“As long as the president needs me.”
“How thrilling!”
Gus nodded. “It’s the best job in the world. But it does mean that I’m not my own master. If the crisis with Germany escalates, it could be a long time before I come back to Buffalo.”
“We’ll miss you.”
“And I’ll miss you. We’ve been such pals since I came back.” They had gone boating on the lake in Delaware Park and bathing at Crystal Beach; they had taken steamers up the river to Niagara and across the lake to the Canadian side; and they had played tennis every other day-always with a group of young friends, and chaperoned by at least one watchful mother. Today Mrs. Vyalov was with them, walking a few paces behind and talking to Chuck Dixon. Gus went on: “I wonder if you have any idea how much I’ll miss you.”
Olga smiled, but made no reply.
Gus said: “This has been the happiest summer of my life.”
“And mine!” she said, twirling her red-and-white polka-dot parasol.
That delighted Gus, although he was not sure it was his company that had made her happy. He still could not make her out. She always seemed pleased to see him, and was glad to talk to him hour after hour. But he had seen no emotion, no sign that her feelings for him might be passionate rather than merely friendly. Of course, no respectable girl ought to show such signs, at least until she was engaged; but all the same Gus felt at sea. Perhaps that was part of her appeal.
He recalled vividly that Caroline Wigmore had communicated her needs to him with unmistakable clarity. He found himself thinking a lot about Caroline, who was the only other woman he had ever loved. If she could say what she wanted, why not Olga? But Caroline had been a married woman, whereas Olga was a virgin who had had a sheltered upbringing.
Gus stopped in front of the bear pit, and they looked through the steel bars at a small brown bear sitting on its haunches staring back at them. “I wonder if all our days could be this happy,” Gus said.
“Why not?” she said.
Was that encouragement? He looked at her. She did not return his gaze, but watched the bear. He studied her blue eyes, the soft curve of her pink cheek, the delicate skin of her neck. “I wish I were Titian,” he said. “I’d paint you.”
Her mother and Chuck went by and strolled on, leaving Gus and Olga behind. They were as alone as they would ever be.
She turned her gaze on him at last, and he thought he saw something like fondness in her eyes. That gave him courage. He thought: If a president who has been a widower less than a year can do it, surely I can?
He said: “I love you, Olga.”
She said nothing, but continued to look at him.
He swallowed. Once again he could not make her out. He said: “Is there any chance… May I hope that one day you might love me too?” He stared at her, holding his breath. At this moment she held his life in her hands.
There was a long pause. Was she thinking? Weighing him in the balance? Or just hesitating before a life- changing decision?
At last she smiled and said: “Oh, yes.”
He could hardly believe it. “Really?”
She laughed happily. “Really.”
He took her hand. “Do you love me?”
She nodded.
“You have to say it.”
“Yes, Gus, I love you.”
He kissed her hand. “I’ll speak to your father before I go to Washington.”
She smiled. “I think I know what he will say.”
“After that we can tell everyone.”
“Yes.”
“Thank you,” he said fervently. “You have made me very happy.”
Gus called at Josef Vyalov’s office in the morning and formally asked permission to propose to his daughter. Vyalov pronounced himself delighted. Although that was the answer Gus expected, he found himself weak with relief afterward.
Gus was on his way to the station to catch a train to Washington, so they agreed to celebrate as soon as he could get back. Meanwhile, Gus was happy to leave it to Olga’s mother and his to plan the wedding.
Entering Central Station on Exchange Street with a spring in his step, he ran into Rosa Hellman coming out, wearing a red hat, carrying a small overnight bag. “Hello,” he said. “May I help you with your luggage?”
“No, thanks, it’s light,” she said. “I was only away one night. I went for an interview with one of the wire services.”
He raised his eyebrows. “For a job as a reporter?”
“Yes-and I got it.”
“Congratulations! Forgive me if I sound surprised-I didn’t think they employed women writers.”
“It’s unusual, but not unknown. The New York Times hired its first female reporter in 1869. Her name was Maria Morgan.”
“What will you be doing?”
“I’ll be the assistant to their Washington correspondent. The truth is, the president’s love life has made them think they need a woman there. Men are liable to miss romantic stories.”
Gus wondered if she had mentioned that she was friendly with one of Wilson’s closest aides. He guessed she had: reporters were never coy. No doubt it had helped her get the job. “I’m on my way back,” he said. “I guess we’ll see each other there.”
“I hope so.”
“I have some good news, too,” he said happily. “I proposed to Olga Vyalov-and she accepted me. We’re getting married.”
She gave him a long look, then she said: “You fool.”
He could not have been more shocked if she had slapped him. He stared at her openmouthed.
“You goddamn fool,” she said, and she walked away.
Two more Americans died on August 19 when the Germans torpedoed another large British liner, the Arabic.
Gus was sorry for the victims but even more aghast at America’s being pulled inexorably into the European conflict. He felt that the president was on the brink. Gus wanted to get married in a world of peace and happiness; he dreaded a future blighted by the mayhem and cruelty and destruction of war.
On Wilson’s instructions, Gus told a few reporters, off the record, that the president was on the point of breaking off diplomatic relations with Germany. Meanwhile the new secretary of state, Robert Lansing, tried to make some kind of deal with the German ambassador, Count Johann von Bernstorff.
It could go horribly wrong, Gus thought. The Germans could call Wilson’s bluff and defy him. Then what would he do? If he did nothing he would look stupid. He told Gus that breaking off diplomatic relations would not necessarily lead to war. Gus was left with the frightening feeling that the crisis was out of control.
But the kaiser did not want war with America and, to Gus’s immense relief, Wilson’s gamble paid off. At the end of August the Germans promised not to attack passenger ships without warning. It was not a fully satisfactory reassurance, but it ended the standoff.
The American newspapers, missing all the nuances, were ecstatic. On September 2 Gus triumphantly read aloud to Wilson a paragraph from a laudatory article in that day’s New York Evening Post. “Without mobilizing a regiment or assembling a fleet, by sheer, dogged, unwavering persistence in advocating the right, he has compelled
