A guy I knew, Mr. B, once told me that while the Nazis held this island, they used it as a bordello.

  He shared all of this with me once when I drove him in a car he had borrowed, in the fog, more than a hundred fifty kilometers, in one direction, to visit his brother a priest.

  -It was frequented exclusively by generals and higher officers of the Wehrmacht and the SS, he explained.

  I don’t know why Mr. B didn’t have a license.

  A previously arranged driver drunk himself into paralysis with the more than handsome advance.

  I had acquired my license proudly and precisely on my sixteenth birthday.

  Thanks to my mother, a pre-war automobilist who made sure I took the appropriate course at the appropriate time.

  -The most beautiful girls and young women from the nearby prison camps were selected, Mr. B continue.

  He had asked me to drive him spurred by his wife, Milena.

  Milena was a Czech.

  She was a beautiful woman, a few years older than me, and met Mr. B on the job at the circus after the war.

  She was as an acrobat there and he did something too.

  Later she had an accident and her back was banged up.

  She had to part ways forever with her career, but seemed otherwise okay, walking, running, jumping, skiing, dancing.

  Unfortunately it made her unable to have children, and she could only have sex doggy style.

  Milena and her husband lived on the same street I did at the time, two villas further.

  But I didn’t get to know Mr. B’s acquaintance until I found myself in front of his home with a broken down automobile I was test driving.

  Mr. B was remounting the roof of his one-floor villa.

  There were three workers there and it was lunch time.

  The workers had taken a break.

  They’d laid out their magazines and had bread, tomatoes, salceson, which they in jest called salcefix, and a half liter of vodka. Normal workers’ fare in this part of Europe.

  Mr. B hung around nearby.

  When they finished eating and were preparing to return to work, one of them admitted that he was afraid to get on the roof, because he felt drunk.

  Mr. B laughed, taking some money out of his back pocket and telling the apparent drunkard to go to the nearest store and buy a liter bottle of vodka.

  When the man returned, Mr. B uncorked the bottle and told each of them to take a swig from it, just not too much.

  He asked me to try as well. It was the most normal vodka. Each of us could attest to this.

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  -And now look, dickhead, he turned to the apparent drunkard, expertly shaking the liter bottle, putting it to his lips and chugging it down.

  When there was nothing left in the bottle, Mr. B pointed yonder at the four-storied building with the red stone steeple roof, in a representative architectural style of the type Heimschtedt.

  -And now look, bitch, at this chimney.

  He ran off quickly, and in a minute was waving at us from the red roof.

  He got up to the chimney, stood higher, and bent down to grasp it from above, slowly showing off a sturdy handstand.

  He stood there upside down for a minute, and then leaned over, placing his entire weight on one hand.

  Again he stood for a minute on this hand, with his free hand waving to us, then switching hands, waving at us with the other hand.

  Then standing again on two hands, he performed a back flip, landing delicately on both feet on a thin plank placed near the entry to the roof.

  Of course, the four story Heimschtedt building was no Empire State Building... but the height was quite enough, still, to die.

  It had impressed me.

  Milena, who for some reason did not lie with her husband, I got to know much earlier.

  Often when she had the occasion she came discretely to see me.

  Her husband was often away visiting his brother.

  Hellooo, operator!

  Milena loved jazz, which without interruption played on the radio at my house.

  Being an intelligent woman, her beautiful breasts, of which she was quite proud, she treated very seriously, like jewelry or high-end real estate.

  She said when she had her accident, everyone told her her breasts must have gotten in the way.

  Numbers I’ve got by the dozen, everyone’s uncle and cousin

  And when it came to me, I could play with them for hours.

  Whenever the radio began some really good jazz, Milena almost always srecounted a past romance with a jazz bassist named Ludek Hulan.

  But I can’t live without buzzin

  For Milena, Jazz was always Ludek Hulan, and Ludek Hulan was always jazz.

  Pennsylvania six five thousand!

  She recounted it rather often enough that sometimes I was saddened that I didn’t play the bass or any other instrument.

  I’ve got a sweety I know there, someone who sets me aglow there, gives me the sweetest hello there

  When she got to know me well, in greatest confidence Milena told me a story about Mr. B.

  At the very end of the war, Mr. B stole from some SS men an impressive amount of gold acquired by them when they melted Jewish teerth.

  The gold he had apparently buried in some distant forest.

  During the mushroom season he made his way there ot dig it up and saw off what was required for the entire year.

  Apparently her husband’s brother the priest wasn’t a vicar somewhere.

  He was a patient at a crazy house.

  And I was taking Mr. B to see him.

  -They brought a staff of Jewish hairdressers, cosmeticians, and doctors from the camps too, for the girls, Mr. B explained as we drove to visit his brother.

  -They brought me in to fix things, he continued, because I sprechen sie Deutsch. The girls came from everywhere. Even French and Norwegian girls, but no Gypsies, Russians or Jews.

  -The support staff didn’t rest in making the girls look like film stars, Mr. B explained. Even every two days the girls had their pussies shaven exactly, because the Germans maniacally feared disease carried by lice and other small insects.

  -That was an initiative of the SS number two, Mr. B went on, referring to Reinhard Haydrich, but not run by the SS, so the girls had a relatively better time. Escape from the island was practically impossible, so they were taken to the mansion by a rather symbolic escort. A standard eight-hour work day applied.

  For a long time we were blocked by some truck in front of us, which despite our faster speed would not let us pass.

  At last, against all rules of driving, while going up some hill I was able to get past him.

  Vindictively the trucker turned on his high beams.

  I saw Mr. B pleasuring himself.

  I didn’t understand any of this anymore.

  -For example, he went on, the German would check the firmness of the breast or the softness of the skin between the thighs. I almost fell clean off my ladder twice watching, never seen anything like it in my life!

  -When everything was okay, Mr. B continued, the ubermensch took the girl to a room upstairs, where a bidet was used again. The girls had to fulfill with no discussion even the strangest whims of the men. After all, eight hour work here was better than the camps.

  It was nearly morning on the way back and conversation didn’t form at all.

  I never believed Mr. B because everybody lied back then.

  The cracked bidets I found on the island made me think Mr. B was telling the truth.