The Wall Crossers

And So I Wait - Olivia Reary - Black Forest - 25 Jun 2021

Olivia's perspective

And so, I wait. On a future event that may or may not happen. On a person who actually may or may not exist to come and meet with me... again. I have no proof.

But I do have... longing. I will go to that white (bottom story) and light blue (top story) house in that little town, in the Black Forest, a house with a top-floor area greater than that of the bottom floor so it looks like a slightly larger house was somehow mistakenly placed on a smaller one below, with the gray front door of vertical planks that is rounded on the top, and the one window in front that is narrow and rounded too on top with six rectangular panes in the bottom part and pie-slice panes in the rounded part, and many small-paned windows on the second story, with small panes and wooden X's embedded in the siding below them, in the Black Forest style, and more small windows in an attic that sits under a steep slate-shingled roof with pointy gables, and I will walk up the cobblestone narrow road up the side of a hill to get to that house, the one overlooking the sparkling, too-frighteningly-tranquil glaring valley.

The sun will be brilliant and harsh, the air shimmering heavy with foreboding.

I will step up to the door, and then look around behind me where I climbed, gathering resolve, and breathing in the fresh sweet suffocating air, my heart beating rapidly from the climb and for this destination and for... her. I will face the door and knock, and she will open it.

And as we stand there looking at each other, we are both older—by fifty years. But we know each other right away as we both suck in air and she steps to attend her body close close to mine. Her hair is silver now, but her face is the same, though worn somewhat from all those years, those years, like mine is too. She brushes hair away from her strikingly clear amber eyes, then cups the side of my face with her right hand and searches my eyes with hers, and, finally, after slow slow seconds, she smiles at me. I smile. She slow blinks. My heart dissolves into a flowing surge of love.

She reaches now her hands for mine, and I take them, and she whispers, "O-li..via", and her voice is lovely, though a tiny bit richer from age, I know it so well, and I say, "Leida."

We pull each other close—her body feels the same—and now are hugging, turning our heads and pressing our lips together, kissing, hard at first in a fever of haste, dissipating the drought of our long long labored-lost love, but then slowing into soft, soft ineffable kissing. She makes that tiny squeal and I push myself closer, deeper deeper into her.

A cloud outside obscures the sun, the room darkens slightly.

After moments like this, we pull back and regard each other and she tilts her head to the side, eyes penetrating mine, forever love, and utters, as in disbelief, "How, O-li..via? How...?" But, before I can answer, I see a glint of light against her far wall, a spray of prismed light from some design in her glass behind me, so that I pull away and turn to look for the source of the perfidious light, coming through her row of textured windows (facing) west (Oh, West! Try West...) and I step back through the front door, out out of the house, her house, and look out and down upon the valley, seeing the glint down there, a shimmery glare on water—river water. I hear her whisper through the open doorway, "Search on... search for her, O-li..via... and there you will find..." her words hush like breath being robbed of all air, and now another voice trails in, one I recognize though all these years have passed, a high, sweet voice, and she says, "Sail on golden perle girl, your dreams are set to shine, all things bright will come your way, and these one day they will be also mine. Nga choe lu ga (I love you) sweet Mädchenhaft..."

Clouds crowd swiftly in, heightening the intensity of the brooding fractious sky. I hear a distant low rumble, drowning out her final soft words.

So, I quickly turn back, but now face a closed door, I sigh, my upraised hand, fisted for knocking, relaxing back down, now arms hanging limp at my sides, my shoulders, my head, in a slight slump, Oh a slump, because I know—I know it can't be impossibly-true, No... not true. She is not here. Now this poor staunched-flowing heart not retrieving believing.

And though I might search every house in Wolfach, here in the black Black Forest, still I would never find her. And though I might search every space in our hearts for blame, and search every house, every house I could ever reach in all my remaining few years, or days, or hours, with all my will, I would end even still—with the hard hard same.

Irrevocably, I turn to leave, but first I look back down, down into the shallow deep of the valley, that valley, her valley where the people moved on as before (Yes, as before), where the earth spins away the day once more, where the sun glances off the cold cold water, and that light tries, but dies, cannot dry my wet wet eyes, so that even I (Yes, I) cannot other than see it: the water—Leida said you can never step in twice, the water of knowing yet immemorably inexorably going, did deliver her—of the ever-flowing river—her... Kinzig.

And will that be my decision's gist, as well—to dwell in that scarp... my incipient resolve, like a tear coursing down this hillside—to find my lost love, to be yet together again... if not in this unpalatable life, then surely in the next?... if not now, then surely, surely, will be so... in the next?

But I am abruptly shaken by another shocking thought: was the loss of Leida the thunder Patrizia had threatened me with that cold snowy day in January, as we were lying together in bed, just before I left Berlin?... when she had said that she would make a special Donner (storm of thunder) that would come onto me, and that if I left her, this thunder would tear me apart? This sounded like magic to me at the time, so I dismissed it. Yet now I wonder—did Patrizia take Leida away from me?... send her to some remote place so I could never find her? Was Geena part of that plan all along?... to divide Leida and me for good? Why would they even want to do that?... to what purpose?

Thunder growing closer now. I look up once more, smelling rain. But now my mind is becoming as clear as pure quartz. I recall what Geena had said to me, all those many years ago—about the thunder dragon. A chill passes through me as I think about it—Bhutan! I make a decision—if I don't see her... Lizet, in '25... if she does not come to me by then, then... I will go there... I will follow the path to thunder. I will search for, find Geena. Maybe she will help me, even now, after all these years—does she still remember, think about, what we did?... what she did? I still have her sister's blue dragon stone. It is all I have left. And maybe then and there, one gloriously wonderful day, I will find her!... and she and I will hold hands, we'll walk upon a so terribly beautiful path, alongside soothing flowing river waters, flanked by lovely trees and kissed by azure sky, both of us wearing pretty print dresses so flowy in warm gentle airs, among gently waving flowers, both of us knowing... here, together, some truly far out remarkable mystery is finally resolved!... discovered and settled, beyond... beyond this path's end just up ahead... not far now, no, truly not far now at all. I am so stirred with powerful emotion now!... but a little bit worried too—as to what I will find, what awaits me at the end of this story.