She didn’t have much time. Mrs. Betts would be whipping up the hot cocoa this moment, and Jack would drink it in the kitchen, legs swinging, asking the housekeeper questions that she’d answer as she finished washing up the breakfast dishes. But Jack’s three-year-old powers of attention were not vast. He might drink half the cocoa and slide off the chair in search of new amusement, probably prodding his brother—currently slumped on the sofa in the drawing room, reading his book—and Iris would have to take them both to the park or something. So she didn’t waste time idling about the room. She went straight to the file cabinet and found it locked, as she expected. To hunt for the key would be time wasted. She turned instead to the desk drawers. There were two on each side—both drawers on the left were locked, and so was the bottom drawer on the right, but the top one slid right open.
Had he left it unlocked by accident, or did he keep nothing important there?
Iris rummaged around the interior. It seemed to be the place where Sasha dropped everything that didn’t have a place—matchbooks and pens, rubber erasers and half-eaten chocolate bars, a pair of scissors and a small pot of glue, a compact flashlight from which the batteries had been removed. Underneath an A-Z London road atlas, she found a pair of snapshots. She took them out and examined them.
The first one was of her. Iris held it close and squinted at the blurred figure, wearing a dark, dowdy swimsuit she recognized as the one she hurriedly packed into her suitcase when she first left New York for Rome, age twenty-one. She was amazed. The Iris in that photograph was so gamine and perfectly formed! You didn’t notice the dowdiness of the swimsuit at all, just the miniature grace of the figure inside it. How had she ever been so doubtful of her appeal? Her short dark hair curled on her neck, her breasts stood out firm and round beneath the swimsuit. Her arms stretched wide on either side, like a crucifixion, but instead of agony she wore an expression of delighted love, as if she were welcoming the photographer into an embrace.
For the life of her, Iris couldn’t remember Sasha taking that photograph. But she did recognize the setting. A couple of weeks after Ruth left for New York, once his workload diminished a little, Sasha had taken Iris away to a resort on the Amalfi Coast for a short holiday—to celebrate, he said. It was a honeymoon in all but name. He booked a luxurious room overlooking the beach, and the days passed in a haze of champagne and salt and sunshine. One afternoon, when they returned from a few hours’ frolic in the sea, Iris discovered vases and vases filled with night jasmine, because she had told Sasha at breakfast that jasmine was her favorite flower. Even now, when she smelled jasmine, she thought of making love to Sasha in a hot, luxurious hotel room. God, that was a lifetime ago. To think the baby inside that flat stomach was Kip! She touched her own joyful, innocent, monochrome face and picked up the other photograph.
Now this. Who on earth was this? Another woman, a dark-haired woman in a plain uniform, casting an expression of resigned amusement at the camera, or the person behind it. Her arms were folded against her chest. She had a tall, rangy look to her, and her face seemed familiar, though Iris couldn’t place her. Her eyes were pale, almost certainly blue. She wasn’t beautiful, but she had a wide-faced, intelligent, animal look to her that snagged your attention. Iris stared at the snapshot, trying to place her. Wouldn’t she remember a face like that?
Iris turned the photograph over, but nothing was written there, no caption or note or date, no label of any kind, nothing at all to betray the identity of the subject. Of course, it had to have been taken during the war. The woman’s hairstyle, the plain uniform. Sasha and Iris had lived in Zurich for much of the conflict, and Sasha was away so often. She knew he wasn’t simply working for the embassy, though she never asked what he was doing, or what he was working for. She wouldn’t have dreamed of that.
From the other side of the study door came the sound of Jack’s voice, piping a question, and Mrs. Betts’s low, gentle voice answering him. Iris glanced at the clock; five minutes had passed already. She shoved both snapshots back in the drawer. As she pulled her hand back, the tips of her fingers bumped against some hard object.
She drew it out.
She’d never seen one before, but she knew what it was—a slim, rectangular box about the size of a man’s index finger, made of some light, silvery metal, probably aluminum. When she pulled on both ends together, the box slid apart to reveal a couple of buttons and dials and a tiny, round lens.
