She began to laugh, interrupting me. "I am not putting myself at risk. I think I can trust you, and you can trust me. I'm not trying to corrupt a foreign diplomat." She intertwined her arm with mine as we walked. "I watched you and the professor. I watched your face, your reaction. You didn't quite believe the professor, but you listen to him. You listened to him out of respect. That's what I think. You listened to his entire story. I know his story by heart. Nor were you the first to leave, as you might have out of disgust. The professor left first."

      "So you feel the same way, that his story isn't totally true," I said. "It made sense to me to a point, Helen."

      "Oh it's technically correct," she replied, "but too much is missing. There is no love in what he says. There is something spiritually lacking. I could sense that you understood this. I could sense your sadness." She laughed. "But now it is your turn to answer me," she said. "Why are you following me so freely? Why do you allow yourself to follow me and put yourself at risk with your wife? Is it really love-pains?"

      I nodded. "The answer is both yes and no. There shouldn't be any love pain," I replied. "I have been all day with a most wonderful woman. I met her at the Kolkwitzer Lake nudist beach. We had dinner together. We had danced. We also had the most deep reaching conversations. In the end, however, she couldn't bring herself to take that final step in being close to each other. She barely allowed me to drive her home. We never touched each other sexually. She is afraid that we might. You are right. Marriage is at the center of that. That's why she won't allow me to meet her again. She is afraid to hurt her husband. That's the very thing that puzzled you about me. And to be honest, I am glad for the same reason that she drew that line in the sand. I also think she really wanted to take that next step. So did I. She spoke about living our life as being in a flower garden with a vast profusion of beautiful shapes, colors, and fragrance all around us. She evidently also sees herself forcefully isolated, almost forced to look at just one of them, as if life needs to be narrow, confined, without the liberty to love fully. I think my love pain is more her pain. Can you understand what I am saying? Do I make sense?"

      Helen stopped and kissed me briefly as if to make up for that pain, and she did so with a wonderful smile that seemed brighter than Erica's had been. "Your friend is as wrong about her flower garden as the professor is about politics," said Helen while we continued walking. "However, I didn't ask you about your friend. I asked you about yourself. Why do you allow yourself to follow me? Isn't there some inkling deep in your heart telling you that what you're doing is wrong?"

      I nodded. "I think this inkling is wrong," I said quietly. "I think what I am doing is right."

      "Why Peter? Why is it right?"

      I didn't know how to answer that. "Why shouldn't it be right?" I said. "You are a human being as much as I am. You look the same, except you're prettier than I. You speak the same language, have the same wonderful human concerns, the same feelings as a person, and intelligence that I admire, which makes us so special as human being. Why shouldn't I embrace that? Also you talk about love, a subject that is dear to my heart. The fact is Helen, it appears to me now that you make me look deep into myself that we are more deeply and profoundly married to each other by what unites us on this platform of truth, than by the marriage division that would isolate us. Why should I not respond to such a beautiful human invitation as you have extended? We are not enemies, you and I. Just look at us, we could be brothers and sisters. Actually we are this, and in a more truthful sense than people who regard themselves merely biologically related. So why shouldn't I respond to my sister when she offers to share a few insights about the nature of love? I think what you are offering is the most natural thing in the world. Nevertheless, the voice within keeps nagging, saying this is wrong. To hell with it! What I am doing is right. The truth is the truth. We are two human beings and I admire you for it. That is the truth. Maybe that is where love begins, Helen. Anyway, does that answer your question?"

Next Page

|| - page index - || - chapter index - || - Exit - ||

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