The Last Innocent Hour

by Margot Abbott

  No, I do remember.

  I remember dreams and flashes that weren’t dreams, almost as if I was neither awake nor asleep. I felt cold and warmth, but mostly a strange detachment, as though I weren’t in my body, but only watching it.

  The dreams—because that’s the best way to describe what I experienced—were good and bad, pleasant and frightening, starting with voices echoing against the sound of the pouring rain. At one point, I was sure I was awake, my eyes, open, looking into the darkening room at General Heydrich and Christian, but then they changed into animals, deer, with strange contorted antlers.

  I felt cold in my dream and whimpered when I discovered that I was naked and out of doors and it was night, although everything was blue, dark blue. I sat under a tree and looked up to see a peacock standing fearlessly in front of me. He was displaying his beautiful feathers, turning around so that I could see all sides of the fan.

  I remember I was embarrassed to be naked in front of the bird, and sat with my legs drawn up tightly, hiding myself as well as I could. He screamed, a horrible, terrifying scream that seemed to come from the depths of me, seemed to be my scream.

  Then I was in a room. A large, empty room, also filled with that same blue light. In the middle of it was a platform, about the size of a single bed, with a step going all around it.

  Dressed now, I sat on the step.

  Christian came toward me. He was twelve or thirteen, dressed in shorts and shirt, his hair in his face, as he was then. He smiled at me, recognizing me, although I was an adult.

  “It’s cold, isn’t it?” he said.

  “Not too bad,” I answered. “Although it may be too late for stringing the lights.”

  “Is that all right?” he asked, his hands in his pockets.

  “Oh, yes. Fine. Don’t you think?”

  Then he leaned toward me and kissed me, his hand against my face. It was the kiss of an adult, not the boy he seemed in the dream, and it made me feel a tremendous desire for him. Which disturbed me, because he was a boy.

  “It’s all right,” he whispered, putting his knee between my legs, rubbing against me, making me shudder with desire. I wanted the climax, the ending, badly, and we seemed to be there for hours, but finally I fell away, unsatisfied, into darkness.

  I think that was real. Not Christian being a boy, but our attempted lovemaking. I think it was real, but somehow I changed him, or saw him as a twelve-year-old.

  TIME PASSED.

  Through my closed eyes, I saw a light, a yellow light. In my dream—or awake, I don’t know which—I opened my eyes. It was candlelight, from a single candle in a low, silver holder. I stared at it. I had never seen such a warm, beautiful light before. There was a hand holding it. And a face. I knew whose face that was.

  I knew he would be here. I was expecting him. He sat on the bed, putting his hand on my hip, sliding it down to my knee and back, up my arm. I was naked again, but warm and unafraid, my hair spread out on the bed underneath me, like the peacock’s fan, but much longer than my hair really was. He very slowly leaned over and kissed my breast, then sat back up again.

  “You aren’t surprised to see me?” he asked, raising one thin eyebrow. He wore a black robe with a high collar, almost like a priest’s cassock.

  I shook my head.

  “Are you afraid?” Heydrich, still looking at me, ran his hand lightly over me, from my shoulder to my knee. He lifted the candlestick high above me and slowly tipped it. A tear of melted candle wax slid off the saucer and fell through the shining air toward my thigh.

  It landed, a small, hot meteor. He touched the wax with his middle finger, delicately smoothing it, leaving his fingerprint on me.

  I laughed, remembering, even in the dream, how as a child I used to cover my hand with candle wax, let it cool, then watch it crack as I flexed my hand. Then I realized that he wanted to encase me in the wax.

  “It’ll take so much,” I said to him.

  He nodded at me, acknowledging the truth of what I’d said. Gently, with one hand, he pushed me so that I rolled onto my stomach, my shoulder brushing against his thigh. He ran his hand along my back, up over my buttocks. He did something to me and I squirmed, not sure if it hurt. I giggled into my hair.

  He bent over me, his hand between my legs, lightly, disturbing, almost painful.

  I turned to look over my shoulder and saw the candle, another drop of wax . . .

