A Snapdragon’s Lion Heart
No Thrills,No Frills
For the boys and girls at the summer camp, and for the counselors as well, Suzanne and I were Romeo and Juliet, an enchanting rather than enchanted princess and her froggy cavalier. A romantic soap opera, and everybody itching to see things happening. I felt the vibes alright, and many times Suzanne was looking at me without saying anything, sucking the breath from my lungs. Have mercy, what was I supposed to do? I had heard and read about kissing and stuff like that, but reading and, you know, go ahead and … Christ, I mean, there’s a difference between songs on the radio and … I don’t know. Somebody please help me …
Apparently somebody heard me. Or noticed my total ineptness in handling the spectacular opportunity right at my fingertips. An opportunity that made everybody sick with envy, and fumbling nitwit me did not know what to make of it. So our counselors arranged for a dance event the following Sunday afternoon, just the two groups of the oldest girls and boys at the camp. Our counselors arranged to have punch prepared, and a lady counselor played waltzes on a rickety stand-up piano, while another one, along with our male counselor showed us the moves …
A big scale conspiracy. Boys and girls took seats on chairs lined up along opposing walls, the boys on one side, facing the girls across the room. Everybody wrote their names on a slip of paper, folded it and put it in a hat that was handed around. The hat was shaken up a couple of times, and handed around again, for each of us to pull out a folded piece of paper, unfold it and read the name of who was going to be our destiny for that afternoon. Except the name on the paper I had drawn was not what I had expected and demanded …
There comes a moment in every man’s life when he has to take control of his destiny. Luckily, I was helped along. Everybody conspiring. They knew what name I was supposed to read on the slip of paper I had drawn. Looking at one another, they knew who had drawn the name that was supposed to be my destiny, and staring with vacant eyes into the void in front of them, their hands fumbled behind their backs as the slip of paper wandered from hand to hand. At the same time my slip of paper wandered away from me. Everybody sighed and grinned with relief when I held the newly arrived piece of paper up for everybody to see. I did not have to spell out her name …
I rose from my chair and crossed over to where Suzanne was smiling at me expectantly. As I held out my hand, she gracefully took it and rose from her chair. Hand in hand we moved to the center of the room, and the student at the piano hit the keys. Hesitantly at first as she checked on how Suzanne and I were doing, then picking up as the two of us swirled and twirled along, soon joined by the other ladies and their cavaliers …
A rather fresh thirteen years of age, and taught how to do the waltz, we did fairly well, but there was a lot of other stuff I did not know and could not figure out. Like those moments when we ran out of stuff to say, and did not want to quit yet and leave. What to do, how to proceed? The way she looked at me without saying anything — I felt naked and exposed to the marrow of my meek soul. Somebody please shoot me, I’m not worthy of her …
I never ventured beyond holding her hand. She had the most beautiful lips, reminiscent of a snapdragon’s blossom. Its name in German, translated into English would be ‘lion’s snout’, the snout in its diminutive form. I should have discarded the concept of coincidences then and there. A lot of other things I should have done as well, then and there. Nitwit me had a long way to go. An odyssey of detours and dead ends …
Suzanne was a once in a life time opportunity, and I was not up to the challenge. In the course of my failed encounter with Licia, it occurred to me that I might spend the rest of my life rehashing this once in a lifetime opportunity I had failed at with Suzanne, trying to catch up on what might have been possible back then. The ominous suspicion descended on me that somewhere in the deepest corner of my guts I may have sensed all along that I would not be getting anywhere with Licia. Not because I was still as inept as I had been with Suzanne. I had had a few fumbling crash encounters, rather desperate attempts at learning and acquiring the necessary skills, at least technically. But the pattern was obvious, wasn’t it? Pretty much the same as it had been with Gisela …
While at a conscious level I had not known, at a deeper level than mind can access I may very well have sensed that it was too late for me to reach out and pull up with Gisela. Maybe that was the dark secret of my reluctance to take notice of her earlier. With Licia, I slowly awoke to the fact that there had to be more forces and agencies at work than are accessible to mind and reason. Under normal circumstances such reasoning is considered slippery, if not dangerous terrain. Watch out for the dudes in white frocks, wielding shackles and syringes. However, looking on as my heart broke apart in slow motion once again, I could not have cared less. Bring it on, suckers …
