I
One winter in the city of M______, Russia, I joined a path threading through my life which changed me deeply, and led, by circuitous route, to a profound realisation.
Aged 21, I was spending a year there to improve my Russian skills and research a project for my final two semesters at university.
Life in M______ was bleak in winter. The hostel where I stayed was far from the city centre and every flat surface as far as the eye could see was caked in a thick layer of snow and ice. With grey and rusty buildings around and a cloudy sky in the few hours of daylight, the environment was not conducive to a happy frame of mind. But, as a determined young woman with an aggressive approach to all challenges, I vowed not to let the place get me down. If I had to live here in winter, then I would make every effort to make the days count. Besides, my room-mate, a snobby, mature student with high expectations and low morals, was getting on my nerves so much that if I couldn?t get out more, she?d end up frozen with my vegetables in bags on the 9nth story window ledge. So I began to actively contact people, whose names I had been given in case of emergency, in the hope of constructing a Russian circle of friends.
Word soon got around that a young, and not unattractive, English girl was offering free English lessons in return for outings with Russians of her age. After only two weeks of precocious phone calls and inviting myself to dinner at the flats of people I barely knew, I had managed to make enough of a good impression that I was contacted by a friend of a mutual acquaintance. In a thick Slavic accent, a man, seeming to be somewhere in his late thirties, asked me if I would be willing to meet concerning lessons. Quite excited at this first good news for many weeks, I readily agreed.
When we met in a small flat belonging to his mother, Sergey struck me as an unusual Russian. Not only was he good looking which, much to my and my girlfriends? chagrin, is a social role usually reserved for the women in Russia, but he was also very open and friendly. Somehow he had managed to avoid acquiring the surliness of other men his age. Perhaps his success as a businessman had something to do with it.
The conversation, which was lighthearted and mostly concerned my impressions of his home city, soon came around to the subject of tuition. It was agreed that we would meet in this very flat, once a week for two hours. Though I refused his offer of pay to begin with, his insistence eventually won over my politeness, and I was glad to accept his very generous offer.
Happy that I had met this man, through whom I hoped to make yet more useful contacts, and self confident after a long but passable conversation with him in Russian, I made my excuses and began to gather my things. Like all Russian men I had met, Sergey was not short of good manners and, having helped me on with my coat, offered me a lift to my hostel, which was on the way to the apartment where he lived during the week. Feeling that I was in safe hands, I ignored my parents? advice not to take lifts from strangers. After all, unpleasantness with him was only a risk, while unpleasantness in the sub-zero, black night was a certainty.
As we drove in his 4 x 4 to the hostel, he answered my question about what he did for a living. Quiet and unassuming though he was, Sergey turned out to be a self-made millionaire; one of many appearing since the collapse of the Soviet Union. As we drove up to the hostel?s iron-doored entrance, Sergey said something which I understood only later as meaning that he would like me to ?hang out? with his daughter too. On determining later what this offer had been, I was glad that he?d read my uncomprehending polite agreement as a keen desire to meet his daughter. Perhaps she would be the key to making new friends.
Just two days later, my mobile rang again, and a young girl speaking slightly better English than Sergey confirmed who I was and then gave me the nicest surprise of my stay so far. Sveta, as she turned out to be called, invited me that weekend to the family?s dacha on the outskirts of Moscow. Having spent three months in a place resembling an old, wrecked freezer, I instantly agreed and was even happier to realise that this weekend was the 25th of December, still over two weeks away from the Russian orthodox Christmas celebrated here.
Two days later, as I packed my bikini ready for the promised banya and the cleanest change of clothes I could find, not easy given the prehistoric washing facilities at the cockroach infested hostel, my odorous room mate asked me, ?So where are you off to? Back home or just for a night on the tiles??
Deciding not to snap at her, given that the remainder of my belongings would be in her care for the next three days I replied as innocently as possible, ?I?m just off to stay at a dacha with some friends.?
?A dacha?? she asked, failing to hide a snakelike hiss of derision that followed. ?Have you not noticed it is the middle of winter??
?Well of course,? I replied mildly, though my blood quickly came to the boil at this umpteenth snobby jibe. ?But the family is very rich and famous so I?m sure the caviar will be served in a nice, warm living room with big, comfy sofas.? Ha. That should shut you up. Only yesterday we discovered our only common point was the desire to relax in a sofa instead of on hard, short, 1960?s beds.
