VI

Frederika Millspaugh unwrapped the plastic covering of her tuna fish sandwich, unlocking the strong, pungent fishy odor. The Amtrak New York to Washington train had just left the Philadelphia station and was gaining momentum, heading southward toward Wilmington when she remembered the sandwich, which she had thrust into her handbag on her way out of Harold's apartment. It was nearly ten o'clock at night, and while she had made the snack as a hedge against her later hunger, the condition arrived earlier than expected.

The odor made her feel conspicuous, slightly foolish, even a little greedy. She knew that the man sitting next to her reading a book in the Spanish language surely must be smelling it, offended but politely ignoring it. Seeing him, as he had filed behind her into the train, she had a vague premonition that she had somehow engaged his interest. But he had settled in as the train left New York, opened the book and had moved little, apparently absorbed by what he was reading, proving again her faulty perception. She had paid little attention to him up till then, but now felt uncomfortable as she looked at the white bread and the badly made sandwich. The lettuce had been wilted to begin with and the sojourn in her warm pocketbook had increased its disintegration. But the observation did not turn off her hunger. She actually felt her stomach yearn for it, making embarrassing noises, which the man surely must have heard. After all, you can't not smell or not listen, she thought.

"Would you like a half a tuna fish sandwich?" she asked him. He turned slowly from the book, his silvery gray eyes briefly moving over her face like a spotlight, then darting to the sandwich. He smiled, showing white teeth.

"You might as well share in the feast."

He slapped the book shut, seemed to look at her with some interest, which secretly flattered her. His eyes had, from the first moment, already captured her interest.

"Why not?" he said. She could detect the carefully practiced English pronunciation that masked his obviously Latino background.

She handed him one half of the sandwich, which he took between long, delicate, tapering fingers. He had well-cared-for hands, she noted, conscious of her own cracked nails.

"The train is a little boring at night," she said. "All I see when I look out the window is my own face."

"Even in the daylight the view is not inspiring." His language was precise, unquestionably studied. "I mean the landscape, not the face." There was an air of courtliness about him, she thought. A phony, she decided, in her habit of deprecation. She was quick to label people by the amount of sincerity she imagined them to have.

"You seem to be greatly absorbed in that book," she said perfunctorily, hiding her distrust. It was an annoying defense mechanism, this compulsive putdown. But she had learned it was safer that way. Better to be surprised by people's goodness.

"Yes. It is absorbing. Written by Pablo Neruda, the great Chilean author."

Chile, she thought, remembering. Allende. A few years ago it might have prompted a passionate reaction, perhaps even violence. But that was another Frederika, the revolutionary Frederika. She could barely remember that other person.

"You're a Chilean," she said, vaguely interested. That was another aspect of her latest incarnation. She could be only vaguely interested. Her juices, like the tides, had ebbed. It was the way Harold had put it, and despite her protestations, he was exactly right.

"Nothing seems to turn you on any more, Frederika," Harold had told her over drinks in that kitschy little place on Sixty-eighth Street around the corner from his apartment. She sipped a beer, watching the singles rat race taking place around the bar with mild contempt.

"Maybe I've felt it all. Maybe there is nothing left to feel."

All weekend she had wallowed in self-pity, but even that condition lacked any real engagement.

"Accept, Frederika. Accept."

She watched Harold's face, the once straggly beard scraped clean along the cheeks and chin, although the thick mustache was still there, well trimmed, with only the hint of a droop at either end. He wore wire-rimmed goggles now. The little grannies were discarded, and the hair, once down to the shoulders, was clipped neatly with the ear lobes showing. He wore one of those tapered imitation leather shirts, split down to mid chest, with a big shiny gold medallion hanging from his neck. He was acting Playboy macho and it was more amusing than sad.

He even fucked differently, she had thought, with a kind of practiced cerebral technique, which was also amusing, but offered little in the way of sensual delights. But that was another matter. Even getting laid had become a bore, which was one reason she rarely dated anymore. Actually, after the curiosity had passed, it had always been a bore, a kind of heatless submission.

"I'm a burnt-out case," she said with mock cheerfulness.

"At twenty-eight?"

"Twenty-nine."

He was an editor at H. K. Books now and they had attended a cocktail party at the apartment of another editor, which was the excuse for the weekend in the first place. Everyone seemed very into money and "things," although they were the first to admit, almost apologetically, she thought, that most of what they published was "pure shit" but that was what the public wanted.

"It's over, Frederika," Harold said. He put a hand over hers and squeezed it.

"Over?"

"The way we were."

"Christ, Harold. That's the title of a movie."

"Jeez, you're right." He felt embarrassed, shrugged and tossed off his neat Chivas, about which he had made such a fuss with the waiter.

"If only you can stop being the voice of my conscience," he said. He had been the most radical of them all. She had met him briefly at Berkeley, then later when they went with Mailer to the Pentagon. She smiled, remembering that she had once been his "woman" and they had spent most of their time in crash pads and sleeping bags. Who were those people, she wondered. Last night, lying next to him, not sleeping, she had smelled the real Harold. Apparently the musk had worn off and the pores of his body had cleared and the smell of the old Harold had come again into her nostrils, masculine-sweaty, and the memory of it had made her eyes mist with sadness. Gone. It was all gone.

