Chapter 14 Chapter Thirteen

Leslie.Whenever Slote saw a girl who was tall and lithe, with thick, curly black hair brushed back, he tended to take her for Natalie.Henry.Once he saw a girl at a party in Bern, and he felt a slight tremor in his nerves as usual.Needless to say, it was another false alarm.Natalie could turn up almost anywhere, but he knew where she was. The fake Natalie was chatting with the host of the Christmas reception, the Chargé d'Affaires of England, as they stood beneath a brightly colored portrait of King George VI in full uniform and decorations.Sloter managed to squeeze in among the noisy guests and guests who spoke several languages, and feasted his eyes on it.But she has an oval face, big black eyes, the corners of the eyes are upturned, and they are far apart, high cheekbones, slightly sunken cheeks, and even the orange-red lipstick is too rich, how similar it is!She must be a Jew.Her slender figure made her more attractive than Natalie, who had always been a little too big-boned for Sloter's aesthetic.He had been watching the girl through the smoky drawing room.She looked back at him.He followed her into a paneled study, and she stopped by a steel globe, sipping a large glass of wine.

"Hello." "Hello." The passionate eyes looking up at him were clear and innocent. Although she looked to be in her twenties, her eyes were still like those of a smart girl. "My humble name is Leslie Sloter, First Secretary, American Legation." "Oh, I know." "Ah, have we met?" "Because you've been staring at me, I've asked people who you are," she said in a soft, sweet voice, with an English accent tinged with German. "Please don't be offended. You look very much like a girl I fell in love with. She's married. Very happy, so I'm too infatuated to say the least, but that's why I'm staring at you anyway."

"Really? I know you well this time, even though you don't even know my name. I'm Thelma Asher." She held out a slender hand and shook it. Not as powerful as Natalie, but more girly than Natalie.She didn't wear a ring on her finger. "My friend said you were too Jewish, so you were transferred from Moscow." Slote was annoyed at this remark.Such legends are everywhere in Bern.Who is spreading this in the legation? "I wish I could live up to my name and make sacrifices for these people. My reassignment is routine. I'm happy to find a place with good wine and food, lights and fires at night, and no guns or cannons."

She pointed her index finger at him like a schoolteacher. "Come on! Don't be ashamed of business. Don't you see how well-known this has made you in the diplomatic world?" She held out a pale hand and twirled the squeaking globe. "The world is big enough! But there's no place for a Jew. For centuries at least one door has remained open. Now it's all blocked." How could Slote expect that he would find such trouble again.This girl is wearing beautiful and fashionable clothes, her attitude is full of confidence, and she can talk and laugh freely with other men. Could it be that she is a refugee?The unfortunates who had been expelled from their homes were always haunting the legation: he had long since grown indifferent to their suffering.Other than that, there's no other way to stay sane.

"Are you having trouble?" "Me? No. My whole family left Germany when I was a child. We are Swiss citizens. People made fun of Hitler back then, but Dad didn't find it funny." She threw her head back and her voice changed. "Okay! Tell me about the girl I look like. But first, please, get me some lemon soda." He stopped in front of the bar and downed a large gin.When he came back, he saw Selma.Asher stood beside the globe, arms crossed, a hip and a leg thrown out to one side, a thigh outlined beautifully in the close-fitting blue dress; it was an old Natalie favorite pose. "By the way, this girl," he said, "is Ellen Jastrow's niece. He's a writer. Maybe you've heard of him."

"Oh, wrote 'Jesus of a Jew' and 'A Jew Named Paul'? Of course I've heard of it. I'm not much of a reader. They're witty, but rather superficial and atheistic. She's Jewish How did you meet? Where is she now?" She listened intently to his story of Natalie.selma.Asher's clear brown eyes could stare like lightning.Slote's eyes were fixed on the fiercely throbbing blood on the front of her snow-white neck in the blue lace blouse.This is a sign of high nervous excitement. "What a queer thing! Whether her uncle is a celebrity or not, why doesn't she get rid of this clinging old thing?"

"She got involved step by step. By the time she tried so hard to get herself and the baby out, it was too late. The attack on Pearl Harbor held her back." "And where is the father of her child, the heathen young naval officer?" "In a submarine in the Pacific." "How strange! I feel sorry for her, but she must have had bad eyesight. How did you know she was in Siena?" "I'm in charge of the exchange of detainees. Italy holds our journalists there. She and Dr. Jastrow are on the list." "Does she know you're trying to get her released?"

