CLARA ROMAJEUX

Part I

Clara was in my dreams last night. Something has happened in her life. No one appears in my dreams except when something very important occurs. Is she ill?

Clara is older than my mother. At this moment she is something more than 90 years old. I am worried. I don't know how to contact her or her people.

It was 1959. I was 20 years old. She was sitting at the table of a junior officer of the Maasdam, a passenger ship of the Holland-America Line. (This was the Maasdam IV. Not the current Maasdam.) We looked at each other. Nothing more. She was a 40 something year old woman. I was with a beautiful 20 something year old woman.

I noticed her primarily because she stared at me: A curious stare.

We saw each other often during the ten days of the voyage from Rotterdam to New York. She always smiled and said, Hello. I always did the same.

This was a difficult time for me. I had no money at all. I had no food. I was sleeping on the ship with a beautiful girl from California. The night before we arrived in New York, she asked me, May I lend you some money? Will you be offended?

I had to travel from the docks to the Central Manhattan Bus Terminal. I had anticipated walking.

My Aunt Geneva had prepaid my ticket from New York to Kearney, Nebraska. That was not a problem.

You know, you should tip the fellows who work on the ship. They have been nice to you. Let me give you something so you can leave the ship as a gentleman. We've had a great time together. I hope that we will see each other again someday.

I finally accepted $20. We never saw each other again.

Mon Dieu, I was tired when I arrived at the bus terminal. I had spent the last three or four nights in very athletic love making sessions with the girl from California. My normal weight was 173 pounds. Now I weighed fewer than 160. I was perspiring and feeling very wasted by the time I climbed the steps of the transcontinental express bus that traveled west on U.S. 30, with limited stops, from New York City to San Francisco.

The bus was nearly full. Near the back, there was an empty aisle seat. A lady, occupying the window seat, had left several bags in the middle seat.

I approached. Excuse me, Miss. Is someone in the aisle seat?

She turned to me. What a shock. It was the older lady from the ship.

Gracious! She said, C'est vous!

I almost fell into the seat. She said something that

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