But Sasha insisted.
“Are you nuts?” she said. “You must’ve drunk half the gin in London last night, you and your pals. You look like death.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I mean you’re hungover, that’s all. You need aspirin and coffee, not God. Anyway, it’s almost nine thirty, and you haven’t even shaved yet.”
He threw down his napkin and rose from the table. “I’ll shave now. Have the boys ready in twenty minutes.”
“Oh, but Sasha—”
“We’re going, all right? That’s all there is to it.”
She watched him storm out of the kitchen and turned to Jack, who sat awestruck in his chair, nibbling a toast soldier while his brother studiously flipped the page of his magazine and dragged his cocoa cup to his mouth.
“And for this I married an atheist,” she said.
While Sasha banged around in the bathroom, Iris put on her lilac Sunday dress and forced Kip and Jack into their navy sailor suits, neatly pressed. They left the building at nine fifty-four, leaving just enough time to hurry around the corner under the shelter of an umbrella for the ten o’clock rites at St. Barnabas, the second and longer service of the morning. Privately she thought Sasha was more suited to St. Mary Abbots up Kensington High Street, which was larger and grander and more High Church than low, lots of ceremony and incantation and that kind of thing, but he seemed to prefer the convenience of a smaller neighborhood church.
The bell tolled gloomily, calling the faithful, or whatever they were. Sasha lengthened his stride and Kip, holding his father’s hand, stepped up his pace—her small determined boy. Iris held tight to Jack’s hand so he didn’t fall behind. When she glanced at Sasha, she saw he’d nicked himself shaving, and the cut was beginning to bleed again. She reached into the pocket of her raincoat for a handkerchief and fished it out just in time to catch the trickle before it landed on Sasha’s shirt collar.
At the touch of the handkerchief, Sasha flew around, throwing out his elbow. Kip stumbled and nearly fell—Iris cried out and stepped back. She clutched the handkerchief with his blood on it.
“Mama, what’s wrong?” said Jack.
Sasha looked at the red stain, then at her. His eyes were bloodshot. Probably he wasn’t even hungover, just still drunk from the night before.
“What’s the matter with you?” she exclaimed.
“Nothing. Nervy, I guess. I didn’t hit you, did I?”
“No.”
He took the handkerchief and shoved it in his pocket. “I’m sorry,” he said. He picked up the umbrella, which he’d dropped on the pavement, and took her arm with his other hand. St. Barnabas loomed nearby, soot-stained and Gothic. In another minute they reached the steps. They trudged up and through the open door just as the organ prepared to lurch into the processional. Sasha folded the umbrella and turned left, as usual, to walk up the side aisle to the pew where they always sat, without fail. The church only filled at Christmas and Easter, and their seats were still empty. Iris filed in silently behind Sasha—settled the boys—picked up her hymnal.
The first time they went inside this church, Iris was pleasantly surprised. Instead of the usual gloomy Gothic nave, obscured by pillars and arches, the space was wide open and full of light. Sasha said this was because the weight of the roof was supported entirely by the external buttressing. Well, whatever. Iris loved this openness because it allowed her to glance around as the hymn droned on and observe her fellow worshippers. She recognized some families from Oakwood Court, although she didn’t actually know any of them, except for the woman who lived on the second floor of their own block and had two small children—a boy named Peter, slightly older than Jack, and tiny, dainty Gladys, who was about a year younger. Their last name was Peabody. Mrs. Peabody caught Iris’s glance and smiled back, a little sternly because they were in church and supposed to be singing a hymn.
Or so Iris thought. But Mrs. Peabody might have looked stern because Jack, at that very second of connection, was slithering under the pew. Iris caught him just in time and discreetly dragged him back upward.
As she straightened, she saw Sasha take a piece of paper from his hymnal and tuck it into his jacket pocket, singing lustily as he did so—Bring me my bow of burning gold, bring me my arrows of desire.
The nick was bleeding again, but this time Iris didn’t try to stop it.
Since the long-ago day in Tivoli, when Iris confronted Sasha about the envelope in his suitcase and the woman he used to meet in the Borghese gardens, they’d only once discussed the subject. That was in December of 1941, after Pearl Harbor, when the US embassy in Rome was hastily closed on account of war, and they’d moved back to the United States in an almighty hustle. On the promenade deck of the steamship bound for New York one stormy afternoon, staring nervously out to sea for the possibility of German submarines, Iris had looked around to make sure nobody could hear them and said to Sasha, “I suppose this makes your work a little easier, doesn’t it? Now that we’re all fighting on the same side?”