In April 2000 Anja came to me again. We had been together in August of the previous year, during our first real-life meeting, and after she went back to Germany we resumed our e-mails and frequent phone chats (many times when it came to saying goodbye, she still found it almost impossible to hang up the phone, even after we had counted down from "drei" to "eins" as slowly as possible.) She always told me that she could not wait until our next meeting, and so as soon as she knew her next break from college was approaching, we began to make plans to spend another two weeks together. During our very first meeting in August of 2000, we had encountered a very sexually repressed and jealous old woman who worked as a secretary at Trinity Hall, a student accomodation centre in which Anja had stayed, and this old bitch had made it clear that she did not approve of our liaison, as though it were any of her business in the first place!. Despite her constant attention at that time, we had still managed to spend many passionate hours together, but this time we felt we required more privacy, and so I rented a very charming 300-year-old cottage in Donegal for us, in a very secluded and quiet location. We were both so happy (or at least I believed our happiness was mutual at the time.) when I picked her up from the airport on a Saturday morning to begin the long drive from Dublin. On the way there, we managed to get lost for a little while in the fading light, by taking a wrong turn which took us along a very scenic road by the coast, but I had phoned Mrs. O'Neill on the way, to say that we might be a little late in arriving, and she said she would leave the key to the front door underneath a metal bucket, and also that she would leave the fire lighting to warm us up when we got to the cottage. Those two weeks were probably the happiest time of my life, I think...We would get up very late in the morning-times (for obvious reasons), and then after having breakfast, we would drive to one of the many scenic locations in that area of the country, listening to Abba on the car stereo (to this day I still cannot listen to Abba songs, as the memories they bring back are just too painful..) Twice during our first week, though, certain things occurred which should have served as a warning to me that all was not quite as idyllic as it may have seemed. On those occasions Anja made what I thought at the time were very uncharacteristic and extremely hurtful remarks, out of the blue, as it were, and my instinct on seeing what I presumed at the time to be a totally different and alien side of her was to just get away from her as fast as I could. The eminent psychiatrist and author, M.Scott Peck, in his "People Of The Lie..The Hope For Healing Human Evil", (1983), makes the point that this revulsion is a natural, and indeed very necessary reaction to something which is perceived as a threat to one's own psychological well-being. I now realise, with the benefit of hindsight, that what I saw during these brief moments was the real Anja, the one behind the carefully-constructed and well-maintained mask of pretence, the mask which she had no time, or indeed reason, to put on again when I travelled to Germany to try to see her in July of 2001. As I have said, my first instinct following these two episodes was to just stand up and walk away, without making any reply to her insult, which I did on each occasion, spending some time alone in the nearby forest, beside a stream, before returning to the cottage. Each time, when I had come back to her, she was very apologetic for her behaviour, and I, in my innocence, thought that she was back to her "normal" self. Little did I know at the time that my presumption was completely upside-down; that the person I was dealing with now was the "false self", and that the real Anja was the one I'd had to leave as quickly as possible. Strangely enough, the second week passed without further incident, in a blissful haze of joy and love-making, and Abba songs, and shopping, and sitting by the warm turf fire watching TV in the evenings, and sight-seeing, and just enjoying once again the opportunity to be together. (I was going to say "to be ourselves", but on reflection perhaps this might not be the appropriate term!) All too soon it was time for Anja to return home again, and since it was a drive of at least four hours to the airport from the cottage, we set our alarm-clock for three in the morning, to make sure we would have plenty of time for the journey. I did not sleep at all that night, and she slept only for a very little time...I can still recall the first dim light of the dawn in the eastern sky as we set out on the long drive from "our" little cottage. Around an hour into our journey, Anja had fallen asleep in the car, and as we drove by a lake, she suddenly woke up and said "Stop the car!! Please stop as quickly as you can!!" I had no idea what was wrong, but I did as she asked, and as soon as the car had stopped she jumped out and ran over to a fence by the roadside. Now I realised she wanted to be sick, and the very first thought that came into my head was: "Uh-oh....She's feeling sick, and it's morning-time!!" Luckily for both of us, though, it was just travel-sickness and nothing of a more serious and life-changing nature, even though we were not certain of this until several weeks afterwards!. Despite the two incidents I described earlier, I can say that being with the lady I believed to be Anja during that magical Easter-time was a very happy time in my life. I had, or so I thought at the time, been with the woman I adored for a too-short while, and I knew I wanted to be with her all of the time and not just for two weeks or so each year. If only she had been real, and not just a beautiful mirage... Footnote: By a rather sad irony, one which occurred to me long after the sad and traumatic events detailed within these pages, "Valley Cottage" is located in a place known as Glengesh. The translation in Gaelic is "Gleann na Geise", meaning the Valley of the Promises... Important Note and Disclaimer: The material contained herein is presented for the purpose of information only, and should be considered as such. Part of the aforesaid material is compiled from personal experience, and some is based on the voluntary professional opinion of a third party with qualification and expertise in the field of psychology. No animosity, grievance or accusation against any person or persons should be taken as being expressed, implied, or otherwise intended from the content of this web site.