Always With You

Chapter One

Gilbert Beilschmidt was hungry.

It wasn't like the hunger he had felt during the war, one that made him wish his rations were larger, or less likely to be eaten by rats. Even then, he had been able to eat enough to find blissful sleep at night, or at least as blissful as sleep in the trenches could be. The hunger during the war had been to simply live a day without gunshots echoing over the land, a day without mud seeping into his boots, or a day without the smell of blood and death filling his nose every time he inhaled until he could no longer distinguish it from the smells of the living.

This was a different hunger, one that ate away at what little fat was left on his body, one that left him stealing scraps from anyone more fortunate or caught off guard. It was a hunger that stole rational reason from his mind, and ate at the fragments of humanity he had left in his soul.

He knew he was lucky compared to some. He had had some family savings at the end of the war, a small apartment he owned rather than renting, and for a while, he even held a job after the war delivering aid shipments to different areas of Berlin. But after the Treaty of Versailles was signed, he lost that job, and inflation made sure that whatever money he had earned combined with what was left in the family savings or whatever he found on the street was barely enough to buy food for his younger brother to eat, let alone pay for coal to heat their apartment, gas for their stove, or even candles for meager light when night arrived.

He had once had a job working on car engines before the war, hearing the perfect purrs they made when they were running smoothly. He'd had a girlfriend, one he'd been hoping to marry, with a beautiful laugh and a smile that could have melted ice. He'd imagined their children, a couple of boys, rowdy like he and his brothers had been when they were young, and at least one girl, as beautiful and as fierce as her mother.

Yet another thing the war had stolen from him. When he returned, there was no happy reunion. Just a letter announcing she had gotten married and wished him well.

With no job and no hopes, he no longer spent his nights in his bed back at the apartment, but rather in the streets. A full night's sleep was a luxury he might allow himself once a week. The streets of Berlin, if you were smart, could provide a second income for anyone as unlucky as he was.

Americans.

Any shreds of dignity he'd had left at the end of the war had disappeared when he returned home to find his mother and father dead of the flu, his nine year old brother depending on him for everything. Even as the world came crashing down around them, Gilbert knew he couldn't go a week without eating, or live on the streets. He had someone to care for, to live for even. And his baby brother was his top priority.

He wasn't the only one who had given up his dignity for family or for himself. There was something human to the struggle to survive, and it drew plenty of men and women to the streets to engage in the world's oldest profession. Despite having been working as a whore for six months, he was still relatively new in this area of Berlin, and his strange appearance meant it was a struggle to get a possible customer to take him seriously.

But he had to keep trying. A single American dollar was a full night of pleasure. Fifty cents guaranteed penetration and intercourse, and a quarter could get you pretty good service for an hour or two that would probably lead to oral sex.

In the hands of those who earned it, an American dollar meant a new winter coat to fight the chill of winter on the streets of Berlin, or enough food to feed a family of four for a week. Gilbert could buy food, and even cover the costs of coal and gas to cook that food and keep his brother warm during the worst nights Berlin had to give them.

This was what hope had become in the poorest districts of Berlin.

An American dollar.

He pulled out a cigarette as he watched Emma flirt with two brunette women. Emma's English was so heavily accented that even Gilbert couldn't understand it, but the way the women were smiling, and how one held Emma's arm was all the message they needed to cross the language barrier. Emma finally took off with the women, headed somewhere, and fast.