Linz, Upper Austria, 1905

The sun shone brilliantly in the cloudless blue sky when we set out that morning and the fair weather held most of the day. We swam in the lake for hours and by noon we had built up quite an appetite. Taking out the sandwiches and the bottle of milk I’d packed in my rucksack we picnicked under a tree, content as any two creatures on God’s green earth.

The spot was so secluded, so peaceful. It was well worth the long hike it took to reach.

We got back in the water and carried on swimming until late in the afternoon.

Neither of us had a pocket watch with us so we had no idea what time it was. It must have been around five or six when, without warning, dark clouds gathered in the heavens and the first drops began to fall. We scrambled into our clothes and packed our things together but we were stranded. There was no sign of shelter in sight.

Running down the hill, trying in vain to outrun the storm, I spotted a barn about a kilometre away, so we changed our course and headed for that.

By the time we reached it we were soaked to the skin, but to my surprise Erich was not annoyed. He was actually laughing.

We stripped off our clothes and did our best to wring them out. While Erich hung them up to dry I climbed up to the top of the barn and found some large squares of cloth, probably used to transport the hay to the fields.

They were very dusty and the material was rough but they were better than nothing.

Wet, naked and trembling my friend lay down on the sheet I had spread out and I folded him up in it. After I had thrown some hay over him I curled up in my own sheet and wrapped it tightly around me.

“I’m starving,” he said. “How about you?”

When I answered that I was too it seemed to ease his grief. He and I exchanged our impressions of what we’d seen that day. I’d never seen him so jovial and carefree as he was now, the two of us bundled up in dirty old pieces of cloth as the rain pelted against the roof high above our heads.

In the meantime we had begun to warm up. The sun had set and I wondered aloud what time it was, but Erich was enjoying the adventure too much to care.
It would have almost been cosy had it not been for our hunger.

It just seemed like the right time to tell him.

“Erich, I’m not a virgin.” In my voice was a trace of apology. For not having told him, but also for having something so sinful to confess in the first place. My friend had always been so perceptive in matters concerning me and my life, but it was evident that my words came as a shock to him.

I waited for him to start in on me but he just looked over at me silently. There was no anger in his face, and I realised he was waiting for me to continue.

“The woman I was working for last summer,” I reminded him. “In the house on Landstrasse...”

He shook his head in disbelief.

“How did she seduce you?” he asked, knowing me well enough to know it had been the other party