"I wish she knew. The Swiss Legation in Rome forwarded the letter for us. I wrote to her." "Are you determined to get her out?" "I don't know any reason not to do this. Her uncle publishes articles in magazines, and she has always been a researcher under him. We also detain a lot of Italian journalists in our country. It will take time, but there will not be too many. trouble." "It's very charming." Thelma.Asher held out his hand. "You must write and tell her you met a girl who looked like her in Berne." "I'll take you home."

"Thank you, I have my own car." , "But I really want to see you again." "Oh, no, no." She was happy, and her eyes were round and round, which made people laugh and cry. "I will only make you sad and remind you of the one you lost." As relaxed and cheerful as a waltz, she walked out of the study with a twist of her buttocks. "And do you think the Soviet Union is determined to see it through?" asked Dr. Ascher, a stocky man with thick gray hair and a large hooked nose.He sat at the head of the table, his face slumped with exhaustion on his chest.

Hearing this straightforward question, Sloter couldn't help feeling terrified and disturbed. First, he didn't expect that he would be invited to dinner this time, and second, he was already terrified when he saw the grandeur of Asher's house.Their tableware was all heavy gold-rimmed china.Two Manet paintings hung on the checkered walls, glowing in the streams of light from the small skylight.Erma smiled at Sloter across the table. "Father, don't you want to take a dry sentence out of a diplomat's mouth." On one side of her seat was a red-faced priest dressed as a priest, who was eating and drinking, and on the other was a tall, skinny old English man with an ugly wart on his nose. Don't touch it, just leave it there.There were ten guests and hosts, and Sloter didn't know any of them except Selma.Thelma's brother was a little man with premature baldness, and he and his father both wore black caps for indoor use.Leslie.In all the places Slote has traveled, he has never dined at the same table as a Jew in a cap. Thelma's mother touched Slote's hand.On her slender fingers were two large diamond rings, shining red and blue. "But you have just come from Moscow. Do tell us your impressions."

