It could be argued without dispute that I lost part of mself when I found Sara. She was good and I was able to see that. With her I felt complete as men should when they find a woman they are compelled to think of, even after they part and are not able to see one another for some time.
When I first met her it was at a party for a dear friend who I no loger can recall. In that summer I attended a number of great parties and celebrations for a number of dear friends that I had met in the spring. A great number of them were taken by me and the fact that I was American, and that I was strong and handsome, and I seemed to fill their social circles out nicley. Largley they wished to talk about America’s war and transcend into American politics. I humored them with my insights on my culture and in the meantime enjoyed the company of the many women that came to these gatehrings. Sara was not one of these women.
I am convinced that Sara took somehting from me and that thing has yet to be returned even though now I have found her agian. On that first night at the party for my dear friend, who may have been Povetkin, though I am not sure, I met Sara. She was also American, one of only a few I had encountered since I had begun to stay and study in the country. She was beautiful, and am pleased to say, was not taken my by charm, wit, or apparent connections with the burgeoisie of the city, man pf whom were present at the party. I took her for an idealist. She took me for a coward and remarked that it was strange how a man who tried to appear so noble and of such bravery was not on the front lines like so many of our fellow countrymen. I agreed and we did not talk further.
Later that night after I had tried to ignor the comments made by Sara at the party and tried to fall asleep in the room I rented from an older man named Chovski, I found I could not push her from my mind. It was then I assured myself that I was not a coward and that there was a reason for my studies besides the cowardly endevors of putting off military enlistmenst and helping not only my country but the world in this time of great turmoil. In reality I was not truely affectionate about the position my country had taken in the conflict. The desire to continually squash the comunisitc and socialistic ideals of the far east purturbed me and I reasoned that things had been fine until we had started to meddle in the lobor disputes workers faced.
I got up, put on a kettle, and began to look at the small collection of books I had aquired since I came to the country. I looked at ‘In The Fabled East’ by an unergraduate professor of mine by the name of Schroeder. The first line of the novel argued that men came to what was then Siam to do one thing, ‘make their fortunes’. I agreed with that. I did not see the need to get up in arms over what hardly affected the western world, and even still as I drank instant coffee and smoked the last of a cigar that Povetkin had given me I thought of Sara. I slept lightly the rest of the night.
It was later that week that I actaully got to meet her again in a class I was teaching. Her friend Paula, a spanish woman who was rather petit asked her to attend one of my lectures. We spoke breifly after class, though I did make sure to seek her eye as often as I could. She returned my glances and when we spoke after class I invited her to a lunch with a member of my faculty who was intending to elaborate on American polotics at the time. She and Paula agreed.
The lunch was at one o’Clock and I went to my office to continue working on a chapter of my novel. I was very relieved to have seen Sara again, not becasue I was sure I was in love with her. I was not, or at least I had yet to examine that possibility. I wanted to prove her wrong. I wanted to show her I was not a coward, and part of me did want to sleep with her, or at the very least Paula.