"I'm sorry," she told him.

He ordered another round.

"It's over," he said again. He looked at her and she could see his hazel eyes behind the glasses, a bit frightened, but clear, with that unmistakable quick intelligence which people recognized as a sign of leadership. "The moving finger writes. Hell, we changed the fucking world, Frederika."

"Big deal."

"They're starting to write books about us. We're becoming legendary romantic figures. We did it and it's over." His cheeks began to flush. Little red circles like dabs of rouge appeared on his cheekbones. "For everything there is a season."

"My God, Harold."

"There's truth in it, Frederika."

"First a movie title. Then the Bible."

"Well, we're no longer a subculture."

"Mainliners, eh?"

"Yes. As a matter of fact. We're getting into leadership positions. We're going to run the whole goddamned country."

"No shit." She was being deliberately deprecating again, resuming her pose. He put his hands up and shook his head.

"You can't leave it alone. You can't forget it. Still got to live like it was in the sixties. Come on, Freddie." He hadn't called her that for years. "Phase out. You got to come down off the mountain."

He was, of course, absolutely right. But she was caught in limbo now, treading water. She had tried, really tried. The magic word had been relevance then, and even when she entered Georgetown Law School it had seemed, at first, like a new beginning. Most of her classmates were still part of it, or so it seemed. But whatever it was that had moved her then had disappeared and she had dropped out.

Even now, waiting on tables in Clyde's Omelet Room, where the tips were pretty good, she would see some of her old Georgetown classmates. They were lawyers now. Into money, as they told her, or so she imagined that they told her. They seemed like shadows, apparitions now, barely perceptible as people. Like her mother and father living in that fancy condominium in San Diego, hustling to fill up their leisure, somehow getting through the day with tennis and shopping and gossip, then rushing to make the scene at the happy hour in the private condominium club.

"Maybe you should see a shrink?"

"I've been there, Harold," she said tossing off her beer. Her stomach felt bloated. "I've been everywhere," she sighed.

"Oh, come off that tired-of-it-all shit, Freddie. You're even beginning to look the part." He must have known that his words had bit deep. Despite all, her vanity had not been crushed. By some fluke, she had maintained her looks without even trying. None of the previous abuse had shattered them. The bad food, the pot, the occasional pills, uppers, downers, speed, LSD. The lack of sleep. The sleeping around. Recently she had caught herself trying to remember all the men she had gone to bed with. She could barely remember their faces, although she could recollect some odd shaped penises.

"You're still beautiful, Freddie," he said gently. "I don't mean it that way."

He hadn't. She knew that. When she had taken off her plaid shirt and faded jeans, she had stood before him for a moment, displaying her nakedness. It seemed the best moment of the weekend and it had happened when she had just arrived, like giving her a ticket of admission.

"Jeez, Freddie. You still look like a young kid."

Actually she hadn't been laid for nearly six months and had barely paid attention to her body. She liked what he had said, had enjoyed that first touching, as if it were the harbinger of more to come. But it was all illusion and it had quickly gone sour. She consciously manipulated his body to make him come quickly. Which he did. She felt nothing, wondering if he had really felt pleasure. The image fled quickly, dissolved by the voice of the man beside her.

"I am a Chilean," the voice said. He turned toward her and bit into the sandwich. Then he put up one finger as he waited for the dryness to dissolve.

"It's a bit dry," she said. "We should have something to drink with it. Feel like a cup of coffee?"

He stood up. He was tall, and waiting for her to move into the aisle, he let her pass and they walked in the direction of the snack bar. She felt him watching her. Then he quickly stepped ahead of her to open the door between the cars. At that range she could smell his breath, slightly fishy. His hand had looked strong as it gripped the door handle. At that moment the train lurched slightly and she touched his arm, feeling the hardness of his taut muscle. At the snack bar, he ordered two coffees, which were served in styrofoam cups. They leaned against a little counter opposite the snack bar. She could see his face now, although it seemed slightly hidden behind the mist of steam from the hot coffee.

"You're a long way from home," she said, oddly observing her own curiosity.

"Five thousand miles, to be exact."

"That's further than it is to Europe."

"And to some parts of Asia."

"What the hell are you doing so far from home?"

He smiled, not joyously. There was a hint of deprecation.

"I'm not here by choice."

"I see," she said. Sipping his coffee, he seemed to be withdrawing from her. She barely read the newspapers these days and Chile was remote.

"Were you in prison?" She had remembered something about Chilean prisons, torture, juntas. Perhaps she had seen references on the cover of some magazine. Politics were anathema now. A bore, she had told herself. Earlier in her life she had been too greedy, and her taste buds had become jaded, beyond sensation.

"Yes. As a matter of fact." The answer startled her, drawing her interest. He finished his coffee and she followed him back to their seats. He stood aside politely to let her through to the window side. She continued to hold the coffee container. When he sat down he opened his book.

"Were they cruel?" Did she really care, she wondered.

He closed the book.

"Cruel?" He watched her now, his eyes roaming over her face, searching her.

"They tortured you?"

He grimaced, lines spreading in a frown across his forehead.

"I try not to think about it."

