then engaged in feverish espionage to develop their atomic program.” Alexander narrowed his eyes at Anthony. “And you know I know something about
that
, having been at the forefront of those million men, pushing my penal battalion into Germany.”

Alexander poured everyone the rest of the champagne. “The Soviets have asked our President to stop, and he said no. SDI will continue. In their panic, the Soviets are at this very minute figuring out a way to plunge every resource they have into creating an SDI of their own.” He spoke slowly and very deliberately. Tatiana knew he wanted Anthony to understand fully what he was saying. “But how do you think the Soviets will manage this? Where are they going to find the money for SDI?”

“Where are they going to find the money for SDI?” Anthony repeated incredulously.

“Yes, ask your mathematically-minded mother, Ant. What is her opinion? We’d like to know.” Alexander smiled at Tatiana. “Tell your son, Tatia—to achieve perceived offensive nuclear parity with the United States, will the Soviets risk
bankrupting
their country, or will they do the prudent thing and not pursue crazy scientific notions, but instead believe our President—who has pledged that once he develops the technology, he will share it—disarm their missile heads and
save
their country?”

Tatiana smiled and said nothing. “Your father is just presenting all sides, Ant, all actions, reactions, weights, counterweights, measures, countermeasures, points, counterpoints. He is balancing the scales for you. It is your choice entirely what you do.”

Anthony groaned, his father laughed, his brothers laughed.

“Tatiana,” said Alexander, “don’t be coy. Don’t tell him the choice is his. Answer my question. Help your son.”

“I think, and I could be completely wrong,” said Tatiana—her palms down on her granite island that her husband built for her so they could sit around it and discuss matters of their life, large and small, like this—“that the Soviets will bankrupt their country to develop their own SDI.”

In disbelief, Anthony shook his head. For a minute or two he didn’t speak. “Look, you’re my mother,” he said at last, “and I—forgive me if I remain skeptical. You can’t tell me that the Soviet Union, one of the richest-resourced industrial countries won’t have the money for a little research and development! They have plenty of money. And if this is important to them, they’ll come up with the money, the way they came up with it for the atomic bomb during Dad’s time. They didn’t go bankrupt then. They’ll just do what they have to; they always had, they always will. They’ll rearrange their priorities, they’ll divert their resources, as all countries do—including our own—to pursue their agenda.”

“Ant, son, they can and they absolutely will do just that.” Tatiana looked at Alexander. “But you know,
perestroika, glasnost, solidarnost
, they all cost money. And I’m not saying they don’t have the money.” Tatiana paused. “I’m saying they’re going to have a hard time coming up with it.” She paused again and then said, “They’ll have to
divert their resources
.”

Anthony was quiet himself. “What are you two are telling me?” he asked. “Just so we’re straight here. Are you telling me to stake my career and reputation on the belief that the Soviets will break their country to develop their own SDI?” He stared at his mother.

“We’re just laying it out in front of you, Ant,” said Tatiana.

Anthony, looking exasperated with his mother, turned to his father. “Dad, I’m going to be the principal military advisor to the President of the United States. He is going to need my head to be on straight if I’m going to counsel him to relentlessly develop SDI. You know how I feel about it. Do you think it’s viable for the Soviets to pursue their own? And if they do, is Mom right? Will it matter in the long run?”

“Those are very good questions, son,” said Alexander. “I’ll try not to be as oblique as your mother. She really has been beating around the bush too long. Tania, you must learn to be more direct so your children and husband can understand you.” He grinned at her, and turned his face to Anthony. “Let’s see,” Alexander said. “Yes, I think the Soviets will pursue developing this unfeasible system. Harry, please!” he exclaimed. “What I meant was, this feasible, workable, fabulous system. Is it viable for them to do it? Viable? That I don’t know. Probably not. They’re already stretched to the limits in the war in Afghanistan they’ve been fruitlessly fighting for six years. Not just stretched to the limits, but they’ve been borrowing from World Bank to pay for their little war. They owe more money to the World Bank than 172 other countries. There are only 175 countries in the world.”

