Her lips were like a silent water, a single line in the portrait of her face, that only moved to speak, but expressionless like a rock if no intentional purpose shook her pose to bits, and so was she speechless, no wrinkles appeared on her mouth unless a stone shattered the water, causing but an echo of the words that just hit her. When one conversed with her across the cherry table in the living room, she would graciously lean forward, to create the optical illusion of involvement, being surrounded by the inclining corners of the room, whose dimensions realigned themselves parallel to the lines of her protruding neck, like in a Modigliani painting.

I always found this character most intriguing, because of the safe borders of seduction that it outlined. Her face became a fisher’s line, curving in the water, but the bait was never meant to slip off the hook and be lost, it served the solely purpose of attracting one’s attention, and in a certain way it did. And it was not only the pose of her conversation that made the impression of being acted upon me. There were numerous events that by her distant movements, became scripted effects. The only time I caught her stripped from these appearances, was when I mistakenly walked into the bathroom as she was washing her vagina, standing half undressed in front of the sink. Being caught insuspiciously and half naked, shook her completely, and in the moment of full surprise, her whole body, including her face tore back in a rapid, cramped movement in which all her muscles convulsed instantly, including the muscles of her face. I am convinced it was not so much the fact that I saw her naked, but that it happened unexpectedly, as she always left the door open when she took a shower.

The whole summer, she candidly admitted one evening, she experienced as a great period of personal liberation. But this opening of her heart, interestingly coincided with a concealment of those very liberated senses. Maybe she was still undecided about her liberties, and was too afraid to burn her bridges.