“Only boring history, stories of kings and queens.”
“Kings and queens are fascinating. I would love to be a queen.”
“You think you would, but kings and queens accomplish little. They are born to their position and have little power and less sense.”
I did not think this true, but I said, “But you must read about military leaders too, people who accomplish a great deal. I was reading a book today at the bookseller’s, a history book. It was so fascinating I wished I could have it.”
“Yes. I like those books better. Most people don’t.” He looked down at me. “You are a very smart young woman.”
“I love to read history, all the things that happened to other people, better people than myself.”
“Did you think your story was happy, or sad?” he asked. “The one you told me?”
“Mama thought it was happy, but I was never sure. I didn’t know if the sailor was magically able to breathe underwater, or if he died.”
“Exactly. Perhaps that was why he could breathe, because he was in heaven.”
“I have thought about it a great deal, and I think it is happy either way. If he lived, they were happily frolicking under the ocean, and if he died, he didn’t know any better.”
“A poet said ignorance is bliss.” His hand brushed mine as he said it, his soft, soft hand.
We had reached the clearing by my house, and I stopped walking again. I could not take him closer. I didn’t know the poet to whom he referred, but I knew what he meant, ignorance is bliss. It meant one could be happier not knowing the truth.
“Yes, bliss,” I said. “You cannot come closer. My father can’t know a man walked me home.”
I held my breath. If I was quiet, I could almost hear the animals in the barn, awaiting their feeding. My father would be angry that I was so late.
Was it all a dream? Had I jumped into the ocean myself?
“Cornelia?” Karl touched my arm. It was just a brush, like a breeze through the autumn leaves, but it brought me back to reality.
“Yes?”
“Can I see you again?”
I so wanted to.
“Only on Thursday. That is the day I go out to market.”
“What time do you go? Can we meet early so we can spend the day together?”
“Yes.” The moment was so beautiful, the river in the distance and his handsome face before me. “I spend the day there. We could meet at the bookseller’s stall.”
“Cornelia!” The voice was unmistakably my father’s. He said something else I couldn’t make out, but he sounded annoyed.
“I have to go.”
“I will be there at noon,” Karl said.
“Cornelia! Is that you?” My father again.
“Coming, Father!” To Karl, I said, “I have to go.” I started to walk away.
He grabbed my hand up in his. “Wait!”
And then he pressed it to his lips. They were so warm and even softer than his hands. He rubbed my fingers against them, warming them.
Finally, he released my hand.
I ran to the house, where my father scolded me for dawdling, scolded me for being a silly girl, scolded me for the stew that had gone dry and burned on the bottom. But I did not hear half of it nor did I care. I was going to see him again! He had kissed my hand! It was my first kiss, but I did not mean for it to be my last.
But the next morning, I woke wondering if I had imagined the whole thing. It was insane, someone finding me like that, someone so beautiful. There was no way to prove it had happened, either, no brand upon my skin where his lips had grazed it. I mended Father’s pants, my Friday chore, and cleaned the chicken coop, all the while searching for evidence, but I had none, not even a pear, for I had eaten that. Love was invisible, intangible. Maybe it wasn’t real.
Yet when I returned from the chickens, I found upon the doorstep a package, wrapped in brown paper, tied with a red ribbon. My name was written neatly in an unfamiliar hand.
I opened it. It was a book. The book, The Complete History of Europe. I ran outside to look for whoever had brought it. There was no one, only a light rustling in the trees and the continued rushing of the river.
2
As one might imagine, it was difficult to wait until Thursday—Thursday!—to see him again. The only thing that kept me from looking for Karl before then was the simple fact that I knew nothing about him. I knew not the name of the university at which he studied. I knew not where he slept at night, though imagining him in bed filled me with a sort of tingly feeling I had never felt before. I did not even know his last name.