Everyone laughed.

“On top of the Afghani war,” Alexander continued cheerfully, taking a drink of champagne and lighting his cigarette, “they are heavily subsidizing
all
their Eastern satellites—East Germany, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Romania, Hungary, Bulgaria. Plus they are funding a standing army of millions of Soviet men across the breadth and width of Eastern Europe. They’re paying for the Czech wall and its guards, they’re paying for the Berlin Wall and its guards. They’re paying for the guards around Lech Walesa’s prison cell, for the guards to keep the Poles out of churches. Is it viable for them to divert their resources from this, Ant? Away from the Berlin Wall and into SDI?” Alexander shrugged and smiled. “Perhaps it is. Perhaps that’s where they should divert their resources from. If they can’t defend it, the wall is coming down, Walesa is free, and the Catholics attend Mass in Krakow. The Soviets are having a very hard time keeping Christ away from Polish Communists. But they are also funding every new rebellion in Africa and South America, and subsidizing Cuba and Vietnam. And insurgencies in Angola, Ethiopia, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Grenada. Creating chaos throughout the world doesn’t come cheap, you know.” Alexander’s eyes were glazed over Tatiana, as if he were remembering something, perhaps about chaos in the universe where all was one, where all was all right, and all was reconciled—and then he went on. “In 1979,” he said, “the Soviets paid for the Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia and to help them repel the Chinese invasion. The same year they overextended themselves into invading Afghanistan. They continue to fund and supply the Vietnamese Army, one of the largest standing armies in the world. Why do they do it? And what does Vietnam still need an army like that for? Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam, they’re all
one
.” Now he smiled at Tatiana. “The Soviet Union produces
nothing
of value except gold and oil, and with the Gulag machine disassembling, labor, cheap as it is, is no longer free. The criminal prisoners alone are not enough to prop up the command economy of the Soviet state. So Anthony Barrington, my son, your third question is, you want to know if I think—with their hands already so deep in every pot—the Soviets should spend hundreds of billions of rubles they don’t have on the stupidest thing
you
have ever heard of?” Alexander laughed. “But of course, I say. They
must
!”

CODA

“Farewell, queen,” said he, “henceforward and for ever, till age and death, the common lot of mankind, lay their hands upon you. I now take my leave; be happy in this house with your children, your people, and with king Alcinous.”

H
OMER
, The Odyssey

One

Many years passed since the seagulls in Stockholm
, Sweden, and the hospital in Morozovo and the hut in Lazarevo; and many more still since the granite parapets in the finite twilight of the Northern sun.

It was Thanksgiving 1999.

While two turkeys were peaceably hiding in two ovens, the house was a zoo. Five opinionated women were in the kitchen, five loud cooks to spoil the broth. One was making mashed potatoes, one was making green bean casserole, one was cooking sweet potatoes. The loudest of all was adjusting her nursing bra, making milk, and the quietest of all was making bacon leek stuffing and yams with rum and a brown sugar glaze. Seven preadolescent and teenage girls were flung over the kitchen table gabbing about music and makeup, toys and boys. Next to them was a small infant seat and in it a small infant. The young girls were impatiently waiting for their grandmother to finish the leek stuffing and make the preacher cookies she’d been promising.

Across the long, sunny gallery, in the den, five mature professional men were cursing at an inanimate rectangular object on which the Cowboys were being carved up by the Dolphins. A toddler sat on his grandfather’s lap with his grandfather’s large hands over his ears.

Four boys were running in a pack around the house, at the moment playing ping pong polo. Three boys and one gangly twenty-year-old were playing basketball outside. Music piped through the speakers. The house was so loud that when the doorbell rang no one heard.

It’s the end of November, and outside is 72 degrees. They’re all going in the heated pool after dinner.