The next day Ruth and Iris had walked down to the steamship office and booked passage （second class） for Rome, and when they arrived three weeks later Italy was still so warm and fragrant and vivid, Iris felt like a flower coming to life after a year of winter. She would sit on a bench overlooking the Tiber, say, or a chair in some darling café, and close her eyes to imagine her petals unfurling to the sun. They had taken this apartment on Via dei Polacchi—two bedrooms, a tiny bathroom and a tiny kitchen, and a parlor with a tiny balcony overlooking a tiny courtyard—and every morning Iris opened her eyes to the ancient fresco on the ceiling and thought, I am in Rome!
Because she’d been away for a week, the street looked new—the building just a bit unfamiliar. She’d forgotten that particular smell of stone and paint and sunshine. Spring had invaded every corner, and Ruth had planted flowers in all the chipped terra-cotta pots, so the balcony and the windows had come back to colorful life.
The apartment was on the second floor （Italian style） and Ruth followed behind patiently with the flowers and the carpetbag while Iris climbed both flights, step by step, planting her crutches on each stair before she hoisted herself up.
When they arrived at the door at last, Iris imagined she heard a noise, but still she was perfectly shocked when Ruth swung the door open and everybody yelled SURPRISE!
What a swell party! All of Harry’s embassy friends were there, and all their neighbors, and several people Iris didn’t even recognize, and Sasha Digby’s golden head floated above them all. The guests drank wine or gin and tonic and nibbled from the platters of cheese and crackers and prosciutto. Say what you would, Ruth had always known how to throw a real bash.
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.