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She nodded.
“You said he . . . had died.”
“He gave his life for the fatherland on the Eastern Front in 1941,” she said with no expression in her voice.
“I’m sorry.”
“At least he died a soldier’s death.”
“As opposed to what?” Cronley blurted.
“The way his father died—strangled to death hanging from a butcher’s hook.”
“Jesus Christ!”
“Yes,” Elsa said, and mockingly parroted, “Jesus Christ!”
Then she reached over and touched his shoulder.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I guess it was being in here. I shouldn’t have said that.”
“Why not?”
“It’s not your concern,” Elsa said.
—
At the Officers’ Sales Store in the Quartermaster Depot, a German clerk showed her what was available: Uniform, Class A, Female Officer’s—which consisted of a brown tunic and a pink skirt, a khaki shirt and necktie, silk stockings, and a pair of Shoes, Female Officer’s, Brown, w/2-Inch Heel.
“These are the first silk stockings I’ve seen in years,” Elsa said.
There was a dressing room into which Elsa disappeared to try on everything.
Cronley had a mental image of her stripping down to her underwear.
He shook his head.
What the fuck is the matter with me?
She came out wearing her old clothes with the new shoes.
“I’ll change into this,” Elsa said, holding up the uniform on a hanger, “after I’ve had my bath.”
He had a mental image of the absolutely worn-out shoes she had been wearing when he first saw her.
“Where did you come from, Frau von Wachtstein?”
“Pomerania,” she said. “Do you know where that is?”
“Yes, I do. You walked all the way?”
“Most of the way. The usual price for a woman’s transportation is one I didn’t want to pay.”
He nodded.
“I shouldn’t have said that either,” she said.
“Why not?”
