'I'm sorry. I didn't mean it to sound like that. I just thought it might have been exciting or glamorous. Was it?'

'No,' he said, offended at the very notion, 'but it was certainly worth doing.'

'Why?'

'I can't tell you that,' he said, though he wished that he could, now remembering with increasing pride how he had hammered the swastika into the snow-covered earth of Antarctica in that vast, haunting silence.

'Another vitally important secret of the Third Reich?'

'Your sarcasm is not required.' He felt a touch of anger, but his s.e.xual desire softened it.

Ingrid had always been attractive a prize catch, in fact and right now, even trying to keep her distance, she glowed with an inner light, probably caused, as he bitterly realized, by the man she had come from. He tried to be objective about it, to keep their agreement in mind, but after four months at sea, faced with her sensual gratification, he surrendered to the very emotions he had been trained to despise.

'Where were you, Ingrid?'

She glanced at the children, then back at him. 'Do we have to discuss this now?'

'I've been away for four months,' he said, though he hadn't intended doing so, 'and you were gone when I came back.'

'I didn't know you were coming back,' she reminded him.

'You know what I'm talking about, Ingrid. Why was your mother here?'

'I was visiting a friend.'

'All night?'

'Yes,' she said. 'All night.'

Before he could say anything else, perhaps frightened of his reaction, she told Ula to pick up their toys and take them into the bedroom. 'Your father and I have to talk,' she explained, 'so you can play in there for a while.' When Ula had picked up the toys and started toward the bedroom, Ingrid, carrying Alfred, followed her daughter through the door. Returning, she sat down, crossed her legs, and sipped some more schnapps.

'So,' she said, 'let's discuss it.'

'All night,' Ernst said, echoing her words with soft, deliberate malice.

'You knew before you left that I had a lover.'

'And you've just been with the same man?'

'Yes.'

'It's nice to know that it's lasting.'

'Yes, Ernst, it is.'

'Is he better than me in bed?'

'I don't think that question's relevant.'

'What is?'

'A lot of other things, Ernst. s.e.x isn't everything.'

'We both enjoyed it once.'

'I've never denied that.'

'But now you enjoy it more with him.'

'It's more than that, Ernst.'

'Yes,' he said, 'lots of other things. Such as?'

'Love and affection.'