Part 9 of the Owl story. Part 8 is there:
Scholars
The following two weeks Inga and I worked on the papers and books we’d picked up from Marco. Inga made copies of the most relevant documents using Marco’s scanner. There would be weeks, if not months, of work parsing the vast amount of information my thesis could use. Inga could work for hours non-stop, taking notes, creating an index of place and people names, a glossary of old dialect. Her contribution was invaluable. Often, in the evening, we would go out for a walk in the nearby parks.
Silence
Our understanding and silent communication was such that most of the time we got ready and went without a word, at the time we both felt ideal, sometime in the rain (ha! the long cape she wore then…), sometime in a glorious sunset. I now saw the city through her eyes, and her inhabitants as curious creatures, with whom, part from my students at the Uni, I now had only occasional exchanges. We sought isolated benches in the oldest and less frequented corners of the parks.
In the park
There was a bench we seemed to favour – I am not sure who it was who had favoured it first! – which had a nice view over old trees and a patch of tall grasses. One late evening we walked there, and silently sat on the bench. The rain had stopped, a blackbird was singing nearby. Inga’s left hand rested on my knee, and I was leaning toward her to kiss her, when a tall woman walked in front of us, smiled at us, and came and sit next to Inga. I was annoyed, but Inga’s eyes told me to relax and wait. Soon the woman started chatting with Inga, in Hochdeutsch, but low enough for me to catch only a few words.
Clouds we coming fast and thick from the west, I was thinking of some the papers Inga had already filed for me, fascinating accounts of farming and new industries from the time of Friedrich Der Große. I must have drifted in time, for I was suddenly aware that it was much darker. I also noted that Inga was leaning toward the woman, her head turned to her, and the woman arm was around Inga’s shoulder. At first I did not register what was happening, they were both silent, and absolutely still.
Intrusion
My vision was not very clear, so I turned toward Inga. In a shock I realised Inga was drinking from the woman’s neck, and her victim seemed to be asleep, eyes closed. I could not move. Perhaps ten minutes passed. Inga freed herself from the woman’s embrace, and, taking my hand, stood up. The woman was slumped on the bench, her arms loose on both sides of her. I nearly panicked. Inga’s calm voice came to me as in a dream. “Don’t worry, she will live. Let’s walk a bit…”
I was stunned, not a little upset. Inga’s solitary errands at night came back to me. “Tomorrow she will think she’s been stung by a wasp!” She said in a whisper. I wasn’t so sure. How often had Inga gone hunting like this, preying on strangers? She was reading my mind. She continued, silently, speaking wordlessly to my mind. It did not happen often. I was unique, I was her unique mate, there was no-one else, the stupid woman had just walked to her, ignored her warning, sought to seduce her…
Anger
But I was furious, not against Inga, but for my naivety, my delusion. These beloved lips had touched another human skin, those small teeth had cut through that skin, someone else’s blood was filling her belly… I was sick, at a loss. I was jealous. She understood and sensed all of it. And then, as we stopped, standing, looking at each other, her voice came out, clear, melodious, with a note of fear: “I love you, I cannot live without you.”
I was in tears, she was too. We kissed, she licked my face. We walked back home, slowly, enlaced, and I walked upstairs carrying her in my arms; as we walked in the apartment, I said: “It’s passed, now I know. I love you and cannot live without you either.” We never turned back. In the years that followed, no, in the decades that followed, we always went hunting together, she, never on her own. Like the wolves, we were mated for life.
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