He hangs up, and the once-familiar noise of an Italian dial tone buzzes in my ear. I set the receiver in the cradle and attempt to collect my thoughts, which are still mired in the confusion of deep sleep. I had no right to sleep like that, just as I have no right to eat a leisurely lunch in an Italian café with a man who was once my lover. I need to get to Moscow—I need to find Iris with an urgency that’s only grown stronger during the night, as if some part of my brain has turned into a ticking clock.

But Orlovsky’s right. I must eat—I must sleep—and anyway I can’t do anything until we find a way inside the Soviet Union.

I head upstairs and open my suitcase.

“YOU LOOK MUCH BETTER,” Orlovsky tells me, when the waiter’s opened the first bottle of wine and poured our glasses.

“You, on the other hand, look worse. What’s happened to you?”

He shrugs. “Life. War. You know we lost two sons—”

“Oh, damn. I hadn’t heard. I’m so sorry.”

“War kills the young, this is fact of life. Laura prayed to God, but I am not believer. I believe in fate, that is all.” He sips his wine and offers me a cigarette. We spend some time lighting up, enjoying the first drag. He waves away the smoke that gathers between us and says, “Enrico died in Albania. Mario at Palermo. So Giovanni is now our only son. Five girls and one boy. His mother spoils him.”

“Of course she does.” I’m now filled only with pity for Orlovsky’s wife. Still, I can’t resist adding, “But at least she had the new baby to comfort her.”

He looks at me in surprise. “But you did not know this? Baby died two days after he was born. His heart, doctors said to us. He had weak heart.”

“Oh, God. What a heel I am.”

“No, it is I who am heel, bambina. It is I who am brought to learn humility before will of fate. I thought I was tremendous man. I have wife and children and beautiful mistress, all because I am great fellow, I am like God. Whole world moves in magnificent circle around me. I am immortal!” He pulls on the cigarette. “So fate strikes me down. One by one, my children die. Is greatest agony man can endure. Why not kill me instead? No, fate tortures me first, because I am proud, because I play with hearts of women like you play with cards.”

“That’s not true. That has nothing to do with it. Your children didn’t deserve to die because of you. You didn’t deserve for them to die.”

“Ah, you are generous with me, bambina cara. Always you are generous.”