inspection of the yard. Unlike Trudy, Rainer is moody after lovemaking. Smoke curls against the windowpane. He is halfway through his second cigarette, a luxury he permits himself only postcoitus, tapping ashes into a small crystal bowl kept in a bedside table drawer specifically for this purpose, wiping it clean with a rag as soon as he is done.
When he lights a third Trudy sits up and reaches for the robe Rainer has bought her, a slippery silk garment of shocking and splashy pink Trudy would never have chosen for herself, so bright it verges on vulgar. Trudy loves it. She cinches the fringed sash around her waist and pads over to Rainer, the wooden floorboards cool against her feet. Standing behind him, she stretches on tiptoe to rest her lips very lightly on the back of his neck, where the silver hair is as short and prickly as that on a dog’s muzzle.
Aren’t you cold? she murmurs.
No. But you are. Your nose is like an icicle.
Trudy puts her arms around him.
Come back to bed, she says.
In a minute.
Rainer grinds out his cigarette and carries his makeshift ashtray from the room. Trudy hears the toilet flush down the hall and water running in the sink. When Rainer returns, he takes the cloth from the windowsill where he has left it and begins to polish the bowl dry. Trudy, observing this routine from the side of the bed, begins to laugh.
What is so funny? Rainer says, without looking up from his task.
You, says Trudy. You have to be the most German Jew in the entire world.
Rainer scowls. He drops the ashtray into its drawer and slams it shut.
And what, precisely, is that supposed to mean? he asks.
Oh, come on, Rainer. It doesn’t mean anything. It’s just that you’re so obsessively neat. I’ve never met anyone as compulsive as I am before—aside from my mother, of course.
Rainer lifts his trousers from a chair, shakes them out, and steps into them, then turns to the closet for a shirt.
Hey, says Trudy. Aren’t you coming back to bed?
No, says Rainer shortly. Get dressed.
But—
Rainer gives her a look over his bifocals. He points at Trudy’s clothes, folded on the bureau. Then he leaves. Trudy sits bewildered in her robe, listening to him descend the steps. She takes a deep breath.
Okay, she says to the room, which is as large and square and neatly kept as its owner. Then she sheds the robe and pulls on her turtleneck and sweater and slacks and hastens down the stairs.
Rainer is in the kitchen, slapping sandwiches together, luncheon meat on brown bread. Trudy goes to the refrigerator and takes out the mayonnaise.
You forgot this, she says, setting it on the table.
A deliberate oversight. I do not want it.
But you like mayonnaise, Trudy says.
Don’t hover.
Trudy retreats to the counter and leans against it, folding her arms.
Rainer, don’t be angry, she says. What I said upstairs, I wasn’t implying— I mean, I certainly didn’t want to offend—Oh, hell.
Rainer cuts the sandwiches into triangles and puts them, tongues of bologna and lettuce protruding from their crusts, first into plastic bags and then a large brown paper one.
Get your coat, he says, adding napkins and a thermos.
Are we going on a picnic? Trudy asks. She ducks her head to glance through the window at the thermometer affixed to the garage. You must be joking. It’s two degrees out there!
Get your coat, Rainer repeats. I will meet you in the car.
Bemused, Trudy complies. When she is all bundled up, she leaves the house through the back door and runs through the cold to where Rainer’s white Buick is idling in the driveway, exhaust pluming from its muffler. It is a big low boat of a car with sharky tail fins, so absurdly long as to appear an optical illusion. The passenger’s door cracks open at Trudy’s approach and she gratefully throws herself inside.
This is crazy, she says, as Rainer reverses into the alley and accelerates out onto Fiftieth Street. Where are we going?
I want to show you something.
What?
In reply, Rainer reaches over and switches on the radio. He changes stations until he finds a Rachmaninoff prelude, then dials the volume up so that the swelling chords fill the car. Trudy sinks back in the prickly plush of the seat, watching Rainer from the corner of one eye. His profile is inscrutable, calm beneath the brim of his hat; he steers the big Buick with the twist of a finger, his hand relaxed on the