The Wind Never Smiles

The Wind Never Smiles

by

Helma Pietsch

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2012 Helma Pietsch

All Rights Reserved

*~*

Table of Contents

Introduction

Chapter 1

Mister Vincente

Chapter 2

Carnival

Chapter 3

Lausanne

Chapter 4

Football

Chapter 5

The Way It Was

Chapter 6

Springtime in Paris

Chapter 7

Morocco

Chapter 8

Aida

Chapter 9

Home Sweet Home

Chapter 10

The Wish

Chapter 11

Las Vegas

Chapter 12

Forever

Epilogue

Introduction

The Wind Never Smiles

This is a romantic story by Helma Pietsch.

Acknowledgement: Names, characters and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademark status of various products, which have been used by the author without any malicious intention when referred to in this work of fiction. The author is not sponsored by any of the trademark owners. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is fictionalized, or coincidental, in any case without any malicious aim.

Adult content rating: This book contains content to be considered unsuitable for young readers 17 and under and this book may be offensive to some readers of all ages.

Chapter 1

Mister Vincente

After two years of constant springtime on the Canary Islands – without so much as a storm – Helena was ready for a change. She had the urge to stomp through a thick layer of snow, later on she would snuggle-up into an oversized woollen blanket while relaxing on a sofa in front of an open fire place.

The Lufthansa pilot announced a delay with the landing, while Helena was looking out of the small window, daydreaming about the way she would have loved spending her 25th birthday with her non existing ‘Master of my Universe’, instead of observing the unexciting bird’s eye view from the different airport buildings in Düsseldorf.

Her organized life was uneventful and for an attractive young woman, it was boring by her own verdict and she knew it was her own fault, because when it came to the opposite sex, she was always too critical and too fussy.

An hour earlier, a guy on the plane approached her in the aisle, by starting a friendly conversation and she gave him a short brush-off, when he was using the lame worn-out phrase, Have we met before?

If we would have met before, you never will be able to forget a minute of it for the rest of your miserable life. So do me a favour and drop dead Quasimodo.

It was relentlessly her aim to be the huntress, one who is selecting a prey, then makes the first move and without it, any man was wasting his time.

Her half sister Theodora called Helena, ‘A good looking, lean, mean prick-teaser’.

Men were attracted to Helena, but the more they were determent the more she rejected them. What truly made her angry was the fact, most of them only tried to find out if her breasts were ‘real’, or fabricated.

A fluke of nature bestowed her with a very slim figure, 171cm tall, all in aesthetical proportions, apart from her 12DD bra size and she was a natural ash-blond. To have a satin shine in her fine silky hair, she was never in need of fancy advertised hair products, because a daily wash with an organic shampoo did it all.

Her interest was more to the academic species of men, who did not stare at her breasts all the time, while they were talking about their intention of purchasing a new car, or - may the devil show mercy - were describing in minute details all about their boat, dinghy, canoe or whatever floating device, which she regarded as their typical male way of thinking that it was an impressive item to own.

It would only trigger a yawning from her, with her middle-class upbringing where the family’s primarily rule was always that bragging of any kind could never receive any toleration and was classed to be worse than talking with a mouth full of food.

Helena’s I.Q. was high and her intellectual expectations were never met. Consequently, any encounter with a man was only to satisfy her sexual needs and never lasted with her longer than a one night ‘Deep Meaningful Relationship’, with the emphasis on deep.

She did try a few enhancing devices – aka sex toys – but none of them could do it for her without the physical feel of holding onto a manly body and his occasional excited grunting.

Nobody in her family – apart from Thea – had the faintest idea about Helena’s opinion regarding the opposite sex; she knew it was an advanced view in the 1970s, when the overall public attitude was just getting used to the hippie movement.

She was only successful on rare occasions with her hunting expeditions, realizing that attractive looking men are pure airheads and only good for one night and she called it hot air sex, without emotions or future, avoiding relentlessly their general intention to have a conversation with her before sex.

It was constantly a disappointment and a turn-off for her and therefore only a few reached her pre-booked hotel suite. Ideally she would have preferred a good looking mute, but never found one.

At one time she was considering a guy in a modern art gallery – Helena disliked modern art – she was visiting the gallery only in search for an avant-garde type of man and found herself a suitable target.

Unfortunately, he tried to educate her with his art knowledge, when she was mentioning two colours and their origins, while looking at a painting.

To his diluted brain, the artist Titian and the colour titian were not connected and only a coincidence. In the other case, his opinion was, the painter Gauguin named himself after the pink colour gauguin, because he liked the colour so much.

As a response, she had the urge taking one of the ugly paintings off the wall to hit him with it and left the gallery without him.

