Once that KGB woman has squeezed what she can out of Sasha—unless Sasha breaks and tells her the truth, or as much of the truth as he can surmise—they’ll execute him and then send Iris and the children to some labor camp, probably. If Iris doesn’t get better, they’ll put Gregory and Claire in an orphanage, or possibly adoption by well-connected party members. Iris imagines some Russian woman, some wife of a Politburo bigwig, feeding Gregory a bottle and tucking Claire into bed at night. The image hurts so much that she allows herself to doze off, but not before shifting Gregory so that he’s lying safely between Iris and the wall. Her last conscious thought is that she must ask the guards for fresh diapers.

SHE WAKES FROM HER confused, feverish sleep to the noise of Claire crying. Somebody’s trying to soothe her—sounds like Kip. Ruth sings a song from the cell between them. Oh! It’s the song she used to sing to Iris, when Iris couldn’t sleep in the weeks and months after Daddy died. You are my sunshine, my only sunshine. You make me happy when skies are gray.

Gregory stirs and makes those little newborn noises that work up to sobs and then pathetic mayhem. Iris summons her strength and lifts him back into her arms. Ruth breaks off singing and calls her name from the other cell.

“Yes, I’m awake!” Iris calls back.

“How are you feeling?”

“Better.”

The doctor left some aspirin behind. Iris swallows a couple of pills and carefully stands, so she can walk back and forth with the baby. His diaper’s soaking wet, poor thing. When they bring food, she’ll beg for some cloths. Anything will do.

THE DAY PASSES, INCH by inch, in a strange, nightmarish haze. The guards bring bread and water, and then—grudgingly, a little horrified—cloths for Gregory and also for Iris, whose womb still bleeds heavily. She tries to rest as much as she can. Not to think too much.

Ruth tells her that a guard came earlier with another prisoner, some school friend of Kip’s. Iris doesn’t catch the name—she doesn’t have the strength—but she hears them talking. It’s a girl. She tries to remember Kip’s friends. She knows there was a girl among them, very pretty in a solemn, fierce way—dark hair, energetic eyes that seemed to catch every movement. What was her name? Possibilities float in and out of Iris’s mind, but she can’t catch one. Her world has shrunk to the tiny dimensions of her cell—to the minutes ticking by—the baby who needs all her attention. The air is damp and stale, but every so often a clean fresh salt draft whooshes in from the sea with one of the guards, and she breathes this wind like a tonic that will restore her to health.