Another Springtime Ch. 02

"What is it? What's wrong?"

She just shook her head and tried to turn away.

I wanted none of that, and took her hand and pulled her back to me. "Tell me, Christine, please. What is it?"

It seemed difficult for her to voice her thought. She hemmed and hawed, and her mouth worked as she tried. Finally she pulled on my sleeve for me to lean down to her so she could whisper in my ear – as if there were others nearby who might hear – "Can I be your pretty little vixen?"

Wow!

Friend, you have to have been there, done that to grasp what that can do to a fellow's heart! I was thrilled and pleased, and felt rewarded as no knight-in-shining-armor had ever been. Her eyes were alight with happiness mixed with a shy, questioning look.

"Young lady, you bring sunshine and flowers to my heart. You will, Christine, always bemy pretty little vixen!"

She seemed pleased at my response, took my arm as I offered it, and we strolled off to get us some breakfast.

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„Ich weiss es nicht. Was soll ich machen?" Her expression was rather subdued and even maybe a little discouraged. As she relaxed with me much of the confusion within her was slowly making its way to the surface. Her German was polished and her diction was clear and concise, and showed her schooling and personal values, though the delightful lilt of the Swiss-German was still quite evident, and even showed in her English. More to the point though, she was a child in many ways, certainly unprepared for the world into which circumstance now thoughtlessly tossed her.

I ventured a quick glance at her as we drove on. She sat bemused and gazing vacantly ahead and, it seemed, rather disconsolate.

„Auf mich können Sie sich verlassen." My intention was to reassure her and buoy her up before she sank into despair like before. She turned and looked up at me and I could sense her watching me. Her manner spoke too of her emotions. She was doubting herself, her situation, and gradually loosing her grip. "Darüber müßen Sie aber selbst zu einer Entscheidung kommen."

I glanced at her again. She was looking directly at me with a pitiable expression on her face. She was like a lost child; the expression in her eyes was complete despair. As I drove I was searching for some way to lighten things for her. "Wollen wir uns dützen vielleicht? Das mache wohl das Ganze etwas leichter, nicht wahr?"

German and other languages use an alternate form for "you" which signals to each speaker a more familiar, friendly, even intimate relationship. To introduce such between a man and a woman is always a significant step in the social structure „Die Bekanntschaft wird sicherlich... ja, die Freundschaft möchte ich das schon benennen... unsere Freundschaft wird sicherlich schon enger werden, oder?"

The silence was very noticeable and I thought at first she must have been trying to find some way to say "no" politely. Socially, in German, for an older man to open the door to the use of the more familiar form between himself and a young lady was a delicate thing and subject to much potential miscuing. We had known each other now only a few hours really, and the idea of shifting to the more familiar mode of address was yet for her with her traditional Swiss upbringing a serious matter. I understood this from my own experience in Europe and even found the matter academically interesting, though as an American, such formality had always seemed an arbitrary demarcation at best... and sometimes a needless impediment.

"I want to trust you," she said softly, almost inaudibly.

By her shifting to English, I was immediately aware, she was perhaps, consciously or otherwise, trying to bridge the cultural gap between us, which I judged a good sign. She had, however, by shifting, avoided responding to my invitation.

After a pause, considering what was transpiring between us and trying to understand, I glanced over at her again to find her lower lip trembling and big tears in her eyes. I decided to take the convenient off ramp and pulled over under some trees off the crossroad and stopped.

There seemed no simple way to do this, and certainly no time to ask permission as she seemed to be ready to break. I just took her lightly by the shoulders, turned her around on the seat and drew her gently into my arms, holding her like I had held my young daughter years ago when she had been frightened. I stroked the soft features of her face lightly with my fingertip to brush away the few wayward strands of her long hair from her eyes. She was quiet and watched me, a little tense and wary, I thought.

"Wie gesagt, meine Dame, du kannst dich auf mich verlaßen." Shifting back to German and using the more familiar address form I sought to reassure her.

An adult, her school proctors, for example, would have used the "du" form, the familiar form of "you," with her throughout school. I wanted to separate her from her "child/student" status and thus referred to her as "meine Dame" – effectively "Dear Lady" – a respectful but, more importantly, an unmistakably adult connotation. I felt myself in that moment almost as her father, and I wanted to get past that feeling as well. I whisked her tears away with a finger's soft touch and kissed her on the tip of her pretty nose. Ignoring her lingering anxiety I let my head lean back onto the seat back and hummed a few bars of a simple tune that popped into my head.

It was just magical to hold her in my arms. She was wonderfully soft and feminine, and I was very conscious of holding not only 'my daughter' but a delightfully sweet and beautiful young girl. Her vulnerability was obvious and I wanted to console and protect, and had to struggle to retain my focus on that intent, all the while humming softly whatever melody passed through my mind – and holding her in my arms like that all kinds of pleasant melodies paraded through my mind – and casting about to determine what else I might do to ease her burdens.

After a time the tension seemed to have drained away, and I looked down. Her countenance was peaceful, and her heavy lashes drooped prettily.

She had fallen asleep.

That she would have done that after the few moments I held her in my arms – well, maybe it was longer than that; I was in no hurry – suggested to me several things. Firstly, she clearly did trust me, perhaps only out of desperation and the absence of any other in her life... but she did, or else how could she slip off like that to such a peaceful slumber. Then, too, to drop off like that also suggested that she was not sleeping well at night. Her fear and anxiety was dominating her life at present, and since she had no evident way to escape, she must, I concluded, live night and day with her anxieties ever at her elbow, and was thus unable to rest. That she could so easily rest in my embrace was a good sign to me, I thought, a very good sign.