SEVEN

 

 

 

 

 

March 30, 1945, 1:50 p.m.

Aboard the President’s train, the Ferdinand Magellan

Approaching Warm Springs, Georgia

 

 

eside the train tracks citizens stand waving hankies and flags and pink palms. A warm Good Friday afternoon puts them in shirtsleeves. These are farmers and small-town folk, the best believers in democracy, the givers of sons and daughters to the war, the poor and honest for whom Roosevelt has crusaded in all his four terms.

 

He is so tired, he must be careful not to let his forehead rest against the windowpane watching them flow past. Behind the people, fields of alfalfa and corn are still mostly crested dirt, little green tufts show where America’s wealth will grow under this sun. Peach trees blossom. Evergreens and oaks freshen their color. Nature keeps most of her promises. Roosevelt likes that thought.

 

He wants to be done. He wants to shake the constraints of office after thirteen years and keep some promises to himself, see how he could bloom as a natural man outside the presidency. His vigor will come back, he’s sure of it. He’s said this before, privately to his aides, that he’ll resign once the United Nations is operating. Let Truman take over, let power pass from the Hudson to the Missouri. But he’s never before spoken seriously of quitting; always he does it in jest or to cheer up Eleanor, or address his doctors’ concerns, every time he’s said he’ll toss in the towel he’s done it just to put a temporary stop to some irksome discussion of worry over his health. But now he thinks he might mean it. He just might want this over with.

 

The overnight ride down from Washington was restless. Roosevelt slept in fits on the train. He’d spent the previous four days in Hyde Park trying to restore himself. It didn’t work, he still feels weary. He stayed in the White House just for yesterday afternoon, enough to sign some cables to Churchill drafted by his staff and hold some luncheon meetings. Now he intends to rejuvenate with two weeks beside the ravine at the Little White House in Warm Springs. He’s got his stamp collection with him. He’ll take long country drives, he’ll watch the sun set over the mountain. He’ll hold a book in his lap so no one will bother him, and nap. Anna couldn’t come this time, her six-year-old boy got a last-minute gland infection. He asked Eleanor not to come, said he didn’t want to take her away from her important agendas—she’s never liked Georgia anyway, all the poverty and segregation, honeyed accents and Spanish moss. Instead, he has his two favorite female cousins along for company, so he’ll be pampered by women.

 

A mile outside the Warm Springs station the momentum of the train breaks. It’s the moment of anticipation in all journeys, when the trip slows to arrival. Roosevelt does not feel the accustomed tinge of pleasure. He wants the train to accelerate and keep going, not stop, not creep at this creaky, tippy speed. The ride was better, life was more of an even thing when it was lived faster. He doesn’t want to be in Warm Springs to heal. He wants to be a movie cowboy and climb out on the roof of the train cars, fight a villain, duck a coming tunnel. Roosevelt misses pace. He misses the coal shoveled into his belly, the resultant fire. He wants the train to charge on forever.

 

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!”

 

He wants Colville to stay and heed. The secretary sees this. Churchill waits while Colville sets the tray aside and folds to the wooden bench placed in the bathroom for secretaries. Colville is familiar with the telegram Churchill wields, as he is with all the documents curling in the damp above the bathwater. But certain things by their nature deserve to be shouted about. Churchill has served this function publicly in England for fifty years.

 

“The man’s a braggart and a fool. How he never got himself shot as such is something I do not understand!”

 

Churchill waves a dripping arm. “He’s got his orders from Eisenhower. Mop up the Ruhr pocket before any attempt to head east. Right! Clear enough. Then his army starts making progress. Good! Bully! The Hun is collapsing. Marvelous! But what does Monty do? Does the good Field Marshal just go about his job and keep his head down? Does he keep his eyes on the prize and his lips tight?”

 

Colville shakes his head. “No.”

 

Churchill pulls up short and scowls. His secretary should know better than to assist in the Prime Minister’s storytelling.

 

“No.” Churchill draws the word out, like a lesson. He pauses, takes another deep drag on the cigar. As punishment, he might not continue the tale.

 

Too much momentum and aggravation push him past the point of petty silence.

 

“No! By God, he sends Ike this. This!” Churchill rattles the page once, then shoves it away from his eyes to read without glasses:

 

i have ordered ninth and second armies armored and mobile forces forward at once to get through to the elbe with utmost speed and drive. the situation looks good and events should begin to move rapidly in a few days.

