Cold War

Jasha shrugged and wiped her own tears away. “I don’t like to remember.”

Charlotte sank down beside the pile of clothes, “Do you think — do you think….”

“What?” Jasha settled on the other side of dresses.

“Will you ever want — ever be able to — I mean, with a man you love — could you? Could you love again?”

Jasha turned to look at the pretty navy blue silk dress spread over the heap of things. “I don’t know,” she admitted. “I wish I could be married to a good man who cares for me, who is protective and respectful and looks after me. I wish we could have a farm — or at least a garden — together. I’d like to grow things with him and have chickens and ducks, maybe even a cow. I’d like to cook things so good that he eats too much and gets a pot belly. I’d like to grow old and fat together. But I don’t know about the bedroom part….”

“I’m so afraid of that — and yet afraid, too, that — I might — I don’t know!” she ended with an inarticulate shake of her head.

“But you like Mr David, I think?” Jasha asked cautiously.

“He’s absolutely wonderful! I never thought I would ever feel so much for another man as I’d felt for my fiancée Fritz. But it’s been so long since Fritz disappeared, and David is so gentle with me and so kind. He has made me feel like a lady again — like I am someone worth loving.”

“Of course, you are worth loving!” Jasha admonished. “And Mr David is a good man, I think.”

“Yes, but that’s exactly what makes me ashamed to deceive him. Shouldn’t I warn him that I’m not — not — what I appear?”

“But you are who you appear to be, Charlotte.”

“No, Jasha!” Charlotte shook her head violently and the tears were flooding down her face again. “I’m not a lady any longer! I’m not even a maid. I’m nothing but a piece of trash, kicked about, used by six men one after another and then pissed upon—”

Jasha sprang up and pulled Charlotte back into her arms. “Hush! Stop! What they did to you, to us, doesn’t change who we are.”

Charlotte sobbed into Jasha’s bosom. “Yes, it does! I can’t ever be who I was before.”

Jasha knew that was true, so she did not deny it. She just held Charlotte in her arms until she had calmed herself again. Then she said softly, “No, we’ll never be the same again, but we must try to love who we are.”