  “No-o-o-o,” I said, laughing, rolling away from his hand, and the hot wax, rolling myself into my hair. “You can only do that on your hand,” I laughed. The candlelight went out and I felt nothing.

  NOTHING.

  Then voices, men’s loud voices, harsh and full of violence. Real voices, one of which I recognized as Christian’s as I lay half-awake, half-asleep. I felt heavy and limp, my head as groggy as if I had slept for days.

  I woke up completely. It was night. The rain had stopped and moonlight was pouring in through the huge windows. I sat up, straining to hear, but there was silence. I was naked under the heavy covers.

  And I was alone.

  “Christian?” I called out in a panic. The room was large and the moonlight painted all the furniture silver. It stood out stark and skeletal. “Christian.”

  The door opened, spilling warm, yellow light from the hall into the room, and Christian walked in.

  “How are you?” he said, his voice full of concern, coming slowly to the bed. He wore the same pants, shirt, and sweater he had been wearing earlier in the day.

  “Were you talking to someone?” I asked.

  “No. Oh, yes, another guest. We were saying good night.”

  “What happened?” I rubbed my face, pushing my hair away with one hand, holding the sheet in front of me with the other.

  “You fainted.” He looked over the bed, almost as though he were searching it. His eyes returned to me. “Are you all right?”

  “I fainted?” I sounded as incredulous as I felt. “Did you undress me?”

  “Who else would undress my wife, but me?”

  “I fainted?” I asked again.

  “I guess so. I had to carry you upstairs. I’m sorry I didn’t put your nightgown on. Do you want it now? Are you all right?”

  He sat on the bed and ran his hand over my head, my shoulder, as though he were searching for wounds.

  I shivered. “I had such a strange dream. You were a boy, eleven or twelve, and you . . . you made love to me.”

  “Good for me.” He spoke gently.

  “No. It was . . .” I shook my head. “I felt so guilty.”

  “Guilty?”

  “Because you were so young. And I was . . . like now.”

  “Seducing boys. You ought to be ashamed.” He put his arms around me, holding me against his sweater. The feel of him, his reality, made me happier.

  “And Heydrich. He was here, in my dream, touching me.” I shuddered.

  He said nothing for a long time, and when he spoke, his voice seemed to come from far away. “What did you do?” he asked carefully.

  “I think I fell asleep.”

  Christian laughed, throwing his head back, and laughed as though it were the funniest joke he’d ever heard.

  “It’s not that funny,” I said, irritated. The dream had been upsetting and not at all amusing to me.

  “It’s perfect,” he said, still laughing, hugging me hard. “It’s just perfect. God, I love you.” Holding my shoulders, he held me so we could see each other’s faces. “You know I love you, don’t you, you crazy, wonderful girl?”

  “Yes,” I said, confused by his mood swings.

  “Good,” he said, nearly hugging the breath out of my body. “Good, great.” And letting go of me, he hopped off the bed. “Don’t move. I’ll be right there,” he said gaily. He sat next to me, pulling off his clothes, dropping shoes, socks, sweater, on the floor. He pulled his shirt over his head without unbuttoning more than the, first few buttons.

  “I’m sick of worrying about all of this. I�
�m going to stop. You too. I order it. Here you are, naked in this huge, funny bed, and I intend to pay attention to nothing else.” He unbuckled his belt, then leaned back, nearly lying down, and tugged his pants off, along with his underpants. He was naked.

  He stood up and walked around the bed, pulling the canopy curtains, closing us in, except for a narrow strip of moonlight that fell in a clear, almost glasslike, column diagonally across the bed. Then he got onto the bed.

  “Let’s forget everything. Let’s just forget it. We’ll just shut out the rest of the world, all of them. We’re alone here. We don’t have to worry about anything else.” He crawled to where I sat up against the pillows and tugged the sheet down, uncovering my breasts, and, bending his head, touched the nipple of one breast with his tongue. He looked up at me, his light eyes catching the silver column of moonlight. “Let’s just make love to each other, please,” he whispered, melting my nerves, my backbone, my very soul with desire. I knew that what I had felt for the boy in my dream was nothing compared to this—to what I felt for the man.

