The Clocks

When Lily was asleep and cuddled up to my chest, I was still wide awake and staring at the ceiling. My mind drifted off to the first time we'd kissed, and before I noticed it, I too was asleep and dreaming of that day.

As I told you before, we'd been pretty much inseparable playmates since she'd somehow attached herself to me when she was six. (Oh, I didn't? Well I just did, so there.) I'm not sure how it happened, but one day I noticed that we'd been together every day for the past few months.

To tell the truth, I probably wouldn't have noticed it at all, or at least for a long time, if Lily hadn't come down with a cold or something.

I guess you could say that I was rather slow about such things, but it took me three or four days to realize that I was irritable and getting more so day by day. It wasn't me, but my mother, who finally decided that she'd had enough of my moping around and snapped.

"Johann Ludwig Kastner! Will you stop it!? I can't stand your mooning around like a calf that's lost its mother. Get yourself over to Lily's house and see her for God's sake!

"If you can't do that, at least get yourself out of the house. I'm going to go crazy if I have to put up with you any longer. Now, SHOO!"

With that she practically threw me out of the house. Seeing as I was a man of eight years, I bitterly resented being summarily ejected from my home, and by my mother no less. What if one of my friends had seen or heard it?

I looked around quickly, but I was in luck. Nobody was nearby. Good. So I wandered off, with my dignity fairly intact. (Yes, that meant something to me even at that early age.) I kept walking, thinking of not much of anything other than my resentment of my mother thinking that I could have any interest in a girl. For Christ's sake! No self-respecting male of my age would have anything to do with one of THEM. Even if, for argument's sake, I admitted to having an interest in them -- if only to myself -- I'd never let my friends know about it. They'd laugh their heads off at me.

I mean, that would be totally undignified. As I was nodding my head to myself, having solved that particular dilemma, I looked around to see where I was. Heavy thinking like I'd just done tended to leave such unimportant particulars as one's location out of one's consciousness. To my surprise, shock, and, I scarce dare admit it, my pleasure, I found myself standing in front of Lily's house.

I stood there, pulled in two directions. I wanted to flee as quickly as possible, in case someone should see me there, but I also wanted to go inside and see Lily.

That problem was solved by Lily's mother who was ambling up the street, having completed her morning shopping.

"Johann! How wonderful. Lily has been so lonely without you. Please. Come inside. She's well enough for visitors now, and seeing you will likely help her to get moving again. She's been feeling far too sorry for herself the past day or so."

What could I do? If I begged off, word would somehow get back to my mother within moments via that strange, almost telepathic, communication system that mothers use with each other. When she found out that I'd refused to go in, I'd be in for at least a 30 minute lecture on proper behavior and how one should be polite to one's elders. Then there'd be another 15 minutes about how I should have helped Lily's mother carry in her groceries.

So, that being the case, I reluctantly (or at least so I convinced myself) relieved Lily's mother of the groceries and carried them inside for her.

"Thank you Johann. Now, why don't you run upstairs and see Lily. The two of you can come down and have some tea after a while, and you can tell me how things have been going at your father's shop. I've been tied down here most of the time since Lily got sick and I've missed out on all the recent gossip."

I went up the stairs, briskly I might add. Sullen trudging up the stairs is to be saved for when one's parents can see it.

(No, of course it wasn't because I was hurrying to see Lily. What an odd being you are. Whoever you are. Speaking of which...oh? It doesn't matter right now? All right. If you say so.)

Where was I? Oh yes. I hurried into Lily's room. She was lying on her bed staring up at the ceiling, or at nothing. I couldn't tell for sure. When she heard the door open, she slowly turned her head toward me. The next thing I knew there was a small, warm body in my arms with its legs wrapped around my waist and its arms around my neck. (Yes, that started early, didn't it?)

She was nuzzling my neck and repeating my name over and over. I was totally shocked, extraordinarily embarrassed, and yet, somehow, I was suddenly more happy than I'd been in the past, well, forever if I have to be truthful about it.

