A Dark Song of Blood (9 page)

“Just howitzers,” Bora observed. “The searchlights may have struck a cloud, or it may have been friendly aircraft.” He did not close the window until the sound of
all clear
began winding up. Shortly the lights returned, failed, were on again for good. Guidi felt sheepish, because he'd in fact been afraid, and likely it showed. “Not exactly a baptism of fire, was it?”

Bora courteously pretended not to notice. “Let's count our blessings. How about a cognac?”

“Don't mind if I do.”

On their way down to the bar, they met guests returning to their rooms from the basement in various stages of undress, military and civilians alike. One of them was SS Captain Sutor, whom Bora did not expect here in his shirtsleeves and with a woman, but greeted by a curt lowering of his head.

3 FEBRUARY 1944

“Well, why was Foa taken in?” Westphal decided to ask Bora.

“No specific charges other than he did not collaborate with Gestapo officials. It seems he refused to inform on colleagues from the Royal Carabineers.”

“He's kept under house arrest, is he?”

“No, he's in the state prison. Frankly, it seems unreasonable to expect him to denounce brother officers.”

Westphal took a watermarked sheet of paper and began writing on it. “If he's wise he'll do just that. Of course I wouldn't give the SS or the SD the time of day, but Foa has no choice. Thanks for telling me, Bora.”

“Should we ask for some consideration? He's nearly seventy years old.”

Westphal was in an excellent mood with the news of the bloody defeat of American troops at Cisterna, and did not grow cross. “No. Why should you care? You were the one he insulted by phone. Here.” He handed the signed sheet to Bora. “Two days' leave starting tomorrow. And go to meet your wife at the station, for God's sake. It's three hours from now, but keeping you around is like having a sick calf on the farm. You're useless to me. Unless the end of the world comes, I'll make sure nobody calls you until Monday morning.”

Bora raced from the office to the Termini Station.

As he walked in, Colonel Dollmann happened to be leisurely coming out. “Well, well!” He stopped only long enough to remark, with an eye to the flowers Bora had with him, “Are we not dashing this morning! Is it legitimate or illegitimate?” When reluctantly Bora told him, he laughed. “There may be fun in that, too. Enjoy yourself.”

Bora had been ceaselessly pacing on the solitary platform when the train pulled in from the right, on tracks white with frost. The station – marble, limestone, naked surfaces – seemed to lose immensity when Benedikta's face, dim behind the window glass, framed in her fairness, showed itself to him. He could distinctly feel the walls of his heart convulsively draw in and release blood as she stepped off the train. Fullness of breast in the gray woolen suit, slender legs, hair loosely pinned under the hat's small shade, met his eyes in that order of anxious scrutiny.

“
Martin!
”

Her obvious unreadiness for the meeting he perceived mostly as a reaction to his wounds, an impediment he had anticipated but could not bear. Suddenly everything – his wounds, the flowers, the very space between them – were in the way, and he took her in his arms, lifting her up to himself. They kissed then, and from the undone fur coat the scent of her clothes rose giddily to him, the touch at once aroused him to the edge of exhilarated pain – blood cried within him as life itself reclaimed, reaffirmed. Running his tongue in her mouth, meeting the quick well of her saliva, the sweet edge of her tongue, flushed him until he felt his ears roar with blood in the kiss.

Her eyes, so unhappy other times, stared at him like hard stars; he read nothing in them but physical joy. “You still taste so good,” she was saying, and, “How did you find out...? You're so good about all of this, coming here to meet me.” The flowers had been crushed in the embrace, and she laughed. “Why did you tell me you limp? You're not limping!”

They started toward the exit – Bora never could recall afterwards if there were other people on the train, on the platform: there must have been, but he noticed none of them. Dikta filled with anxious little words the silence of his admiration, observing him from under the thin arch of her eyebrows. “Really, I don't know why your father told you I was coming. Yes, they're fine, Mother is fine. Your sister-in-law sends her greetings. Blubo and Ulki had puppies. Are
you
all right, Martin?”

Bora was too aroused to think. He held her arm and smelled her scent and told himself that all was well, because she was here and she wanted him. He spoke back in his intense quick way, and she laughed again. “Well, you are so good about this.”

Outside, car and driver waited. Dikta asked where he was taking her, and Bora said, “Hotel d'Italia. That's where I quarter.”

She turned to the driver, who was loading her suitcases from the porter's cart to the trunk. “Careful with my hat box, it's not army luggage. Are you sure we should stay at the same address, Martin?”

“Of course it is. I wouldn't dream of doing otherwise!”

“If you say so.”

“It's quite safe, Dikta.” During the brief ride to the hotel he sat holding his eagerness in, absent-mindedly answering questions about the sights that passed them by. The side of her body, her sportswoman's muscular hip hugged his on the seat, no fat cushioning either, so that he cringed with expectation at the contact. Unchecked longing for his wife drove him, as if he no longer knew himself, and what physically happened to him was wild and frightening. He controlled himself because the driver was here and because he was used to controlling himself, but he ached to touch her through her fine clothing, to be let under the gray woolen dress. As if all suffering were worth this, the pain and closeness to death and danger could be soothed in her, safely locked in her.

“Have you lost weight, Martin?”

“I don't know.”

“You're pale, I can see the veins in your temples. Is that a scar on your neck?”

“It's nothing. From the windshield when it burst.”

She looked away. As the street curved, sunlight suddenly became caught in the crisp fleece of her neck: the sight of it, the pouting curve of her lips etched against the cold brightness of day, filled his mouth with moisture. Lavish and fair, lavish and fair. He had a shameless want to lick her face slowly, to seek her mouth and unseal it again, crazed into strange images of intimacy that drained his face of blood. Dikta knew, of course, but did nothing about it until they were in the hotel, past the lobby where other officers turned to glance at her. In the elevator she unexpectedly reached for his inner thigh and kissed him, behind the back of the round-shouldered lift boy.

