Blue Glass

Manfred

"Where have you been, Manfred?"
It's a pointed question, one that in my opinion conveys my mother's seemingly never ending disappointment at me.
And for some reason, I understand it. I'm the eldest son; I'm supposed to spend my leaves with her, at home, serving her in any way I can. Instead, I'm always disappearing off to some preserve to hunt.
"Hunting, Mama," I pull up a chair next to her bed and letting her scrutinize me—what else can I say? Her critical gaze sweeps over my face and shoulders, drinking me in. "I went to a town near Berlin with a nice forest and shot a moose."
I took advantage of a girl I wasn't even supposed to love. After that, I made a half-hearted attempt at redemption by going into a forest on the outskirts of Berlin and slaughtering a moose.
My mother takes my hand and clasps it between both of hers. "Bravo, my dear boy."
Bravo. I almost want to leap out of my chair and turn a cartwheel out of joy. To hear such spontaneous praise from my mother is rare, and the moments so fleeting they're out of my grasp before I can hold them and commit them to memory.
"Tell me what else you have been doing," she prompts me.
And I do.
I start to tell her stories. I tell her about my stay in Berlin—how nice the hotel was, the hospitality of the many officers I met, whether I met any remarkable women. I leave out one crucial part: going to the art gallery to see Reusing's new paintings of me. Because if I do, I know I'll start thinking about her...
Stop it! I mentally kick myself for even letting those memories come back to me. Instead, I focus on animating the story I'm telling my mother with everything I have in a bid to distract myself. She sits and listens in satisfied silence, a subtle gleam of pride lighting her dark eyes.
As I continue to talk to her well into the afternoon, and eventually follow her downstairs for an extremely late breakfast—no one really cares about timeliness for mealtimes anymore; there's nothing to eat anyway—I can't help imagining her reaction if she were to ever find out about Lea and I.
In her eyes, I was her eldest son, her heir, the pride and joy of the von Richthofen family. That would all come crashing down if she were ever to find out I had fallen in love with a working class girl—and a wine seller at that.
I will not think about her. Not now.
The sad thing is that even my house reminds me of her.
I remember the first and only time I let her inside. I remember standing in the attic with her, beneath the ominous length of rope hanging from the ceiling. I remember how lighthearted and giddy I felt when I kissed her.
I only excuse myself from my mother's presence when my sister walks in the door, resplendent in her nurse's outfit. Her eyes light up when she sees me, but behind the outward excitement I can see the questions in her gaze. Her concern upsets and touches me at the same time. I'm surprised that she would give a damn but simultaneously annoyed that she would bother to. I don't need taking care of from a woman. I'm supposed to be a man and know how to take care of myself by myself.
The satchel of rocks seemingly suspended from my heart only grows heavier as I rush upstairs and barricade myself in my room. I ball my hands into fists, watching the blue veins in the backs of my hands swell as i clench my fists tighter and tighter and tighter in an attempt to squelch the growing itch building inside of them, the need to break something, to be the death of something. It seems that the harder I clench them, the more it hurts, until the pain no longer hurts me but enrages me, like a slap to both cheeks simultaneously.
I don't know why I'm so angry.
And then I remember all the reasons I have to be angry—Lea, Lothar, my head wound which only hampers my ability to serve the Fatherland.
A sudden, razor sharp spike of pain nearly cleaves my skull in two. I bite back an involuntary howl of agony and bury my face in my knees as stars explode behind my closed eyes, purples, greens, whites, and muted yellows fading in and out on a canvas of inky black.
Somehow during my stay in Berlin, and especially during that night, my chronic headaches seemed to have contented themselves with sitting on the sidelines and letting me live my life for once. I wondered what would have happened if my head had started throbbing in Lea's presence. I would probably have had to tell her why...
No, you wouldn't. You're a man, and you're an officer at that. You don't need to explain yourself to a girl, and a wine selling, working class girl at that.
If I do survive the war, I will always carry two things from it: my headaches and my loss of hearing in my left ear. And while everyone knows about my headaches—well, a select few do—I've never let it show that I am deaf in one ear.
It's almost as if by thinking about it, I am sucked through a vortex of memories straight into that rainy day, the day a grenade exploded almost inches away from me...