Feathers like Fingerprints

Once upon a time, when World War II was just ended and new possibilities were whispering throughout Europe, a German dancer met an Australian doctor in Hamburg’s Zillertal beerhouse. Infatuated, they married on the other side of the world, then returned to Australia. Under Queensland’s diamond light, the dancer negotiated differences like canyons – until a bright-feathered fedora changed her life forever.

Author’s note:

At seventeen, I was in a Paris café with Australian friends of my parents. The husband asked – in English – to be given an English explanation of the menu. How could it be, he wanted to know, that the fare he and his wife so enjoyed at home was not available here? The look he aimed at the waiter was all frustration. It gazed down at the Frenchman from a very great height. The French waiter cocked his head, dropped an invisible curtain, and made his face into Gallic mask…

My teenaged self couldn’t understand why, in Paris, anyone would want anything Australian. So I launched into high school French. The waiter’s face creased into smiles. Beaming staff emerged from behind the counter, called others from the kitchen. Together, we composed our breakfast order and the fare, when it came, was especially sweet.

Where can I read it?

Feathers Like Fingerprints appears in The Heart Will Find A Way, an anthology by Southern Key Press. Find it here>