Blue Glass

Kindred Spirits

Looking at myself in the cracked slab of glass leaned against the wall of Marie's apartment, I was surprised at how good someone who lived in a slum could look if they just gave it some thought.
I was going to take up on Manfred's offer to visit him today. I had been so preoccupied with Marie and her impromptu entrance into my life that I didn't even get a chance to read the piece of paper he had handed to me on the train. It turned out to be  the number of his room at a lavish hotel in Berlin called the Continental. I could hardly wait. The prospect of making up for lost time now that we had all the time in the world made me giddy.
I straightened my hat out in the mirror, balancing it perfectly atop the long braids coiled around my head. It was the best one out of my otherwise basic collection of straw sun hats—a wide-brimmed black capeline hat trimmed with white lace. Marie had scoffed when I came knocking on her door asking to use her mirror. "'Where are you going?'"she had asked as she looked me up and down, appraising my creased street clothes, the wrinkles of which I had smoothed out by hand:
I had thrown her a dirty look and asked her to "please sod off". Just because the two of us had some things in common didn't mean that I would take up on her unspoken offer of companionship.
Actually, we didn't have anything in common whatsoever. In her eyes, I was Helena Pottgen, a girl who had run away after she refused to marry her cousin who then framed her for stealing a hefty sum of money to rally the members of their family to his side and get her put away in a mental facility. She didn't know who I was; she had no way of knowing that she was talking to a murderer.
In a deceptive, cunning sort of way, I was sort of proud of the sob story I had come up with, one that had left Marie wide eyed long after I finished. She in turn had told me her story—she had been hounded by her father and brothers after she eloped with her lover, the son of a prestigious university professor. He had contracted pneumonia and died, and she had had no choice but to make it on her own. Years of begging in the street and being scorned by the public had brought her to Wedding, where she quickly gained a reputation for her former status as a noblewoman. Nearly all the women in the building who had the hope of their daughters being able to have a better life than they did sent their daughters to her to learn about the etiquettes and customs of the upper class. Although I saw no sign of Marie's clientele now, I assumed she went down to their apartments herself.
I smoothed out the slight wrinkles on the jacket of my walking suit. It and the ankle length skirt that came with it were both a dark, inky black that would ensure I blended in with the many women in mourning attire. With one final adjustment to my cap and a fleeting glance in the mirror, I hurried down the stairs as inconspicuously as I could, heaving a sigh of relief when I saw that the hallways of the building were empty. Now I wouldn't have to worry about some woman hissing at me for my "luxury" clothes when in fact among the working class they were barely shy of being the  lowest of the low.
I gripped my purse tighter as my surroundings gradually shifted from dilapidated buildings to the once-busy but now deserted main streets of Berlin. My feet were aching already; I figured I would take a streetcar to the Hotel Continental.
I could only hope Manfred would still be there by the time I got there.

~~~~

"Whose funeral is it today ?"was the first thing Manfred said to me when he opened the door on my second knock. He looked me up and down, appraising my black clothes.
I made a show of looking up and down the hall. "I haven't decided yet."
His lips split in a genuine smile. "You look well,"he said as I moved past him into the room. "How have you been?"
"Well enough. A lot happened in Vienna since you left." Too much happened, in fact.
"Do tell. I don't have many places to be today." He stayed leaning against the doorjamb, his arms crossed. Normally, I would have gone to put my arms around him or kiss him, but being in his presence after everything that had happened made me feel dirty and corrupted. Although we were both murderers, he had killed in the defense of his country and the people inhabiting it? As for me? I had shed blood in the name of a forbidden romance that should never have happened in the first place. And to make matters worse, I hadn't even done it for that wholeheartedly, I had been driven to kill my mother partially by my own hatred and rage towards her.
"You tell me about yourself first," I said, crossing the room to stand before him despite my misgivings. He reached out and clasped my hands in his, drawing me into a loose embrace. I wrapped my arms around him, flattening myself against his chest, feeling for the first time in what seemed like forever that I was impervious to whoever was out to get me.
"I've been asked to go to munitions factories," he began, his voice low. "I'm to speak to the striking workers there and convince them to go back to doing their work."
"You're supposed to give a speech to them?" I asked.
"Precisely," came the reply. "Personally I don't think it will affect them very much. They'll soon go back to what they were doing."
"They'd listen to you," I said encouragingly. "You're Germany's premiere fighter pilot; who wouldn't listen to you?"
"Between you and I, I'm loath to do it," he said, tightening his grip on me.
"Then don't," I said, tipping my head back to look at him. He gave me a cursory glance before going back to staring straight ahead. His blue eyes looked troubled and full of foreboding.
"I don't have a choice," he said. His words sounded faraway all of a sudden, like they were coming from miles and miles away, like he was speaking from a place not even I could reach him in. "They're my superiors; I can't disobey them."
"Manfred, you have a choice." I gingerly ran the fingers of one hand through his hair, avoiding the spot atop his head where the bullet had creased his skull. "You've always had a choice."
He looked down at my words, staring down at me with a bewildered expression on his face that almost immediately melted into a sorrowful one.
"I can't begin to tell you how wrong you are," he said solemnly. "The only silver lining is that you will never understand what it's like to not have a choice."
He bent my head back over his arm and kissed me so hard the point of his left canine nicked the edge of my lower lip, cutting the skin. I could taste the coppery, salty tang of my blood on his lips as they fused delicately with mine. His lips on mine were like a holy wafer on a vampire—searingly hot and purifying at the same time. My only coherent thought was that maybe for a moment, at least for the time that we were together, I could forget what I'd done. I could forget the selfish, evil, disgusting murderer I was for a moment and just be who I used to be—Lea Schwarz, a girl who was hopelessly in love with a German pilot.
We kissed until we couldn't breathe anymore and had to let go of each other for air. He glanced up at the same time I did and our eyes met. He held my eyes with his intense gaze, forcing me to look deep into his. I couldn't break eye contact if I wanted to.
"What do you mean, I won't understand?" I asked finally, turning a deep red when I had to clear my throat a few times from how breathy my voice had become. When I looked up, he was leaning against the wall again and smiling like he had anticipated such a reaction from me.
"I would hold off on such...depressing topics until nightfall," he said. "We have a long day ahead of us; we should spend it in an optimistic manner."
He'll let me stay the night...? It was almost too good to be true.
"I can't stay here tonight, though, can I?" The question was tentatively put.
"You can if you'd like. I personally would welcome it." His cheeks were beginning to turn red; he immediately cut his gaze away from me to look at his shoes. "Of course, you don't have to if you don't—"
"I'll stay if you want me to." The words tumbled from my mouth before he could change his mind. I couldn't believe it. I may as well have had some imaginary fairy granting all my wishes as I made them.
"Of course I want you to." Manfred held out an arm and we embraced once more. He bowed his head to kiss the top of my head, and when he spoke again, it wasn't to me. I was sure he intended his words to lose themselves in my hair.
"I've always wanted you to."