I was touching my wound while it was bleeding. The snow that was falling ended up getting in it, making the pain much worse. I could hear the shootings far away; we were there because we were supposed to be dead. But I wasn't. As an excellent soldier, who never gives up, I would never die for a miserable bullet in my left arm. Then, soft but quick steps got near to me.
"Gilbert!" his voice again. West. He came back for me; he would never abandon me.
"West!" I shouted happy inside but angry outside. "Vhat are you doing here?" I asked covering the wound with my blue jacket. Ludwig, West's real name, saw it anyways.
"I came for you. We have to take you with Bruno, he will heal it." He got near to me and tried to take me passing his arms under my shoulders, pulling me to him from my back with force.
"Argh!" I cried out. My leg was wounded too, but I had not noticed thanks to my machine gun that was over it. "West, not too hard." I said taking his hand trying to recover from the pain.
"I'm sorry, brother." He turned me around and he carried me on his back. My head was on his neck; I could smell his cologne. He was always a handsome man; he would always wear cologne even in war. He seemed to be freshly bathed. I breathed all I could since all I had smelled since war was blood, dirt and cigarettes.
"Where is the battalion?" I asked resting on his neck. My right arm was protected between my chest and his back; and, his hand was grabbing my leg. I felt warm with him. He was all the family I had left, no more no less. The war that had no sense was being held in a terrible weather. It was a month since it started and there was no day without snow or strong wind. I had not been warm since it started, but now, with Ludwig, I was warmer than ever.
"They are a half mile from here." He answered jumping a log that was on our way. Ludwig was stronger than I thought or I was lighter than I thought. "I reckoned you were dead, Gilbert." He said.
"I know, I woke up a little while ago, West." I said petting him with my sane hand.
"We are fleeing in two hours. Can you imagine what would had happened if I had never found you?" I looked up to see the camp in front of us. "I would have lost you, Gilbert." His voice was vanishing, like he had something in his throat.
"But, I'm alive, west." I said smiling even if he could not see me. "I'm alive.." he nodded and kept on walking. We arrived and three soldiers helped Ludwig to put me on a stretcher; then, they took me inside a carp; there, Bruno started curing the littlest wounds in my body. He took my clothes off to see where to cure.
"Your arm received two bullets and your leg is just twisted." He said touching the lower leg carefully, "I need to take the bullets out and you have to rest, okay?" he took a pair of forceps and some cotton out.
"It will hurt, I prefer to stay with the bullets inside, please." I said scared of what he was going to do. How he was so sure about that? "Just don't remove them, they are... already part of me." I was nude on a hand barrow; still freezing. Feeling the pain in all my body, not able to move and run away from there. Bruno just nodded and took an injection out.
"Well, then. Sleep." He staked it in me. I slept instantaneously.
A soft aroma woke me up. It wasn't of anything I had smell before. I tried to open my eyes, but I was afraid to wake up in battle… or heaven. I moved my hand to touch my face; I could feel it so it was real. I felt that my right hand was bandaged, so I couldn't move it; my leg was paralyzed too. I opened my eyes and I located myself in a Military Hospital. I saw what was irradiating the smell, a Gardenia flower that was beside my bed. I tried to touch it but a soft voice stopped me.
"Buongiorno!" a young charming face said holding a board in his hands.
"Hallo, I don't speak whatever sie are speaking." I said coldly mixing some German.
"Oh, sorry." He said nearly crying. "My English is not that good, but—"
"Don't worry, I'm not an English Speaker either." I interrupted him. He smiled again and got near to me.
"Are you really a German soldier?" he asked with his eyes filled with happiness and doubt. "I mean, you should be because you are here, but are you?"
"Of course I am!" I said happy. "Where am I?" I asked changing my mood radically, I was frustrated, where the hell was my brother?
"You are in Florencia,Ve." He said with a childish voice. "You don't remember anything?" he asked poking me.
"Where the hell is that?" I said rudely. "Look, there's a 'Ludwig Weillschmidt' on your board? I mean, he's here?" He started searching in his papers while I stared at him asking myself… who the hell he was?
"Ludwig, uh… yes." He said. "Why? Do you know him?" I made a horrible face of 'Of course, idiot' to him.
"I mean, look at my last name." I pointed. "Whatever! Where is he?" My heart was beating faster every second that passed telling me that I was going to see my brother soon.
"He's in the other room. He had other bad injuries, not like you." He pointed my stupid leg. I just moved a little bit to try to see to the other room since I wanted to witness what kind of "bad injuries" the boy was talking about; but I couldn't see anything, there was a curtain between.
"Can you take me with him?" I asked trying to get up, but my body felt so weak. The boy made a weird face and looked back to the other room. Then he came back, slowly.
"Sorry, everyone on the other room is sleeping." He finally said near my face.
"Please, I need to have a word with him." I pleaded grabbing him by his shirt. He nodded and called another boy that looked just like him.
"Help me to take him to the other room." He ordered. The other guy said something in other language and grabbed me by my legs. The first boy took me by my arms, carefully, and put me on a wheel chair that was beside my bed.
"Danke" I said resting in the chair.
"Your welcome." He said smiling. Someone called them because the two boys ran away. I stayed alone, a few meters from the curtain. I looked back and took the charming Gardenia flower. I wanted Ludwig had it. I rolled the left wheel with my only-hand and moved forward the other room. I passed the curtain and saw bodies pilled one beside another bad injured. Four guys had lost both legs and other an arm; it was horrible. The smell there was a mix of sweat and blood. Some wounds were still bleeding or they had a bag full of blood hanging beside their beds. I started searching West with my sight. Everyone, as the boy had said, was sleeping and I tried to no make a lot of noise. I rolled the wheel a little bit faster, their room was larger than mine, or that seemed to be.
