IRIS BLUM

She woke up in a strange bed, a strange room, deep in shadows. A thin frame of light around a small window near the ceiling suggested a basement bedroom. The sounds of a shower seeped under a closed door. Her watch said eleven. She hadn’t slept past seven-thirty in decades. She closed her eyes, trying to remember the dream floating just out of reach. Harriet was there, looking like she had in college, and she was trying to tell Iris something important, but her body kept fading. Iris drifted, thoughts shifting from the dream to the impossible lifetime ago that was yesterday. What had she been thinking, just leaving like that, with no plan other than to get away from Asher and the big mess he had made of everything?

She understood her part in the mess and accepted her small portion of responsibility. She knew how much Asher hated being lied to. She understood how frightened he had been as the government started demanding loyalty oaths, how he blamed Harriet for pulling them into dangerous territory. But Asher refused to understand how grateful Iris had been to have her best friend waiting for her at Brooklyn College when she arrived as a freshman. Harriet had secured a double room for them and could introduce Iris to a group of like-minded students.

Things don’t turn out the way you expect, do they? All she wanted was to have both Asher and Harriet in her life, her sweetheart and her best friend. Harriet was her friend since forever. There weren’t a lot of kids in the island school, so the two girls would have been in each other’s lives even if they didn’t hit it off. But they did. They did everything together, from two-wheelers to Tampax. No surprise Iris followed Harriet to Brooklyn, and they both took chemistry. Harriet was pre-med. In those days it wasn’t easy to have a career and a family and Iris wasn’t sure what she wanted until the moment she met Asher, filling in for a sick buddy teaching their chem lab.

After that lab the three of them spent time together—what little time Asher could spare. They studied hard and all had jobs, but there was so much else to think about. It was 1949 and they were all worried about Russia and the Cold War and Senator McCarthy’s witch hunt. As time went on, Iris spent more time with Asher, and Harriet became more involved with politics. Asher worried when Harriet joined the Communist Party, and he asked Iris not to spend time with Harriet. That was impossible of course, but she didn’t flaunt their friendship. She met Harriet at times and places Asher would never know about, so life was peaceful.

Peaceful on the surface, anyway. Asher occasionally made snide comments about Harriet, which Iris ignored. Harriet also expressed her dislike of Asher. “He’s no good for you, Iris,” Harriet warned. “I don’t trust the man.”

Then the letter came from the government. Iris would never forget that day. It was a month before their wedding and it was Monday, the only day Asher got off early. When Iris got home from classes, he was waiting in her apartment.

“This letter.” He waved it in the air. “What’s going on?”

“What is it?” Iris asked.

“The FBI claims you are a member of the Brooklyn Bookstore Association?”

Iris met his eyes. “I was,” she said. “Freshman and sophomore years. Remember? If you joined, you got a discount on textbooks, and there was that women’s book discussion group I liked to attend.”

“That store was a subversive organization. It’s on the list. I had to sign a loyalty oath, swearing that I wasn’t a Communist. I could lose my new job before we even get to Massachusetts. How could you endanger us like that?”

“I joined for the discount.” She grabbed the letter and waved it in his face. “It was just a bookstore. Look at the other organizations on that stupid Attorney General’s list: the Chopin Cultural Center, the Committee for the Negro in the Arts, the Committee for the Protection of the Bill of Rights.”

“It’s not up to you to decide,” he argued. “They decide who’s subversive.”

She stared at him. “You’re never home. I’m lonely. I joined for the company.”

That was decades ago, and she was still lonely. Iris stared at the bright frame of light around the window, trying to banish the past and bring herself back to this time, this room, wherever it was. Those early days with Harriet were gone and whatever redo she could imagine, whatever path she might have taken to lead to a different ending, well that was gone too. All she had left was her own sad self, living with the knowledge that she hadn’t saved Harriet from Asher.

Maybe she could have prevented it all, if only she had stood up to him. If she had said she wouldn’t stay with him, wouldn’t marry him, if she couldn’t have her best friend too. But she hadn’t done that, hadn’t even tried to gather her strength to try. Didn’t that make her partly responsible for Harriet’s death? She hadn’t known what Asher did, imprisoning Harriet in his hospital, but she had felt that something was very wrong. And when she lost their baby, her pain was magnified by thoughts of missing Harriet, thoughts she had no words to explain.

She squeezed her eyes closed against the blurring, brimming memories, images of making friendship bracelets with Harriet or racing on their bikes to the most isolated island quarry, their favorite summer fun. “Slowpoke!” they yelled back and forth to each other.

“Iris? Iris! Are you okay?” Gloria was shaking her shoulder. She wore a terry bathrobe and a towel around her hair. Her skin looked scrubbed pink, almost raw.

“I’m fine, dear. Just half-dreaming. Remembering long-ago times.” She looked around. “Where are we? I don’t remember coming here.”

“My friend’s place in cohousing. You were so deeply asleep my friend’s son had to practically carry you into the house.” Gloria laughed. “I’ve never seen anyone sleep like that. You didn’t even wake up for dinner.”

“Wait,” Iris said. “Did your friends see me? I’m sure my photograph is all over television and the newspapers.”

“Just their teenage son, and all old people look alike to kids that age, if they even notice you at all. We’re alone here now. Come upstairs and eat, and then we’ll figure out what’s next. You must be starving.”