The American Reporter Pt. 01

Helga launched out into the unknown.

"I wanted to come around the other week but I was afraid."

"Afraid of what?" Harriet started undoing her tie.

"Afraid you would find me boring," she watched the tie coming undone, "what is that English word that is the opposite of shining."

"Dull," Harriet let the tie dangle loosely about her neck and reached for the top button of her blouse, "but I do not find you dull, I find you interesting."

"Why?" Helga watched as Harriet undid the top button.

"Ah for that I would have to reveal one of my secrets," she undid the second button and then leaned her elbows on her knees, "women's secrets."

For a few seconds Helga's mind went blank and then she recalled Harriet's talk of an arrangement with her husband and the penny suddenly dropped. She stared at the other woman and felt suddenly self conscious. Had this woman been looking at her sexually? What had she done to attract this kind of attention from a woman?

"I am not," she exhaled but Harriet merely held out her palms and smiled.

"I did not say you were, I do not know you well enough but if you are to drop in on me like this then it is only right you know my orientation. The arrangement with my husband is a common one in the homosexual underworld. He has his male friends and I have my female friends, but legally we are husband and wife, I even have the marriage certificate in a frame on the wall back home," she leaned back against the chair and propped on her palm.

"I have a proposal for you," her eyes flickered to the photos, "spies exchange information and I propose we do the same, I will tell you something about me that I have not told anyone else and you will do the same."

Helga swallowed as she touched her throat.

"Information," she eventually spoke, "and what happens to this information?"

"It stays between us," she replied, "it is women's business, something we women have done for thousands of years. You need a friend and I need company," she shifted position and leaned forward to pick up her glass of water.

"It appears to me that you are a woman who hides behind a mask, I know a thing or two about masks because I have hidden behind them for years, for obvious reasons but it is lonely behind the mask. We all want to be loved for who we are, but we are afraid to tell the other person who we are because they may not like who we are and thus to avoid being abandoned we put on masks. Hitler and Chamberlain put on masks every day and I suspect they justify these masks to avoid the chaos if their people view them as weak or indecisive."

She drained the glass and then refilled it.

"I am taking a bath, alone," she rose and looked down at her, "you are welcome to stay here, make yourself at home and think of something you have not told anyone else," she took a step to one side, "I have already told you something I have told no one else," she nodded at the pictures, "you are the first person apart from me to see them."

Harriet turned and walked to the door on the other side of the room.

"If you want coffee, call downstairs, I have milk and sugar with mine."

And with that she was gone, leaving Helga staring at the pictures as she tried to process this situation that had changed in a matter of minutes. A lesbian friend? Helga frowned as she picked up the pictures and flicked through them slowly. She was certainly photogenic, she stopped a picture that had Harriet squatting on her haunches in front of an Arab boy, she had an orange in her hand and a smile nudged her lips.

And compassionate.

What she wouldn't give for compassion. The society she had come from was fast losing its grip on compassion and she closed her eyes to the memories as she fought the desire to just get up and leave this hotel room. Go home and pretend this never happened, she was not at the hotel room, she is away on business. Her husband would simply shrug and go back to those damn papers he brought home every night. Helmut seemed to spend as much time doing paperwork at home as he did at work and up until now she had not begrudged her position. But as she looked through the photographs she decided that if nothing else, it would be a relief to unburden herself without the risk of losing her marriage but what could she tell her that she hadn't told anyone else?

It came to her as she entered Harriet's bedroom some time later and a half smile nudged her lips as she recalled the woman.

"I once had intimate feelings for my teacher," she told Harriet some twenty minutes later as the Englishwoman came through dressed in a light coloured dress. She was halfway through buttoning the bodice when Helga came out with her confession.

"Oh," Harriet smiled, "and what was his name?"

"Gertrude," she blushed.

"Gertrude?" Harriet paused with her fingers on a button, "a woman? You had a crush on a woman?"

"I was young, sixteen years old and she was nearly twenty five. She did not know my feelings and I never told anyone."

"See that was easy," Harriet fastened the last couple of buttons, "how do you feel now that someone else knows?"

"Nervous," she confessed.

"Your secret is safe with me," Harriet squeezed her shoulder and then glanced out the window as the evening call to pray echoed across the neighbourhood.

"I have be getting home," Helga took a step back.

"Until tomorrow," Harriet leaned over and brushed her lips across her cheek, "come by at ten o'clock and I will show you something you have never seen."

Helga felt a slight tremor go through her as Harriet pulled back and then she was being led to the door and Harriet farewelled her again but as to what she was about to show her was a mystery and as she made her way downstairs Helga found herself smiling.

For the first time in years she felt alive.

To be continued...