Chapter 1

I was a grad student, in my mid-twenties, living abroad to work on my dissertation when I met her. I don’t know what her formal diagnosis was. Klára was unquestionably different, and seemed somewhat impaired in her social and cognitive development, but she was holding down a job behind the counter at the local bakery café, which is how I met her. I used to stop in every morning for (excellent) coffee and a pastry, and sometimes in the afternoon to pick up fresh bread for dinner.

Most of the girls behind the counter were exceptionally giggly, and I always had the impression they were laughing behind my back about my pronunciation and grammar, which admittedly was pretty atrocious at first: I could understand OK and read and write just fine, but hadn’t had much speaking practice. In retrospect I realize that as an American, bad accent or not, I probably could have asked any of them out on a date and had my offer accepted, but it was really only Klára, who never teased me, whom I found intriguing. After a few months of daily stops the other girls started mostly to ignore me (perhaps my accent was improving), but Klára always seemed happy to see me, and I began to look forward not only to the coffee and croissant, but to seeing her round, slightly different-looking face, framed by an untidy haircut, every morning.

I’d been there about half a year and was starting to feel a little more confident in my ability to make casual conversation when I finally had the thought of trying to get to know her better,. Understand that at that point I had no idea she had autism (or whatever she had), didn’t realize how much younger than me she actually was, and in fact wasn’t one hundred percent sure of her name — I thought I’d heard a coworker address her as “Klára” once, but I wouldn’t have bet on it. We’d barely exchanged any conversation (I didn’t even have to order by then; she’d be fetching me coffee and croissant as I walked through the door). But I found myself fantasizing about her (i hadn’t had any kind of female company since I’d arrived; in fact I was pretty lonely overall) and finally somehow made up my mind to do something about it.

If I’d been more confident and mature I would have just asked her out, but instead I proceeded in a fairly awkward way: I began to “accidentally-on-purpose” brush her hands with mine when she handed me my croissant, look her in the eyes just a little too long, and so on. I guess I figured I could fall back on plausible deniability if she reacted negatively, but what actually happened is that she almost embarrassingly obviously mirrored my actions, touching my hands and looking into my eyes when I handed her money. We danced around a little like that for a few days, and finally I ventured to introduce myself by name. She giggled and confirmed my understanding that she was called Klára and then, with no further preamble, asked me if I would take her to the movies that night.

This kind of directness turned out to be characteristic for her. Once I got to know her I realized she basically had no social filter; she’d say whatever she was thinking. Our first date went essentially like this: I picked her up at 5, the end of her shift. I’d planned to take her out to eat before the movie but she just grabbed two sandwiches from the glass display case, and we sat at one of the tables in the otherwise empty café while the other girls behind the counter watched us, amused. I awkwardly tried to make conversation and eat my sandwich at the same time while she just sat there munching away. Then, before I’d even finished eating, she stood up and said “well, let’s go to the movie!” We still had two hours to kill, but I obediently got up and followed her out the door.

At the theater, just a couple streets away, I bought the tickets then wondered what we were going to do before the show. Logically it would have made sense to go get coffee or something to eat but the nearest place was Klára’s own café and we’d just had sandwiches there. So we stood around awkwardly for a minute or so, then Klára said “I’m cold, embrace me.” (It was November, and indeed a bit chilly, though she had a thick sweater on.) I was taken aback, of course, but I didn’t really have any choice in the matter; she was standing, expectantly, inches in front of me. I put my arms around her, tentatively, and she settled right in, her head against my chest, as if we had been married for years or something. I just stood there, no idea what to do next, with my hands on her back. Her hair smelled odd but nice, kind of like rosemary (I later found out it was the shampoo she used) and I could also faintly smell her perspiration. I was getting hard and worried for a moment that she’d feel it and get mad, but if she noticed she didn’t react in any way.