The Diamond Eye

The narrative returns to Washington, DC, in 1942, as the American sniper arrives at the Lincoln Memorial for a meeting with a contract. He explains that the current job will require him to select someone on the delegation to frame Mila for his assassination attempt. He surprises his contact by guessing that he has been hired by those opposed to Roosevelt’s domestic progressive agenda and wartime alliance with the USSR. The sniper explains, “That’s always who hires me. Some shadowy compact of powerful disenchanted suits” (115).

Eleanor Roosevelt watches her husband prepare for the day. He is lost in thought, and she suspects he is contemplating a time when he was young and healthy in the snowy winters of New York State. She leaves, wondering what circumstances have created his need for refuge.

Mila’s narration remarks that while her public memoir makes little mention of Alexei, the reality was different, to her chagrin—he turned up often during her war years. Back in the 1940s narrative, she encounters him on the ship to Sevastopol, “large as life and three times as unpleasant” (121).