“Would you like a cup of tea?” he managed to ask.
“That would be perfect,” Anna smiled back. He felt that this was a special occasion. To him, it seemed that even though she smiled at him it was a very serious situation. There was a strong earnestness behind her smile, and he felt he could connect to her through this earnestness. A genuine connection he had never experienced with anyone before.
When she left him half an hour later, he knew she would come to him again. And so she did. From that day onward, Anna came to his home every two or three days, but only through the week, never on weekends, because it was clear to both of them that the presence of other persons - Father or Thomas - would disturb the wonderful thing that they had now been building up between them. They didn’t know what this thing was, but it was good.
He saw her as his best friend. Whenever she arrived at his home and before she left, they embraced and re-lived that first embrace on the banks of the Elster. Sometimes they went for a walk, but they preferred to stay indoors in the grey house, where they were undisturbed, with his father being at the shop and his brother mostly away. Their embraces were a haven of tranquillity and well-being for both of them. They didn’t dare to exchange such intimacies on their walks, being wary of other people’s reactions, also feeling uncomfortable when others saw them, not only because they saw it as a violation of their intimacy but also because they wouldn’t have wanted anyone to tell their parents. Gera was a small town; many people knew their parents. Another reason for their preference of the indoors was the autumnal weather, which rendered their walks less comfortable.
This state of things continued for two months. They would usually meet at his home on two or three days of the week. They would embrace, they would look at each other, and they would talk. They talked about his mother, what she had meant to him, the meals she used to cook, the things she used to say, her sad moods, her failing health and about what a lovely person she was. They also talked about Anna’s family, about their sports activities, their plans for the future and their immediate duties in their respective youth organisations, Manfred in the Hitlerjugend and Anna in the Bund deutscher Mädel. Sometimes they discussed common friends, especially Wolfgang Löffel, and sometimes Thomas was briefly mentioned. Only very rarely would they discuss what was happening in public life, and both of them really hated politics, for which, however, they had to feign an interest at school and in their youth organisations. During this time, Manfred had mixed feelings about international politics. He had his particular problems understanding Germany’s relationship with England. During the past few months he had begun to like the English language, and he was fond of several British heroes, such as Isaac Newton, Charles Darwin or Lord Baden-Powell, different figures though they were. From his teachers, his mentors and his leaders, however, he had learnt a great deal about British treachery, about the atrocities committed in the English colonies, especially in the Caribbean and in India, and about the poor standard of living in Britain due to the Jews, who exploited the country and corrupted its people. When the news came about the Führer’s meeting with Neville Chamberlain, the British Prime Minister, in late September, Manfred and Anna discussed this development and agreed that now things would go well, there wouldn’t be a war - as some of their friends were saying - but Germany and England would agree on most things in international affairs, especially about the Fatherland’s rightful claims to the annexation of the Sudetenland, which they understood were the Czech border areas. So, after all, Manfred would be allowed to admire his British heroes and wouldn’t have to hate a country and its people that he really liked. That was a comforting thing.
One afternoon in October, as Anna was taking off her brown corduroy jacket, Manfred became aware of her fine womanly figure. And as they embraced he felt a new sensation creeping up within his whole being, a sensation he could hardly identify or control. Without realising what he was doing he began to move his hands up and down, along her figure, down her back to her buttocks and up again to the nape of her neck, all very gently. This caused her to move her body in a way that electrified him. She pressed herself to his body more than ever before, and because they were wearing their uniforms he could feel the soft but firm mounds of her breasts against his chest. A strong force was pulling his mouth towards hers. She turned her face to his and put up her lips in such a way as to invite him to kiss them. The moment his lips touched hers was absolutely magic. He realised he could feel her breath coming from her nostrils and caressing his cheeks while the touch of their lips remained unbelievably exquisite. Slowly she opened her lips, which made him open his, too, and so he carefully and very tenderly entered her mouth with his tongue. The softness and the wetness inside her mouth surprised and overwhelmed him. First slowly, then more eagerly, their tongues moved around and explored each other’s mouths, both treading on new territory for the first time in their young lives.
He pulled her down onto the sofa in the living-room, and she let herself be pulled down ever so gladly.
Sitting comfortably on the sofa, they could really lose themselves in their kissing, which lasted for centuries, they felt, but was still not enough when they gently pulled away from each other after a while. Manfred had the impression that his lips were feeling a bit numb after the long contact with hers, but he also felt a strange and hitherto unknown intoxication. They relaxed for a few minutes, their faces only millimetres from each other, each feeling the other’s warm breath very close. They couldn’t explain what was happening to them, but they wanted more of it.
