[Work in progress - III; intersection]

Who having into truth, by telling of it,
Made such a sinner of his memory,
To credit his own lie

She combed her hair gingerly; she had never really believed it to be her own. Even her children seemed unreal. Anything of her seemed so unlikely even now. Her daughter walked past, her reflection passing behind her own in the mirror. Her naked midriff made Julia cringe. The sight of bare skin still made her stomach turn. Arthur did not share her revulsion, she knew. She also knew that it had always been only a matter of time. No man could bare his wife’s aversion for long, she knew. He had had a string of affairs – if one could call them that – or what they called in America one night stands. Of course, after he turned sixty-five and officially became a senior citizen, he lost his drive somewhat. Not that there was any dearth, she knew, of young and willing females, students of him, interested in righting the wrongs he had undergone, reversing the Survivor’s tale. His dark hair, now grey, and his sparse frame made sparser by time and fate, drew them to Christian Guilt; but then, guilt alone was not attractive enough to draw Arthur.
Their guilt did not darken their fair hair or white skins, or indeed lengthen their noses. Arthur had been carrying out his revenge, coupled with an atonement of his own. For when Julia had been in the camps, he had roamed free. Being Jewish in the forties did not, for someone like Arthur, guarantee hardship, it seemed.