“A Communist?”
“And if I was?”
“I’d say it sounds just like you. Filled with hope and idealism. Were you?”
He smiled. “Not a party member, no. But I had Communist friends, and I wasn’t unsympathetic. Capitalism’s a shambles, misery everywhere, that’s obvious to anyone who thinks. And none of your capitalist so-called democracies gave a damn about Hitler.”
“You must have been devastated about the pact. The Nazis and the Soviets.”
He looked away. “I was disappointed, yes. But every country’s got a right to protect itself, even the Soviets, and by then everyone else was just kowtowing to Germany. I guess Stalin did the best he could. I don’t say I agree, I don’t say I wasn’t disappointed, but who gave in to Germany at Munich? Not the Soviets.”
Iris looked at the side of his face and thought how sharp and noble his profile was. “Is that why you ended up in the State Department?”
“Oh, muddled my way in, really. Went to Spain, as I said, with the Herald-Tribune. Saw enough of war to make me think I should try to do something to prevent it, so I came home and crammed for the civil service exam. Spent a year in Washington before they sent me here, summer of 1939.”
“Only a year? They must think highly of you.”
“Or wanted to get rid of me.”
“What about the war?” she asked.
“What about it?”
“What will you do? If Mussolini goes with Hitler, I mean.”
“Not if. When.”
“Well, then? What happens? You can’t stay here, can you?”
Sasha set the cigarette in the ashtray. “Of course we stay. A neutral embassy plays a vital role in war. How else do we get all these Jews out of Europe? Embassy staff stays to the bitter end, it’s part of the job. You, on the other hand.”
“Me?”
“You and your sister. You’ll have to evacuate.”
Iris glanced to the side, where a man and a woman shared a little round table identical to theirs. The man wore a plain gray-green uniform and the woman sat so close to him, you couldn’t see a single crack of sunlight between them. The man nuzzled her cheek and whispered something. The woman ducked her head and just like that—quick as a snake—he kissed her neck. Iris was mesmerized. She tried to keep her mind on the war.
“Ruth says Hitler’s going to invade France any day now.”
“She might be right. But Mussolini won’t declare himself, not at first. He’ll wait to see which way the wind blows.”
“How do you know that?”
“He’s a canny old bastard, that’s all. Like all Fascists. They don’t care about ideals.”
To Iris’s right, the man looked up from his lover’s neck and winked at Iris. She tore herself away and glanced up at the side of Sasha’s face. “But you do.”
Sasha looked down and smiled at her. Probably he saw the whole exchange—Iris mesmerized by the intimate couple, the man winking back.
“Maybe,” he said.
Sasha insisted on walking her back to her apartment and helping her up the stairs. It was all his fault, he said, because he should’ve taken her to coffee that day at the Villa Borghese. He should have worked up the nerve to greet her sooner.
“How long were you following me?” she asked.
“Since you walked in.”
“I didn’t realize I was so intimidating.”
They paused on the landing between the first and second floors, so Iris could catch her breath. The stairway was shaded and cool. Sasha kept his hand under her elbow. “Harry tells me you’re an artist yourself.”
“Did he say that? I draw, that’s all.”
“Are you any good?”
She looked right up into his eyes and said, “I think so.”
“May I see some of your work?”
“Right now, you mean?”
He glanced up the stairs. “Why not?”
Iris checked her watch. Ruth was supposed to have a gig at noon today, and it was ten past the hour. “Only if you have the time.”
“I’ll make time.”
The apartment was empty, thank God. Iris called Ruth’s name, just to be sure.
“She’s at a photo shoot,” Iris said to Sasha.
“Of course.”
The apartment seemed larger than before. The crutches echoed from the walls as Iris opened the window shutters to let the sunshine in. “Would you like something to drink?” she asked.
“Don’t trouble yourself. I can fetch it myself.”
Sasha disappeared into the kitchen and Iris swung herself into the armchair, which still stood like a throne in the middle of the floor. She propped up her ankle with a sigh. Sasha returned with two glasses of gin and tonic. He handed her one.
“It’s very strong,” she gasped.
Instead of taking the nearest chair, Sasha walked to the window and leaned his shoulder against the frame. His eyes seemed to disappear underneath his heavy brow. “You know, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a pair of twin sisters less alike than you and Ruth.”
“That’s what everyone says. I take after my mother, I guess.”
“And Ruth? She takes after your father?”
“No, she’s more like my aunt Vivian. Tall and blond.” Iris smiled. “Like you.”
“Then I guess it’s true, that we’re attracted to our opposite.”
Iris coughed on her drink. Sasha started toward her, but she waved him away and hoisted herself back on her feet. “I should get those drawings before they miss you at the embassy.”
“There’s no rush,” he said.
She hobbled to her bedroom and pulled the sketchbook from her nightstand. When she turned around, Sasha stood in the doorway, holding his drink and hers.
Iris held out the sketchbook. “Be kind.”
He set down her drink and took the sketchbook from her hand. “I am always kind, Iris.”
Iris retreated to sit on the edge of the bed, sipping her gin and tonic. The mattress was old and creaked every time she shifted, so she sat still and looked around the room, everywhere except directly at Sasha, who leaned one elbow on the dresser and examined her sketches, one after another. He furrowed his brow and took his time. Whenever she glanced from the corner of her eye to his face, he was frowning. Her hands shook a little. She drank the rest of the gin and tonic in a gulp, so she wouldn’t spill it, and tucked her other hand under her thigh.
“These are very good,” said Sasha.
“Do you think so?”
“Yes.” He pointed to Ruth’s profile. “You’ve got the sense of her, not just the look of her. You can almost tell what she thinks of the book. And the potted palm, the proportions just right. Excellent.”
“Thank you.”
“It’s how you look at things, you know. It’s how you really see them.”
He stared at her again with his technicolor eyes, as if to prove his point—as if Iris were the only person in the universe, the only person who mattered. Iris couldn’t speak. Ruth would probably have had some clever reply ready, but then Ruth could never have drawn those sketches. It was one or the other, really.
Sasha set down the drawings.
The bedroom was not quite square, maybe twelve feet by ten feet. The door was open partway, but the stuffy air and the shuttered window made Iris feel that they were together in some kind of cave. This room, in which she’d slept for months, became a new room altogether. It even smelled different, because of the gin and tonic and all the cigarette smoke steeped in Sasha’s clothes. He moved his arm, and Iris thought he was maybe going to fish out his cigarettes, but he only leaned his elbow on the dresser as he stared at her.
“Does your family understand this? How good you are, I mean?”
Iris shook her head.
“No, I guess they wouldn’t. Your crowd—our crowd—you know who I mean—they think they have taste, but they only like what they’re told to like. What’s already been approved by some gallery or museum or the arts page of the New York Times.”
“Some man, probably.”
Sasha’s eyebrows rose. “Yes, some man, undoubtedly. Nobody takes a woman’s art seriously. Not even women.”
“Of course not. It’s too sentimental, isn’t it? Too banal or trivial or domestic. Not important enough.”
“What’s important,” Sasha said, “is what’s important to you.”