The End of War - A Novel of the Race for Berlin - [World War II 02] (45 page)

He pulls his face from the glowing window. He wants no more Georgia strangers looking in at him. He eases his head against the seat back. His secretary Grace Tully moves down the aisle to him. She braces herself with each step against the rocking floor.

“Mr. President. We’re almost at the station. Let me take these papers and put them away.”

“Toss ‘em out the window.” Roosevelt would like to smile when he makes this joke but he doesn’t.

“Sit down, Grace.”

“Yes, sir.”

Roosevelt takes a hand from his lap and lays it on the tabletop. Under his fingertips are thin paper sheets and folders. Strong veins run ridges into his big hand. He still has the wrists of a boxer and a hero.

“You looking forward to the vacation?”

“Yes, Mr. President. You could use some real rest and quiet.”

He meant to ask about her feelings, but if she wants to turn it back to him, that’s fine.

He taps a finger on one of the sheets.

“You know what this one says?”

Grace Tully doesn’t take her eyes from his. Roosevelt observes her face reflect everything on his own. He crinkles his eyes before he speaks, she does the same, she catches the identical expression of disappointment he tries to mount. She’s like all the women around him, sympathetic, Harry is that way too, all but Eleanor.

“It says I’m a liar.”

She shakes her head. “It’s not true.”

“Says so right here. Stalin calls me a liar. Not in so many words, of course. He says the talks with that Nazi in Switzerland are just a smoke screen. That while we’re negotiating with the Germans, Hitler’s moved three more divisions out of Italy to the Russian front. Right here, Grace, listen:
This circumstance is irritating to the Soviet Command and is grounds for distrust!’

Grace Tully repeats the last word. “Distrust. Oh for heaven’s sake!”This time she leads the way, her scrunching face sends Roosevelt the cue and he follows.

“I know, I know. I can’t be trusted by the Russians, that’s what Joe’s saying.”

“After all you’ve done for him.”

Roosevelt enjoys that he doesn’t have to say this for himself.

He taps another sheet, as though to wake it, to have it tell out loud what perfidy resides on it.

“This one here. Know what it says? It’s from Ambassador Harriman. He’s furious at the way the Reds are treating American POWs rescued from German camps. Says they’re being beaten and held against their will as spies. The Reds aren’t returning them to us. Harriman wants me to climb on Joe’s back about it, take some retaliatory steps. Know what I’m going to do, Grace?”

“No, sir.”

“Nothing.”

Grace Tully’s face waits for its cue. Roosevelt watches her to gauge but she reveals no clue what she thinks until he asks, “Want to know why?”

Another tap, this one with the middle finger, a crisp knock on the table.

“Because of this one. Right here. Molotov’s not coming to the first meeting of the United Nations in San Francisco next month. Stalin’s sending Gromyko. Gromyko. When every participating nation is sending their top foreign minister, the Reds are giving us Gromyko, an ambassador. What the hell kind of signal does that send to the world about how much importance the Reds put on this first meeting? This is a slap, Grace. A slap in the face of the countries who supported Stalin during the whole war. A slap at me, personally. Call me a liar. All right, I’ve been called worse. Stalin wants to bully some American soldiers. Well, for now we can swallow that, I’m sure those boys have seen worse too. But the United Nations. Grace, it’s the only single answer. All these other issues are nothing compared to it. The UN is the place everything’ll get sorted out. Stalin wants to forget every agreement we made at Teheran and Yalta. Fine. But you just let me get him to the table at the UN, with the world at my back. Then we’ll see.”

Roosevelt chews on his lower lip. He wags his head.

“But this Stalin is something else. He’s . . . I’ll tell you, Grace. I’m not so sure Winston hasn’t been right all this time. About us not being able to do business with the Soviets. With Joe, in particular.”

Grace Tully’s face falls.

“No,” the President says, “I’m not sure anymore at all.”

She sees something on his face. Her expression becomes vivid and broken-hearted.

“Yes, Grace,” says Roosevelt. She is his mirror, his heartbreak. “That’s right. That’s all too damn right.”

With both hands he sweeps the papers together into a ball of litter. He hands them like trash to Grace Tully.

“Take ‘em.”

The secretary is jolted, she stands to accept the pages. Several folders and sheets slip from her grasp. Roosevelt watches her struggle to make order from what he has handed her, he does nothing to help. The train shudders coming into the station. Grace Tully stumbles forward and has to put a hand to the tabletop to catch herself. A few more pages scatter.

The train is at the station now. The secretary sits across from the President and takes a deep breath for composure. She begins to match each page with its mates and proper folder. Roosevelt looks away from her patient labor. More little American flags flutter, and hats are in the air outside the window. A bad brass band made up of Warm Springs locals plays “Hail to the Chief.”

Yes, he thinks, after all he’s done for Stalin. After all he’s given. Money, materiel, armaments, planes, ships. Political concession after concession. He’s taken pieces out of Churchill and England and tossed them to the Russian bear. He’s ignored his own advisers. He’s backed down over Poland, gone deaf and dumb over the rest of eastern Europe. He’ll end up giving Stalin Berlin. Christ, what does it take to satisfy that man’s appetite?

