Ike And Nina

"Ike and Nina" refers to the affair between President Dwight D. Eisenhower (Ike) and Russian Premiersha Nina Khrushcheva. The narrator, Mr. Padarewski, is a Russian/English bilingual staff member of Ike's organization. Though he has only seen the President rarely and briefly through this point of his career, he is one day summoned to the Oval Office. There, President Dwight D. Eisenhower informs Padarewski, as a fluent Russian speaker, that he will be his aid for the upcoming visit of the Russian Premier Nikita Khrushcheva and his wife (Nina). Of course, Ike tells him, anything and everything that occurs during the visit is top secret. Padarewski recalls events stemming back ten years earlier to when Ike was first swept off of his feet by Nina. The first time he ever looked at her started a covert, continuous series of sensual encounters between the two at political events. They two lovers would find ways to get alone with each other for whichever amount of time was possible. During the visit in which Padarewski is in charge, a plan is devised for him to escort Nina from a dinner at the White House and deliver a note from Ike, which tells her where to meet him at 3 A.M. Once this hour of the night is reached, Padarewski sneaks Nina out of her room and into a Limousine with Ike, which Padarewski would drive around for a few hours, allowing them to get their business done. When dropping Nina off, a foreign car drives by and slows down as it passes the limousine. At the time, it doesn't seem like a big deal. Nina and Nikita leave Washington, D.C. to finish their visit across America. In Los Angeles, Nikita throws a tantrum, insulting the American people on their etiquette. Ike, who is with Padarewski at the time, claims that the Premier knows about the affair between Ike and Nina. Ike understands that this means the foreign car reported the news and that he can never make contact with Nina again. This saddens him tremendously; Padarewski refers to Ike and Nina as "star-crossed lovers" to wrap up the story.

T.C. Boyle has a lot of good literary things going on in "Ike and Nina." To start off, Padarewski's mesmerism with Ike is evident throughout the story. When describing Ike's nemesis (Nikita) of the love triangle with Nina, Padarewski refers to Nikita as a "torpedo-headed bully boy," something said to get on the good side of the President. He also comments throughout the story on how passionate the love is between Ike and Nina, actually stating that Ike is a more passionate lover than Romeo from Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet" (he later calls the President and Primersha 'star-crossed lovers'). Ironically, Padarewski sees Ike's cries for Nina as a manly, mature, profound act.

Boyle's use of asyndeton throughout "Ike and Nina" helps the story to be read smoothly, allowing each individual phrase of the asyndeton to be read and appreciated as an independent clause and an important idea. The asyndeton's go well with the romanticism of the story.