It wasn't until I heard Lily's mother calling us down to tea that I realized that I had no idea how long I'd been standing there. As I came to my senses, I found that my arms were wrapped around Lily too, and I realized that something odd was happening. Lily was purring like a cat.

"Ah, Lily, your mother is calling us. We'd best go downstairs."

Lily leaned back and studied my face, looking for what I had no idea, then she put on a thoughtful look. "Yeah, you're right Johann. I guess we should.

"Carry me down. I'm still a bit weak from my cold."

I was quite sure that she was lying. She'd leapt out of bed and launched herself at me so fast that I'd barely seen her coming. That doesn't sound like a sick person, does it?

Still, she had been ill, and she was such a small thing, and maybe she was still a bit under the weather, so I decided that carrying her would be rather gentlemanly. So that's what I did.

As we descended the stairs and came into sight of the kitchen, I noticed that Lily's mother suddenly covered her mouth with her hand and spun around with her back to us. Probably so she could grab the teapot which was whistling merrily.

(Rachel was, of course, doing her best not to laugh. "Like mother like daughter," though in this case it was "like grandmother like granddaughter." Lily was behaving exactly as her grandmother Carline did frequently with Alphonse when she thought nobody was watching, and the similarity had Rachel almost rolling on the floor.).

I deposited Lily gently into her usual place and took the stool that the family reserved for casual guests who didn't rate a more comfortable chair. While I was inhaling the fragrant steam from the tea -- Lily's mother was a locally famous herbalist and her teas were exquisite -- I noticed that Lily and her mother seemed to be having a rather animated conversation.

I say "seemed" because neither of them was saying anything, at least not that I could hear. They were however staring intently at each other and the expressions on their faces were changing by the moment. They were also making tiny gestures with their hands that made me think of punctuation. You know, like question marks, exclamation marks, things like that.

I slurped at my tea noisily, and they both turned to look at me. It isn't likely that the innocent expression on my face fooled either of them, but they did start speaking with words from that point on, though their conversation revolved around herbs, goings on in town, and who was doing what with and to whom.

Exactly. These were all things that I had no interest in. I excused myself, probably as per their plan, and headed back home. Besides, I had a lot to think about. In particular one thought had popped into my head that was both startling and puzzling. I'd worried earlier about my friends teasing me if they found out that I'd been spending time with Lily. After hitting myself rather firmly in the head, I got my brain turned on and rebooted my memory.

Playing back what I could remember, and counting from the summer fair, I realized that Lily and I had been together, every day without fail, for exactly 68 days. My first reaction was one of terror. My friends were going to have a field day teasing me about it. Then I realized something important. If Lily and I had been together for 68 days, and I was sure of my counting, my friends couldn't have helped but notice a long time ago.

They hadn't teased me about it, even once. What was going on?

I dredged through my memory to pull up what images I could of the times I'd seen them recently and was once again shocked.

They had noticed, and they'd obviously been talking about us. The expressions on their faces though.... That's what floored me.

They weren't expressions of amusement or ridicule. They were expressions of envy.

Now I really didn't know what to do. I'd been prepared, sort of, for teasing, but not this. I had not the slightest idea of what to do, so I decided to do nothing. After all, pretending not to notice what others thought of you was a primary part of maintaining one's dignity...at least that's what I believed at eight years old.

When I got home, my mother was in a much better mood. She smiled at me and asked the usual silly questions about how Lily was doing and how her mother was. Once that was over with, I went up to my room to study. We didn't have such a thing as a school in our town then, that started about four years later, but children were expected and required to spend time studying every day, except for Sunday, when we all trooped over to the Church of Miracles for services.

(It seemed to me to be gigantic when I was a child, but, as I became more traveled, I realized that it was nothing more than a moderate size church. The City's first true cathedral was completed 32 years later in 73 AF.)

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Life proceeded as life does, and it seemed like only a few weeks had passed, but I'd somehow become 11 and Lily was now nine.

It was the day before I was to begin my apprenticeship in my father's woodworking business, and Lily and I had slipped away to swim before I had no more time for such a frivolous thing.