"Is that possible?" She knew it was. Hadn't she blotted out whole chunks of years from her memory, willed them out of her thoughts whenever they tried to emerge?

"Not really," he said and she saw now that she had broken the ice. He put the book beside him near the arm rest, a sign of his engagement. She felt herself flush and knew that the pores had begun to open in her armpits, as if her body had begun to thaw.

"I really don't know a damned thing about Chilean politics," she said. Nor do I care, she wanted to add, but she liked the sound of his voice, the way he inflected his speech with that preposterous precision.

"Few Americans do," he responded. There was an air of pedantry about him. Despite that, she wanted to hear more.

"So you were in prison?" She knew she had taken a lucky shot, had inspired his interest. He nodded.

"I was in jail once," she said. "Overnight. We all sang songs until our throats burned out."

"Where I was, there were no songs." He was dipping deep into himself. She imagined his tongue was touching some exposed nerve in his mouth.

"That bad?"

"It builds character." There was a brief sarcasm. He was bottled up, she decided, on the verge of uncorking. She wondered how it was to feel such anger and envied him for it.

"I'm sorry," she said. Was she genuinely compassionate?

"It is far from over," he whispered. He glanced behind him furtively. "The game has not been fully played."

She felt the sense of danger, suddenly excited, waiting for more.

"I don't understand." She did, of course, and knew she was goading him.

"I am a voice. They will not be happy until all the voices of opposition are stilled. I am their gadfly and that is the only way they can stop me."

"I had no idea." She had not calculated her reaction; she was genuinely startled by his outburst.

"They are beasts. They are there merely to protect the status quo, the wealth of the few who own most of the land. And the investments of American business, while they let them rape our land. Our copper. The Chilean people are in chains."

"Jeez, I didn't expect a speech." She was immediately sorry for the sarcasm.

"I apologize. I hadn't expected to give one."

"No. Don't apologize. It's me. Not you."

He talked quietly, calmly, even when he had made his little speech. His words were not unlike words she had heard before. Once she had responded to them by raising a clenched fist, marching in protest. There had been causes then. Inspiration. It had all happened in the time when she was alive. Once she had thrown a firebomb into the branch of the Bank of America in San Luis Obispo. She had actually taken instruction in methods of violence and had on occasion helped make bombs, later used in their combat when they were "the army of the revolution." He remained silent. She wondered if her flirtiness put him off.

"I'm not much into causes these days," she said. "I've had it with them."

"It is necessary to believe in something," he said.

"It is the same bullshit. Same types. Different faces. All in it to manipulate other people." She paused. "Am I offending you?"

"Of course," he said, showing a flash of incredibly white teeth.

"I'm a burnt out case," she mocked, stretching. She closed her eyes, remembering again the life of the other Frederika. "You don't really believe your group will be back in power?"

"I not only believe it. It's all I live for."

"Well, that's something."

"What do you live for?"

"Omelets," she said, then explained the remark.

"Are you a Marxist?" she asked. It had been so long since that label had any meaning for her, when the sound of the word was a call to arms. She had been politicized once, had seen the world through the telescope of the political lens, and although she had somehow resisted the uniformity of thought, she had participated in all of the discipline, all of the feeling.

His voice drifted back into her consciousness. "I am a Chilean and our party was under a Marxist oriented philosophy. But we were unique to Chile. Our movement was for Chile."

She had seen that look before, a gaze turned inward, seeing nothing up close, only the dream inside. A single-mindedness. She felt oddly moved, faintly rekindled. Without realizing it, she gripped his forearm and held it tightly. He made no move to disengage her.

The train had slid into Union Station and they stood up. He removed a large leather foreign-looking valise from the baggage rack. Opening it, to repack the book, she noted soiled clothing and piles of files among its contents. He saw her watching and quickly shut the case.

"I meet in New York with friends from time to time," he said, as if some explanation was required. They walked together to the front of the station. It was cold and she found herself shivering in her light clothes.

"Can I drop you somewhere?" he asked.

"I live on Wisconsin Avenue, above Georgetown."

The truth was that she didn't want him to leave her now, to lose him. "Tell you what. You come to my place. I'll whip up a real snack."

He stood facing her in the street. She had to look up to see his eyes, the silver lost in the shadows. He was a well groomed man, she noted, not like the men she had been with in those relevant days. Before he consented she knew that he would. Perhaps he, too, had found something, she wondered hopefully, feeling sensations in her body that she thought had disappeared.

While she laid out the bacon strips on her frying pan, she watched him sitting in the single overstuffed easy chair of her small efficiency apartment. His feet were propped up on the ottoman and he had lit a cigarette from which the smoke curled upward through the shade of the reading lamp. The bacon crackled and curled, releasing its lovely aroma, and she called to him.

"How do you like your eggs?"

"Scrambled."

She scrambled the eggs and put in some toast as the bacon soaked out its grease on a brown paper bag. There was something odd about his sitting there quietly in the easy chair, something foreign, a kind of formality. An American might have stood over her as she worked, making small talk. Again the idea of courtliness popped into her mind, an image gathered somewhere about Latin men of the upper classes who put a high premium on politeness and courtesy. Was that it? Or was she simply rationalizing? There goes Frederika again, she thought joyously. The old Frederika. The one with the analytical nose.

