Blue Glass

Ilse

"Where is Manfred?" was the first thing my mother said when she walked in the door, empty handed after yet another failed shopping trip. "Shouldn't he be awake by now?"

"His head must be hurting him a lot today, Mama," I said, helping her take her coat off. "He hasn't come out of his  room at all today."

She seemed to accept that as a reasonable excuse, and disappeared up the stairs, leaving me alone with the coat. I went to go hang it up, my thoughts meandering elsewhere, namely my brother.

Manfred had grown quieter and quieter as the days dragged on. Yes, he was melancholy and morose after being wounded, which was understandable given the considerable amount of pain he ought to be in, but we at home saw less and less of him as the days passed. Whereupon he had been inclined to sit and regal us with stories of fierce air battles and life on the Front, now it seemed that he was always shut up in his room or outside. I had spoken to my mother about this change in him only once, to which she responded with a flippant, "Leave the boy alone, Ilse, he has enough on his plate, and we as his family should accommodate him as best as we can instead of lecturing him to change his ways. The war has changed us all, and we don't even have a glimpse of the fighting--imagine how changed the men who must commit the slaughter must be!"

I agreed with her, but deep down, I just wanted my brother back, my selfless younger brother who threw himself into the role of eldest son wholeheartedly, with body and soul.  I wanted the old Manfred back, the one that loved to talk to our mother and I, who loved to keep us company, who did everything he could to make us happy. I didn't recognize Manfred the way he was now; I had never known him to be so emotionally detached, and although I knew I could never talk to anyone about how I truly felt for fear that I would be labeled selfish and out of touch with what the soldiers at the Front go through on a daily basis, thinking about it was refreshing enough and--

"Ilse?"

I jumped and twisted in my chair, looking over my shoulder. Manfred stood on the bottom step of the staircase, his hands in the pockets of his greatcoat.

"Would you mind telling Mama I'm going for a walk? I need some fresh air."

I stared at him,not knowing what to say. Part of me wanted to voice my thoughts to him, to bid him tell me what was wrong and unburden himself, while the rest of me said to just leave him be and let him heal on his own.

"Well? Will you? Or should I go and tell her myself?"

I blinked, my thoughts dissipating like cigarette smoke. "Of course I'll tell her, Manfred. Enjoy your time outdoors."

He gave me the tiniest of smiles as he headed for the front door. As he took his hands out of his pockets to turn the doorknob, I saw a square piece of paper fall out of his pocket onto the carpeted floor. He didn't seem to notice as he shut the door behind him, lifting his hand in farewell to me. Moments later, I heard the garden gate clang shut.

I rose to my feet and went over to the white square on the floor, which upon closer inspection proved to be a sheet of paper folded into a tight square. I picked it up and unfurled it, squinting at my brother's jagged handwriting, which filled the page both front and back.

Lea Schwarz. Leopoldine Schwarz. Polldi Schwarz.

He had written the name and both of its hypocorisms over and over and over all along the front of the page. As I turned it over, I realized that was all both sides of the paper said--just this girl's name.

I sank into the nearest chair, holding the paper like it was a vial of poison and the Bible at the same time. If I wasn't mistaken, Manfred was a married man in all but religious decree--early in 1913 he had been set to marry a childhood friend of ours and the daughter of one of our close family friends, Adele von Wallenberg. They would have been married long ago if it weren't for the outbreak of war and the mobilization of the German army. I remembered that although Manfred had dutifully accepted the match, he hadn't been too thrilled about it, and for all his self-control couldn't mask his apathy for the situation.