It was worse with the ones who insisted to order from the menu. Only three of them ever made it to the hotel’s bedroom with her.

Most of her prospects made it no further than to dinner, when the mousse was pronounced as mouse, it was the end for her. One ordered the ‘vicious’ soup – otherwise known as vichyssoise – and he never saw her naked.

Another she persuaded to let her order from the French menu, he complained loud about the ‘cold’ potato soup alias vichyssoise. She nearly died of embarrassment, got up and left when he shouted at the waiter.

To avoid the problematic soup, instead she ordered the next time beef consommé. Her new victim made a razzmatazz to the adjoining tables with his loud comment, The kitchen gave me a clear soup without anything. It looks like cloudy water.

Helena left him there. She decided to stay away from French restaurants and changed to the less challenging Italian cuisine for the next Neanderthal man.

Sometimes she went on a prowl for months, with her aim to pick and choose one out of a crowd, looking for a prey and after sex, dropped him like a hot potato.

Then she met the nice character, but sexually boring Paul on Tenerife, a regular lukewarm 45 second once-only-each-time affair.

He did learn quickly that she had to be the instigator. Occasionally, he got lucky, when Helena told him to dance with her the horizontal tango.

Without her telling him, he had to wait sometimes for weeks. She considered this arrangement to be convenient, for her two year working stint on a tiny Spanish island.

The weather in Germany greeted Helena with a shock. It must have been constantly snowing for days, everything was covered in snow and it was freezing cold for Helena, especially after just returning from a tropical climate.

When she left the airport building in Düsseldorf and was waiting for a taxi driver to open the car door for her, she realized he had no intention of being polite in this lousy weather.

Nevertheless, he was fairly content in his warm taxi for Helena to make up her mind.

Even when she told him not to expect a large tip, it was obvious that he could not have cared less with his lethargic answer, Lady, I have a cold already and I don’t want pneumonia by getting constantly in and out of the heated car.

She had no other choice but to drag her luggage into the taxi herself when someone else was trying already by then to claim her taxi.

Two hours later, Helena was still stuck on the Autobahn in the taxi with a sneezing driver and an endless car pile-up further ahead.

She came to the conclusion; white winter in Germany was never on her list of favourite things in life and that particular day only confirmed it.

Snow was a disaster for any kind of traffic and frost was even worse. Timetables for trains, busses or planes were all irrelevant and scheduled as ‘temporarily anything is possible’ situations.

Where else could an elderly gentleman approach a woman on a public carpark with the request: Can I please have some of your hairspray for my car? without being classed as weird?

It was common knowledge; a spray from any kind of hairspray was the quickest and most effective way to dissolve a layer of ice from the windscreen.

Perfect was also to manually unlock a car without snapping off the key like a toothpick, by heating up the car-key with a cigarette lighter, then slide the key carefully into the keyhole to unlock the car. Smoker or non-smoker, a gas lighter was an important utensil in Germany’s winter.

Yes, nothing had changed, Helena still hated snow and was more than ever before convinced, it was only good for greeting cards at Christmas time, when people were having a sentimental stare in their eyes, sitting in front of a green prickly pine-needle tree while eating lollies and biscuits out of an oversized knitted stocking.

She also considered always any so called snow enthusiasts who liked skiing, all to be masochists or idiots. They were oh so proud to talk about their broken bone stories and by the first chance most of them went back to the snow slopes, to do it all over again.

Helena could not see any logic in it. People had to wear a helmet for a bicycle, knee-pads and elbow-pads for skateboards, but for skiing nothing was compulsory from the previous aids.

There was no sympathy from her side, when people were permanently crippled from a ski accident.

Also all those mountain climbers, who got stuck in unsafe terrain half way up the mountain, should be left there to contemplate why they tried to climb in the first place, instead of relying on volunteers risking their own lives to help irresponsible people.

These volunteers spent many hours of training to save victims in natural disasters, in reality they were often wasting their unpaid time away from employment jobs only for a dangerous venture to rescue some 58 year old person with too much time and money available, who should have been – instead of it – on a golf course.

*~*

Helena’s unit was still leased to the mining company and she wondered, if anybody was staying there now. Until the extended lease expired, she prearranged – before her departure from Puerto De La Cruz – moving back home to Gelsenkirchen.

While getting comfortable by rearranging her old bedroom, she was reminiscing about the past two years working as a tourist guide on the Canary Islands, with the unexciting but always friendly and helpful Paul, the ‘Black Beach’ and the hair-raising trips in the old doubledecker busses up and down the mountain.

After settling in, one of the first things on her agenda was an appointment for ‘The House of Beauty’ in Düsseldorf, one of the best businesses in the entire region, to enjoy the ultimate pampering with sauna, an aromatic body massage, herbal facial, manicure, pedicure, her hair done, the works.

