behind her bunkmates when they’re going to this place or that. He’ll often yell “Vera,” and wave and point that he has to go with his bunk and she’ll wave and stop to look at him. In the rec hall during a movie or show, she’s usually at the end of the bench, a foot or so from one of the other girls in her bunk, not talking to anyone, staring at the stage curtains or empty movie screen. A couple of times he sits beside her and says “So how you doing?” and she says “All right,” and he says “Hear from the folks or Alex or anybody recently?” and she says “No, you?” and he says “I’m not allowed to sit on the girls’ side but just thought I’d come over a second,” and she nods and smiles and he says “Well, got to go — why don’t you talk to your bunkmates next to you?” and she says “I do,” and seems sad when he goes and turns around to look back at him now and then before the lights gc out and show begins. “This place isn’t for her,” his counselor says. “Nobody will tell you because the directors don’t want to lose the second month’s fee when there’s no guarantee they’ll get a girl to take her place. But I see it. I’m going in after med school for psychotherapy — the mind, the brain, the whole emotional mishmash — so I can pick up your concerns and anxiousness over it and a lot of what she’s going through too. You should tell your folks. Shell go home at the end of the summer much worse off in the head than she must have been when she came. Why? Because she’s taking a beating. Call them, I’ll pay, and if the camp kicks me out for squealing, OK.” He calls home. “Let her stay,” his father says. “Tell that guy to keep his nose out of it; she’ll make friends soon.” “Listen to what Howard’s saying,” his mother says. “She’s unhappy. It’s doing her worse than good. It was a mistake thinking she’d get along well there. Let’s cut our losses for her sake.” They say they’ll discuss it further together and then with the camp directors and her counselor, and that weekend they drive up to take her home. He helps them carry her luggage to the car. It’s rest period and her bunkmates lie and sit on their beds reading comic books and playing card games and checkers and then look up and say goodbye to her, when Howard says she’s going, as if she were only leaving for a couple of hours. He thinks, walking with her to the car, What’s she thinking? He tries to make it out. She’s glad to see her mother but seems sad to be going. Some kind of defeat’s on her face and in the way her body slumps. All her smiles today have been fake, her voice so low to those girls they could hardly hear her. “What? What? None of us can understand you,” one of them said. He was hoping one or two of them would come over to her, help him with her things, say “We’ll miss you,” and kiss her, even say “Write and I’ll write back.” He thinks he can sense what’s inside her: stomach hurting, chest crying or just feeling full, tears held back. Standing by the car she tells her mother “I tried to do whatever they asked me. Made my bed good; ate when I was asked to, even things I hated; went out for things I could do. I think I was having a good time and was liked. Maybe it’s best going home though. We’ll go to the beach sometimes when it gets too hot, won’t we? That’s what I liked best about camp, the nice nights. You’re lucky,” she says to him. “Listen, none of it was your fault, so don’t think so,” he says. “Some places aren’t right for people. I’ve had delivery-boy jobs for stores when I shouldn’t have, the owners were so mean. And this camp concentrates too much on competition and sports. I’ll be glad to get home also.” “Why? Everybody’s been nice. I had no problems that way.” He wants to make sure not to say the wrong things, so he says nothing else. She’s lying, she knows he knows it, and maybe she knows he is too, but so what? He kisses her good-bye, careful not to press her back where there might be some new lumps there, kisses his folks, and the car drives off. Waves till he can’t see it anymore. Just as it disappears his father honks twice. Walking back to his bunk he thinks maybe if he had defended her more. Made her laugh more, spent more time with her somehow, spoken to her counselor about her, tried to get her bunkmates to include her more, and so on; punched a couple of noses. Later he’s in a way relieved she’s gone but thinks sadly of her a lot and writes her almost every other day. Short letters, but so many in three weeks that he has to borrow a stamp to write his parents for more stamps and envelopes. “Dear Vera,” one letter goes. “It’s muggy and awful here. A real heat spell where even the nights are hot and the lake water is like a steambath and the cesspool, which opened up again, stinks everything to heaven. I envy you away where there are fans to blow on you and also to be the only one alone with Mom and Dad this summer. As for me, I’m not having too good a time. Last year my bunkmates were friendly and smart, but this year they are always fighting and acting stupid Like throwing things in the messhall and saying silly things to girls and making fun of the head counselor behind his back and Rabbi Berman and Aunt Lois, who aren’t so bad. I’ll be glad when camp’s over. Not only to get out of here and see my friends on the block, but to see you and Mom and Dad again. Love to all, Howard.” She never writes back but when he calls she thanks him for his letters. “Nice