?Well, try and sneak out some caviar for me!? she cried, rising above it.
?Not unless I pick it off the floor,? I muttered under my breath and finished my packing in a hurry.
II
At five o?clock on Tuesday night a dark windowed jeep drew up opposite the entrance to the hostel and a young, Russian man with an unremarkable appearance but exquisite manners came to fetch me from the foyer. Business like in his brief introduction, my bag was lifted onto his rounded shoulders and I was escorted to the vehicle. He opened the near side passenger door and I slipped into the leather upholstered interior and the company of four other young people. In the driver?s seat sat a girl I immediately guessed to be Sveta. Her dark hair and the tint of olive in her skin reminded me of her father instantly. She smiled warmly, if slightly condescendingly and introduced herself and her travelling companions. Sharing the rear passenger seat with me was a couple locked in a tight embrace, looking at me with happy and interested faces. They too had heard that I was English and keenly practiced their greetings. In the front seat, making himself comfortable after having closed my door for me, was Andrey, the young man who had come to meet me. He smiled awkwardly, unsure of himself and a little unsettled by Sveta?s perhaps unusually sisterly interest in him. At Sveta?s warm introduction of him I guessed that he was perhaps meant for me, the single man who was, judging by Sveta?s manner with him, a former boyfriend who she was attempting to farm out to foreign, or any, fields. My expectations of a fun break in the countryside began to wilt in the bright light of the realisation that I would have to deal with this matter during my stay. I wouldn?t have minded, but despite his good manners, he was not at all my type.
Sveta angled the jeep away from the curb and we were on our way. I settled into my seat and enjoyed the feeling of fast motion above ground, my first for many weeks.
Thankfully, nobody tried to ask me too many of the usual ?get to know you? questions that the English would have already determined the answers to in full and frightening detail. Their polite and discreet observations of me, the odd remark about what I had seen or not seen already of the sites along our route, helped me to relax. I guessed that the questions would come later, when I felt ready to offer them answers. It seemed to me to be a very intuitive sense of respect for my privacy and well being. It made a nice change from the usual bombardment of where are you from? You married? Wanna marry me? that I had heard in the markets of many countries. The effect was pleasant. In just half and hour, I began to feel as if I were with old friends. The famous Russian hospitality (that was about all, I thought, that Russia had to offer the world) was being delivered by people who, had they been English and aged as they were, would have known my bra size, decided they didn?t like me or tried to seduce me by now. It was the beginning of a much needed break from the catty corridors of the hostel. After a stop for groceries at the usual suspect and semi-permanent looking ?supermarket? we joined the motorway heading south from M_________.
III
Soon we left the highway, and after a short trip down roads that resembled half-pipes of ice and snow surrounded by houses in a myriad of styles, we eventually stopped outside a high, opaque, iron gate. Andrey jumped from the jeep and doubled to press the intercom. I understood little of what I heard except the phrase ?hold the dogs?. After a few seconds the gate began to slide on metal casters and revealed a wide driveway ahead with a portico of heavy timber reaching down from the left and draped in vicious looking icicles. But what caught my eye, and remains to this day as clear in my memory as it was at that moment, was the sight of a handsome man standing near the open garage door to the right. He wore an old, torn and dirty shooting coat sprinkled with flakes of birch bark and at his sides stood two dogs that resembled more hell hounds than family pets. Clouds of panting breath raised from mouths just big enough for a human head and were blown by a gentle breeze to form crystal coats on mottled fir. They stood level at the shoulder with the stranger?s waist and the thick hemispheres of their heads hid his hands as he grasped at the napes of their necks. They, the dogs and the stranger, had one thing in common. They shared a confident expression devoid of mercy yet capable of care.
As I stepped from the jeep, the larger of the two beasts growled deeply and took a step towards me. ?Karoll? snapped the stranger and the dog desisted, but only after a meaningful look over his shoulder.
I smirked at the name. It was fitting. ?Hello King,? I said as I took a step towards him but a deep rumble of thunder drew me up short. ?Give him a while to get used to you,? said the stranger in accomplished BBC English. I didn?t have to be asked twice.
