“Are you cold, Frank?” she whispered.
It felt strange to hear her speak his name.
Franz, he wanted to tell her. My name is Franz.
“I’m fine.”
He felt more confusion than chill. What was he doing here with this woman, holding her hand? He knew it was dangerous, but the fact was that he felt no danger, only a strange feeling of exultation.
“Are you cold, Frank?” she whispered again, her lips close to his ear.
Something was changing too rapidly for him to assess. By using his first name, she was accelerating the level of intimacy.
He shook his head but said nothing. He was too busy sorting out his feelings. He wanted to address her by her first name, Stephanie. He wanted to say, Stephanie. But he held back.
“Hungry?” she asked. “We could go to a restaurant if you’d like.” She looked at her watch. “I’m free until six.”
Actually, he wasn’t hungry. Food was the last thing on his mind.
“That would be nice,” he heard himself say, knowing now he was being carried by a momentum he could not resist.
Again he cautioned himself. She might be here for a purpose. Be wary.
They sat for a while longer, holding hands but saying little. He was determined to keep silent, hoping that she would soon tire of his lack of communication. Neither did he wish to ask her any questions about herself, fearful of starting a dialogue.
Finally, after a long period of silence between them, she stood up.
“Let’s get something to eat,” she said.
He nodded his consent.
She wheeled him to a modest restaurant on Pennsylvania Avenue, where he insisted she leave the wheelchair outside and clumped his way inside.
“Machismo,” she giggled.
It was true, he agreed. Actually, he hated the idea of seeming dependent, especially on a woman, although secretly he was beginning to enjoy the attention.
The restaurant had plastic tabletops and middle-aged female waitresses. They both made quick choices of the blue plate speciaclass="underline" fried chicken, spinach, and cottage-style potatoes. While waiting, their eyes met across the table and held.
“It’s nice being with you, Frank,” she said, as if it were a confession.
She paused, obviously priming herself.
“What I don’t understand….” Hesitating, she explored his face. “…Don’t you have anybody in Washington…?”
“I’m fine,” he interrupted. “I told you, I’m just passing through.”
“From where to where?” she asked.
He continued to look at her, not knowing exactly how to respond. Apparently, she was ahead of him.
“It’s all right, Frank. I was being nosy. Your prerogative — I won’t pry.”
For the moment, her statement satisfied him. But he was certain that she would continue to be curious. Better to put the onus on her, he decided.
“Why did you become a nurse?” he asked, deflecting the conversation.
He admitted to his own curiosity now, still unsure about her role.
“There was a shortage,” she replied. “And please, I don’t want to sound noble. Someday, I think I’d like to go to medical school, become a doctor. When things settle down.”
She seemed to be talking in shorthand, which raised his suspicions again.
When he asked no follow-up questions, she continued, “I mean I like nursing. I guess I’m a natural caregiver.”
He waited with trepidation, wondering when she would begin to pry again, wary of the ultimate response: And you?
The blue plate special came. The chicken was stringy and the cottage fries greasy, but they did not comment on it and picked at their food. But when they looked at each other, their eyes held.
Miller had never been in this position before. He felt the odd pull of it, the strange sense of inchoate longing.
“Been in Washington a year now. Actually, in two weeks it will be my anniversary,” she said, suddenly as if in midsentence.
He suspected she was talking about herself to induce him to speak about himself.
“Do you like it here?” he said, deliberately focusing the spotlight on her.
“Lots of stuff happening. They say that now that the war is over, they might be reducing staff here. There’ll be plenty of work at the VA hospitals, lots of wounded men to be cared for. I used to work in Massachusetts. We treated everybody, POWs, too.”
“Germans?”
Without thinking, he had blurted the question.
Her eyes widened, and she nodded and smiled.
“Some Italians, too. The human body is the human body; we’re all flesh and blood.” She knocked on his cast through his shirt. “Even you — big, silent Frank Miller.”
Oddly, he felt a sudden unburdening, a release. He heard himself chuckling.
“Well, well,” she said. “The man doth smile.”
She looked at her wristwatch, the face of which was on the underside of her wrist. He noted that her fingers were long and graceful, tapered with short nails. Leaving most of their food untouched, he paid the check, clumped his way outside, and got into the chair.
Keeping silent, she rolled him into the lobby of the Y.
“Have a good ride, Miller?” the clerk at the desk said.
They both ignored the comment.
“Remember the rules.”
There was a little room off the lobby and away from the prying eyes of the man at the desk. She wheeled him there, and he got out of the wheelchair, which she folded and leaned against the wall.
Then she turned to face him. He felt his stomach tighten and beads of sweat roll down his back under his cast. They faced each other for a long moment.
“I’m glad I came, Frank. I wasn’t sure.”
He stood silently looking at her, rooted to the spot. His strange yearning seemed to overwhelm him, but he could not bring himself to react.
“I’m glad you did,” he stammered.
His knees started to tremble. Reaching out, she moved toward him, and they kissed, a long deep kiss, yet another totally new experience for him. He felt her hand caress the back of his head.
“Tomorrow,” she whispered. “I wouldn’t want to cause you trouble with the management.”
She disengaged reluctantly and started to move away, then she came back, and they kissed again. Her pelvis pressed against him, and he was certain she felt his erection, which, inexplicably, embarrassed him. She moved away, looked back, and waved, then was gone.
Back in his room, he lay down on the bed without undressing and tried to make sense out of this uncommon encounter. What did it mean? He could not relate it to anything he had ever experienced. Try as he might to put it out of his mind, he could not succeed. His reality seemed skewered. This situation was interfering with his concentration. He tried going through the machinations of an impending assassination attempt on the president but could not get a potential plan straight in his mind.
He was still erect. But it was a different kind of desire, something more than merely the anticipation of impending pleasure. There was more to this, a lot more. He reached for his penis with his left hand. It was too awkward for him to masturbate. Besides, the expression “beat the monkey” seemed too crude to associate with her. He felt oddly ashamed.
She came the next day and the next. He made his regular call before she arrived, and they spent the day together. Strange things were happening. The mission, which had totally absorbed him since arriving in the States, seemed to fade into the background of his life. He was well aware that one day, he would be summoned, but the anticipation seemed to be getting less real.
Before his accident, he had been totally focused on the impending assignment. Now, he no longer bothered to read the papers or listen to the radio. What was happening in Europe was of little interest; even Dimitrov’s face faded in his memory.