“That’s not necessary,” Irene insisted, but she was falling on her feet, staggering on Sam’s arm as he led her to the commissary and made her sit. He brought her some food and some red Spanish wine and went to speak to the commandant. When he returned, he told her that the commandant had relinquished his own quarters for her.

“Damn you,” she said. “You told him my name, didn’t you?”

“Had to. Anyway, what difference does it make?”

The commandant’s quarters were small and bare, just a washstand and a narrow camp cot, a tiny lavatory attached. Sam said he would sleep on the floor and went to get their kit bags from the hangar. Irene sat on the camp bed and closed her eyes. Her ears felt as if they’d been stuffed with rags, but she was used to that sensation. Silence, that was the only luxury she cared about now. Silence and darkness. There was a blackout curtain hanging in the window; she got up and pulled it shut, then lit the paraffin lamp, just enough to see by. She took off her flight suit for the first time in two days and washed herself as best she could in the basin. When Sam opened the door she turned. He didn’t see her right away. He set down the kit bags and the pair of blankets and said something about filling their canteens from the sink. His voice trailed away in the middle of a sentence. In the hollow glow of the lamp, his expression changed from shock to wonder to despair. His mouth gaped open, trying to make words again.

“Does George know?” Sam said at last.

“He does now. I left him a letter.”

The room was small, and they were only a few yards apart. Irene stood with her hands straight down her sides, wearing only her underwear, her plain silk undershirt and silk drawers, silk not for luxury but because Irene found it the most comfortable fabric for long flights.

Sam asked if he could touch her. She said of course.

He stepped forward and stretched out his blistered fingers to measure the shape of her abdomen. How long? he asked, and she said Six months, and he said No, I mean when will it be born, and she said About the beginning of August, and he started to sob. She gathered him in her arms while he wept into her hair. Between them, the baby jerked and stirred like a grasshopper.

Sam did not sleep on the floor that night, after all. Somehow they found a way to wedge together in the cot. When dawn broke, and Irene started from some dream, she smelled cigarettes and knew he had been awake for some time, turning everything over in his head.

“Well?” she said. “What are you thinking?”

“I’m thinking that if it’s a boy, you should name him for your father.”