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'You come down here, Graff.'
'I won't wear anything either,' I said.
'Oh, you better,' said Gallen, and she stepped out where I could see her, blousy in her long-sleeved ruffles and her apron full of frills. I thought: God, she can't be more than fourteen.
'Is your auntie with you?' I asked.
'Of course not,' she said. 'You come down.'
So I danced down the prickly carpeted hall. The chandeliers swung overhead, giving me weary winks, as if they were tired of seeing such stealthy evening schemes go padding by underneath them. And the local soccer teams rebuked me from their framed, fixed poses on the lobby wall; year by year, their faces never changed. There was one year when they all shaved off their mustaches. There were the war years, when there'd been a girls' team - but righteous athletic faces nonetheless. There were faces that had seen you before, had seen countless adventurers and lovers creeping through that lobby, and they'd rebuked them all. Impatient toes stirred their ready, soccer feet. They'd have left their photographs and kicked me, for sure, if only they hadn't seen so many secrets like mine.
The castle let me safely out, and Gallen said, 'Who's there?'
'Bright pink Graff,' I told her, 'as shiny and nude as the Christ Child.'
'You step out,' she said.
I saw her in the vines along the castle wall; she ducked under the window ledges and waved me after her.
'Come around,' she said. 'Around here, Graff.'
We turned the castle's cornerstone; the heavy spray from the falls met us. The rush of water silenced the crickets, and the gun slits of Waidhofen's towers, lit along the riverbank, were cutting light-slices in the creamy swirls of foam below the dam.
'It's been so long since I've seen you, Graff,' said Gallen.
I sat down with her, our backs against the castle; her shoulder overlapped mine just a little. Her braid was coiled on top of her head, and she gave it a pat before she looked at me.
'How did I fix your legs?' she said.
'Oh, I'm fine now, Gallen. May I see your neck again?'
'Why can't you just talk?' she said.
'Words fail me,' I told her.
'Well, you must try,' said Gallen.
'I wish we had adjoining rooms,' I tried.
'I'll never tell you where my room is,' she said.
'Then I'll look in every one.'
'Auntie has a dog sleep at the foot of her bed.'
'Who sleeps at the foot of yours?'
'If I thought you were staying long, I'd have a lion. How long will you stay, Graff?' she said.
'Fate shapes our course,' I told her.
'If I thought you were staying long, I'd tell you where my room is.'
'Would your auntie give you a dowry?'
'I don't believe you're going to stay another day.'
'Where would you go for your wedding trip?' I said.
