On the way home, Iris said to Ruth, “So you told Harry I was seeing some Italian fellow?”
“I didn’t say one way or another. I just let him reach his own conclusions. I’m no snitch, but I’m not a liar, either.”
Iris walked silently. Ruth rummaged in her pocketbook and lit a cigarette.
“Pumpkin, you’re taking this too hard. He’s a louse, all right? A dog in a manger. Do like Harry says. Find some nice, simple American kid when we get home. Some fellow who really appreciates you. I’ll help you. I’ve got a good eye.”
“Sure you do. A good eye for husbands, maybe.”
“So what if I do? Let the other woman do all the work of breaking him to saddle, that’s what I say. Picking his socks up off the floor. We’ll go back to New York, we’ll set up a household of our own, just you and me, and take our men on the side with a spoonful of whipped cream. What do you say to that?”
“Sounds like a swell idea,” said Iris.
Their heels went clickety-clack on the sidewalk, and the old buildings slid by, smeared by centuries of soot and dirt. A clear, bright moon rose above the city. Iris tried to paste it all in her memory, her last night in Rome, but nothing stuck. The magic was gone. Like Iris, the streets were quiet with foreboding.
Ruth ordered a taxi for nine o’clock in the morning to take them to Civitavecchia, twenty miles up the coast where the ferries and steamships docked. Iris remembered going to see Tosca at the Teatro Reale dell’Opera last winter, and how the chief of police, when he writes out the safe passage for Tosca and her lover, asks if she plans to leave Rome from Civitavecchia, and Tosca replies hopelessly, Sì, and you can tell by the uneasy music that something’s wrong—they’ll never reach Civitavecchia. That was how Iris felt right now. Except Ruth wasn’t some wicked police chief. Ruth was her sister and confidante, the person she trusted most in the world, especially now. Ruth would take her to safety. Together with Ruth, she’d find a way forward.
By ten minutes after nine, the taxi hadn’t come. Ruth thought he might be outside and hadn’t troubled to ring the bell. “You telephone the taxi company,” she said to Iris, exasperated, “I’ll go downstairs and see if I can flag him down.”
Iris picked up the telephone and called the taxi company. In her broken Italian, she tried to explain the problem, and what she understood was that they dispatched the taxi, signorina, and it wasn’t their fault if he hadn’t arrived yet. Maybe she should look outside?
Iris hung up the telephone and stared at the bare walls, the empty apartment, the closed shutters, the steamer trunks by the door. How was it possible that she was leaving, that these walls that had rung with joy and merriment were now like a tomb? Ah, well. That was life. You won some, you lost some. You caught some glimpse of the sublime just before you fell into the mire.
The telephone rang.
Iris jumped.
The taxi company, she thought. She picked up the receiver and said, Pronto.
“Iris? Is that you?”
“Sasha?”
“Thank God. Thank God.”
“What’s the matter?”
“What’s the matter? Christ. I just came home to bathe and change, and there’s this note from you. My God, why didn’t you say anything? Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I did.”
“Don’t you know I’ve been going crazy, wondering what happened with us? Why you never answered me or telephoned back or anything?”
“Answered what?”
“My letters! My notes! I called twice a day. I left message after message. Just ask Ruth. And now this? The day you’re leaving? By the way, Sasha, I’m going to have your baby? Why not just rip my heart out of my chest and finish the job?”
Iris whispered, “I don’t understand. I never received anything. I never knew.”
The telephone line crackled static in her ear. She swiveled around to face the door, which Ruth had left ajar.
“Goddamn,” Sasha said slowly. “The bitch.”
“No. No. It’s some mistake.”
“Iris, don’t go. Please. Just stay where you are.”
“I can’t. The steamship—twelve o’clock—”
“Stay where you are! For God’s sake! Just trust me, won’t you? I’ll be there in twenty minutes!”
“Sasha—”
The line clicked and went dead. Iris held the receiver to her ear anyway. Maybe it would come back to life again—maybe some wise, impartial operator’s voice would explain everything, like in the movies.
She heard the quick thump of footsteps climbing the stairs. The door flung open. Ruth said, “Thank God, he’s here at last. Iris, could you . . .”
From the dead receiver came a buzzing noise. Iris set it carefully in the cradle. Ruth stood in the doorway, flexing her fingers against her crisp linen trousers. A couple of lines appeared across her forehead.
“I just want to know whether you saved the letters,” Iris said. “Did you save his letters or did you throw them away?”
“Look, it was for your own good. You’re a bunny, Iris, a baby bunny. You don’t know from anything. No idea how it is with men like that. He’s too complicated for you. He’ll take over your life, if he doesn’t break your heart first. He’ll run around on you, believe me, you can’t trust him, he’ll—”
“Just tell me whether you saved the goddamn letters.”
Ruth whistled the air out of her lungs and threw up her hands. She kicked the steamer trunk next to her—it happened to be hers—and crouched down to open it with the little key from her pocket. Iris watched her rummage around. It was like watching an actress in a film, or someone in a dream. Her heart smacked against her ribs. She couldn’t even feel her fingers, they were so cold.
Ruth rose at last. Her right hand clutched a packet of envelopes. “He’s a narcissist,” she said.
“Takes one to know one.”
“Not true. I’ve slept with one or two, that’s how I recognize it.”
“Give me the letters.”
“Iris, you’re such a sweetheart. You’re so sweet and gentle. He’s going to crush you. He’s going to gobble up all that sweetness to try and make himself whole, and it’s not going to work, and he’ll blame you for it and make you miserable. I couldn’t let him do it.”
“Give me the letters.”
Ruth held out her hand. “You’ll note they’re still sealed.”
“How honorable of you.”
“I was going to give them to you later. Once you were cured.”
Iris put the letters in her pocket. “I should have known. I should have figured it out. I should’ve had the nerve to call him up myself. I should’ve had the guts to march right up to him and ask him what was going on. But I didn’t. You know why?”
“Because you trusted me. You never imagined in a million years I would play such a mean, dirty trick on you.”
“So I ask you, Ruth. Who’s worse, you or him? Who’s really using me to fill some hole inside?”
Ruth blinked and turned around to close and lock the lid of the steamer trunk. She wore a white linen shirt tucked into the beige linen trousers. A silk scarf secured her hair in a ponytail. She looked like she’d just stepped out of a fashion shoot for a travel magazine. When she straightened and turned bravely back to Iris, only her pink eyes gave her away.
“So are you coming with me, or not?”
“I’m going to have a baby,” Iris told her.
“You don’t say.”
Iris folded her arms across her chest. Ruth glanced to the shuttered window and back to Iris, and it reminded her of the time Sasha stood in her bedroom, not quite certain of her, and the same confidence she felt then returned to her now.
“You’re making a mistake,” Ruth said. “You can still come home with me. We’ll find a way. You and me, Iris. You still have a chance.”
“Actually, I like my chances here.”
“Then you really are an idiot.” Ruth picked up her pocketbook and slung it over her shoulder. “So long, then.”
“So long.”