Now she lay with her head on his belly and tangled her fingernails idly in the curls. They were in his apartment on a Monday night. Rebecca had no meetings on Monday nights, but she pretended she did, and her husband pretended to believe her.

The physical arrangements were easy. Her feelings were harder to manage. It was so difficult to keep these two men in separate compartments in her head that she often wanted to give up. She felt miserably guilty about being unfaithful to Bernd. But her reward was passionate and satisfying sex with a charming man who adored her. And Bernd had given her permission. She reminded herself of that again and again.

This year everyone was doing it. Love was all you needed. Rebecca was no hippie—she was a schoolteacher and a respected city politician—but all the same she was affected by the atmosphere of promiscuity, almost as if she were inadvertently inhaling some of the marijuana in the air. Why not? she asked herself. What’s the harm?

When she looked back on the thirty-seven years of her life so far, all her regrets were for things she had not done: she had not been unfaithful to her rotten first husband; she had not got pregnant with Bernd’s child while it was still possible; she had not escaped from the East German tyranny years earlier.

At least she would never look back and regret not having fucked Claus.

Claus said: “Are you happy?”

Yes, she thought, when I forget about Bernd for a few minutes. “Of course,” she said. “I wouldn’t be toying with your pubic hair otherwise.”

“I love our time together, except that it’s always too short.”

“I know. I’d like to have a second life, so that I could spend it all with you.”

“I’d settle for a weekend.”

Too late, Rebecca saw where the conversation was going. For a moment, she stopped breathing.

She had been afraid of this. Monday evenings were not enough. Perhaps there had never really been a chance that Claus would be satisfied with once a week. “I wish you hadn’t said that,” she said.

“You could get a nurse to take care of Bernd.”

“I know I could.”

“We could drive to Denmark, where nobody knows us. Stay in a small seaside hotel. Walk along one of those endless beaches and breathe the salt air.”

“I knew this would happen.” Rebecca stood up. Distractedly, she looked for her underwear. “It was only a question of when.”

“Hey, slow down! I’m not forcing you.”

“I know you’re not, you sweet, kind man.”

“If you’re not comfortable taking a weekend away, we won’t do it.”

“We won’t do it.” She found her panties and pulled them on, then reached for her bra.

“Then why are you getting dressed? We have another half hour at least.”

“When we began doing this I swore I’d stop before it got serious.”

“Listen! I’m sorry I wanted a weekend away with you. I’ll never mention it again, I promise.”