 |
“It was poetically written, a love story that enthralled me to the end. It is hard to captivate my mind and settle me down to read. This book is deep and has substance.”
Synopsis
East Prussia, 1935.
Every morning, a telegraph operator walks into the woods and waits. He counts the minutes and his own breaths. He has been doing this for three months.
She does not know he exists.
She reads poetry, kneels among wildflowers, hums to herself. He watches from the trees and tells himself it is harmless; only observation, only careful attention. He follows her through town at a careful distance; notes the books she borrows from the library, the bread she chooses at the baker's, the way she tilts her face up to the rain and laughs. He begins to keep a journal. What he writes there frightens him. He knows he should stop. He finds he cannot.
Excerpt
She came again today, the same place, the same hour. I smelled the grass where she bent, damp and sweet. The wind uncovered her ear, pale against her hair, the skin there was white, unguarded... it looked so soft...
Her humming again. It clung to the air long after she was gone, echoing in the walls, in my teeth. I followed its shape in the dark, tracing the thought of her mouth when she sang. Not the words... only her mouth, the warmth of her breath, the curve of lips.
It shames me how I long for her. To sit close enough that I might feel her warmth through the thin cloth of her dress, without even touching. To be near is enough, and yet never enough.
For three months, I have watched her... and she does not know my name, and I do not know hers. I have spoken nothing. But I know her laughter. I know the face she makes when she believes herself alone. She is never alone. I am always there. Even now, I am with her, writing this.
Read
Notes
For readers of quiet, atmospheric literary fiction with a dark romantic core. Contains sensual content and psychological intensity.