Schokolade
Here we have a fun little story I wrote after I first met my husband. See what you make of it.
Chocolate.
When I was younger, I’d grab bits of the muddy gold wherever I saw it. Whether it was from my Oma’s pantry or the grass outside at Easter, my eyes would grow wide, and I’d steal a silvery morsel into my mouth. Then I’d be very silent, as my lips pursed into a circle. I didn’t often care whether I caught one with the foil still around it or if it was naked; nor did I know the difference. As I’d grin my half-toothed smile, my little pearly yellows were the most delicious brown, and that was that.
“Spuck das aus!” Oma said more than once, when I ate my sweets with the wrapper. I’d hesitate, drawing back my hands behind my belly as I glared up at her from under pale lashes. Spit it out? Why? Reluctantly, I opened my mouth and let a glob of chocolaty spit droop into Oma’s hand, never taking my eyes off her. Was she angry now? Oma’s lips were drawn into a wrinkled line and her Christmas-green eyes didn’t seem to be moving. She never really did get angry though, and so the chocolate was sticky and sweet, my favourite, and all was good with the world.
Time passed, and the chocolate soon became bitter. This was not because anything happened to me, at least at first. It simply coincided with the bad hair, the makeup and the peculiar fashion sense that was supposed to attract the opposite gender (it didn’t). The sceptical mind investigated every wrapper as though it might burst into flame. Everything was wrong, nothing felt right, and there was no caramel area between the brown and the darker brown. Chocolate was nude and raw, and not to be touched unless it was exactly right (it wasn’t). The same vicious heat was reserved for boys, who were glared at from beneath purple-mascaraed lashes and shaky liner. Did this new one like me? Probably not. Did I like him? No.
I didn’t.
Stop it, I really didn’t!
I’d take a tentative bite from the bar and quickly chewed and swallowed, lest it be enjoyed too much. Everything that was enjoyed at that age was kind of wrong. Nothing sugary. No caramel.
It was a long time before chocolate became truly sweet again. One day, when my body had developed enough to fill an awkward bikini (still printed with zoo animals) the sweets gained a new flavour. He’d surprised me one day, after a day in the sun. We were in my friend’s kitchen when he pulled me aside. He tasted of cardamom and nutmeg, and music, and it was the first one I kissed that June day; the first one ever. I pursed my lips into a heart, and really felt the sweet flavours for the first time. My eyes were wide when I pulled away, unsure, overwhelmed. I left the chocolate behind and walked in an awkward circle near my friend’s house, that left the boy staring at me from beneath red glasses.
Did I like him? Yes, yes I did.
This lasted until that particular chocolate was overladen by a new discovery, one that I hadn’t really learned about despite watching a lot of films. All the books I’d read as a girl never did prepare me for the salty flavour that often accompanied Austenite candy in real life.
“Fleur de sel”, they called this, in confectioner terms. Yet, what kind of flower grew in salt, I wondered, as my tears formed small polka dots on my glasses instead. I cried and cried, for days and weeks, and when I wiped the salt away a lot of that sweetness had gone with it. It was the first time this happened, and a period of very dark chocolate followed, one with little flavour and a lot of self-pity. During this time, neither the sweet caramels that had come before nor the salty dots they’d caused with such cruelty belonged to another soul; not for a few years.
The next ones were bitter or sour, or plain with little flavour. A few times I caught glimpses of gold amid the mud, but they turned out to be the same disappointing old foil that had plagued me as a child. I didn’t often taste chocolate and focused my mind on other sweets instead: There were the ever present mints of my youth. The hard kind that had been there for so long that their taste was forever full of familiarity and fresh summer days. Those were the friendships that remained, despite the occasional loss, present until now. There was the watermelon mint that promised delicious new adventures, but turned out to be gum and nearly choked me. After that I became wary of friendships too, for a while, but only until my taste buds were awakened by new love. When I tumbled from my early twenties into the middle I opened up again, and was pleased to find new friends, new mints, and new chocolate.
And then, one night, I tasted something entirely different. Soft and glittery like those early chocolates at Easter, the ones that Oma had made me spit out years before, but secretly wanted me to have. The kind that made me close my eyes then, and made me close my eyes again now. “Gute Schokolade.”
The good chocolate.
