Ike and Kay

by James MacManus

  He was breathing deeply. “Sorry,” he said. “I don’t know why this is happening. It’s not that I don’t want you.”

  She laughed, a real laugh.

  “It’s not what’s happening, Ike, it’s what’s not happening. And you know something? It doesn’t matter one tiny little bit. Put that cigarette down and kiss me.”

  He laughed too and kissed her again quickly before breaking away.

  “What’s that over there?” he said, looking across at the side-table.

  “That’s the sandwich you ordered for dinner.”

  “A ham sandwich? This is Paris, Kay. Get dressed and get the car. We’re going out”.

  “But you said ...”

  “Never mind what I said.”

  “But you can’t just ...”

  “Yes I can,” he said, holding out his hand. “Come on.”

  They drove back into the city, Ike sitting beside her. They were quite alone. The security detail had been told not to follow them.

  “Any idea where we’re going?” she asked.

  “Nope,” he said. “When we see a restaurant we like the look of we’ll go in.”

  “But they’ll recognise you.”

  “So what? We might get a free dinner.”

  If this is what making love did to her boss Kay was determined to repeat the performance soon. He was like a schoolboy skipping class, knowing he had broken the rules but enjoying the sudden sense of freedom.

  It was almost ten at night and many of the restaurants in the western suburbs were closing. As they drove into the city itself he suddenly pointed to a well lit brasserie with a crowd inside, dimly seen through misted windows. It was called Le Chat Noir.

  “There!” he said.

  Curious glances followed them to a table at the back of the restaurant. A waiter briefly handed them large menus and left to return a minute later and lower his head as if to impart a secret.

  “Le patron vous offre une boisson,” he said.

  Ike looked at Kay. “Champagne,” she said.

  They clinked fluted glasses, tore open brown rolls and dipped them into small bowls of olive oil spotted with vinegar.

  The waiter came to take the order.

  “Steak medium rare with a side salad and potatoes,” said Ike.

  Kay rolled her eyes, shaking her head slightly. The waiter began to write the order down. Ike looked at Kay for a moment, then back at the waiter.

  “What else have you got?” he said.

  The waiter let his pen drift down the long menu.

  “While you’re making your mind up, I will have the asparagus to start followed by fillets of bream meunière with new potatoes and an endive salad on the side,” said Kay.

  Eisenhower looked at the menu for a moment more, then returned it to the waiter.

  “That’ll do me.”

  The waiter vanished into the kitchen. Ike leant forward.

  “How come the French are so good at cooking?” he asked.

  “Same way you’re a good soldier – training and tradition.”

  “They laugh at our food. They think of us as the nation that polluted the world with chewing gum, hamburgers and coca cola.”

  “They’re not laughing now,” she said.

  “No, but it’s against Gallic pride to recognise what we have done for them. Anyway no war talk please. Let’s talk about something else – anything.”

  They paused, sipped the champagne, then Kay said, “OK. What would you do if you looked in the mirror one morning and saw a stranger looking back at you?”

  He laughed. ”Oh, you Irish and your fairy tales.”

  “Go on,” she said.

  “I’d shoot him.”

  “And get seven years bad luck!”

  “Better than have a madman stepping out of a mirror.”

  “Have you ever ...?”

  “What?”

  “Shot someone?”

  “No. I’ve been lucky. I have always had others to do it.”

  “That can’t have been easy.”

  Ike finished his champagne and allowed the waiter to pour another glass. People in the restaurant were looking at them. No one seemed sure who the uniformed stranger was.

  “It’s worse when others do the dying for you,” he said.

  He reached out, took her hand and squeezed it.

  “I know,” she said, “I’ve seen it in you.”

  The asparagus arrived dressed in melted butter and flaked with parmesan. They ate in silence, gratefully accepting a bottle of fine white wine from the patron, and went on to the fish course. Kay ate slowly, chewing carefully as she had been taught as a child.

  Eisenhower finished quickly, leant over his empty plate, tapped his forehead. “Know something? I sometimes think you’re the only one who knows what’s happening up here.”

  It was almost midnight when they left, leaning into each other as they walked to the car. Kay giggled. “I’ve drunk too much, I shouldn’t be driving.”

  “You’re fine,” he said. “Get in.”

  They got in the car. Kay looked back at the restaurant. The patron was framed in the doorway, a silhouette against the bright interior, holding a salute. Ike got out and stepped away from the car. He faced the patron and returned the salute. The two men remained motionless, facing each other across the car park for a moment, then broke away. Kay didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

  15

  October-December 1944

  Eisenhower drew a grim conclusion from the announcement of Rommel’s death on German state radio. The German general was said to have died from war wounds and was to be honoured with a full state funeral. The assumption in the Allied command was that he had been either murdered or forced into suicide, which amounted to the same thing.

  Eisenhower did not care what lay behind the death of the man who might well have cost him the D-Day victory; the one leader who could have united the German people behind a new government that would negotiate a surrender had gone.

