Page 113 of Hell to Pay

“Good,” he said, and smiled at me. “Especially since I’m incognito.” Then he took my hand, and it was the same as the week before: such a comfort. Such a strength.

“You’re not so very incognito.” I felt able to tease him now. “I’m sure everyone knows by now who you are.” Indeed, we were attracting our share of glances, most of them disapproving.

“Do you care?” he asked.

“No,” I decided. “I’ve been hiding too long for that, and I haven’t even done anything wrong! No, I don’t care.”

“I could ask about that,” he said, “but I’m going to stick with this. If not aspirin, what would help?”

“A hot-water bottle,” I said with a sigh. “Does such a thing even exist anymore?”

“I’ll bring you one tomorrow,” he said. “If I have to steal it.” And we both laughed. “But you’ve been working all day feeling like that?”

“Yes,” I said. “One has to do many difficult things these days.”

He didn’t speak after that, just sat there with me. My back ached badly, and I wanted very much to lie down. “I’d like totell you,” I said after a minute, “but it feels very personal. Nobody knows, now that Dr. Becker has gone away, and I—” I had to stop and bite my lip.

“You can tell me,” he said. “Don’t you know that you’re safe with me? I’m not going to hurt you, Marguerite, or let anybody else do it, either. I promise.” How did he always know what to say? It never sounded practiced, so how?

“I have a—a disease,” I said haltingly. “I know the English words, for my governess and nanny had to know, you see, to care for me.” I realized I’d said “governess and nanny” only after I did it, but he didn’t comment, so I went on. “I’m a carrier of hemophilia. It runs in my family, in my mother’s line. When boys have it, they generally die young. My brothers died. Women merely carry the trait, but some things can still be—more difficult.”

“Ah,” Joe said. “Well, that makes sense. Anytime you’d bleed anyway, you bleed more, is that it?”

“Yes.” He made it sound so normal, not shameful at all. “That was why I couldn’t ride on your handlebars. Such things are dangerous for me. And aspirin can cause more bleeding, so I’m not allowed. I’m not nearly as afflicted as my mother, though, who was rather fragile. One reason my father was protective of her, I think. He could have been angry, realizing that he’d been matched with a woman with such a defect, but I believe it made him love her more, just as his injuries did the same for her. As if they were each the only person who truly understood the other, who would always be there as a—a shield against the world.”

“That’s a beautiful thought,” Joe said. “A beautiful marriage.”

“Yes,” I said, my throat closing over. How annoying is one’s frailty! When I hurt most physically, I was the least able to control my emotions.

“Your father had injuries?” Joe said after a minute.

“Yes. He was burned in the Great War, and had scars. He was a war hero. An aviator. Which I’m afraid means that he killed Americans.”

“Oh, well,” Joe said, “I’ve killed quite a few Germans myself. We’re not going to hold a little thing like that against each other, are we?”

I had to laugh. “I guess we’d better not.”

“Why is that such a big secret, though?” he asked. “That you’re a hemophilia carrier? Plenty of people have something wrong with them. My eyes, for example, are terrible. Nobody’s ever going to make me a pilot, but they also haven’t kicked me out of the Army.”

“Well, Hitler,” I said. “The Nazis.”

“Sorry.” Joe was frowning. “Hitler what?”

“He had people like me sterilized,” I said, “or put to death.”

Joe stiffened. “Wait.What?”

“It was meant to be the master race,” I said tiredly. “Which means there could be no genetic imperfections. Hitler was a great believer in Eugenics. A movement, I believe, that started in England.”

“And was plenty popular in the U.S., too,” Joe said. “The arrogance of thinking you’re superior! How much does that happen, though? The Chinese apparently think so, and the Japanese, and—well, even the Jews, from time to time, and we Americans definitely think we live in the best country in the world. Everybody wants to feel special, I guess. I suppose the Nazis just took it to the extreme. As usual. But seriously?”

“Yes,” I said. “If one was of subnormal intelligence, or epileptic, or—oh, any number of things, one mustn’t be allowed to reproduce, or, if it were bad enough, to live. Deformed children were to be put to death, and the disabled went to the camps. It was a matter of racial hygiene, you see.”

“I didn’t see anybody like that in Dachau,” Joe said after aminute. “At least none I recognized. They were all in pretty bad shape, though.”

“You didn’t see any,” I said, “because they were certainly already dead.”

“My God,” Joe said blankly.