“So much for firm resolve,” she said three minutes later.
“To hell with firm resolve.”
“Look at me. At us.”
They were lying on the cover of his bed. Her skirt was again up above her waist and his trousers again around his ankles.
“God, I love you,” Jimmy said.
“If you start that again, I’ll pull my skirt down and leave. Once and for all. I mean it, Jimmy.”
“And if I don’t start that again, then what?”
“I told you, I don’t want to be alone,” she said. “I want to be held.”
“Naked or clothed?”
She sat up and started to unbutton her uniform shirt.
—
Jimmy ran his fingers up her backbone.
She was lying on him. He could feel the warmth of her breasts against his chest, and the bristle of her crotch against his leg.
“You want to tell me what happened in the apartment house?” he asked.
“I don’t want to. It’s not your concern.”
“Tell me, Elsa.”
She exhaled audibly.
“Tell me,” Jimmy repeated.
“Frau Hofstadter said that I had my nerve, showing up in an American uniform at her door, and that she really had nothing to say to me.”
“Why?”
“She said that if it wasn’t for the treason of my father and Graf von Wachtstein, her husband would still be alive and she wouldn’t be living in a two-room apartment struggling to find enough to eat. She said she wasn’t surprised that I was a whore . . . and fucking Americans . . . and hoped I would burn in hell.”
“Jesus Christ!”
“And she’s right, Jimmy. Oberst Hofstadter was never involved with Claus von Stauffenberg and the others. He was a loyal officer to the end.”
“Then what happened?”
“Hitler arrested everybody who even knew anybody involved. There were eight thousand trials and executions, and at least half, maybe three-quarters, of them were of innocent people.”
“Why is she holding you responsible?”
“Because I’m my father’s daughter. And I showed up at her door in an American uniform.”
“Baby, I’m sorry.”
“In there,” Elsa said, gesturing toward the Goethe Suite, “before I came in here, I realized she was right. I am a whore. I’m sorry, but I can’t find any shame in what happened between us. It was stupid of me, but it wasn’t wrong.”
“Well, you’re not a whore. What you are is a fool.”