Through My Eyes. Again
Copyright© 2019 by Iskander
Chapter 9
Mid November 1963
Large snowflakes drifted down in the still air when I knocked on Col’s door. After a minute, the door opened.
“It’s snowing,” I said, laughing. “Grab your coat and come outside.”
I dropped my school satchel in the hall and then we were off outside. Those first enormous flakes had now been joined by billions of fellows. Already the pavement had a light dusting. We stood watching the thickly falling snow, catching large flakes on our tongues and comparing the beauty of the large flakes we caught on our coat sleeves. Then the streetlights went out and every window darkened: a power cut.
The snow-filled darkness was intense, eery in its strange silence.
Col grabbed my arm. “Let’s go back inside.” His voice uneasy.
“Okay.”
Inside, we lit candles and placed one in the hall for Mutti Frida when she returned home. We lit a couple in the lounge where we were sitting on the couch. Col grabbed some blankets and we made a nest, cuddled together for mutual warmth, relaxing in the dim candlelight.
We chatted about the snowstorm and power cut for a while, before I asked, “Do you wonder where your life is headed?”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, my mother is a doctor and I expect there will be some pressure to follow in her footsteps. I don’t know what I do want.”
“You’ll be a pilot, won’t you?”
I sighed in resignation. “I don’t think so – my eyesight is not improving. I need to think of something else.” Again, I was confronting what had been the great tragedy of my youth. I sighed again, staring off into the distance of an impossible future. “Flying is the one thing I want to do and the one thing I’m stopped from doing.”
Col’s eyes were full of sympathy and his hand found mine, squeezing. “Oh, Willi. I’m sorry, I did not understand that. But you could be something other than be a pilot.”
“I don’t think I could be in aviation and not be a pilot. I might not be able to stand it.” There was moisture in my eyes and I was glad of the dim light.
Col snuggled a little closer. “I suppose ... it would be like working in a chocolate shop and never being allowed even a nibble.”
“You and your chocolate,” I said, chuckling, glad to be moving away from a troubling subject. “What about you?”
“I don’t know – I haven’t thought about it.”
“You must have some sort of idea?”
Col paused, turning to face me. “What I do doesn’t seem to be as important as who I do it with.”
“What do you mean?”
He shrugged. “I don’t think it’s complicated – I want to be with people I like, people I love and doing things with them.” Col paused and his eyes drifted away from mine. “People like you,” he added.
What?
I wanted to be Col’s friend for life, but there was something else here. Something scary. “Col, what do you mean?”
He turned back towards me, his face softer and with something in his eyes I had seen hints of before. Then his face hardened again. “I don’t know what I meant.” He shifted beneath the blankets, trying to hide the emotions playing out behind his eyes.
After a second or so, a terrifying thought occurred to me. At school, about the worst insult you could throw at someone was they were a fag, a poofter.
Was Col saying he had those sorts of feelings for me?
I grabbed his elbows and for a moment we wrestled under the blankets as I turned him to face me.
“We’re boys – you can’t...” I struggled with dangerous ideas.
Col sagged back into the cushions, deflated. His eyes were filled with ... desperation? “Yes, I can. But...”
I cut him off, fighting my way from cocooning blankets. It was confusing and scary for my young brain as I did feel strongly attracted to him, but not physically.
“No. We’re not like that. I’m not like that.”
Col grabbed my elbows and threw me against back into the sofa, pinning me. He squeezed his eyes closed for a moment and then they flared open.
“We’re not like that, because...” he paused, squeezing his eyes closed again. Then his eyes opened, and he practically whispered: “ ... because I am not a boy.”
What?
My brain froze.
With infinite gentleness, he said, “Willi, I am Colette – a girl.”
I had no words. My mouth opened and closed, struggling to speak as the world shifted around me.
“What?”
Col ... Colette ... leaned closer still, placing a tiny, whisper kiss at the corner of my mouth before pulling back to engage my eyes. His ... no, her hands slid down my arms raising every hair in a delicious sensuality as they passed on their way to my hands. Reaching there, she turned the palms face up, her thumbs exploring and teasing my skin.
