Iris coughed on her drink. Sasha started toward her, but she waved him away and hoisted herself back on her feet. “I should get those drawings before they miss you at the embassy.”

“There’s no rush,” he said.

She hobbled to her bedroom and pulled the sketchbook from her nightstand. When she turned around, Sasha stood in the doorway, holding his drink and hers.

Iris held out the sketchbook. “Be kind.”

He set down her drink and took the sketchbook from her hand. “I am always kind, Iris.”

Iris retreated to sit on the edge of the bed, sipping her gin and tonic. The mattress was old and creaked every time she shifted, so she sat still and looked around the room, everywhere except directly at Sasha, who leaned one elbow on the dresser and examined her sketches, one after another. He furrowed his brow and took his time. Whenever she glanced from the corner of her eye to his face, he was frowning. Her hands shook a little. She drank the rest of the gin and tonic in a gulp, so she wouldn’t spill it, and tucked her other hand under her thigh.

“These are very good,” said Sasha.

“Do you think so?”

“Yes.” He pointed to Ruth’s profile. “You’ve got the sense of her, not just the look of her. You can almost tell what she thinks of the book. And the potted palm, the proportions just right. Excellent.”

“Thank you.”

“It’s how you look at things, you know. It’s how you really see them.”

He stared at her again with his technicolor eyes, as if to prove his point—as if Iris were the only person in the universe, the only person who mattered. Iris couldn’t speak. Ruth would probably have had some clever reply ready, but then Ruth could never have drawn those sketches. It was one or the other, really.

Sasha set down the drawings.

The bedroom was not quite square, maybe twelve feet by ten feet. The door was open partway, but the stuffy air and the shuttered window made Iris feel that they were together in some kind of cave. This room, in which she’d slept for months, became a new room altogether. It even smelled different, because of the gin and tonic and all the cigarette smoke steeped in Sasha’s clothes. He moved his arm, and Iris thought he was maybe going to fish out his cigarettes, but he only leaned his elbow on the dresser as he stared at her.

“Does your family understand this? How good you are, I mean?”

Iris shook her head.

“No, I guess they wouldn’t. Your crowd—our crowd—you know who I mean—they think they have taste, but they only like what they’re told to like. What’s already been approved by some gallery or museum or the arts page of the New York Times.”

“Some man, probably.”