The President makes a fist and brings it down. The sound on the table he creates is poor, barely a dropping thud. He can’t even get Grace Tully to look up at him in surprise.

One bit of temper is all Roosevelt can muster. Now he admires Grace’s calm assembly of his papers. Piece it all back together. Haven’t got the energy like Churchill to be shocked and dismayed so often, to fight every battle. Got to fight the big ones, win them. The United Nations. The Grand Alliance. Peace in the world. Replace war with prosperity. Replace old rivalries with trust. He’s got to save his powers for these. Who cares if Stalin says he’s a shit-heel?

There’s still time to set it right.

Then he can quit.

Outside on the platform, the faulty strains of the presidential song stop.

For now, take a firm tone, certainly. Tell Stalin this is unacceptable. Work with Winston, get the words perfect, put forth a united Anglo-American position.

Careful, though. Don’t rock the boat. Too close to the finish line. This is natural, just like the train: draw close to the station, slow down, and the ride gets fidgety. Don’t overreact. Winston’s going to want a blunt and forceful response. Got to stay measured. Tolerant.

But good God.

What devil did we make a deal with?

“Grace, leave it.” He waves an impatient hand. “Go get Mike. Tell him I’m ready.”

The secretary smiles and stands, clutching to her what papers she has arranged. She pauses in front of Roosevelt, looks down on him. He wants to make some conciliation for his tone but he doesn’t, he shuts his eyes and hears her tread away.

His legs are dead to him, from the waist down he is a cemetery. Nothing resides in them but memory and melancholy. This is where the sadness rises, like mist, from his silent legs.

He expects to see her first. Eleanor lives here in the sadness—in the manner of some plant that prefers shade. She steps forward. This time she wears her wedding gown. She waves at him. Next, each of his children, born fresh and squalling, appears and wafts to him. The mist swirls; he knows it’s blood throbbing in his head but outside his closed eyes he lifts a real hand to stroke their cheeks. What is this, a podium? Yes, he stands solidly even on braces, for his inauguration as Governor of New York, then as President of the United States, his mother always beside him.

Roosevelt opens his eyes to the coziness of his train car office. He squeezes the padded arms on his wheelchair.

Stalin can’t have those things, he thinks. Not his children or his wife or mother. Stalin can’t take away the millions of votes, the conventions and cheers. These are Roosevelt’s life, damn it, his life. They’re past Stalin’s reach.

But Roosevelt’s dream. His legacy for the world. Stalin has the power to hold it hostage, torture it and kill it.

Murder a man’s dream, and what was his life for?

A knock comes at the door. Roosevelt thinks his dream may be gone, there may not be time after all. He folds his hands in his lap. The throb remains in his head, though the greater pain is in his heart.

Mike Reilly, a burly Secret Service agent, pushes open the door with caution.

“Mr. President? Grace says you’re ready to go, sir.”

Roosevelt looks at the strong man without envy, without even the sense of competition he always has, that he’ll show these young bucks he’s still got some moxie left.

“Mike” is all he says.

Reilly pulls the wheelchair back from the desk and pushes the President forward to the door. In the past, Roosevelt would wrap his arms around the agent’s shoulders and pull himself into the man’s arms to be carried down the steps and put into the waiting limousine. Now he is vague and limp. Reilly grunts lifting him .

“Sorry, Mike,” Roosevelt says.

The agent grins big, negotiating the train steps. He whispers, “It’s okay, boss.”

On the platform behind a satin cord and more Secret Service men, a small crowd of well-wishers waits. They greet Roosevelt with a cheer and more undulating flags and signs. A few boys are in uniform, one of them is on crutches. The limo door is open.

Sagging in Mike Reilly’s arms, Roosevelt lifts his face to the gathered.

The crowd goes hushed.

~ * ~

March 30, 1945, 4:15
p.m.

Prime Minister’s residence at Chequers

Buckinghamshire, England

churchill sits in a bank of smoke and vapor. he rages above the
roiled water like a great storm cloud. He is naked, white, and puffy.

“Jock!” he shouts with the space left to his mouth around the cigar. “For the love of God, man! Jock!”

The secretary’s voice approaches outside the door. “Here, here, here, Prime Minister. Here.”

The bathroom door opens, some steam escapes into the cooler hall. Jock Colville enters balancing a silver tray and a tall glass of Caucasian champagne.

Soothingly, he says, “Here, Prime Minister.”

Churchill grabs for the glass. He yanks the stogie from his mouth, gripping it between two fingers, the champagne glass is tipped in its place. Then he pops the cigar back in.

Jock Colville receives the empty glass. He turns to leave.

Churchill stops him.

“This!” The Prime Minister brandishes a sheet of paper from the special oak tabletop stretched across his tub. The papers littering it are held down by Churchill’s fat pocket watch, nicknamed by his daughter “the Turnip.”

“This is what did it, Jock. One word too many from that damned Montgomery! He couldn’t let it alone, couldn’t just go about his business. No!”