The first kiss was a promise and a tease, her tongue sliding between his lips and then withdrawing. After champagne or cocktails on the balcony, she would put another record on the gramophone. He favored the slow seduction, lounging on cushions in the lamplight. He liked her reclining dark and passive while he traced the outline of her breasts, the smooth plain of her belly. In response she would shut her eyes, faintly shuddering, like the wingbeat of a gull asleep in the air. Sometimes an hour would pass before he undressed her completely.

Although he was technically the master of the house, the bedroom had always been her province. There were mirrors in scalloped frames along the far wall, and she did love watching him slip off his uniform, then appraising the hard angles of his hips, the white saber scar along his collar bone, the barely perceptible change in his eyes when he stretched her out on the bed.

He would come to her slowly while she lay still, clutching the sheets or the cool brass. He would enter her gently, whispering in German while she responded in English or Dutch. On occasion he called her his captive, clenching his teeth and pinning her wrists together . . . then again he was often very tender, almost afraid.

Afterward they would lie together in the darkness with sounds of the avenue below: ranks of chestnut trees in the wind, a passing van, students at midnight. Between casual remarks and muttered endearments they tended to focus on simple pleasures. His cigarettes were tailor-made, imported from Ankara. Her robe was like a second skin, green with a pattern of lilies.

"You possess me," he would tell her. "Even when we're apart I feel myself possessed."

"But it's only an illusion, darling. Love is only illusion."

"An illusion? A deceptive enticing illusion?"

"Exactly."

Then pressing his hand to her breast or turning her face to the light: "But this is no illusion, Margaretha. This is real."

Unless otherwise engaged he would usually stay until dawn, dozing beside her or toying with her hair. His hands were long and muscular, and she loved watching them slide across her skin.

Before leaving he would always kiss her at the door, encircling her waist and forcing her lips apart. And, of course, she always left her robe undone, falling away as she arched back so that her nipples were faintly bruised against his uniform—a real soldier's kiss.