as the weather’s been since I’ve been back, I’d still exchange places with you today if I could.” It’s June and she tells him her room’s much too hot and she doesn’t know how she’s going to stand it this summer. He’s working as a permanent sub in a junior high school and offers to buy her an air conditioner if their parents won’t. His mother says they would have bought her one long ago but they’ve been told the building’s wiring won’t take it. He goes to a discount store to price them, finds one that uses the least amount of power of any of them and which the salesman says will only be priced this low for one more day, and buys it. If it only blows the building’s fuses but not the air conditioner, the store says it’ll take it back. It’s a simple one and to save money he carries it home and installs it himself. He tells his parents if the building’s wiring gets destroyed when he turns the air conditioner on, he’ll pay for an electrician to fix it. “Look at you,” his father says. “Just four months on the job, now no money saved, and soon in debt if the electricity conks out. Nobody knows how to blow money like you.” The air conditioner works fine and in the morning she says it made her room so cold she couldn’t even get out of bed to get blankets. “You have to adjust the dials before you go to bed,” and he shows her how again. He complains to his mother that Vera never even thanked him for it. “That was two weeks’ salary, and if I have to pay taxes this year because I made over the minimum, nearly three.” “She’s thanking you, don’t worry, but in her own way. She told me, but not to tell you, she’s praying for you, though for what particularly she wouldn’t say.” He’s alone in the apartment with her. It’s night, around ten, and he was told by his folks to check to see she has her covers over her before he goes to bed. He goes into her room. It’s lit by a little night table light plugged into the wall. The covers are on the floor and her nightdress is above her waist. She has a little pubic hair around that area. He’s never seen any before. She’s sleeping. He picks up the covers, covers her and leaves the room. He gets halfway down the hall and is excited. He wishes he hadn’t covered her up. He’d go back and from the doorway take another look. Her hair wasn’t the big black bush in the magazine but like a little light brown Hitler mustache, if that’s what color it was. Red, even, and right above the crack and none of it around. He should have got closer and looked some more. Done it on tiptoes, held in his breath. He goes into his room and takes off his clothes to put on his pajamas, turns sideways in front of the dresser mirror to see his hard-on in it and begins playing with himself. It gets bigger and straighter and he puts his pants back on but not the undershorts, tries to press the hard-on down but it won’t go so has to hold it to his stomach while he zips up so it doesn’t get caught. He goes into her room. Knows he shouldn’t. Whispers “Vera, you up?” If she says yes — moans, even; blinks; anything — he’ll say “Sorry, just wanted to make sure; good night.” She doesn’t move, eyes stay shut. “Vera, you up?” he says louder. Again, if she is, good night, and out he goes. But nothing of her moves. That enough? Should he say it once more? Pulls the covers down to her knees slowly. She’s in the same position as before. Flat on her back, arms down her sides, legs a little parted, nightdress way it was. He gets closer to that area and looks at it. “Vera, you asleep?” Watches her eyes and mouth for just the slightest movement. If she wakes, well, he doesn’t know what hell do. He feels around her crack for a hole, finds it and sticks his finger in. After a few seconds he moves it around. It’s what he thought and heard. Wet, soft, deep as his finger goes, which is just a little ways in, not even a joint. He takes it out, pulls the covers up. He goes to his room, unzips his fly, can’t get his hard-on through it it’s so stiff so unbuttons the pants and pulls them down and plays with himself facing the mirror. The door, and he shuts it, turns the key and resumes playing with himself. He’s done it before but nothing’s ever come out. He heard when it does he could almost fall. He does it harder and faster, from one end to the other, and it begins to hurt. He zips up, and holding his penis inside his pants, starts for her room. “That’s enough,” he says to himself, “you’ve seen and done plenty, if anyone finds out you’ll be killed,” takes his hand out of his pants at her door and goes in. She’s in the same position asleep. He hopes asleep. “Vera, are you up?