10 FLASHBACK

 With her head looking forward and her hair flying in the wind, she looked like a wild angel. Her skin had begun to tan since they started this trip and it had taken on a darker color and she reminded him about the time when they first met. Helena had applied for a job the athletic team offered and they had approved her the next day. It was the day for qualifying into the next athletic event, and the team exercised with naked upper bodies because of the heat and there were a lot of young and good-looking men on the field. They stopped doing their routines to salivate and whistle as she walked past them.

Gábor, wearing a cotton t-shirt and shorts to stay cool, coaching them, watched her as she walked past them. She threw him a glance and smiled, and then entered the office building, to see the hiring administrator who was supposed to be sitting in the air-conditioned office, but she couldn't find him there. Ildiko, the administrator's secretary, said Mr. Olmos might be on the field, informing Dr. Fabien about his new co-worker starting to work with him the next day, and she could wait for him in the cool office; he wouldn't be long.

Being a woman that liked to take the initiative, she wanted to introduce herself to the doctor and get her own impression of him as he was about to be her new colleague. She didn't tell the secretary that, though, and went to the field to meet Dr. Fabien. Gábor saw her coming out of the building and coming toward him and looked her over as she approached.

Long, dark wavy hair, held by a barrette, a fine face with wide-set eyes and high cheekbones, great lips, and a sculptured chin gave her a strong-willed female, yet gentle look. This is one very classy and sexy woman he thought. She appeared to be friendly. Eurasian, Czech perhaps? The kind he had always felt attracted to. The white skirt low on her slender waist was not too short and revealed her very shapely tanned, long legs and some skin of her belly. The flat-soled moccasins seemed out of place with the skirt, until he noticed the skirt was made of very fine suede leather accentuated with a braided black leather belt. Did she like North American Native style outfits?

Her sleeveless red blouse buttoned down from her sternum allowed a quartz stone to be visible and a peek at her breasts through the thin material of her blouse. Wearing no bra, he could see a hint of erect nipples through the silk, and suddenly his mouth watered. She had a great body, fit and trim, a wonderful easy walk like a dancer, swinging gently and almost provocatively, and a smile on her lips, as she got closer. She seemed to be about twenty-five and he'd bet a lot of men took detours to look at her. He knew he would.

Classy and with a graceful move of her head, very ladylike, she looked into his eyes. "Would you know who Dr. Fabien is?" her voice, playful and melodious like a song, woke Gábor from his trance.

 "I've been trying to find that out for myself for the past forty-two years," he managed to reply with a calm voice. Other men started to gather around, some donning jerseys.

"Any progress?" her wide smile revealed deep dimples and stunned him.

"Still a process." He could easily fall in love with a woman like her. Was she married or available? She wore no rings, so perhaps she was single like he.

"Need any help with that or can you manage it on your own?" she added to that, "very few men can find themselves without the guidance of a woman, did you know?" she winked and some of the athletes oohed and grinned from ear to ear. One of them said out loud what the others hoped for. He wanted to be guided someplace private and was willing to learn, he said. Her smile gave him hope. Gábor ordered them to continue with their routines, then took her by the arm and turned towards the office building. "This lady is looking for Dr. Fabien, boys," he said over his shoulder.

 "Let's leave the colts so they can work on their routines and earn their oats," he said to her. A few whistles and guffaws followed them until they were out of earshot.

"Are you the prime stallion here?" she had asked with a wide smile. Was she making fun of him or coming on to him? Either way, she was funny. He cocked his head and his smile increased.

"That depends on the filly."

She smiled back and her dimples made her even more attractive. They suited her and he loved them. Lowering her head as if she talked to the floor she informed him of her assignment.

"I'm going to be working with you as a physiotherapist, but I also teach yoga in my spare time. Join my courses. It might be helpful finding yourself and enable you to guide the herd easier." she added, looked up at him and a playful smile decorated her beautiful full lips. Her dimples deepened. She wore just a hint of some lipstick, but no makeup on her face and her eyelashes were naturally long and dark. A medium maintenance girl, but very classy, it seemed.