He still wore his jacket and tie, another oddity for her, and when she came into the room with the steaming platters he seemed lost in thought, his long fingers touching each other in the delicate attitude of prayer.

"Coffee's coming," she said, placing the platters on a cocktail table near the couch, then patting the seat pillows. "Come here. You'll be more comfortable." She felt her aggressiveness and when he stirred in obedience she felt again her old strength. "And, for crying out loud, take your jacket off. Make yourself at home."

He took off his jacket.

"And the tie." He removed his tie and sat down beside her, placing his napkin on his legs.

"In my next life I'm going to be a chicken," he said. "My whole presence on earth revolves around eggs. My veins must be choked with cholesterol."

She got up, poured the coffee and came back. She sensed that he was loosening up, becoming less of a walking polemic, which pleased her.

"Can I call you Eddie?" she said suddenly. She had been watching him, noting how long and dark his lashes were, the strength of his chin, his lips' sensuality. She was being stirred, she knew.

"Of course." She wondered if there was any interest in her on his part.

Perhaps I am taking too much for granted, she told herself. "You mean that?"

He turned toward her. "Do I sound insincere?"

Raw nerves, she thought. He is touchy. "You see my friends always called me Freddie. I assume that friends make up names, or shorten them. There's a kind of intimacy about that, don't you think?"

"Of course."

He seemed to be slipping away. She decided to be silent and they sipped their coffee quietly. She could hear the faulty faucet dripping water rhythmically into the sink. Watching him, she saw his eyelids droop momentarily.

"Tired?"

"Tired. Yes." He straightened. It had been an unguarded comment, she realized.

"No. Lean back," she said. "I know what tired means."

"I think I had better be going," he said, but without conviction.

"Where do you live?"

"Not far."

"Alone?"

"Yes."

There seemed a secret comfort in that. Alone! She certainly knew what that meant. She wanted to touch him, but she held back.

"Just stretch out," she said, getting up, clearing the plates from the cocktail table and clicking off the reading lamp. Without looking back, she went into the kitchen and began to wash the dishes. After a while she stole a glance into the room, noting that he had, indeed, stretched out the length of the couch. Shutting the water tap, she went into the room, tiptoeing to the closet, removing a blanket from the top shelf. She covered him gently, hoping that the weight of the cover would not wake him. He didn't stir.

Dumb Freddie, she told herself. You've given a strange man the only bed in the joint. But she was happy. She had been afraid that the suggestion of opening the couch to its studio bed would put him off. From the closet, she brought out her coat, wrapped it around her and slumped in the easy chair, her legs on the ottoman, cuddling her chin into the wool collar.

She didn't sleep, waiting instead for her eyes to become accustomed to the dark. She wanted to see him, to watch the movement of his breathing. To imagine things about him. He was an "exile," he had told her. She could understand what that meant. Wasn't she, too, an exile? Only he was still in the battle, while she was a fallen soldier. Dear brave Eduardo, Eddie. Perhaps she simply hadn't had the courage to continue. But now. Now she could continue the fight through him, with him. She remembered what it was like to fling that firebomb into the plate glass window of that bank in San Luis Obispo.

"Let me do it," she had insisted. They had met in a wooded area of a state campground and had talked for hours about symbolic acts, the necessity to keep alive the battle with little symbolic acts. There were about ten of them and on the table of the camper which they could see through the open door was the carefully constructed Molotov cocktail, incongruous. They had used an empty bottle of Pouilly Fuissé wine which they had fished out of a garbage can with the label still intact. They were sitting around Indian style, legs crossed beneath them, passing around a joint which barely lasted one time around the group and, even now, she could remember how happy she felt, the kind of high that seemed never to come again.

She had been perched on the back of Lenny's bike, her thighs wrapped around his tight hips, her crotch jammed up against his buttocks, stirring her, for her hand clutched his penis, feeling its hardness as Lenny gunned the bike in the direction of the bank. Nothing before or since had ever come up to that moment, when the bike sped toward its destination and the high wind created by its speed whipped against her cheeks and hair.

He had decelerated when they moved up the quiet street, and turned onto the sidewalk, idling in front of the plate glass window. Calmly Lenny had taken a pickaxe and broken the glass while she lit the firebomb and threw it through the opening, watching it explode as it hit the floor. Then she jumped onto the back of the bike again and they moved into the night, winding along the quiet streets, into the woods, following the trail they had mapped out in advance, to the place where he had parked the pickup truck.

She had helped him put the bike in the back of the truck, covering it with tarpaulin. Lenny had driven the truck to high ground and they could see the fire that they had created lighting up the sky. It was beautiful, she remembered, even now, without a shred of remorse. Lights off, Lenny drove the truck through the hills, heading west along secondary roads to the prearranged rendezvous with others in an abandoned barn about one hundred miles away. They stopped only once along a dark stretch after about an hour's drive and made love along the side of the road. The ground was soft under her bare skin and she imagined that she was tuned into the natural rhythm of life as she felt him inside her, another symbolic act, she had decided, which embellished the meaning of what they had done.

Was that the high point of it all, she wondered. Now, as she sat in the chair watching Eddie, the memory came back, bringing with it all the old wonder. Even the later image of Lenny tending bar in the St. Francis Hotel couldn't dull what she now felt.