The air was already cooler, it being late September, but we headed down to our "special" place -- about two hundred yards south of where the water from the hot spring in the center of town merged into the river. There was a goodly sized grove of weeping willow trees at the bend there, and their branches hung down till they almost touched the water. I guess they really liked the warmth, because there were dozens of trees right on and near the banks. They were close enough together that if you were outside the grove, you couldn't see even 10 feet inside it.

We'd strolled sedately along the path next to the river until we were well inside the grove. Then we ran, shrieking with pleasure, to the bank of the river and pulled off our clothes.

Some things never change. I folded mine neatly and placed them on a low hanging branch. Lily threw hers every which way and was already splashing in the water as I approached the bank. Once I'd waded, sedately, into the water, I reverted to being a child and splashed around with as much abandon as Lily did.

Later, after we'd tired ourselves out, I was lying on the grass on the bank, and Lily, as usual, was lying several feet above me on a wide branch of the solitary oak tree that grew in the grove. Neither of us spoke for quite a while. We were just enjoying each other's company.

I must have dozed off, as I suddenly started awake when something landed on my face. I opened my eyes and saw Lily smiling down at me.

"Johann, I have a favor to ask you. I want you to kiss me."

I sat bolt upright. "What?! What are you talking about all of a sudden? What's with you?"

Yes, I was embarrassed. I was 11, so of course I'd imagined kissing girls, but always older ones who were already, ah, developed, if you know what I mean. I'd never thought of kissing Lily. She was tiny and definitely on the skinny side. Looking up at her I studied her for the first time. No, she wasn't showing even a slight indication of any developing -- not that you'd expect it at her age.

She was studying me too, but I don't think in the same way I was looking at her. For one thing, she was looking only at my face.

"Johann. I'm not teasing you. It's not going to be all that long before I'm 12, and then my parents are going to start looking for someone to marry me off to."

Marriage! Lily? She had to be kidding, didn't she? I did the math in my head, and it was an easy sum. She was right. She was almost 10 now. Parents usually did start looking for husbands when the girl reached 12 though they usually held off on the marriage itself till they were 14. Where had the time gone, and, more importantly, why was my chest aching?

Lily continued as if I'd not reacted, "They'll probably find someone older who's lost his wife. You may not know this, but we women all do. At least a tenth of wives die in childbirth or shortly thereafter, so there's no lack of older men wanting someone younger as a partner, especially if they don't have any living children."

Childbirth. Die! I looked more carefully at Lily. She was uncommonly tiny, and her hips were almost hopelessly narrow. You didn't have to be a genius to realize that if she were to become pregnant as soon as she was fertile, she was highly likely to be one of those who died. My expression was probably a mirror of hers, and she looked so sad that I almost burst into tears.

"So Johann, I want you to kiss me. I want to be able to remember that at least the first person I kissed was someone I truly loved."

The meaning of her words didn't completely penetrate right away, but I got the gist. I had a choice to make, and it was one that someone my age shouldn't have to. It wasn't fair! One choice led to the usual way of growing up, full of laughing with friends, flirting with girls when we got older, and slowly growing into adulthood.

The other choice had a price, and that price was giving up everything that would have happened if I'd chosen the first path. I was being asked to make a commitment, and I DID NOT WANT TO! I wanted to be free to stay a child as long as I could. I didn't WANT to shoulder responsibilities any sooner than I had to.

That was when Lily's words finally penetrated my brain, and I truly understood the situation. My first choice involved exactly what I had said it would, which included flirting with girls. That was the kicker. Most girls wanted to flirt and, eventually, get married to whoever their parents chose for them, preferably someone rich and handsome. No need for love. Position was what mattered.

Lily had said that she loved me. Almost nobody had the chance to marry for love in our society. Oh, sure, some couples eventually came to love each other, but it was not even close to a majority. Most people lived out their lives with someone who was, at best, something of a friend, much like an old, comfortable slipper, but nothing more than that. So I had a choice, but it wasn't much of one. My parents, and Lily's now that I thought of it, obviously did love each other. They were definitely happier than most of the other couples in town.

Besides, the thought of Lily with someone other than me was already tearing me apart. Who knew how I'd feel if I had to watch her marry another man.

