“Not that. The baby. I was thinking of my own battle. I know it’s selfish. But you see, I don’t have a platoon or a company. It’s just me, fighting an enemy that takes pleasure in inflicting the greatest possible suffering—”

Now he moves, now he grips her, except there’s no room to embrace like this, they can’t fit, the giant belly comes between them. “I know it, I know it,” he says.

“I only survived Margaret because of you.”

“That’s not true.”

“You, keeping hold of me all those months. You wouldn’t let me die.”

“You’re wrong. It’s the other way around. I survived it because of you.”

“What a stupid thing to say.”

“No, it’s true. I’m the weak one. It’s me, it’s always been me, holding on to you for dear life.”

“Holding on to whatever you could, anyway.”

Wilfred doesn’t answer. Elfriede has this idea that he’s chewing her words, digesting them. She feels the small, careful convulsions of his chest. How strange that she still can bear to touch him like this, that she can bear to lay her head on his chest in this intimate way, when some other woman’s head has lain there too. And maybe she’s just weary. Someone’s got to hold her up. Why not Wilfred, then, why not the man who toppled her to begin with.

“Elfriede,” he says at last, “there is no woman in Paris. There’s no woman anywhere, except you.”

It’s Elfriede’s turn to remain silent.

Wilfred removes her arms from his neck and steps away. “Well?”

“Well, what? What am I supposed to say? Am I supposed to believe you?”

“Don’t you?”

“You said yourself once—a gentleman will lie about this—he’ll lie through his teeth to protect a woman’s honor—”

“Do you mean to say—my God, do you really mean to say that you don’t trust me? You think I’d lie to you?”

“Apparently, I’ve been naive,” she says. “To believe that a man could go two years in India without—without copulation. I’ve been naive to think my husband could face the horrors of war without the chance to relieve his physical needs inside the body of some woman.”

“Mrs. MacLeod told you this?”

“Yes.”

“With what possible knowledge?”

“Everybody knew. It’s the joke of the regiment.”

“Everybody knew. I see. Everybody knew. And does everybody also know—does Mrs. MacLeod also know—what exists between us, between you and me? Does she know how we met, how we fell in love? Does she understand the particular quality of this bond that ties us together? This passion, does she know about that? Does she think—do you think—this is how a man behaves when he’s been satisfied elsewhere?”