"Speaking of which, it was the worst when I left in November. It's sort of picked up after that." Slote spoke smoothly, and unconsciously spoke alone.He spoke of the great winter counter-offensive: as soon as Pravda published pictures of the generals with the headlines of the victory, timid officials continued to return to Moscow from Kuibyshev, food supplies improved, air raids Fewer and fewer, groups of unshaven, haggard Germans, escorted by Red Army machine guns, marched through the snow on Gorky Avenue, wiping their noses with tattered cuffs. "The Russians call these guys 'Winter Germans,'" Sloter said, to laughter and beaming faces. "But it's mid-January. Although the Germans have lost a little, Hitler is still in western Russia. The counteroffensive seems to be coming to an end, and everyone should be as optimistic as possible. It's just the Russians' energy, patriotism, and numbers. It really left a deep impression on me.” Dr. Asher nodded languidly. "Yes, yes, but after losing 90% of its heavy industry, how can the Soviet Union continue to fight?" "When they lost the war in 1941, they moved the factories behind the Ural Mountains. It was a superhuman job." "Mr. Sloter, Hitler's factories don't need to be moved. These factories are the best equipped in the world, and they have been steadily producing large quantities of weapons. He will start once the spring thaws and the mud dries up. Massive new offensive. Do you think those relocated factories can produce enough weapons for the Russians?" "The Russians still get Lend-Lease supplies." "Not enough," cried the old Englishman. "There are not enough of them and there are not enough of them in the UK." Ascher said mournfully: "My concern is that if Hitler takes the Caucasus in 1942 and Leningrad and Moscow remain isolated from the outside world, you cannot rule out the possibility of a separate peace." The old British man said: "Just like Lenin did in 1917. The Communists will betray their allies in a blink of an eye. They are full realists." Thelma's mother said, "Then the Russian Jews are finished." The priest was dealing with half a duck viciously, but suddenly stopped, and a pair of small eyes shot at Slote. "What is the situation with the Jews in Russia at present?" "The ones in the German rear? Probably bad. Elsewhere, it's all right. The authorities drive them around like cattle, but that's how Russia treats everybody more or less." "From Russia and Are the stories coming out of Poland true?" asked Dr. Ascher.Sloter didn't answer. "I mean the Holocaust." All four cast a stern look at him. "Things like that are hard to verify," he stammered. "During the war. Outside journalists were banned from those areas. Not even from Germany. The victims of the Holocaust couldn't speak, and the murderers certainly wouldn't." "Drunk people tell the truth after drinking, and there are people in Germany who love to drink." Selma said. Mrs. Ascher touched his hand again.This woman, who was nearly sixty years old, had a few silver strands in her hair, a thin and beautiful face full of wrinkles, and a long-sleeved black dress buttoned up to her neck, giving her a graceful and luxurious beauty. "Why do you say things are bad in the German rear?" "I saw some archival material before I left Moscow." "What kind of archival material?" the priest immediately asked sharply. Slote became more and more uneasy, and said evasively: "It's just the kind people have heard about." The Englishman cleared his throat, tapped the table with his knuckles, and said with a mouthful of phlegm: "Mr. Sloot, Berne is such a small city full of gossip, do you know that? I heard that you care too much about the Jews. Your State Department transferred you from Moscow to Switzerland." "Perfect nonsense. The State Department itself cares deeply about Jews." The Englishman persisted and said, "Actually, I heard that you disclosed your dossier to the American press, which caused dissatisfaction with your superiors." Sloter was unable to handle the probing tactfully. All he could say was, "Gossip is hardly worth discussing." Then there was a long silence, when a maid placed a small prayer-book at each place.Both Dr. Asher and his son read a prayer in Hebrew solemnly. At this moment, Sloter felt embarrassed and flipped through the prayer in the German translation.When the male and female guests had gone to their respective lounges for coffee, Thelma stopped Sloter in a passage and put her arms around him.Her black velvet corset half concealed beautiful breasts, slightly smaller than Natalie's.Looking around, she leaned against him and kissed him lightly on the mouth. "Why is that?" "You're too skinny. We've got to fatten you up." She hurried away. An entire floor of the mansion was devoted to Dr. Ascher's study: a long, dark room, floor to ceiling lined with books, mostly bound in leather.A strong, musty smell of books.On the wall behind the large messy desks hung autographed photographs of politicians and opera stars.Spread out on a nearby wooden shelf is a military map of the world, covered with colored thumbtacks. "Have you been listening to Radio Berlin again, Jacob?" The Englishman tapped on the map of the Malay Peninsula with trembling fingers. "The Japanese were pushed back farther north than this." Asher said to Slote: "You see, I am foolish enough to bring war into the place where I cultivate myself." "Your map here is more detailed than our legation's. We tend to forget the whole Pacific Ocean." "However, Mr. Sloot, this is a key area, isn't it? If Singapore is lost, there will be a catastrophe" - he spreads his fingers and sweeps down from India to Australia - "no trouble You can't stop until there's chaos." He swiped his finger up again, pointing at the German front in Russia, a north-south curve marked by a row of red pushpins, stretching from the Black Sea to the Arctic Ocean. "Look where Hitler occupies! The Soviet Union is a cripple with a broken