But then the scream crowded into her thoughts, which must have become dreams, as she quickly found her sense of place. Awake, now, she saw him screaming on her couch. He was apparently still asleep, although he moved restlessly, as if writhing in pain. It was genuine pain, she knew, despite its happening only in his mind. She watched him suffer until it became unbearable to her and slipped beside him, holding him in her arms. He stirred, mumbled something, then breathed a long deep sigh and was still. She continued to hold him, feeling in him the sense of her comfort.

She observed time passing by the growing whiteness behind the slats of the blinds. In the gray light she watched his face, the breathing quiet, and she felt an overwhelming urge to kiss his lips, slightly puffed and open to expel his breath, which seemed sweet and clear. Resisting, she continued to watch, and finally he was responding to her gaze through gradually opening eyes.

"You were having a nightmare," she whispered.

"I don't remember."

"You seemed to be suffering and you screamed as if you were being tortured."

He was silent a long time, but his eyes were open.

"It stays in your soul." he said.

"What?"

"The pain of it. Actually, they did it to me only once in the first days, but it was enough to make me fear it forever."

"What?"

"You don't want to hear about it."

"Yes. You must."

"They put these wires and pinched them on to my genitals. I told myself that I would have courage through it all. And I did. I had planned to tell them something, to give them raw meat. But until I had been through the pain, they would not have believed me, so I told them a tiny bit of what they wanted to know. It was that ... or--" He coughed to cover his inability to continue. "It wasn't much really," he said after a while.

"It's inhuman," she said with disgust.

"On the contrary. Very human."

"You're crazy."

"There is a relationship between the torturer and the tortured."

"And that's human?"

"Yes."

"Here is something also very human."

"What?"

"Me. Feel me."

She cradled his head in her arms, against her breasts. His hands reached for them, squeezing and fondling. Opening her blouse, she let him touch them with his lips, stroking the back of his head. She felt an uncommon stirring inside of her. The old Freddie is coming back, she told herself.

He kissed and suckled her breasts for a long time, like a child gaining sustenance. And she felt as if milk were actually flowing from them. After a while, she reached down and opened his pants, caressing his hardness, her fingers gentle, seeking, it seemed, the hurt place. The need to kiss the hurt place was overwhelming and finally it became an irresistible longing and she moved downward and did it, feeling the soft moving flesh, as if it were not attached to him, a hurt animal.

She heard him moan and knew that she had succeeded in making him forget the pain and she felt the pleasure of giving pleasure, a sensation barely remembered, but now returning to her in full strength. Through her lips, she felt the tightening, the throbbing, and then the release as he felt the moment of his greatest joy, this magic gift that she had proffered. I am me again, she told herself. Giving again. And, for the first time, sharing, taking.

For a moment there had been a confused sensation, as if her body had burst into flames, a pleasure-pain exploding somewhere inside her. Again the image of the fire-bomb flashed in her mind, the heat a targeted flume, aimed at her essence. It had never happened that way, ever.

"Why you?" she whispered. "Why now?"

He looked at her, saying nothing.

"Chemical or psychic?" she asked. When he did not respond, she said, "There are only questions. Right?"

Again, he said nothing, studying her.

They had coffee together, watching the gray Washington morning. It had begun to rain, a steady downpour that put a sheen on the streets and the cars, making her apartment seem like a refuge. She had opened the studio couch and they had repeatedly made love there and then he had begun to dress.

"I wish you could stay." she said. "I don't have to go to work until later in the day."

"Unfortunately, I must go."

"Where?" She waited, but there was no answer. Questions again.

"Are you going to be one of these mystery men?"

"No."

"Who are you really? What do you do, really? Did it mean anything to you, really?"

"Really," he whispered, smiling.

When she had first moved into her apartment and invited men to stay with her she couldn't wait for them to leave. Some she had actually chased out the door without regard to their feelings. Now she felt a sense of impending loss, but hesitated to make it known. She wanted to ask, "When will I see you again? When will we love again?" Instead she said, "You will always be welcome, Eddie. Anytime. Really. Anytime. There are no other men in my life."

"I'm being watched." he said, buttoning his shirt. "It may not be very healthy to be around me."

"You think I'm afraid of them."

He explored her face. "No. I don't think you're afraid. But you should know that I'm being watched. Perhaps hunted."

"I've been there myself. And I don't give a damn."

He put on his jacket and stood over her as she sat now on the hassock near the easy chair, her terrycloth robe drawn tightly around her body. Unlike the passionate younger men of those other days, with long hair and little glasses, straggly beards, blue jeans and scuffed boots, he looked thoroughly conventional, an establishment figure. Except for the gray, silver-flecked eyes. There was something beyond them that she could not fathom. They seemed to operate on their own energy, with a power to command.

"I'll call you," he said. She wondered about his sincerity. Others had said it in precisely the same way. She did not get up to let him out, but listened to his walk as he moved down the corridor.

Because she had been so long with her indifference, she distrusted this renewed interest, even her strange wonderful new sensations. But when she found herself going through the motions of her day and nightly work serving tables in Clyde's Omelet Room, with thoughts of Eddie dominating her mind, she felt reassured. She had not slipped back into her mental and emotional grave.

