In order to shake the grasp of the night I applied myself harder to the oars, wondering what Nicolai's letter might contain. Would it reflect Verdi's Libera me?

      Eventually, as if a page had turned, I remembered another letter, Heather's letter of many years ago. It was from a time long before Nicolai came onto the scene. Heather's letter was one of those mementos that one treasures forever, which helps one to keep the precious times alive even if they were beset with great challenges that seemed insurmountable at first. Indeed, can anything be truly insurmountable that is rooted in love?

      I needed the change in focus that the remembering of those happier times promised. I clung to this promise.

      As the mood changed the requiem of Verdi became supplanted with memories of a beautiful and gentle world that was distant now in time, but near; that had been beautiful even in times of great trials. I could still see Heather's letter as if it lay before me and remember its contents.

      "You were asleep when I kissed you," Heather had written. "I kissed you gently, so as not to wake you. There might have been questions raised, followed by arguments. Or I might not have said anything and then suffered the consequences. That would have been unbearable. We would part in the middle of Pittsburgh, hurried by the traffic, a block from your home where I would not be welcome. My life would have stopped, dearest, while yours would have continued with your family and wife. Oh, what a crime is love for which we have been condemned to live in isolation?

      "I wish you could have shared this last kiss. If only there was a way that would allow us all to stay together the way we were. We were beautiful together. At least you were beautiful. I was proud of you and still am. Oh that it were possible for us to part with one last quiet embrace, gently, unhurried as our love had been. But even this seems to be denied to us. Why on Earth is it, Pete, that the most precious is so hard to hold on to?"

     

      I could still remember how I felt when I had first read those words. How angry I had been, not at her, but at myself for having been such a fool. I should have foreseen this, done something, anything.... But there I was with all my years of training as a diplomat, and with all the rich experiences I have had, and I could not move. I knew that I had lacked whatever was needed for our love to continue, or even for that final embrace to take place with joy before parting.

      I felt empty that day. I had failed. I stood dumbfounded, speechless. I had failed miserably. I cursed myself a thousand times afterwards, for this failing. Still, all of this had happened a long time ago. I could smile about it now. One thing puzzled me, however. Why did her letter come to mind at this time of trial, amidst a crisis that had the potential to be the deepest crisis in history? How distant those beautiful days were now, the days before the letter, as we now faced the reality of the giant hulk of the Typhoon that lay at anchor in front of our bay.

      To say that our situation was critical was an understatement. Everyone was at risk. The world had become radically different from what it had been in the days when Heather's letter was written. My memories of this precious time seemed like a dream now, of fairy tale worlds where everything is bright and wonderful, as fairy tales ought to be. And even in these fairy tale worlds, that we had convinced ourselves to be normal, our world had indeed been comparable to that of a fairy tale. All this stood now in contrast with the gray and black reality that the Typhoon represented, a different reality that we had learned to comprehend over the years and hadn't been able to escape from.

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Stories about  Sex from novels by Rolf A. F. Witzsche