I stood and held out my arms. "Come on then. Give me your first kiss, and all of the others for the rest of our lives."

The look on Lily's face probably could best be described as "triumphant." I didn't have time to think about it, (somehow I rarely had time to think about things with her around) as she jumped into my arms. As she had when she was six, she had her legs wrapped around my waist, only this time she wasn't nuzzling my neck. She was quite busily kissing me.

Over the next few minutes we figured out a few ways of doing it that didn't involve our noses getting in the way or our teeth banging into each other's. Then we got down to kissing in earnest. I told you this before, but Lily was definitely an Olympic level kisser. She still is. The kissing might have gone on for quite a bit longer, but we were interrupted, or rather, my body interrupted us.

All of a sudden, I learned first-hand what the older boys had meant when they were talking about a certain part of you "standing at attention." I suppose I could say that my dignity flew out the window but, in truth, I was mortified.

We were both still naked. We'd been waiting to dry off before putting our clothes back on, so it was a given that Lily was as aware of my reaction as I was. What she did next was surprisingly calming and made my embarrassment disappear.

She leaned back enough that she could look me in the face and said, "It's nothing to be upset about Johann. It's totally natural. In fact, it's rather flattering. If I can get your attention with a body like the one I have now, I wonder what things will be like when I've grown up."

Then she gave laughed that deep, throaty chuckled that I've always loved so much. How such a tiny thing could have such a deep laugh still puzzles me. Her amorous inclinations notwithstanding, I was suddenly quite frightened. Visions of her getting pregnant and dying in childbirth rushed back into my head. Fortunately, she allayed my worries, at least for a time, quite quickly. I swear, it was like she could read my mind.

"Johann dear. I have the same concerns you do. That's why today is going to be our last day swimming together like this and why we're going to avoid being alone together from now on. We can't afford anything other than an occasional kiss."

Lily suddenly had a fierce expression on her face. "We are however NOT going to stop kissing each other. However, we're most definitely going to have to be careful about when and where."

She wiggled against me, this time clearly wanting me to put her down, so I did, and then we both got dressed. As we walked back to town, she had her "thinking hard" face one.

"Johann, if you please, let me deal with this. I'll talk to my mother and she'll talk to yours. If we handle it right, our fathers will go along with our getting married without thinking about how the thought got into their heads. They'll probably think that it was their idea, seeing as how your father is a master cabinetmaker and mine is a master stonemason. They'll see the financial opportunities of a merger of the families right away."

Me, I shook my head. I was beginning, dimly perhaps, to see how much control of our lives our women had, and how little most of them wanted their men to be aware of it. To be truthful, at that point I really didn't care. What really mattered to me was that I could have Lily beside me. After we'd both been thinking a while longer, it was my turn to make a suggestion. I didn't want Lily to think that I was a complete idiot, though, in retrospect, I suspect that she'd had the same idea long before and was letting me think that I'd come up with it first.

"It's unusual but not entirely unknown for a couple to be betrothed when the girl is 10, at least if their parents are fairly well off. So why don't you talk to your mother about that too? You'll be 10 in only two months, right? I don't want any other guys having even the slightest opportunity to think that they have a chance with you, OK?"

My expression must have been rather fierce, but Lily didn't show even a tiny hint of amusement or the self-satisfaction she must have felt at my expression of incipient jealousy.

What she did was say thoughtfully, "Yes Johann, that sounds like a very good idea. I'll be sure to bring it up with her as soon as our fathers have agreed to us getting married."

We didn't speak again the rest of the way home. When I was able to pay attention to the outside world again, I noticed that we were holding hands. Normally it would have embarrassed me terribly if anyone saw us, but it felt like it would be wrong if I let go. Besides, I was trying to figure out what was going on. Lily's entire body seemed to be vibrating.

Finally it came to me. When I'd carried her downstairs when she was six I'd imagined that she was purring. Now I was quite sure that it hadn't been my imagination after all. It was right at the edge of my hearing, so deep that I almost couldn't hear it at all, but she was, without a doubt, purring again.