Phryné Crossing

From the day Dieter and Phryné met, his actions had profound effects on her life. Following their first bellicose meeting in June 1940, and the indignant, drunken attack that he inflicted upon her, Phryné was forced to reassess the decisions she had made that brought her to Paris in the first place.

It took some time, but she was able to wipe off the dirty smudges of mislaid shame, straighten her seams, stand straight and tall, and flush her false, misplaced self-guilt down the drain. She was neither the cause nor the reason for the insult that Dieter had cast upon her.

Phryné avoided further self-doubt and degradation by qualifying the dastardly experience and its consequence as an exercise in survival. She reasoned that the simplest way to work through her precarious emotional and physical situation was to consider herself as one of the spoils of war. Phryné steadily, yet reluctantly, accepted her fate and the uncertain future that lie ahead. From that day forward, she carefully and purposely learned more and more about Hauptmann Dientz, just as he would with her.