Blue Glass

Svetlana

Lea looks uncharacteristically irritated when she walks in the door. A mumbled "hello" is all she deigned to give me in terms of a greeting. I know I should respect my boundaries, that she isn't expected to treat me with such familiarity, but we've been that way for years, and this sudden aloofness disturbs me.

Alone in the foyer now, my eyes fall on the stack of unopened letters on the coffee table. On impulse, I sit down on the sofa and begin to thumb through the envelopes. Most of them were postcards from Lea's uncle Reinhard Schwarz and his son Heinrich--I set those aside for later viewing.

One letter in particular caught my eye. It was in a crisp white envelope; the handwriting was grossly unfamiliar.

M.v.Richthofen, Western Front.

My first instinct was to let my jaw go slack. Surely this couldn't be Manfred von Richthofen, the famous German ace--no, that wasn't possible. Lea was, for all the wealth her father had amassed, a working class girl, and to associate herself with barons and baronesses was completely unfathomable.

Still, there it was in black ink, in jagged handwriting: M.v.Richthofen. I took a deep breath, holding onto the letter like it would float away from me. If this was Manfred von Richthofen, how had Lea come to know him, and most importantly--why?

With shaking hands, I seized the letter opener and poised it at the flap of the envelope. Lea would surely be furious if she found out I was opening her mail without her consent, but I had to know who this was.

But for some reason, I couldn't bring myself to do it, to completely breach Lea's trust in me. Our friendship went way back--we had known each other since my first day in the house. I had been nothing but a Russian refugee on the streets of Vienna before she found me in an alley while she and her girlfriends had been exploring.
Her mother Klothilde had been a much nicer person back then, back when Lea's father was still around. Lea's father had agreed to take me in almost on the spot—the idea that I should be a housekeeper was Klothilde's idea. Siegfried Schwarz always brought out the best in that woman—not that there was much good in her anyway, but sometimes something is better than nothing.
Lea and I had grown close as time went on. I literally watched her grow up into the young woman she is today—humorous, headstrong, tactful, yet incredibly emotionally scarred.
I've seen what her mother's deviance has done to her. I've seen her lapse into it myself, seen the cigarette butts and lighter in her handbag. I've seen the bottles of red wine under her bed. She's had no one to tell her right from wrong when she's needed it most—no one but me. And I've tried, God knows I have, and most of the time I succeed. But there are some times when I just can't get through to her, when she barricades herself in her own mind, immune to all outside influences.
We've never talked about men, or marriage, or even a potential courtship. Lea has no wish to end up like her mother, and I don't want to see her in such a position. Still, Lea is such an unromantic person that for her to have a successful relationship with someone, that person would need to really be understanding of her.
So is this M.v. Richthofen Mr Right, then? The gnawing need to answer that question is what powers my hand to rip through the flap of the envelope.
The letter opener clatters loudly on the table as I set it aside. I remove from the envelope a neatly folded piece of paper and unfurl it.

Meine liebes Fraülein Lea!
First of all, allow me to tell you how much I miss being able to see you. I feel like despite how fast our impromptu courtship has progressed we haven't been able to see much of each other. Much to my regrets that I can't find time to ferret myself away from the home land to be with you in Vienna.

The first thing I think is how. Lea had never shown any signs of being in love, or even of the fact that she was seeing another person. The idea is preposterous to me, and yet these words on the paper are clear, irrefutable proof that the opposite is true, that the impossible is possible. Lea has fallen in love. She's fallen in love with a German: the most famous German of all, Manfred von Richthofen.
I continue to read—it's the only thing I can bring myself to do.