Blue Glass

Manfred

They say that if you tell a lie a number of times, you eventually end up believing it yourself. The problem is, this lie wasn't a spoken one, it was a physical one. It was a lie that manifested itself in every one of my interactions with Lea, a lie that, when being told, made me want to believe it with all my heart. And I believed it: at least, whenever we were together. I told myself that somehow, I could and would make this last. 

I didn't remember anything of what happened after Lea left the chateau. I had thought to see her out farther than just the door--if I had been able to, I would have at least walked the rest of the way with her if it meant I could have a few extra moments alone with her. But I had been afraid that if I stayed with her any longer, I wouldn't be able to bring myself to leave. It was all I could do not to give her a hug goodbye. It was all I could do not to admit to myself, even as I stood behind the closed double doors of the chateau listening to her footsteps fade into the early morning darkness, that I didn't want her to leave. 

As I made my way up the stairs to my quarters, I couldn't help but feel a surge of masculine pride at my...well, performance last night. I was still treading on unfamiliar ground, but the pressure to conform to an ideal, the pressure to seem as experienced as I ought to be, no longer dangled itself over my head like a sword. Perhaps Lothar had been right: I had really needed to come out of my shell and truly live. The scared little boy from Wahlstatt, the Manfred who was teased and mocked relentlessly for his full lips and small stature, was gone. He had been replaced by the Manfred I had always wanted to be, manly and virile. The Manfred that only Lea had been able to bring out. 

As much as I would have liked to stop time and spend the rest of the day in my room, there was still patrol that I had to fly and stacks of paperwork that I had to fill out. To say that today's sorties were more of a nuisance than most days was putting it lightly. I was accustomed to the usual headaches and head pain from my wound sustained in 1917, but today it seemed that it hurt more than usual. By the time the wheels of my blood-red plane touched the ground of the airfield, my head felt like someone had placed it in a vise that was gradually being winched shut on either side. It was all I could do to shake the hands of my comrades, who had come rushing up to the plane as I swung my legs over the edge and heaved myself out. They crowded around me like moths around a lamp in the dark, waiting for me to talk to them, to dish out praise, criticisms, observations. And I did all of that: but what I really wanted was to go up to my room at the top floor of the chateau, fall into bed, and go to sleep. 

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The coolness of the pillow on the side of my face brings with it the equally cold reality of my situation with Lea: it will not last forever. We could meet as many times as we wanted, talk for as long as we wanted to, maybe even sleep together as many times we wanted, and all that would still not be enough to stave off the fact that I am, in all but name, a married man. 

The memory of that day, driving to Schmolz by car, was akin to a bad taste in my mouth that no amount of downed glasses of water could eradicate. I had been driving to the castle of Adele's family by the same road for as long as I could remember, and the ruts and uneven bumps in the road were something that I had long since grown accustomed to. Today, however, each jolt of the car as it hit a depression in the road made my stomach churn. I couldn't tell whether I was actually nauseous or whether it was the cocktail of nerves, guilt, and reluctance building inside me that was causing this. Twice I considered making a dash for the woods lining the side of the road to vomit, and twice I considered throwing in the towel on the whole thing, driving home, and making up a story about my head injury acting up. But even as my mind protested, my foot did not ease up on the gas pedal of the car, and my fingers didn't loosen their grip on the steering wheel. I may as well play sick, but even if my mother believed me, there would be nothing I could say or do that would allay the sting of the subtle, disappointed look in her eyes that would be there. You see, Mother, I would go and ask the father of my bride for her hand in marriage, but I am too sick to do so, so here I am.