I stood up and went for a swim, as others did. There was a wide sandy beach at the lake. The people I met were easy going, friendly. They joked, laughed, and greeted each other. After my swim I simply stretched myself onto my blanket on the lawn behind the beach to dry off.

      "Hello, Gertrude!" someone called.

      One of the boys next to me sat up. I noticed a girl by the edge of the water; she waved at him and came over for a chat. She stood in front of him and his friend and me, naked as she was. The boys didn't bother getting up. It didn't seem expected. They were comfortable where they were, and she remained standing. The conversation strayed over many topics, from university plans to the boy's parents, the weather, and the beach. The girl said that she came to the beach often and wished her mother would come, too. "I'm sure she would love it here."

      "Oh, if my mother saw me like this, looking at you," said one of the boys, "I can't imagine what she would say!" He began to laugh.

      "Your parents would die worrying about what the public and their precious scholars might think," said the other. "Can you imagine, the gossip, the great Emil Schwarz and his wife coming here? Can you imagine what this would do to the University and his illustrious career?"

      The girl smiled, "it would take all the starch out of it." She burst into laughter before she had finished the sentence.

      "Hey, it isn't fair to joke about that," said the older boy.

      "No, what isn't fair is that people can be so small-minded, and cruel, and get away with it," replied the other.

      "And be so religious about it," added the girl.

      The boys agreed.

      She was a beautiful girl, exciting to look at. After a while she went on her way and the boys put their heads down and dozed as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened. To me, it was unbelievable that it had happened at all. It was honest, open, and unpretentious.

      I closed my eyes for a short snooze, comfortable and satisfied, enjoying the sun. There was something healthy and natural about the way these kids related to one-another.

      A while later I went swimming again and followed it up with a long walk around the rest of the beach looking for Ursula Fleischer; someone tall, slender, with hair "almost red" and breasts not too big, as the man had said. I could see at least a dozen contenders. Since this was the holiday season, there was quite a crowd at the beach. I wondered how best to begin my search. I couldn't just ask: "Verzeihen Sie bitte, sind Sie Ursula Fleischer?"

      But what else could I do? There was no official etiquette established for such a situation. Diplomacy covered only 'starched' situations, the games where you operate from known backgrounds and stereotyped behavior patterns that you have studied in depth. In a chess game you know exactly how the figures move. But there was no game played at this beach, or at least not one which rules I understood. So I just sat there and enjoyed the day, studying the game that wasn't a game, and swam, slept some, walked around, enjoyed the view. After sunset I got dressed again, rolled up my blanket and journeyed back to the Micra.

      The day's entry in the log read: "Ten hour search at Kolkwitzer See, to locate Ursula Fleischer. Unsuccessful!"

      The next day I tried again, with equally little success. By midday I must have asked at least a dozen girls, from the far end of the beach all the way to the life guard office, "Verzeihen Sie bitte, sind Sie Ursula Fleischer?"

      It was quite frustrating in a way. Also, I got more than one curious reaction.

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