It had been months since he had arrived in Washington. If it weren’t for his daily call, he might have thought that he had been forgotten.
Stephanie was what absorbed his full attention. He felt charged, invaded. It was getting increasingly hard to be evasive and was becoming less and less difficult to clump around. She wheeled him around Washington, and they kissed and fondled each other wherever they could snatch some privacy. At times, they indulged themselves in mutual masturbation, but it seemed demeaning and unsatisfactory.
It was awkward and frustrating for both of them. She lived with three other nurses in a one-bedroom apartment in Northwest Washington. The housing shortage was acute. He had been lucky to get his room at the Y, but he suspected that his so-called sponsors had pulled strings to get him in. Apparently, they wanted him based at that specific spot. He suspected that he might be under surveillance, but he soon dismissed the idea.
“We could go to a hotel,” he suggested.
She told him it would be uncomfortable for her. House detectives might make trouble. She could lose her job. It would have been an unacceptable risk for him as well.
Dimitrov had warned him that once he got the car to Washington, he should use it only as necessary for the mission, the less exposure the better, with no risk of being stopped and ticketed for a violation. What would be the harm, he decided, provided he could handle it in his present condition? After all, he had been careful on his trip from Canada. Besides, the car was America’s love chamber. In Germany, the cars were too small and cramped.
His revelation about the car surprised her.
“Can you drive?” he asked.
She shook her head in the negative. “Too busy to learn.”
He was able to manage it, and they began to drive and park along deserted roads in Virginia. They began to make love in the car.
“I’m not very experienced, Frank,” she told him. “I’m also a virgin.”
“Is that important to you?” he had asked.
“It was,” she said. “Until now.”
He did not press the point. Yet their lovemaking was passionate, and they satisfied themselves in ways that did not interfere with her virginity.
“Are you sure, Frank?” she would ask at times, when they had reached a point where a little more effort would have settled the question.
Of course, his being in a cast was inhibiting, even when they moved to the backseat. They never undressed completely. Besides, they each felt the tension of accidental discovery.
He remembered an expression from his teen days in America: “Everything but.” Even the girls at Yaphank were guarded about their virginity, although it was at Yaphank that he had lost his with an older girl. He had been fifteen; the girl was seventeen.
Back in Germany, Himmler had created camps where SS men and carefully screened girls were available strictly for propagation purposes. There was no love involved; it was sex by the numbers. He had been paired with a girl from Munich who was hell-bent on having a baby for the Führer. It hadn’t been a very satisfactory episode, barely pleasurable, and he learned later, she hadn’t conceived. Remembering that, he did not press the issue. Besides, an accidental pregnancy would be a complication he did not want.
Despite their physical intimacy, he kept himself carefully guarded, always leaving open the possibility that she might be an agent, a mole like himself, planted to find out what he was up to. And yet, when he held her in his arms, he could not imagine someone so beautiful, open, and loving could stir such suspicions.
Of course, there was dialogue between them, but he kept any answers deflective and evasive. He was wary of revealing anything of his past, his point of view, his beliefs and prejudices, his hatred of the Jews and all mongrel races, his absolute belief that the destiny of the pure Germanic race was to one day rule the world, that Adolph Hitler’s defeat was merely a temporary pause in this great crusade.
Surely, he was convinced that she was of Aryan stock. She was blue-eyed, and her pubic hair was golden. Her breasts were large, delicious, and he greedily sucked her nipples. Together, with their classic Germanic looks, they could make beautiful Aryan children. Despite all his discipline and self-control, something had occurred deep inside him, beyond his control.
She made some small effort to probe beyond the scrim of his silence; and in order to protect himself, he invented a line of half-truths. He had grown up in New Jersey, which was true, although he was not specific. When she asked about his parents, he said they were both dead, which was true. He gave his correct age of twenty-seven, which she could find out if she went through his forged identification papers.
“Have you plans for the future?” she asked, numerous times.
That answer departed from any semblance of truth. In his mind, he remained an SS man, a soldier, a knight in a holy cause. Instead, he invented another persona. He told her he had planned to study architecture, build things. He was on his way to California — it could have been anywhere. He had spent the war years in the merchant marine on Victory ships. But when she probed beyond the thin slice of information, he balked and changed the subject.
Rather than questioning her, he waited until she volunteered. She was twenty-two, had grown up in Newton, Massachusetts. Her father was a physician, her mother a housewife. She had two brothers; both had been in the army. Yet, he detected hesitation, which instigated brief episodes of heightened suspicion, and he could not contain his curiosity.
“Why me?” he asked. “Why single me out?”
“That again,” she sighed.
“You must have had reasons. You see many patients in the hospital.”
“I can only say, my darling, the human heart cannot be explained. It takes you on strange journeys when you least expect it.”
He admitted some difficulty with the explanation.
“But why me?” he pressed.
“I can’t explain attraction, Frank. I was just drawn to you, I guess. Maybe you were sending out signals. Who knows? Maybe you looked needy. But there is no denying you struck a chord. I’m sorry, but I guess I yielded to an impulse.”
She started a playful chain of kisses from his forehead to his lips. Then she stopped and observed his face.
“And to you,” she said.
He laughed and kissed her forehead.
“I guess I was a vulnerable target.”
“Are you sorry?” she asked coyly.
“No,” he admitted, but it was another half-truth.
“Could be, we bit off more than we can chew,” she told him.
He was baffled by her comment and, in an odd way, relieved. To explore it further seemed as if they would be poking into dangerous ground.
Accept the present, he urged himself. Savor it. Enjoy it.
He loved these halcyon days, the joyful pleasures. At times, she begged him to penetrate her. For some complicated reason, he held back. Perhaps, it was some sense of distorted honor, or, he reasoned, she was entitled to some sacred, personal place, something untouched and pristine. Such thoughts baffled him.
Considering his situation, he dared not speculate beyond the moment. He was a caged predator, programmed to kill, trapped by his past, and condemned to an uncertain future. He berated his foolishness for this involvement. Dimitrov had been absolutely right. Such relationships were dangerous to him and a hindrance to his mission. He had stepped across a red line.
When left alone at night, he contemplated what had become a dilemma. He could not find the will to break off a debilitating complication. When she left him, his longing was like some disease he could not shake. Worse, he had discovered a certain tenderness, a vulnerability that he did not know he had. He tried demonizing her, imagining her as some ruthless Delilah who had blinded him, a Mata Hari, a Jezebel, an evil castrator of the flower of German youth. Unfortunately, all his accusations melted under the power of his longing.