Dinah

Changing Days

They'd taken somebody's house on the first night the group was on the move. It was a grand place, large and surrounded with gardens that would be in full bloom next spring and summer, if they didn't get bombed. The mother of the family subtly sent her children to their friends' house and not-so-subtly cut potatoes for them with the largest, most terrifying steak knife Constantijn had ever seen. He had understood exactly why she did it, though. The mass of the troops (there were a lot of them, too, packed into the two-story farmhouse) were boys - no older than nineteen or twenty - but the officers commanding them did not seem to care that she was married. She was still pretty, even  though she seemed older in her years.
Constantijn was glad when they left the house.
The next night, after marching from before dawn, they stopped in an empty hotel. Constantijn and Dierksen, another Grenadier just older than he, were appointed to peel vegetables and dump them into the large pot of broth that would be their long-anticipated dinner.
Dierksen was a big guy, with
broad shoulders and a powerful stride. He had had darker hair that he couldn't ever seem to keep out of his face, but then he brushed it away one too many times and the Oberleutnant had made him cut it off. Now, since a bunch of teenage boys did not make good barbers, it was patchy and ugly, and he had kept his stocking cap on under his uniform cap. Constantijn rather wished he had one, because the German countryside was stiffeningly cold, and the hotel wouldn't be much better until a few of the other boys got a fire going in the woodstove in the living room.
Constantijn chopped quickly, hiding a smile as he watched Dierksen gingerly shave a small sliver off of a pale, thin potato. "Do you know how to peel vegetables?" He asked.
Dierksen looked up sharply, frowning as he gauged Constantijn. Dierksen seemed to think he was much smarter than he really was, "It wasn't the highlight of my studies," He finally snarked, and bent his head back over his project.
"Well, it's nothing to be ashamed of," Constantijn said, with the first sliver of a smile in a week now. "I'll show you - here, like this," He sliced off the thin skin of a potato and then watched as Dierksen awkwardly mimicked him.
The potato skin came a little chunky and rough, but it was better than Dierksen taking ten minutes to get the whole thing skinned, "It doesn't have to be perfect, Dierksen. Just don't be messy."
"You talk riddles, kid," Dierksen grumbled.
Constantijn raised an eyebrow at him, "I'm only a year or so younger than you."
"Doesn't matter," Dierksen snapped, and dropped the potato in front of Consantijn "Keep working, Rot."
Constantijn kept working. Once the potato rations had been emptied into the pot, they sat and watched it boil.
"Shouldn't we, like, put some salt or something flavory in it?" Dierksen frowned at the pale chunks floating in the water.
"I don't know that we have any," Constantijn shrugged. "Unless there's anything left in these cupboards," He nudged one open with his foot and, not to his surprise, found the cabinet empty.
Dierksen did not let this intimidate him. He flung open the cupboard nearest him and said, "There, look. There's some cheese up top there," He pulled it down and tossed it to Constantijn.
He fumbled a bit but caught it, and stared at the simple paper package incredulously. Cheese was printed on it in neat handwriting. "You've got dumb luck, Dierksen," He announced.
"I'm not dumb," Dierksen snapped heatedly.
If you weren't dumb, you'd know that wasn't what I was saying. Constantijn thought,  but he didn't think he'd hold up in a fight against the six-four athlete so he dropped the subject and stirred a bit of the cheese into the pot.
"What should we do with the rest of it?" He asked.
Dierksen glanced out the doorway, and then picked up the knife Constantijn had used. With it he traced a thin line about halfway through the slim wedge, "I won't tepl if you don't," He said.
"Uhh..." Well... resistance, he supposed. "Sure."
Dierksen cut it in half and handed the paper-wrapped piece to Constantijn, taking a bit out of his own half.
Constantijn tucked it in the pocket of his gray uniform coat, "Thanks."
"Keep your mouth shut, kid," Dierksen snapped, crumbs flying from his mouth.
"Uh-huh."
"You don't talk a lot."
"Uh-uh."

The officers, of course, left for a restaurant a few blocks away, leaving two non-commissioned officers to keep an eye on things. The potato soup was spread thin, although with the cheese added Constantijn and Dierksen gained titles as decent chefs.
Somehow, the two of them managed to escape clean-up duty, perhaps by their excellent debut as potato soup masters, and Constantijn found himself following Dierksen -  any room, the officers had said, so he might as well go with the one acquaintance he'd made.
He plunked his mat and pack in the corner of the room. It was substantially sized, with a large king-sized bed in the center, which Dierksen quickly claimed. There was no way he would be sharing with anybody - the guy was massive, and terrifying. He reminded Constantijn of Frankenstein's monster, only not quite as ugly. Maybe quite as murderous. He wasn't sure yet.
Eventually others filtered into the room, nearly all glaring daggers at Dierksen, and by the time the room was as full as it could possibly get, there were at least a dozen boys crisscrossed across the room, completely exhausted. From the dwindling of footsteps, he could tell the rest of the group was finding places to rest their heads. Two boys in the corner conversed for five or ten minutes in hushed tones. Something about girls, and alcohol. Constantijn was not surprised.
Then he lay awake, staring at the ceiling, for another hour, until he heard the sounds of the officers getting back. From the combination of loud voices and urgent whispers, he knew some were more inebriated than others. He supposed it'd be amusing tomorrow to watch the hungover ones try and lead the march eastward.
He felt someone's hot breath on his neck and started. Then he rolled over, facing the wall, and tried to shut out the image that flooded into his head. He and Rolf poking each other in bed with cold feet, he and Dieter sharing whispered words, cold dirt covering Rolf in his coffin and Dieter climbing up onto his friends' wagon for the ride to the Heer base.
Well, couldn't he imagine everything was okay? He could try. He screwed his eyes shut and pictured it: he and Rolf and Dieter and Pieter, too; the whole family crowded in the living room. He even let Papa into his dream, sitting beside Mama because she loved him. A whole mess of blonde heads and laughter and spilled drinks, because there was no way all of them could fit in the same room without incident.
No. He wrapped his arms around himself. It hurt too much.