Summit

by Richard Bowker

  "Oh, I suppose. We'll talk about how much we both want peace and she'll show me the sights and it will all be very interesting. Are you looking forward to meeting Mr. Winn?"

  "It will also be very interesting. I think I'll go to bed."

  She looked at him and put the book down. "I'll join you."

  "I'd hate to keep you from finding out who wins."

  She smiled. "Real life may be less exciting, but it's more—real."

  "I suppose that's true," he said. He kissed the top of her head and went to find his pajamas.

  * * *

  Valentina dreamed. She was a girl again, exiled to her room for being what she was. The door was locked, the windows barred; something had been done to the lights, too, so she had to lie on her bed in darkness. The family she was staying with feared and hated her now, and if they had their way, she would never leave this room.

  It was all right, she thought: to be here by herself, no one bothering her, no one running away from her. Just ignore me. I won't hurt you.

  But time passed in her dream, and the darkness became frightening, the imprisonment unbearable. Why are you doing this to me? she cried. And then her fear turned to anger, and she realized that she was imprisoned only because she let them imprison her.

  And the anger turned to power. She felt it rising in her like a scream. Suddenly she was standing on the bed—standing above the bed—and the scream exploded from her. It was a fire, it was an earthquake, it was an atomic bomb. The darkness disappeared, and then the walls disappeared, blown away from her like—like a jam jar that won't open, and she stood in sunlight amid shattered buildings and charred corpses and devastation so great she could not see the end of it. The world was a smoking ruin, and she stood above it. Triumphant. Free. Alone.

  She awoke in darkness, in prison. Alone. She tried to recapture whatever power she had possessed in her dream, to destroy her real prison as she had destroyed the dream one. But the power was gone, like all the other, lesser powers that had faded from her over the years. What was left was a grim certainty, as if the dream had provided her with a mathematical proof about the future.

  There would be death tomorrow, and she would be the cause of it.

  Valentina stared into the darkness, and wondered who—and how many—would die.

  Chapter 40

  General Secretary Grigoriev had only to drive through New York City to be reminded why American individualism had not rubbed off on him. The limousine was streaking down Second Avenue toward the United Nations, but it didn't go so fast that Grigoriev could miss the mixture of misery and grandeur that was the inevitable result of the American system. Dull-eyed drug addicts shuffled past skyscrapers; homeless blacks shivered outside million-dollar apartment buildings. And all the signs they passed told them to buy, buy, buy. On sale, easy terms, the deal of a lifetime. Buy, and you will be sexy and happy and popular and never grow old, never die. The trash on the streets told a different story.

  "Perhaps Mrs. Winn will take you on a tour of the South Bronx," he said to his wife.

  "Perhaps they have rebuilt it especially for us," she replied.

  He grinned. That was the Russian way of doing things. He would much rather take a tour of the South Bronx than do what he had to do today.

  * * *

  Bill Sullivan stood on the sidewalk and watched the motorcade speed by. So much for throwing himself in front of Grigoriev's limousine. He couldn't have got near it even if he had wanted to. He turned away and looked for a coffee shop. He had a hangover that was going to take a lot of caffeine to conquer.

  * * *

  There were introductions and ceremonies and little speeches, but only one thing mattered to President Winn: that instant when he first met Grigoriev in the flesh.

  He had a typically pudgy Russian face; he looked like he had eaten nothing but potatoes since birth. His smile looked a trifle forced, uneasy, tense. His handshake was energetic but somewhat soft—not much manual labor in his background, for all his glorification of the Soviet worker. Winn searched his eyes for signs of guile, of deceit, of evil, but decided that such traits were simply not there. All he could see was intelligence and resolve. He would not be an easy opponent, but at least they would be able to talk.

  The suave UN secretary-general led them inside for a luncheon, and Winn started to relax. If you can talk with a man, you're halfway there. This was going to be all right.