When they took up their kissing again, he found it was even better than the first time. He felt more confident, and he could feel that she, too, was obviously more willing to continue for as long as he liked. After several minutes of kissing and imaginative exploration with their tongues, Manfred cradling Anna’s body in his right arm against the soft back of the sofa, he had a sudden urge to move his left hand down her front, and when his hand reached her right breast and felt its softness through the thin fabric of her blouse he thought he was the happiest man in the world. He cupped her breast and moved his hand around it, and all the while they kept up their kissing. Quite unexpectedly, he felt something harden at the tip of her breast, even though there had to be at least two layers of material between his hand and her skin, and at the same time a deep moan escaped her throat and she slightly widened the opening of her mouth without giving up their kissing.
He moved his hand up the front of her white blouse and slowly loosened her black neckerchief - he knew the girls called it their Fahrtentuch - and pulled it out of its brown leather knot, which wasn’t so easy with only one hand. Once the neckerchief was open, he could begin to unbutton her blouse, which he did with relish. For him this was an utterly new experience, which had an air of forbidden adventure and a very joyful element of revelation. He had never seen a girl or a woman take off her clothes, and up to this very moment he had never really wondered what girls looked like underneath their clothes - except in their silly fantasies as young boys, which had no connection with reality. But now, right now, he suddenly wanted to know, to see, to experience. He was too young to know the difference between sexual desire and mere curiosity, and he would probably never be fully capable of such a distinction. While he was so completely occupied with his own urge he was still slightly surprised that she allowed him to do all this. She even appeared to want it, too.
Once her blouse was open, a new world presented itself to him, and his hand stroked over the cotton fabric of her singlet or undershirt, he didn’t care what it was called, he only knew that now he could feel the softness of her breasts more directly. What absolute joy! With a bold move, he shifted his hand beneath this last layer and at last touched the velvet skin of her naked breasts, where he felt he could keep his hand forever and ever. He cupped the full roundness and could hardly believe that Anna had such unimaginable treasures hidden beneath her clothes. Now he also realised what
the hardness at the tip meant, he had a very strange feeling when he felt the hardness of her nipples, at the same time aware of the heaving movement of her entire upper body, the movement of her breathing, as well as her heartbeat.
They continued like this for a long time, until suddenly the mood changed. He felt that Anna wanted to put an end to their caresses even before she made the first move. Slowly they disentangled themselves from each other. She pulled down her singlet and began to button up her blouse, while he tried to recover from the overwhelming experience he had just gone through.
“I think we should stop here,” she breathed.
He wondered if he’d done anything wrong, but she smiled at him in such a blissful way that he was relieved. While she was busy buttoning up her blouse, she felt she had to give him some form of explanation to make things right. Not to leave him disappointed.
“You know, we should give it more time. It is really lovely with you, but I just feel we shouldn’t go any further.”
He nodded. However, at this point, probably neither of them knew what “further” there was for them, because it was all new territory, and neither of them had been told the facts of life by their parents. These things were never mentioned in those days in German society of the 1930s. All they could feel was that there had to be a “further” because they could feel it so strongly and almost overpoweringly in their bodies.
After another long kiss, fully dressed and ready for the outside world, they parted, and Anna left for her home. He offered to walk her home, but she declined.
“You should be at home when your father comes home, and I think I need to be alone after what we just had. I need to think.” After a pause she added: “And I want to live through it again in my mind. It was so beautiful.”
He closed the door behind her. The house was very quiet. He put his left hand to his face and tried to catch Anna’s scent on his palm. Nothing could be better.
Three
During the two days following his earth-rocking experience with Anna, Manfred walked on clouds. His whole being was so immersed in his memory of her, her being, her presence, the intimacy with her and the common experience of their bodies. He thought he could still feel her warm breath on his face and his hands could still be in close contact with the soft skin of her lovely body. In his mouth, he could still feel the touch of her tongue and his whole person shivered with the memory of everything that was her.
The nights were almost unbearable. The intensity of her presence in his mind was so overwhelming.
Why couldn’t they be together all the time? What was she doing or thinking at this very moment? Was she thinking of him, too? Were her feelings the same?
He came to admit to himself that this was probably what was generally understood when people talked about falling in love. If this assumption was right, Manfred could totally agree with the notion of “falling”, because he knew now that it was no use resisting what was happening, one was just drawn into it and it was indeed like falling into a new world. He couldn’t quite decide whether this new world was paradise or hell, because he was constantly drawn between the two extremes of either rejoicing in complete bliss over this newly-discovered love or sinking into utter despair over his dependence on her when she was not with him to give him the assurance of her love. He found he could hardly concentrate on his school work because his mind was not free. She occupied it completely and exclusively. Struggling with the enormity of his emotions, he suddenly remembered a poem that promised to give him some confidence now. It was a poem by Catullus, which he remembered from his Latin classes mainly for its brevity, but whose beauty and real meaning he was only now beginning to comprehend:
Odi et amo.
Quare id faciam fortasse requiris?
Nescio. Sed fieri sentio et excrucior.
