She always wants to know why it happened.
Why they're here sharing curls of cigarette smoke together on an old, musty carpet. How fate had decided that two shivering bodies under a a few rickety shingles, would be better than two restful spirits stuck in the scent of ash, and fire, and perfume that they so rightfully deserve. Donny says not to question the lord's work. Shosanna says that the lord can tell her what to do when he's been through what she has. He snorts through a long drag. It's the first time she's ever heard him laugh.
They don't know why it works, but it does. And they've come to forget how exactly their little arrangement came to be, but Donny remembers that it involved a long road back, a little bit of rain, and a shared death wish that was just strong enough not to happen. Shosanna doesn't remember anything. At least she says she doesn't remember anything. But Donny doesn't push her to. He doesn't like the color her face turns when he asks. And the fact that sometimes she prefers to sleep outside by the blackberry bushes when he does. Those aren't blankets, that he's been clutching all night. That would be nice. To only have to emotionally depend on a blanket. Blankets don't get up and leave, and sleepwalk, and scream in french at the crack of dawn.
But she's always back by the morning. Sometimes her knees are scuffed up, and sometimes there are wet clumps of earth in her honey colored hair. Sometimes she's wearing his jacket, and sometimes barely anything at all. But her chin always fits so perfectly in the crook of his neck. Some beaten, fucked up puzzle they are. But they fit. And she's always back in the morning.
And they learn a thing or two from each other. Donny has seen a lot of women bend over like that in his day, but never to chop wood. She's all bundled up in an old pair of winter waders, and a bomber jacket that's grown too small for Donny to even zip up. But it's still small on her, nearly to her knees when she's crouching there, catching her breath in the bite of winter. When she's turning to pick up the hatchet, he is caught in her headlights. And he can make out a word on those lips of hers. She's smiling. He's looking at her like she's taking the Sox to the world series, with that wood cutting.
She doesn't reveal that the word was a loose translation of 'lazy asshole'. She likes it, when he looks at her like that. When she can see a little sliver in the darkness, of the man that he used to be. The one that she never had the pleasure to know.
His gift to her, is the gift of English. Which she thinks is a very ugly, and awkwardly spoken gift, but he's so enthusiastic about it that she forgets to mention it. And their communication could stand to be a little more advanced than bare basic English, and body language. Not that Donny minds that part too much.
He's a very good teacher, she thinks. But he teaches like a student. He's patient, and he's kind, and he know everything he needs to know, but he seems to forget that most English tutors don't seventy percent of their lessons on aimless flirtation. The butt of a pencil eraser mashing between his teeth, a hand idling about in his dark hair. Neat as a pin. She thinks maybe this would come a little easier, if she spent more time on verb conjugation, and less time wondering what Donny's eyes compare to best. Big, brown rabbit holes, she decides. And she becomes lost down them. There have been only one other pair of eyes to do that to a woman like Shosanna. And when she thinks of them, the lesson is over. She has to go to bed. She gives no reason, and Donny doesn't pry for one.
Marcel had brown eyes. Big ones, just like Donny's. To think that she never got to see them close the last time they did. That will never go away. And because of this, they will always be open, in her mind. Watching her move about this strange city, in this strange new country. Trying strange new foods, begging for strange new jobs. Strange bed, strange garden, strange little cottage out in the penniless side of the country. With this strange man. That's the worst part. The worst part is that this strange new man becomes less strange with every new, All-American sunrise. His name is Donny, and he's beautiful. And he has horrible table manners, and an awful mouth. And two left feet. A heartbeat that she falls asleep to. And she doesn't know why, but she needs him in the most peculiar of ways. Wants him, in the most peculiar of ways.
Is it a punishable sin, is what she wants to know. To love one, and grow into another like this. She doesn't like the face that he makes, when he tells her that she should let the lord tell her what to do when he's been through what she has. It isn't funny. And the side of his face will sting for a day, with the remnant of his little joke. In time, it will be like it never happened. But she will be colder, and the distance will continue to grow until the newspapers start to boast of the anniversary. 'The day that our boys went in there, and took the last breaths of heroes.'
She wants to drink. He has other plans. It took him quite some time, to calculate the exact Yahrzeit. It took him quite a bit longer to locate a decent Yahrzeit candle, in this damned Christian swarm that the city is slowly becoming. The light is out when she returns, just a little past sunset. But she can feel him there. And she swears to god for a moment, that she can feel the both of them there. Physically, it's only Donny. Criss crossed on the same sticky carpet. His face is washed in white and yellow by the glow of an oil lamp. He has a Yahrzeit Candle, he has a matchbook, and he has the sorriest look that she's ever seen on such a strong face. Her tongue begins to bleed under the force of her teeth. Her lip quivers.
And Donny mutters, "You wanna'?"
She swallows a sharp breath, and whispers "No, not very much."
He says that she has to. She says that she knows.
They light the candle when the last of the pink has left the sky. Shosanna has never wanted Donny to drop everything, and snap back into his usual vulgarity as bad as she does right now. It's been a skeleton in the closet for an entire year. And it only hurts a few times a day. Every day. Only when she thinks about it. Only when she looks into her second favorite pair of big brown eyes, or wears that baggy jacket that smells like blood if you focus on it long enough. Only at the occasional roar of a motor cycle beyond the strip of trees in their back yard. It isn't always this bad. It doesn't always hurt her like this. Only just every time she thinks about it.
