Our Woman in Moscow(21)

Sasha rushed out from beneath the awning to help her with her crutches. He almost carried her to her seat. He called the waiter and ordered her a cappuccino and a piece of olive oil cake, specialty of the house, and he beamed at her.

“I was afraid you wouldn’t come. I thought it was too much trouble.”

“Of course not. I need a little fresh air.”

“Then I was worried about all those stairs.”

“Ruth helped me.”

“Oh, of course.” The smile drooped a little. “Did you tell her where you were going?”

Iris hesitated for an instant before she decided that she would never lie to this man, ever. “No,” she said firmly.

“Why not?”

“Because she thinks she should protect me, for some reason.”

The smile ratcheted back up. “I can’t imagine why.”

“I’m not as innocent as I look, you know. I’ve read Balzac.”

“I know. I saw you in the museum, remember?” He leaned forward. “Let them think what they want, I say. Let them underestimate you.”

Before Iris could come up with anything to reply to that, the waiter arrived with the coffee and the cake. Sasha asked did she mind if he smoked. She said of course not.

“But you don’t smoke, do you?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t know. I never wanted to.” The cappuccino was almost too hot to sip, but Iris tasted it anyway. It was so much easier to pay attention to coffee than to Sasha. He was so big and electric! And they were sitting so close! This was nothing like sitting together in the hospital. This was like a man and a woman who were interested in each other, meeting for coffee to find out just how interested they really were. Sasha’s long legs stretched out past the opposite edge of the round table. His shoulder nearly touched hers. He wore a conservative suit of navy blue, probably the same one he’d worn at the Villa Borghese. His big, bony fingers struck the match and lit the cigarette that stuck from his mouth.

Iris liked the shape of his hand and the smell of strong Italian coffee and the proximity of his leg to hers. She loved his eyes, even though she wasn’t looking at them.

“Tell me about Spain,” she said.

“Spain? What about it?”

“Why did you go?”

He made a ribbon of smoke. “It was the thing to do, I guess. If you were a young fellow just out of college, impatient with injustice—”

“A Communist?”

“And if I was?”

“I’d say it sounds just like you. Filled with hope and idealism. Were you?”

He smiled. “Not a party member, no. But I had Communist friends, and I wasn’t unsympathetic. Capitalism’s a shambles, misery everywhere, that’s obvious to anyone who thinks. And none of your capitalist so-called democracies gave a damn about Hitler.”

“You must have been devastated about the pact. The Nazis and the Soviets.”

He looked away. “I was disappointed, yes. But every country’s got a right to protect itself, even the Soviets, and by then everyone else was just kowtowing to Germany. I guess Stalin did the best he could. I don’t say I agree, I don’t say I wasn’t disappointed, but who gave in to Germany at Munich? Not the Soviets.”

Iris looked at the side of his face and thought how sharp and noble his profile was. “Is that why you ended up in the State Department?”

“Oh, muddled my way in, really. Went to Spain, as I said, with the Herald-Tribune. Saw enough of war to make me think I should try to do something to prevent it, so I came home and crammed for the civil service exam. Spent a year in Washington before they sent me here, summer of 1939.”

“Only a year? They must think highly of you.”

“Or wanted to get rid of me.”

“What about the war?” she asked.

“What about it?”

“What will you do? If Mussolini goes with Hitler, I mean.”

“Not if. When.”

“Well, then? What happens? You can’t stay here, can you?”

Sasha set the cigarette in the ashtray. “Of course we stay. A neutral embassy plays a vital role in war. How else do we get all these Jews out of Europe? Embassy staff stays to the bitter end, it’s part of the job. You, on the other hand.”

“Me?”

“You and your sister. You’ll have to evacuate.”

Iris glanced to the side, where a man and a woman shared a little round table identical to theirs. The man wore a plain gray-green uniform and the woman sat so close to him, you couldn’t see a single crack of sunlight between them. The man nuzzled her cheek and whispered something. The woman ducked her head and just like that—quick as a snake—he kissed her neck. Iris was mesmerized. She tried to keep her mind on the war.

“Ruth says Hitler’s going to invade France any day now.”

“She might be right. But Mussolini won’t declare himself, not at first. He’ll wait to see which way the wind blows.”

“How do you know that?”

“He’s a canny old bastard, that’s all. Like all Fascists. They don’t care about ideals.”

To Iris’s right, the man looked up from his lover’s neck and winked at Iris. She tore herself away and glanced up at the side of Sasha’s face. “But you do.”