When he plunked himself down in his favorite easy chair with that air of exhaustion that came with the job, she always gave him a kiss on the cheek, sometimes a pat on the shoulder, just to remind him that she still loved him. It was simple reinforcement, nothing more, oftentimes providing reassurance to the most powerful man in the Soviet Union. Then she would bring out the vodka and fish. It was a warm, wonderful ritual which only the two of them understood. There was no doubt in her mind that he would talk when be was ready to carry on a normal conversation. She could wait. And when he was ready for dinner, on those rare occasions he wasn’t attending a state function, she would prepare something in the tiny kitchen. It would always be simple and easy to do, but it meant much to him. He loved anything that didn’t taste of government chefs.
Although she did note that her husband was drinking more vodka than usual, she said nothing. The news had been full of the recent transgressions of the United States against third-world countries, leading her to assume that’s what had been troubling him. But now there was a segment on the athletes training for the Winter Olympics. She loved anything on ice, the fragile beauty of the figure skaters, the grace of the ice dancers, the power of the speed skaters, the violence of the hockey rink. If her husband felt the need for an extra glass or two, she felt he deserved it. If he had one too many, she even looked forward to his habit of coming up behind her chair, kissing her on the cheek, and slipping one of his rough hands down the front of her dress. Though she counted the days until he would turn his responsibilities over to a younger man, she loved those moments when the man she had always loved escaped for a few moments — even if he sometimes needed a few vodkas to find himself.
On this evening he was having a great deal of trouble escaping from the shell of the man who ran the USSR. The General Secretary of the…. No, that wasn’t quite right. Too long to get to the punch line. They all might have been immolated before then.
Since this may be the only time in your life to witness the detonation of a series of American multiple reentry vehicles over the ancient capital city of the Soviet Union, the Genera! Secretary…. Yes, that was more like it. Get in the punch line before you lose your audience. Why had the absurd become so amusing this evening?
He poured one more glass of pertsovka. Then, being a man of some discipline, he took the bottle out to the kitchen himself and stuck it back in the freezer. Out of sight, out of mind.
Seated once again in the comfortable, threadbare easy chair that had followed him from one apartment to another, he raised the final glass to the light and swirled the liquid until it coated the inside of the frosty glass like the inside of a fragile, pale ball hung on a New Year’s tree. It seemed almost too pretty to drink. But it wasn’t really — it disappeared in a single gulp, followed by the internal explosives that appealed to him so much.
“My pet …” he began.
She jumped in surprise. Perhaps it had been the assumption in the back of her mind, as she delighted in the easy grace of the ice dancing on television, that his hand slipping over her shoulder would be the first sign. She turned and looked back at him with eyebrows raised in question.
“What would you think if …” He paused with a slight grin that she knew meant he had drunk more than he realized. “… if the Americans announced that we had pushed them to the edge and … no, that’s not really what I mean. What I mean to say is that they had good reason to release their missiles — what would you think about the leaders of our country?”
“Do you think that it would be a good reason?” she asked calmly.
“If it were I in their White House, I think … yes,” he concluded after a slight pause.
“And would there be something you could do to prevent it?”
“I’m not sure,” he answered softly.
“Then I wouldn’t be very happy with the man I trusted to lead the country. Most everything I see on television indicates that it’s the Americans who are providing all these challenges to peace. Of course, I don’t believe all that after what you’ve told me.” Both of them knew that not a word of anything said between the two of them would be repeated outside the apartment. “Is that why you’ve had a couple of extra glasses?”
He snickered aloud. “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you what had been running through my mind the past few minutes.” He rose and walked over to her side, kissing her on the cheek and patting her hand. “An invitation to watch the fireworks,” he sighed, “for all those who refuse to step back an inch.” His hand began to slide down the front of her dress….
They were interrupted by the phone that sat on a desk in the back of the room. It was the Minister of Defense. “I have just received word that a number of American naval officials cannot be located in Washington.” The minister’s voice was high and excited.
“And they are important enough to call at this hour?”
“The Chief of Naval Operations, his deputy for Undersea Warfare, and Admiral Newman, the one who builds their submarines — is that important enough for you?”
“Where are they?”
“No one knows, but they could be—”
“I’ll be in my office in twenty minutes. Make sure the others are there.”
He pushed the button that would bring his bodyguard and alert his driver. Whatever surprise his wife had planned for dinner would have to wait. He wished he hadn’t drunk so much of the pertsovka. But, on second thought, perhaps it would improve the situation.
Mark Bennett had few loves other than his wife, Judy. There just wasn’t enough time, not when you were senior officer in charge of Undersea Warfare. But there remained a special place in his heart for Hawaiian sunsets. Whenever he was away from Washington, and there was a chance — and there’d been very few such opportunities in the past few years — he made sure that he reserved an evening for that specific purpose.
Promotion to flag rank was a wonderful, heady thing, but it also meant more time in the Pentagon, a place he could still get lost in, or at sub bases, buried behind a desk in an office with no windows. A man really had to hate sunsets, he often said to himself, to avoid them in Hawaii.
That same evening, troubled by the discussion at pool-side, he’d taken the car by himself and driven out near Fort Kamehameha. There was a point reaching out into the Pacific, rarely visited by others, that he and Judy had chosen as their own years before.
Such self-indulgence was rarely enjoyed in their earlier days together. But once their children had grown old enough to take care of themselves for a few hours, Judy Bennett might glance out the window late in an afternoon and marvel at the clear air. That was reason enough to call Mark at his office and let him know that he could work a bit later that evening.
Her timing would be superb. About the time he’d step out the office door, she’d pull up in front with the top down and a basket of fresh fruit and cheese in the backseat. A bottle of wine would be chilling in the cooler beside it. They’d drive off together like a couple of teenagers, the sunset a focal point for those rare times by themselves. Years later, Judy was quickly bored by the Washington social circle and often remarked how nice it would be to be junior and back in Hawaii again.
This time there was no wine, nor fruit or cheese for Mack Bennett. But there was a glorious display of color. Ewa Beach, across the water, and Barbers Point, a low headland in the distance, brought a flood of memories. One that had settled in the back of his mind today now returned to trouble him even more while the sun settled into the Pacific in a boiling, pastel blaze — Buck and Cindy Nelson loved this view as much as the Bennetts. Now, Buck was C.O. of Florida.