Blue Glass

Fall From Grace

Meet me at the chateau after sunset.

I knew the jagged, pointy handwriting all too well. The way the lines peaked sharply and fell just as quickly, how the words flowed like choppy waves in a stormy sea across the paper. How the writer was incapable of drawing graceful curves and loops, settling instead for taut circles. It was Manfred's handwriting.

At first, when I found it beneath my saucer during afternoon tea, I had been thoroughly disgusted. I couldn't believe that he even had the gall to write his invitation in command form, as though I was somehow obliged to "meet him at the chateau after sunset." It was all I could do not to scowl at the piece of paper, with its ragged edges from where it had been torn off a larger sheet and the fine creases running over its surface from where it had been crumpled. All the while, Manfred didn't bat an eyelash, choosing instead to sit in stoic, observant silence. And although I had had to immerse myself in small talk with the rest of his comrades, I couldn't help noticing how his blue eyes always held me in their sights whenever he thought I wasn't looking.

I loved him. I truly did, despite everything that had happened. If I hadn't loved him, would I have killed my mother for him? Would I have gone to all that trouble to go to Berlin and see him? And I knew that a part of me would always love him, even if he didn't return the feeling as passionately or as faithfully as I did.

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He was sitting on the steps at the entrance to the chateau when I let myself in through the gate, his feet apart, his forearms resting on his kneecaps, his hands clasped. He looked up at the sound of the metal hinges squeaking, the shrill sound piercing the silence of twilight. For a moment, I felt the characteristic rush of affection that always came over me whenever I saw him. But then I remembered the emptiness in my heart, gnawing at it like a rat gnawing on rope as I stood there in the rain outside the art gallery, watching him walk further and further away from me down the street until I couldn't see him at all. 

"So you came." He sounded incredulous, like he was a scientist talking about a week old experiment he had long given up on.

"Did you think I wouldn't?" I already knew the answer, but for some reason, I wanted to it from him.

"I wouldn't have been waiting here if I thought you wouldn't."

He smiled as he said it, and despite the seriousness of the situation I found myself smiling as well.

Manfred gestured to the stone step he was sitting on, and I eased myself down on the cold granite beside him, pulling my knees to my chest. Despite the fact that the snow had melted, it was still deathly cold. I didn't realize I was shivering until Manfred shrugged off his coat and draped it over my shoulders, pulling it tightly around me. 

"Y-you didn't have to do that." Even as I said it, I couldn't help closing my eyes momentarily as I breathed in the familiar scent that was so synonymous with Manfred, and all the emotions he evoked inside of me. 

"Most people would reply with 'thank you,'" Manfred retorted. 

"Well, I'm not most people."

At that, he actually smiled. "No. No, you're not." 

For a moment, we were silent, sitting next to each other on the steps of the chateau, staring out at the sky that was fading from dark blue to black, listening to the sounds of the night. 

"So what do you think?" Manfred finally asked.

"Of the airfield, or of our current situation?"

It was the slightest jab I could take at Manfred without actually offending him, and yet his eyebrows rose for a fraction of a second before settling into the mask of impassiveness that was his face.