"I'm practicing Zen. Would that be compatible?"

"Very. Maybe you could teach me that in exchange?"

 "It's not something one can teach. It's something to practice. Talking the path doesn't take one anywhere where one is not already, but we could walk the path together." Did he just now invite her? He was not only charming and witty but also handsome, and she found his smile and eyes very attractive and in the age group she preferred. At that moment, the man she had signed the contract with and hired her came onto the field and the bubble enclosing her and Gábor burst.

"Ah, you met Dr. Fabien, very well. Did you tell him you are going to work under him?"

Helena flashed Gábor with a smile before she turned to the balding man.

"I hope with time he'll enjoy working under me," she said with a straight face. Taking his eyes off Helena for a moment he explained to Gábor what he already heard from her. "Helena is the physiotherapist we asked for. She has a great résumé."

"It's a pleasure to meet you Dr. Fabien. My name is Helena Nagy. And I'm also a seeker."

"What do you seek?"

"Freedom, Authenticity, Understanding, Respect, Peace of mind and care with a capital ‘C’," she answered without a pause and she glanced at the man called Olmos. "But, at this moment I‘m checking the field I'm going to play in. Employment in a pleasant environment is important to me. It could be this."

"Lofty ideals, and I hope you will enjoy it here, Helena."

Olmos used his most effective voice, the one he used when he fished for delicious morsels on two legs.

"Oh, with mutual respect anything is possible," said Helena.

The woman's voice had a quality of confidence and gentleness that had a hypnotic effect on Gábor. He could listen to her forever. He broke abruptly from the spell and addressed the hiring department manager.

"Ferri, I must go to Szeged for a few days and she could take my place here. Welcome to the club… Mrs. Nagy?"

"Miss. But you may call me Helena. As of yet, no man had asked my parents for my hand in unholy matrimony. Can't understand why."

With a gentle toss of her head, she cleared her hair from her face and flashed a radiant smile at him. Those dimples...

"Neither can I, but you could call me Gábor. Shall we go to my office?"

"Is it a private office, Gábor? I'd like to discuss some conditional matters with you before we start working together."

There was a palatable charge in the air and all felt it. Helena fell in beside him as he made his way towards the building. It seemed so natural that these two virtual strangers turned into a couple in just minutes that Olmos forgot to follow them to the office and stood transfixed on the field, lost like a misplaced statue. He looked after them, then flapped his arms once, did a three-sixty around his own axis before following them towards the complex. Just a day before he had thought she was somewhat interested, but now he felt like an invisible man. He was confused as to what just happened. Nobody believed in love at first sight anymore, but if she were willing he'd sleep with her, married or not. That option had evaporated as rapidly as a dewdrop on a hot stove when Helena encountered Gábor. Ferri never had a chance, but would have loved to have it.

The next morning, Gábor left to Szeged to substitute for a colleague for three days who attended a wedding and as it turned out was his own, and they hoped Gábor would take the place of the now married man. But he wanted to return to Budapest. The faculty didn't want Gábor to go and offered him double the salary, but they had to get a replacement for him because there was someone in Budapest Gábor wanted to see. The money didn't draw him; Helena did.

Gábor's days in Szeged were an agony. His mind was not on the work he needed to do, and Helena's being, her face, and voice haunted him. He had a hard time meditating and wanted to return to Budapest as soon as possible. Three days took an eternity to pass, and then he saw Helena again. Her bright eyes and big smile told him she was happy to see him too, and he asked her if she would like to join him after work for tea up on the Fishing Bastille in Buda.

"Are you married?" she asked.

"Not yet, but can we wait? Perhaps after tea?"

"That I could consider among other things if you can. Do you speak English?"

"Yes. Why?" Her eyes sparkled and she lectured him.

"T" comes before "U" in the German and English alphabet, so tea first," she laughed. "I don't know you well enough yet to get to "U".

"What would be the point if you already knew me? Not knowing me is a good thing. It gives us the opportunity to have a lot of tea together and to get to know each other. And yes, I speak a little English and German with un petit peut French and it's true, "U" comes after "T".