  He saw his answer in my face and bent to lick the other breast, then returned to the first, moving back and forth between them. My head fell forward and I held his head, reveling in the feel of him, his mouth, his hair, his breath on my skin.

  He pulled the covers down and stretched out on top of me, holding my wrists and extending my arms full length from my body. “You’re not afraid anymore, are you?”

  “Oh, no,” I breathed.

  He moved on top of me, working his way between my legs, entering me without using his hands, slipping into me easily, not letting go of my hands, his body flush against mine.

  “You feel how ready you are for me?” he whispered.

  “Yes, yes,” I replied, as I welcomed him, spreading my legs apart for him, loving the feeling of his power, my lack of it.

  Suddenly he stopped, withdrawing abruptly, letting go of my hands, letting me move.

  “Christian, no,” I crooned, reaching for him. He slipped down in the bed, laughing softly, kissing my belly. He rubbed his face against my skin, whispering in German to the baby. I laughed too, my hands lightly on his head.

  His hands brushed my stomach and thighs and in between, making me tense.

  “It’s all right, Sally. Please, don’t be frightened. Not of me.” His voice was very soft. I pushed his hands away, and he came up to lie beside me, his eyes level with mine.

  “Why don’t you like me to touch you there?”

  “I don’t know.” It embarrassed me, even as naked as we were, to talk about it. So I told him: “It embarrasses me.”

  He laughed and kissed me, little feathery kisses, making me raise my head for more. He kissed me for a long time, his lips sweet against my eyes and forehead, my neck and ears. That made me giggle. I almost didn’t notice his hands, busy on their own, until a finger found its way inside me. I became very still, all my senses focused on this new sensation, waiting, waiting . . . he raised himself on his elbow and watched me. He smiled and I turned my head into his chest, my body making my decision, telling me to wait no more. He kissed my ear.

  I trembled, feeling more naked and exposed than I ever had with him. His finger inside of me seemed to be breaching my defenses in ways that his penis did not.

  “Open a little.” He gently pushed my legs apart.

  I closed my eyes and followed him faithfully, giving in to him and the feelings he caused. He was all there was to trust in that world. His love was evident, and I let him tumble my last defenses because I felt that if I did not trust in his gentleness and love, I would be lost. And, in the back of my mind, I sensed that his arrest had profoundly shaken him and that my capitulation would help him heal. But, most of all, I wanted him so badly that tears came into my eyes.

  “Please,” I whispered, my hands on his head. He raised it to look up my body at me. “I want . . . please.”

  “Tell me.”

  “I want you in me. To feel you.” I held my arms out to him, wanting the weight of his body on me, the feel of his skin, his hair, his breath, his masculinity, him. I felt so close to him, so very close, as though we were sharing the same skin and blood.

  In the end, all either of us had to give—or hold back—was ourselves.

  HE LAY WITH his head on my breast, one arm across my stomach. Strangely, I was not cold, although I lay uncovered on the bed, the sheets, blankets, and feather quilt pushed to the edges of the bed.

  “I don’t think I’m a virgin anymore,” I said.

  Laughing, he raised his head. “You’re so beautiful,” he said, his hand on my face, touching my cheeks, feeling my eyebrows, my lips. “I love you, love you, love you,” he said.

  “You make me beautiful,” I said, my arms around his neck.

  We dozed that way and when we woke to see that the shaft of moonlight had moved almost entirely across the bed, we pulled the covers over us. There, in the warm and friendly darkness, we talked about our past, reminiscing about our long friendship, retelling stories of our love, our private mythology.

  THE NEXT MORNING, I woke up in bed with Christian beside me. The closed curtains around the bed encased us in the warm, cozy darkness. I could hear birds outside and I pushed the canopy back to see that it was a bright, sunny day. I turned over to face my husband, wanting to kiss him, and not wanting to awaken him, I contented myself with touching his hair and slipped out of bed.

  I was in the bathroom brushing my hair, which was badly tangled, when I heard a loud knocking on the door. I opened the bathroom door just as the door to the hall flew open and three or four men carrying guns burst into the room in an explosion of violence and noise.

  “No,” I screamed, racing into the room, hairbrush in hand, my robe billowing behind me. “No, please.”