“I’m so sorry, Willi. I ... well, Mutti and I, we’ve been deceiving you, but we didn’t have a choice.” Tears started down her cheeks. “I know we can trust you – you’ve shown we can, but we can’t grow any closer with this ... this deceit between us.” She batted away the tears. “Anyway, I couldn’t keep on pretending to be a boy. Things are happening to my body and it will soon be difficult to pretend.”
“You’re a g ... girl?” I stuttered.
“Yes, Willi. Please believe me, I’m a girl.”
I sat, nonplussed. I tried to speak but failed to find any words.
She must have seen the doubt on my face. She closed her eyes and reached a decision. “I’ll prove it to you.”
She let go of my hands and rearranged herself under the blanket. Then she took my hand and slid it down inside her trousers ... knickers. I encountered smooth skin, soft hair, and a growing warmth. Her eyes widened at my touch and she inhaled, sharply. She held my hand in place. “So, am I a boy?”
I shook my head, dumbfounded as she pulled my hand out. She rearranged her clothing under the blanket.
She shook her head, freeing herself of ... embarrassment? “That never happened, okay?” She smiled coyly under eyelashes had doubled in length.
I swallowed convulsively, nodded, and then managed a whisper. “Wow.”
“Wow? Wow, what? Wow, that I’m a girl? Wow at what you felt?”
I inhaled a long overdue breath. “Every one of those.” My brain was still trying to catch up and I leaned back into the sofa. Col straddled my legs and held me by the shoulders, searching my face, aching to understand my feelings.
“Willi, I know this is terribly confusing for you. Please tell me we can still be friends.”
I examined this face I had grown to know so well, this person who had befriended me and helped me cope with my strange circumstances. This person who had saved my life under the cedar tree.
“Oh Col. Of course, we’re still friends. You are a huge part of my world. I can’t imagine you not being a part of it.”
“The same for me.” she leaned in, placing a soft kiss full on my lips.
My confusion peaked. I was being kissed by a boy – and then the memory of what I had felt asserted itself: the world finished shifting around me. Without conscious thought, my hands slid up her back and pulled her closer to me and our first real kiss was amazing.
Col must have felt the effect she had on me. She swivelled her hips against me and giggled. “Well, the evidence is you are a boy.”
I blushed.
“Willi, we both have bodies, I like your reaction to mine as it tells me you know I’m a girl and one you find attractive.”
How could she feel so self-confident and unembarrassed?
I noticed a slight, uncertain smile and a faint blush. Perhaps not so self-confident but pushing her boundaries. Col moved again, to cuddle up beside me, pulling the blankets back into order around us and draping my arm around her shoulders.
“Col, I...”
“Shh.” She placed an index finger on my lips. “Let’s cuddle and allow our minds to catch up, hmm?”
I kissed her finger and squeezed her shoulder. “Okay.” And we sat there in the softness of flickering candlelight, warm in the blankets, while the kaleidoscope of our friendship rearranged itself, settling into a new pattern: exciting but scary.
*
“Hello, sleepy heads. I’m glad you’ve been keeping warm.” Mutti Frida’s smiling voice woke us. “I walked home as the buses are in chaos because of the snow. The electricity is still out so I’ll light the oil heater and we can warm some soup for tea.”
She busied herself, hanging up her coat and hat. “Have you tried to ring home, Willi?”
“Not yet. We went to sleep.”
Mutti Frida smiled and we stretched, shifting out from under the blankets.
Col took her mother’s hand. “Mutti, there’s something I have to tell you.”
Something in her daughter’s voice alerted her. She stopped fiddling with the oil heater and her eyes narrowed, moving between the two of us.
“Willi knows, Mutti.”
Tension arrived in Mutti Frida’s shoulders as she glanced at me. “Knows what?” Her voice had an edge, as if she were poised, ready to run.
“He knows I am Colette, a girl, not Col, a boy.” It came out in a rush and then she slowed. “I know we can trust him and it will soon become obvious.”