arm and a leg." "Singapore can't be lost," said the Englishman. "And a sovereign nation can grow new feet," said Sloter. "It's a hardy primitive, like a crab." After hearing this comparison, Asher's pale face showed a slight joy. "Oh, but the Germans are so strong. I wish I could outflank them from the rear!" His fingers jumped to the east coast of the Atlantic. "But now the disintegration of East Asia will drag the United States and Britain to another direction." Asher sighed gloomily, and sat down on the brown leather sofa beside Sloter. "How can such a thing happen!" The Englishman sat in a high-back chair and began to tease Leslie about the German submarine sinking the Allied ships along the Atlantic coast.Slote.Couldn't Sloter's countrymen have refrained even in wartime by imposing blackouts in coastal cities?Berlin Radio publicly boasted that the brilliant lights provided the most convenient search conditions for German submarines in the war.The BBC has just confirmed the staggering number of ships sunk off the coast of the United States released by Germany in December.If things go on like this, the Allies are doomed. Besides—the old man got more and more angry as he talked, and almost jumped out of his chair—why did the Japanese make such rapid progress in Luzon?British forces were scattered all over the world, and had been fighting for more than two years; so it was no wonder that Singapore was in jeopardy.But the U.S. military stationed in the Philippines has won two more precious years of peace to train and prepare for war, and the U.S. has not fought anywhere else in the world.Why not drive the invaders into the sea?If the United States can't even shoulder this burden in this war, well, Britain is willing to save the civilized world alone, and turn around to deal with the Russian bear afterwards.But there is a long way to go.The United States has plenty of resources, but it lacks fighting spirit. Slote was not much offended by this impassioned tirade, for the man's manner and hoarse voice seemed to make him a fool.He replied calmly that it takes time for a peace-loving country to be mentally prepared for war.This point has been clearly seen in Britain under Chamberlain's administration.But he also has a question or two to ask.What good would it do the British war effort not to allow Jewish refugees from Hitler to enter Palestine?How can a country that calls itself a civilized democracy force women and children to drift hopelessly around the Mediterranean in dangerous old boats? "There are many reasons, there are various reasons for regional policies, and there are various reasons for the country—" The Englishman was tearful, and suddenly stretched out his hand to wipe his eyes. "To tell you the truth, the British Empire is in a difficult position with all the responsibilities on its shoulders - a man is often in a dilemma - I'm sorry; take your leave." He got up, and rushed out the door.After a while, his unpainted, unremarkable daughter came out and said, "We should go." She gave Sloter a resentful look, turned and walked away. "Offended, offended," Sloter said to Asher. "When Tolliver was working at the legation here, he became a good friend of our family. He was sick and loved his country, but he was old." Asher said calmly. The party ended.Slote and the priest walked together into the cold, starry night sky.Slote turned up his collar and said he was going back to his apartment.The priest offered to accompany him for a walk.Exercise your muscles.Sloter had wondered if it might be a slow walk with the fat little priest, but he had to pick up the pace as they strode past the dry fountain under the bare trees.In the stillness of the night, Sloter could hear the priest's deep and even breathing.Hot steam came out of the big nose like a small steam engine.They walked for about a mile without saying a word. "Okay, I'm home," Sloter said, stopping at the door of his apartment, "thank you for your company." The priest stared straight in his face. "There is also some archival material on what happened to the Jews, would you be interested?" the words came suddenly in crisp German. "What? Ah—as I said at the banquet just now, the government of my country is of course concerned with alleviating the suffering of the Jews." The priest waved across the road to a small, dark children's park with swings and seesaws among empty rows of benches.They crossed the road and walked around the park in silence. "It's terrible, it's terrible, it's terrible," said the priest in sudden succession, in tones so strange, so sad, so tense, that Sloter stopped in shock.The priest looked up at him, the face transfigured in the dim light of a distant street lamp. "Mr. Sloter, I'm originally from Bavaria. In Munich in 1923, I saw Adolf with my own eyes. Hitler, the shit pile, was speaking to twenty people in the street. After the failed riot, 1924 , I saw him rant on trial. I saw him again in 1936, at the Nazi Party Congress, addressing a million people. He was always such a piece of shit. He never changed. To this day Nothing has changed. The same hand on the hip, the same fist, the same vulgar voice, obscene language, stupid and primitive ideas. Yet he is the master of Germany. He is the devil of our people. He is a curse from God." Suddenly the priest started off again.Slote had to run up a few steps to follow him. "You must know Germany, Mr. Sloter." The tone grew calmer. "This is another world, and we are a politically inexperienced people who only know how to obey orders from above. It is a product of our history, a persistent feudal system. For a century and a half, we have hesitated Do we want the optimists who advocate utopian socialism, or the pessimists who emphasize romantic materialism? Do we want the beautiful fantasy of Utopia, or the theory of power? Today, we basically still I don’t know what to do, do I want the indulgent hedonism of the Western democracies, or the radical