There were other things too, which I did not put in this story; like the girl who took me home to meet her father. He gave me two icons, which he had ‘liberated’ from a church as the Red Army chased the Germans out of the country. He had been told to burn any and all religious artifacts, but he had rescued these two and he wanted them to go to a ‘good home’. Smuggling them out was scary, and I still have them.
When my term of study was over that year, I returned to Portsmouth University and told people Youriko’s story, exactly as it is in this book. However, my girlfriend heard about it and one morning I awoke to the smell of burning paper. My girlfriend had set fire to Youriko’s pictures, address etc in the kitchen sink.
Therefore, I never saw her again, but I had told Youriko that I wo