Even the other waitresses noticed some difference in her. One of them, a slim redhead named Marcia with whom she had developed a kind of "at work" relationship, expressed the collective insight.

"You seem to be pretty perky, Frederika."

Does it show, she wondered. Like her, Marcia had been through the various stages of the "greening" as they jokingly referred to it, the drugs, the politicalization, the easy exchange of flesh, the crash pads, the rock turn-on, the euphoria of protest and rebellion, now gone stale. There was nothing left to feel, they had decided, since they had felt everything. And since their indifference was shared, Marcia could be depended upon to notice subtle changes.

"I'm not sure yet," Frederika told her.

"What does that mean?"

"I met a man."

"Really." There seemed an element of sarcasm in her response.

"But I'm not sure yet."

Toward the end of the week, she was sure. She could not find his name in the telephone book and he hadn't told her where he lived or anything beyond his cause. When he had not called by then, she began to feel anxieties. Would she ever see him again? Perhaps he was merely an aberration, a strange illusive interlude. She was conscious of Marcia watching her all week.

"Want to come over to my place for a drink after work?" she had asked repeatedly.

"Can't."

"That man still working."

"Still working." It was the kind of feeling she wanted to keep to herself.

By Friday evening, she had decided that maybe it was better to feel nothing. Certainly it was safer. But she did not give up, and when he finally appeared near closing time on Friday her hope was vindicated. She had not seen him come in and find a seat in the corner near the window, and the sudden shock of recognition made her knees shake and she had nearly dropped a plate of omelets.

"Eddie." She moved to his table. "You came."

"Of course." His eyes burned into her, telling her what she wanted to know. "I was getting worried." She had lowered her voice, as if in response to what she imagined was his furtiveness. Marcia was standing near the omelet bar watching her. She mustn't let on, she decided. She mustn't identify "the man." As if he were an ordinary customer, she handed him a menu.

"I made better eggs at home," she whispered, pencil in hand.

"I know," he said.

"I'll bring you some wine."

She went to the bar, ordered a goblet of wine, then returned.

"Will that be all, sir?" she said raising her voice for Marcia to hear.

"Yes."

"Will you meet me later?" There were, after all, logistical arrangements to be decided.

"Of course."

"When I bring you your change, I'll give you my key."

He smiled. Why was she being so conspiratorial, he wondered. But it obviously pleased him. It was the way he apparently wanted it to happen. I will let him keep my key, she decided. When she had carried out the secret operation and seen him palm the key in his hand, she drew a deep contented breath.

"No more than a half hour," she said.

"Was that him?" Marcia said when he had gone.

"Who?" Had she been that transparent?

"That dark man. The one in the corner."

"Him?"

"I guess not." Marcia shrugged, but Frederika had no illusions. She had sensed something.

He answered her ring swiftly, and she observed with pleasure that he had lent another dimension to the space of her apartment, an aura, the lingering smoke of his cigarette which still smoldered in the tray, the odor of his presence. His coat lay on the cocktail table and he had removed his tie and laid it across the back of the couch. To her it seemed like he belonged there. Then she was in his arms, breathing in the essence of him, nuzzling his neck, holding his head between her hands, kissing his face, his eyes, his nose, his cheek. He moved her away with a strong tight gesture and looked at her.

"You're very beautiful, you know," he said.

"I feel that way."

"And I wanted to come sooner."

She had wanted to inquire further, but held back, feeling a growing understanding between them. In time, she thought, he will trust me.

"Can I get you something?" she asked. But he was unbuttoning her blouse and reaching for her breasts.

"I know what I want." She felt his eyes watching her, caressing her breasts, the nipples hardening. She was proud of her body now as she arched forward, enjoying his pleasure in her bosom, happy that it was large, full, well formed. She was aroused by his growing passion, reaching for him, then kneeling to squeeze his erection around her breasts, which he kneaded, and she felt the pulsating of his heartbeat against her own, drawing his buttocks toward her, feeling his warmth, his closeness.

"I want you to want me," she said, looking up at him. Then she moved toward the couch, opened it, revealing her double bed, and they undressed fully, moved toward each other, filling the chill between the sheets with their warmth. She drew him inside of her now, felt her body billow like a sail to a fresh wind, as he moved slowly with a languor that told her he did not wish their lovemaking to end. Not ever, she told herself.

"I wish I could say what you mean to me," she said, hoping that he, too, might be discovering this same wonder, the sense of rebirth. She marveled at the calm, unhurried progression of their mutual response, the relentless sputtering of the fuse on a stick of dynamite, then the explosion, powerful, absorbing; the pulsating stillness of heated tungsten, long burning and bright, the climax of a burst of light lingering hotly. It was strange to her, this sensation of joy non-ending and she whispered her gratitude at the power of him, the long hardness.

