Joe said, “We’ll buzz up there and then afterward when we come back we’ll take in the sights here.” He spoke reasonably, and yet still with the stark deadness as if he were reciting.
“No,” she said.
“Put on that blue dress.” He rummaged around among the parcels until he found it in the largest box. He carefully removed the cord, got out the dress, laid it on the bed with precision; he did not hurry. “Okay? You’ll be a knockout. Listen, we’ll buy a bottle of high-price Scotch and take it along. That Vat 69.”
Frank, she thought. Help me. I’m in something I don’t understand.
“It’s much farther,” she answered, “than you realize. I looked on the map. It’ll be real late when we get there, more like eleven or past midnight.”
He said, “Put on the dress or I’ll kill you.”
Closing her eyes, she began to giggle. My training, she thought. It was true, after all; now we’ll see. Can he kill me or can’t I pinch a nerve in his back and cripple him for life? But he fought those British commandoes; he’s gone through this already, many years ago.
“I know you maybe can throw me,” Joe said. “Or maybe not.”
“Not throw you,” she said. “Maim you permanently. I actually can. I lived out on the West Coast. The Japs taught me, up in Seattle. You go on to Cheyenne if you want to and leave me here. Don’t try to force me. I’m scared of you and I’ll try.” Her voice broke. “I’ll try to get you so bad, if you come at me.”
“Oh come on—put on the goddam dress! What’s this all about? You must be nuts, talking like that about killing and maiming, just because I want you to hop in the car after dinner and drive up the autobahn with me and see this fellow whose book you—”
A knock at the door.
Joe stalked to it and opened it. A uniformed boy in the corridor said, “Valet service. You inquired at the desk, sir.”
“Oh yes,” Joe said, striding to the bed; he gathered up the new white shirts which he had bought and carried them to the bellboy. “Can you get them back in half an hour?”
“Just ironing out the folds,” the boy said, examining them. “Not cleaning. Yes, I’m sure they can, sir.”
As Joe shut the door, Juliana said, “How did you know a new white shirt can’t be worn until it’s pressed?”
He said nothing; he shrugged.
“I had forgotten,” Juliana said. “And a woman ought to know… when you take them out of the cellophane they’re all wrinkled.”
“When I was younger I used to dress up and go out a lot.”
“How did you know the hotel had valet service? I didn’t know it. Did you really have your hair cut and dyed? I think your hair always was blond, and you were wearing a hairpiece. Isn’t that so?”
Again he shrugged.
“You must be an SD man,” she said. “Posing as a wop truck driver. You never fought in North Africa, did you? You’re supposed to come up here to kill Abendsen; isn’t that so? I know it is. I guess I’m pretty dumb.” She felt dried-up, withered.
After an interval, Joe said, “Sure I fought in North Africa. Maybe not with Pardi’s artillery battery. With the Brandenburgers.” He added, “Wehrmacht kommando. Infiltrated British HQs. I don’t see what difference it makes; we saw plenty of action. And I was at Cairo; I earned the medal and a battlefield citation. Corporal.”
“Is that fountain pen a weapon?”