“That’s rich, coming from you,” I reply.
Uncle Charlie stands at the liquor cabinet, mixing my martini. He’s always glad to see me, even if he doesn’t approve of career girls. He hands me the drink and asks if anything’s the matter, because I’m looking a little pale.
“Oh, nothing your martinis can’t fix, Uncle Charlie.” I collapse on a chair and light a cigarette. “Just an FBI agent turning up, asking about Iris.”
“Iris? The FBI? What the hell do they want with her, after all these years?”
“Ask your wife. The agent says they already spoke to Aunt Vivian.”
“Vivian? What’s this?”
Aunt Vivian flicks the ash from her cigarette. “It’s nothing, Charlie. I told them exactly what I imagine Ruth told them—nothing at all. There’s been no word from Iris in four years. I can’t imagine why they’re looking into the whole mess again.”
“Maybe they’ve found some trace of her,” I said.
“Well, they’re not going to find out anything new from you.”
I gaze across the room at the windows that overlook Central Park, where sunset’s begun to gather in the skies above New Jersey. “It’s a funny thing, though. She sent me a postcard a week ago.”
Aunt Vivian nearly drops her glass. “A postcard? From Iris?”
“Claims to be, anyway.”
“From where?”
“Moscow.”
Uncle Charlie swears. “I’ll be damned! They defected! I knew it! Didn’t I say he’d defect, the damn Communist?”
“What did the postcard say?” Aunt Vivian asks calmly.
“You don’t seem all that surprised.”
She shrugs. I rise and cross the room to the sofa where I flung my pocketbook. I rummage around until I find the postcard tucked inside. “Dear Ruth,” I read. “Things are awfully busy here in Moscow. We’re expecting another baby in July. More soon. Love always, Iris.”
“That’s strange,” Aunt Vivian says.
“Strange? That’s putting it mildly.”
“I mean it doesn’t sound like Iris at all. She doesn’t talk like that, let alone write like that. What did the FBI fellow say?”
I tuck the postcard back in my pocketbook. “I didn’t tell him.”
Uncle Charlie sputters into his scotch. “You’re not saying you lied to a federal investigator, are you? Ruth? Are you?”
“I might have. I don’t remember one way or another.”
“Sure you don’t,” says Aunt Vivian.
“As your lawyer—”
“Oh, shimmy off that high horse, Uncle Charlie. You’d have done the same. Iris and I may not be the closest of pals—”
Aunt Vivian snorts.
“—but I’m no snitch, not even to my worst enemy.”
“It’s hardly snitching to tell the nice FBI man you’ve received a postcard from your sister in Moscow,” says my aunt. “Under the circumstances.”
“Please. Something’s fishy, or he wouldn’t have turned up now, after all these years. Digby’s gotten her into a mess of some kind, and I don’t just mean having another baby.”
“What kind of mess?” demands my uncle. “They’ve already defected. What more mess could there be?”
I dangle my glass at him. “You know, these martinis are really terrific. I don’t suppose you’ll allow me another before dinner?”
When Uncle Charlie rises to refill the martini glass, Aunt Vivian sits back in her chair and drags from her cigarette. “Odd, about that postcard. Is she really having another baby, do you think?”
“I suppose she must be. Unless it’s some kind of code, but why write something obviously false? I mean, they must have censors or something, watching the mail.”
“You know she has a terrible time having babies. I don’t know why she allows that man near her anymore.”
“Love finds a way, I guess.”
Aunt Vivian watches the movements of her husband’s arms as he mixes and shakes at the liquor cabinet. “He drinks, you know.”
“Everybody drinks, Aunt Vivian.”
“Maybe she’s finally leaving him.”
“Then why defect with him in the first place?”
“I don’t know. Tell me, why did they defect? You did stay with them in England, that summer before they left. You and the girls.”
Aunt Vivian sits back in her chair and crosses her long legs. “Never mind. Tell me about this FBI man.”