to feel that I was unworthy of such a dastardly coterie of warriors.
“I always think of them as older, and larger. And killers. You don’t seem to fit the image.”
“I’m just the commander’s adjutant.” I was desperately uneasy with this young woman. She was pretty and very open, and I was the world’s most pathetic fraud on every front.
“Ahhh.” She nodded and sipped some more, and I did the same, and we watched the room and were silent for a moment. Then, “And how old are you, Shtefan?”
“Nineteen.”
“I am twenty-three.”
“I wish I was twenty-three already.”
Naturally she did not understand my wish, being unable to connect it to my sexual status.
“And what are your tasks, for your commander?” she inquired, then suddenly touched her finger to her lips. “I should not ask you that. It might be a military secret.”
She was not joking, but I suddenly began to laugh. It came from somewhere deep and melancholy, a well of irony in my groin, and I had no control over the bitter mirth that racked my body as I threw my head back and tears actually sprang to my eyes.
“Why is that so funny?”
“My tasks...” I could not breathe, I was laughing so hard. “I...I must...”
“You must what, Shtefan?”
“I must lose my virginity!” At this point I was holding my chest, and I had to replace the mug upon the bar or spill its entire contents. “That’s the horrendous secret that must not be divulged! That is the shame for which my Colonel will not stand!”
I do not know why I vented my pain thusly to a stranger, but perhaps I could no longer contain my frustration, and she seemed a likely creature to sympathize. Eventually I calmed myself and settled back into silence. I held the mug with one hand, and with the other I rubbed my brow, and as I dared to look up at her again, I found her regarding me with the empathy of a kind nurse.
“Yes.” I nodded. “So foolish, isn’t it? That’s what’s important in the military social scale. To be one of the men, to be undistracted by adolescent fantasy. And it’s an order, not a request. Isn’t that so cruel?” I paused and sipped, then raised a finger. “Believe me, I’ve tried to obey. I have tried all night this very night, but it seems the pathetic, romantic images of my youth have enslaved me with an inability to execute this task on command. I wish I were such an animal, but I am not.” I restrained myself then, my voice falling to a murmur. “I apologize. I should not be so crude.”
Another long moment of silence passed between us, such as it was among the raucous music and laughter. Francie seemed to be thinking, looking off into nothing, and slightly nodding her head as if a rush of warm memories passed before her eyes.
“And, so?” She regarded me again. “What shall happen to you now?”
“Who knows?” I shrugged. There was no point in humiliating myself further.
“Did you try a prostitute?” she asked plainly.
I blushed so deeply then, a wave of shame washing from my neck and up to the roots of my hair. “Yes... But it was no good.”
“I did not expect so.” She nodded once again. “Young men want to be gentle, although they will never admit so. Young men must pretend to be virile and uncaring and always prepared to take such a reward, paid for or not, but we know it is all a lie.” She placed her fingers lightly on my sleeve as she drank a long pull with her other hand. “The truth is, young men just want to be kissed.”
I nodded in agreement, although I was utterly mortified at this juncture. Her words comforted me little, as I did not need a psychologist, but rather a miracle.
“Where are your comrades, Shtefan?” She looked over my shoulder and around the establishment, and I confess that my heart sank a bit. I did not expect this pretty young woman to volunteer herself on my behalf, but her question clearly indicated a wish to change the subject.
“I am only here with Edward, the commander’s driver,” I answered, as I glanced over my shoulder and jutted my chin in his direction. He was yet perched in his comfortable corner, downing his third stein of beer.
“Is that him?” Francie pointed. “The gray one with the belly?”
“Yes.”
Francie dismounted her stool and smoothed her dress, and without saying another word to me, she made off from behind the bar. I watched her with a frown, having not a clue as to her intentions. Yet, as she made her way through the crowd toward Edward’s table, I could only imagine some sort of horror. Was she a Gestapo agent? Was she determined to relay my dismay at the unfair commandments of my master? Did she have some sort of ticket book in which she had to maintain a recorded quota of inebriated betrayals?
The facts, which I did not know until much later, were thus. Francie marched right up to Himmel’s driver, smiled and offered a small curtsy.
“Edward, where does Shtefan have to be tonight?”
He was apparently quite drunk, his eyes shot through with crimson spiders and his lips drooling. “Shtefan? He has to be buried in something...or wind up really buried in something!”
“Where is the commander headquartered, Edward?” Francie was a patient girl, having dealt with thousands of drunkards.
“At the Reichenhall,” he slurred.
“Shtefan shall be there in the morning.”
And with that she walked away from him and returned to the bar. Somewhere en route, she had recovered a white shawl, and she hooked her fingers in my elbow and stood still for a moment and smiled at me.
“Come, Shtefan,” she said firmly, though with her gentle smile. “Apparently, someone has sent you a gift...”
* * *
Francie lived in a single room, at the rear of a large house that had once been a luxurious private home, but was divided up into apartments for the course of the war. She had her own entrance, and it revealed a small hallway, a small bath and a cozy salon in which her perfectly made-up bed was the overbearing feature. Absolutely everything was neat and in place, from her books to her framed family photographs to her rack of pressed clothes and a small dresser of her private things. I confess that at the time I did not really take much of this in, as en route to her abode along the silent cobblestone streets my heart was keeping up a drumbeat. We had hardly spoken at all, while she held my hand and seemed as light-footed as I was light-headed.
When we entered her room, we stood for a moment, very still. Next to me, she held my fingers lightly, and we faced the bed. It was very silent here, save for the occasional vehicle swishing by outside, and at last she nearly whispered, “This is a safe place for you.”
And I believed her. She turned to me then and reached up her hands to touch my face. She was shorter than I, and she came to her tiptoes and lightly brushed her lips over my furrowed brow. And then, her hand removed my cap, while the other held my chin, and she touched her mouth to mine. I closed my eyes. Her lips were like warm silk, and my own lips seemed to melt slowly into hers, like bars of cold pewter surrendering to a blacksmith’s fire.
She kissed me deeply on the mouth, for a very long time, and at last I allowed my fists to open, and my hands to venture up to her waist. She pulled me somehow closer, and I felt her hand reach for mine, and when she placed it, gently upon her breast, I felt a shudder flash from my knees to my neck.
Somehow, she never really stopped kissing me, as she managed to pull her dress up and over her head, and as she deftly helped me to lose my uniform. She was young, but precociously wise as I view her now, for she knew that my attention would be focused on her mouth, while by way of sweet deception she revealed the secrets I had heretofore so feared. It was not long before we stood there without any clothes at all, and the very first