They dozed and when she stirred again he was still in her, only soft now, sleeping. Gently, she disengaged, then held him in her arms until she grew drowsy. Again, in the darkness, they awakened, held each other, long, endlessly until the light filtered through the drawn blinds. When their passion ground down, the explosions ended, she propped pillows behind them and they half reclined while he smoked a cigarette. What she wanted now, most of all, was to know him. Details were vague, incomplete. Was he nontrusting? He had told her that he had a wife in Santiago and a son and that he had studied at the University of Santiago. He was born in Santiago, grew up there, in the shadow of the Cordillera. He had believed in Allende, had followed him, was appointed in his goverment, had been imprisoned and finally exiled. The story was fleshed out, of course, but the dominant detail was the passion for return, revenge.

"Will they ever let you come back?" she asked. He seemed to be watching her during her questioning, although her eyes were deliberately closed, fearful, perhaps, that they would reveal the fierceness of the attachment growing inside her.

"They? Never. Besides, they have eliminated me from the rolls of the citizenry. I am a man without a country." He hissed the words.

"Will you become an American citizen?"

"Of course not. I am a Chilean."

"Then what will you do?"

"I will come home again."

She knew what he meant. He had lit another cigarette and in the quiet of the room she could hear the tobacco burning as he puffed, and the light changed as the glow reddened.

"Is there a movement?"

He was silent, puffed again, but this time she pressed, sensing that it was the right moment.

"Is there a viable exile movement?" She sat up. "Eddie, I want a piece of your life. Don't shut me out."

"It is not as simple as it sounds."

"I thrive on it." She told him then about her early life, the politics and the violence, and she told him about the fire bombing. The words came out in a rush as if they had been pressed against her brain for too long and needed this release. She knew now that she had been waiting for this moment to tell somebody.

"You've given me life again, Eddie. I'm ready to be a soldier again."

"Were you ever caught, ever questioned by the authorities?"

"No."

"They knew," he said. "They had their people infiltrated into every group. They were watching you all the time."

"If they were, they would have pulled us in. We did damage. We violated laws. Even in that last gasp. The May Day thing. I was not arrested. I always managed to escape." She remembered then how much she hated the thought of being jailed, although she had enjoyed that one time with the others.

"You were never fingerprinted?"

"No." She had remembered how they had always been frightened of being fingerprinted.

"And you are certain there were no informers?"

"How could I ever be certain of that?"

She was conscious now of a sudden irritation. Was she telling him everything? They had actually been making Molotov cocktails in the basement of that house in Haight and were taking instruction in preparing plastic explosives and learning how to construct crude timing devices. The instructor was called José but it was obviously not his real name. They did not use real names. Her name had been Bunny, because once, during that summer before she had entered Berkeley, she had lied about her age and worked as a Playboy bunny and someone had seen a picture of her in costume hanging in her room before she had taken it down out of shame. There had been that explosion that destroyed half the house, killing José, and someone had said they had combed the place for fingerprints. She wondered if she should tell him that?

"They burrow in. They all work hand in glove on an international scale."

"Who?"

"Their intelligence. In Chile the butchers have the DINA. They were trained by the CIA and have full access to CIA files, computers, devices. They are now in the process of liquidating their old enemies all over the world. Our people. They are effective."

She felt again the excitement of the old danger.

"We were never afraid of them."

"If they wanted to they could have snuffed you out like a candle."

"We laughed at them."

"You weren't a threat."

He said it quietly, but he must have sensed that he was being cruel. "I don't mean that as an insult. There were restraints. In our case it is an international war. Soldiers fall every day."

She felt now that he was reaching the outer limits of his warning and that he was about to break new ground. Her heart beat wildly and she reached out to caress him.

"What can I do, Eddie?" she whispered.

"I have no right to involve you."

"You don't need a right. It's my commitment." To you, she wanted to say, but held off again. She wondered if the the old passion for justice had returned. She did not love one man then. She loved them all, the idea of their courage had moved her. She had loved to be part of them. Now she wanted to be part of this one man, only him.

"There are others. It is not so simple."

"I know."

Again they made love and slept finally until bright sunlight was coming through the slats. She drew the blinds and the clear winter light blazed through the room. He showered, dressed swiftly, and without waiting for coffee, kissed her on the lips and let himself out. When he had gone, she lay down again on the crumpled sheets and slept until late afternoon.

It was a week later when he reappeared. She had thought of him, without anxiety this time. She knew he would reach her again and, perhaps it was her own rationalization, she felt reasonably secure. It was a question of trust, she told herself. He was being deliberately secretive for reasons that he hinted at. She missed him, of course, and it was all she could do to keep herself alert, especially during work. Marcia noticed her lack of attention.

"My God, Frederika. That customer has been sitting at your table for ten minutes without a menu."

"Damn. Where is my head?"

"Probably on that man."

"What man?" she said defensively. Too quickly.

"That one," Marcia said, putting a finger to Frederika's temple.

"I don't think I feel well," she said suddenly, but it seemed a pallid, halfhearted excuse.

"They'll get you every time."

It began to rain when she got off from work. She had brought an umbrella and was walking up Wisconsin Avenue to her apartment house, shielded from the rain. Suddenly he grabbed the umbrella's handle.

"Eddie." She put her hand on his upper arm, the muscle hard and taut as he moved silently up the nearly deserted street, past the darkened storefronts.

"Did I frighten you?" he asked.

"I don't frighten easily," she said with mock bravado. Actually, she had been momentarily panicked, but it had happened so fast she did not have time to react. "You'll have to do better than that to scare the hell out of me." He laughed. They embraced in the elevator of her apartment house.