 

my tactical headquarters move to northwest op bonninghardt on thursday, march 29. thereafter . . . my hq will move to wese-münster-widenbruck-herford-Hannover, thence by autobahn to berlin, I hope.

 

Churchill swings his cheroot about as though fighting off a wasp.

 

“Thence to Berlin. For God’s sake, why not just wave a red flag in front of a bull?”

 

Colville says, “Eisenhower doesn’t want an Englishman in Berlin.”

 

“No!” Churchill jerks with the word, water spills over the lip of the tub. Colville stands to avoid getting his pants wet.

 

“He and Roosevelt want a damn Russian in Berlin, and if this keeps up that’s what we’re all going to get!”

 

“Quite.” Colville picks up the tray and drained glass. “Excuse me, Prime Minister.” The secretary retreats and closes the door behind him. Churchill champs on the cigar. He leans back against the warm porcelain of the tub. Colville, he thinks; the man keeps his nerve when someone gets blown up next to him but won’t stay in the bathroom with a little temper. Hell with it.

 

Churchill sets Montgomery’s telegram on the table with the other papers. He sighs and glances down at his bare chest. His skin is blushed from the hot water and his anger. The pocket watch ticks, the water stills and steams.

 

Monty and Eisenhower.

 

Things have gotten so rotten between the two, they don’t even talk anymore, just exchange curt cables. Monty completely misjudged the situation with this last little note. Eisenhower paid him back in spades.

 

Churchill fingers the sheets before him. His head is too low, sunk against the back of the tub, to see which one is which. He shoves his legs under him to push higher. There it is. Not much as turning points go, just a thin sheet. But history’s not always written in the blood of rolling heads. Paper is the equal to steel as the stuff of momentous events.

 

There. Supreme Commander Allied Forces telegram number 252.

 

SCAF 252. Sent directly from General Eisenhower to Marshal Stalin.

 

“How dare he,” mutters Churchill, sliding back into the water with a reptilian malice. “How bloody dare he.”

 

A direct communication between a military leader and a foreign head of state. Outside the bounds. Beyond the General’s authority. Damned awkward. Even worse, Eisenhower deliberately circumvented all proper channels, neglecting to first contact anyone on the Combined Chiefs of Staff or even a single soul in the U.S. or British governments. London only found out about it secondhand, through copies distributed “for information.” Eisenhower didn’t even consult his own British chief deputy, Air Chief Marshal Sir Tedder. He just charged ahead and reached out to Joe Stalin.

 

Churchill chews the nub of his cigar, mulling over the words on Ike’s cable:

 

my immediate operations are designed to encircle and destroy the enemy defending the ruhr. i estimate this phase will end late in april or even earlier, and my next task will be to divide the enemy forces by joining hands with your forces. the best axis on which to effect this junction would be erfurt-leipzig-dresden. i believe this is the area to which main german government departments are being moved. it is along this axis that i propose to make my main effort.

 

Erfurt-Leipzig-Dresden?

 

For what?

 

To head off the mythical Southern Redoubt? Nazis in the Alps? Foolishness, backed by scraps of evidence. These are German government workers on the move, not armed combatants. It’s a wild-goose chase if ever there was one.

 

Without advising anyone, without a by-your-leave, Eisenhower has changed longstanding, mutually agreed-upon plans. Instead of making for Berlin across Germany’s northern plains with Montgomery’s Twenty-first Army, which has been specially reinforced for the task, Eisenhower has shifted the thrust of the offensive to Bradley through the middle, one hundred miles south of Berlin!

 

This is a dangerous incursion into global and political policy, domains that are strictly cordoned off for Roosevelt, Stalin, and Churchill. Off-limits to Eisenhower, a military leader.

 

By gad, there’s going to be dancing in Moscow.

 

How can the Americans be so muddleheaded? If Berlin is left to the Russians, there’ll be absolutely no dealing with them after the war. The Soviets are poised to enter Vienna next and overrun Austria. Stalin is already beginning to feel the Red Army has done everything to win the war, that the Western Allies have accomplished little but divert some German divisions away from the Eastern Front. With Eisenhower’s telegram, a difficult postwar situation in Europe has become almost untenable. At this late juncture the choice of military targets may well determine the political future of European democracy Why can’t Roosevelt see this? Is he so taken by his desire to be gentle with the Reds that he’s forgone any possibility of ever being firm with them?

