“What it means is that when the kids and I got over here six weeks ago, I found out that Tony…”
She stopped, chuckled, then ran her fingers over his face tenderly. “‘Stupping,’ my goy lover, is Yiddish for what you just did to me. Goy means ‘gentile man.’ And shiksa is Yiddish for ‘gentile girl.’”
“How did you find out about your husband?”
“It doesn’t matter. I found out.”
“I’m sorry, Rachel.”
She ran her fingers over his face again.
“So, what were my options? If I left him, the kids would have learned that not only is their father a sonofabitch stupping it to all the shiksas he can, but that he prefers them to me. And what would I do? I’ve been an officer’s wife since I was a kid, I don’t know how I would make a living.”
She paused, then went on: “So, what did I do? I did what a lot of women here do — Tony’s not the only officer who has found that fräuleins, or for that matter, die Frauen, are more interesting in bed than their wives. I started to drink, is what I did, Jimmy.
“And then I began to have this fantasy. I would pay the sonofabitch back. What’s sauce for the goose, et cetera. I would find a lover, preferably a goy. That would show him.”
“Christ, you’re not going to tell him about us?”
She laughed and smiled.
“No, Jimmy, I’m not going to tell him about us. If I did, my children would learn that their mother’s no better than their father. Or as bad as their father. It would be enough, I thought, that I would know I had paid him back.
“But the fantasy went nowhere. I didn’t come across anyone that I wanted to take to bed. I began to understand that my fantasy was just that — fantasy.
“And then I ran into a young goy officer my husband really hates. More importantly, he had the saddest eyes I’d ever seen. Perfect, I thought. Except you showed no interest in me whatever. So I took another sip of my martini of liquid encouragement and… let you know I was interested. You still didn’t show any interest, but — and this really came as a surprise — what I had done to you really excited me.
“I waited until Colonel Mattingly had driven away and then I came knocking at your door. And here we are.”
When he didn’t reply, she said, “No comment?”
He rolled on his side and looked at her.
“I’m glad you didn’t give up, Rachel.”
“I hope you’re just not saying that.”
He put his hand to her breast. She laid her fingers on top of his hand. He felt her nipple stiffen.
“Jimmy, are you feeling guilty about betraying the memory of your late wife?”
“She’s dead, Rachel…”
“I feel so sorry for you.”
“… and I’m alive.”
He took his hand from her breast, caught hers, and guided it to his member. She closed her fingers around it and it sprang almost instantly to life.
“Oh, God!” she said.
And then he rolled on top of her.
[EIGHT]
“You look lost in thought,” Jimmy said to Rachel, who was standing before the mirror in the bath and combing her hair.
She turned from the mirror. She had showered and wrapped a towel around her waist, leaving her breasts uncovered.
“You’re not supposed to be looking,” she said, but didn’t seem offended. She turned back to the mirror and resumed running the comb through her hair.
“I’ve got a lot to think about,” Rachel said.
“Like what?”
“Like — not that it matters — I’m too old for you. Like I really have to keep Tony from finding out and, for different reasons, my kids from even suspecting.”
“For different reasons?”
“Because Tony really hates you. My kids, thank God, don’t even know you exist.”
“Your husband hates me because of what I did to his car?”
“Because he suspects you’re involved in getting Nazis out of Germany to Argentina, and he can’t do anything about it.”
After a moment, Jimmy said, “And the different reasons for the kids?”
“No mother wants to have to come off the pedestal of virtue her kids have put her on.”
“Then we’ll just have to make sure your kids don’t find out.”
“The only way we could do that for sure would be for me to get dressed, walk out of here, and never see you again.”
“Is that what you want to do?”
“No. But that’s moot. Eventually, we’re going to run into each other again. We’re just going to have to be very careful.”
“Can I interpret that to mean…”
“Do I want to be with you again? Of course I do. I know I should be overwhelmed with remorse right now, but the truth is I like standing here combing my hair while you stare hungrily at my breasts.”
“Wow!”
“But we’re going to have to be very careful and pray we don’t get caught. And I mean that about praying. I don’t want my kids to get hurt.”
“Understood.”
“Are you?”
“Am I what?”
“Involved in sneaking Nazis out of Germany to Argentina?”
“Jesus, Rachel!”
“I thought so. Tony is ordinarily very good at what he does, and so far as that business is concerned, he’s passionate. I guess he feels that if he can stop it, that will be even better for his Jewish masculine ego than…”
“Stupping the shiksas?”
She laughed.
“If you suddenly start spouting Yiddish, people will wonder who’s teaching you.”
“Then I will spout it only to you, my shiksa.”
She laughed and turned to him.
“I’m not your shiksa, mein Trottel goy. I’m your khaverte.”
“Is that what you think, Rachel, that I’m a fool of a Christian?”
“That’s right, you do speak German, don’t you? And Yiddish is really bastard German.”
“My mother is a Strasburgerin. I got my German from her.”
“I was just about to say, ‘That was said lovingly,’ but we have to be careful about using that word, don’t we? Or even thinking about it?”
“Can you have a lover, be lovers, without love?”
“We’re going to have to try to, aren’t we? Or at least without saying it, or even thinking it?”
When he didn’t reply, Rachel said, “Oh, my God, Jimmy. You’re not thinking that what happened between us… That was lust, Jimmy. Lust. Not love.”
He smiled.
“What’s funny? This is not funny!”
“When I was in the eighth grade, thirteen, fourteen years old…”
“As old as Anton Junior. So?”
“Our teacher, Miss Schenck, introduced us to classical music. Started out easy. We were all ranch kids in West Texas. She set up her phonograph and said she was going to play a Viennese operetta for us. She said it was called Die Lustige Witwe and that meant ‘The Merry Widow.’ So I put up my hand and said, ‘Excuse me, Miss Schenck, but lustige doesn’t mean ‘merry.’ It means ‘lusty.’ And she said, ‘What are you talking about?’ So I told her, ‘Lustige means “horny.” You know, like a bull is when you turn him loose in the pasture with the cows.’”
“Oh, Jimmy, you didn’t!”
“Miss Schenk snapped, ‘James Cronley, you go straight to the principal’s office! This instant!’”
Rachel laughed.
“So my mother was called in, heard what happened, and told me I was just going to have to learn (a) I should never correct my teachers, and (b) I should never try to explain what lust means to any female.”