Free After Auschwitz: A Love Story by Brenda Webster

of Claudia. I think I said that Claudia attracted me because of her big breasts, but I should have added that she was nursing a child, that when she leaned near to me I could smell the sweet milk. Later, her little girl—an absolutely beautiful creature named Leila with a cascade of blond curls and big blue eyes—was part, maybe a big part, of my attraction. I liked to watch Claudia mothering and imagine how it would be to be cared for that way. My own mother wasn’t able. A memory bubbles up of the fantasies I sometimes had about running my hands over Leila’s body. It was so perfectly formed, so white it made my mouth water looking at her. I imagined her in the bathtub—something I saw often enough—and me kneeling beside the tub rubbing the soap over her.
    â€œAnd always soap between your legs,” I’d imagine myself saying, taking the soap from her and showing her how. “Or you can put the soap on your hand, like this,” and I gently rub right on the rosy lips, holding myself in the other hand, out of sight.
    Poor Nabokov in an early draft of
Lolita
imagined accustoming Lolita to seeing a man naked with an erection, but in that early draft she ran screaming from the house. Later he imagined her as a sly tease. But even in imagination I censored the idea of letting Leila see me. I couldn’t stand the thought of frightening or repelling her. Of course, I never acted on my fantasies—jerking off fantasies, I called them to myself. I spent a lot of solo time imagining different scenarios and progressions, and sometimes when I was with Hannah, I would think of Leila when we made love.
    None of this is so odd, is it? Everyone has fantasies of some sort. I would hate to think I was a pervert, a dirty old man, though I notice that somehow being old has loosened my inhibitions. I am always patting Hannah’s bottom or thighs, calling her my little one,
Piccina,
even when company is here. But Hannah is an old woman like me and I’m sure the guests think it is sweet.
    When Hannah takes me to the Villa Borghese Gardens near where my family lived when I was a child, we sit on the steps and I watch the young children with their nurses. The smaller children stay close. On a warm day I can see their round chubby arms and legs as they try out their steps. Their skin is so beautiful—fresh and clear, not yet written on. I drink in their freshness. Without young children there would be only bruised skin, violet and yellow unfolding like flowers on the arms of old men.
    The ponies come by, led by such a man. He isn’t defeated by his age. He smiles and beckons to the children. His little hat sports a red feather—it says, I am not dead yet, not yet. And the bigger children beg for a ride in his painted cart.
    â€œThank you for bringing me, love,” I tell Hannah and she smiles at me, pats my hand, sneaks a peak at her watch. I don’t begrudge her. She has things to do—her work, the house—in addition to the burden of caring for me. I consider telling her my fantasies about Leila, to see if I can get her to tell me some of hers and expose the last bits of the inner life we’ve hidden from each other.
    â€œI’ve been reading some poetry,” I say. “Nothing hard. William Carlos Williams.” Nothing to harden my prick.
    â€œI’ve heard the name,” she says without enthusiasm.
    â€œThey are very simple,” I tell her, “and you feel good after reading one. It’s like eating a chocolate
Baccio.
You can savor it and carry it around like a snapshot.” But right this minute I wish I’d brought something erotic—one of the Latin poets, the ones that make your loins tingle in anticipation of a good screw.
    â€œSounds nice,” she says but I sense that she is restless, her thoughts elsewhere. “Did I tell you that Marti Restov wants to translate a couple of my poems for a new