It would have been impossible on Tenerife for two years to do, because of her language problem. There was the possibility she could have resembled a clown with fussy hair pointing into every direction and smelling all over from vinegar and olive oil, like a fish and ship shop.

Helena spent all morning in the beauty salon and was feeling great to have returned to North European civilization, until she walked outside.

The large car park was covered in fresh snow, which had dozens of smooth white contours, one of them had Helena’s car beneath and the park attendant was nowhere to be seen.

She slowly walked among the white silhouettes, shaken her head in total disbelief. A man, who was obviously searching for his car, called from a few parking rows further away, What type of car do you have?

A green VW Beetle, how about yours? Helena called back.

Blue two door Mercedes sedan.

They shuffled through snow, pushing a handful away here and there from a bonnet, until he found a green VW and she had a blue Mercedes in front of her and before both moved more snow to free the cars, then double checked the registration plates, making certain they were not cleaning the wrong vehicles.

When he wiped with his leather gloves the Beatle’s rear window and noticed the pink writing Mercedes’ Rescue Car, he stopped and took a deep breath, I am really playing with the idea, to cover your car unrecognizable with snow again.

The message was on the window when I bought the car and I thought it was funny at the time. Do you like the pink colour?

Helena was desperately thinking about something nice to say to him, just then it began to snow again, softly first, although persistent. Both gave up and went together across the street to the local pub.

It was a small but cosy neighbourhood pub – where men called in on their way home from work – a clean and pleasant place to wind down, one of those typical family owned establishments, with old fashion solid timber tables and chairs, two darts boards and a billiard table in the background. The owner served the drinks, knew most customers by name and his wife did the cooking for the patrons.

A small black board above the counter indicated the daily special menu.

When Helena and the stranger walked inside the pub, all conversation stopped instantly in a split of a second.

Both must have looked to everyone more than strange – like a pair of peacocks – Helena in her long silver fur coat, professional make-up and perfectly coiffured hair, him in a beige cashmere coat with dark-brown mink fur lining, over a three piece suit and carrying a large croc leather attaché case.

They walked to a small table in the corner, while the other guests were slowly recuperating from their culture shock, with all of them having great difficulties to remember what they were talking about, before the pair entered.

Helena removed her padded leather gloves and he gave a light handkiss, introducing himself as Vincente Acosta Abogado Del Toro and mentioned, he preferred being called Vince. His German was nearly perfect, only with a slight hint of an accent detectable.

She could sense his physical strength and mental willpower. Even though he seemed relaxed, his movements were very controlled and his voice represented a strong authority.

One of her habits was always, to judge the appearance and manners of others to the kind of sport they probably enjoyed as a spectator or participant. In this case she would have put all money on the art of fencing, also karate and she was certain there was from his side no consideration for boxing or wrestling.

With his good looks, probably 190cm in height and comparable to a tall Spaniard from Madrid, he could have gone as an imposing matador, by having this certain air of arrogance, which was also a trade mark of any matador entering the arena.

Pinpointing his age, she was not sure at all. His chiselled features combined with the mature voice and mannerism was in the category of ‘hard to guess’, perhaps somewhere in the middle to the end of 30, maybe.

Helena was intrigued by him, yet she could sense there was something that suggested, this was not a man to be crossed. She had no intention to start a flirt with him and to break her feeling of being spellbound, she called to the bar, May I please have a Gluehwein?

He looked at her bemused. Vince, it literally means glowing wine. Every good pub is selling it in the winter time, some with their slightly different recipe for the drink. Be warned; never drink more than three glasses in one hour, if you still want to be able to pronounce your own name Vincente Acosta Abogado Del Toro, without tripping over your tongue.

Helena enjoyed the surprised expression on his face, at the same time as she considered that it was a mouth-full of a name in the first place, even for a sober person.

His eyes were hinting what may possibly have been a twinkle, but revealing nothing he may have been thinking, while he studied her eyes.

The tall, steaming glass of dark red wine was served, with a beautiful scent of cinnamon and vanilla.

Vince ordered a scotch neat for himself, while he was observing her drink with a curious expression on his face, It is an interesting combination of red wine, hot, in a tall glass, although I prefer a drink I am familiar with.

She looked at him and took a sip of her wine, enjoying the warm sensation as the liquid slowly ran along the back of her throat, while all the conversations around them were fading into the background.

Their thoughts were interrupted by loud machinery, clearing the snow off the road and the publican excused himself, stepping outside armed with a shovel and a bucket of coarse salt, to clear the footpath along his establishment from snow and ice, so that no pedestrian would have a bad fall., because insurance companies were very precise with their stipulations concerning public liability, before they considered a payout on an accident.