  * * *

  "The transmission is fine," Yuri said. They were hearing the clinking of silverware and a discussion of Manhattan clam chowder. The microphone was in Grigoriev's left cufflink. They weren't sure if the Americans would pick up on it—and what they would do about it if they did—but so far so good.

  Trofimov and Chukova stood awkwardly by the console. They had nothing to do just yet, and nothing to say to each other.

  Rylev and Hill stood by the door of the room, watching everything.

  Valentina Borisova lay inside the pyramid and waited for the first session of the summit to start.

  She felt as if she were going to wait forever.

  * * *

  Winn went to the bathroom before it started. You didn't want to go to the bathroom during this sort of thing—it betrayed nervousness. Maybe he shouldn't have had that second cup of coffee. The clam chowder had been awful. He tried to remember the points his people had drilled into him at the final meeting this morning. Emigration, he reminded himself, mutual sufficiency of defensive capabilities. Trade concessions in exchange for progress on human rights. He washed his hands, took a deep breath, and strode into the room where they were to meet.

  It was a small meeting room in the secretary-general's suite of offices. It had a nice view of the East River; anything can look picturesque, if seen from enough of a distance. There were two armchairs facing each other about a yard apart, and side tables with pads of papers on them. In the corner was a little food trolley with coffee and pastry on it. Stay away from the coffee. An abstract painting on the wall showed two colors—green and a kind of dusty red—fading gradually to pure white in the middle. The title was Peace. It was a piece of junk, in his opinion. He had never been able to figure out abstract art.

  Grigoriev entered, smiling. They shook hands again. "An excellent luncheon," Grigoriev said. "I quite liked the clam chowder. What did you think?"

  "It was remarkable." The man spoke English very well.

  "I trust our wives will have a pleasant afternoon together."

  "Oh, I'm certain they will. I understand an exciting itinerary has been planned. There's a lot to do in New York City."

  "Yes, indeed." They stood awkwardly in the middle of the room. Someone should ring a bell, or fire a starting gun. The protocol of summits was too vague. "Well, shall we begin?" Grigoriev asked.

  "Yes. Let's begin."

  They sat in their armchairs, and they began.

  * * *

  "Yes. Let's begin!"

  Valentina lies in darkness and waits for the dream to begin. Not a sleep-dream, like the one she had last night, but a dream that somehow intertwines itself with reality—and, if she works hard enough, if she risks everything, a dream that can change reality. She is terrified, but she is determined. She will dream her dream, and the world will change, and perhaps she will save the one person in the world whom she loves.

  The darkness fades, and she is staring at the familiar building. She is already lying in a pyramid inside this building, but that is another reality. The door of the building is open. The camera above the door blinks red, red, red. She goes inside.

  * * *

  They seemed to be having difficulty in getting down to business. Winn had expected to set an agenda, to trade proposals, and then call in their advisers and form working groups to discuss them. Winn wasn't exactly sure whose fault it was, but instead they were talking in generalities. "You must understand our peaceful intentions," Grigoriev said. "The Russian people—like the American people—long for peace and security. And true pea
ce and security can be found only in a world with many fewer weapons."

  "Yes, but the rulers of the Russian people seem interested in world domination, in addition to peace and security. The American people feel obliged to resist your efforts in that direction."

  "I think perhaps you misunderstand our philosophy. Or perhaps our previous leaders have frightened you with their unfortunate rhetoric. There is nothing in Marxist-Leninist theory that demands violent revolution as a prelude to world communism. And in fact, the development of nuclear weapons has made such an idea obsolete, if it ever existed in the first place. Any true socialist must despise war—and especially nuclear war—because it kills the population that socialism is trying to free."

  "Well, maybe we should talk a bit about the Soviet Union's application of that theory in Afghanistan."

