I jammed the stubborn gate closed. The last thing we needed was to lose another chicken. They were skinny and barely laying anymore but it was better than nothing. Hitching the lock, I strode away with the basket of eggs on my hip. I kicked a stone and it skidded into a pile of rusty leaves drying in the midmorning sun. My mood had been off since the evening of the wolf attack.
With a heavy sigh, I perched my fist on my hip and stared up the ivy ridden walls of the house. The vine leaves were dead, encasing the brick like braids of barbed wire. I was about to head in to finish the baking for the day when my eye caught a window with a shutter ajar on the second floor. It wasn’t Gruber’s room.
After rinsing my hands in the kitchen, I climbed the servant’s staircase in the rear of the stately home. It was the room where Edgar had been the evening Maier was attacked. I never had the chance to ask him what he had been doing.
Entering the spare room, the ghostly forms of the furniture draped in sheets were illuminated with the glare from the eastern windows. The runner at the back of the rectangular room was bare, it’s protective blanket discarded on the ground. I walked over and picked up the sheet. On the table there was a series of photos from our parent’s wedding lined beside the couple from my grandparents’ marriage ceremony.
They were all somber, the women straight faced and posture perfect with flowers held at their hips as though giving a promise of fertility. The men were mostly sitting, knees apart with hands resting on their thighs with the assurance of power and wealth. My eye caught a single photograph without a frame on the side of the table.
I picked it up and studied the image. The corner had been burned away but had not destroyed the main image. It was of an unknown couple of their wedding day. A woman stood at the forefront, blonde like me but a purer shade of white gold. Her eyes crinkled in a genuine smile. The groom behind her was looking away but laughing as though he had been distracted by a joke off camera. It took me a moment to recognize him. I had never seen Sergeant Viktor Domnin smile but it was him.
He looked so different from the man I knew. When I had been around him, Viktor’s mouth curved upwards on the corner as though he were on the verge of a disgusted snarl. His gaze was stale with exhaustion unless provoked at which the blue would flash with chilled violence and send shards of fear into whomever it landed upon. This figure with relaxed limbs and a youthful brow wasn’t the same man who had left his handkerchief with me. I still kept it in my pocket like a dirty secret.
Pocketing the item, I draped the sheet over the runner as the sound of the Lieutenant Gruber’s motorbike echoed from the courtyard. I latched the window shut and scuttled down into the kitchen, hoping the man would go directly to his room. No such luck.
“Baking day, I see,” he crowed as he entered the kitchen.
I didn’t look up but focused my gaze on kneading the heels of my hands into the dough. The room was stifling from the heat of the oven. A droplet of sweat trailed down from my temple. I lifted a hand and wiped it away.
Gruber paused at the opposite side of the table and chuckled to himself. I glanced up at him with a frown, “What are you laughing at?”
He gave me a smirk and reached out. Before I could pull away, he drew a thumb across the arch of my cheekbone, “You got a little flour-“
I shoved him away. Glaring into his stunned expression, I whipped off my apron and strode over to the cabinet to retrieve a baking pan. I heard him scoff behind my back. As I walked back over to grease the pan, I realized the wedding photo had slipped from my apron pocket. Before I could stop him, Gruber picked it up.
My pulse spiked, “I believe Edgar may have stolen it from the Sergeant.”
“I’m sure you were going to return it,” Gruber chuckled, his expression unreadable as he tapped it on his knuckles, “Viktor Domnin has a pretty little wife, doesn’t he?” He glanced up, his mouth curling into a cruel smile, “Does that bother you?”
Eyes shooting back down to my work, I slid my fingers slick with butter across the pan, “Why should it?”
“No reason, I suppose. I have just seen the way you look at him sometimes.”
I scoffed, the hair on the back of my neck raising, “When have you seen us together?”
“Only a few times,” Gruber casually commented, retrieving an apple from a nearby bowl and tossing it into the air, “Actually, I think you should be happy he hasn’t paid you any real attention. Domnin has quite the reputation.”
Despite the fact that I wanted nothing more than for Maxim Gruber to leave, there was something in his tone that sparked interest, “What kind of reputation?”
A slurping crunch filled the silence as Gruber bit into the apple, “The men love to tell stories about things he did during the campaign in the north. He was not kind to your people, that’s for certain. I’m surprised he’s been cordial to you at all.”
I stiffened, unsure whether I wanted to hear anymore, “I’d hardly call his behavior cordial.”
Gruber chuckled harshly, his eyes flashing with sick enjoyment, “You’re a Regenian and you haven’t found yourself at the wrong end of a pistol, that’s cordiality for Domnin. My personal favorite is about when they finally took the Regenian tank at the Battle of Drumon. One of your Southern Cohorts, I believe it was. A group surrendered, their arms raised. Poor bastards. Domnin coaxed them into the open then lit them up,” he mimed firing a semi-automatic weapon and laughed viciously, “Who knows? He might have offed one of your neighbors. So you see, a friendship between the two of you would be somewhat awkward.”
Shock rushed through my veins, limbs frozen where I stood with my hands still heavy with butter. I didn’t know the details of Sid’s death other than what we had been told in the government issued letter of condolence, but it was too close for comfort. I barely noticed Gruber as he edged closer towards my inert figure.
“Now, if you were looking for a friend, someone to look out for you and your family,” he took a handkerchief from his coat pocket and dabbed at a brush of flour on my chin. He ran the cloth over my bottom lip and made steady eye contact, “My offer is still open.”
