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"A person can't even dress up excitingly anymore," she grinned.
I am sure her reaction didn't reflect that these things hadn't happened before. We had been shot at in Cairo too, or were robbed in Rome. We had even been propositioned right in our hotel once, in Mexico City, both of us together. But it had never happened before that all of these things happened on the same day between breakfast and lunch. "The trouble is, one never gets used to being treated like dirt," she said to me.
Budapest, the week later, seemed to be safer. In a way it was. We were merely arrested there, under suspicion of espionage, dragged into a police cellar and questioned by 'revolutionary' guards. Some holiday this turned out to be. It became a trip back into history, to the mentality of the Third Reich!
During the interrogation I managed to get near to Wendy and staged a sobbing, emotional embrace.
"Close your eyes!" I whispered into her ear.
I held her as tightly as I could, then.... Zip!
"You may open your eyes now!" I said to her on Bohr's planet.
She blinked twice. "Hey is this place real, or am I dead and are dreaming this?"
I offered her a glass of wine from a bottle I had kept on our balcony for this very occasion.
"What do you think?" I asked her. "Is the wine real?"
She stood there dazed, sipped some of it, looked at me, and smiled; "That's out of this world!" she said.
"It's an Ehrenfelser from the Rheinland!" I said.
"It's real all right," she replied and grinned.
She just stood there for the longest time and then scanned the horizon. The beach always glowed. A lovely orange yellow filled the sky in the late afternoon sun.
"Would you like to join me for a swim?" I asked her.
"Right now?"
"This very minute!"
"I've got no bathing suite with me. I left it behind at the hotel!"
"No problem, I've got an assortment of them in the bedroom. But you don't need to use them, unless you want to!"
She didn't answer. Instead, she made herself comfortable in a lounge chair and closed her eyes.
Ah, this was my opportunity! Zip, splash!!! I relocated us right as we were, into the Ocean, in our Sunday finery.
"You fiend!" she shrieked and splashed me as fiercely as she was able.
Out of this developed a marvelous water fight!
Eventually we did take our clothes off and went swimming the proper way.
Suddenly she blushed. "What shall your three wives think if they saw us like that?" she said.
"Wives?" I repeated. "You already met them. You met Jill, Natalia, Cira. You had dinner with everyone on the day of the concert when Mahesh performed his special version of Bach.
She began to laugh.
"Friends, then," she added.
"I wouldn't call them friends, either," I said. "The term is so loaded with implied meanings and obligations."
She nodded slightly. I had the feeling that she was beginning to understand something. The only obligation that we found ourselves bound to, was the obligation to support each other in any way possible. That wasn't just friendship. It was an outpouring of love.
After we showered and dressed, we walked a long way down the beach and back again. Cira had dinner ready when we returned. Jill was home by then, and Natalia had gone and brought Mahesh and Alenaah. Even Olaf and Odessa were at our house when we returned. It was a surprise party, hastily arranged. I had a slight hunch that something was going on when I noticed Odessa's floating automobile that she was so fond of. It had been 'parked' out of the way behind the back of the house.
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