  * * *

  Valentina looks at the grandfather clock, its hands still stuck at ten past nine. She walks slowly past it and up to the second floor. She gazes down the endless corridor, shuts her eyes for a moment, and then starts walking again. Voices murmur in the distance. She pauses briefly before one of the first doors in the corridor. Behind that door is a man named Lawrence Hill. She defeated him once, but now he has defeated her. He waits inside, perhaps still ready to fight, but there is nothing she can do about him now. She walks on until she finds a door that is open.

  She goes inside. There is light coming from somewhere. There is a bed, and on the bed is a baby.

  "Theodore," she whispers. "Teddy."

  The baby reaches out to her.

  * * *

  This wasn't getting anywhere. Volnikov had said it might take a while, but Grigoriev didn't want to keep up this ideological wrangling all afternoon. Winn was already beginning to look a little annoyed; he was, of course, expecting something more substantive than a lecture on socialist theory. But Grigoriev had been told to avoid the details, to keep the conversation focused on the big picture, so that Winn would have a rational basis for his conversion. And, of course, he had to keep other people out of the room. He didn't want Winn's secretary of state observing the transformation, if there was one. Well, he was doing his job—they couldn't accuse him of shirking it. And if nothing happened, he would not be to blame.

  "What about emigration?" Winn demanded. "If you're so confident of ultimate victory, why don't you let people make up their own minds if they want to stay in your country? I'm very interested in exploring ways of loosening your emigration policy in return for certain concessions we might be prepared to make—in trade, for example."

  "Emigration is not an important issue, Mr. President."

  "Call me Ted."

  "Thank you. Ted. The Soviet Union, of course, permits emigration, except for reasons of state security."

  "You sometimes have very strange ideas of state security, it seems to me."

  "But are we not entitled to our ideas? Just because they are different from yours—you who live in a land that has never known the invader's yoke—does not mean the ideas are wrong. Look, there must be some restrictions on individual freedoms in order to benefit the common good—even America recognizes that. If the state has trained and educated a person and provided him with housing and free medical care, it has a right, I believe, to be very careful before letting him go to join the enemy—just as your government has a right to execute someone who plots to overthrow it."

  Winn grimaced. "The situations are hardly analogous. For one thing..."

  Grigoriev shifted in his armchair. When? he wondered. When?

  * * *

  She tries to hate the baby, but it is so hard. This could be her child—hers and Daniel's. Must you destroy life in order to create it? Must you hate in order to love? She is crying now. The baby looks at her with a puzzled expression. Is it going to cry too? Damn them all. Why her? Why him?

  She finds her hatred then. It is not directed at the baby, but it fills her mind, fills the room, and somehow it starts to work. The baby grows.

  * * *

  "It's starting," Trofimov announced.

  Inside the pyramid, Valentina was crying, Doctor Chukova noticed, the tears leaking out from beneath the absurd halved table-tennis balls, past the electrodes taped to her skull, and running down onto the pillow. Doctor Chukova had never seen that before. She felt like crying herself.

  * * *

  The baby grows and changes, a time-lapse film of a life, and soon it is Theodore Winn. Born of hatred, will he hate her—even though she does not hate him? She cannot follow the logic of it, so she simply waits.

  Winn gets up from the bed. He is a large man, and very fit. She had known he would be difficult to defeat, and those brawny shoulders and large, strong hands prove it. He stares at her, puzzled, and then looks around at the room. "Where am I?" he asks.

  She cannot reply.

  "I've got to get out of here," he says, and he walks toward the door.

  Valentina blocks his way. She cannot let him leave. "No," she says.

  "What do you mean? I'm a busy man, young—"

  She knees him in the groin and pushes him down onto the floor.

  And the battle begins.

  * * *

  What was going on? Was it the clam chowder? Winn was starting to feel—well, no, not strange. No, he felt all right. It was just that—

  "The Soviet Union has its problems, I grant you," Grigoriev was saying, "but they can be solved. America also has its problems, but they are insoluble by definition, because they arise from the fundamental conflict between the good of the individual and the good of society. You think you can have both, but you can't. Individual self-interest leads to exploitation, and that leads to the squalor and crime and poverty I saw on my ride through New York City this morning. You can't eradicate these problems through charity or welfare or more prisons; you can eradicate them only by changing the very nature of your society so that exploitation is impossible."

