Irena took his hand and smiled."Come, let us kneel and say kaddish for your family."

It was so unreal. In the midst of all thepain and death around him, Lebel had knelt with the young Russian woman andsaid the ancient prayer for the dead. Afterwards he had cried again, and frenahad put a hand on his shoulder and hugged him. And then she had made thesupreme gesture any woman could make to comfort a man. She offered him herbody.

Not for sex, but for solace. Despite thefilthy barrack surroundings , there was a beauty and a touching kindness to thelovemaking which somehow reaffirmed Henri Lebel's belief in justice."

After that day, Henri Lebel and arenaDezov had become friends as well as lovers. They endured the endlesshumiliations of camp life, laughed together when they could, shared what scrapsof food they managed to scavenge to supplement their meager rations of wateryturnip soup and stale black bread, and got drunk on illegal spirits wheneverpossible, anything to relieve the agony and pain around them.

The last time Lebel saw Irena was threedays after the Russians finally liberated the camp. She was being helped toclimb onto the back of a truck to take her behind Russian lines, her long fraillegs barely able to stand. They kissed and embraced and promised they wouldwrite, and as the truck drove out through the gates Irena managed a smile and awave. Lebel cried that day as much as he had when he had learned the fate ofhis wife.

In the five years after the war, Lebeltried to forget his past. A succession of nubile young models eager to paradein his furs on the Paris catwalks and also to give him solace had temporarilydulled the pain, but somehow Irena Dezov never left his mind.

A year later he had to visit Moscow onbusiness, an opportunity he was to be allowed with greater frequency because ofhis expanding business.

On one such trip, as he came out of theMoscow Hotel, he saw a woman across the street and he froze, rooted to the spotwith shock. She looked like lrena, only somehow different, and then Lebelrealized she was no longer the emaciated skeleton in his memory but afull-figured, handsome woman, much like the one he had seen the first day shehad arrived in Auschwitz. But it was definitely Irena, She climbed on board atram and in panic Lebel did something he had never done before.

He evaded the KGB man delegated tochaperone him and hopped on board the tram at the last moment. His heartpounding, he sat behind the woman. When she got off he followed her to anapartment off Lenin Prospect, took note of the KGB chaperone , then reluctantlyreturned to his hotel.

A contact in the Ministry of ForeignTrade, who demanded an explanation for the evasion.

Lebel pretended angry indignation: as atrusted friend of RLISSIA he ought to be allowed to travel in Moscow morefreely. He considered it a matter of mutual trust and he gave his word as agentleman that he would not break that trust. Besides, he had strong businessinterests in Moscow and he would hardly destroy those interests by doingsomething he shouldn't, now would he'?

The man from the Ministry merely smiledand said to him. "Impossible, Henri. You know the way it works here.Foreigners are suspect. Even if you do nothing we have to watch you.

Lebel said indignantly, "Then vonrealize this. I can buy excellent fur from the Canadians and the Americans andwithout the irritation of being followed everywhere I go in New York orQuebec."

The man's face paled just a little, butthen he smiled. "is that a threat, Henri?"

"No, simply a fact. And anotherthing. I fought for the Communist Resistance in France. I lost my wife and wassent to Auschwitz for my ideals. You people know I'm not a spy."

The man laughed. "Of course we knowyou're not a spy, Henri, but you're a businessman, not a communist."

"That doesn't stop me from havingcertain ... sympathies."

Lebel's sympathies had long sincevanished but business was business. "Besides, some of the wealthiestbusinessmen in France supported the Communist Resistance during the war."

"True. But I still can't grant youyour request."

Lebel tossed aside the refusal and saidvery angrily, "Then I suggest you seriously consider this. I'm tired ofthese petty games you people play. Tired of being followed like some mistrustedschoolboy. Tired of being scrutinized like some unwelcome guest and feelinghalf a dozen pairs of eyes on me every time I go to the bathroom. I'mconsidering no longer representing your interests in Europe. Quite frankly,it's not worth the bother. I can buy my furs elsewhere."

The man permitted himself a knowing grin."But not sable, Henri. You have to come to us for that, Besides, we couldsimply have someone else represent us."

It was true-and Russian sable fur was thefinest and the most sought-after-but Lebel had an ace up his sleeve, "Notregistered sable. But a firm in Canada have bred a marten species not unlikeyours and believe me the sable pelts are the finest I've come across. So eitherwe stop this petty pantomime and you trust me, or I go to them."

Lebel stood up to leave.

"No-wait, Henri. I'm certain we can resolvethis," That settled it. A Couple of phone calls to the upper echelons ofthe Ministry and a fine sable coat for the official's wife finally clinched thedeal. Lebel would be bestowed with honorary Soviet citizenship, which would doaway with the need for him to be under surveillance as a foreigner.

The next day he went back to theapartment off Lenin Prospect, checking to make 'sure he wasn't followed. Hewasn't. It was still a terrible risk but he considered it worth it. He knockedon the door and frena appeared.

When she saw him she went white, and whenthe shock subsided her eyes were wet as she led him inside the two-roomapartment.

For a long time they embraced and kissedand cried. There were two things Lebel learned that day. One, that he stillloved frena Dezov, and much more than he even realized, and two rather moredisturbing, that she was married. Or rather had been' when they had theiraffair in the camp. The husband, a much older, stern-faced army colonel, hadlater died in the final battle for Berlin.

Somehow Lebel wasn't unduly bothered byconscience about their affair in the camp. With death so close you took whathuman comfort you could. Besides, there was no such thing as a truly honestbusinessman, and in business he had sometimes committed sins considerably worsethan adultery. And lrena wasn't sad about it, quite the opposite. She confessedthat the day she learned of her husband's death she opened a bottle of vodkaand got quietly drunk with joy. The man was a brute and the only good he haddone was leave her an army widow's pension and a country dacha on the outskirtsof Moscow.

They made love that day with an intensityLebel had never known, and did so every time afterwards that they could get toIreia's dacha, which offered them privacy.

That first day together in years, as theylay in bed, she had prodded his generous stomach and laughed.

"You're no longer a skeleton, Henri.You've grown fat, my little Frenchman. But I still love you."

He had grown plump, but he saw the lookon her face when she said it and knew she still loved him too.

lrena Dezov was certainly no longer askeleton. Her body had filled out, her bust rather larger and even morecomforting than he remembered, her lust for life and lovemaking stillunquenched.

But Lebel knew trena would never beallowed out of Russia, despite his connections. Nobody was allowed out ofStalin's Russia. Dissidents were shot, committed to asylums, or imprisoned for-life, not given exit visas. Even applying for an emigrant visa condemned theapplicant as a traitor, which meant the firing squad or the Gulag. And eachtime he and Irena and he met six times a year, more if possible, he had to takeparticular care and timing to travel to the dacha.