Pin pricks of rippling disgust ran up my arms. There was a cough at the door. To my relief, I saw Theda standing there with brown paper parcels of groceries in her arms, her seething stare trained on Gruber. Grabbing the photo, I marched from the kitchen, leaving a stammering Gruber to Theda’s scrutiny.
I grabbed the bicycle Theda and I shared where she had left it in the courtyard and pedaled hard down into the lane. I didn’t know where I was going, I just had to move. I needed to run as far as I could from the kitchen where Gruber had told me stories more disturbing that any ghost tale from childhood. I had to get away from the parlor where I had let Viktor touch me by the fire, his eyes holding me as captive as a snake transfixing a rodent.
As I crossed the bridge going into Belnon, I came to a skidding stop outside the old shoe factory. It had been converted by the Berchtens into a hospital for their men. Thankfully they hadn’t seen much action in the past couple weeks so things were slow around the massive concrete building. Viktor’s photo and handkerchief were eating away at me in my pocket. I needed to get rid of them without having to see him. Cut all ties.
As I dropped the bicycle outside the wide front steps, I earned a couple whistles of admiration from a few idle Berchten soldiers. Ignoring the unwanted attention, I strode into the building. Perhaps I could leave them with the Sergeant who had been injured, he could return them to him. I managed to tell the nurse I was looking for Sergeant Maier just as she asked in broken Regenian.
He was in a main ward, rows of beds lining the long room where machinery had once stood. The Sergeant stared at me in bleary eyed stupor as I came to stand at the end of his bed. Clearly, he was still under the influence of the pain medication following his surgery. I cleared my throat.
“I’m sorry, you probably don’t remember me-“
“Oi! I know you!” He announced, his mouth rounding into a smile as he pointed at me, “The Regenian nurse, you saved me life!”
I swallowed a weak smile, “Thank you but I really didn’t-“
“Bloody did too, pigeon,” he winked at me, “I’d offer you some refreshments or the like but as you see, I’m indisposed.”
“I wanted to see- make sure you were alright,” I stuttered out the lie and felt bad for the grateful look that shaded his open countenance.
“Aw, love, that’s too kind,” he gave me a dismissive wave, “I’m well! Surgery went beautiful but they don’t think I’ll be completely back to normal ever.”
“I’m so sorry to hear that-“
“Don’t be! I’m going home to my Greta. That’s my wife. Want to see a picture?”
Before I could reply, he was pulling a snapshot of a laughing brunette with charmingly crooked front teeth from his bedside table. I handed it back, “She’s lovely.”
“She’s a real winner, my Greta,” he murmured, studying the photo before returning it to its place of honor, “Seems that wolf did me a favor, Miss.”
I bit my bottom lip, unsure of how to broach the subject, “I also came to ask if you could do something for me?”
“Anythfing!” He exclaimed, loud enough to draw the attention of the doctors across the aisle, “Anythfing for the girl who saved me life.”
I retrieved the photo and handkerchief from my pocket and held them out to him, “These are Sergeant Viktor Domnin’s. I would appreciate it if you could return them to him for me. They were left at my house.”
The smile washed away from his bright face as he took the singed photograph from my fingers, “The handkerchief of course. But this-“
“It is him in the photo, isn’t it?” I chuckled nervously, “I believe my brother may have taken it from him. Edgar has picked up a bad habit of stealing lately.”
He gave a weak grin in response, “Domnin would probably have thought Edgar did him a favor… taking this old thing. It's probably best he don't get it back.”
My brow furrowed as he held it back out to me, “Why?”
Peter sighed, “Seems not all wives are like my Greta. Domnin’s girl- well.. Miss Roux it ain’t my story to tell but he just got word that she left him for a bloke she met while he’s been away. Risking his life and all and this is how she repays him. Just ain’t right. Especially to do to a man like Viktor.”
It was a tale too often heard on every front of the war. Though there were two sides to every story, I couldn’t help but feel numb to hearing it about a Berchten soldier, “What do you mean a man like Viktor?”
“Well, he’s the best we got. Saved my life more times that I can count. Sure, he doesn’t have the best reputation among the men but that’s because he does what he has to do. No matter the cost.”
Retreating a step, I winced at the sting of his words, “Even if the cost is leaving Regenian wives, daughters and…sisters- leaving us without our men?”
Peter frowned, “War is ‘ell, Miss Roux.”
I exhaled heavily through my nose, “When do they send you out?”
“Tonight on the train to the border. It’s not for the wounded but they wanted to get me out and free up a bed,” Peter nodded, “Thank you again, Miss Roux. I’ll remember you fondly to me wife.”
My lips twitched upwards, reluctant to verbally accept his thanks. Peter Maier was the kind of man I would have liked if he had been on our side. War did funny things to how I saw others, tacking the word ‘enemy’ to good natured people wanting to survive as much as I did. Wordlessly, I left the hospital.
I pedaled hard down the misty road from town, my breath turning to fire in my lungs and muscles straining. The ghostly shadows of trees swayed like mourners at a funeral in my peripheral. My brain spun. I hated living so close to them. I prayed that I would receive word from the Resistance to help fight our invaders. Maybe once I had blood on my hands-
The hulking figures materialized from the fog and caused my bicycle to skid so hard that I flew over the handlebars. The air burst from my lungs as I thudded onto my back. Blinking up into the light drizzle, a masked figure loomed over me.
“Georgiana Roux?” A female voice asked.
With an achy gasp, I nodded weakly. A pair of strong arms lifted me to my wobbling feet, my sight spinning as they threw a hood over my head.
"It would be in your best interest if you came quietly."
ns 15.158.61.20da2