  This was ridiculous. It was high school rhetoric. And yet... never mind. Ridiculous. "What is the old joke?" Winn said. " 'Under capitalism, man exploits man. Under communism, it's the other way around.'"

  Grigoriev smiled. "A very old joke. Do you honestly believe it's true?"

  "I believe there will always be exploitation. The Soviet Union has already done more than its share, and I see no evidence that it's going to stop. America may have difficulty balancing conflicting interests, but in the Soviet Union there is only one interest—the state, and it is interested only in perpetuating itself. Someday there will be paradise on earth, you tell people, so put up with the inefficiency and the oppression for just a while longer. They've become pretty cynical about that by now, haven't they, Mr. Secretary?"

  Grigoriev shrugged. "There will always be cynics. Call me Pavel."

  "Pavel." Was it getting hot in here? Don't suppose these windows opened. Maybe a glass of water. "Would you like some water, Pavel?"

  Grigoriev shook his head. "No thank you, Ted. But please, help yourself."

  Winn got up and poured a glass. It felt good to get out of that chair. He hated sitting down. His hand wasn't shaking, was it? His hand never shook. "We should really get down to business here," he said, returning to his chair.

  "Of course. Shall we talk about my arms-reduction proposals, then?"

  * * *

  They roll around the floor. She quickly loses the advantage of her surprise attack and has to contend with a larger, stronger adversary, now enraged by the pain she has inflicted on him.

  He pins her next to the bed. "What's going on?" he demands.

  She can't think what to say. Would he try to rape her, as so many of them had? That would give her strength; she could find some hatred then.

  But instead he simply shakes his head and stands up. "This is ridiculous," he mutters, and he leaves the room before she has a chance to stop him.

  This has never happened before. She struggles to her feet and races after him. She can't let him escape.

  * * *

  "P
ulse rate one-fifty and erratic," Doctor Chukova said. In the pyramid, her patient was pushing rhythmically against the restraints: left leg, right leg, left leg... Was she running?

  "It's taking a long time, isn't it?" Trofimov said. He was wringing his hands as he stared at the console.

  Chukova glanced over at Rylev. He hadn't moved from his chair by the door. The American spy sat next to him. "One-sixty," she murmured. No one seemed to be listening.

  * * *

  No one could say Grigoriev hadn't tried. Winn seemed a little out of sorts, but that was hardly what they were after. It could be attributed as much to the lack of progress in the meeting as to any psychic influence. Perhaps Stashinsky had said a prayer, and there had been a miracle. That was all right with him.

  They were talking about disarmament now, and perhaps they would get something accomplished. He hoped so. "I see no reason," he said, "why we should not link discussions of all types of weapons for the purposes of creating one comprehensive treaty...."

  * * *

  She reaches him at the top of the stairs, but he pushes her aside and hurries down to the large empty hall. She follows him. He tries the front door. It is locked. "How do I get out of here?" he demands.

  "I don't know," she says.

  "What's going on? Am I a prisoner?"

  "Yes," she whispers. Everyone is a prisoner.

  "And you're my jailer or something?"

  She shrugs.

  "Why did you attack me?"

  She can't think of an answer.

  "If you're not my jailer, then can you tell me how to get out?"

  "There is no way out."

  He looks at her, and then dismisses her. She is no threat, and she has no information for him. He strides across the hall and through a doorway. She knows what he will find there. Another stairway—this one leading down into the depths of the dream-building, spiraling into the darkness, still descending long after you think it cannot go any farther. But there is no bottom to this place, just as there are no windows or back doors. She has looked for them and has not found them; neither will he.