dining area, ignoring Pino as she passed, and saying, “What shall I lay out for you, Dolly?”
General Leyers followed, and they all vanished into the depths of the apartment. None of it seemed real to Pino. Leyers was going on as if he’d not seen fifteen people murdered in cold blood that morning. There was something reptilian about the general, he decided. Leyers could watch men jerking on bullets and spurting blood in the last moments of their lives, and then he could go out to eat with his mistress.
Anna returned and as if it were a chore, said, “You hungry, Vorarbeiter?”
“Per favore, if it’s a bother, no, signorina,” Pino said, not looking at her.
After a few moments’ pause, the maid sighed, and said in a different tone, “It’s not a bother, Pino. I can heat something up for you.”
“Thanks,” he said, still not looking at Anna because he’d noticed the general’s valise at his feet and was wishing he’d learned to pick a lock.
He heard raised, muffled voices, Leyers and his mistress having an argument of some kind. He raised his head, saw the maid was gone.
A door banged open. Dolly passed the hallway where Pino sat. She called, “Anna?”
Anna hurried into the dining and living area. “Yes, Dolly?”
Dolly said something in German that the maid seemed to understand because she left quickly. The general reappeared, dressed in his uniform pants, shoes, and a sleeveless undershirt.
Pino sprang to his feet. Leyers ignored him, came out into the living area, and said something to Dolly in German. She replied curtly, and he disappeared for several minutes while his mistress poured herself a whiskey and smoked by the window.
Pino felt odd inside, as if something about Leyers just then had caught his eye but had not fully registered. What was it?
When the general returned, he wore a freshly ironed shirt and a tie. His jacket was tossed over one shoulder.
“We will be back in a couple of h