“It must have been interesting material.”
I set the can on the drainboard. “There’s a swastika on it.”
“Get it away from me.”
“Have you seen a film can like this one?”
“Not that I remember.”
“You’re in the film, Rosita.”
“How nice,” she said, the blade of her knife moving along the edges of the bread. “Now take it out of my sight, please.”
“You didn’t have to hide your past from me.”
“No one has any idea what went on in the camps,” she said. “You couldn’t begin to understand what they did to us and what we did to one another.”
“Why didn’t you tell me about the film?”
“Because it’s inconsequential in terms of other things that happened.”
“You told me you spat in an SS colonel’s face when he asked you to be his mistress.”
“Because that’s what I did.”
Then I spoke the worst words that ever passed through my lips. “That’s not what you’re doing in the film.”
She set the butcher knife down and stepped back, as though untangling herself from thoughts she didn’t believe herself capable of. “Do you want to know the colonel’s name?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because if I find out who he is and learn that he’s alive, I’ll go wherever he is and kill him.”
“Tell me what you think you saw.”
“Think I saw?”
“Tell me!” She shoved me in the breastbone.
“I won’t discuss it.”
“You watched him fuck me. What else did you see?”
“Don’t you use that language.”
She hit me again in the chest, harder this time, knocking me backward. “Tell me!”
“I just want you to explain how it happened. You were well dressed. You were wearing pearls. You had a white rose in your hair.”
“You’re shocked because of what you saw. I was the person he used and degraded while others watched. How do you think I feel?” This time she made a fist before she hit me. “There’s no way I’ll ever wash him off me.”
“I saw the whole reel. You acted like you were his lover.”
“Because he told me he’d spare my family!” she said.
She slashed at my face, kicking my shins, her thumb reaching for my eyes. I grabbed her with both arms and locked my hands behind her back and lifted her into the air, carrying her into the living room while she fought.