The relationship with my friends at the motorcycle repair shop remained alive even while the house was being built.
When I showed up now and then for car maintenance, I always thanked them with small favors. Now I had a little more time again and built a real box trailer.
The combo had shrunk to a quintet over time, and with a trailer and the five-seater Moskwitsch, there were no more transportation problems.
Our audience had also changed, as we played almost exclusively to closed events. When I came back from playing late at night and parked the car in the side street, despite the late hour, I was often expected by the young girl who had brought me the bread at that time.
She would look out the window and we would talk quietly for a few minutes. Later, we sat next to each other in the car, and I realized: the girl had a crush on me. It flattered my male vanity that such a young girl was interested in me, but what was the point?
I was married and at least 20 years older than her. There was a danger that I would fall in love with her because Christiane was very pretty. Her long black hair, her dark eyes and her girlish figure could make a man weak. I didn’t want it to come to that and urged her not to wait for me anymore.
Until now it had remained with a few kisses and harmless tenderness. But Christiane did not let up, again and again she waited for me. But one night her room window remained closed, and she did not show her face. I was relieved and disappointed at the same time.
She had probably understood the hopelessness of our relationship. But I should have been mistaken. Her brother told me that Christiane was in the hospital because of a knee operation and urgently expected my visit. I did not visit her.
The disappointment about my absence should finally end our until now harmless relationship. Christiane got well, came home, and everything started all over again. Her uncomplaining perseverance convinced me.
This was no harmless young-girl crush, this was love that I could no longer escape, and a short time later I called her only ‘Chris’ and sometimes ‘my Christ child.’ Our secret love in the immediate neighborhood would certainly not have remained undiscovered for long.
Fortunately, a short time later, Christiane’s large family moved into a larger apartment a few streets away in a magnificent, old villa that still radiated the splendor and wealth of past decades. The richly decorated facade, balconies, conservatories, and marble steps in the hallway testified to this.
The massive double-winged entrance doors to the apartments led one to expect a high level of comfort. I was all the more disappointed on my first surreptitious visit to find my Chris in a chamber with room for only her bed and a chair. (Much later I realized that this dungeon had served as a pantry for the former manorial kitchen).
It couldn’t stay that way. Chris often worked night duty as a nurse in a clinic and needed rest and sleep during the day as well, but that was impossible in this brightly lit chamber. But under the present circumstances, I saw no way to remedy the situation. 𝓣𝓸 𝓑𝓮 𝓒𝓸𝓷𝓽𝓲𝓷𝓾𝓮𝓭…
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