?You speak English well,? I replied and at that moment our eyes met for the first time. Close up he was stunning and had a magnetism that defied the cold. When he smiled at my nervous approach, wrinkles shot from the corners of his eyes, and a row of white teeth, not quite straight or crooked, flashed in genuine affirmation of an instant mutual attraction. My doubts about a weekend with strangers were dashed by the thought of an hour spent with him. All this in a second, for he answered my comment with a simple, ?Yes.? His face glowed with a sense of pride at my having noticed one of many talents. He introduced himself evenly.
I could tell by his ease that he was not a single man. And though this was not yet confirmed to me, I admit it acted on me in a way time honoured amongst my peers. I was hooked.
?My name is Peter,? he said matter of factly. Make yourself at home and I?ll join you shortly. He nodded to a shoulder of meat and an axe lying in the compacted snow by the garage door.
?Don?t lose an arm,? I grinned at him and tried to summon my most winning smile.
?To the axe or to the dogs?? he asked. Again I smiled and walked away. His eyes bored momentarily through my long, wool coat. But not long enough. I joined the others at the portico steps.
The next hour was spent looking over the dacha in Peter?s absence. I know it was an hour because I was watching the clock. The dacha was vast, with a living room fit for any mansion, and decorated in good taste. A split level floor allowed for a cozy fire side sitting room within the vast central hall. Above this, up near the foot-thick rafters was a mezzanine floor that housed a gym and doors to two bedrooms. After a short tour of the two private wings of the house left to the owners, accompanied by the compliments of the Russians who had not been here before, the group made its way to the kitchen. It was here, as I still soaked in the prophylactic beauty of my surroundings, that the luxury really began.
IV
We met Christmas Eve in a low, fire lit enclosure, sipping French champagne between jokes and confessions. The atmosphere simmered with pleasures of money and the sophistication of young people shrouded in success.
Only one thing was wrong. The stranger, who had showered and dressed in expensive looking, chic black jeans and thin black polo-neck sweater, reclined in a deep leather chair with Sveta curled up luxurious and happy in his arms. They had the easy manner of a couple who had been teenage sweethearts but his attention was uncomfortably trained on me.
?So is it true,? he asked, ?that the British are such lackeys to America?? ?Will Britain ever build a special relationship with us??
I tried to answer intelligently, but the French champagne filtered the sense from my analysis. Nonetheless, Peter seemed engaged. Not a word passed between he and Sveta while I was in the room. I wondered whether she merely pretended not to be interested in our banter. Despite his abruptness, I found myself laughing at Peter?s observations and noticed with pride his interest in mine.
As the hour grew late, the warmth of the fire spinning in the dark drew my conscience into blackness.
V
The second day I awoke in a rested and disheveled array. I lay with my hair tangled amongst my fingers in a bed of deep and motherly comfort. I was still fully dressed but minus my shoes and my bra, under my crinkled, red, low cut top, was unclasped. I wondered who had taken the trouble to make me comfortable. A pang of excitement at sexual proximity inexplicably struck me. Perhaps it was him?
I rose, opened the bedroom door and looked out onto the gym mezzanine. Stepping out, I noted my suitor, Andrey, engulfed in duvet, stretched out on the sofa in the hall below. His bottom lip shone with dribble as it grew towards his chin. ?No way,? was my internal assessment. Peter and Sveta were nowhere to be seen. I slipped down the steep, wooden steps, paced quietly through the living room and made my way towards voices in the kitchen.
?Merry Christmas!? met me as I slipped through the open door. Sveta and the young, it seemed married, couple were sitting at the large solid wood dining table and greeted me with broad grins. ?Did you sleep well?? asked Sveta, indicating that I should join them.
?Perfectly. It was so nice to sleep in a normal size bed.? I smiled and gratefully acknowledged a proffered plate.
?Will you have pancakes?? asked Sveta?s young, married girlfriend and I agreed readily.
?Help yourself,? she said and moved a plate of the small white blini within reach.
?Try it with caviar,? suggested Sveta and placed a naughtily large container of black caviar beside me. I liked the feel of being rich even before I knew the taste. I spread a modest half teaspoon on the greasy looking pancake.
?Please, don?t be shy,? said Sveta. ?There are plenty more tubs in the fridge.? She dipped a table spoon in the black goo and spread it liberally on a piece of black bread. I relaxed and enjoyed a hundred dollar breakfast.