 “Are you a Linguist?" Helena asked.

"Only on appropriate occasions. Are you?"

"Oh yes, but I'm out of practice."

"Perfect. So am I."

"We could work on those skills together and I'd love to have "T" with "U". With her fingers, she marked the letters in the air.

"You do? Why?" He was genuinely surprised. He'd expected a turndown.

"Because you're crazy," said Helena and laughed at his funny face.

"I heard that rumour too, but I wasn't aware it spread all the way to ‘U’. Is that going to be a problem?"

"I love that in a man. And I missed your smile," she added. He loved her straightforward attitude and direct approach and playing word-games with her was fun plus she loved his craziness and she was playful. He could imagine having a good time together with her at work and play.

The following days they worked and talked about all kinds of topics and found they had similar views on life and their dreams as to what they wanted from life. She had never laughed so much in a year as she did in one day. Gábor was original, authentic, and funny in a different way. He mentioned he had dreamed about Canada since he was a child and wanted to move there someday, and Helena showed him her collection of Lakota jewellery and artefacts. They had very much the same taste; the subjects were different, yet complementary.

That weekend they went to a swimming pool and Gábor had the first look at her body in a two-piece swimsuit and thought it was the body of a model. Long legs, a nicely shaped round butt, a flat belly that had just the right curves, a figure one could not look enough at, and breasts that were high and in the classic proportions, not the large ones that make so many men ogle, just a good hand-full and pert. Overall, she was a beautiful woman but seemed not to know it, and it showed in her attitude. She looked like a fully developed teenager in her bikini and the scar from an appendix surgery didn't detract much from her perfection. Light-footed, she moved with the grace of a gazelle or a cat, almost dancing, and her walk was very feminine. That was the weekend that ended with the wildest and most pleasurable event in both of their lives.

A few days later she'd asked him to join her in her Aikido practice she attended three times a week. He didn't mention to her about his own practice at that point, and when her sensei greeted him with a big bow and called him sensei, she had the biggest surprised look on her face. Her sensei had the sixth Dan and he treated Gábor as his superior. Who was Gábor? Helena wondered and was hell-bent to find out.

Now this woman was his wife, but he never let her feel that. After all these years, they had romance in their lives and were friends, intimate friends. They did not limit each other or depend on each other for happiness. They enjoyed each other, not because they had to, but because they wanted to. Neither dependent nor independent, they were rather interdependent and had their own lives side by side. They were a team who didn't own each other and had their complete freedom without abusing it. Nevertheless, both knew they'd go crazy if either would ever leave the other. He could not imagine living without her or vice versa. The dark clouds that Leo's condition caused and almost destroyed them had moved.

Interrupted in her reminiscing by his voice, she turned her head and looked at him. Her hair whipped in the wind and as the boat skipped over the waves, she flexed her knees and wondered why Gábor did not sit down on the bench and asked him that.

"The wind is not hitting my face when I sit and I kind of like it. Does the wind bother you?”

"I like the wind, but it messes with my hair and I will have a hard time getting the knots all untangled. Maybe I'll tie it up in a ponytail or I'll braid it the next time."

"Why not now?"

"I forgot a bungee."

"Well, you look sexier this way."

"Are you fishing? You may catch a shark, you know."

"You may eat me anytime, Honey."

"Is that an offer or wishful thinking?"

"What would you like it to be?" He turned and looked at Leo and Ivan's sleeping bodies. Whatever was on her mind, she dropped it. Too risky.

Clearing her throat, she said, “I was almost a vegetarian until I met you."

"Fooled me. You seem to enjoy meat."

"Now I do, but not exclusively. I love being your shark and you my food."

"Your diet is probably the reason for your perfect figure," he complimented her, catching her playful and coquettish chat. "I've noticed you did get a load of snacks. Is that for emergencies?"

They laughed at that but the sparkle in their eyes was evident. Gábor sat down beside her and they moved closer together to enjoy their closeness in silence, hoping to find some privacy soon. Holding hands, for now, was enough and both were content. They had found Leo alive and like her husband, she too went into reminiscing about the past.