“Oh, our pumpkin’s got the blues, that’s all,” Ruth said.
“Aw, poor Iris. You’ll forget all about the bastard when you get home, believe me.”
Iris looked at Ruth. Ruth shrugged her shoulders.
“Don’t be silly,” Iris said. “I’m just tired, that’s all. I’ve been packing all day. I’ve forgotten about him already.”
Harry raised his glass. “Good for you. Take my advice, go home and find a nice American kid to fall in love with. You can’t trust these Italians anyway. Right, Ruthie?”
Ruth clinked her class against Harry’s. “Don’t I know it.”
“Too bad neither of you hit it off with Digby,” said Harry, lighting a cigarette. “I tried to lure him along tonight. No use.”
“Oh? What did he say?” Iris asked.
“Too busy, he said. Poor bastard’s been working night and day. Catches a few winks on the sofa and he’s back at his desk. I don’t know what they’ve got him doing, but it’s just about killing him.”
On the way home, Iris said to Ruth, “So you told Harry I was seeing some Italian fellow?”
“I didn’t say one way or another. I just let him reach his own conclusions. I’m no snitch, but I’m not a liar, either.”
Iris walked silently. Ruth rummaged in her pocketbook and lit a cigarette.
“Pumpkin, you’re taking this too hard. He’s a louse, all right? A dog in a manger. Do like Harry says. Find some nice, simple American kid when we get home. Some fellow who really appreciates you. I’ll help you. I’ve got a good eye.”
“Sure you do. A good eye for husbands, maybe.”
“So what if I do? Let the other woman do all the work of breaking him to saddle, that’s what I say. Picking his socks up off the floor. We’ll go back to New York, we’ll set up a household of our own, just you and me, and take our men on the side with a spoonful of whipped cream. What do you say to that?”
“Sounds like a swell idea,” said Iris.
Their heels went clickety-clack on the sidewalk, and the old buildings slid by, smeared by centuries of soot and dirt. A clear, bright moon rose above the city. Iris tried to paste it all in her memory, her last night in Rome, but nothing stuck. The magic was gone. Like Iris, the streets were quiet with foreboding.
Ruth ordered a taxi for nine o’clock in the morning to take them to Civitavecchia, twenty miles up the coast where the ferries and steamships docked. Iris remembered going to see Tosca at the Teatro Reale dell’Opera last winter, and how the chief of police, when he writes out the safe passage for Tosca and her lover, asks if she plans to leave Rome from Civitavecchia, and Tosca replies hopelessly, Sì, and you can tell by the uneasy music that something’s wrong—they’ll never reach Civitavecchia. That was how Iris felt right now. Except Ruth wasn’t some wicked police chief. Ruth was her sister and confidante, the person she trusted most in the world, especially now. Ruth would take her to safety. Together with Ruth, she’d find a way forward.
By ten minutes after nine, the taxi hadn’t come. Ruth thought he might be outside and hadn’t troubled to ring the bell. “You telephone the taxi company,” she said to Iris, exasperated, “I’ll go downstairs and see if I can flag him down.”
Iris picked up the telephone and called the taxi company. In her broken Italian, she tried to explain the problem, and what she understood was that they dispatched the taxi, signorina, and it wasn’t their fault if he hadn’t arrived yet. Maybe she should look outside?
Iris hung up the telephone and stared at the bare walls, the empty apartment, the closed shutters, the steamer trunks by the door. How was it possible that she was leaving, that these walls that had rung with joy and merriment were now like a tomb? Ah, well. That was life. You won some, you lost some. You caught some glimpse of the sublime just before you fell into the mire.
The telephone rang.
Iris jumped.
The taxi company, she thought. She picked up the receiver and said, Pronto.
“Iris? Is that you?”
“Sasha?”
“Thank God. Thank God.”
“What’s the matter?”
“What’s the matter? Christ. I just came home to bathe and change, and there’s this note from you. My God, why didn’t you say anything? Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I did.”
“Don’t you know I’ve been going crazy, wondering what happened with us? Why you never answered me or telephoned back or anything?”