The dirt on the floor of the factory is stuck fast; my hands feel unnaturally sticky with their layer of grime and dust – a slightly greyer colour than usual. My mouth tastes of the solvent I've used to wipe down the rows of sewing machines in front of me, mixed with the cheap meat of the schnitzel they fry in the vats in the yard. The people drift with armfuls of clothes moving from machine to store room. Their lives are each other's. I watch as I remove the grease from the valves that work the huge threading machine at the centre of the room. Its pistons silenced once a week for my service. Through the crowd comes a young man with dark hair and the same brown satchel he's had since we were fourteen. Unseen by the uniforms he hands me a ripe purple plum and gives me a glowing smile. I nod and give a half smile back as walks quickly through the exit door and the mass of worker swarm to fill the space that was his.
I am with them, yet curiously apart. The eyes penetrate my back accusingly.
"They should have locked him away"
They don't lock children away. I fourteen, still a child.
Four whole years ago. In our vineyard, the day dying as we squandered the last few minutes of dusk on frightened embraces. Then she came. She knew. I could tell from the way she looked at me. From the way she spoke to us. I could tell that she was going to tell.
She stopped in front of us, looking down at our hot limb and flushed faces.
"What are you doing Ernst?"
"Uh.. Nothing, Hanschen and I were just- I mean we were.."
"I thought we were going to spend this afternoon together."
"Yes."
Her mouth was drawn tighter, a wild look in her eyes, the light was fading fast and her voice grew louder, sarcasm and anger tempering the almost silence of the hours before.
"And what could you possibly be doing here that's more important than that?"
Ernst looked away.
"Ernst! We are to become husband and wife."
I turned my head sharply to look at him. The scared boy in the ill fitting clothes stares straight back at me, reminding me that I knew that I would hear these words eventually. And that one day soon he will hear the same about me.
Her gaze is fixed on us. She is crying. In my satchel between our legs lie letters. Pages and pages that will confirm to her just how damned her marriage is. A husband that will not love her, then a family dishonoured with a divorcee.
She snatches a letter. She runs. And runs and runs and runs, the hot tears spurting down her face, her muscles clenched and aching as sweat pricks her underarms. Brushing the fir trees apart she makes for the church, there's a light on in the vicarage. She's running. Until I catch her up, and grab her arm pulling her backwards. I pull too hard; she slips and falls, crumpling as her head smashes into rock.
I step back. I grab the letter and run. The next few weeks are a blur. Confession. Reformatory. The days of punishment and retribution and loneliness. But you are safe. The letters have all been burnt. And yet still, without you the days blur into one another and my sleep is penetrated by thoughts of our love. Until finally I see him outside my cell window in the rain. With all his possessions packed into a single bag, unusually bold he breaks a pane of glass and presses a rough copy of the door key into my yearning fingers.
"I've left the village, I've left her. We have to leave tonight
He is beautiful. His soft eyes and gentle touch. The only person in the entire world who I can understand exactly, who I would trust with my soul and with whom I've shared every important, crystallizing moment of my existance.
The night we left Germany, we left good jobs, good marriages, a good society and a "respectable" life. We left families broken, we left our church. But we did what we had to do. And I won't forget, can't regret what I did for love.