Paths Straight and Twisted Pt. 01

There were, however, limits to how much and how often Evie could be left with the neighbours. Helga also wanted to be with Evie as much as was possible. These were immutable circumstances. However, although we clearly did not see each other for the next six months as often as we would have liked, we made it work.

Whenever Helga had a free Sunday, we went on what could be called family outings, either in the city or on drives to the country. Evie was a delightful child and, even for me, great company. Being together like this rounded out the relationship between Helga and me well beyond our, otherwise, opportunistic, sexual liaison.

And ours was that. I was for Helga not a suitable choice as a partner for life with our significant age difference. I had also told her right at the beginning about Inge's pending arrival and what I hoped for. Neither Helga nor I was sentimentally deluded; we knew that ours was a short-term affair. Nevertheless, besides our sexual compatibility, we genuinely liked each others company. And we got to know each other well.

Although Helga was twelve years older than I, both of us were of a generation of central Europeans whose life had been marked deeply by the war. Helga could talk to me about her life and experiences. She could be confident that I would understand. Innocent Australians, for instance, were most likely to misjudge Helga's life-experience.

Helga was born in 1925 to German parents in Polish Silesia, which, after 1939, was reintegrated into the German Reich. At eighteen, she was conscripted for training as a nurse with the German militarised Red Cross. She served for the last year of the war in a German army-hospital in Bohemia. Evacuated ahead of the Russian advance, the end of the war found her, still serving, in an army-hospital in Heidelberg. The war had ended, but these hospitals, full of wounded, could not be immediately disbanded. Their support and administration became the responsibility of the army of the victors.

Heidelberg was not only in the American zone of occupation but became an administrative centre of the US Army of Occupation for Germany. Therefore, from May 1945 on, Helga found herself effectively in the employ of the American military. After the hospital closed, she continued to work for them in various jobs for the next fifteen years.

Helga had learned eventually that her parents in again Polish Silesia were dead. She had no other relatives and no home to return to. Also, the Swabia outside the now-familiar American enclave remained for Helga an almost foreign country.

Being young, attractive and single, Helga had over the following years a few American boyfriends. She settled, eventually, into a long-term relationship with a sergeant, a professional soldier. When his Tour-of-Service ended, he wanted to marry Helga and take her home to the States. The army refused permission, and he left on his own. Once home in the States, however, he signed up for another Tour of Duty. He succeeded in being posted back to Heidelberg and Helga. She fell pregnant, Evie was born, and Helga had hopes for their future.

When the now Master Sergeant's second tour ended, the story of the first was repeated. He returned to the USA. He promised to arrange for Helga and their child to follow. There were delays, difficulties, the letters got fewer, then silence. Helga had still a secure, well-paid job in one of the 'For Americans Only' stores. But for her, the air in the enclave had been poisoned. Now, as a deserted woman, this American outpost was not where she wanted to stay and raise Evie.

The now prospering Germany outside the camp's perimeter was, for a woman with Helga's past, hostile territory. For self-respecting Germans, Helga was an Amiflittchen, an Amiwhore. When Helga mentioned it, it was the only time she allowed a tinge of bitterness to creep into her voice: -

"Where would there be a German man interested in an Amiflitchen like me? I came to Australia, hoping it would be far enough away."

Helga was so devastatingly honest. What could I reply? I had told her about Inge, about her and my less than promising past. Also, how much I hoped that what I longed for would come true. Yet, when I told her how much I wished I were fifteen years older for her, that she was the loveliest and most desirable woman any man could want, I was not lying. Helga was pleased but made light of it. Whenever I said something like this about my feelings for her, she would laugh: -

"It's only your cock speaking. But I like it."

Helga was determined to remain with me on the safe ground of our pure, sexual infatuation. It remained powerful throughout our time together. For example, after a family-outing with Evie to the Zoo or beach and a meal together in her place, I would quite casually sidle up behind Helga. While I continued to talk to Evie, my hand would slide furtively under Helga's arm. And she would lean back on me to stretch an excitable breast into my palm. Helga was always eager for my touch. And, most of all, for another night's play on her sofa. We grew quite confident that Evie was a sound sleeper.

Occasionally, Helga managed to finish work two hours earlier than usual. When I saw her in the Deli at night, she always found a way to tell me that she was going to finish early tomorrow. At six or so she would come to me at my lodgings, and we had a few, too short hours of explosively orgiastic sex. Its intensity, interestingly enough, was heightened by the need to keep our 'voices' low. There was only a door between us lovers and the hallway. In the early evening, of course, the other tenants frequently came within earshot.

So, we whispered and breathed our ecstasy close to each other's ear. I learned a valuable lesson. Helga was much more inhibited with sexy talk than in her uninhibited love-making. In whispering, she suddenly found all the words she would not have said aloud. And my whispering never fell on a deaf ear either. It often drove us both into an ecstatic frenzy.

To our regret, however, only one more night without Evie could be arranged. In thinking back, they were among the best, sex-filled nights of my life. I was flattered and thrilled and eager to believe her when she told me, that she never knew she could be such a 'sex-mad hussy'. With a voice hoarse from her beautiful sexy love-song, she confessed that with me she has more orgasms in a night than she had in the five years before we met.

But both of us knew it had to end someday. However, it was not Inge's expected arrival that brought it about.

Inge's coming to Australia had been, for reasons she did not explain, delayed. I was as keen as I had always been to be with Helga. I continued dropping into the Deli every evening after work. Suddenly, for two successive weeks, Helga was not able to see me. While she was as friendly as always, I sensed that something had changed.

One evening when I dropped in as always, she told me she would be off work in half-an-hour. She asked me to wait for her in a nearby café.

When she sat down, she told me calmly that she could not see me anymore. She had met a nice man. He was a work colleague of her neighbour, and they had met - purely by chance, she said - when he visited. After this, he repeatedly came - and it was to see her! He was a Lithuanian, a few years older than her. He was now seriously courting her, and she wanted to give it a chance. Helga looked down on the table with a wistful smile: -

"What we had been for each other I will never forget. But... like a wonderful holiday, it could not last forever."

We said Good Bye there and then.

I believe that Helga and I wanted to remain friends. However, our love-affair had not burned out. We could not have safely become just friends. The sparks would have flared from the embers, again and again.

Over the next six months, I often saw and talked with Helga in the Deli. However, I became a less regular, ordinary customer. Then one day, a different woman served me.

I asked the owner. He told me Helga had married.