 

There’s no document to prove it, but Churchill does not question that Eisenhower’s cable to Stalin is just one more expression of Roosevelt’s appeasement of Stalin. More of Uncle Sam’s unsightly and dangerous courtship of Uncle Joe. Of course Eisenhower knows Roosevelt’s political agenda as well as anyone. George Marshall, Roosevelt, Ike. They’re all on the same bloody page. And that page says, Go ahead, Stalin. Take Berlin. Take whatever you like.

 

Churchill sinks lower into the water until his chin is just above it. He blows smoke across the surface, watching it shove the steam out of the way.

 

This couldn’t come at a worse time. In the nastiest sort of language Stalin is accusing the West of negotiating behind his back with the Germans in Switzerland. Molotov is being withheld from the UN’s first assembly in San Francisco. Poland is being dismembered right before our eyes, the rest of eastern Europe is being suffocated. Never before in the history of mankind have two strong nations needed more to present a concerted and solid front to a third.

 

And Eisenhower picks this critical time—when the war is in its final stages, when historic opportunity and chaos are at their peak—to cause the deepest rupture between England and the U.S. since the American Revolution.

 

Despite the warmth lapping at him, Churchill feels a chill at the magnitude of Eisenhower’s misstep. The General is wrong. Berlin remains of the utmost military and political importance to the West.

 

Another telegram on the table—this one from Eisenhower to Montgomery—is the last straw. It strips the Ninth U.S. Army from Monty’s control. Ike is returning General Simpson’s powerful force to Bradley in the center, the new site of Ike’s main effort. Whatever happened to the agreement at Malta, when that main effort was clearly stated as Berlin?

 

How perfect, thinks Churchill. Everything falls in place for Eisenhower. Keep the glory for the Yanks. Exploit the breakthrough at Remagen in the center, give fair-haired-boy Bradley the priority. Claim to be cutting the Nazis off from a retreat to the mountains. Stick it to Montgomery. And the whole time, Ike’s telling the world he’s making purely military decisions. Poppycock! The political mollycoddling and personal one-upmanship behind this decision to abandon Berlin are so thick they foam.

 

With SCAF 252 Eisenhower has preempted every possibility, cut off any decision but his own. Monty’s been hamstrung to the point where he can’t take Berlin even if it becomes available. He’s stuck in the north, “mopping up.”

 

Churchill lifts a hand out of the water. He makes a small, useless splash against the tub wall.

 

The Grand Alliance—so hopeful and interwoven in the beginning, so laden with possibilities—is in bitter decline.

 

~ * ~

 

 

 

March 30, 1945, 5:40 p.m.

Stalin’s office,

the Kremlin

Moscow

 

 

before the meeting stalin has his desk cleared of all documents and maps. This is not to protect state secrets; his purpose is to impress upon the coming American and British officials that he has no need of papers, he remembers everything. Stalin rules not with edicts but with a word.

 

He waits with his pipe lit, pacing through haze along the bank of high windows. The shades are pulled, always. Stalin is not one to gaze onto dusky courtyards for inspiration or rest. In his life he has done his work in prison cells and fugitive caves. Darkness and close quarters have kept him alive more than a few times.

 

When his aide knocks, Stalin moves to the chair behind his desk. He leans back.

 

“Yes.”

 

The door opens, the pipsqueak secretary announces the delegation.

 

“Show them in.”

 

Stalin changes his mind. He will stand when the visitors enter.

 

The first through the door is Major General John Deane, Chief of the U.S. Military Mission in Moscow. At Deane’s elbow is his British counterpart Admiral Ernest Archer. Behind them are the two ambassadors of Stalin’s allies, Averell Harriman and Sir Archibald Clark-Kerr. The ambassadors are in the rear, Stalin notes.

 

“Gentlemen.” Stalin says this in English and rises while they cross to him. There is no carpet in his office, little comfort, the chairs he offers the Western dignitaries are like his own, plain and hard-backed. The true Soviet citizen is a Spartan.

 

All the men take their seats. Stalin’s interpreter enters and moves behind Stalin with little noise, padding like a geisha, bent and humble. Harriman speaks passable Russian, but Stalin wants to know after the meeting what these men say among themselves in English.

 

Stalin begins.

 

“You have a telegram from General Eisenhower for me.”

