In the morning we had breakfast en famille. A few hours later, I was driven to the airport, en famille, where we walked to the departure gate, en famille. At the gate we exchanged decorous farewells, and I walked on through it towards my plane. I looked back once, just in time to catch Ari also glancing back, looking just a little despairing whilst she was being firmly marched away, her husband holding one arm, her older daughter the other.
   My elation lasted all the way to England, but the nearer I got to Oxford, the more the absurdity of my predicament fought the song in my heart, until finally it was muffled by my fears.
   Mags was still in France, would only be back the next day, so I let myself into her flat and began to unpack, whilst beginning to realize that I was at all not sure that I would be able to explain what had happened - and, indeed, whether it could be explained by any reasonably sane adult; or, if I succeeded, how she would react.
   I sat down abruptly on the sofa bed that Mags had provided in her spare room, and clutched at my scalp. I was surprised that I should do this. It turns out to be an entirely natural action in trying to hold on to whirling thoughts.
   What the hell was I doing? I was just divorced. I was solvent, that was a major blessing; but I still had nowhere to live. My son, Alexander, was three. Ari's enchanting youngest daughter, Elle, was also three. This was their world too. Whatever we did would change their lives. My son's would be changed once again.
   Ari had told me that almost certainly Elle had been conceived during their first and only visit to London - 'the ugliest city', she added, that she had ever seen - and where she had thought to try to contact me through my parents' old telephone number. She had kept this for all those years, but her courage had failed her. If she had tried it, that number would not have worked; my parents had moved. But, what if she had found the right number and had found me? What were we both thinking about?
   Two idiots, then - with but a single thought. 'Hexe, dies war so dumm!' I had said. 'I know' she had replied. Humpty Dumpty fell off the wall/And all the King's horses/And all the King's men/Could never put Humpty together/Again.
   Thus it is that we are supposed to learn that certain decisions, certain events, do not permit revision. But what if Humpty is not smashed completely; what if he is only walking wounded; what if he can be repaired? After all this time? Be realistic, please! I clutched some more.
   Until now I had not allowed myself to think beyond the next month, if that. Before leaving Oxford my biggest problem had been solely to arrange to see Alexander regularly. Otherwise I had accepted that I was all washed up, finished. This was year null. Despite all my great ideas, I had actually accomplished nothing, nothing at all. And now, as if to further prove my total incompetence, before I had even sorted out the first fine mess I had created, I was preparing to create another.
   This was crazy! What exactly did Ari want? I did not know. Was she as confused, alarmed, and befogged as me? I did not know. She had told me that her husband had always known of my existence. I had been his rival once, although I never knew that, and he had once reproached her after they were married for looking into every British car they passed on the road looking for me. The poor man could never have imagined that one day I would suddenly appear again. But did he know - had he guessed, or had she told him - about her feelings now? How true, how real, were they? I did not know.
   In trying to see her again, I had nothing to lose. I had nothing to risk. But she had a great deal both to risk and to lose. I lay awake trying to make sense of it; but there were too many unknowns, too many complications, too many possibilities. As I decided that I must sleep, whatever happened now there would always remain one thing that no-one could take from me. I had found my love again: and she loved me. I had not been wrong after all.
   The next morning there was a letter from Mags on the doormat. 'My darling' it began - and finished, 'I look forward to hold you in my arms again.' Jesus! She must have posted it in France just a few days ago.
   That afternoon I drove to collect her from Heathrow. On the way home I told her what had happened. It never occurred to me to conceal it from her. I was fed-up with myself for always hiding my true feelings, for living always in this shadow land where even I could achieve a state of mind in which I did not know what was true or what was false. From the beginning in Scotland I had always been just as open with Dali. If either threw me out, I would be at least happier never to have told them any half-truths or lies.
   Typically, Mags took my report quite calmly. "Life," she would often console me, "is often inconclusive." It is certainly often untidy. Now, just as calmly, she proposed that I wait for Ari to write to me. Only then should I decide what to do. We had suddenly become conspirators.
   Whatever she might say by telephone, Ari could communicate more freely on a quickly written page, quickly sealed, and posted. Her letter arrived within a week. Unlike the nearly perfect but laborious English of first, it was in German. It only asked: how shall we meet again - and when?
   At this remove, I no longer know how we managed it at all. When Dali became aware of what was happening in her own part-lover's life, she was only concerned - but Dali could also hide her feelings well - that whatever I did should not prove disastrous for me. Was I absolutely sure that the company of this German woman - this ordinary Hausfrau - was what I truly wanted?
   "Listen," I replied, we were sitting together in her living room, "if I was told that to meet her again I would have to burn down Oxford, I would only say: Give me the matches."
   Dali blinked - and sat back. "Oh," she said. "That is bad." Dali had a proper reverence for Oxford. She may also have believed that I would do it.
   Within the next year Ari would tell me it was just as bad for her, that she was ready to leave her husband, and come to me. I said no. I have regretted this often. I mean, I wish it could have been achieved. But there was no other possible reply.
