Our Woman in Moscow(32)

“What about them?”

“Did you get them all done?”

He was having trouble lighting his cigarette, which was odd because there was no breeze at all. At last the end flared orange. He closed his eyes as he inhaled.

“Because I was wondering, you know. Isn’t everything closed on a Sunday?”

“Oh, yes. Of course it was.”

“But you were gone so long.”

“I had trouble finding a working telephone.”

Sasha squinted at some point past Iris’s ear, the hillside or something, while the smoke curled in extravagant ribbons around his face and hair. There was some difference to him, but she couldn’t pin it down. Was he paler? Maybe. His face was so rigid. His mouth and his cheeks made small adjustments as he smoked the cigarette, but his eyes, his forehead, his brow were cast in wax. He lifted the cigarette back to his lips, and Iris noticed that his hand was trembling.

“What’s the matter? Didn’t the photographs please her?”

“What’s that?”

“The photographs in the envelope. In your suitcase. I assume you were passing those along to that woman? The one I saw you with in the Borghese gardens?”

What was surprising was that he wasn’t surprised. If his eyebrows rose a millimeter or two, they only expressed amazement at her tone, which—she’d freely admit—smacked more of jealousy than outrage. If he channeled all the pyrotechnics of his blue eyes into hers, he was only trying to figure out whether she really cared. Sitting high on the brick wall, Iris exactly matched his height. She didn’t realize how unequal they were until now—older, taller, stronger, better educated, worldly-wise—why, Sasha had had every advantage, until this moment when she knew his secret.

“So you looked through my suitcase, did you?” he said, without rancor, and revelation arrived on Iris’s head like the dawn.

“You wanted me to see it, didn’t you? You left it there yesterday for me to find. Right there in plain sight, an open suitcase. That’s why you told me to stay behind today. You wanted me to see it was gone.”

He put his hand over her mouth.

“Before you say another word, I want you to know that I’ve never done a single thing—never passed along a single iota of information that would harm the United States.”

Iris nodded. He dropped his hand and pulled on the cigarette.

“The Soviets are being left in the cold, that’s all, because of ideological prejudice. Because the success of the Soviet system threatens the way we’ve always done things. The way that killed your father, Iris, the same way that corrupted mine. You know I’m right. I couldn’t just sit back and do nothing.”

Iris slung her arms around his neck. “I don’t care about any of that. I don’t care about politics. I care about you. I want you to trust me. I don’t want you to keep any secrets from me. Whatever you’re doing, I know you’re doing it because you believe in it, and you’re trying to make the world a better place, and I love you for it. But I can’t stand it if you don’t trust me.”

“That’s why I left my suitcase open.”

“And that woman. She’s your—your—”

“Don’t worry about her.”

“But she’s Russian, isn’t she? She’s the one who—”

“I said, don’t worry about her. Anything personal between us—her and me—that’s finished. It’s just business now.”

“But you won’t tell me anything else about it.”

“I’ve told you all you need to know, all right? Because I thought I should be square with you, what I’m doing.”

She leaned her forehead against his. “Why?”

“It’s only fair. I could get into trouble or something. It’s only fair you know you’re jumping into hot water.”

“I already knew that.”

He breathed into her mouth and she breathed back into his.

“So we’re all right?” he said. “You’re still with me?”

The sun was dropping into the sea. Iris’s heart pounded so hard, her chest might explode—not because she was scared but because she understood that everything depended upon this moment, this conversation, this decision. The entire course of her life pivoted around this point of vital contact, his forehead against hers.

When Iris nodded, Sasha’s head moved too.

He let out a noise of exultation and crushed out his cigarette on the bricks and kissed her—unbuttoned her dress—kissed her neck and breasts—all the familiar rituals. He untucked his shirt and Iris fumbled with the fastening on his trousers. On this wall nobody could see them or hear them—the ancient Sabine Hills rose up behind them—the sun set in unspeakable splendor behind Sasha’s head. The bricks left angry marks on the backs of her thighs. She discovered them the next day, when Sasha bathed her in the stream at the corner of the garden, before they returned to Rome.

By then she’d forgotten how his hands shook when he returned from meeting his Soviet contact in Tivoli, how full of nerves he was.



Early in the morning of Friday, the tenth of May, a ringing telephone woke Iris. Sasha stirred next to her and stumbled out of bed. The air was warm and dusky; she couldn’t see any sunlight through the cracks of the blinds. She flopped on her back and listened to Sasha’s low voice in the other room. Once he left for the embassy, she was supposed to return home to the apartment she shared with Ruth, cheerful and rested from her sketching holiday, and she didn’t know how she was going to do that. She wasn’t that Iris anymore. Her life was here, next to Sasha.