He says it again. He says that they have to, and she swears at him, but her fingernails are digging into the palms of his hands because she knows that he's right. It's quiet for a long time. And not once does he seem to decide that he needs to move his hand from hers. Not once does he rush her, or force her, or raise his voice at her. So in time, she breathes out. She nestles into his lap, and fits there just as perfectly as she does every time. He can feel her shaking as she sits there. She can hear his voice quake as he recites the Mourner's Kaddish.
There should have been a hundred candles. A million. One for every basterd, and every soldier, and every innocent person they had set out to avenge. But there is only one candle, and there is only one Mourner's Kaddish. So she just does what she can to get through it. She attaches herself to his voice, and not the words. To the warmth of his words in her ear. His horrible accent. His knuckles, turning white with pain underneath her fingernails. When she chokes, his voice grows softer. Slower. Easier to take. And when it's over, she feels no better.
Just as sick. Just as broken. Just as sure that nothing is ever going to be right again, and nothing ever should be right again. Not as if he feels any different. They are shaking, and breathing, and sinking in the dark. In the aftermath of a goodbye that has never, and will never be said. He kisses her behind the ear. He helps her up. They leave the candle, burning bright in the middle of the unfurnished floor. And they go to bed without another noise. But they go to bed entangled in each other, and entangled in a warmth that neither of them come to regret.
It's when he's sleeping, that her gears start to turn. She wants to know why. The real reason for tonight. Donny is a man of shaken faith and burn scars. That's all that she's ever known him as. So then what the significance of this was, she is left to wonder as she breathes in the rich scent of the soap that she brought home for him to use. She thinks. She thinks about love, and the things that people do to prove it to each other. Like english lessons, and warm jackets. Ceremonial blessings, in the dead of night. She filters through all of the whys of this year, and all the blessings that she herself has looked over in order to make room for more mourning. The All-American sunrise of every new morning, and the way she hates it a little less every day. And she doesn't, not for a second think that any of it was worth this.
But she wonders if maybe there was reason to her survival. And she knows. Oh god, does she know that there was a reason for his.
Then, the thought is over. There is a pop, and a crackle, and a boom. She jumps out of her skin, and the headache that she has acquired at the expense of some idiot's fun with a cheap firework, will probably prevent her from getting anything done tomorrow. It's not as bad as the next sound, though. Not nearly, and not at all.
The next sound is a strangled cry, and it doesn't sound from outside the window, or outside the neighborhood, or beyond the array of trees. It comes from the bed that she makes every single morning. It comes from the man, that not two minutes ago, Shosanna has decided that she loves. Nobody human, could stop the switch from sleep to panic. Not when it happens that quick.
In a second, his body is erect. In a single second, he is thrashing, and ripping up the sheets, and whipping his head to find the search of the disturbance. He's screaming. Shosanna has not been this terrified since a very particular day in her life. She's sure that he's going to break something, with how he's tearing about over there. She's sure that he's going to hurt someone. She's sure that she's failed to see some kind of crazy, hot-headed chapter of this man. She's sure of it all, until she realizes that he isn't yelling. He's crying.
And then he isn't crying. Then he's sobbing. No fireworks, no hum of the heater, no scratchy old record player spewing out some tired old tunes. Just Donny's voice, wrenching in and out of hysteria. His breath hitching, as he sits back down onto the quilt. As he's pulled down onto the quilt, by a pair of arms as thin as broomsticks. And she holds him. He doesn't fight. He pleads, and cries, and begs to nobody. Says that he 'doesn't want to do it again. Not again. Please, god, no no no no.'
"You don't have to." She tells him. And she kisses his ear, and then his forehead. Shosanna watches an entire years worth of emotional baggage unzip itself right onto her lap. More than a year. She doesn't know how long. She isn't going to ask.
"God, I don't wanna' be here again." He chokes. But her arms are his jacket, and his warmth. She hushes him, and gives him the most important thing that she can. And in that, his breathing begins to slow. "Please don't fucking make me do this again, I can't do...Can't-...I-"
But she calls his name, ever so softly. He isn't quiet by a long shot. He's a mess of sniffles, and stifled cries, and shattered strength, but through the wreckage she can feel him listening. She lets him stay this way for a moment, before folding the long patterned quilt around his shoulders. He whimpers as she moves, and she resumes her place with no intention to move again.
And she repeats, "Donny."
He doesn't ask her what. He doesn't need to.
"Look out the window." Her finger points to just exactly where. "Look."
And in the shortest, and quietest way possible, he asks her just exactly what he's supposed to be looking at. Yet he doesn't look away, as he peers out the window through his streaming eyes. The sky is dark, a deep, naked color of purple. Void of anything but the color itself, and the black sketchwork that is the trees around the house. Nothing. And that's exactly the best part.
"There is nothing." She murmurs into his blushing ear. "Look. It's clear."
Void of fire. Void of any airplanes, or shapes, or objects, or explosions to hide in the back of his mind for the rest of his life. It's purple, and it's clear, and it's boring, and there is absolutely nothing going on. And because of that, be doesn't cease to cry. And for all the right reasons.
"...Yeah?" He asks. As if to ask for confirmation. Confirmation from the only source of truth that he ever wants to know from this night on.
And she smiles, and because it sounds silly on her foreign tongue, he almost lets himself snicker when she answers " know this? We are going to be alright. "
He does laugh, at that. At the way she thinks her words make so much sense. He doesn't stop crying either, but he laughs at the same time. And the combination of the two reactions feels so extremely right. For the first time in a long time, something feels so extremely right. So many things, feel so extremely right as he nestles his head into her chin. The night won't be here for long. Soon will come the All-American sunrise, and she will not have left his side until long after it arrives safely.
"We are, Shos." He finally answers. "We are."