A Minox camera, Iris thought. So this was what it looked like. It was even smaller than she imagined—a tiny, cunning device, easily hidden, made for one purpose only. Really, Sasha shouldn’t have been so careless, leaving it in an unlocked drawer like this. Anyone could have found it.
From the other side of the door, Iris heard a shout, a pair of feet thundering down the hall—poor Mrs. Bannister in the downstairs flat—and an answering shout. Then Mrs. Betts’s voice, shushing them, and another thundering journey back up the hallway.
Iris thrust the camera back in the desk, underneath the snapshots. As she closed the drawer, though, something felt out of place.
She laid her hand flat on the bottom of the drawer and looked at it from the front.
Was it her imagination, or was there an inch of space unaccounted for, between her hand and the place where the drawer actually stopped?
Philip Beauchamp’s secretary put her through right away. “Beauchamp,” he said briskly, when he answered the ring.
“Philip, it’s Iris. Iris Digby.”
“Iris! So glad you’ve rung. I spent a miserable Sunday certain I’d overstepped the bounds of friendship and I’d never hear your voice again.”
“Oh! Don’t be silly. I guess a girl needs a shoulder to cry on, once in a while.”
“Well, this old shoulder stands ready for duty whenever you require it.”
“You’re too kind, Philip, and I hope I’m not imposing—”
“Ah! Have you a favor to ask me, I hope?”
“I do, I’m afraid. This cottage of yours. I don’t suppose you’d be willing to let us move in earlier than planned?”
“I’d be delighted. How early did you have in mind?”
A muffled crash reached Iris, as of books tumbling from a shelf. “Just a moment,” she said to Philip and put the receiver to her chest. “Mrs. Betts! Everything all right?”
A few seconds passed. Mrs. Betts called back, “Quite all right, Mrs. D!”
Iris lifted the receiver back to her ear.
“I’m so sorry, Philip. Would tomorrow be too soon?”
Ruth
June 1952
Rome, Italy
For a moment, I don’t understand why Sumner Fox should be standing there in Orlovsky’s studio, when he’s supposed to be back in New York.
Then I whip around and stab Orlovsky in the chest with my finger. “You bastard! I thought I could trust you!”
“You can trust him,” says Fox. “I paid him a visit last night and explained the scope of the situation.”
“The scope? The scope?”
“Miss Macallister, may I remind you that the operation to extract your sister from Moscow originated with me? That I may be privy to information I haven’t yet had the opportunity or inclination to discuss with you?”
“Bambina, let me pour some wine,” says Orlovsky.
“I don’t want your damned wine. I asked you to find somebody who could help me get into Moscow—”
“But I did! I found best man for job.”
“He found you, you mean.”
“What difference, so long as you have best chance of success? Just because he is big, strong man—man you can’t boss around so easily—”
“That’s ridiculous.”
Orlovsky looks away swiftly, but not before I notice the little smile at the corner of his mouth. I turn back to Fox.
“For all I know, you’re here to sabotage me.”
Fox swings around the side of the drafting table and props his big body against it. One leg cros
ses over the other. His hands curl around the thick wooden edge. He speaks slowly, as he always does, in that comforting tone of voice. “Miss Macallister, I have a confession to make, though I suspect you already know it. I’ve been handling the Digby case for some years. Before they defected, even. I happen to admire your sister a great deal. There is nothing I want more than to help her out of her present difficulty. So it seems to me that our purposes are not in the least opposed to each other.”
“Well, you would say that, wouldn’t you?”
“I say it because it’s true. I haven’t told you everything I know, because I can’t. That’s the nature of this job. But I have always conducted my affairs in as honorable a fashion as I can. To lay as many cards as possible upon the table, depending on how well I can trust the person sitting across from me. I would like to trust you, Miss Macallister, and I hope you can trust me. I don’t believe I overstate the case when I say that your sister’s life depends on it.”
