My living hell of waiting continued and the next Saturday I was in the park again when I bumped into Frauke, that beautiful woman I’d met in the bush.
“Isn’t it wonderful,” she said.
I wondered if anything could be wonderful (except her eyes), but asked her what she meant.
“Weren’t you here in winter?”
“Yes.”
“Didn’t you see how the marsh’s reeds were control-burned so that they could renew themselves in spring again?”
“Yes, I did …”
“Didn’t you see how the new shoots sprang up again?”
She was right. It was a free miracle and I’d been too busy staring up my own rectum to acknowledge it.
“Would you like to go and see a movie tonight?”
“I’d love to go and see a movie,” she said. “What’s your address?”
So she gave me that and some friends of hers came along with their new-born child and, after introducing us, she knelt to give it her full attention. I inexplicably wanted to burst into tears and told her I would see her at seven and left.
That night we went to see something and I ended up spending the night at her garden cottage, telling her about my predicament. The next morning I noticed that, apart from yours truly, her cottage was filled with light. We made love again and I was too smitten to even call the old man and so that Sunday melted into yet another Monday of waiting.