She was small, blonde, pretty, quiet: the last woman in the world he would have selected as a self-appointed martyr.
“Hello Dana,” he said gently,
“Mr. Yan?” Not Michael, as in the office, but mister.
There was defiance in her voice, in her eyes, in her stance. He didn’t know this girl at all. Longin had been wrong.
She was daring him. All right. Her Polish was better than his English, despite her odd accent. She was from Georgia. He remembered because he was always confusing it with Russian Georgia.
He gestured at the bridge leading over the pond and they started off toward it. The ripples on the surface were reflected in the surrounding glass walls of the Embassy buildings. How the Americans loved their glass!
“Dana, I love you.” She stumbled and her expression changed drastically. At least he’d put her off her guard.
“You’ve got a funny sense of humor, Mr. Yan.”
“Michael, please. I’m not old enough to be called ‘mister.'”
“Michael, if you will. I don’t believe—No, wait a minute.” She smiled sardonically. “Of course you love
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me. You also love Maricella, Jean, Don-anna and all the other girls in the office. You love everybody.”
“Yes, that’s right. And everyone thinks we Poles are crazy because we love everybody. It causes us jo much trouble.”
“You didn’t love the Germans,” she reminded him. He shrugged.
“What were we supposed to do? Nobody else seemed ready to stand up to the maniac. Fortunately, the Germans declared war on us first. You didn’t have to fight anybody. Why complain? We hated it. War isn’t our style.”