The Wall Crossers

With a Love Like That

Olivia's perspective

The Morning – Clarence

It is the morning of my third day under house arrest—Saturday the fifteenth of January. Once again, same as yesterday, I lie in my bunk, thinking of Clarence.

Last night... I asked Clarence to leave my room. I told him, "I don't want to do this."

He had been lying on top of me on my bunk, unbuttoning my dress, kissing me, whispering his magic spell, with intentions for taking me away, but then I spoke, made my decision clear. He raised up and said, "What? Love? Or... or the other..."

"I don't want to have sex with you, Clarence, and I don't want to... I... I just don't... don't want... No, I don't want to do that. I can't. Please don't be hurt. Okay."

He pushed himself up, off of me, and turned his body to sit next to me, and he sat there for long moments, both of us thinking. All we could hear was our combined breathing.

After some time passed, Clarence twisted his upper body to face me better, began stroking my hair gently. I sighed, said, "Clarence, it's like you told Éléonore yesterday: It has been a hard thing. It has been hard. I need to get through this. I need to understand what has happened. My heart... is breaking."

Clarence paused a moment, sniffed once, and then stood up from my bunk, moved to the chair.

And I lay there in that moment, last night, in my bunk, just like I lie here now, looking at the ceiling, only last night there was a warm person with me in this room, a girly-boy-soldier who just wanted to share two lives with me, give me adventure, clear my record... take... care of me. And I had said No.

Because. Because I can never risk falling in love again—with Clarence, or Éléonore, or some other person they may introduce me to. I can never be in love again behind a Wall, where hopes bump up against their harshest limits like escapees running in no-man's-land. I don't want to run the risk of being with someone I love, yet having to wait, on someone else.

Clarence began putting his clothes back on, saying nothing. He left the room, quietly. All my tears were gone—spent on Leida. I could not cry any more for her—the one who loved me most, and now, too, is gone. Or for Éléonore—the one I didn't even really know. I have run them all away. Now I will go home, dishonored, but better wrongly-convicted dishonor suffered courageously, than wrongly-acquired honor celebrated in shame.

I will go home now, alone, I will find a new start, rest where the wounded rest, let the hurting fade, leave behind the part where now broken hearts had strayed, find new resolve, let bad memories... dissolve.

The Afternoon – A Surprise Meeting

Clarence is not working today. I have not seen or heard from him today, and... I don't expect to now.

I am returning from lunch in the mess hall to the barracks where I am still temporarily quartered pending my proceeding in front of the Provost Marshal (the PM).

As I walk into the barracks and pass the CQ station, the Specialist there says, "Corporal Reary, you have a visitor... third room down on the right.

"Okay, thanks," I reply. I start to go to his desk and check the sign-in log and see who it is, but decide, it must be the JAG since we have not talked in two days. Although it is the weekend, everyone is working. The Berlin Brigade periodically schedules work this way as part of total readiness.

The room in question is the same one we have been using in the other meetings. The door is already open.

I step inside, there is the small table with two chairs, as usual, and already seated at the table, facing the door, is—Maren, Leida's best friend, who works in the same office as me.