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“It’s important to me that you hear this. Tony was first a student and then an instructor at Monmouth. Then he went into the Army Security Agency, and we moved to Vint Hill Farms Station—do you know about Vint Hill, the ASA?”
Cronley nodded.
“And then the war came along, and somehow Tony moved into the inspector general business, first with ASA and then with the CIC. I guess you know about Camp Holabird? In Baltimore?”
He nodded again.
“We went there, and we had just found an apartment when Tony was assigned to Eisenhower’s Advance Party when Ike was sent to London. He made major, and then they sent him back to Washington, where he made lieutenant colonel. And then when the war was nearly over they sent him back here. He became involved in collecting evidence to be used against the Nazis when they were to be tried. I think his seeing what they did to the Jews was what did it.”
“Did what?”
“Make him decide to assert his Jewish masculine superiority by . . . stupping it to every German shiksa he can.”
“I don’t know what that means. Stupped? Shiksa?”
“What it means is that when the kids and I got over here six weeks ago, I found out that Tony . . .”
She stopped, chuckled, then ran her fingers over his face tenderly. “‘Stupping,’ my goy lover, is Yiddish for what you just did to me. Goy means ‘gentile man.’ And shiksa is Yiddish for ‘gentile girl.’”
“How did you find out about your husband?”
“It doesn’t matter. I found out.”
“I’m sorry, Rachel.”
She ran her fingers over his face again.
“So, what were my options? If I left him, the kids would have learned that not only is their father a sonofabitch stupping it to all the shiksas he can, but that he prefers them to me. And what would I do? I’ve been an officer’s wife since I was a kid, I don’t know how I would make a living.”
She paused, then went on: “So, what did I do? I did what a lot of women here do—Tony’s not the only officer who has found that fräuleins, or for that matter, die Frauen, are more interesting in bed than their wives. I started to drink, is what I did, Jimmy.
“And then I began to have this fantasy. I would pay the sonofabitch back. What’s sauce for the goose, et cetera. I would find a lover, preferably a goy. That would show him.”
“Christ, you’re not going to tell him about us?”
She laughed and smiled.
“No, Jimmy, I’m not going to tell him about us. If I did, my children would learn that their mother’s no better than their father. Or as bad as their father. It would be enough, I thought, that I would know I had paid him back.
“But the fantasy went nowhere. I didn’t come across anyone that I wanted to take to bed. I began to understand that my fantasy was just that—fantasy.
“And then I ran into a young goy officer my husband really hates. More importantly, he had the saddest eyes I’d ever seen. Perfect, I thought. Except you showed no interest in me whatever. So I took another sip of my martini of liquid encouragement and . . . let you know I was interested. You still didn’t show any interest, but—and this really came as a surprise—what I had done to you really excited me.
“I waited until Colonel Mattingly had driven away and then I came knocking at your door. And here we are.”
When he didn’t reply, she said, “No comment?”
He rolled on his side and looked at her.
“I’m glad you didn’t give up, Rachel.”
“I hope you’re just not saying that.”
He put his hand to her breast. She laid her fingers on top of his hand. He felt her nipple stiffen.
“Jimmy, are you feeling guilty about betraying the memory of your late wife?”
“She’s dead, Rachel . . .”
