The Rabbit Girls(16)

‘I’m sorry your parents are being difficult, it must be hard for you,’ I said, trying to turn the focus away from myself.

‘I think they are worried I’ll end up like my Aunt Maya. A dyke.’

I laughed, but she looked unhappy. ‘Is that the reason for Felix?’

‘To hide my sexuality? No. His? Maybe.’ I must have looked shocked. ‘Don’t tell me you are as conservative as your grandmother?’

I laughed. ‘No. What happened to Maya?’

‘We were so close. She was a linguist and she taught me everything.’

‘So that’s where the languages come from?’ I asked.

‘Yes. Aunt Maya travelled and returned with language; I was a willing student. But they killed her, I’m sure of it.’

‘Your parents?’ I said, alarmed. My mind faltering, trying to make sense of what she was saying. She was close to me. Next to me. When she lifted her cup, she brushed my arm with hers.

‘No.’ She turned on the bench so we were face to face again. ‘The “cleansing”. She would have been arrested long ago; she stood up for what she believed in. I wish my family would do the same. Cowards, the lot of them.’

‘Everyone deals with times like these in different ways,’ I said, trying to be supportive.

‘Sure, but I’d have more respect for them if they had some backbone.’

‘I’m sorry about your aunt and your parents.’

‘I’m sorry about yours.’

‘Surely your parents can see you’re too young to marry.’

‘Am I? You are married.’

I nodded. ‘I suppose I must have been your age when I married Emilie.’

‘What’s your wife like?’

‘Small, dark, sharp tongue and even sharper mind,’ I said with a smile.

‘How did she take your news? Being fired?’

‘Not well.’ The understatement seemed hilarious and I laughed.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said, laughing too.

‘Don’t be, it’s me who will be sorry.’

Her laugh gravitated towards me like a hug and I instantly felt better. As if the depth of her laugh had taken some of the weight off my shoulders.

A light shone in her eyes, like an incredible force pulling me closer. Towards those eyes and those lips. Our laughter stopped.

I placed my cup on the ground and raised her chin with my fingertips as I had before, though this time the jolt didn’t make me jump back in alarm. I saw myself in her eyes. And there was something else there. Something I couldn’t understand. Her skin under my fingertips grew warm, an electrostatic wave of heat that charged me somehow, as I tried to understand if what was happening in me was happening to her.

‘What are you doing?’ she whispered.

‘I don’t know.’ But as I said it I did know, I knew as sure as my heart was beating. This was something new. Something unfounded in me reflected in her. Something I could not walk away from.

She was framed in my eyes. The scenery obliterated by the contours of her face. I moved my fingertips across her jaw, her pulse jumped as I brushed past her neck and cupped her face in my hand.

She had a tiny mole almost hidden behind the curve of her upper lip.

I watched her reaction as I tilted my head towards her, she didn’t move. She questioned me with her eyes, but her lips parted the tiniest amount and her bottom lip was moist. I moved towards her mouth, capturing her top lip in both of mine.

I shifted back to where I could see her eyes again. As my hand skimmed the back of her head, into the nape of her neck, I pulled her forward and she melted into me.

She brushed both her lips along mine, a touch feather-light on the surface, but it resonated deep in me.

It was a power that eradicated any other thought.

Her lips on my lips.

She pulled away first and a heat crawled through my limbs, to keep her close to me. I moved in to kiss her again, but she caught my eye and somehow shut me out, so I shifted my hand around her shoulders and drew her into my arm. We faced the park together.

‘You are married,’ she said.

My heart buzzed in my throat. But when she said nothing more I swallowed.

‘The country is at war,’ I countered.

‘What does that have to do with anything?’ She slipped out of my embrace.

‘They are facts, are they not?’

‘Yes.’

‘A fact is an absolute,’ I said.

‘What am I then?’

I paused for a nanosecond, because I knew, instantly. ‘Frieda, you are light itself.’

Our eyes connected and although she didn’t say it, I could see her thinking, and she flushed. I wanted to kiss her again. I wanted to touch her.

‘I have to go back to the university,’ she said, getting up. ‘Or I’ll be late.’

I stood up with her and tried to arrange my thoughts cohesively. She smoothed her dress and put the cups back in her bag. ‘Thanks for the coffee,’ I said.

‘I enjoyed talking to you, Henryk.’

Goosebumps travelled up my arms and tingled over my neck as she said my name.

‘Maybe again?’ I offered. ‘Same place?’

‘Same time?’

‘Tomorrow?’

She smiled her assent and left.