After the bedroom door closed they embraced greedily, speaking over each other's mouth now, but already lips, hands, motions lost kindness, hard body parts chafed raw in the frantic silent grind of clothes until Benedikta let skirt and underskirt drop around her ankles, and her fully dressed torso over near-naked hips was outrageous and irresistible. Bora felt the skin of her thighs and lost his head. He freed himself only of that part of his uniform that was necessary, forgetful of the crude tearing of silk over the moist, deep stricture of her body.

She was amused at his embarrassment afterwards. Carelessly she gathered the rent handful of her underwear at her feet and stepped toward the bathroom. “Don't apologize, Martin. It
has
been a whole year, after all. I ought to keep this as a souvenir, you're always so level-headed otherwise.”

Bora stood ashamed in the wetness of his clothes, watching her get ready for a shower. He regretted this mode of encounter, not just the quickness of it, as demeaning. Because he loved her, his heart ached for slower and more accomplished love, but Dikta was fast in and out of her urge. He felt exhilarated and aroused again at the sight of her water-sleek body when
she lathered herself and with self-indulgence ran her hands on breasts, thighs and knees. He longingly wondered how her tight belly would grow to hold a child of his blood. By next Christmas, why not? It made him dizzy to consider it may have happened even now, by what translucent moisture had raced from him into her. So quickly, so quickly. The latency of life in his precarious self made all dangers to it bearable, even irrelevant: and she was precious many times over.

He watched her. The silence outside of the room was only broken by the rhythmic step and singing of the SS column daily marching for its training up from Via Rasella.

Emerging as from a warm rain, Benedikta gathered her hair to squeeze out its excess moisture. “Get ready, Martin, won't you?”

As they drove out to the restaurant – she did not want Italian food, so they drove to the Corso for Hungarian fare – he could think of nothing else. When a young pregnant woman walked in the restaurant he blushed hard, though his wife did not notice.

By mid-afternoon they were back at the hotel. Benedikta joked that he should look at her less and eat more. From the suitcase open on the bed she began to take out her clothes, with little buffs of the hands smoothing them and placing them aside. Her perfume rose at each unfolding, as if her motions were scent itself. “Thanks for the beautiful roses,” she said. “And for coming to the station.”

“How could you think I wouldn't be there?”

She smiled after a moment of silent arraying of clothes. “Well, considering... But I'm glad you didn't mention it at all while we were out, Martin.”

“Didn't mention what?” he asked, conscious that she might speak of children, or lovemaking. He lit a cigarette for her, stretching it to her across the bed. “I believe we're both thinking of it.”

“But you're so stoic. It's wonderful how you take adversity.”

“Oh, that. I have little choice in the matter, Dikta.”

She took a drag, and then balanced the cigarette on the ashtray's rim. When she leaned over the suitcase, her torso bloomed in a desirable curve under the blouse. “What I mean is that you're not angry with me.”

“Why should I be?”

This time she looked up from the clothes. Her eyelids fluttered, although she still smiled. “Well, considering what I wrote to you, of course.”

Bora felt a thin line of discomfort stretch within him, unwarranted yet but noxious. Arousal decreased sharply with it; a state of warning took its place. He said, “I was reassigned suddenly; my last mail hasn't been forwarded. I don't necessarily know what you mean.”

The brightness of the dress she was holding crumpled like a bird in her hand. “Oh, Martin.” She slowly sat on the bed. “Don't tell me you haven't read it!”

“What is it, what did you write to me?”

“You don't even know why I'm here, then.”

A nervous smothering of her cigarette in the ashtray was all that passed before she spoke to Bora again, eyes averted. The room shrank before him as if she were the only thing of notice in it, the most disquieting and terrible one. She dealt him the blow quickly. “I petitioned the Vatican for an annulment. It's almost certain that it will go through, and I understand how you must feel, but there is no point arguing over it.”

Bora had no need to convince himself that he had heard right: he knew he had.

“
Oh Christ.
”

She glanced his way, less apologetic. “Of course I know Catholics don't divorce, so I thought that since you're Catholic, this really leaves you free to marry again. I did it for you, Martin. I could have done otherwise, but I was thoughtful, and it's for the best. And anyway, it's your nature to get over things. You'll get over this. You simply will.” Because he did not approach the bed, she cowardly confronted him. “The reason is not
that you're maimed.” She saw the blood rush to his face at her words and justified herself. “Well, you
have
lost a hand.” Her voice rose in defense, trembling a little. “I had made up my mind even before that. And it really doesn't matter now, does it? You're the one who is stoic, I'm not. I don't take adversities well, you know I don't. I don't even like them, and walk away from them. You never asked me if I'd grown tired of waiting, and I'm sick of it.”

“Do you think I have control over this war?”

“Then you shouldn't have married me. You know I lose interest quickly. Had you any sense, you would have understood.” She grabbed clothes out of the suitcase, crushing them in hand. Breathlessly, she gave him no room to speak. “I always had fun in my life, and I always got what I wanted. You knew all that before you married me. You knew it. The war has ruined everything, and you've been in it from the start. I'm sure
you
like it. More power to you, go ahead and like your war, but don't ask me to be a part of it. Why should I be sacrificed, when I don't even believe in sacrifices? Why should I? I have too much to live for, Martin. I do. I can't be caught in a marriage until this is over.”

That she could keep from crying was incredible to him, because Bora felt torn apart.

“You wanted to marry!”

“It was something to do. Everybody got married in those days. But the war was supposed to end in months, not five years!”