Through My Eyes. Again
Copyright© 2019 by Iskander
Chapter 9
Mid - late 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 we were off outside. Those first few enormous flakes were now joined by billions of fellows. Already the pavement had a light dusting. We stood watching the falling snow, catching large flakes on our tongues and comparing the beauty of the large flakes we caught on our coat sleeves. Then the street descended into darkness: a power cut.
The snow-filled dark had an intense, eerie silence.
Col grabbed my arm. “Let’s go back inside.”
“Okay.”
I pulled out my torch to guide us. Inside, we placed a lit candle in the hall for Mutti Frida when she returned home from work. We lit a couple in the lounge where we were sitting on the couch. Col grabbed several blankets and we soon made a nest, cuddled together for mutual warmth as we had last winter, 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. But I’m not sure I want that.”
“You’ll be a pilot. That’s what you are most interested in.”
I sighed in resignation. “I’d love to, but I don’t think so. My eyes are a problem that isn’t getting any better. I need to think of something else.” Again, I was confronting what had been the tragedy of my previous 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 absolutely stopped from doing.”
Col’s eyes were full of sympathy and his hand clasped mine. “Oh, Willi. I’m sorry, I did not understand that. But there’s more to flying than being a pilot.”
“I don’t know I could be in aviation and not be a pilot. It might drive me mad.” I was glad of the dim light hid my moistening eyes.
Col snuggled a little closer. “I suppose ... it would be like working in a chocolate shop and never being allowed to even nibble.”
“You and your chocolate,” I said, chuckling, glad to be moving away from a troubling subject. “What about you?”
“Oh. 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.”
“I don’t understand.”
He shrugged. “It’s not 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 deeper here. Something scary. “Col...”
He turned back towards me, his face softer and with something in his eyes I had seen hints of before. Then his face hardened. He shifted beneath the blankets, trying to hide the emotions that were playing out behind his eyes.
A terrifying thought occurred to me. At school, about the worst insult you could throw at someone was that they were a fag, a poofter.
Was Col saying he had feelings for me like that?
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 to find the right words.
Col sagged back into the cushions, deflated. His eyes filled with ... desperation? “Yes, I can. I do. But...”
I cut him off, struggling to fight my way out of the cocooning blankets. My young brain was confused and scared: I was attracted to him, but not that way – not physically.
“No. We’re not like that. I’m not like that.”
Col grabbed my elbows and threw me against the sofa, pinning me. He squeezed his eyes closed for a moment and then held me with his eyes.
“You’re right, we’re not like that, because...” he paused, squeezing his eyes closed again. Then they opened, staring into mine and he whispered: “ ... because I am not a boy.”
My brain stopped; all thought frozen.
With infinite gentleness, he said, “Willi, I am Colette – a girl.”
I had no words. My mouth opened and closed a few times, but I couldn’t speak. My entire world was shifting around me.
“What?”
Col ... Colette ... leaned closer still, placing a tiny kiss at the corner of my mouth, pulling back to engage my eyes. His ... no, her hands slid down my arms, raising every hair in delicious sensuality as they passed on their way to my hands. She turned the palms face up, her thumbs exploring and teasing the 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. “But I couldn’t keep doing it. 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 be difficult to pretend for much longer.”
“You’re a g ... girl?”.
“Yes, Willi. Please believe I’m not a boy. I’m a girl.”
I sat, nonplussed. Words evaded me. She must have seen the doubt on my face. She closed her eyes for several seconds before reaching a decision. “All right, I’ll prove it to you.”
She let go of my hands and rearranged herself under the blanket. Then she grabbed my hand and slid it down inside her trousers and knickers. I encountered smooth skin, wisps of soft hair, and a growing warmth. Her eyes flared at my touch and she inhaled. She held my hand in place. “Does that feel like a boy?”
I shook my head, dumbfounded. She dragged my hand out, causing her to take another half-gasp. I saw her rearranging her clothing under the blanket.
Her body shivered, freeing herself of ... embarrassment? “Right – that never happened, okay?” She smiled under eyelashes that must have doubled in length in the last few seconds.
I swallowed, nodded, and then managed a whisper. “Wow.”
“Wow? Wow, what? Wow, that I’m a girl? Wow at what you felt?”
I inhaled a breath that was long overdue. “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 reaction.
“Willi, I know this is 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 discovered asserted itself and 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 felt the effect she had on me. She swivelled her hips against me and giggled. “Well, the evidence is that you are a boy.”
I blushed.
“It’s all right, Willi. We both have bodies. I like your reaction to mine – it tells me you know I’m a girl and one you find attractive.”
How could she feel so self-confident and unembarrassed?
Then I noticed a slight, uncertain smile and a faint blush. Perhaps not so self-confident, but pushing her boundaries all the same.
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 soft candlelight and warmth of the blankets as the geometry of our friendship rearranged itself. Like the shifting patterns in a kaleidoscope, it settled into something new – exciting, but also scary.
“Hello, sleepy heads. I’m glad you’ve been keeping warm.” Mutti Frida’s smiling voice woke us. “I had to walk 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 on that.”
She busied herself hanging up her coat and hat. “Have you tried to ring home, Willi?”
“Not yet. We dozed off.”
Mutti Frida chuckled. We stretched and shifted 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 because she stopped fiddling with the oil heater and her eyes narrowed, moving between the two of us.
“Willi knows, Mutti.”
I saw the tension as it arrived in Mutti Frida’s shoulders. “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 I couldn’t hide it from him much longer.”
Mutti Frida pulled a chair out from the table and sat down. “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?”
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 was resigned, her shoulders slumped. “I knew keeping you as a boy was going to 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.
“Ah well, I expect they are having problems because of the snow. It was giving everything quite a covering by the time I got here.”
She lit the oil stove and opened some tins of beef and vegetable soup.
“Left-overs from last winter when I was worried we could be snowed in for days at a time. I hope we are not going to have another winter like that.”
The warmth from the heater spread through the room as it warmed the saucepan of soup sitting on top.
“Willi, set the table, please. Col, what bread do we have in the larder? I think there are still some crusty rolls that will go well with the soup. 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 and I hung up.
That gave me another hour with Col. We helped Mutti Frida with the dishes and then sat close together on the sofa. Our current English book – Gavin Lyall’s The Wrong Side of the Sky – continued to enthral us. Tomorrow we would be back to Das Versprechen by Friedrich Dürrenmatt, which I was finding 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. I wondered what this was about, but Col, it seemed, knew what was coming. She picked up my hand and gave it a gentle squeeze. “Mutti...”
“No, Col. Please, let me speak. I saw how you were cuddled together when I arrived home and how you are now. I know you are friends, but now that 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 today?
Mutti Frida turned to me. “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 that Mutti Frida might force us apart.
“My mother explained a bit when my sister ... got grumpy once a month.”
Mutti Frida nodded. “You know that once a girl reaches...” She paused. “auf Deutsch sagt man erste Regel ... I don’t know the English word. When she bleeds 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 and I can see your friendship has now taken a different direction. I need you to promise me you will do nothing stupid.” She stopped, her face almost fierce in its concern. “Col is far too young to have a baby – and I am too young to be a grandmother.”
Col gasped. “Mutti.” A faint blush limned her face as she glanced sideways at me.
Mutti Frida silenced her with a look. “You may be embarrassed, but that’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 that have 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 would not risk Mutti Frida restricting when we could see one another.
Col 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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