Mia was flustered. This strange, cadaverous man wanted her to live in the same house as him? Suddenly she had doubts.
“Upstairs? Where exactly is your office?”
“Sorry. Didn’t I mention that? In the White House. Come around to the Rose Garden entrance at eight o’clock on Monday, and someone will take you up.”
Mia checked her watch as she lugged her suitcase along the path that curved around the White House South Lawn. Seven thirty. She was on time.
“Can I help you, miss?”
Startled, she turned to see a uniformed policeman.
“Um, I’m supposed to report to Mr. Hopkins. I have an appointment at ten o’clock.”
“Well, the public ain’t supposed to be wandering around the Rose Garden, but I’ll take you to the door.” He swung toward the left and began walking.
“Thank you.” She grabbed her suitcase and scurried after him. The officer led her up a low flight of steps and along an arcade to the end. A door opened as they approached.
“I got a woman here says she has an appointment with Mr. Hopkins,” her guide announced. His job done, he hooked his thumbs on his belt and stepped back.
Nodding, the second officer dialed something on his phone and passed the message along. Mia glanced at her watch again. Quarter till eight.
Some two minutes later, a civilian in a dark suit appeared. “Good morning, Miss Kramer. I’m George Allen, the White House butler. Mr. Hopkins is expecting you.” He took her suitcase out of her hand.
Pleased to finally be acknowledged and relieved of the cumbersome baggage, she followed him without glancing back. He led her along a corridor that took them back into the main building, and they climbed a flight of stairs to the second floor. They passed closed doors, and she wondered what majestic staterooms lay behind them. He halted at the far end of the corridor where a plaque near the door read Lincoln Suite. The butler knocked and set her suitcase down against the wall.
The door opened to the same cadaverous man who’d hired her. “Ah, right on time. Thank you, Mr. Allen.” He waved away the butler and opened the door wider to admit her.
Inside, a desk, cabinet, and side table were covered with papers, and a jacket hung over the back of a chair. “Sorry about the mess. The paperwork just overflows, which is why I’ve hired you.”
She nodded, waiting for more explanation of her job. Would it start with housekeeping?
“I’m sure you’re familiar with President Roosevelt’s Lend-Lease program. I’m in charge of it, more or less. In short, I work for him, and you’ll work for me. Let me show you to your office.” He stepped toward the door and held it open for her. “How’s your shorthand, by the way?”
“Tolerable. I can read it myself,” she said, passing him.
They strode along the corridor together. “That’s fine. The supply orders are constantly changing, and while the federal budget office will do the final accounting, I’ll need early estimates to present to them. So you’ll be my accountant, too.”
They stepped through a door into another hallway and then into an elegantly furnished room.
“And the Russian?” she asked. “You said that was a requirement.”
“The Russian. Yes. For the correspondence from the Soviets. The president has his official translators, of course, but I want to have my own resources.”
Her mind was buzzing with the amount of responsibility he seemed to be handing her, but it was a good buzz.
“Ah, here we are.” He opened the final door to a cubicle with a tiny desk, typewriter, and a gooseneck lamp. “This is your work space. On the other side of this wall is the First Lady’s office. It’s small, I know, but half the time, you’ll be at conferences with me taking notes.”
He glanced at his watch. “I have a meeting now with the president in the West Sitting Hall, so Mr. Allen will show you to your quarters. You can settle in and then meet me back at my room at ten.”
Escorting her to the door, Hopkins started off down the corridor on his long legs.
The butler still waited outside the office with her suitcase, and she rejoined him, stifling a grin.
So that’s it. I work for the president of the United States.
“Here you are, Miss Kramer.” The butler opened the door to her room and set her suitcase down just inside. “The bathroom is down the hall on the left, and you’ll be taking your meals downstairs in the White House kitchen. Supper is at seven.”
“Who else is up here?” she asked, noting the other doors.
“At the moment, just the housemaids and the occasional non-state guests. So, I’ll leave you to your unpacking now.” With the slightest hint of a bow, he backed away and closed the door gently.
She glanced around at her new quarters, in a part of the White House she hadn’t even known existed. The narrow room with a sloped ceiling was sparsely furnished, with fewer amenities than her rooming-house accommodations had offered.
She laid out her few belongings: her comb and brush, toothbrush, three changes of clothing, several sets of underwear. Nervously, she checked her watch. Almost ten.
After running her brush quickly over her hair and checking that her slip didn’t show, she hurried down to the main floor to the Lincoln Suite. No one replied to her knock.
Hopkins was undoubtedly still with the president, so she strolled toward the room where they were meeting. She’d only just arrived when the door opened. Hopkins stood in the doorway, his back turned, making some final remark. Curious, she looked past him to catch a glimpse of the president and caught her breath.
The president of the United States was in a wheelchair.
Chapter Three
Russia, September 1943
The air raid siren over the city of Arkhangelsk began to wail for the hundredth time, and Alexia sprang into action. The Red Army was pushing back the Germans all over the Eastern Front, but the Luftwaffe persisted in bombing Arkhangelsk, trying to block the arriving arms shipments. Not only the harbor came under repeated attack; the town itself was regularly bombarded.
She rushed down the creaking wooden staircase at the back of the house and ran full-out toward the school. The first wave of bombers was overhead now, dropping their high-explosive charges. Knocked to the ground by the first concussion, she rolled behind a truck, covering her head. Her ears rang, and when she looked up she saw that the school, just in front of her, was untouched. Unfortunately, another raid would follow within minutes.
She staggered along the cratered road to where the rest of the wardens were already assembling with gloves and helmets, and Grigory was unrolling the main hose. Waving to the team leader, she rushed up the stairs to her post, cowering behind one of the walls as the next wave of planes arrived.
As usual, the second wave carried only incendiaries. Where the earlier explosions had penetrated the roofs, the incendiaries would finish the job inside the buildings, igniting fires inaccessible to the water hoses.
The incendiaries themselves were small, but very hot. Hundreds fell at once, littering the tar-and-wood roof in a network of sizzling sparks, and the wardens lurched toward one after another to snatch them up before they burned through.
Though she held them for only a second, they scorched her gloves, and the acrid smoke reddened her face, but she and the others succeeded in flinging them onto the courtyard below, where they burned out.
Then the planes were gone, and the school still stood. Exhausted, she joined the others jogging back to town, too exhausted and coughing to cheer, or even talk.