Page 33

“Well, I was sixteen.”

“And easy to please? Tell me, Fräulein Raubal: What did you admire most about me?”

“Your eyes,” she said. “They seemed so big and gentle and chocolate brown.”

“Your eyes, too,” he said. “They’re like a poem.”

She laughed. “They rhyme? They’re a couplet?”

Emil flopped back in his chair and held up his hands in surrender. “I have no education; I told you.”

She reached over to him. “No, no. I’m sorry. I was embarrassed. You’re so sweet to put it that way.” She hesitated a little, then smiled demurely. “What else? You have to say more.”

“Why?”

“Because I’m the girl.”

Emil studied her from her head to her waist, frankly but tenderly. Without amusement. She’d never felt so caressed. Geli found herself thinking how her uncle’s stare could be a persecution, a mystery, a contest he always won.

“We’ll start with your hair. Wild and free, like a lion’s mane.”

She involuntarily put her hand to it. “And you like that?”

“Certainly.”

“Just checking.”

Emil squinted. “And your eyes. You’re right. They do rhyme.”

“They used to roll around like marbles, but then I got my diploma.”

“I have bad teeth. No money for dentists. But yours are beautiful.”

“Thank you.”

“White. Even. Everything fits together so nice. And that smile! Radiant! We could turn out all the lights and still read.”

“Well, maybe not you.”

>

“It’s true. Reading I don’t like much.”

“You’re lucky you’re a man,” she said. “You can just sit there and look pretty.”

“I haven’t finished worshiping you.”

“Sorry.”

Emil touched his own mouth as he looked at hers. “I’m thinking of those lips, so soft and pink and feminine—”

She smiled. “But this is too much, Herr Maurice!” She felt her flushed cheeks with her palms. “My face is getting so hot!”

“Eyes follow you when you walk by. Men and women. Have you seen that? The admiration?”

She shook her head.

“Shall I quit?”