DPs. Displaced persons. No home to go back to. No city, no town, no country even.
"Anyway, there were crates and crates of this stuff. And the people who owned it were probably dead. Name after name, they had, the Germans. They kept track of who owned what, down to every last spoon. But so what? Where was it going to go? Joe and I became buddies — he was the property officer, see — and one night we said to each other, Who's going to miss a bit of this, a bit of that?"
"So you stole it." I thought I wanted to know everything. But I didn't want to hear this.
"It wasn't just us. The officers took rugs and silver for their quarters. Joe saw it going out the door, and if some of it got shipped home, nobody seemed to care. Not then, anyway. We figured an easy way to get it out, just a couple of boxes of stuff, but good stuff, you know? And Joe knew about this suitcase full of gold. Gold dust. And what were we going to do, just let the army take it? By this time, you see, we were thinking about going home, and what we were going back to. The plan was,
Joe would get the gold stateside, and this guy he knew would help him get us cash for it and take his cut. Then, when I got sprung, we'd split the rest. But what happened was, Joe got home and didn't want to sit on the cash, waiting for me to get back. So he takes it all and buys a business. And then another one.”
“He said it was a GI loan."
"After a while I'm writing him, and he's not answering. So as soon as I get stateside, I look him up. He dodged my calls. He didn't have the cash to give me. And then he takes off for Florida ..."
"That was you who called that night."
Peter nodded. "And the next day I went over to your house, and your grandma might be a battle-axe, but if you talk to her right she brags about her son and how he's vacationing in Palm Beach. So off I go."
"Is Joe trying to cheat you?"
"Let me put it this way: I think he'd be a hell of lot happier if I disappeared."
"I don't get it. Your father is rich. Why do you need the money so bad?"
"Yeah, well, I didn't say I got along so well with dear old dad. And a deal's a deal. Now he's telling me that if he swings this deal with Grayson he'll be able to raise some cash and pay me off. He says he took most of the risk, so I can wait. But I get nervous waiting."
"If the Graysons knew what Joe did ..."
"Yeah, they wouldn't be quite so friendly, would they? Going into business with a guy who steals from Jews."
I sat there, thinking about a warehouse full of stuff. Like that missing wall, when you could see into a farmhouse, tables and chairs and an empty cup. And all the stuff belonged to families. I looked down at the thin gold bracelet on my wrist, the one I never took off. I took it off and turned it over in my fingers. I wondered about the girl who'd owned it, who had to put it in a pile and give it to a German officer.
And then suddenly, for some reason, I thought of Margie stepping on the back of Ruthie Kalman's shoe.
"The thing is," Peter said, "over there, it was easy. We didn't think too much about it, we just saw our chance and took it. But lately I'm thinking crazy stuff. I'm thinking, there's a curse on that money. Maybe somebody has to pay."
We sat for a while and didn't say anything. I knew this moment was important. I knew I had to help him somehow. I couldn't make the pieces fit in my mind, about what I thought he was and what he did. But I knew I still loved him. I loved all the parts of him, even the ones I didn't understand.
I spun the bracelet around on the concrete. It made a little pinging noise. It rolled away and hovered on the edge of the empty pool for a minute. Peter and I both watched it fall in. It didn't make a sound.
"You know what the priest says in confession?" I asked him. "At the end, after you unload all your lousy sins? / absolve you, he says. I mean, he says it in Latin, and maybe he's bored and maybe he mumbles, but we know what he means and we believe it. You get a whole bunch of grace, and you get to start over. It's a good system if you think about it."
"Could you do that for me?" Peter asked.
"I absolve you," I said. I leaned over and kissed him on the mouth. I felt my breath mingle with his.
Our faces were so close. His eyes were soft, and he shook his head. Not to say no, but in a wondering way.
"Could it really happen like this?" he asked. "That a girl like you can make me feel...”
“Make you feel what?”
“Make me feel," he said.
I felt myself expand, as if the night had filled me up full of stars.
He stood up. "Come on," he said. "I'd better take you back."
I took his hand, and he pulled me up. I used the momentum to lean against him.
For once, he didn't put any distance between us. He took his hand and ran it down my spine. "You know what you have?" he asked. "True north."
"I don't know what that is."
He kept his hand on the base of my spine. "Inside you, right here, along your backbone ...," and he ran his finger down it again, making me shiver, "... you've got something. Like the needle of a compass. You know the right way to go."
He looked down at me, right into my face, and this time I got it. I got how to say yes without opening my mouth. He kissed me.
And the kiss turned into something deep and secret.
His mouth opened, and mine opened, too. His tongue went into my mouth and I was so surprised, I didn't know what to do. At first. Then he showed me.
My pulse seemed to have escaped its usual place. It was somewhere else now, beating in a deep secret place I didn't know was there. He placed his hand on the small of my back, as if we were dancing, and held me tight against him.
Then he stumbled against the chaise and landed on it. He went backward, and I was on top of him. He kept his arms around me, and we kissed again, even deeper, with need driving it this time.
I knew this was wrong, and I knew I didn't care, but I was confused. No one had gone through the steps of this with me. I only had Margie in my head, nodding knowingly even though she didn't know anything.
He pushed up against me, against my skirt. This was it, this was the knowing.
I didn't want to stop, but I needed a breath. I pulled away, just a little bit.
"Okay," he said. His breath was short. "Okay, baby, we'll stop."
"No, I never want to stop —"
"Evelyn!" The voice was a shout.
Mom stood just a few feet away. "Evelyn, get up."
I'd seen her mad at me before, of course. Close the door, cant you feel that draft? Do you expect me to pick up after you all the time? If I say come home at nine o'clock, that means nine o'clock, not twenty minutes after!
This was different. Her face seemed thinner, white, her eyes dark.
I slid off Peter's lap. Bev —
"Don't speak to me." Mom spit out the words. "Either of you."
"How did you find me?" I asked her.
"It's not what you think, Bev," Peter said. "She —"
"I love him!" I said. "I love him! It's not terrible, what I did. I love him and he loves me!"
"Evie, get in the car." Her voice was spooky. So tight, so shaky.
"I love him!"
"Beverly—"
She picked up an ashtray and threw it.
I don't know whether she was aiming at me or him.
It hit the concrete and sprayed glass at me. A piece cut my forehead, near my eye.
"Christ!" Peter took a handkerchief from his pocket and dabbed at my cut. I could feel the blood running down the side of my face. He looked at me frantically. "Christ, Beverly!"
I didn't care because he was looking at me with such concern. He loves me. He loves me, he does, he does!