The Wall Crossers

Jan 6 Thu - Mixed Messages

Jan 6 Thu – Mixed Messages

Olivia's perspective

On Thursday evening, while in my room, I write on a pad of paper:

Anja: Once there was a way to get back homeward.
Once there was a way, to get back home (from Abbey Road).
Where are you?
Please let me know how you are.
Olivia.

I walk to her place. It is late evening, and cold, but the sky is beautifully clear. The trees seem frozen. Everyone I meet on the street are so bundled up, and no one has time to look up or smile. I am wearing my Army overcoat and under that civilian clothes, including low heel, low-cut zip-up go-go boots under my striped bell bottoms and long-sleeve shirt not tucked in. I get to her flat and it is dark.

I walk up and try to peer in the window, but I see nothing. I put my note through the mail slot. I stand there for a moment. I rap the door knocker. Listen. Nothing from inside.

I turn toward the street and look up at the bare limbs of the trees twitching back and forth in the cold air. The clouds are lowering again—more snow is on the way. "Anja, where are you?", I ask the sky.

It has been five days since I saw her last. I should have gone with her, no matter what the outcome for me might have been.

I pull my coat close around me and head home—to the barracks.

Back in the room, Bill sees I am glum. He pats my back and says, "Reary, that girl chose someone else, right on? You gotta move on. You'll be out of the Army in a few days, and you can forget about this place! Yeah?"

"How about the other girl, Bill?"

"Oh, she'll find someone else to get her to New York," he says with what I feel is complete cynicism.

Later, the CQ comes by on rounds and drops off a message from a call that had earlier been received on the German phone. It reads:

To: Olivia Reary
All we revere will soon be ours.
Call me.
your Leida.

She is quoting from her poem to me.

I decide I will try again, tomorrow, to call Leida.