We don’t say much, just hold hands and look out the windows. I glimpse people in flashes—walking down sidewalks, queuing up outside shops, sitting on benches to scatter crumbs for pigeons. When the car turns a corner and scoots to a stop outside the fa?ade of an enormous fin de siècle building, I have to shake myself free of a trance.
To stand before the National Hotel in Moscow, you would never imagine you had traveled deep inside the beating heart of world communism. You would think yourself transported to maybe Paris before the calamity of war, everything that was decadent and cosmopolitan, chock-full of the aristocratic and the celebrated and the just plain rich—just picture the shining Packard limousines and the furs, the glimpses of ankles in white stockings, the black silk top hats and the swirling capes, all thronging in and out of these revolving doors, staring between the curtains of these pedimented windows. Inside the lobby, a man’s waiting for us. Like the men at the airport, he wears a dark suit. He seems about forty years old, starting to bald, medium height and stocky. His wide, Slavic face stretches to an expression of welcome.
“Mr. and Mrs. Fox!” he exclaims, in supple English. He steps forward and holds out his hand. We perform the rituals. “My name is Yvgeny Kedrov, of Soviet Foreign Office. On behalf of Soviet people, I welcome you to Moscow.”
I mumble some thanks and noises of gratitude, although I’m frankly distracted by the gigantic classical statue next to me, one of four holding up the walls. I don’t object on principle to the mere strips of marble fabric protecting the modesty of these figures—on the contrary, I am all in favor of the human form—but the fellow’s scarcely swathed stone privates hover just above my head.
I realize Mr. Kedrov is attempting to address me.
“Your journey, was it comfortable?” he inquires.
“Charming.”
“Yes, thank you,” Fox says. “But I’m afraid my wife is exhausted. I don’t suppose we could rest for an hour or two before we start all our engagements?”
“Yes, of course. Your room is prepared. We have taken liberty of providing some refreshment for you. Won’t you follow me, please?”
It seems odd to head straight up to a hotel room without checking in, but Fox falls right in step behind Mr. Kedrov and pulls me with him. Behind us, the men carry our suitcases discreetly to the service elevator, where—Fox has already warned me—they’ll be carefully searched and repacked before being brought to our room. I hope they hurry. My dress is damp with sweat, and I can’t wait to change clothes.
Now, I haven’t asked who’s paying for our accommodation—the Soviet taxpayer, the US taxpayer, or we Foxes ourselves—but the bill will surely be monstrous. Kedrov leads us into a suite of parlor and bedroom and opulent bath. The balcony offers a view right over the red turrets of the Kremlin itself, by which I presume they mean to remind us to behave ourselves. I allow Fox to take the full force of Kedrov’s observations and instructions while I wander through the rooms, test the wide, voluptuous bed, examine the wardrobes. I return to Fox and loop my arm through his. I tell him this place reminds me of Paris. (Paris happens to be our code for I need to speak to you alone.)
Instantly Fox’s face takes on an expression of deep concern. “Darling, you look awfully tired. Do you need to lie down?”
I nod, the way I imagine a sweet, exhausted wife would nod, and Kedrov takes the hint and bustles away, but not before bringing the tea service to our attention. He waves his arm to the table before the sofa, where an enamel tray offers teapot and curving, elegant cups and plates stacked with pastry. After he leaves, Fox extracts his arm from mine, motions to his ear then to the four corners of the room, and says, “How are you feeling, darling?”
“Like I could use a nice bath and a rest.”
“Some tea?”
“That would be lovely. I’ll pour so you can have a look around. Where are those bellboys with our luggage?”
“Elevator must be slow,” says Fox. He starts to move around the room, examining walls and objects and windows. I sit on the sofa but I don’t pour any tea. I stare at the pot and the cups and the creamer. Instead of the delicate pale roses and leaves of an English tea service, they’re painted in vivid lapis with gold rims.
I wonder what kind of tea service Iris has. I wonder what she looks like now. I wonder what she’ll say to me, whether she still hates me, whether she wrote that letter in ink or bile. For the first time, I consider why Iris would reach out to me, of all people, when she needed help. What on earth made her think I would answer the summons? Yet I did.
Fox arrives back into the room.
“Something the matter?” he says softly.
I shake my head. He approaches me, anyway, and sits on the sofa by my side. The springs gasp and settle. He takes one of my hands and folds it between his own, and he speaks in a low, husky lover’s whisper, so the microphones won’t pick up his words.
“Don’t be afraid. I won’t fail you, Ruth.”
I swallow back a laugh. Sumner Fox, fail me? That thought hasn’t crossed my mind in days. The man can speak a dozen languages, for God’s sake. He survived a Japanese prison camp.
But I nod anyway. It’s easier than telling him what I’m really afraid of.
He says, a little louder, “Let me pour you some tea, sweetheart.”
We have dinner downstairs with a couple of undersecretaries from the American embassy whose unenviable job it was to smooth out the diplomatic details of our visit. I can’t be certain whether they’re in the know—initiated, to use the jargon—although I suspect not, because they talk without irony about facilitating understanding between the two countries at this sensitive time and so on. Lay it on thick. Even assuming the KGB is listening in, they seem awfully earnest. Everyone except Fox drinks too much. We part in the lobby at one in the morning. When they disappear into the revolving door, Fox leads me by the hand to the elevator, as if he isn’t sure I can find it on my own.
Once in our suite, I drop the hand and hurry to the dressing room. The chambermaid has unpacked our suitcases and laid out our toiletries in the bathroom. I brought a silk negligee of the kind a bride would wear, and I shimmy it on now and brush my teeth and slather on the cold cream. When I’m finished, I step into the living room and tell Fox the coast is clear.
By arrangement, I’m to sleep on the giant bed in the bedroom, and Fox on the sofa nearby, covered by a blanket. For the record, I did protest. I said that as Fox was twice my weight, he should have the bed—my God, think of the embarrassed explanation should the delicate sofa come to grief in the night. But Fox only regarded me gravely and said that he wouldn’t sleep a wink in that case.
So I climb alone onto the giant bed—some kind of elaborate relic of the Russian Empire, or else a convincing reproduction. The chambermaid has already turned back the heavy brocade bedspread, and a piece of chocolate lies on the pillow. I eat the chocolate even though I’ve already brushed my teeth. I hear faint noises from the bathroom, rushing water and so on, and a moment later Fox appears in a pair of silk pajamas that hang strangely on him.
I point to the walls. “Hello, handsome.”
“Hello, yourself.”
I pat the mattress next to me. He walks across the gilded room and lowers himself on the bed. He doesn’t exactly move with the fluid grace you might expect of an athlete, but then he never has. I haven’t asked him about the prison camp. I’ve always thought there are things nobody wants to talk about, especially to a woman you hardly know. He has a slight limp to his walk, which you only notice if you pay close attention, and the motion of his left hip isn’t quite what it should be—again, too subtle for the casual observer, but by now I’m no longer a casual observer. He lays his hands on his knees and looks sheepish.
“What an evening,” I say. “I think I might have had a little too much wine. I’m just so nervous about seeing my sister. It’s been years.”
“Nervous? You?”
“Yes, nervous! You’ve never had a twin sister, or you’d understand.”