The day passed happily. Snow ball fights, a walk in the village, champagne on tap and much jovial banter. But I could not say I relaxed. All day I tried to show my best side to a keenly observing Peter. He seemed to be watching with some aim in mind, his eyes only leaving me when the group or good manners demanded his attention else where.
Despite the careful watch, his comments to me were confined to a few wry remarks about the events of the day and their relation to the world. We wondered at the modern meaning of Christmas.
?I read somewhere,? he said, ?that in one of the great wars with the fascists, British troops held a truce and played football with them on Christmas day. Strange isn?t it, to play a game one day and harm each other the next??
?Not unlike having an affair,? I noted. Our eyes met for a moment. ?Anyway, it makes a nice change for religion to cause peace and unity.? Peter nodded and smiled. It was unclear whether or not he agreed.
In the afternoon we relaxed before a television big enough to display scores in a stadium. The men disappeared to do man?s work, as the Russians considered it. In their absence, the girls addressed the issues of the world, their immediate world.
?So, what do you think of Andrusha?? enquired Sveta of me. ?He?s terribly talented and I think he likes you.?
?He seems very nice. I?m sure my boyfriend would like him too.?
?Is your boyfriend back in England?? she persisted.
?No, he?s travelling in the Middle East. He?s a photo journalist.? I withheld the history of my relationship with John; the uncertainty of our future, the drifting apart as continents divided us for the second year running, the life left in limbo. To escape an awkward moment with Andrey here, perhaps today, was about as useful as my lover had become to me.
There was a commotion at the door as the men folk burst into the hall way from the cold, laughing and wrestling like school boys at play time.
?The Banya is ready!? they cried.
As we made our way along a narrow, winding path trodden down in the deep snow, the boys launched fire works up through the silent canopy of deathly still trees. Flashes and explosions rent the silence of the night asunder and the barks of the guard dogs in every house for miles began to ring out into the sharp evening air. A few hundred yards from the main house stood our destination, a small house I would have been happy and proud to call my home. Up more solid steps carved from great beams of pine and we entered the hall of the banya house.
?We?ll change first and the boys can join us later,? suggested Sveta and all agreed. A fire was lit in the reception room, wine was opened, a mutated looking smoked fish was slung onto a work surface and the female contingent went to change into togas that had been warmed by the fire. My bikini was left unemployed. As artfully as I could I adorned myself with the pure white, cotton wrap and tried to peak the felt cap into something less gnome like. A slight tilt and it complimented the silky fall of my shoulders, the tiny ginger mole in the crook of my elbow. I felt confident in my one physical asset of worth. Since youth I had been perfectly proportioned, a mix of hard work and good fortune that gave me the ideal figure of dreams. I was proud of my reflection but wished my face were rounder, like the Russians.
Lithe bodies skipped in the chill to the heat of the banya and we slipped inside through a wall of humid comfort. Soon the boys joined us in robes casually wrapped around waists. Peter?s body was the most impressive, if I didn?t count that of the exotic young bride with whom I had shared the changing room.
The proximity of flesh, the accidental, or were they deliberate, flashes of nakedness meant only for lovers and nudists to see mixed with the steam to arouse the group. But the shyness of Andrusha in his uncertain interest in me and the stereotype of English reserve kept the air of expectation corralled. I contented myself with sly looks at the glistening beads of sweat on the smooth tanned skin of my companions. And all the while, as the vicious swipes and delicious tea aroma of birch bark lashed on flesh mingled in the gathering steam, he watched me. My romantic interest in Peter, for the next three hours of hot and cold extremes, was to be reciprocated.
VI
As the night drew on, the banya was abandoned for the house once more. My body was limp with the fatigue of unnatural climates endured but I was happy and rested and drifted once more into contented sleep.
On the morning of the third day Peter finally separated himself from the crowd and joined me as I watched a Hollywood comedy on American satellite television. He flopped lazily into a chair by my side, asked me to explain a few phrases he had misunderstood and nodded his head companionably in my direction. We laughed together and he said, ?If you give me your mobile number, we could meet again and I?ll could show you the city.?
?Oh, I would like that very much,? I replied and the deal was finally done.
VII
The promised phone call came after a measured three-day delay. Peter was no fool in this game. He had caught me as my desire to hear from him won out against self doubt and the resolution not to care or wait for his call. We agreed to meet at a cafe he supposed I would like.
?You look beautiful,? said Peter, waving a hand to a waitress with a figure I would kill for.