 

General Deane holds across his lap a red leather pouch. He does not react to Stalin’s invocation, doesn’t scramble to open the pouch and hand the cable over. He seems to want something.

 

Stalin sets his pipe aside. “I’m told it was warm today. Is that so?”

 

Deane makes a sound, a little burst through his nose. This is a tiny laugh.

 

“Quite nice, Marshal.”

 

“Spring is coming. May I offer you gentlemen something to drink?”

 

“No, thank you, Marshal Stalin.” Ambassador Harriman speaks. “We won’t take too much of your time. Yes, we do have a personal message from General Eisenhower for you. General Deane?”

 

Deane unbuckles the pouch. A single typed sheet is passed over. The cable is labeled Supreme Commander Allied Forces number 252. Stalin takes it and hands it behind him without looking to the interpreter. The spectacled little man reads aloud. Stalin resumes smoking.

 

Eisenhower’s immediate operation is to encircle the Ruhr and destroy all enemy forces defending it. This mission lies principally in General Bradley’s theater of operations. The offensive should be completed by late April if not sooner.

 

The Allies’ next effort will be to divide enemy forces by linking with the Soviet armies.

 

The best junction to effect this linkup is an advance east to Erfurt-Leipzig-Dresden, this being the area into which many German government departments have been reported moving.

 

As soon as practicable, a second, supporting advance will go into action to join Soviet forces in the south, toward Austria, to prevent the consolidation of German resistance in the anticipated redoubt in southern Germany.

 

Eisenhower requests immediate information about Soviet plans as to direction and timing, in order that Allied operations be planned in accordance. The Supreme Commander regards it as essential that the two forces coordinate their actions and perfect the liaison between them.

 

While the interpreter reads, Stalin smooths his moustache. He looks over the heads of the Americans and the Englishmen where the smoke from his pipe hovers in gray twisting shapes.

 

So, the soyuzniki—the little allies—are worried about the Southern Redoubt. Stalin can’t fathom this. His information tells him not to worry, it’s only clerks and bureaucrats fleeing, not a one of whom would know which end of a rifle to point. Why does Eisenhower say he is making major military decisions based on such a thin rumor?

 

Eisenhower claims he’s heading for Leipzig-Dresden. Bradley in the middle is the point of the Allies’ lance now. And what of Montgomery’s huge army on the north German plain? Will that juggernaut go unused for the very specific purpose for which it was built and positioned? Stalin imagines the mewling of Winston Churchill over this. He smiles to himself at an image of the angry English bulldog gnawing on one of Eisenhower’s trouser legs. No, this seems unlikely: the letter claims Montgomery has been remaindered to clear the northern seaports and mop up while Bradley takes the fore into the German heartland. Bradley the conquering hero, not Montgomery? No, Churchill wouldn’t stand for it.

 

The interpreter finishes. Stalin reaches back for the page. He weighs the sheet in his hands. He has not made eye contact with any of the men in the room since they entered.

 

Odd. The letter comes direct and personal from Eisenhower, not through the proper channels of the American and British Joint Staffs. Is this what Roosevelt was referring to in Yalta when he asked that Eisenhower be permitted to communicate directly with the Soviet General Staff? After all, Stalin is the chief of the Red military. Was Roosevelt setting this move up so far in advance?

 

Odder still, in effect the letter says: We give you Berlin.

 

Stalin cups his pipe in one fist. He brings his hands together under his chin and closes his eyes. He rubs together the tips of his thumbs.

 

He calculates.

 

The Americans and British are three hundred kilometers west of Berlin. The Red Army is only eighty to the east. But the Allies have no real resistance facing them. The toughest German divisions are all on the Eastern Front. Montgomery’s forces have made spectacular progress beyond the Rhine. Bradley and Patton and Simpson move at the top speed of their tanks. Why would Eisenhower pull in the reins? Why would he call off the race for Berlin? It makes no sense.

 

Roosevelt. The President has to know the importance of Berlin. Churchill surely has told him if he doesn’t. Why would he give Berlin to Stalin when he can take it? That thing Roosevelt said at Yalta, the bet that the Red Army would be in Berlin before the Americans were in Manila, that was a joke, yes? Of course.

