1632

Gretchen, not she, had seen people eat grass to stay alive. Gretchen, not she, had seen those same people gorge themselves when unexpected plenty arrived. And then seen them die of surfeit, writhing in agony. She watched Gretchen buffet another child, stuffing food into his mouth with both hands, forcing him to sit with his hands in his lap for three minutes before he took another bite. She winced-the child's little face would be bruised tomorrow, and he was weeping bitterly-but she did not protest. Gretchen had kept that boy alive, again, in a world which would have slaughtered Melissa Mailey like a chicken. The boy was not even hers. Gretchen's baby was perched on her lap, feeding happily at her breast. Her own child was a rapist's bastard. The other-who knows? Nothing. Nobody. A piece of dust, sent swirling across a raging landscape by the hooves of noble chargers, until by good fortune it rolled against the dirty feet of a camp follower.

Melissa winced, too, seeing the glances which Gretchen continually sent to Jeff, sitting at the other end of the table. The glances were demure, in a way. Which only made them all the more effective. Jeff was a well-bred country boy. A leering, garish, raucous street prostitute would have scared him off. A young woman in a robe, poised, self-confident-her breast exposed only to feed a child-guiding her family through a meal Sending glance after glance-soft, shining, promising-to a boy only two years younger than she in age, but eons in experience Melissa almost laughed. Leave aside that incredible figure!

The conclusion was foregone. Given. By now, Jeff would be nothing but a raging mass of hormones. Burning with desire. Would he take advantage of the offer? Ha!

Melissa had a sudden image of herself, standing on a beach, ankle-deep in seawater. Queen Melissa-imperious, righteous-ordering the tide to retreat.

Melissa was opposed to sexual harassment. She was opposed to men taking advantage of the weaker position of women in society to satisfy their lust. She was.

She still was. But Despair washed over her. The world she had been plunged into was so far removed from the one she had known that no answers seemed possible. How could she condemn? How could she could reprove? And, most important of all, how could she point a way forward?

The boy Gretchen had buffeted was no longer crying. To the contrary, he was smiling. Looking at Gretchen, eager to catch her eye. Utterly oblivious, now, to the bruise forming on his cheek. Melissa realized that his Gretchen-imposed time limit was over. Gretchen, as if guided by some internal clock, met his gaze, smiled gently, and nodded. The boy stuffed a handful of food in his mouth. Started to reach for another, paused, glanced warily at Gretchen. Sure enough, she was watching him. Frowning.

Angels never sleep. The boy sighed and put his hands back in his lap. The angel smiled. The eyes moved on to another child, another woman-weaker than she-to a crone, feebler than she-and then, to a large American boy at the other end of the table. The promise in those eyes was not angelic in the least.

The eyes moved on. Watching, watching. Sheltering, protecting. Steel eyes, forged in a furnace Melissa could hardly imagine. The eyes of the only kind of angel that could possibly exist in such a place.

Melissa was paralyzed. In the showers, she had been firmly determined to speak to Jeff. Warn him-in no uncertain terms!-that he was absolutely forbidden-

Forbidden? Why? On what grounds?

The answer was a serpent, a snake, a scorpion. A cure far worse than the disease. Good intentions be damned, reality would be something different. Forbid American boys to copulate with German girls-girls who would be throwing themselves at them in order to survive-and you take the first step on the road to a caste society. The copulation would happen anyway, in the dark. On back stairs, in closets. Between noble Americans, and German commoners. Whores again.

Everything Mike-and she-were determined to prevent.

So what to do? Is there any light in this darkness?

***

Abruptly, Melissa stopped eating. Thoughts of corporal punishment and sexual harassment were driven aside by a wave of nausea. She closed her eyes, trying to control her stomach.

The nausea was not caused by the food. It was simply high-school cafeteria food, the same food she had eaten times without number. Nutritious, bland.

The nausea was caused by sheer horror. The horror, by a memory.