Eventually I read on.

      "It is starting to get light outside," she had written. "The sky is overcast. I thought earlier that if I went jogging in the brisk morning air, some fresh new ideas might emerge that would somehow make it possible for us to remain together. It is beautiful outside in the stillness of the morning. You should try jogging some day. I love breathing the cold salty air, seeing the steam of my breath. I didn't run far, just to the tree where we had picnic yesterday. I sat down to listen. Do you know how loud the wind and the surf can be when one is alone and desperate? But no new ideas came.

      "If we had found gold together, the whole world would congratulate us, and be envious. Instead we found each other, something better, but this, the world despises. It is deemed treason. I can't change the way the world thinks.

      "I took my shoes off on the way back. It's great fun splashing through the surf. The water felt warm, warmer than the rain. Have you ever taken a moment to feel the rain run down your face? I looked into the sky until its cold flow ran down my neck in refreshing streams and thought of you, of us, of our love that can't be, and of this terrible agony of parting forever."



      Oh, how fragile those things are that we take for granted, I pondered, like the love that we fail to nurture day by day. We safeguard our worldly goods with the greatest care in steel vaults behind iron doors, locked by triple locks and bolts, but how do we safeguard our heavenly riches, our love, so that we will never loose them? Perhaps she felt the same way, as stupid and impotent as I did.



      "Every thought seemed to confirm what I feared," she had written, "that our paths must part, and that the parting must take place here at The Sand Castle. Here we are equal. Here, I don't feel expendable as I would feel stepping out of your car and your life a mere block from your home where I would not be welcome.

      "Do you remember that you woke briefly when I returned from my jogging, all drenched to the skin? You looked at me astonished and asked if I had had a good time. But before I could answer, you went right back to sleep. Maybe I should envy you for the simplicity of your style of living. To you the world is so uncomplicated, so luxuriously peaceful, a series of dreams as it were, of luxury cruises crammed with the customary social theatrics as people meet and touch briefly for some smiles and polite conversation, only to part again like strangers on a city sidewalk. Or, maybe you ought to envy me. Nothing ever came easily to me, except falling in love with you. I've heard it said that diplomats are trained to 'manage' their feelings in order that their hearts won't stand in the way on assignments. I wish you could at least for once be as troubled as I am, just for a day, and feel as alive as I feel because of it, although I still feel I have lived far too little and dreamed all too much. Still, I am infinitely lucky to have lived these days we have shared, and I will try to hold on to them now at all cost.

      "Can you remember our first day, how it all began, me standing at the roadside, dusty, burnt by the sun, thumbing a ride from you? What a sight I must have been! Still, you made me feel welcome. You were the most perfect gentlemen, and still are. Who but you would have cared during the drive later on that I was uncomfortable at being alone in a car with a strange man? You seemed relieved when you saw Tony by the wayside, the clean cut Air Force officer, also thumbing a ride of you. To respond to my feelings seemed important to you, so much so that you re-packed half of your luggage to make room for his. This is how I shall always remember you, as a sensitive and kind person.

      "The rain has stopped now. I better be on my way. If I possessed something that is of value, to give to you as a present, I would put it with this note for you to remember me by. But I have nothing. All I have is this branch of heather whose name I happen to share. Please remember me from time to time when you're alone. I wish you a happy life wherever it will take you."

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