   It was not because I did not want it. It was because I knew she would be hurt; and I knew very well how bad this could be. I had not yet recovered from the collapse of my marriage. It had been bitter, angry, humbling, and degrading experience. If I had only lusted for her - this 'ordinary German Hausfroo' - if I had only desired her (for to my mind the first is more intense, the second, longer-lasting; but both purely selfish), my response could have been different. I might have been prepared to smash up everything for my sake no matter what the cost to her, to them, to him, to anything and everyone.
   But it was not like that. I loved her. This is very different, and my response was instinctive. Years later, I would be told by Arthur (whom you have not met): "If a friend asks you to help, you don't do what you think is right, you do what he thinks is right."
   And this is all very well, if it just a friend who asks you. It is not so well if you feel the other's pulse with your own. She should have my service. She should have my adoration and my duty. She should not suffer for my selfishness.
   To be honest, I never thought for a moment of any hurt that I might cause her husband. Good, kind, patient and honourable he obviously was, and always had been, to her. I could still look on him then as a hangman judging his weight, or as an assassin deciding where to place the knife. I would never hurt him: never wished deliberately to hurt him. But I would not let him stand in my way. I have little doubt that he felt much the same mixture of personal indifference and potential lethality towards me. There was no doubt that he was physically capable. All that kept us both in check was that we both loved the same woman: his wife. Ari was both the curb and spur.
   Now, some women will say that women of a certain kind are like this: that they like being fought for as a bitch is fought for by dogs.
   I am sure this is true, of certain women. I am also sure that Ari was not such a woman. I am sure that Ari, still a child, began to learn that her beauty could drive men to extremes. This amused her, naturally; flattered her, naturally. As she grew older she came to expect it; and, older still, to miss it, even grievously. But still it bored her
   Ari was still inwardly enough a child not to want to be loved for what is outside, but wanting instead - I suppose we all do - to be cherished for what is inside. Doesn't everyone yearn for loving arms to hold it close, a loving hand stroke its hair, a whisper that it is so very, very special; to make it giggle with secrets and stories and impossible ideas? I think it was really when I used to watch Ari - and particularly when watching her effect on others - that I began to ask myself what drew me to her other than her beauty. It was then I began to realize that we all have two identities: the social - the form and nature of the outer social being, which everyone can see and respond to; and the inner being, our intrinsic identity - which is hidden, reclusive, yet vital, and which even its possessor has to make an effort to find. I believe I discovered this in Ari. Saddest of all, is that I never make her believe it is not the same as her soul. Lutherans have especially dogmatic souls.
   Is it strange that I did not envy him whom she loved and married? I never have. Nor did I ever see him as a challenge; not at all. Ari had chosen him and loved him for all the qualities I could also perfectly well see and respect. He was the father of her children. He had been her companion through all the trials of nearly twenty years of marriage. I had very little doubt that he had always been faithful to her. He could never feel - nor did she ever claim - that he had failed her as a husband or father. He had not failed at all. He had done his best.
   On such grounds like these, I had no moral right to claim my own time with her. But I never pretended that I had a moral right. It was far more primitive. She was always mine.
   Yet this sense of possession was also not sexual. I had only recently learnt from Mags that really grown-up people do not confuse affection and desire. Dali had taught me how very deeply people can need sexual pleasure - but she, too, never confused giving or receiving it with possession.
   Even without their tutelage, I do not believe I would have felt that poisonous sting of sexual jealousy. In any case, it would have been pointless. It was Ari who told me once - all sweetly fearful, as if confessing to be unfaithful - that when he came to her bed she could never refuse her husband. "Of course, you must not," I reassured her, and I meant it. This had nothing to do with us or with me.
   All I needed was to know that she was near. This nearness, however, was not metrical at all. Of course, it was best if she was within reach. Ari's physical presence acted on me like a wonderfully exhilarating yet also calming drug. If I was in the same room with her, her smile would explode like a firework in my chest. The brush of her fingers was like a shock.    Her lightest touch I would feel for hours.
Her presence always made me feel complete. Just that: complete - in a way that no-one else does or can. Of course, I knew I could enjoy her physically. I did this lustily enough with Dali. It was Dali who taught me to be unashamed of lust. I could also enjoy her with the deep tenderness that I knew with Mags. Neither, however, would be a measure of this intimacy. Nor was distance important. This is what I meant is saying that the nearness was not metrical. She was always near. She is near to me now.
   I seem to have been different from Ari in this respect at least. Talking on the phone she once confessed some envy of Mags. I told her that my love for Mags did not affect my love for her. Later I learnt that she had tried to say the same to her husband, to no avail. "But," she insisted, "She has your Dasein!" And she was as close to fretful as I ever heard her.
   I should have left Ari with more room to be human. I made her out instead to be in every way perfect. Once when I was staying in her home, her brother - who I had known when he was doing his Army service; he was now a successful doctor - drove up from far in the south to see me. Late that night, as we prepared to sleep in what had been his parents' old room, both filled with good wine and renewed affection, I told him there had always been a question that I had wanted to ask him as her brother.