  Christian was out of bed, behind the curtains, and one of the men hit him. I couldn’t see, but I could hear the sound of the gun landing against him and his exclamation of pain.

  I ran around the bed toward him, kneeling next to him. Someone picked me up around my waist, tossing me aside as though I were a stray cat. “Stay out of this, lady.”

  “Don’t hurt her, dammit. I’ll come, I’ll come,” Christian yelled. “Just don’t hurt her.”

  “I’m all right,” I cried to him.

  “Get dressed, Mayr,” said one of them.

  Christian got up, heading for the wardrobe. I crouched on the steps at the foot of the bed and I watched him, devouring him with my eyes, as he dressed. He didn’t have much to choose from, passing around me to get the pants he had dropped on the floor last night. I reached to touch him, my hand grazing his bare leg. I don’t think he felt me. He pulled his pants and sweater on, then, as he picked up his jacket, his eyes met mine.

  He faltered for the first time and looked quickly away. It confused me that he didn’t want to look at me. Perhaps he was afraid of breaking down in front of these men. I knew he was afraid. I was. I was stiff with fear.

  When he was dressed, his overcoat over his arm, his hat in his hand, he came to me, leaning over me, his hands on my shoulders.

  He kissed me and looked at me, an expression of great sorrow on his face. “Go home,” he whispered in English. “Take our child home to California. Tell her I love you both more than—more than anything. Anything.”

  I moaned, my hands reaching for him, but he was gone, leaving me along in that big, hateful room. The whole thing had taken no more than five minutes. And he was gone.

  I didn’t cry. I didn’t fall apart or scream or tear the bed apart or hurt myself, everything flashing through my mind were things I could do.

  No. Don’t. This was it. He’d never come back from this. I could see that. I could hear it in his good-bye.

  Never. No. There must be something . . . there must be someone . . . something I had to do.

  I dressed and went downstairs and called home. It took forever for someone to answer and I asked to be put through to Daddy. I got Vittorio and asked him
to send Rick to meet me with the car, then I called the embassy. Daddy wasn’t there and I spoke to his secretary, telling him the news briefly.

  “They took him again,” was all I said, hanging up before Mr. Bancroft could ask me any questions. I packed, Christian’s things too. Then asked for and got a cup of coffee and a roll. I knew I couldn’t fall apart as I did the last time. This time it would take longer. I had to be strong.

  Finally, I went downstairs. I had to pay our bill and I didn’t have enough money. I laughed at that, my laughter nearly turning to hysteria until I clamped it down. I arranged for the manager to send the bill to the embassy. He was polite, but his eyes never met mine, as though he did not want to look on one as disgraced as I, as though he, too, were afraid.

  WHEN I WAS a very little girl, living with Daddy in Rome, I remember being sad all the time. I missed my mother, who had gone back to the States without me, and I couldn’t understand why she would take Eddie and not me, unless I had done something wrong, had made her unhappy. I began to forget her, remembering her in general, forgetting her voice and face and how she sat and walked and touched me. I was too young to understand such things, and I got used to living with a dull ache inside me, yearning for her half-remembered presence.

  I remember finding a sweater of hers, permeated with her smell—perfume, linseed oil, and cigarettes—up in the big studio of the villa in Rome. I hadn’t known the room was there and had stumbled on it in my lonely wanderings around the place. I was very young, and I remember how high up the room seemed. I don’t remember how I had the courage to climb all those stairs to reach it.

  The room was just as my mother had left it, her painting things in neat rows, her brushes clean and sorted, a canvas she had been stretching still in its frame. I looked at everything, not daring to touch anything, until I found the green cardigan sweater hanging on the back of a chair.

  I sat in the middle of the floor, under the hard winter light of the skylight, and cried, cradling that old sweater in my arms, wrapping myself in it, crying until the tears made the light spin into cartwheels of stars. That was the first time I mourned her. It was the smell of her sweater that brought my grief rushing back, the smell I had forgotten, like a kitten taken too soon out of the litter. But that old sweater reminded me of her so vividly that my heart broke. I know it did. A child couldn’t feel such grief without her heart breaking.