  More than ever before Hitler’s hold on power was absolute, as was his determination to fight to the bitter end. There were still three and a half million men under arms in Germany despite appalling losses on both the Eastern and Western Fronts.

  Men aged sixty-five and over and schoolboys as young as fourteen were being conscripted into new units. Despite saturation bombing, many factories had moved underground and were still producing weapons, ammunition and spare parts – and the V2s were still falling on London.

  As an unseasonably warm autumn turned into a bitter winter, more pressing matters gripped the Allied commander and his staff. The over-extended supply lines from Normandy ports were hindering the advance into Germany itself. Every bullet, every tin of spam, every consignment of blood packs for transfusions for front line troops had to make a three-hundred-mile journey across France. Eisenhower fumed at the delays and raged at Montgomery’s refusal to accept orders without arguing about everything asked of him.

  And then there was Kay Summersby. Since that evening in front of an unlit fire she had become two people, both powerful presences in his life; his driver, secretary and problem-solver, and then there was the woman who indubitably had become his lover. It was difficult to reconcile the two. He could see she felt the same way.

  She came into his office as usual, knocking first and opening the door when he gave the gruff command to do so.

  “Is this a good time?” she asked.

  “For what?” he asked.

  “I need to explain something.”

  She looked pale, with dark rings under her eyes showing through make-up. She was nervous. Ike had not seen her like this before. Normally she walked in confident, smiling, a file under her arm, ready to plan the day ahead.

  “What’s up?” he said.

 
Kay took a deep breath sighed and looked down at her feet.

  “What is it?” he said.

  “I want a transfer to another post.”

  Ike rose from his chair: “What?”

  “It’s time for a change, sir. I have been with you for two years now.”

  “So?”

  “I don’t want this to go on between us.”

  He looked at her blankly, trying to find the words for a reply.

  He had worked so closely with this woman. He had trusted her, as much as any of his staff, with many of the secrets of the campaign; it didn’t seem possible that she who meant so much in every way, who had given herself joyously to him in front of a cheerless fire, that this woman should want to leave him now.

  He put such personal thoughts aside. She helped him handle the clashing egos within the Allied command. She was always there when he needed her. She made his life possible. What had he told her in that restaurant – “You make me happy because you understand me” – that was the truth. Why on earth would she choose to leave now? She had told him she loved him, hadn’t she? And he had said what? “I’ll never let you go.”

  Kay broke the silence that had descended on the room.

  “I know this is a difficult time but I just think it’s better this way,” she added.

  “What way?” It was all he could say.

  “It’s got to stop. It’s dangerous. It isn’t right. You are married for one thing. There is a lot of talk about us among your staff and it’s much wider than that. The English papers are sitting on the story that we’re having an affair and for all I know the American papers are too.”

  “For Christ’s sake – so what?”

  “You can’t keep saying so what. So it’s going to be very damaging to you. Think of the headlines: supreme Allied commander having affair with his English mistress at the height of the war.”

  Eisenhower knew the truth of the old cliché: he was lost for words. He grew angry.

  “The hell with that, Kay. You can’t do this. It’s that simple.”

  “I can. You can. We must.”

  Eisenhower slammed his fist onto the table.

  “No we mustn’t. It doesn’t make sense”

  “It makes very good sense. Think about it. The war is going to end soon. In months, even before Christmas maybe. Then what?”

  “Then I go back to Washington.”

  “Exactly. And what do I do?”

  “You come with me.”

  “As what exactly?”

  “I’ll get you a job – in the Pentagon maybe.”

  “I’m not a US citizen. You know that’s not possible.”

  “You will be soon.”

  “What do you mean by that?”

  Eisenhower sat down, reached for a pack of Lucky Strikes and flipped one out. She stepped forward and flicked open a lighter. He waved it away and struck a match. She desperately wanted one too.

  “Mind if I smoke?” she said.

  He waved an arm to indicate agreement and fiddled with the file she had placed on the desk. She had seen him so many times like this frowning, smoking, trying out answers to a problem and closing in on the answer. She lit her cigarette.

  “Don’t push me, Kay,” he said. “You’ll be coming back with me after the war. That’s a fact.”

  “What about your wife – Mamie?”

  He paused. He had not got that far. There were far too many other things on his mind. A war to be fought. Victory to be won. Why bring Mamie into it now? What was she trying to do to him?

  “That’s for later. Right now your duty is to be here with me.”

  “My duty is to serve you as best I can. That means ending this.”

  “This what?”

  “Don’t make this difficult, Ike. You know what’s between us.”

  “And what would you say that was?”

  “You know perfectly well what that is. We never mention it. Love is a four-letter word, isn’t it?”

  “I need you, that’s all I know. You make me happy. Now the hell with this nonsense. There’s work to do.”

  “Ike, I can’t, I’m sorry.”

  “Sorry? I thought you said you loved me.”