 

No, the man cannot be that naive. But is the President too sick finally to stop some play by Eisenhower and his generals? Is Eisenhower a coward, afraid to spill a little more blood to secure the biggest prize of the war? Perhaps the rift in the West has grown so deep that Churchill and Montgomery no longer have a voice? Or is Eisenhower simply exercising a vendetta, pulling the rug out from under Montgomery in the final moments of the war and handing the torch to his fellow American, Bradley?

 

Someone in the room clears his throat. Perhaps this is a request that Stalin open his eyes and speak. He ignores the interruption.

 

Stalin asks of the seer in his head, the one true voice that has always warned him of danger and enemies. What of this letter from Eisenhower? Can it be trusted? Can any of the apparent reasons behind it be true?

 

No. Don’t be absurd.

 

Eisenhower is no coward. Churchill is no defanged lion. Montgomery is not to be shoved aside so easily.

 

Berlin is too clearly of political importance for Roosevelt to drop it into Stalin’s lap. Stalin’s intentions have been barely masked throughout eastern Europe, there are no secrets. Roosevelt may be ill but he would have to be dead not to see this. He knows what will happen if Stalin takes Berlin. The little allies will have nothing, nothing at all to bargain with.

 

“Marshal Stalin?”

 

Stalin lifts his head and opens his eyes. He has the sensation of surfacing. The audience waits on him.

 

“Yes, General Deane?”

 

“What do you think?”

 

“I think”—Stalin will play along—”the letter meets with my approval. I agree with General Eisenhower that the Nazis’ last stand will probably be in the south, in Bavaria or western Czechoslovakia. Very good idea to cut them off as soon as possible.”

 

Stalin notes how the Americans nod in concurrence with this lie. The two Britishers have said almost nothing, they barely move; damn the English. Are they being typically remote or are they the harder to fool?

 

Stalin asks Deane, “Tell me, where will be the starting point for this supporting offensive into Austria? Will you be using your Italian forces now that the Nazis are all surrendering there?”

 

This is meant as a gig but none of the Westerners twitches.

 

“No, Marshal. The assault will come from the forces we currently have east of the Rhine.”

 

Stalin thinks, good, leave the Allied army bottled in Italy where it is. Stalin doesn’t want the Western powers poking around south of the Balkans.

 

Harriman asks, “How about your troops on the Oder? Can you tell us anything about the delays you’re facing there?”

 

“Yes, of course. Things are improving remarkably. The spring floods are receding and the roads are drying out. I think we’ll be ready to go soon, but I’ll have to consult with my staff on that.”

 

“When can General Eisenhower expect a reply?”

 

“Very soon. Within twenty-four hours. Now, gentlemen.”

 

Stalin rises to dismiss them. The men all take the cue, and with handshakes the room is emptied. Stalin dismisses the interpreter; the visitors said little among themselves. The meeting was brief. Stalin returns to his desk. He lays the Eisenhower cable 252 in front of him. He stares at the English phrases on the white paper, interrogating them, they are alone with Stalin now.

 

He tamps and relights his Dunhill pipe. He runs the pipe stem lightly over his lips, pondering the cable. A puff of smoke strikes the sheet in the face and spreads out in blue rolling waves. The clock tower in the Kremlin gate strikes six tolls for the hour.

 

When the public clock is done, Stalin pushes the paper away. He nods to it. It did not make sense before; now it does.

 

He picks up the phone and instructs his secretary to locate both Marshals Zhukov and Koniev.

 

In a minute, Zhukov is on the line. Stalin instructs him to drop what he is doing and fly to Moscow tonight for a conference tomorrow. Zhukov is over a thousand miles away on the Oder Front. No matter. Tomorrow. Immediately after, Koniev is reached and receives the same order.

 

Stalin hangs up the phone and stands from his desk. He turns his back on Eisenhower’s letter, as though the page is a comrade who has told the truth under pressure. Stalin knows everything now. He knows what to do.

 

He glances up at the jutting chin of Lenin’s portrait. Always when addressing Lenin, Stalin holds himself still, as though standing before the real man, the titan. Tonight Stalin waves a dismissive hand and walks past.

 

He thinks, You were the leader to begin the Revolution, Vladimir Ilyich. You will always be honored for that.

 

But Stalin is the man to continue it. This is why, because of treachery. You were too trusting, too good. Look at this letter.

 

“A trick,” Stalin says into the room so Lenin can hear and follow events.

 

“The soyuzniki pull a trick on Stalin.”

 

Eisenhower is going to take Berlin.

 

* * * *