In a bungalow near the Danish-German border on Saturday afternoon, an 89-year-old German man and an 85-year-old Danish woman sat side by side in front of the television. Then they held hands, turned to each other and smiled.

“I feel 100 times better!” said Karsten Tüchsen Hansen, the German.

Following weeks of separation, Tüchsen Hansen and Inga Rasmussen are finally returning to a normal romantic rhythm.

When I last saw them in March, the couple were separated when police shut the border that runs between Tüchsen Hansen’s home in northern Germany, a mile south of the border, and hers in southern Denmark. To maintain their relationship, the pair met daily at the border itself — a show of devotion that caught the attention of the international media and turned them into a symbol of hope in a troubled time.

In early May, his doctor decided that his mental health was suffering in Rasmussen’s absence, leading the German authorities to give her special dispensation to stay at Tüchsen Hansen’s home at night.

The Danish government subsequently decreed that any couple in a cross-border relationship could meet again on Danish soil. But Rasmussen still prefers to spend each night in her partner’s bungalow — watched over by his collection of stuffed ferrets and garden gnomes.

When I stopped by, driving from Amsterdam to Copenhagen, I found them chatting happily on the patio outside. They were getting ready to eat mince meat with white cabbage, one of Rasmussen’s specialties.

Tüchsen Hansen was the more garrulous of the two.

But as the afternoon wore on, Rasmussen also began to open up.

Their separation had been tough, but helped to affirm their commitment to each other, she said. “I realised I can’t sleep without him at my side,” Rasmussen said. “We need each other.”

New York Times News Service