Sasha spun around. “What the devil? Who’s having an affair?”
“With that blond woman. Fischer. She keeps popping up, doesn’t she?”
“Damn it, Iris. I told you, it was over long ago with her. I—”
He bit off the sentence cleanly, like the snip of a pair of scissors. Iris stared back at him. She took in the instant of panic, the flexing around the eyes, replaced almost—but not quite—immediately with a look of bored irritation that was the screen for something else, the search for something to say.
“You’re talking nonsense,” he said.
“She’s your contact. Your handler.” Iris spoke slowly, because it was so much to understand—everything—the history of the past eight years—of her marriage, of Sasha—all rewriting itself inside her head.
Outside the window, a cloud shifted. Sunlight poured through the glass and turned Sasha to gold. His hair, his skin. The angle of the light had some strange effect on his eyes, turning them an extraordinary pale green. He didn’t move, not a flicker. One hand held the towel in place at his waist.
Iris waited. He had to tell her—he had to say the truth or not. She wouldn’t do him the favor of dragging it out of him.
“Was,” he said, in a voice so low, Iris strained to hear it. “She was my handler, in the beginning. She recruited me.”
“I’ll bet.”
“She arranged for the Zurich posting, the diplomatic cover. Because Germany was important, it was important that we had some strategic advantage in Germany, so that we knew what the Americans were up to.”
“We? You mean the Soviet Union.”
He didn’t answer.
“She doesn’t sound Russian,” Iris said.
“Her mother’s Russian. They used to spend summers there, when she was growing up. At her grandfather’s dacha. So SIS hired her as an intelligence officer, because she was fluent.”
“But really she’s working for the Soviets.”
He turned away to stub out his cigarette in the ashtray on the bedside table. “Was. It’s all finished.”
“Finished? Why?”
“Never mind. I’ve already told you more than I should.”
“Do you mean you’re not spying anymore? What about the note in the hymnal? All those urgent meetings?”
“Never mind, I said!”
“You said once that you wanted to tell me. You used to trust me.”
“Would you just shut up about it? Christ. The less you know, the better. Don’t you understand?” He whipped around. “What I told you about Nedda, do you understand, you never heard it.”
“Of course not.”
“Your pal Beauchamp, all right? Not a word, not a goddamn hint. Do you understand? Do you?”
“Are you still sleeping with her?”
He banged the wall with his fist and yelled, “Do you understand?”
The door sprang open. Kip rushed in. “Mama! Are you all right?”
“Yes! Yes, darling, I’m fine.” Iris stood just in time to take his small, hard body as he hurled himself into her middle.
“Then why are you crying?”
“Because Daddy’s a beast,” said Sasha. “If you’ll excuse me, I’m going to get dressed in the bathroom. Seems to have got a little crowded in here.”
Aunt Vivian lowered herself on the picnic blanket and stretched her long legs out in the sun. “You haven’t asked me about your sister yet.”
“No, I haven’t. Grapes?”
“Have you got anything stronger?”
“Champagne.”
“Much better.”
Iris poured a glass for Aunt Vivian and another glass for herself—she was on her third—while Aunt Vivian lit a cigarette and squinted in the direction of the children, who were busy teaching Philip Beauchamp and his dog—a scruffy black Labrador—how to play baseball. Pepper was pitching, Kip was catching, Philip was poised at the plate with a cricket bat and an expression of extreme concentration.
“Why, she’s very well, since you ask,” said Aunt Vivian. “She’s working as a personal secretary to the president of some company or another, I can’t remember the name. Something to do with fashion models.”
“How nice.”
Striiiiike! yelled Tiny, the umpire. (Tiny was always the umpire—she never met a rule she didn’t like—while Pepper and Little Viv were natural anarchists.)
“What’s that? No, she’s still not interested in marrying anybody. She likes keeping her beaux on their toes, the little minx, and frankly I don’t blame her. They’re a damned nuisance, husbands.”
“I’ll say.”
Aunt Vivian leaned closer. “What’s that?”
“I said, they’re perfect dears, once you get used to them.”
A loud, splendid crack echoed off the boxwoods and the walls of the house. Philip dashed off toward first base, limping slightly, followed by Raffles the black Labrador. Jack, playing all the bases and the outfield, got up an instant too late to catch him at second base.
Safe! shouted Tiny. Jack threw down his cap and stomped on it.
“Tell me something,” said Iris. “What happens when you get back to New York?”
“I’ll take him back, of course. I won’t put the girls through a divorce.” Aunt Vivian finished her champagne and reached for the bottle. “It’ll burn itself out. That Marshall girl will come to her senses and realize that once I’m out of the picture, there’s no excitement in it. He’ll be begging me to take him back, and you know I don’t come cheap. Diamonds, at least.”
“But it won’t be the same, will it?”
“No. But marriage never is, is it? You go through stages, like acts in a play. Act One, you fall in love, and the birds twitter and the bees go buzz, and you’ll never love somebody else as long as you both shall live, amen. Act Two, enter the baby carriage, and all of a sudden he catches sight of a pair of firm young tits and figures life is short. Act Three . . .” Aunt Vivian narrowed her eyes at the ball game, where Little Viv had come up to bat against Pepper, and Philip Beauchamp seemed to know more than an Englishman should about taking a lead off second base.
“Act Three?”
“Act Three, you realize there’s no point letting the husbands have all the fun.”
Pepper released the ball, and Philip took off toward third base. Iris rose on her knees. Little Viv whistled her bat through the air—Striiiike! yelled Tiny—Kip hurled the ball toward poor Jack, who ran with all his might to cover third—caught the ball, a miracle—tagged a sliding Philip Beauchamp at the very instant he touched base—
Out! called Tiny.
“She’s not pulling any punches, is she?” said Sasha.
Iris whirled around. Her husband stood at the edge of the picnic blanket, carrying a smoke and a glass of whiskey in one hand and his briefcase in the other. He wore his suit with a fresh shirt and tie. He set down the briefcase and finished the whiskey.
“You’re leaving?” Iris said.
“Something’s come up. Headed back to London. Awfully sorry to miss all the fun, but it looks as if Beauchamp has matters well in hand.”
Iris scrambled to her feet. “But how will you get to the station?”
“I’ve called a taxi.”
“That’s going to be awfully expensive.”
He leaned forward to kiss her cheek. “We’ll try again next weekend, shall we? Give the boys my love.”
“Give it to them yourself.”
“I’m afraid there isn’t time. Vivian? Good to see you.”
He picked up his briefcase and walked back across the lawn with the exaggerated care of a man who’d already washed down his eggs with a few sides of whiskey. As Iris watched, stunned and empty, a small car, red or possibly orange, pulled up to the drive from the lane and stopped. Iris couldn’t see the driver, but she was pretty sure that car was no taxi.
Sasha reached the vehicle and opened the front door. He swung his long body inside and the car took off in a spurt of gravel.
Iris turned back to the game. Her fingers trembled against the sides of her legs, so she folded her arms across her middle. The air smelled of cut grass and sunshine. Little Viv stood at home plate, preparing to swing. Philip Beauchamp stood near the batter’s box, holding a salmon-pink cricket ball in one hand, staring right past Iris at the car that disappeared down the lane.
Lyudmila
Late June 1952
Moscow