?Who, me?? I replied, indicating her, who was now bringing a tray to our table. Peter smiled and asked what I would like.
?Since we are going to the gallery,? I replied, ?I?ll have green tea to liven my senses.? He gave our order in a brusque manner that would have earned him tea in his lap had she not been Russian, or perhaps American. I voiced this observation in solidarity with the young, full lipped and silent comrade in ear shot but Peter was unmoved. ?It is normal,? he said shortly and changed the subject.
For half an hour we talked about life. Peter showed an active interested in my more adventurous exploits, and spoke to me as if I were of a similar intellectual mould. I tried hard to say nothing foolish, but was outgunned by the magnitude of his factual knowledge and the enthusiasm of his political and cultural interests. Well read and good looking, a master of a second language and with the faint arrogance attractive to all women like me, Peter effortlessly entangled me. My respect for him as a great mind grew with each new revelation of the depth of his knowledge and understanding. He was quite literally washing my barriers away. But before things could go too far and while I began to imagine his lips on mine, he looked at his watch and suggested we make for the gallery. He was pushed for time.
Peter knew his art, his history - his seduction. All but the most somber, dry facts were sprinkled with cynical, comedy relief. As we drifted through the great catacombs of masterpieces, our footsteps on the worn parquet flooring echoed in the high ceilings and joined the chorus of our fellow patrons? footfalls and murmuring.
Well fed, thoroughbred faces with tiny eyes and a lack of elegance out of sorts with the glamour of the age looked down upon us from portrait after portrait. Flowers, vases, nymphs and pheasants, glowing bodies and bloody battles accompanied a dance that I could not but step. I laughed with him, and mourned with him, wondered with him, and marvelled with him. But as our hour drew too quickly to a close, I wondered if I?d done these things with him or because of him. He indicated the exit and we made our way to collect our coats.
?Listen,? he said, as we dressed in the arched, basement cloakroom, ?Let?s keep this between us, okay? We?ve done nothing wrong, but Sveta would get jealous if she knew I?d seen you and I prefer to spare her the trouble.?
?Of course,? I agreed and Sveta lost my loyalty before I?d even uttered the second syllable. ?I have Sergey to think of, too.? Peter kissed my cheek and left me there. Not a word passed his lips about another rendezvous. But I did not doubt there would be one.
As the last blossom of spring gave way to the throbbing heat of summer and the sun?s rays lighted the exodus to the surrounding countryside, M_______ poured out its great population and was left a cavernous, almost empty vessel. But Peter did not leave. He was trapped by a desire to win me.
We met in time honoured tradition, in the centres of grand, old metro platforms where marble columns and vast, ornate frescos looked down upon us and reflected the beauty in our feelings. The first moments of those meetings were always quite daring, for Peter explained how Sveta may have him followed. I doubted this, but luxuriated in the hint of danger that spiced our time together. The air of espionage was playing in our realm.
One day, having followed Peter at a distance up and down a platform, he signalled to me that all was well and I loped up to kiss him on both cheeks. Walking in the noisy tree lined boulevard and stifled by fumes and a merciless glare I stopped suddenly and turned to him. Breaking the easy silence that had developed between us as we mused the moral dilemma of sealing the affair, I spoke in airy, good humour, ?What a shame that Sveta won?t have me at the dacha. Here we are sneaking about with nothing to hide but a friendship she is jealous of and thinks she prevents.?
?It is sad,? replied Peter but his face told another story. He hesitated, took a tentative step towards me and slowly leaned to kiss me on the lips. Espionage forgotten, I returned the gesture willingly. His arms slipped around my waist, he pulled me tight against his body, he murmured sweet nothings like gusts of wind that bent willow in the beginnings of a storm. The dam was breached and the innocence of our friendship slaughtered in the dust. Yet the kiss was only momentary and as he looked at me with keen, triumphant eyes, I knew it would be our last.
?I can?t,? I whispered. ?Sergey has been too kind to me. I won?t betray him. I?m sorry.? My concern for Peter?s feelings was misplaced. He grinned.
?You kiss well,? he said in distracted Russian. ?You too,? I lied in kind. I had kissed a friend, not a lover.
