“Yes, I know!” she said eagerly.
Sasha let out a long sigh, almost like relief. “I thought you would. Anyway, that’s why I come to visit you. I knew—when I saw you at that party, the very first moment—I thought I recognized it.”
“Recognized what?”
“You were different, that’s all. You’d understand.”
Before Iris could ask what she was supposed to understand—she thought she knew, but she wanted to hear him say it—Sasha made a tiny, sad smile, smacked his palm against his thigh, and stood up.
“I’ve got to be back at the embassy, I’m afraid. Say, when do they let you out of here? I’d go nuts, if I were you.”
“Soon, I hope.”
He stared down at her face, and for a moment Iris thought he might bend down and kiss her. Then he did—so swiftly that later she’d wonder if she only imagined it.
“See you tomorrow?” he said.
But he didn’t come back the next day, or the next. Iris stared at the vases of flowers, all lined up on the metal nightstand next to the bed, and wondered if Sasha regretted that instant of intimacy. Maybe he’d realized he’d shared too much of himself, or worried he’d led her to think he was in love with her, when of course he wasn’t. How could he be? They hardly knew each other.
On the second Friday after the accident, Ruth carried in a pair of crutches and announced that the hospital was kicking Iris out to make room for some poor slob having his appendix removed. She helped Iris change into a dress, brushed her hair, applied some lipstick. She packed up Iris’s things, including all the vases of flowers—she shoved them all into one vase, as if they weren’t important—and carried them capably out the door and down the corridor to the taxi waiting outside the hospital, while Iris hobbled along beside her, small and mortified and crippled.
Six months had passed since Iris and Ruth arrived in Rome, and still Iris caught her breath whenever they turned the corner of Via dei Polacchi and their apartment came into view. They were here because of Harry. Last September, on the first anniversary of Mother’s death, Harry had sent a telegram that went something like
HAIL SISTERS STOP STATE DEPT REQUESTS YOURS TRULY REMAIN ROME ANOTHER YEAR STOP HOW ABOUT YOU JOIN ME STOP YOURS EVER HARRY
Iris had looked at Ruth and Ruth had looked at Iris. The two of them lived together in the family’s old apartment in Sutton Place, and it happened to be a chill, rainy, hopeless Thursday, and they had been counting the days until Harry would return home from his two years’ overseas assignment in Rome, the standard Foreign Service appointment. Now Europe had declared another war on itself, and Harry wasn’t coming home, and Iris thought she couldn’t stand another New York winter like the last one, all raw and grief-frozen, Ruth going out nightly to anesthetize her sorrow while the empty apartment echoed with memories. Should we go? Ruth asked, and Iris said, But there’s a war on, and Ruth answered, Not in Italy, and at least we’d all be together. What she didn’t say, but what they both understood, was that their parents would have wanted it that way—the three of them together.
The next day Ruth and Iris had walked down to the steamship office and booked passage (second class) for Rome, and when they arrived three weeks later Italy was still so warm and fragrant and vivid, Iris felt like a flower coming to life after a year of winter. She would sit on a bench overlooking the Tiber, say, or a chair in some darling café, and close her eyes to imagine her petals unfurling to the sun. They had taken this apartment on Via dei Polacchi—two bedrooms, a tiny bathroom and a tiny kitchen, and a parlor with a tiny balcony overlooking a tiny courtyard—and every morning Iris opened her eyes to the ancient fresco on the ceiling and thought, I am in Rome!
Because she’d been away for a week, the street looked new—the building just a bit unfamiliar. She’d forgotten that particular smell of stone and paint and sunshine. Spring had invaded every corner, and Ruth had planted flowers in all the chipped terra-cotta pots, so the balcony and the windows had come back to colorful life.
The apartment was on the second floor (Italian style) and Ruth followed behind patiently with the flowers and the carpetbag while Iris climbed both flights, step by step, planting her crutches on each stair before she hoisted herself up.
When they arrived at the door at last, Iris imagined she heard a noise, but still she was perfectly shocked when Ruth swung the door open and everybody yelled SURPRISE!
What a swell party! All of Harry’s embassy friends were there, and all their neighbors, and several people Iris didn’t even recognize, and Sasha Digby’s golden head floated above them all. The guests drank wine or gin and tonic and nibbled from the platters of cheese and crackers and prosciutto. Say what you would, Ruth had always known how to throw a real bash.
In the center of the room squatted a big, comfortable, secondhand armchair and a mismatched footrest (I took up a collection, Ruth said) where Iris propped her ankle in its plaster cast and sat like a queen on a throne. Everyone took a turn in the stool next to her, refilled her drink and her plate, and wished her well. By evening, she was drunk and sick from too much cheese and utterly happy. The guests filed out, and pretty soon only Harry and Ruth and Iris and Sasha Digby remained. Ruth sat on the stool while Sasha and Harry sprawled on the floor. The apartment was a shambles and reeked of wine. A bottle of cheap Chianti stood on the floor and Harry kept refilling everyone’s glass, except for Ruth, who drank gin and tonic. Iris said how perfectly lovely it had been, hadn’t it been a perfectly lovely afternoon? Couldn’t they just spend all their afternoons like this?
Ruth stretched her long legs. “Not once Hitler invades France. Then all hell’s going to break loose, isn’t it?”
“Is he really going to invade? Everybody’s been so well behaved.”
“Pumpkin, it’s a war, remember? Of course he’s going to invade. Isn’t he, boys? I’m shocked he hasn’t launched across the French border already. It’s already April.”
Harry lifted his thumb and forefinger to the corner of his mouth and solemnly zipped his lips.
“Sasha?” Ruth reached out with her toe and nudged his knee. “What’ve you got to say about Hitler? Anyone have the nerve to stop him?”
“I don’t know.” Sasha finished his wine and lit another cigarette.
“Irritable, are we?”
“Not at all. I just think there’s no point speculating.”
“Just because your old buddy Stalin’s abandoned the anti-Fascist cause—”
“Don’t talk garbage, Ruth. Christ.”
Ruth rattled the ice in her glass. “Sasha’s a Communist.”
Harry snorted. “Says who.”
“No, it’s true. He’s been to Spain and everything. Haven’t you, Sasha?”
Harry looked at Sasha. “Digby? I didn’t know that.”
“I was working for a newspaper,” Sasha said witheringly.
Ruth laughed and collected her cigarette from the edge of the ashtray. “Anyway, ask him about the dialectic and the failures of capitalism. He’ll tell you all about it.”
Iris looked at Harry lounging on his elbow—Sasha glaring at Ruth—Ruth in her red silk dress, calmly smoking a cigarette, tiny smile at the corner of her mouth. “It sounds as if everyone’s been having a terrific time together.”
“Don’t be cross. We’ve gone out for a few laughs, that’s all. Haven’t we, Harry?”
Harry leaned back until he lay on the floor, arms crossed contentedly over his stomach, smoke trailing from the cigarette between his fingers.
“Anyway,” Ruth said, “last night Sasha tried to stick up for Stalin and got his intellect all tied up in knots. This treaty’s put him in a real pickle.”
“What treaty?” Iris asked
“The Molotov treaty. Don’t you read the newspapers? Nazis and Soviets in bed together. It goes against everything, doesn’t it?”
“Don’t be stupid,” Sasha snapped.