behaving like a wh.o.r.e.'

'Please note that I don't charge him, Ernst. I do it for love.' He wanted to strike her again, but refrained because of the children.

'Do you know how I learned about it?'

'No.'

'From Himmler! You understand, you stupid b.i.t.c.h? I learned about

my wife's public infidelities from the Reichsfhrer himself! Can you

imagine my shame?'

'The Reichsfhrer?' At least she had the decency to look shocked.

'How did he know about it?'

'Your d.a.m.ned boyfriend, this Lieutenant Eberhard Tillmann, is

known to have made comments against the Third Reich in general and

the Fhrer in particular, so the SS had him placed under surveillance,

which means they also watched you. Reportedly you're just like him

now. You drink too much and talk in public. Your own insulting

remarks about the Reich borrowed from him, no doubt have been

overheard by the SS officers conducting the surveillance, one of whom,

I'm sure, was Franck Ritter, who can't stand my guts. Do you know

what you've done, you wh.o.r.e?'

He had hissed his last words with explosive, pent-up fury and now

grabbed her by the lapel of her blouse, jerking her close to him. 'You could have ruined me,' he whispered heatedly. 'You could

have had me stripped of rank. You could have had me transferred as a

guard in one of the camps. d.a.m.n it, didn't you think of that?'

She jerked away from him, looking at him with frightened eyes. 'No,' she said, 'of course I didn't think of that! I'm in love. I just '

He stepped up to her again, leaned over her, wanting to crush her. 'Don't tell me you're in love. I don't want to hear those words. You said you would live your own life quietly, and I agreed to let you do it, then you turned it into a public performance for the whole world to see and hear. Drunk in public with your traitor! Parroting his traitorous words! And then I'm called into the office by the Reichsfhrer by Himmler! and told to put my own house in order. d.a.m.n you, I could kill you!'

'Don't hit me again!'

He had indeed raised his hand, but remembered the children and lowered it, then moved away from her, a safe distance, where his temper could cool.

Studying her, he was startled by how little she had changed, by the realization that she looked almost as young today as she had the day he'd proposed to her, ten years ago. G.o.d, how he had aged since then, yet this b.i.t.c.h had remained unchanged: still the same short-cropped blonde hair, the same green eyes, the same pale-faced beauty. He realized then, with deep bitterness, that in some helpless, torturous manner he still loved her and wanted to have her.

She deserved to be punished.

'I won't hit you again,' he said. 'You won't make me stoop to that. But you must put an end to this affair and keep your mouth shut in public.'

'I promise to be more careful in public. I give you my word.'

'And your affair with Lieutenant Tillmann?'

She shook her head. 'I can' t... I can't possibly stop seeing him. I don't think I can do that.'

'You must!'