Angel of War

Chapter 13: Assistant

He felt so scattered again because of her being in pain. This never happened. He always had it planned out in advance: what he needed to make something happen and then he did the damn thing. A, B, C, D, etc. With her he felt like it was going A, wait C… and E... shit what about B… AND D! We forgot D. FUCK.

As soon as he picked up the scrap metal the order started to return. He handed the pieces to her to carry. It wasn't till they made it to their destination that he saw the discomfort in her eyes. He tried to ignore it. He pulled up a chair to the table in front of them.

"You can sit here. And there's all these books over here." He walked to the shelves. "I'm sure you can find something that resonates with you." He reached for the metal in her arms and was surprised at how tightly she was gripping it. 

She watched as he set the wrench down on the table and grabbed a container of some kind of noisy metal bits.

"Well go ahead, grab a few books."

She anxiously obeyed. Part of her was excited about the prospect of having a book to look at, but she was more worried about his plans for the metal at the moment. 

Enzyklopädie, — Manual, Tales of Europe. She reached for titles she didn't entirely understand. She held them out for his approval and he just gestured at the chair while he pulled one up for himself. She focused on stacking the books up in front of her as he fished around the jar he had. He pulled a few bolts out and looked at her stack.

"What did you get?" She blinked at the stack.

"Uh. Tales of Europe… some kind of manual and… Enzyk-... looks like an Encyclopedia."

He raised an eyebrow and glanced at the last book. His hands were busy with metal.

"You seem like you barely speak English and you grab a German book?" He chuckled and stuck a bolt between his teeth to hold it.

"I wasn't sure…" She abandoned the excuse and started flipping through the manual first. It also seemed to be printed in German. Goddammit. She looked over the pictures of machinery and limited words. It wasn't showing much promise. He wanted her to find a name? Why didn't he just give her one? Flipping to another page, she saw scrawled notes in the border. 'Works better with steel. Hydraulics? Piston breaks too easily.' Another page had 'preserve energy - coils.' There were pages full of mechanical sketches, creased corners, stains and the smell of old smoke. She peeked at him before daring to close it. He was bending sheet metal without fully touching it. Electric fields he'd said. She closed the book and cracked the German Enzyklopädie open in pure curiosity. It must have been too quiet for him because he turned the dial on the radio against the wall. When he tuned it, there was classical music seeping in through the static. It was oddly juxtaposed with the creaking metal. The large words in the book made her dizzy. Some words looked familiar but then she'd take another look and it sounded like gibberish in her head. It felt completely foreign and native all at the same time. What was native for her? The radio had a deep singing voice pushed to the forefront. It didn't make sense to her either. 

"Where are we? The village… what country?" 

"Why?" He looked at her for a second before starting over. "Romania…" 

She looked back at the book. He said it was German. 'Heisenberg' sounded pretty German…

"No, my family wasn't originally from here…" It was like he was reading her mind again. "One of my ancestors came here long ago and decided to stay. Can't say I thank him for it."

"You don't like it here?" 

He scoffed.

"Not really." Her face was prompting a kinder response. "It's alright." For a prison.