VIII
I saw Peter only once more, in a fleeting moment we had prearranged but to which he came looking sick to the gills and in need of bed rest. A phone call came as we rested on a bench by a fountain in the city and with an uncharacteristic blunder, he had told his love his location. I noted the mistake when he hung up the phone and released me from a tense silence. He swore, made his excuses and left, sweeping down long steps from one inferno to another. He did not look back and this simple thing cut me.
Six months we had met and shared the most intimate of secrets, but the flower of our romantic and almost innocent unity had withered in the sun. And looking back on many happy hours with him, I realised the sun had been his own, a bright light shining in the gloom of my life in a land far removed from my home.
After several weeks my mobile began to ring and even before I looked I knew it was him.
?She knows everything,? he whispered to me. ?I can?t see you again. You are wonderful but I can?t imagine anyone could love me as much as she does. I have a good life with her. I can?t risk all that I have. I?m sorry. Good bye.?
For all its fine plumage and beautiful song, the bird had been too dependent to quit its gilded cage.
IIX
For several months I quite literally suffered the consequences of my relationship with Peter. For I had not realised how much in love with him I had become until the time when he was no longer just a phone call away. The feelings I had sniggered at as childish and weak when I heard them described by others soon became my companions. I ached for him in my body and in my mind.
Beauty went unnoticed as I passed by its rare spectres. The dust of the streets seemed to blind me in my suffering. I could hardly move at all, trapped and broken inside the wrecked and ruined palace of love, which for all I knew, had only been built with his farewell words whispered.
Contrary to the songs that drifted to me is the now almost deserted hostel corridors, it was not the night time that was most lonely. The quiet of the night, and the sleep my body craved as it suffered these heart broken rigors, were blessed relief from the real loneliness of the days. In the waking hours the bustle and fun of those not so afflicted were a bitter twist. At night I could not suffer the racing heart and disappointment that maybe, just maybe I had seen him near me on a train or walking in the gloomy labyrinth of M_______. The night was blessed relief for I knew, though I did not believe, that tomorrow may be the beginning of my recovery.
IX
Time passed. Slowly I began to regain my interest in the world of the living. And when the nights at last became more lonely than the days, I realised that I had recovered.
At last, after two years of shying away from the advances of many men, and, I do not doubt, discouraging many more with the depth of my mourning, I accepted an invitation to dinner. He was handsome, but not like Peter and that is the limit of their similarities.
His unself-concious humour, his kindness and patience, his strength and masculinity were everything my mind told me I needed. He gave me fresh hope and, like the tide that subsides the towering cliffs or the sun that disrobed the traveller, he won my heart also. We married in the spring at home in England for he was English too. And although I often wondered about the path I had abandoned, the adventure of life with a foreign man, I never regretted my decision. For there was much to say for the understanding we shared as birds of the same cultural feather.
And today my feelings were confirmed. Wandering a quiet lunch hour in the cool of a gallery where great iron horsemen stood guard over Herculean, alabaster sculptures, the ghost of my past sent a shiver down my spine. Had I seen him? The question was almost a prayer that I had not. But it was a prayer, like many, in vain. The way he walked, even though his back was to me, was as familiar as the faces of my children. After all those false alarms in the depths of the metro and in cafes we used to frequent, somewhere deep inside I knew it was him at last. I followed at a distance as he made his way through the gallery rooms until he reached his favourite old exhibition. I remembered our coming here together and I knew where I?d catch him in an innocent coincidence.
I made my way and waited coolly. Thoughts of my family flitted in my mind. But this was not betrayal. It was...necessary. Before long his poised figure stood beside me. From the corner of my eye I noted him eyeing me, searching his archives for the name to match the face. In valour, I decided to help him and not risk discretion forcing his retreat.
?Hello,? I said, summoning a smile that was crippled by my awkwardness. He turned and smiled at me, then feigned surprise at this chance meeting. He, not having changed much, wasted no time with empty questions. Just like our first meeting all those years ago, he spoke as if we had met ten minutes before.
?Remember how you joked that since her head would be on display here for decades she was lucky to be mummified with earrings and necklace??
?I still think so, too.? Now my smile was full and genuine. ?How are you??
?I am very well; still with Sveta. Life has been good to your figure.?
I smiled, but his compliment failed to flatter me. I had become a lover of more gentle things. He had faded and now lingered on in cold shadows; afraid to be free in the tempest of life. The boy whose self-confidence and good looks had once seduced me was a boy to be loved in the dawn. While for me the sun had risen and blessed me with her warmth.
