No warm water

In Scandinavia there were still many reminders of the war and in Sweden which had been neutral throughout was no exception. One strange reminder were the piles of fire wood, neatly stacked, in parks and places where one would not expect to see them. They had something to do with saving power. I never asked if a person who was in dire need of a bath could help himself to a couple of logs then go home, light a fire, heat up some water and then wash. Personally, it was not so unusual, for I grew up without warm water, as a matter of fact no water except from the well, was standard for us.

And if you did not own a couple of chickens you might have to forego the standard American breakfast of fried eggs and bacon.

This is all a way to delay telling you about our re-union. It is so difficult to write about, and in a way it was so difficult to live through. Both of us were acting like we had to get to know each other first. S was a totally different person from the one who had left me at the George Washington Bridge. He looked the same, which for me was handsome. He had lived through things so horrible he could never talk about them. I did not know what to talk about, for what subjects were taboo? I wanted to be close and I wanted to be held, but what was OK, and what was too much. We acted like a couple of strangers. And in a way we were.

When the taxi delivered me to the hotel, S was not there. Management let me into the room. What could I do while waiting. I did not have to worry about that for long, for I sat in a chair and fell asleep. He did not tell me that the reason he was not there was because he had gone to the RR station to meet me. The subject came up a a couple of months later and I told him I was in a way grateful for the short sleep I had. Next morning when the jeep came to pick us up to drive us to the ferry in Helsingor we stashed the little luggage we had and were driving away, when he clerk came running after us waving my nightgown that I had left behind the bathroom door. Snicker Snicker from the two drivers.

All of you expected more, but you have to wait till we get to Stockholm where The Grand Hotel had warm water.