He’s not a handsome man, Sumner Fox, as I’ve already explained. His wide, blunt face bears no more resemblance to the exquisite men I’ve signed to the Hudson Agency than an army boot resembles a custom Italian shoe. The ruff of hair on his head is an afterthought, so pale it’s nearly white. His nose looks as if someone’s nudged it gently to one side. The most you can say of his looks is that they’re arresting—no pun intended—and yet I can’t seem to look away from him. I stare into his colorless eyes the way you stare into a mirror. I badly want a cigarette.
“What makes you think you can trust me, Mr. Fox?”
He stares at me as if this isn’t what he was expecting me to say. Then he reaches behind his back and lifts a manila envelope. His arm is remarkably long, like a gorilla’s. He offers me the envelope.
“What’s this?” I ask.
“What I was busy obtaining for you last weekend. You see, Miss Macallister, I already know a great deal about you. I hope that doesn’t disturb you. I know that your father took his life in 1929, when you were eleven years old, and your mother died of cancer when you were twenty. You attended the Chapin School in Manhattan from 1923 until 1935, when you graduated and enrolled at Mount Holyoke College in Massachusetts, along with your twin sister, and earned a bachelor’s degree in geology, of all things—”
“I like rocks,” I say.
“—and then traveled with your sister to Rome, where your brother worked in the consular services department of the US embassy.”
“Congratulations on your fine detective work, Mr. Fox. Those are all nice facts.”
“Signore Orlovsky,” says Fox, in perfect Italian, and without looking away, “may I beg you for a moment of privacy with Miss Macallister?”
“Yes, of course.”
From the corner of my eye, I see Orlovsky bow—briefly—and walk out of the studio.
“Your Italian’s a lot better than mine,” I tell Fox.
“Language is a hobby of mine. May I continue?”
I don’t especially want him to continue. I have a bad feeling about his continuing. Still, I shrug back as if I don’t care. As if I’m curious to discover what he knows about me.
“During the course of your winter in Rome, you began a relationship with a Russian émigré and fashion designer by the name of Valeri Valierovich Orlovsky. The affair broke off around the third week of March, just before your sister’s accident brought you both into contact with Mr. Digby.”
“If you’ll excuse me, Mr. Fox. I don’t know where the hell you’ve been getting your facts, but I don’t see that my private life is any of your business—”
He shakes his head. “I’m not interested in prurient details, and I don’t care how you conduct your personal affairs. We are all different. We are all locked in struggle with our own demons. But I wouldn’t be doing my job if I didn’t make some effort to understand the psychology of everyone connected to this case, Miss Macallister. You asked me how I knew I could trust you, and I’m telling you.”
“Jesus Christ.”
He sends me a hard look. I presume that whatever tolerance he extends to my sexual history, he doesn’t enjoy hearing the name of his Lord taken in vain. “At the beginning of May, you made plans to leave Rome. You booked a second-class cabin in the steamship Antigone for you and Mrs. Digby—then, of course, still Miss Macallister—but at the last minute, she elected to stay in Rome with Mr. Digby. You traveled home to New York, sharing your cabin with a Mrs. Slocombe, who recalled that you were subdued and—I quote her—under the weight of some great sorrow.”
“That’s only because Mrs. Slocombe wouldn’t stop talking.”
“Two years after your return, you found a job as Mr. Hudson’s secretary, taking over more of his duties following his stroke in the summer of 1944. The agency enjoyed great success under your administration. During the war, you organized your more celebrated clients to sell government bonds, and for propaganda efforts under the direction of the War Department. Just about everyone who’s worked with you—clients, government officials, advertising executives, magazine editors, even business rivals—describes you as fiercely intelligent, honorable, tough but fair, and not above using your personal charisma to achieve advantage on behalf of the models you represent.”
Sometime during the course of this disquisition, I find a seat on the wide, deep couch. I cross my legs and light a cigarette from my pocketbook, and my God, I have never needed one more badly.
