Part 3

After letting the women deposit their luggage in their rooms, Juárez insisted they join him in the hotel bar for a cocktail. He drank his right down and then left them in brittle peace.

Betty turned to Margit and made a gesture of salutation with her glass of champagne. The real stuff, this time.

“To our freedom. Cheers. Well, my freedom.”

“Cheers,” said Margit, lifting her glass of beer. “Perhaps you will marry again.”

“I’m forty-four. Thanks. Who’s going to want me now? Divorced. How will I live?” Betty had moved quickly through two vodka tonics before slowing down with more champagne.

“Alimony,” said Margit.

“Sure. Leo’s gonna pay my bills, but I still like having a man around.”

“What about Jerry?” asked Margit, thinking she was being funny.

“I like Jerry, but I don’t think he’d get it up for an old lady like me.”

“Jerry is not exactly, how do you say, hell on wheels in bed.”

“Leonard is,” said Betty. She looked straight at Margit with red-rimmed eyes. “But I guess you know that.”

“Why bring it up?” asked Margit. She took a long swallow from her sweating glass of creamy lager. Leonard was indeed a pleasing lover, and he still had plenty of juice in his pistons at fifty.

“Because it amuses me to rub your face in it.”

“I am sorry you feel you need to do that.” Leonard had told Margit that Betty was a cold fish, not interested in sex at all, but Margit was beginning to doubt Leonard understood his wife’s desires. Or he lied about them. And he’d cheated before? With students?

“You ever think about covering up those ugly numbers with a different tattoo? Maybe a heart with ‘Mom’ in the middle, since you’re so pleased with yourself.” Betty had drained her second glass of champagne and started tapping her glass on the bar. When the bartender glared at her with irritation, Betty wiggled the glass in the air. “I suppose you wouldn’t get so much sympathy, though, would you? That tattoo is probably what drew Leonard to you in the first place. He gets emotional around wounded animals. Maybe I should get a tattoo. Men might look at me with interest.”

The misaligned digits had been painfully inscribed by a German soldier along Margit’s left forearm when she was sixteen.

“It hurts. Getting a tattoo.”

“I’ll bet that’s not the worst thing that happened to you in that camp.”

Margit pinched open a peanut shell and tipped the tasty legumes into her hand. She still remembered with stunning clarity the moment Doctor Mengele took her by the hand and spun her around in front of the new arrivals. “So ein hübsches Mädchen.” He’d turned to another doctor. “Sollen wir sie behalten?”

“My family was secular,” said Margit, the only survivor. “Not religious at all. We did not belong there.”

“Nobody belonged there, you idiot.” Betty swallowed the rest of her champagne. “Still, I wish they’d put you in an oven.”

As calm as the moon, Margit whispered to herself. She raised her empty glass. The bartender quickly brought her another glass of beer.

The hotel lounge held a horny gaggle of newly divorced American women. Betty and Margit contributed to the soft-haired lineup running up and down the bar. Mexican men filled tables in the shadows, teeth flashing as they undoubtedly made comments about the contingent on display under the lights.

Betty kept turning her head to stare at the stalkers in silk shirts as she swallowed her fifth drink.

“I’ve never cheated on my husband.” Betty turned on her stool toward Margit. “I don’t have much time left to be bad. To feel what it’s like to cheat.”

“You are drunk, Betty. Be careful.”

“You don’t care what happens to me, and I don’t care much, either. I have a fifty-thousand-dollar life insurance policy in case I die in the next few hours. My husband is the beneficiary. I’ll be sure to cancel it when I get home. Oh, that’s right. You’ll be in my home. Maybe I should make you the beneficiary. You’ve got everything else I’ve ever wanted.” Her eyes found Margit’s belly.

“Stop talking about life insurance. It is bad luck. Let us go find something to eat. I have always wanted to try a Mexican dish. I think it is called tamale.”

“You can eat that slop by yourself,” said Betty, as a man wiggled close to the bar on her opposite side. “I’m going to sit here with a cool drink and practice my Spanish.”

“Suit yourself,” said Margit. She crushed her cigarette and grabbed her purse.