Maria, a married Frenchwoman living in Nazi-occupied Hautmont in the Second World War, is in need of a unique kind of love. Who would've thought that uniquely forbidden love comes in the form of a devilishly handsome Nazi Lieutenant?
(Inspired by Su...
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Maria
May, 1940
Hautmont, France
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YOU WANTED TO tell me something, didn't you? Something important. Something that couldn't wait for your return, that couldn't be written down in a letter. You probably wanted to tell me in person so that your nosey commanding officers wouldn't read it before it was sent to me, before I could read what was so important. And now you've left, you've gone God knows where on a wild goose chase because of this damned war, and you've left all your mess behind for me to sort out.
You are his wife, Maria, your mother had said to me as we bid you farewell, while I stood stiffly at her side as we waved you and your regiment off in the train station. His responsibilities are now yours, it's what is expected of a war heroes' wife. I remember wanting to hit her, slap her, kick her, but I stood my ground and ignored her while I clamped my mouth shut and refused to entertain her irritable comments about my new responsibilities as your wife. Your stupid, pathetic wife who can't stand your harrowing absence in this small, claustrophobic town. Lord only knows I stayed here for you, Pablo, because as silly as it sounds, I loved you too much to leave.
Behind the wheel of my car, I turned left and headed down a narrow lane towards town. Another left. Then right, narrowing avoiding the pothole at the edge of the grass verge; I wouldn't want to end up turned over in the wheat field, where nobody would find my lifeless body for days.
I could've done something with my life, you know, with my freedom. But you tied me down, without even realising it, when you took me into town that one warm night in August, to that little French restaurant across the courtyard from the chapel that you know I love so much, and bent down on one knee, took my hand in yours, and stammered, "Maria Estelle Archilles, you're the love of my life, my whole world, and I don't know where I'd be now, if it wasn't for you. So, will you marry me?"
Although it was only over a year ago, two days before my twenty-fourth birthday, I remember so badly wanting to shrink away, for the ground to just swallow me up. It wasn't just that everybody was staring with adoration at us, everybody who we knew so well because this town is so damn tiny. Or even because your best friend, Luca Petit, who has also being dragged into this goddamn war despite only being sixteen, wolf whistled from across the courtyard and shouted at the top of his lungs, "Go on, Benoit, show that little fiancé of yours a good time tonight!" (It was at that point where I wanted to disappear into thin air and escape the predicament you'd put me in.) But rather that, after you'd made a scene and given every man and his dog an invitation to ogle me as I made a decision to your fateful question, I was compelled to say, "Yes, of course, Pablo. Of course I'll marry you." It was then that you placed your hands under my arms and flung me up into the air, spinning me around and kissing me like you were a dying man who may never see me again. It was only now that I realised that that may have been true.
