Our Woman in Moscow(15)

In the center of the room squatted a big, comfortable, secondhand armchair and a mismatched footrest (I took up a collection, Ruth said) where Iris propped her ankle in its plaster cast and sat like a queen on a throne. Everyone took a turn in the stool next to her, refilled her drink and her plate, and wished her well. By evening, she was drunk and sick from too much cheese and utterly happy. The guests filed out, and pretty soon only Harry and Ruth and Iris and Sasha Digby remained. Ruth sat on the stool while Sasha and Harry sprawled on the floor. The apartment was a shambles and reeked of wine. A bottle of cheap Chianti stood on the floor and Harry kept refilling everyone’s glass, except for Ruth, who drank gin and tonic. Iris said how perfectly lovely it had been, hadn’t it been a perfectly lovely afternoon? Couldn’t they just spend all their afternoons like this?

Ruth stretched her long legs. “Not once Hitler invades France. Then all hell’s going to break loose, isn’t it?”

“Is he really going to invade? Everybody’s been so well behaved.”

“Pumpkin, it’s a war, remember? Of course he’s going to invade. Isn’t he, boys? I’m shocked he hasn’t launched across the French border already. It’s already April.”

Harry lifted his thumb and forefinger to the corner of his mouth and solemnly zipped his lips.

“Sasha?” Ruth reached out with her toe and nudged his knee. “What’ve you got to say about Hitler? Anyone have the nerve to stop him?”

“I don’t know.” Sasha finished his wine and lit another cigarette.

“Irritable, are we?”

“Not at all. I just think there’s no point speculating.”

“Just because your old buddy Stalin’s abandoned the anti-Fascist cause—”

“Don’t talk garbage, Ruth. Christ.”

Ruth rattled the ice in her glass. “Sasha’s a Communist.”

Harry snorted. “Says who.”

“No, it’s true. He’s been to Spain and everything. Haven’t you, Sasha?”

Harry looked at Sasha. “Digby? I didn’t know that.”

“I was working for a newspaper,” Sasha said witheringly.

Ruth laughed and collected her cigarette from the edge of the ashtray. “Anyway, ask him about the dialectic and the failures of capitalism. He’ll tell you all about it.”

Iris looked at Harry lounging on his elbow—Sasha glaring at Ruth—Ruth in her red silk dress, calmly smoking a cigarette, tiny smile at the corner of her mouth. “It sounds as if everyone’s been having a terrific time together.”

“Don’t be cross. We’ve gone out for a few laughs, that’s all. Haven’t we, Harry?”

Harry leaned back until he lay on the floor, arms crossed contentedly over his stomach, smoke trailing from the cigarette between his fingers.

“Anyway,” Ruth said, “last night Sasha tried to stick up for Stalin and got his intellect all tied up in knots. This treaty’s put him in a real pickle.”

“What treaty?” Iris asked

“The Molotov treaty. Don’t you read the newspapers? Nazis and Soviets in bed together. It goes against everything, doesn’t it?”

“Don’t be stupid,” Sasha snapped.

“You see what I mean?”

“Aw, lay off him, Ruth,” Harry said from the floor. “Everybody was a Communist in college. You grow out of it, that’s all.”

“But has he grown out of it? That’s the question.”

“You’re deliberately misrepresenting me,” said Sasha. “All I said was that capitalism has its problems, that’s obvious, and at least the Soviet system shows a way forward.”

“Yes, a shining way forward, all us good little workers marching in lockstep, dressed alike and thinking alike. If you ask me, communism and fascism aren’t all that far apart.”

“You’re wrong. They couldn’t be further apart.”

“They’re coming at tyranny from different angles, that’s all. But you both end up in the same place.”

Iris looked at Sasha’s pink, angry face. He opened his mouth, glanced at Harry, and stuffed a cigarette between his lips instead.

“I think communism sounds very noble,” Iris said. “I don’t think it’s wrong to have ideals.”

“Of course not. You can make a beautiful argument for communism, right until you put it into practice and end up with bolshevism.” Ruth crossed her ankles—she’d toed off her shoes long ago—and admired her long, elegant feet. “How many heretics has Stalin purged this year, Sasha?”

Sasha stood up and stalked to the kitchen.

“You shouldn’t,” Iris said.

“Oh, he’s all right. He’s just the type of fellow who doesn’t like having his opinions challenged.”

“Where’d you hear that about Stalin?” asked Harry. “Purges, I mean.”

“Because you get a lot of Communists in my line of work. Artist types and all that. And a lot of them know a lot of Russians who disappeared, the last few years.” Ruth snapped her fingers. “Just like that.”

“But there must be some explanation,” Iris exclaimed. “Maybe they went to work on a farm or something.”