“Of course I am. Aren’t you?”
“No. I don’t believe you can possess exclusive sexual rights to another human being. I believe we are all free agents, men and women.”
“Oh, is that so?”
“Don’t be grumpy.”
“Grumpy? Me?”
“You’re grumpy because you think I’m telling you I’m not going to be loyal. But that’s not what I’m talking about. I’m talking about my parents. What I saw as a little kid, how what started out as a little jealousy turned into something monstrous. How it turned my father into a monster. And the more monstrous he became, the more she turned away, until whatever love they had for each other at the beginning was just a pile of spent ashes.”
“How awful.”
“But loyalty, that’s different. That’s voluntary. That’s free will. I choose to sleep with you. Every time I kiss you, every time I go to bed with you, I do it because I want you, because you’re the woman I want to sleep with. That doesn’t take away your freedom.”
“Do you mean I can take another lover, if I want to?”
“If you like.”
“What if I don’t want to? What if I only want to sleep with you?”
He turned them both over on the grass and unbuttoned his trousers. “I see what you’re getting at. You want me to make some kind of proclamation.”
“I don’t care. Any man can say whatever he wants, I guess.”
“What if I proclaim, Iris Macallister, in front of God and this goddamn grass under your back, that I happen to be crazy for you? Is that enough?”
“Not nearly enough. You don’t even believe in God. Anyway, how do I know you’re not crazy about that other woman, too?”
“Well, I’m not. I’m in love with only one woman in the world.”
“You don’t say! Which one is that?”
Sasha reached down and yanked up her dress. The sun made a halo of his hair. Iris settled her hips and lifted her knees—sucked in her breath—ah God—what a wallop!—all right, fair play, a bit of revenge, a bit of primeval possession, whatever he said about that. She dug her fingernails into his furious buttocks—he yelled out—but didn’t miss a beat.
“I want you to say it, Iris. Who am I in love with?”
“Me!” she gasped.
“And who are you in love with—madly—badly—as you have never loved anyone in your life?”
She released her claws from his skin. “You!”
Sasha growled out some filthy, triumphant word and lifted himself on his palms to hammer her in earnest. Iris grabbed fistfuls of grass. She shut her eyes against the jealous fury of the sun in Sasha’s hair. She thought of random things, like flashes from another life—bacon frying, a fiery October maple, racehorses—oh, Sasha’s father, not random at all—it’s too much, too hard, too much, too deep, too much—sweat dropped on her face—too much—how does he do it, how does he keep going—she couldn’t stand another second—the world went tiny and gigantic, both at once—short, desperate strokes, almost there—almost—then smash—finally—and Iris hollered her rapture as loud as she wanted because only the sun and stones and Sasha could hear her—how divine.
A few more beats, and Sasha shuddered and arched his back and let out a soft howl. The crisis died woozily away and Iris’s bones went slack. She heard the stream again, giggling at them. She wanted to giggle, too. Sasha swore and rolled off, panting.
“What’s wrong? I thought that was wonderful.”
“I meant to pull out, that’s all. I don’t have a rubber on.”
“I don’t care. I don’t care if it happens. Do you?”
“It would be inconvenient.”
“Well, it didn’t happen the first time, did it? I think it would be wonderful.”
Sasha stuffed himself back inside his trousers and buttoned them. “You do realize there’s a war going on out there, don’t you?”
She rolled on her side and ran her finger along the bridge of his nose. “But do you care, or not?”
“I don’t want to put you in any kind of position, that’s all.”
“I’d say you’ve already put me in all kinds of positions, and I’ve enjoyed them very much.”
Sasha tried and failed to suppress a laugh. “Fair enough.”
“What about your position, though? That’s what I’m getting at. What would you think, if it happens? Would you want me to get rid of it?”
Finally he turned his head and looked at her. His face radiated that gleaming flush she knew so well. True, he wore a rubber most of the time, but not every single time, and sometimes when he wasn’t wearing a rubber he didn’t—or couldn’t—pull out. So Iris wanted to pin him down. She wanted to hear this from his own mouth, in case it did happen. Maybe today, who knew. Maybe it already had happened. What about last week, in the cloakroom of the British ambassador’s residence? What a messy occasion that was, but these mistakes would occur when you didn’t plan ahead. Just now, for example.
Iris patted his cheek, not quite a slap. A few blades of grass fell away from her fingers. “Well? What do you say to that?”
He trapped her hand against his skin and leaned over the inches of grass to kiss her.
“I say we cross that bridge if we come to it.”
The rest of Saturday passed in a haze, and most of Sunday, too. Sunday afternoon, as planned, Sasha drove into town to find a telephone box, from which he would call Harry to say that he’d had car trouble and would have to stay the night while the engine was being repaired, so he wouldn’t return to Rome until Monday. Foolproof!
Iris asked to go along, too. She was curious about the town—she loved old buildings and the art inside them. But Sasha said no, he’d run his errands faster if he knew she was waiting for him.
“Errands? What errands?”
“You’ll see,” he said, kissing her good-bye.
So Iris just wandered drowsily around the garden, listening to the stream and to the songbirds, until she remembered her sketchbook. Of course, she’d had to pack it after all, under Ruth’s knowing eye, and her charcoals, too. She headed into the house and the small, hot bedroom. Neither Iris nor Sasha ever took the time to unpack, and the sketchbook lay at the bottom of her valise, under all her crumpled clothes, forgotten. She dug it out and turned to leave.
But some instinct forced her to stop at the door. The shutters were closed and the room was dark, and the air still smelled of human sleep. Iris felt as if she’d lived an entire lifetime since they’d arrived here Saturday morning, had burst into this room and made ravenous love, and afterward she’d brushed her hair in the scrap of mirror above the dresser. She’d almost forgotten about that envelope in Sasha’s suitcase, and what it contained.
But not quite.
Iris rested her hand on the doorframe and stared at her short, round fingernails. A little dirty, perhaps, even though she and Sasha had bathed in the stream together that morning, and Sasha had soaped and washed her thoroughly. But that’s what you got when you spent the day outdoors. When you spent the day laughing and playing, walking and talking, drinking and kissing, rolling stark naked on the grass and the floor and the bed, away on your first holiday with the man you loved—the man who loved you.
Who trusted you.
Iris tapped her fingers against the wood and turned around. She bent over Sasha’s valise, still on the floor, and opened the lid to rummage around.
She looked in the main compartment and the small one, the zippered pocket next to the lining.
The envelope was gone.