A Breach In Berlin

Three - Drei - The German Identity

Unedited

11:30 am December 9th 1914, Berlin

I stamped my foot like a five-year-old having a strop and the soldier took a step back in shock. I cannot be in Berlin at the beginning of World War One! I was going to get killed! I was an English girl in a German city, I was the enemy! Then I began the waterworks, full on crying, falling into the snow that was falling round my feet, burying my head in my mittens, far from caring that the material made my face itch. Likewise, I regretted the decision to fall to the floor as a burning sensation was spreading round my knees as they connected with the cobblestones beneath me, my knees cracking slightly at the contact on the uneven surface.

"Ma'am? Bist du ok?" He knelt down next to me, bringing his head down lower to try look at my face, which was buried in my hands.

"Do I look ok?" I cried, "I'm English! Why haven't you killed me yet, I'm an imposter."

"I have to get answers from an imposter before I kill them." He actually chuckled, he had the audacity to laugh at my terrorised state.

I sniffled pathetically, but managed to look up at him, narrowing my eyes. He got the message immediately that I didn't find it funny to laugh in a situation like this. His expression fell straight again, back to his emotionless state like he was when he held me at gunpoint only moments earlier. He stood straight like a ruler was against his back, puffing out his chest and bringing his legs together, trying to show some authority and looked down at me, clearing his throat.

"Come with me."

Usually I would have put up a fight, told him to bugger off and leave me alone, but this man was a German solider with a gun; I was simply a tourist with a handbag full of sugar glazed nuts in a very, very foreign world. So like any one who didn't want to get killed, I obeyed, taking the hand outstretched to pull me up from the mound of snow I was sitting in, getting very, very cold.

The first thing I noticed was that, beside I had sat in snow for the last few minutes, his hands too were cold and calloused, but, it hadn't been the first thing I noticed about him. His rough and raw skin ran from the base of his palms all the way to his fingertips, but much smoother, red tinted and cold bitten skin ran over the rest of him, over his now apologetic, young face that first caught my attention. It really brought me to my senses, giving me the sense of realism about how young these boys were when they went to war. But now I just stared at his hand, shocked by what I felt.

"A little German cold won't hurt me." He smiled before I felt every muscle in his arm contract and hoist me onto my feet in one swift movement. When he smiled small dimples appeared and creases at the edges of his lips round his cheeks. The smile was hiding something though, and it was most likely something a girl like me or, anyone like me from the future would never understand about the hardships of a soldier.

We stood a meter away form each other; of course I couldn't help my self and stare at the man in front of me. My gut, once again was flipping and twisting with my stomach as his eyes stared right back at me. Compared to the rest of him: his pale face delicately dotted with freckles over the bridge of his nose or his lips that were chapped and raw or even his nose that was progressively turning redder and redder as time out here in the cold went on, the features I'd observed in the few minutes since we met, his eyes were the only feature that spoke 'Boy' to me. I grimaced, I also needed a way to get rid of my gut; can I take out an operation to have it removed?

Our hands were still intertwined his strong grip still holding me upright as I stood in a moderate state of surprise. We were quick to release them, the man quickly rubbing his palms against his trousers. I looked down at my feet, twisting my hands together as I bit down on the inside of my cheek.