“So, where would you like to go…?
“I take you to the Forest, yeah?”
“The Black Forest?
“Yah, our Black Forest.”
“How far is it?” Bosco asked inanely.
“Not far… you will be on my bicycle, you can, yes? Come on.”
A few burghers with their shopping baskets tusked and drew in their cheeks in
disapproval as they saw the duo speed by with Bosco sitting rather unsteadily on
the saddle with that German girl, Helga, peddling like fury out of the town and
towards the Black Forest.
Now, on an enormous felled log, Bosco sat in the shade of giant firs and pines.
The quiet was so you could almost hear these huge trees breathe.
“You are used to being on the television?”
“No, not really. Tell me about this place.”
This is our Schwarzwald, our Black Forest.”
“So many trees.”
“It is a forest.”
“No, no, I meant…”
She could see him blushing and she helped him out as she had been helped out by
her education.
“Yah, well once this forest had many more trees, that is why it was called Black,
there were so many of them. But too many trees are cut down. Now the trees are
used for…” and she hesitated, “…the clock making.”
“What kind of clocks?”
“How you say it… cuckoo clocks.” And she laughed half apologetically.
“Here, they are many legends,” and she seemed back to an area where she was
more proud.
“Are there?”
She gauged him, before daring to tell him about this rich mythological landscape
of werewolves and sorcerers.
“There are many witches… you say that?”
Bosco nodded.
“It is said to be haunted by witches and the devil in differing disguise, you say
that, ‘disguise’?”
“Yes, you do.”
“You are frightened?”
“No, no, I’m not.”
“No, you are strong boxer,” and here she made an endearing little attempt at
boxing poses clipping her nose with a tiny clenched fist.
Bosco’s face fell. Why bring that in. It had been so clean up until then. Why did
she have to spoil this clean escape from that world? Although she could not
understand it, she could see his annoyance and quickly changed tack.
“How you say the… little person. The make it even with the witches in the forest.
They balance, you say that? Yah, they balance the things in the forest.”
Bosco has little appetite for the fantastical, Helga being fantastical enough for
him.
“Our Black Forest is one of the biggest forests in the Europe.”
“How big is it?” he asked absurdly.
“Oh I don’t know how big… 200 kilometres long I think.”
He stood up from the fallen log he had been sitting on as she turned towards her
bicycle. Then he stretched out a hand towards her, she looked at him somewhat
surprised as if he had seemed too quiet for such a gesture.
“You seem too quiet for it…”
“Too quiet for what?”
“This boxing. Yeah, well you are too gentle for it.”
And she reached for his hand. And when he reached forward to make what he felt
was the correct reply, to kiss her, but she put a restraining hand on his chest.
“ Bitte, please.”
“Oh right, sorry.”
“No, please ...don’t be sorry.”
“You hold my hand, yah?”
“Yes, yes, I will hold your hand.”
“We must walk more I will show you more. Must not get too late. The dark, you
are afraid, oh no, I forgot …you are not afraid.”
But Helga restrained herself, for reasons she didn’t know, from mentioning this
thing ‘boxing’ again.
“We walk yah? Come on give me your hand.”
And Helga and Bosco walked hand in hand through the Black Forest; the dying
sun shafting through the trees, dust motes caught in the shafts of light and forest
life and the life of the Black Forest looked on, hares on hind legs, a red fox
camouflaged but peering, a tawny owl, perched like some ancient wizard and
maybe even some trolls and witches and dwarves looking on at their innocence.
Helga in her little privilege of education and Bosco, confused, angry, desperate to
escape. Oh, what a difference was there here.
They walked to the historic Ravensburg Gate where they parted; Helga with a tear
in her eye, and Bosco with a yearning that had been denied.
“Are you coming to the hall to see the boxing?”
“Oh no, I must do my studies,” she lied so as she would not hurt him. “But I wish
you well.”
And Bosco watched her go and he wished he could go with her… and stay here in
Germany for ever and speak German and....
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