“Throughout your adult life,” he continues, watching my face, “you have conducted your private affairs with remarkable discretion. You donate significant sums of money to several worthy charities, but you choose to keep your contributions anonymous. Your social activities are chiefly undertaken with some business angle, such as fund raisers and publicity outings—your evening visit to the Palmetto Club last weekend, for example. You’ve taken pains to project an image of sexual sophistication, but in fact, since returning to New York, you appear to have had intimate relationships with only a handful of men. In rotation, like a baseball lineup.”
“Now, there’s a fascinating analogy. And what do you make of all this?”
“As a psychological evaluation? I’d say you’re a person who, having suffered profound loss as a child, has erected various defenses to protect herself. The events in Rome only hardened your determination to separate heart from head, to speak in layman’s terms. As a person of great natural loyalty, you fear betrayal most of all. Your trust is hard-won. You have, as a result, no close friends, and you don’t wish for any.”
I blow out a long stream of smoke and clap one hand against the other, holding the cigarette. “Well done, Doctor. Excellent investigative work. Must have taken years. All that without even having spoken to the patient and asked her opinion about herself.”
“I’m afraid that wasn’t possible.”
“But you know, there’s still something that my poor, traumatized, straitjacketed ego can’t quite grasp. What in God’s name does any of this have to do with my sister?”
Fox levers himself away from the drafting table and walks to the couch, where he takes a seat at the extreme opposite end from me and leans forward to link his hands between his enormous knees. “Because you asked how I knew I could trust you.”
“You’re nuts, you know that?” I stub out the cigarette and rise to my feet. “You come in here and tell me all about myself, like you’ve known me for years. It’s the most condescending thing any man’s ever said to me, and believe me, I’ve heard it all.”
“I apologize. If you think I’m wrong about any of that, set me straight.”
I don’t know how to answer him. I’m angry, all right, mostly because he’s probably not wrong about any of that, if I’m going to be honest with myself. I mean, it doesn’t take a genius to analyze the mess inside my head, does it? But I don’t like the fact that this fellow seems to have been following me around for years, speaking to everyone who knew me, going through paperwork, spying on me. Drawing goddamn conclusions about me. And I never
suspected a thing, the son of a bitch.
He rises too. “I understand you’re upset. Probably upset,” he adds swiftly.
“You’ve got that right, at least.”
“As the sister of a woman married to a Soviet intelligence agent, you must have known you’d be subject to investigation.”
“To be honest, the thought never occurred to me.”
“If you want me to walk right out of this building, I’ll do that. You’ll never hear from me again.”
I stare at his pale, narrowed eyes. He stares back at mine. The room is summer-warm, and the perspiration trickles down my back. I think of Iris in Moscow. How warm is Moscow in summer? I remember the two of us lying on the sand, Ruth and Iris, side by side, nine years old, while the sun scorched our skin and the thick hot nebulous summer air surrounded us like the womb we had once shared, and that was our bond. That was the love in which we existed together, the air we breathed in order to live.
“Or I can stay,” Fox says quietly, “and explain how you and I can get your sister out of Russia alive.”
I was the one who discovered our father’s body. Have I mentioned that? Leave it to Ruth to go nosing around where she doesn’t belong.
They say the mind is supposed to block off terrible memories, in order to protect a person from having to experience them over and over. Well, I wish my mind knew that trick. I remember every detail, from the angle of sunlight through the window to the design on the bathroom tiles to the expression on my father’s face, mouth open in a shocked oval, eyes open to stare in amazement at the ceiling, as if death wasn’t quite what he expected. How his lips were the same color as his skin, because his blood had all poured out into the bathwater in which he lay. The nakedness of his body beneath the translucent red water, his delicate limbs, his bloated stomach, his penis floating above his dark pubic hair, all those human parts of him I had never before seen and now saw lifeless. Most of all, the smell of blood, as coppery as they say.
Our Woman in Moscow Page 18