… I’m just checking on you, seeing you’re all right, the covers are on you. Mom and Dad told me to.” She doesn’t move. If she did, said anything, he’d say “Well, everything seems all right, so good night.” He pulls the covers down slowly. Same position, hands cupped up rather than palms down, maybe her legs a bit closer together. He stares at the crack, finds the hole again with his finger, sticks it in, little deeper than before and moves it around. Still wet and soft and some little bumps now. Then he thinks “Enough, shell wake up,” takes his finger out and covers her up. Starts to go, then says “Vera, you awake?” She says nothing, nothing on her face moves, hands and legs stay the same. “If you are up and say anything about this to anyone, I’ll kill you. I’ll kill you when nobody’s around. I mean it, I’m serious as I ever was about anything, don’t say a word about what I did, to me or anyone, or I’ll kill you dead.” He watches her face; nothing. Should he say it again? Goes to his room, puts on his pajamas, shuts the light and gets into bed. What have I done? I shouldn’t have gone back after I did it to her the first time. Just should have taken a look, covered her up, and if I had to, gone into the bathroom or my room and tried to jerk off. I’m dead; she’ll tell; nothing will ever be the same again. He squeezes his eyes tight as he can, grinds his teeth, digs his nails into his knuckles, smells his finger. Smells as if he stuck it up his behind when it’s clean. Smells the others on that hand; they don’t smell at all. He goes into the bathroom, washes his hands and with a washrag and soap scrubs that finger where it went in, brushes his teeth and gets back in bed. He lies there a long time, thinking he’ll never get to sleep and in the morning his brother and parents will drag him out of bed and yell and scream at him and do he doesn’t know what. His brother’s asleep in his bed next to his when he wakes up in the morning. He washes, dresses, goes into the kitchen. Vera’s having breakfast, doesn’t smile or say good morning as she usually doesn’t, his mother’s making coffee, smiles at him and says “Good morning, darling, sleep well?” He watches their reactions to him the next few days. No change it seems. Wonders if Vera was awake either of those last two times and if she was, if she told his mother, and if his mother thinks not talking about it to anyone is the best thing to do. He knows if his mother told his father but said don’t let Howard know we know, his father would still let him have it, and maybe even with his hand. But insult him terribly; call him a disgusting pig who from now on has to be watched and maybe should be caged. But no change in anyone. Brother goes about his business; Vera looks and talks to him normally. After a while he feels she was up just the second time he touched her, because nobody could stay asleep so long through it, and he did stick it in deeper and move it around more than the first time. If someone played with his penis when he was asleep, he thinks he’d get awake after a while. And if a finger was stuck inside him, he’d definitely get awake. He knows he’ll never do anything like that again. If he ever sees her sleeping naked, he’ll just turn around and walk away. Not even cover her up. Or maybe just cover her, if it’s cold and it seems the covers had fallen accidentally to the floor and not just been kicked off or down the bed, but not look at her crack. He thinks about the incident on and off the next few years. Shudders every time. Sometimes it comes when he’s just looking at her face, and not even when she’s looking back at him. He doesn’t know why, but it comes back to him, putting his finger in, and he has to shut his eyes and shake his head to get rid of it. A few times it’s when she’s got a hospital gown on, at home or in a hospital, and which always seems to fall a little over her left shoulder. Maybe that’s the side she was operated on most and lost more bone than the other and so has less shoulder to support the gown. After a few years he thinks she never told anyone in the family about it but had been awake both times he fingered her. He’d be duping himself or just a fool to think something like a finger in her wouldn’t have wakened her the first time. And if that’s not it — let’s say she went sound asleep immediately — then also because he didn’t know what he was doing then with his finger and so had to be a little rough. He’s also beginning to recall a slight smile on her when he threatened her. Why’s he see it now when he didn’t think he saw it then? Maybe he didn’t recognize it as such then or just didn’t want to. If he’d seen it then it would have meant to him she was awake and he’d then feel for sure he was in the worst trouble he’d ever been in. But that’s the face he’s starting to see whenever he remembers threatening her. More than that: it’s the face he sees, though the face through the rest of it — when he was probing and fingering her and so on — was of one asleep. Years later he tells a woman he’s been going with for months about it and says she’s the first person he’s told. He’s around thirty. She says “What took you so long to tell anyone? It’s common stuff. I hear it all the time from women friends. My own brother did it to me lots of times and much worse. Occasionally he’d wait for my mom to leave and then go straight to my room, tear off my blankets if I was in bed and even asleep and say ‘Pull down your bottoms so I can take a peek.’ He also had me whack him off a few times and one time I had to wipe him clean and then wash his tip over the sink. I drew the line when he once wanted to stick his prick in. Only an inch, he said, and I told him I’d tell the police if he so much as tried, and maybe even say he’s been trying to rape me for years. So what did he say? ‘What about your rear end then? That way you can stay a virgin and not get babies and I heard if it hurts anyone, it’s the guy.’ He was really wild.” “Why’d you let him do anything to you?” “Why’d your sister?” “It was only once, or twice in about ten minutes, and for all I know she actually might have been asleep.” “She was up; don’t go kidding yourself again. Only reason