   "I always wanted to know," I addressed the bed in the darkness on other side of the room: "If Ari - do you think - do you believe - is she intelligent?"
   Back through the darkness came a deep-throated chuckle. "No-o! Not at all! She is just - impulsive!"
   He offered no other useful insights. Soon after imparting this one he began to snore.
   So, impulsive, was it? Impulsive she was. Impulsive she is. I still disagree about the rest. But her sudden offer to leave her family and come to me, to leave comfort, security, status and wealth to share a very uncertain future with a man without a home - this was courage too. It may be called temporary insanity, but most of the actions that we call courageous are also moments of insanity. This was a moment of courage and insanity which I still treasure. It was never offered again.
   For the first few years I don't believe that either of us felt any guilt in being together. It was pure compulsion. For me it was just as if that damned mirror had finally remembered what it was supposed to do. If I had had no money, I would have walked halfway to Berlin and camped in the woods to be near her.
   As it was, either destiny - or the mirror - was kinder, and such extreme exertions were not necessary. I had my teaching job. I was not short of cash. I even had, at least from time to time, numerous official reasons to be in Germany. Others, equally credible, I could create. All that was necessary was not to strain too much the trust or credulity of her family or her friends. She was also watched in her town as if she was royalty. I could be seen occasionally, not often. I could be familiar, not fond. I could attentive, not a pest.
   Given the need to work within such close parameters, it was perhaps entirely suitable that our first unofficial meeting was more of a comedy than romance. I would fly over on a Saturday, arriving in the afternoon. Ari would collect me, and take me directly to my hotel, but would have to leave me there at once. The next day she would come again in the morning. We would have a few hours together. She would drive me to a train station. I would vanish again.
   It was a long drive to the airport. We stopped on the way back and had tea together in a restaurant. We may have looked like a long married couple. For me it was more like my honeymoon. I had not slept properly for three days and I was as nervous inwardly as a bridegroom an hour from the altar.
   We first had to decide on language. Although Ari's English - faintly American in accent, as for nearly all Germans - was now nearly perfect, my German - with - long - pauses - no, no, nein - um, wait - more or less like that, was so slow and poor that it only made her wince. In our twenties I used to think that we must have communicated more by telepathy than speech. We decided that she should speak German, which I could nearly always understand; and I, English, which would be easier for her.
We were still like two youngsters on our first date. There was so much to say, so much to tell each other, of all that had happened, unimportant and important, in the past twenty years. She told me about her father. He had died ten years before; then her mother soon after. She missed them both. We laughed about the long walks her beloved Papa would take with me, whilst telling me all the time about the reasons for the War: reasons which I never understood German well enough to understand.
   I remembered how he had also made an offer to get me temporary employment in a tractor factory during some Army leave. I joked that by now I might have owned the factory. "But I suppose neither of your parents really wanted to see their daughter married to an Englishman."
   We were already holding hands. She shook her head very quickly, very hard. "No. They liked you, very much. It was me. I was afraid that you would take me away from them, and from here. And then, I could not trust you."
   This silenced me as if I had been shot through the heart. "Afterwards," I began, but then I had to pause, "I just didn't know what to do with myself." Very gently she stroked away the single tear running down my cheek. I was ashamed to show such weakness.
   In another hour we had reached the hotel and I had registered. Somewhat to my surprise Ari came up to my room with me. The place was vast, faintly Gothic, surrounded by woods, and appeared, but for us, to be completely empty. Later I learnt that this was exactly true. Most of the staff were on holiday. Ari had prevailed on its owners, to whom she was the daughter of an old friend, to accept one special guest, who required complete seclusion.
   In my room she stood for a moment as if thinking over some puzzle, then took off her coat. Before I could react, she had undone a few more buttons and her dress fell around her feet.
"Da bin ich," she said simply: 'There I am' - raised her arms and put them around my neck.

* * *

   There should be no other way to end this chapter but by a line of asterisks. In this case, however, such asterisks are not adequate. They would cause you to believe they conceal such breaking surf of passion, such an earthquake of desire and an avalanche of fulfilment, sweeping aside all restraint, that modesty compels me to deploy them.
   It was not quite like that.
There had already been that single tear of remembered misery just an hour before. This was nothing compared with the storm of joy that now burst forth as I held my loved one for the first time in my life, and in hers, in my arms completely. Her hair was around my face; her warmth, her scent, the smoothness of her skin -
   I knew what to do. Of course I knew what to do. Instead of that I now began to weep like a leaking bucket. Like two leaking buckets. No other simile will do. I shook so much and I wept so much with the joy of holding her that I wet her face and hair completely, whilst I could feel her laughing as well against my chest, and maybe some tears were hers.
   And then -
   And then -
   And then I fell asleep. I fell asleep so abruptly and so deeply, still holding her tight so that she would not escape from me again - that I was scarcely awakened when finally she decided that she had to struggle free. Then I lay back and watched her dress, holding a hair-grip in her teeth as she fixed her hair, then took up her coat again.
   "Á demain", she told me. She bent to kiss me swiftly, to touch my face, and was gone.

Colin Hannaford,

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