Come Back (8 page)

Frankfurt   leaning on hotel balcony. And below me, there’s Denn’s blond head! In lobby Mom, Dad, Denn Colin & parents, then Ailsa

Frankfurt   saw Roman ruins, Drei Roemer, the ugly gaps still left from WWII.

A: Are you really going to stay away for a whole year?

G: I probably won’t be able to stand it.

A: Good (quietly)

G: What?

A looking down, smiles. Scotland in her name. The great rock, “craig,” in the sea off Ayr is called Ailsa. Joan told me, laughing like she does, they had so little contact with their Scottish relatives they at least gave their kids Scottish names.

Dinner after Goethe Haus—pasta, A beside me. She found my hand on my leg.

Drive early, Dad & Grant & boys to Marburg, his old Uni, and Mom, Joan, Ailsa & me to Mainz. The Chagall windows in St. Stephan, still rebuilding it from the war (40 years), a blue shimmer over the chancel. Joan entranced. But A whispers: “Why are you mean to me?” I couldn’t answer. Evening, walk streets alone, too many others.

Heidelberg, after Castle hiked over bridge & Philosophenweg for view. A tries to put her arm in mine. “Are you mad at me?” Meal (pasta again) in Altstadt, sit beside her. Her hand again. “A year away, you’ll forget me.” Walking to cars we find a girl (dope, valium?) curled on street cobblestones. Scary and sad, we all just let her be. I drive our rental back to Frkfrt, A in back like always with kibitzing boys, no touch possible. But we have held hands twice.

Ailsa Helen: born May 19, 1971

- Gaellic/Scot./English, Elsbeth/
 Elizabeth: consecrated to God

- Greek/Helen: light, a torch—a flame, yes

Dear Ailsa, Dearest Helen,

Consecrated, dedicated to all that is light and beautiful, flame of my being. Forgive me for acting so cool, for almost seeming mean/mad. It is absolutely not that this is really the case—just that my feelings are so strong I feel very awkward and apprehensive with both our families always so close around. Your pretty thin fingers, your lovely eyes are all that is beautiful in the world. Your affection for me is beyond dream. Forgive me if I at times seem standoffish, really that’s NOT what I mean, I care for you so deeply and do not want to hurt you ever, in any way. Hopefully the future will be better for us.

With all my hope, my love, Gabriel Thomas Wiens

(W Germany–France–W. Germany) Had to leave Frkft.—but with great hope—they’re driving to Paris. Parents, Denn, I   drove to Alb. Schweitzer town Kayserberg, Fr. Good to concentrate on traffic, crowded Autobahn. Night in Freiburg Ger. hotel, ate pasta in memory   now more than dream!

Climbed Freiburg huge gothic spire, Denn hung out waving, scared Mom. Drove through Black Forest.

Round hills, bent roads. Crazy laughs with Denn.

Lonely

Dostoevsky plaque at Baden-Baden, baths sulphur, high castle ruins, mountains and forest. He never got over being a gambler, but wrote—dare to be a gambler!

(W. Germany–France) lv. alone again, Strasbourg tr. station, lots of strangers, evening 8:00:   this, all this that we love within us … the dried up riverbeds of ancient mothers, the whole silent landscape under the clear heavens—all this, my dearest girl, preceded you (Rilke)

Nice, arrive 8 in the morning   small “Terror in Nice” got it stopped walking, to Albert Hotel and there was Fred, as planned     quiet Karen O is with him

(France–Italia) Chagall Museum, Nice: whole Old Testament floats for him, in blue, stunning. But the thick erect snake and Eve with red apple, Adam groping. O Joan mother mother. All 3 of us on evening train to Milano

Dearest Ailsa,

I’m in Italia sitting on a rock embankment in the resort town of Desenzano overlooking the lake called Lago di Garda. It took an hour and a half by train to get here from Milano. It is 10:30 in the morning and the big French boys who were playing in the water near me, making the usual beach sounds, have rented paddleboats and are disappearing into the hazy lake.

Since I cannot remember your family’s art itinerary, I can’t place at this moment, August 7, 10:40 am, your whereabouts. (Oh Ailsa, I do care, very much. Back in Edmonton, if I hadn’t had the opportunity to see you for a while, I would drive past your house to see if your bedroom light was on or off.) Here the only closeness I can get, so much feebler, is by my meals. I’ve eaten lasagna 3 times already, in memory of you and your hands and Chagall blue. I saw an enormous museum of his paintings in Nice, and every painting had something of you and blue in it.

I would never deliberately be mean to you. There are times, like in Mainz, when I’ve seen your sensitive soul, at least I think I have. I would so much love to know more about what goes on behind those green eyes.

Please, forgive me when I acted foolishly those few days we had in Germany. I have nothing but tender feelings towards you, Ailsa, it’s that I felt extremely awkward near you so long and together with our
parents and our always joking brothers; which is why I want to be alone with you, and we never have been, or were walking then, so I never felt I could explain what I am trying to do making this trip. You said so quietly in Frankfurt, “Good,” when I confessed I probably couldn’t stay away for a year. And believe me, I felt so good then, too.

Now I took a walk, got some things to eat at the market here, there are hundreds of sellers. And the thought struck me: I don’t really want to be here, at this dull, supposed to be beautiful! lake—and it is, I can see that—in the middle of north Italy. But I am, far away from you, here, searching to try and say what is on my mind, but I don’t really know where I could stand with you, or what I could explain. To show my feelings I tried to arrange some verses from the Song of Solomon that I was reading in Nice August 3, 4, in the Holy Bible (with pictures by Chagall too). I admit I’ve walked the streets of Nice and Milano trying to find you. Once in a while I found someone with eyes like yours, or very young with lovely shoulders, but of course they were never you. And those girls didn’t care about me, or even noticed I was alive in front of them.

Yet, there are some places I want to see here in Europe. I must say that I will be back by at least Christmas, most likely a lot sooner.

But then what! This question was already on my mind on the street in Heidelberg, the night of the unconscious valium (?) girl. I was in a state of melancholia because I knew those few seconds walking
beside you were going to pass, so fast, everything goes. Your affection and goodness … there, in Germany, I had the opportunity to show you how I care for you, and because I’m so shy and feel so awkward in front of the others, because I (stupidly) keep thinking ahead to when we won’t be together, I couldn’t show you. Only hide my worry, think ahead and worry. Isn’t that foolish?

So this letter is a declaration to you, a sensitive, beautiful and very young lady.

I love you, Ailsa Helen, birthday Wednesday May 19, 1971. How I long for you to be here, to talk with me. Please write me so I know you exist.

Even now, in this letter, I cannot express the feelings and thoughts … there is so much we could say, but never do, and so much we shouldn’t say but barely do. Here I don’t know if I can even try to mail this letter.