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✲꘏ ꘏ ꘏ ꘏✲
"Yeah, I was about to call you all sorts of names... Never mind," he said, only to fall silent halfway through the sentence.
I would probably never find out what he had been about to say. Maybe he decided that if he insulted me, I would complain to Toby, and Toby would knock his teeth out. Though, truth be told, I didn't even know why Toby would defend me from people who seemed determined to mock me every chance they got.
I didn't even know if he was still alive.
The blond man slipped the backpack off his shoulders and set it down on the hard-packed ground before crouching beside it. He unzipped it and pulled out two rectangular metal tins, two canteens, and a pair of chocolate bars.
After sharing the food with me, he sat down, let out a deep sigh, and began opening one of the metal containers. When I settled beside him, he opened mine as well. We ate in silence. The food was far from fresh and even somewhat nauseating, but there was nothing else to choose from. My stomach had been growling ever since the day Toby and I left his parents' house, climbed into the car that took us to the coast, boarded the motorboat that carried us to the island, and finally stepped onto the cargo ship. It felt as though an eternity had passed since then.
With every fiber of my being, I wished it were Toby sitting beside me instead of this fair-haired German. The more I thought about him, the more I realized that my longing for him was growing stronger, more unbearable with every passing moment. What crushed me even more was knowing nothing about his fate. I had no idea whether he was alive or dead, wounded or unharmed, imprisoned or hiding somewhere, waiting for the chance to continue his escape from the war.
Or perhaps he had escaped long ago. Maybe, at this very moment, he was basking beneath the sun in Argentina or wandering the dunes of California, soaking in the warmth of peaceful skies. Perhaps an astonishingly beautiful Argentine woman—or some golden-haired girl who kept him thoroughly entertained—was lying beside him.
"Listen," I said at last, deciding to ask the young man about Toby.
He looked up.
"Have you heard anything about him after all?"
"Since the moment I pulled you out of the water, nobody's known anything about him, and nobody's heard a word," he replied after a few seconds of silence, tossing the empty tin aside. Frowning, he chewed the last of his food and washed it down with whatever drink was in his canteen. "I'm sure he's alive. That bastard always manages to come out of any situation with his skin intact."
"Do you hate him?" I asked suddenly.
To be honest, I wasn't even sure why the thought had crossed my mind. Maybe it was the contempt in his voice that made me wonder.
He turned toward me and narrowed his eyes slightly. I couldn't read a single emotion in those blue eyes. They seemed utterly empty, as though he had no heart at all.
Or perhaps it was made of iron.
"I wouldn't say I like him very much," he finally admitted before looking away, fixing his gaze on the breathtaking view stretching out before us.
We sat on the edge of a cliff with our legs dangling over the side. Far below, a narrow but powerful river rushed through the valley. To our left, between towering jagged mountains, a waterfall cascaded into the gorge below. The mountains themselves were cloaked in moss and endless shades of green.
For a while I simply admired the magnificent landscape and, for a fleeting moment, almost forgot that a war was still raging.
The fair-haired German soldier—one of Toby's partners in fleeing the war—snapped his fingers in front of my face, pulling me back to reality. To my disappointment, he wasn't smiling. Instead, he looked at me with open reproach, as though I had committed some terrible offense.
"Why aren't you eating?" he demanded. "You'd better fill your stomach while we've still got time. We'll be leaving soon, and who knows when we'll get another chance to eat."
I didn't answer. I merely picked halfheartedly at the canned pork with my fork. It tasted revolting, though the water from my canteen dulled the flavor somewhat, despite seeming no fresher than the food itself. But after who knew how long without eating or drinking, and with no alternative available, everything before us felt like a feast.
Meanwhile, the young man rose to his feet and began scanning the landscape, his gaze shifting between the river below and the trees growing along the hillside.
"Have you figured out how we're getting down yet?" I asked hesitantly, finally swallowing the last bite of meat. I tossed the empty tin aside, took a drink of water, and stood up as well.
"So far I've got two ideas," he replied, resting his hands on his hips. "Either we climb down with ropes or we call in a helicopter. I'm guessing you don't know how to use climbing ropes."
"That's right," I admitted with a nod.
For someone caught up in a war, I was woefully unprepared for situations like this, even if I was only a medic. Once, I had the chance to learn climbing with ropes. Back when I was little, my father often went hiking whenever he had time off.
One day he invited me to come with him.
Although he helped me up the mountain, the ropes suddenly came loose, and I fell hard to the ground. I broke my leg and spent six weeks confined to bed. The fracture had been a serious one.
From that day forward, I swore never to climb another mountain and to avoid heights whenever possible.
Later, after I arrived in Tunisia as a military nurse attached to the Allied front and underwent training, I could have taken the opportunity to conquer my fear of heights and climbing.
I didn't.
I simply couldn't.
If this German deserter decided we were climbing down the cliff on ropes, I'd probably wet myself that very second.
The blond man turned toward me, then reached into the pocket of his military jacket and pulled out a field radio. Within moments he had contacted someone, exchanged a few brief coded phrases, switched the device off, and tossed it onto the ground at his feet.
Then he crushed it beneath his boot.
My eyebrows shot up in surprise.
"Why do you look so shocked?" he asked sharply.
"I... I don't know," I admitted, unable to find the right words.
"I did it so nobody could track us. Even if the message I sent was coded and meant for my associates—men just like me who ran from the war—there's no harm in being careful," he explained.
I raised my hands instinctively, trying to show that I wasn't objecting, but he still seemed dissatisfied.
"For your own good, keep your mouth shut," he warned. Stepping closer, he slowly ran his tongue across his lips. As I leaned back, he brought his soot-smeared face within inches of mine. His eyes moved from mine to my lips and then wandered slowly over the rest of me.
Yet all I could still see in them was contempt.
"Toby warned me that you can be a real pain in the ass sometimes. I'm not your sweet little Toby, so don't play games with me. The moment you start preaching your self-righteous nonsense, I'll put a bullet through your forehead. Do you understand?"