Across the street, the parking attendant came out of his little shelter, working quickly to free the snowed-in vehicles.

Vince tried to use the public phone on the wall near the pub’s counter, without any luck. It was obvious he was unfamiliar with a coin operated phone, until Helena discreetly assisted him with the necessary coins.

He took a card out of his jacket and called the airport to enquire for how long his flight was delayed for take-off due to snow; there the weather good, with all flights on time, also the runways were constantly serviced by snow-machines on stand-by.

Helena phoned her mother at home, as it was earlier arranged to go shopping in the afternoon, there had been no snowfall, all roads were clear.

They looked at each other and laughed about the unusual circumstances, which caused their meeting and both were feeling like little children, who were caught with a lie for coming home late from school.

Vince, I think it’s called isolated heavy snowfall, but it was a pleasure meeting you.

The pleasure was mine. Would you like me to drive ahead of you on the Autobahn, in case of another unexpected snowfall?

Well, it depends on your speed. I might be overtaking your Mercedes.

Helena, I like your confidence and I will try not to loose you behind me.

She realized, he thought she was joking, because he didn’t know, her Freddie was not the ordinary VW Beetle.

By the time they reached the Autobahn, they were racing along. Suddenly, out of nowhere, a police car appeared behind them and indicated for both cars to pull over. They slowed down to a stop and stepped out of their cars.

One of the two officers approached Helena, My apology for interrupting your trip, the surveillance helicopter reported that your green VW followed the blue Mercedes at high speed. Would you mind telling me, what it is you are driving?

Helena enjoyed the situation. Its name is Freddie.

Vince looked a bit perplexed and she couldn’t figure out, if it was because she was still able to follow him at high speed or because her car’s name was Freddie.

He was certain the speedometer in his Mercedes reached 200km, before they were waved down by the police.

Helena explained to the officer about the Porsche motor in her VW Beetle and concluded, You can’t always judge a car from the outside.

The officer contacted the helicopter on the police frequency, Hans, they were travelling at more than 195km. You have lost the bet.

He then advised both drivers to watch out for the upcoming bridge with strong wind gusts, wished them a nice day and took off.

Vince shook his head in disbelief. Do you have any more surprises?

Helena snapped at him, What do you expect as an encore, tap dancing? She was trying to break the spellbinding feeling, when he smiled at her and it was obvious; nobody had ever spoken to him this way.

She just left him speechless standing there and took the next exit, flashing her headlights as he continued along the Autobahn towards the airport.

A little bit sad she told herself, Never to be seen again.

The next day, one dozen long stem pink roses arrived at her home and Helena knew that Vince must have sent them, even there was no card attached. He probable remembered her registration number, by tracing her address that way. She was somehow impressed.

One of her bad habits was – at parties or functions – she hardly ever listened to names when somebody introduced themself.

To her amazement, in this case it was easy for her to remember Vincente Acosta Abogado Del Toro, as if she would have known this name for years.

Another dozen long stem pink roses were delivered the next day, a further dozen followed each day for an entire week.

Helena and her family had meanwhile the feeling, they were living in a florist shop and when it stopped, they didn’t mind at all as every large vase in the house was in use by then. Instead of roses, came a telegram from Paris: ‘I would appreciate it, if you accompany me to a function. If so, a car will be outside your home at 7pm tomorrow. Vince.’

One of the things she never liked, to have no idea what kind of function it was, or the location. Typical men, she mentioned to her mother, They just wear a suit to be ready. Apart from it, the message could be for you or grandmother. He did not address it to my name and only signed it with Vince.

Don’t be ridiculous, how many people with the name of Vince do we know in this family? Are you accepting the invitation?

I don’t know. I have no idea what to wear. It could be a function for anything from a 10 year anniversary for a successful sex change operation, to a function to raise money for the homeless. He did not even mention, if it was formal or informal.

Helena was reading the telegram again and again. After a while, she decided not to accept the invitation – instead of it – standing behind a curtain and observing how long the car would be waiting outside her house.

The problem with that was, she also wanted to know what made him tick and to her own amazement, she trusted him to take her to an unspecified destination. What did she know about him?

Eventually, it took her less than five minutes to decide which dress to wear for the occasion. Her opinion was that it will be the right or the wrong outfit. To be on the safe side, she decided on her little black dress, only the inside label gave a hint – Emilio, Italy – how shockingly expensive it was. It was for her figure perfect by accentuating all her good parts.

The dress had a small V cut décolleté complimenting her graceful neck line, but her back showed a V cut all the way to her waist, making a silent statement she was not able to wear a bra in this outfit and with it contradicting