Adult Education Beware! A Novella

I, for one, did not believe that she could stay married to Jurgen. Either she would end it wanting to be free of Jurgen's impositions, or he would end it finding a free Helen untouchably soiled.

These thoughts I kept hidden from Helen. December had come, and my Adult Education class finished in early November. Since then, we managed to see each other twice. There were also numerous phone calls from Helen.

In her last one, she told me that they were packing, preparing to leave for Germany in ten days. If I wanted to see her as much as she wanted to see me, she could free herself the day after tomorrow. I was still at University, preparing teaching material for the next year. She would meet me there.

We went to a motel nearby, where we had been before. We had five hours left with each other. We made love; long, thought-filled, gentle love; long periods of just lying still, closely entwined, not wanting to let go, feeling each other's heart beating.

We said little. Not because we could not find convincing words to lie but because the true ones would have hurt too much. As always before, we stood for a long time under the warmth of the water streaming down on us for our final ablution. Did it wash away our sins?

Without speaking much, we got dressed. I asked her where she had parked her car.

Helen did not answer. She hesitated, stepped up to me and gave me a hurried kiss. Her eyes were filled with sadness; she looked haunted:

"Ben, you better let me go."

She turned. The door clicked shut.

A few minutes later, when I stepped out onto the street, Helen's car had gone.

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