"I think we should form a club," I said to her and began to laugh. "But what shall we call it? We can't call it the Flat Earth Society. That name has already been taken, though it would fit. I'm also certain that this club would have a wider membership today under this parameter, than the original Flat Earth Society had in the past."

      "Indeed it would," said Erica and began to gin. "That membership would include every man who dreams about honest, close, and intelligent associations with women, and women with men, the kind that we are not allowed to have. But who really prevents us from fulfilling our hopes, except ourselves? No one, I think. Still, we do it, Peter, and so we built more and more iron curtains. How silly of us! Except, is this process of isolating and dividing ourselves from one-another just silly, or is it infinitely tragic? Tell me Peter, will you ever be able to quit your membership in that club, and build for you an honest and close friendship relationship with other women?"

      I just shook my head. "I don't know Erica," I replied in an uncertain tone. "I may die dreaming that dream, trying to find a solution for it, without ever finding one. Of course, I am also a hypocrite, as you said we all are. If I ever had an honest to goodness real girlfriend with a close, even intimate relationship, I wouldn't know what to do. I have so little time left after work as it is, which I owe to my family."

      "Thus, love becomes a duty for us all, doesn't it?" said Erica. "But don't we have a paradox here? Love and duty negate each other. If you think in terms of duty, love is already put out of your sight. Also why does everything have to be quantified? Do you have any idea of how little time it takes to love a person? I fell in love once with a man in less than a minute. This minute gave me a fuzzy warm feeling that lasted for days. It brightened my life. Whenever we spoke afterwards, this fuzzy feeling was renewed. I think we were both affected that way. We were both in a tizzy."

      "But it did stop, I take it. Didn't it, Erica?"

      Erica nodded silently.

      "That's what I am afraid would inevitably happen in my case too," I said. "The truth is, I don't have the financial resources for a fantastic involvement with another person, like dinners, movies, theaters. I barely have enough left to take my own family to the movies, not to mention dinners and theaters. A junior diplomat is a gopher. That puts me at the lowest rank on the pay scale. I'm afraid Erica, love as we have defined it, will likely always remain a dream for this very reason, even if it might magically become a possibility."

      "And that is why it remains a dream," she interrupted me. "But why do you have to quantify everything?" she almost scolded me. "How much does it cost, Peter, to share a cup of coffee? And who says that you have to foot the bill? What about sharing the cost? What about accepting a gift if another is better provided for, financially, than you are? In my love affair, I paid for the coffee. I always did. I was the big income earner. It was natural to do that. Apart from that, it simply wasn't important who paid the bill. And what about going for walks? That costs absolutely nothing at all. Or what about spending an hour at the beach? That's what we did now and then. We were close enough to one-another that this was enough. This wonderful relationship lasted for almost two years. It wouldn't have ended if he hadn't been sent to the other end of the world and died there in one of those wars our country got dragged into, to support. Of course, this was in the days before Fritz came along. Nothing of that sort would be possible anymore."

      "But suppose it were possible, Erica. Wouldn't it enrich your marriage?" I said quietly. "If only obligation and duty rules, which take the place of love as you say, wouldn't your rediscovery of love outside of your marriage bring a new light and life into it, by flooding it with a new sense of love that apparently needs to be always renewed?"

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