At this moment, he couldn’t care less for the poem’s chiastic structure or any other theoretical facts that they had to study at school, but it was its meaning that caught him and made him remember it at all. How perfectly accurate this observation was! For Manfred, it caught the very essence of his present state. In the middle of the second night he got up from a troubled half-sleep and sat down at his small desk. He took a large sheet of paper and wrote the poem on it in beautiful large letters. It took him nearly an hour because he wanted it to look really good. Then he stood up and nailed the sheet on the wall above his bed. Back in bed, he looked up at it and wondered if it might not be even better if he had a good photograph of Anna that he could put up next to the Catullus poem. But then, Father and Thomas would discover his secret. They certainly had no idea of how far advanced he was in the love department. He decided to postpone this question and tried to go back to sleep.
It was hard to sit at his school desk and listen to what the teachers were telling them. He had to steal a glance over to where she was sitting. To his amazement and disappointment, she never looked back at him. This made him very uneasy after two days. So, on the third day he decided to seek her out after school and ask her about her feelings. But there was no need to seek her out, since she was already waiting for him just outside the schoolyard, behind the holly where they couldn’t be seen by everyone.
“Hello, Manfred,” she said, looking him in the eyes, “have you stopped liking me? Did I do anything wrong?”
“How can you say such a thing?”
“But you never called me after... you know what.”
“Oh, Anna! I’ve been thinking of you all the time, of you and of us. It was so wonderful with you. I was hoping to be with you again every day.”
“Were you?” She began to smile in a teasing way. She looked absolutely ravishing.
“Yes, of course. What were you thinking?”
“So, you really like me?”
“Oh, much more than like you.” He was looking for words. The magic word “love” would still require more courage than he could muster at this stage. It was on his tongue, but he decided to keep it for later. If and when they could be together again like they were the other day, then he might bring it up. He felt he had to hold her in his arms when he told her.
“Would you like me to come to your home again?” she slowly asked.
This was good news indeed. “Yes, of course, let’s go right now.”
As they were walking up the Galgenberg, she took his hand. The renewed touch of their skin was phenomenal, it gave him all the happiness and reassurance that he needed at this moment. Soon they were in the house again. This time he didn’t offer her a cup of tea, he couldn’t wait. Hardly had they taken off their jackets when he took her in his arms. Obviously, she was equally anxious to renew their intimacies, because he could feel how hard she pressed her whole body against his, and this time it was her tongue that eagerly entered his mouth first. His mouth received her gladly, and from this moment on it was clear to them that they were both willing and their love was mutual.
Their embraces, their kisses and their caresses became more passionate.
“Can’t we go to your room this time?” she whispered in his ear.
He was surprised and extremely excited over her initiative. But because he remembered her restraint of last time he asked her, “Are you sure?”
“Yes, I want to be in a place where nobody can detect or disturb us. Here, in the living-room, you never know... Your father or your brother might walk in any time. I would feel a lot safer in your room.”
He looked at her beautiful face for a few moments before he took her by her hand and led her up the creaking stairs to his room. They closed the door behind them, which immediately gave them a sense of never-before experienced intimacy. They sat down on his bed. She looked up at the wall.
“Oh, what made you put that up there?”
“Don’t you remember this poem? We had it in Latin, I think it was in February.”
“I was ill with m
y bronchitis for most of February.”
“Oh yes, of course. Well, you couldn’t be expected to catch up with everything that you’d missed. This is the short love poem that the Latin poet Gaius Valerius Catullus wrote for his mistress Lesbia.”
She read it out carefully, first stumbling over the elision in the second line, but she managed to get its meaning. Then they both remained silent for a few moments.
“It’s beautiful. And so full of a deep truth. Can’t we light a candle?” she suggested. “It would be so romantic, wouldn’t it?”
He stood up and found a thick red candle at the bottom of his desk drawer. It was already burned halfway down, but it still had many hours in it. When he’d lit it, the flame stood up to a nice size and gave the lovers the atmosphere that they required to make things perfect. When he sat down at her side again, she took his head between her hands, leant back and pulled him down with her until she was lying on his bedcover and he was halfway on top of her. Like this, they could kiss in a relaxed position for a very long time.
Naturally, his left hand began to explore her again. This time, she didn’t wear her BDM uniform but a dark red jumper with a thick grey skirt. It was easy to shift his hand underneath her jumper, then under her shirt. Her skin was soft and warm. While he was enjoying what his hand found, her kisses became more and more passionate. And when his hand finally reached her naked breasts and felt her hard nipples again she emitted a deep and long sigh.
“Oh, Manfred! I do love you so.”
So, she’d had the courage to utter the magic word first. He was so happy he could hardly believe this was really happening. But after her declaration, it was easy for him to respond in kind and tell her he loved her too.
White Lies Page 5
