"It was chaos, the last days. No one knew what to do with 60000 starved prisoners." Erik stared out of the window but Charles could see that his pupils were widened, whatever Erik was seeing it wasn't outside the window. There were pictures spilling over into Charles' consciousness. Not because he sought out Erik's mind but because of the seemingly natural connection between them that sometimes brought down all the walls.
"The Russians were advancing, "Charles could see the barracks and men so starved that they barely looked human anymore, could feel the coldness and Erik shivering, nearly flinching when he was hit in the face by a guard but no Shaw. Charles was afraid to ask Erik why Shaw had left him behind but Erik must have seen the question on his face.
"Shaw had left weeks ago. I guess he thought that he could always find someone else like me as long as the Russians didn't caught him in that uniform and with that name. Everyone is always afraid of the Russians." an ironic line appeared around Erik's mouth.
"They left those who were too weak behind without food, without anything. My father hid me."Charles saw a man in a wide coat and a floppy hat, strands of grey in his dark hair. Seeing him in Erik's memory made Charles realise how much Erik resembled his mother.
"He died later, after the Russians had arrived." Erik trailed off for a moment. Charles would have liked to cross the room and touch him but he knew that Erik would reject it as pity.
"They seemed unreal. They shouted orders and moved so fast an unnecessarily. As if they didn't understand that moving wasn't something you did unless you were ordered to. There was this soldier, Sascha, he had seen everything already, ad served in the Great War and with the Red Army. He cried when he saw us." A blonde man in a unfamiliar uniform, tears streaking down his face, trying to lure Erik out of his hiding place with a bowl of soup and kind words in accented German.
"He told me later that he had thought that after the Great War the limit for cruelty had been reached, that there was no way to top it." A bitter laugh came from Erik's throat.
"Where did you stay?" Charles asked hesitantly. It was the first time he said something since Erik had started talking.
"In the camp. The Russians tried to make it more 'habitable'. It wasn't as if we had anywhere else to go. I stayed there until they found my family after the capitulation."
"Your family?" Charles asked surprised.
"My uncle's wife and their daughters. My uncle had converted to marry her, only after she had been pregnant with his third child and that he didn't stop having other women made her throw him out pretty soon after the wedding but being married to a German and being in the Navy spared him the camps." Erik's face softened a bit at the memory of his family. Charles could see them, a man with a striking resemblance to Erik in a dark blue uniform, holding the hand of a little blonde girl, his other arm around a heavily pregnant woman with red curls and piercing grey eyes.
"She meant well, my aunt. She was a seamstress and she drove trucks for the Russians."He saw her, leaning out of a vehicle, a cigarette in one hand, her hair held back by a stained headscarf, arguing and cursing loudly at a Russian soldier that had stopped her.
"She smoked like a chimney and swore like a sailor, too. She was sad to see me go but she wasn't...she wasn't one of us."
"When did you leave?"
"1949, there were these organisations that took care of us, brought us to America, the land of tolerance and peace." Erik's tone became bitter. "And I believed it until I saw a sign outside a swimming pool that claimed "No dogs, Jews, or Coloured here". In the land of tolerance and peace my place was below a dog's." He shook his head as if to shake away the memory but it was there for Charles, mixing with his own memory of such signs and the light disdain in his stepfather's voice when he spoke about 'letting those people in our country. Haven't we done enough for them with winning the war and protecting them from the Soviets?'.
"I took the next ship to Israel, our home, our promised land. I didn't fit in there, either. Too German. My father had fought for Germany in the Great War and he was proud of it. So I left again." Charles felt the disappointment welling up with the memory and it made Charles wanting to offer something to Erik, to show him that he had a place to stay now, that Charles wanted him to stay here. He had to look away from Erik for a moment or his emotions would have spilled over to Erik. That connection between them worked both ways.
"I wasn't the only one. I met this troupe, people like me who had nowhere to go. We travelled through Europe, showing plays that had been or were still forbidden." Charles could picture that, Erik on a stage, moving gracefully while declaring lines in German, French, Russian and English. He could see the others in that group: Irena with her long, blonde tresses and a tiny nose, Pierre with freckles on his nose and vibrant dark eyes, Karl and Louise and Alexey and Clara and Friedjof, young and alive and determined to make the most of their survival. Suddenly Charles felt the urge to flee. He didn't want to see what other horrible things had to happen to Erik to take that from him, to shape him into the man he was today.
"Nothing horrible happened." Erik looked at him for the first time since he had started speaking so he had to have noticed Charles' inner turmoil.
"We met this guy who had lived ten years under a wrong name but I remembered him from the camps. He had been the one who gave out the meals if you could call it that. He asked me if Schmidt knew I was on the loose. Until that moment I had thought he had died." Satisfaction played into Erik's voice but Charles didn't call him out on it, not today when Erik had shared such trust with him. Erik killing Shaw was still a sore point between them and Charles doubted that they would ever truly settle it but that was a discussion for another day.
Charles stood up and crossed the room, carefully walking towards Erik. He wanted to show him that he appreciated the trust Erik had given him but he also knew that Erik sometimes rejected physical contact.
This time, however, Erik didn't resist when Charles slipped his fingers between Erik's, wrapping their hands tightly around each other.
"Thank you." He whispered and felt a warm wave of emotions coming from Erik, accompanied by the echo of words Charles didn't need to translate to understand.