I wondered how I smelled, how I looked. Had the smells of the nightclub in which I had met Charlie Buzaglo clung to me? Was I sweaty after my long walk to Sima's apartment? And how did my fitful sleep and stressful days mark my face?
If there was anything, Sima showed no sign of being repelled by it. She gestured for me to sit on the sofa, telling me she would make me some tea.
I nodded and she returned a moment later with two mugs. She had added cold water to each cup, so the tea was pleasantly warm instead of scorching, and we could drink without waiting for it to cool. She had liberally sweetened the tea with honey. It was almost too sweet, like candy, but I drank it down hungrily just the same. She sipped her own delicately, scrutinizing me over the lip of her mug.
She was sitting next to me on the sofa, close enough I could feel the warmth of her body radiating off her skin. The line of the pillow had faded from her cheek, and her skin was now an unblemished dark shade, like melted chocolate.
"I expected you last night," she said.
"I never said I would come."
"But I invited you."
This she said as a simple statement of fact, a sufficient basis on which to assume that I would come. Her tone was tinged with bewilderment. She was not used to men resisting her, not even for a single night.
"I did not intend to come here tonight, either," I said.
"No. I can see that you're not sure you should be here. You sit like a man who thinks he should be on his feet. But you don't want to leave, do you?"
I said nothing, and that was answer enough.
"You didn't come here tonight for me," she said, peering at my face. "At least not just for me. Something happened tonight. Something that left a taste of anger and frustration in your mouth."
I glanced at her sharply. "How can you tell all that?"
She shrugged, and her breasts shifted the cloth of the nightshirt. "It is not hard to see. You wear your feelings on your face, as you do your history on your arm."
I was wearing a jacket now, but I hadn't been when I came to this apartment the first time. I looked into her eyes, checking to see if there was pity or scorn there. I had gotten such looks before from those Jews who had been lucky enough not to know the camps, who were used to fighting as equals, to returning blow for blow, to being victorious. Sima's eyes showed none of that. If there was anything but curiosity, and a touch of anticipation, I could not detect it.
"I had a chat with Maryam's pimp."
She drew a sharp breath. "Just now?"
"Just now. It turns out I knew him from before."
I explained a little bit about my history with Charlie Buzaglo, how he had tried to attack me, and the broken ribs he wound up with as a result.
Sima laughed when I told her of the broken ribs. "Oh, good. He deserved it." She turned serious. "And Maryam?"
"I don't know yet. There is something I'm missing. Some connection that I'm failing to make. And there is something that Buzaglo knows but wouldn't tell me."
"So how will you know?"
"I'll get the information. Don't worry about that," I told her flatly, and she arched an eyebrow but didn't ask for clarification.
She sipped her tea and I did the same with mine.
I looked at her and asked myself whether she was feeling any remorse about severing her relationship with Maryam when she got involved with Buzaglo. She shouldn't. Fighting for Maryam would have been a lost cause. And it would have brought Buzaglo into Sima's life. He would have tried to make her his servant. I didn't think he would have succeeded. Sima Vaaknin was not the hopeless romantic Maryam Jamalka had been, and could not be manipulated by her emotions. But he would have tried all the same.
This led me to wonder how Sima Vaaknin wound up a prostitute. I knew Maryam Jamalka's story and could not imagine Sima following a similar path. But I didn't ask, and if she read the question on my face, she showed no sign of it.
She finished her tea and set her mug on the coffee table. She plucked the mug from my hand. It was still a third full, but I didn't protest. She set it down next to hers and looked up at me.
"Come," she said simply, and extended her hand. I took it, and her fingers entwined themselves around mine. They were cool, but her palm was warm.
She led me down a hall toward a rear room.
It was dark within, but I could make out the outline of a large bed, the covers bunched on one side. The room smelled clean and fresh. If other men had been there earlier that night, their presence had been expunged. There was just me and Sima now.
"I want the lights on," she said, and flicked them on without waiting for my approval.
The room was simply furnished—a nightstand, a number of shelves bearing white candles in their saucers. A radio on a dresser. The bedsheets were white, the pillowcases red. The curtains were drawn and of a darker shade of red than the pillowcases. There were no pictures on the walls. No books. No ornaments. Sima was the only thing that drew the eye.
The light made me think of my scars. Would she be repelled by them? She did not allow me time to make up my mind. She pulled her nightshirt over her head, tossed it aside, and stood before me, naked and unembarrassed.
I took in her breasts, her stomach, the juncture of her thighs. She came to me, drew the jacket off my shoulders, and allowed it to slip to the floor. She grabbed the back of my head, fingers in my hair, and pulled my head down while rising on tiptoes.
The kiss was short and awkward. I was to blame. Her lips were soft and inviting, mine were unresponsive. She drew back and looked up at me.
"Now, let's try it again."
She kissed me again, pressing her body tightly into mine, and pried my lips apart with her tongue. She tasted of honey. My arms went around her, feeling the smooth texture of her back, the supple softness of her buttocks.
"That was better," she said, once we broke the kiss. "But you are still holding something back."
She did not sound accusatory, but challenged.
"Kick off your shoes," she said, and I complied, following the shoes with my pants and socks and shorts.
She smiled, pleased at my obvious desire. She unbuttoned my shirt and pulled it off me. Now I was as naked as she. She ran her eyes over me, lingering on the scars on my torso, but didn't say anything.
She took me by the hand and pushed me onto the bed. She came on top of me and kissed me, running her hands over me. My body responded with a hunger of its own, but I kept a part of me distant, not allowing myself to fully drown in the moment.
She ceased her kisses and pulled back to a sitting position, straddling me. She examined my face, arching an eyebrow.
"You're not married," she said, and for once she sounded unsure of herself.
She was right, both in her words and in her self-doubt. I was not married. My wife, Deborah, had been dead for five years, likely on the very day in which the train that took us from Hungary came to its final stop in Auschwitz. Common sense and social proprieties dictated that five years was long enough for mourning. But apparently, it was not long enough for me.
As I kissed Sima Vaaknin and felt her body with my hands, the face of my Deborah flashed through my mind. I knew she wouldn't blame me for permitting myself the promise of pleasure this night held, but I could blame myself well enough. I wanted to feed the hunger of my body, but not to allow myself to feast on Sima Vaaknin. And I wanted to feast on her, to taste every part of her, to touch her and smell her and sense her every way I could. But doing so would mean crossing a line I wanted to keep from crossing. It would mean I was putting Deborah more firmly in the past, that I was relegating her and our love to a thing that was rather than a thing that is. So I was about to take a measure of delight and no more, enough to quench a thirst without getting drunk.