Choosing to ignore her, I say to Aaron, "I almost told her about those two women at St. James you told me about, the English and Dutch ladies, who had the big fight at breakfast one morning after mass about the Second World War. Remember, you said that the English one was a real battle axe who ended up making the Dutch lady break down crying. She was trying to convince everyone that the English had suffered as much as or more than the Dutch from the bombings, and the Dutch lady tried to get her to see, that when your country is actually under occupation like Holland was from the Germans, it's a totally different ballgame, and the Brit simple did not want to see it, and then the poor Dutch lady, who lived through it, and likely had to survive on tulip bulbs herself, broke down in front of everyone."
Still stirring the onions and garlic, Aaron replies", Chris, I never told you that."
"What do you mean."
"That is exactly the way it happened, almost forty years ago, sometime, I think, in the early or mid eighties. But I never told you about it."
I am beginning to feel again very strange and queasy, as if another episode is coming my way. Suddenly, I need to sit down. Aaron notices that I am holding onto the counter for support. He deftly slips a chair under me.
"How did I know, then" I am still feeling dizzy.
"That, is exactly what I would like to know", say I, and I am already beginning to hyperventilate.
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