atheism of the Eastern Bolsheviks!” The priest uttered these abstract words fluently, while opening his arms and making gestures. . "And between the two, what a gulf, what a vacuum, what a void! Both humanisms of modern thought propose Godlessness. We Germans know in our hearts that both arguments are equally simplistic and hypocrisy. On this point we were right. On this point we were not deceived. We have been groping to restore love and faith in modern life, oh, and Christ. But we were naive, we were deceived. Blinded. An antichrist has deceived us by using his savage, pseudo-religious nationalism to lead us down the road to hell. How unfortunate that our religious fanaticism and mindless Blind obedience is so serious that there is no basis for it. Hitler and National Socialism are a gross perversion of the Germans' genuine desire for faith, hope, and a tenable modern metaphysics. We are drinking poison to quench our thirst. If he does not cut off his claws, the result will be an immeasurable catastrophe." Partly because of the priest's powerful hands clenched tighter, and partly because of his passionate conversation, Sloter was deeply moved, and he said: "I fully believe what you said, and you said it well." The priest's round head nodded.He smirked, and suddenly changed into a casual tone and said, "Do you like watching movies? I am very partial to movies. I admit, this is a waste of time." "Yes. I just love watching movies." "Excellent. Let's watch it together some other day." Diplomats are often approached by people to deliver information, and movie theaters are a common meeting point.Nothing like this had ever happened to Slote.Confused, he said evasively, "Ask the daimyo again. I'm sorry, but I didn't hear you clearly earlier." "I'm Father Martin. Let's make an appointment to see a movie together in a few days. Let me call you." After a while, Sloter nodded. Why nod?Thereafter Leslie.Slote was always pondering in his mind, because this matter determined his fate for the rest of his life.Speaking of it, one is that he has a concept of representing the United States; the other is that he feels that despite the countercurrent and prejudice on the surface, the United States is sympathetic to the Jews in its bones; , what a short-sighted fool; fourth, he was eager to overcome his timidity, which he had begun to find abominable; fifth, he realized that although he had lost the Minsk documents to the Associated Press last time but none the less the cause of an unnatural pride; the last, which worked as well as the others, was curiosity; which propelled him into a new life. Three weeks passed.Sloter had long forgotten the strange late-night conversation.Father Martini called. "Mr. Sloot, do you like Ping. Crosby? I think he's hilarious. You know, Ping. Crosby's new movie is showing at the Bizhu Cinema." The priest waited with pre-bought theater tickets.There is a movie at seven o'clock, and the theater is not yet full.Father Martin took a side seat, and Sloter sat quietly beside him.They look flat.Crosby dressed up like a college student, flirted with pretty girls in short skirts, watched the scene for half an hour, and the priest changed seats without saying a word, and moved far away in the front row.After a while, a thin man wearing glasses came and sat on the seat, fiddling with a hat, an umbrella and a thick bag of things in his hands.The hat fell on the floor.He dropped the package on Sloot's lap and said "Excuse me" as he knelt down to look for his hat under the seat.Next to Slote sat a girl with a sore face, just looking at the situation.Crosby, just watching, paid no attention to the matter.The man found the hat and watched the movie in peace.Sloter took the package.When the movie was over, he tucked his things under his arm and left, his heart pounding.Outside the arena in the dim night, none of the audience who returned from the show looked at Slote. He tried his best to restrain himself, he didn't dare to step up his pace, in fact he didn't dare to run, but he walked back to the apartment at a leisurely pace.After locking the door and closing the shutters, I pulled out a bundle of photocopies in the bag. It was an official German document with white letters on a black background, and a brown smudge had blurred the words on several pages.As he flipped through the dark pages, they smelled of acrid potion. There is a black and white rubber stamp on the front page, which is clearly written: State secrets.The title of the document reads: Minutes of the Ministries of the Government Ministries Meeting held at Grosse 10,000 Lakes on January 20, 1942. The opening pages list fifteen senior officials with eminent titles.Reinhard, the second in command of the SS.Heydrich chaired the meeting in Wannsee, a suburb of Berlin.Sloter was about to read the document and translate it when the phone rang. "Hello. I'm Thelma Asher. Will you treat me to dinner?" "Thelma! My God, yes!" She could not help laughing happily at the sound of enthusiasm in him. "When? Where?" Before changing his clothes, he hastily flipped through the documents.The main argument was to transport large numbers of European Jews by rail to the conquered East and force them to build roads.The incident was neither new nor horrifying.You must know that Russian and French prisoners of war were also used as slave labor.The Germans even forced Italians to work in factories.The Germans were kings and hegemons, and they were especially cruel to the Jews, so they came up with this road construction project.Slote couldn't understand why the priest had gone to such lengths to give him these materials.He tucked the package under the mattress and came back to take a closer look. Thelma picked him up in her little gray two-seater Fiat.When she greeted him, her face was half hidden in the snow-white fox fur collar, she had a serious face, bright eyes, and answered shyly.She drove the car to a small restaurant on a