Remembering

The first thing I noticed were her hands. So small, so sweet, so graceful. A bit freckly and a bit pale. Almost as delicate as the girl herself. Looking up, I encountered the softest, most beautiful girl. Simple, clean skin, hair as black as can be, and the face of a child called me towards her. 
I saw her standing by a shop window, map of France in hand. Picking up my black trench coat and briefcase, I made my way over to the girl. Ten feet away. I began to notice the sunshine reflecting off her hair. Five feet. The stitchwork on her sweater became clearer. Two feet. I began to bask in the scent of her perfume. Teased, I found myself longing for her. 
Finally approaching, I asked, “Pardonnez moi, Mademoiselle, you appear lost. May I be of any assistance?”
A little flustered, the girl responded, “ I’m looking for the Coquelles station. I’m on my way to England at the moment…”
“Right this way mademoiselle, not a problem I will lead you there myself. Allow me to take your bags.”
Rolling her small duffel, I dared not walk the most direct route to the station, for I wanted to get to know her better.
“How did you spend your time in France? Holiday? School?”
The girl didn’t answer. She simply walked besides me looking ahead, almost weirded out. Her silence intrigued me.
“Now child, what are you up to all alone here?”
After a little hesitation, the girl finally replied softly, “Because of my father.”
“Where is he? Is he here?”
“China,” she replied quickly.
Now we’re finally getting somewhere. After more silence, I asked, “Are you Chinese?”
“Yes. If you don’t mind, I’d appreciate you showing me to the train station. I’m supposed to be leaving in less than an hour and I don’t want to be late.”
“D’accord mademoiselle. We’ll be getting you to the train in no time. But first, lets get a bite to eat.”
“There’s no time, please sir just show me where I need to go.”
Grabbing her arm, I assured her in an almost seductive manner, “Don’t worry my darling, but first, we must eat; I’m starving,”
“Really please,” she pleaded.
“It’ll be quick,” I assured her.
I dragged her struggling body to the café off the square of the church of the Assumption. I could tell she was uncomfortable, but I didn’t understand why. I couldn’t bear it. I just couldn’t grasp what I was doing wrong. I think it’s time to explain a little more about myself. I’m something society doesn’t foster; I can’t help it though. I’ve gone to doctors but each time I’m shooed away because I’m thought to be a creep; I try to blend in. My problem is that I’m attracted to women much younger than myself.
In order to make up for grabbing her, I told her, “Buy anything you want from here.”
She still looked upset.
Silence.
In desperation to get a conversation going, I asked, “Tell me about China.”
Still silence.
“I’ll just tell you about myself then. I’m an Englishman, turned French gent. I was born in 1970. My mum and dad and I lived in Northern England, right in the heart of the coal mining culture. Once the strike started my dad was out of a job and since me and my mum didn’t work, we didn’t have much to live off of. We were hungry a lot, and the politics of the whole matter brought out the worst in my father. He was always yelling at my mum and me, and he even hit me once. It sounds a little ridiculous, but it messed me up and all I wanted was someone to care about me. At the same time, I had finally found my love. Her name was Rose Miller. She was truly beautiful. A brunette with a pale complexion, I was so in love with here, and she loved me too. We had been courting for some time before the strikes began, and once they started, we wanted to support our fathers, who were both temporarily unemployed, so we went to the pickets. While there, the police showed up, so everyone started running away and in the stampede that pursued, the crowds trampled over people, Rose included.”
The girl looked up at me.
“Devastated, I left England as soon as I could and ended up here. Not wanting my family to recognize me and not wanting to give myself any reason to remember what happened in England, I adopted a new life, learned French, and started speaking in a French accent.”
The girl simply stared at me, with nothing to say, almost contemplative.
We sat in silence until our croissants and coffee came.
“I’m also leaving to start afresh,” she finally said. “For several years, I had a boyfriend a bit older than me. I was shocked to find out one day that I was pregnant. I didn’t know what to do and for a couple weeks, I struggled with my options. When I finally told my family, my father was outraged and yelled at me, saying “Goya, Goya you are too young! You are only fourteen!”
So she has a name! Her trust in me made me fall for her even more. She continued, not even noticing my growing affection.
 “My father took me immediately to get an abortion. There weren’t any complications, but people found out and began gossiping. They told my father that I had disgraced the family name and that I had lost their honor. We figured it would be best for me to move away for a little while, so that’s why I’m here now.”
More silence.
“So your name is Goya.”
“I’m going by the name Gina now. But yes, my given name was Goya Zheng.”
“I’m the same as you. Originally Kurt Tromper, I go by Christian Tromper now, pronounced Trom-pay, to make it the most French, of course. “
Gina smiled at me. I was overwhelmed with happiness just to have someone to talk to whom I could make happy.
“It’s almost time to be getting you to the train,” I said with sorrow.
Looking at her watch, she exclaimed, “Yes, yes. We need to go.”
She hurried out of the restaurant in front of my slowly moving self.  We caught a cab and the whole ride back, I kept thinking that this was it; this was my chance. But as we approached the station, the girl hopped out with her bag and said the sweetest little “Thank you sir” before smiling and running off. Alone, yet again, I drove away as she caught her train.
 
 
Tell us Ben, what were some of the themes and ideas you wanted to get across in your story.
I definitely wanted to refer back to themes from other books I’ve read, so there are several interspersed throughout the story. First off, Christian’s character is supposed to resemble Gustav from Death in Venice, with his attraction towards a younger person and attachment to them as well. Also, relating back to Sputnik Sweetheart, I tried to play with different times of people’s lives. Christian was never able to get over Rose’s death, so the hormones of his fourteen year old body remained while he grew to be an older man. Unable to control his attractions to girls, he went to a doctor but was judged disapprovingly and thus tried to hide it. When he saw Goya, his hormones became especially turned on because of her physical similarities to Rose. Goya and Rose were made to be similar to each other, so that Christian would begin to fall for Goya. Additionally, Christian and Goya share similar stories as well. The fact that they both had comparable life happenstances was supposed to draw Christian to Goya even more.
Well you certainly did a lovely job doing that.
I would have liked to elaborate more, because my notes for this short story are much longer than the story itself. There’s a lot more to each of the characters and I felt that with the short nature of this story, it was difficult to add those while actually having some form of action. One thing I wasn’t able to touch upon was elaborating on the similarities between Goya and Rose. I tried to make it clear that they looked alike, but I would have liked to show how their personalities were also alike. I also wanted to talk more about Christian and get the reader to feel more attached to him in a sympathetic way. I originally had a segment about him going to doctors trying to figure out what was wrong with him, but it didn’t flow with this part of the story, although it did add another layer of reality to his character.
Anything else?
Yes, just one more thing. I had hoped to be able to explain more about why it was Goya that Christian was falling for. It was supposed to be a play off of Sputnik Sweetheart, when Miu aged overnight without any logical explanation.
But at the end of the day, are you content with your work?
Yes of course.