This is a true story about a woman who meant a lot to me many years ago.
It was 1973, and I was a 24 year old Army enlisted man, stationed in central Germany. I thought at the time that I was really out of the action, sexually, but in recalling those days later, I've realized that there were lots of unique experiences with women on that German tour. Perhaps some day I'll write about the lieutenant's wife, or the PFC's wife, or one of my other close calls. But the experience I recall most fondly is my relationship with Ursula.
Ursula was a fixture on the post where I was stationed. You'd frequently see her puttering around in her white VW bug. Ursula was German, but since she was married to a Stars and Stripes employee, she had the run of all the military facilities.
Ursula was talented in many ways, one of which was her facility with languages. She spoke German, French, and better English than most of the soldiers on our post. Her linguistic ability, combined with a vibrant, pleasing personality allowed her to have a thriving business buying and selling the things that soldiers and their families needed in a foreign country.
She would get used goods on the German economy, like major kitchen appliances, and sell them to the the lower ranks who had brought their wives and families to Europe, only to find that it was really different from the States. Many of these young men were just kids emotionally and had no clue how to function in a foreign country, far from their insulated neighborhoods back. When those soldiers left or sent their alienated and depressed wives home, Ursula was there to buy back the fridge or stove she'd sold them months earlier and place the item with a new owner, making a reasonable profit each time.
You'd often see her on the tennis court, where her skill could easily knock off a much younger male competitor. She had absolutely no problem humbling an opponent, yet she did it in a nice way, usually with words of encouragement for the bewildered soldier.
She was a striking figure on and off the court, with her straight, slim body and long, thick salt-and-pepper hair. She certainly didn't advertise it, but I found out later that she was 45 years old. Ursula was more woman than most of those hayseed privates and corporals had ever encountered. A powerful woman, and highly independent. Though she was only about 5'6" or so, her sharp nose and erect posture gave her the aire of someone much taller. Ursula wore fairly heavy blue eyeshadow and mascara that gave her deep-set eyes an intense quality, which contrasted with her quick smile.
I was frankly scared of her. I would never have thought to approach her sexually, since I knew she could shoot me down in three languages. After all, what had I to offer? An average-looking guy, a bit older than most of the enlisted men ambling about the post. More shy than I would have like to have been. But Ursula apparently saw something in me that she liked.
I can hardly remember how it happened or exactly what she said to me that day. We were at the Recreation Center after work. I used to go there sometimes in the evening and work in the darkroom. (One of the benefits of being in the Army was the ability to buy cameras and stereos at cut-rate prices, and I had acquired a nice SLR and learned to print black-and-white pictures at the Rec.) As I had nothing more interesting to do that night, I was at work on a couple of prints. One of them was a simple study of the textures in the broken body of a tree felled by lightning.