Mutti Frida pulled a chair out from the table and sat heavily. “Oh, Col.”
I came up beside Col and took her hand in mine.
Mutti Frida stared at the two of us and sighed. “No, I suppose not.” She closed her eyes. “Now, what are we going to do?”
I glanced at Col, then turned to Mutti Frida. “It doesn’t change things – at least not yet. Col can still be a boy for the outside world, but she can be who she is here, safe in this house, can’t she?”
“For the moment, yes.” Mutti Frida’s voice slumped with her shoulders. “I knew keeping you a boy might cause problems, but it seemed the best way to hide.” Mutti Frida closed her eyes in thought. “Well, we don’t have to decide anything yet.” She got up from the chair. “Now, Willi, you must phone home and let your family know you’re safe here and find out what they want you to do.”
I rang home, but there was no reply.
“No one is home.” I announced.
“I expect they are having problems because of the snow. It was giving everything quite a covering.”
She lit the oil stove and opened some tins of beef and vegetable soup.
“This is left over from last winter when I worried we could be snowed in for days at a time. I hope we are not going to have a similar winter.”
The warmth from the heater spread through the room as it warmed the saucepan of soup.
“Willi, set the table, please. Col, what bread do we have in the larder? I think there are still some crusty rolls. Perhaps some cheese, as well?” By the time we had eaten, the room was cosy. “Willi, please try ringing your home again.”
This time my mother answered, back from her evening surgery. My sister was staying at Lucy’s house – again – and my father was staying in London. We agreed the snow and blackout would not be a problem as I was walking. I agreed to be home by eight o’clock as tomorrow was a school day.
It gave me another hour with Col. We helped Mutti Frida with the dishes and then sat close together on the sofa and picked up our current English book – Gavin Lyall’s The Wrong Side of the Sky, which I had picked as it was a thriller with much flying. Tomorrow we would be back to Das Versprechen by Friedrich Dürrenmatt, was quite dark.
We had been reading for about thirty minutes when Mutti Frida stopped pottering in the kitchen and interrupted us. “Col, Willi – we need to have a talk.”
We put down the book. Col knew exactly what was coming. She picked up my hand and gave it a gentle squeeze. “Mutti...”
“No, Col. Please let me speak. You were cuddled up together when I arrived home. I know you are friends, but now the friendship is no longer of two boys, but a young woman and a young man.”
She stared at Col. “Col, we have spoken about what is happening to your body and what it means.”
Col nodded and gave me a sideways glance.
How had I not noticed her long eyelashes before?
“Willi, has your mother spoken to you about what happens to boys and girls as they grow into men and women?”
I was embarrassed at where this conversation was headed but also scared Mutti Frida might force us apart. “My mother explained a bit when my sister ... got grumpy once a month.”
Mutti Frida nodded. “Once a girl reaches...” She paused. “auf Deutsch sagt man erste Regel ... I don’t know the English word ... when she starts bleeding every month, she can become pregnant?”
I nodded. In a house with a doctor, there was no shortage of medical texts.
“I know you two are close friends but your friendship has now taken a different direction. I need the two of you to promise me you will not do anything stupid.” She stopped, her face almost fierce in its concern. “Col is far too young to have a baby – and I am not ready to be a grandmother.”
Col gasped. “Mutti.” A faint blush limning her face.
Mutti Frida silenced her with a look. “You may be embarrassed, but it’s a small price to pay for both of you promising me you will not be stupid.” Her voice softened. “I do not want you to rush into things with serious consequences.”
Her eyes moved between the two of us. “Promise me.”
Col laced her fingers into mine, her eyes seeking my agreement. I nodded – I was not going to risk Mutti Frida restricting when we could see one another.
Col gave me a thin smile and turned back to her mother. “We promise.”
Mutti Frida sighed, her stance softening as her worry eased. “There will be times when keeping this promise is going to be difficult.” She paused, as if interrupted by her own thoughts. “Please, both of you, remember it and help one another to keep it.”
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