The Blue Angels

Right off, Norman would know: is Rosa happy or not.  Pointblank, he’d tell you:
“She never is.” Right in front of her would speak.  Reach for his own sleeve (because in company she wouldn’t permit him to touch hers) and dramatically pushing back the cuff, actually unbuttoning it to hike it all the way up to his elbow’s crook, show you his doughy white forearm and rasp: “Right there she’s got the numbers they put on her in Auschwitz.” Then point with a stubby forefinger at the alleged spot while Rosa joined you in peering down at it too, as at a screen on which showed not only the faded blue numbers on her own arm but, one dreaded to think — glancing slyly at her ofttimes inscrutable face— maybe also scenes from her time there.

The moment would make you wince. His was a ridiculously unnecessary demonstration. Who, by now, with all the films, books and articles about the Holocaust does not know where such numbers appear?  But that is the sort of man Norman was.  Had a very rude, gravelly voice.  Was in no way handsome, no, not to the same degree that Rosa, his peer in age –  both were pushing seventy five—had kept her looks.

A very seductive woman, this Rosa.  Still a natural blond, with a certain darkly gay look in her large blue eyes – Norman called them “my blue angels” (again, right in front of you) – and she was that type of woman in whom an unrestrained sensuality...