In October he took me to the opera. I wish I could remember which one. I didn’t understand a word, though the music stirred me. Sometime near the end, as the soprano lay dying yet miraculously sonorous, Velázquez snatched my fingers with one hand and wiped his eyes with the other. Afterward he apologized for this weakness and told me about his childhood in Spain, how his parents owned a great estate that was lost during the war, and how they used to take him to the opera in Madrid when he was a boy. He first saw this particular opera we had just witnessed when he was twelve, and it affected him deeply, so that he could not help but respond with emotion tonight because of all he had lost since then. He hoped this had not distressed me.

All this he explained as we sprawled in bed in the tiny room in the Hotel Scribe to which I had been assigned. We had started to make love inside the elevator, because the mechanism was so slow and this was wartime, and finished hard against the headboard an hour later; Velázquez was a disciplined man and always made sure I came at least twice (sometimes more, if he had gone to confession recently) before he finished off. He used to say it was the man’s duty to give the woman satisfaction, because a woman who was not sexually satisfied was liable to cause trouble. I saw no reason to argue with him about this.

A few days after the opera I was sent away on some assignment for a week or two, and it was only when we reunited that I realized that matters had gone too far. We devoured each other like a pair of desperate animals, driven by some lust out of all proportion to the length of our abstinence, and after Velázquez rose to dispose of the condom, he settled himself back on the bed and lit a cigarette, which we passed back and forth. An air of quiet despair settled between us. Finally he turned on his side to face me. “You will not like what I’m about to say, but I will say it regardless. I think I am in love with you.”

“Don’t be silly.”

“No, I’m afraid it’s true. Listen to me. I had word today that I am to be reassigned back to my old squadron, to conduct some reconnaissance over Germany.”

“But I thought you were finished with combat missions. Haven’t you flown enough already?”