  “Yes, of course I do.”

  “Then don’t do this.”

  She turned away from him and looked out of the window. Two gardeners were tending the elaborate lawns and flower beds that had been laid out when Louis the Sun King was on the throne and France was a world power. They were using hoses from large canisters strapped to their backs to water grass, flowers and plants wilting in the summer heat.

  They were French and had performed the same task when the German command in France had been based here at Versailles. The water canisters were heavy. The men were old and weary. They had seen history move with the speed of a camera shutter. Yet the Allied victory and the German occupation before made no difference to the work they did here.

  Men had been tending these gardens for two hundred years, Kay thought. There was a truth to be found in such a timeless scene – the stoic virtue of facing and accepting the inevitable fate that is stamped upon us from birth. Well, to hell with fate. Charlotte was right.

  “I’ve told you before and I’ll say it again,” Charlotte had said, “He’s using you. He doesn’t know it because he’s a decent man and he doesn’t think like that. But they all do it. Get out of there before it’s too late. Make your own luck, no one is going to do it for you.”

  A small voice, the still small voice of reason, told Kay that Charlotte was probably right.

  She turned back to face Ike.

  “Think about it, Ike. What do I do for you? I manage the diary, light your cigarettes, make coffee the way you like it, mix your drinks in the evening and look after the dog back in England. Anyone can do that.”

  “There’s more to it than that and you know it.”

  “Of course there is. That’s why I’m leaving.”

  She stepped back as he walked briskly around the desk. He placed his hands on her shoulders.

  “Look at me,” he said.

  “I’ve made my mind up, sir. Don’t make this difficult.”

  “You’ve said that already. You’re the one making this difficult.”

  “This will be better for both of us. You have a meeting now, by the way.”

  “Kay, you don’t want to do this and nor do I. Is that right?”

  “That’s not the point.”

  “Of course it is.” He was almost shouting. He stopped. He was not going to lose his temper. He looked at his watch. He did indeed have a meeting scheduled.

  “I’m doing this because I want the best for you.”

  “That’s romantic bullshit, Kay. Get the hell out of here and don’t talk this nonsense again”.

  Kay saluted, put the file on his desk and turned towards the door.

  “Kay!”

  “Yes, sir?”

  “Your request for a transfer is refused. And this stays between us. Not a word outside this office. That’s an order.”

  She left, closing the door quietly. General Bradley and other senior officers were outside waiting for their meeting. She wondered if they had heard anything. She heard Ike yell “Come in!” as she walked down the corridor. They were in for a difficult meeting. She walked outside and took several deep breaths. She felt bruised and winded just like when she had fallen badly from a horse back in Ireland.

  She leant against the wall and took a handkerchief from her bag. Her hands were shaking. She wasn’t going to cry. She shook a cigarette from a pack of Marlboros and lit it. She inhaled, drawing the smoke deep into her lungs then expelling it in a long plume. She felt calmer and tried to think. It was hopeless. She couldn’t get a transfer unless he agreed.

  She could resign from her positi
on, no one could stop her doing that. She had not formally been inducted into the US Army despite her uniform – but then what? The MTC wouldn’t have her back. She’d be a single woman in London without a job or means of support. Charlotte would be in full “I told you so” mode and would introduce her to the kind of man who would try and put his hand up her skirt after the first large gin and tonic and forget her name after the second. She threw the butt of the cigarette away and lit another one.

  None of that was the point. She’d been a bloody fool. That was the point. He didn’t want her to leave and she didn’t want to leave him. Her boss was right. He needed her now. As for their affair, Ike was probably right about that too. The hell with what people think. So maybe, like the gardeners, she should just water the flowers and let life takes its course.

  She threw the cigarette away and went back inside. She sat on a chair outside the door. The voices inside were loud and bad-tempered. She waited, chain-smoking, for twenty minutes or half an hour. She lost track of time. The door opened. Bradley’s party left unsmiling and unhappy. She stood up, smoothed her skirt and opened the door without knocking.

  Ike looked up frowning. She said “You’ve got a lunch across town. I’ll wait for you in the car.”

  Kay had never forgotten the string of oaths in the back of the Packard as she drove Eisenhower away from his first meeting with Monty. That had been two years ago, and every message that had crossed her desk between the two men since told her that the relationship was becoming more venomous.

  Montgomery was the only commander who refused to allow her into his meetings with Eisenhower; all the others, including Omar Bradley and George Patton, welcomed her as someone who could take a good note and keep the supreme commander well supplied with coffee and cigarettes. Only the very secret meetings were off limits, and even then Ike made her wait in the corridor outside the door in case he needed her.

  With Montgomery it was different. He made his disapproval of her presence obvious. He never bothered to greet her with even normal civility when she accompanied Eisenhower to a meeting. He simply ignored her. He didn’t even arrange for tea or so much as a glass of water to be offered to her. On the one occasion he had talked to her it had been with open hostility.