When her dear husband returned from the front for his much needed home leave he was hungry for fried potatoes and starved for the gentle touch of his wife. She made him the former with bacon and eggs and refused him the latter until he came crawling on his knees.

She didn’t like the fact that he hadn’t brought her any presents and she didn’t like what she had heard about the general conduct of the German soldiers abroad, in particular about the brothels and the fraternizing. She didn’t believe that he had done anything seriously barbaric, he was a good soldier and a good German after all; the two white chevrons on the sleeve of his uniform and the good proportions of his face attested to that. She also thought he would not have been quite so pathetic about his needs if he had learned to take what he desired by force.

It wasn’t as though she hadn’t wanted to kiss him at the railway station but when she saw him get off the train, so dull grey and ragged and very hollow in the face, something had overcome her and made her freeze. When he hugged her, unaware of the change in her heart, she stood still, clutching her handbag raised as a barrier between them. She denied him his kiss, turning her head away just enough to make the point, and he failed to take what she did not willingly give him. Defeated and desperate for some form of compensation he nuzzled into her neck, tickling her with his hot breath just below the ear.

Since she didn’t like to sit on his lap anymore, he instead sat on hers. It seemed only appropriate to her, he weighed barely more than her now and her thighs were much more comfortable to sit on anyway. The position suited him well. He had learned to be inconspicuous. When he was not holding his peaked cap he always kept his hands neatly folded in his lap, occasionally fondling one of his rings; and he would sit like this quietly unless directly addressed.

Just one week after his arrival he had to return to the front. She knitted earmuffs for him, because his ears stuck out so much she was sure they’d fall off from the cold. She also gave him some canned meat and her father’s two bottles of cognac. On the last night they drank together from the cognac. The intoxication made him very soppy, he would not stop kissing her wrists. Around midnight she indicated that she wanted to go to bed and he eagerly followed her like a shadow or a well trained pet. She told him to leave her alone and sleep on the couch, because he smelled too much like alcohol; and also because she wanted to see the face he would make and if he would cry. He looked like something had struck him in the chest. His hands seemed to search for the arrow lodged in his heart but he could not find it, so it stayed there and hurt him badly. When the pain became too much to bear he fell to his knees and begged to be allowed to sleep next to her, to touch her, make love to her, please, just one last time, only because he would tomorrow be send back to Russia, where he would soon lie in a ditch, dead, frozen and forever alone. To act so lowly didn’t seem to trouble him psychologically. He looked very much at home with his forehead touching the ground. She suspected these sort of displays were part of the military training, but was surprised to see him still so apt at it. It was very endearing though, so she allowed him in her bed as long as he kept that attitude, which sure enough he did with outstanding obedience.