"Ludwig?" I murmured hoping that he would hear me. My hope vanished when another nurse came in and saw me.
"What are you doing here?!" she asked muttering. "Get out of here, soldier!" she tried to pass the entire hall through me, but there were lots of stretchers in the middle of the way. I just got to the nearest bed and stayed there until she surrendered and went away.
"Mein gott, that was close." I said. The guy who was in that bed woke up instantly, like he was having a nightmare and my comment disturbed him. He moved his arms hitting me twice.
"Ahh!" he shouted scared waking up others.
"Shh! You've just hit me!" I said. The man turn on to me, his eyes were familiar. "Bruno?"
"Gilbert?" he recognized me as well. "Oh, Gilbert! Sorry! I was… having a hard time in my sleep. You know, bombs… grenades…" I nodded and we stayed in silence for a while.
"You know where's Ludwig?" I asked finally. "I've been searching for him."
"Oh, it's there." He pointed a bed that was almost in front of me, three beds to the right. I didn't say anything and I rolled the wheel until I got close to it. Ludwig was sleeping as a baby; he even had his mouth open.
"Ludwig?" I called him taking his hand in mine; he didn't wake up. "West?" his eyes opened wide and got up. He turned around, like confused, and saw me.
"Gilbert? Brother?" He moved closer to me and poked my face. "You are mein bruder!" he hugged me with strength.
"Lud—" I couldn't breath, he was really drowning me in his arms, but it felt good. We were together again. The gardenia fell to the floor.
"Why you left me alone in that horrible place?!" he shouted to me, "Why did you abandoned me?!" he broke into crying. I pushed him away and saw what was wrong with him. His eyes were lost, like… in the past.
"What are you talking about?!" I asked making someone shout me to shut up. "I didn't! Someone sent me here!" His eyes, surrounded by red because of the cry, looked up to me.
"You promised me not to abandon me, Gilbert…" he muttered in tears. "You told me that yesterday at the fountain." Fountain?! What fucking fountain?! I stared at him, trying to remember. The only fountain I remembered was Antonio's, my best friend. One time we went there, when he was like… 9 years old. Francis had just told us about Arthur loosing Alfred because of a misunderstanding and I feared for Ludwig to do the same thing. Ludwig had looked up to me and seen the worry in my eyes. I did promise him I would always be with him… but long time ago.
"Ludwig, you are 20 years old!" he looked at me surprised and fainted instantly. He started having some kind of seizure. "HELP! I NEED SOMEONE TO HELP ME!" a couple of nurses came and stabilized him.
"Please, he has a delicate state right now." She said moving me aside. They brought another Doctor who started analyzing him.
"What did you do?" the doctor asked me all of a sudden. "He has a kind of Amnesia, he does not remember a lot of things every time he wakes up. We are trying to fix the problem he has right now in his brain. But I need you to tell me what did you do." He took a pen and a paper.
"Well, I'm his Brother and… he started asking me for something that happened long ago. Something that… I mean, it's useless now. He thought he was 9 again." I said and he wrote. "I told him that he was not 9 and he fainted." He finished writing.
"You need to talk to him a lot, about his past and present." He said pointing me with his pen. "What he needs it's to figure out how to stay in this time in his mind." He got up, shook my hand and went away.
I got near my brother, he had his eyes closed but he was not sleeping because he was moving his fingers like playing piano.
"Ludwig?" I called him. He opened his eyes and smile. "How are you?" I asked.
"Fine. My back aches but… fine." He smiled again. "And you, Gilbert?"
"Worried." I answered. "How old are you, West?" I asked fearing for his answer.
"I'm 17, Gilbert. Why you ask that? You know that!" My chest pounded really hard. I couldn't take it and I started crying, what was I supposed to do? I wasn't a doctor, how was I supposed to cure him?
"Ludwig, you are not 17." I said calming down.
"Why are you crying, brother?" he asked holding my hand. "And of course I'm 17!"
"No, you aren't!" I shouted to him moving my hand away from his. "You are fucked up, West!" he stared at me, confused. My despair made me cry more, I could not stop. I had lost him forever. He was not to get cure and I was not going to take care of him, it was too much for me.
It was three months since I sent Ludwig to a "Special Place". Everyone blamed me for what I had done, but I had not choice. I suffered every time, in the hospital, that he started talking about things in the past. I had enough of regretting doing things I shouldn't. What he did to me was to remember shameful or sad things that I had forgotten, he was like therapy; a free and horrible therapy.
In that "Special Place" he was happy; he had everything he needed. Even the boy, who I later knew his name was Feliciano, enjoyed taking care of him because he reminded him of a childhood-friend. I went once a week just to give him something, but I hated that he always had different ages and something bad to tell me. My cousin Roderich went with me sometimes, and others, Elizabetha joined us and gave Ludwig a present. But I always went alone, they were seldom there.
Once I went with the intention to take him back home. I saw that the building was empty so I infiltrated. I opened Ludwig's door and I found him fucking with THAT boy. Both guys turn on to me and I ran away. After that, I pleaded Feliciano's brother to transfer Feliciano to another patient; I didn't want my Ludwig to end with some kind of… whore boy.
"You are jealous, mon cher." Francis told me when I mentioned the fact.
"Celoso?" Antonio asked. "Nope. That's security. My boy will obey, his a wonderful boy who loves to help." We stared at him. "Oh, well, sometimes."
"However, I never thought someone could get advantage of Ludwig." I drank my beer until I finished it. "He always seemed to be so… manly."
"Well, he might be confused. Maybe he was 20 again and he decided to rape the boy." Francis said drinking his Martini. Antonio and I turned on to him. "What? That's not an impossible fact."
"No, but… sure is sick." Antonio added.