lonely road. "For the first time in my life since I met you, I did two bad things." Thelma's slender hands rested on the checkered tablecloth and squeezed and relaxed. "One of them was asking a man to buy me dinner." "It's not a bad thing. I'm glad you did it. Is there one more thing?" "It's even worse." She laughed heartily, touched his hand with her hand, and quickly retracted it. "Thelma, your hands are so cold." "No wonder, I'm so nervous." "Why?" "Well—to make things clear, it wasn't my idea to invite you to dinner last month. Papa took me by surprise. From what you've said about your friend in Siena, see You don't mind a wild girl, but I'm not. I told my parents I met you. They've looked up to you for a long time. Dad was the head of the Jewish Association here for many years. Seeing Every time the Germans win, we have fewer and fewer friends here in Bern, which is kind of an education for me," Selma said in the first few sentences, and then chattered and chatted, she Exclaimed: "A real education to look at life with a cold eye. Dad has funded hospitals, opera houses, theaters with regular repertoires, everything! Our family used to be a family full of guests. But now--ah -" "Selma, who is that priest I met at your house?" "Father Martin? A good German. Oh, there are indeed good Germans. There are quite a few of them, but it's a pity that it's not enough to make a difference. Father Martin helped Dad get a lot of entry visas for South America." "He gave me secret information on the mistreatment of Jews in Germany." "real?" "Is his information reliable?" "I really can't judge the priest, even if he is a close relative or friend. I'm sorry." She waved her hands and made a negative gesture excitedly, as if she wanted to shake off the topic. "There's a lot of fuss in the house! I've got to come out tonight. Dad's moving his business to America. He's exhausted, and Mom doesn't want to see him get killed by worrying. It's a very serious business." It's complicated, it involves selling off the factories in Turkey and Brazil, I don't understand anything else, oops—look at me talking a lot." "It's a great honor to have you confide in me. I'll never say anything else." "Does Natalie talk a lot?" "Much more. She's very assertive, and arguable." "I don't think we're really alike." "I forgot all about your resemblance." "Really? Poor. It turns out that what you're interested in me is that I'm similar to her." "The less you talk, the less similar you will be." selma.Asher blushed, turned his head hastily, then raised his neck again, and looked back at him. "The other reason, the real reason my father moved, was that I was going to marry an American, a lawyer from Baltimore, a true Orthodox Christian." "Are you—are you really religious yourself? Or do you obey your parents?" "I was well educated in Hebrew. I even knew a little of the Talmud, which is not supposed to be learned by girls. I have always been serious about my studies. My father was very pleased with it. He is currently studying Isaiah with me. , that's very interesting indeed. As for God—" She made another excited negative gesture. "I'm getting more and more skeptical. Where is God now? How can God allow such things to happen? I might also be a ghost in hell." "Then what is it about you marrying that pious young man?" "Oh, I must not marry anyone else casually." Seeing him frowning inexplicably, she laughed to herself. "You don't understand this, do you? Speaking of it, you don't need to understand it." Now it was perfectly clear to Slote that the relationship with the girl was over.They kept chattering and talking until the food was served.He began to look for shortcomings in her, and whenever he tried to retreat, he always followed the same pattern and said that all girls are hard to guarantee without flaws.Thelma's long earrings were poorly chosen.There is something wrong with her fashion concept: the dress with a high collar covers the neck, but provocatively highlights a pair of hill-like breasts, trying to show femininity and prudence, making it nondescript.Her eyebrows were too thick to be clipped.At first it seemed that the innocence and childishness were extraordinary, but now it seems that it is clearly just an overly reserved pettiness.How—how—he dined with a devout yellow-haired girl!He was starting to feel cheated.What's the point of this meal? "Do you like to dance?" Thelma was lazily eating steamed fish. "So-so," said Sloter, somewhat curtly, "and you?" "I'm a terrible dancer. I never used to be. I'd love to dance tonight." "I will accompany you." This is a way to hold this pious yellow-haired girl in my arms, although this way is not necessarily very satisfactory. "You're mad at me." "Where is it." "Can you guess the other bad thing I did for the first time in my life?" "I'm afraid I can't guess." "Okay then. I'll tell you. Kissed a non-Jew. I haven't kissed many Jews, though." They went to a nightclub where two bands took turns playing.She kept stepping on his feet, turning in the wrong direction, keeping her body a foot away from him, looking embarrassed, excited, and happy.No matter how far away he was holding this vulgar yellow-haired girl in his arms, and how much he had suffered on his toes, he couldn't help but remind him of the scene at the middle school dance.She kept looking at the big clock on the wall, and at exactly a quarter past eleven she said, "We must go now. We've had a great time." She drove him to his apartment in the Fiat, let him out without shaking her hand, and rumbled away.He plodded upstairs, knowing, Thelma.The sight of Asher and the unforgettable sensation of holding her in his arms and smelling her fragrance would keep him awake for hours.He mixed himself a whiskey and water and sat down in an armchair.他眼光落在床上，叹了一口气，站起身去拿《万湖会议纪要》，心里揣摩着翻译官方的德国文章兴许会引起睡意。他拿了一本黄纸笺、一支铅笔和那叠黑色文件，专心致志地边看边写起来。 过了个把小时，他正看的那一张文件不由从手里掉在地板上。“耶稣……基督啊！”他失声喊道，大吃一惊地两眼直盯着墙上镜子里自己那张惨白的脸，比平时更清醒了。“耶稣……基督啊！”