"I missed you," he whispered when they closed the door to her apartment.

"Really?"

"Really."

He seemed less tight, almost playful, as if he had just gotten some good news. Standing together in the center of the room, he watched her, his face in transition, the humor in it fading as he reached for her and began kneading her breasts. Feeling the beginning pressure of his fingers triggered her own response and she felt again the sensual joy of his nearness. How can I tell him, she sobbed inside of herself, wanting to voice her gratitude for what he had given her, even the pain of it.

Later, when they had reached that first plateau of satiation, she lay thinking about him, and her reactions to him. The door of her subconscious seemed to have suddenly opened and she sensed she was observing for the first time the odd contents. He had closed his eyes, was dozing, and she lay propped against the side of his chest, her head rising and falling to the rhythm of his breathing.

I will do anything for this man, she told herself, feeling a special joy in this new rebellion. But it was not enough to merely think it. She decided she must tell him, tell him now.

Her hands began to move gently over his skin, where they paused to play with the curly hair of his chest, downward over his belly. She felt the change in his heartbeat, a swiftness as she reached down for his penis, felt him stir and knew that he had opened his eyes and was watching her. Under her touch, his penis stiffened, the response giving her great satisfaction, almost as a child might view the final phase of constructing a sandcastle.

"You must let me be part of your life, Eddie," she said.

"You are part of my life."

"It's not enough. Not enough for me. I want more." In the context of her present activity, the idea of it seemed silly. He may have caught the humor. His erection was large and powerful, throbbing now, a marvelous, miraculous physical wonder, she decided. It was, in fact, larger than most in her experience.

"I couldn't ask for anything more than that," she said, caressing the tip of it with her tongue. But the emerging thought had not faded, and she moved upward, keeping her fingers on the hardness.

"I want participation," she said. "If you don't let me into your life, then what is it?" She wondered if he would feel that she was pretending an ultimatum. She let it lie for a moment, watching his reaction. "I love you, Eddie. You've changed my life. I want to give, to be giving. I will do anything for you." Then she looked down at his erection again. "And I want that. You." She lifted herself, moved her body over him and directed his hard penis into her, feeling its fullness, moving her body as if she were seeking the core of herself. She felt it occurring, a wrenching, soul-engulfing, overwhelming immediate explosion of pleasure, fulfillment. Why, she wondered, seeing bursts of color in her mind, even as she watched his face. He was observing her as well and, although she felt the beginning of his release, his silvery gray eyes seemed calm with intelligence, as if he were deciding something, probing some imponderable. She continued to watch him as the tension in his body subsided. Then she slackened her upper torso over him and held him tightly until she felt his body soften and relax.

"If only the completeness of it was lasting enough," she said. "But when you're gone the longing begins again." Her arms tightened about him. "I am a part of you. It is my need to prove it to you."

"I don't need further proof," he said. "It is not necessary."

"It is to me."

He became silent now, tapping her buttocks to signal his wish for disengagement, and she rolled over to his side again. Had she gone too far, she wondered. He had not professed any special love to her. Had not said the words. But what I spoke, I had to say, she told herself.

"I don't know where you live. I don't know how you spend your day. I feel deprived."

He stood up, lit a cigarette, and opening a slat in the blinds, looked out into the early morning grayness. She watched him, his long slender body graceful in his nakedness, as he puffed heavily and let the smoke billow out of his nose and mouth. Then he moved away and began to dress. She felt suddenly panicked by his actions, forcing her own restraint. Surely, I went too far, she told herself. It is over now. He doesn't need some hysterical lovesick ninny hanging on to him, burdening him. Closing her eyes, she felt the gathering moisture behind the lids, and then the tears rolling coolly down the sides of her face. Her nose filled, but she deliberately held back her sniffles. He must not see my crying. She could tell by the change of sounds that he was dressed now. Then his movement stopped and she could feel his eyes penetrating the grayness, watching her, deciding. Her heart and breathing stopped, and her mind seemed caught in limbo on the burrs of his indecision. Please, she begged, but the sound of his footsteps moving toward the door spoke his answer. The door opened and closed and the sound of his movement quickly faded, leaving the room in its own special silence.

She could cry now, she thought, the sound of her sobbing and sniffling drowning the silence. Soon she was gasping for breath, knowing that she was giving in to self-pity and loneliness, helpless in the shame of it.

Lying in bed, she seemed to will herself into a state of paralysis, hating herself for yielding to the pain of it, but not wishing it to end. She watched the light change in the room, wondering if she could ever summon up, or want to, the urge to move again. There seemed no point to it anymore. Maybe I have died, she told herself, or I am wishing it to happen.

Then, when the room was brighter, and the sounds in the streets below indicated that the city was fully awakened, the sound of the telephone burst into the air. Him, she knew, as her body moved suddenly, the energy recoiling. She picked up the receiver.

"Eddie?"

"Yes." There was an echo. He was obviously in a booth, the sound muffled.

"All right," he said. She could not summon a response. The tears rolled in a stream again.

"It's all right" he said again. "I will call you in a few days."

Then the phone clicked. She continued to hold the phone until the buzz began.