*Rated "pW" for Previous Wielder. Deals with past lives. Based largely on conjecture and historical fact.
Occupation
December 31, 1941 - New Year's Eve, Paris, France - Elizabeth Bronte needed a cigarette. And not one of those nasty Deutsch zigaretten Rolf brandished about, offering them as favors as though they were the most valuable candy sticks known to the Fatherland. No, what she needed was a good, old-fashioned Lucky Strike, packed tightly with American-raised tobacco, and the taste of rolling paper that said home and mother and apple pie and baseball. That's what she needed.
And of course that was the last thing in Paris she was likely to get. She glanced to her side, to Rolf's profile, lit in the movie screen's glow. His nose, never broken, unlike so many of the boys' had been back home. His cheekbone, high and slanted, and so envied by the other ladies attending the theatre party that night. His jaw line, straight and proud and cutting as it formed his chin. That tiny spot just to the underside where he never got close enough with his razor, invisible to the rest of the world, but so familiar to her. Rolf. He could give her caviar, and opulence, rubies and rare wine by the bathtub-full, but this desire for a smoke--this, something even the poorest American could bum off a neighbor, this, even if she had the cunning to somehow ask for it, this, he could not give her.
She was, after all, no longer an American. In fact, as far as Rolf knew, she had never been a Yank, and certainly had never seen the Yankees play. No, to him she was Elizabeth Heiden, a good child of the Fatherland, gulled at a young age into a marriage with one of her father's business partners, Jack Bronte, a Briton, who had widowed her young--and how fortunate, that--so that she could return from her husband's country, and mourn her poor choice, reborn in the arms of the new-christened Third Reich. And in the arms of her SS lover, Leutnant Rolf Germer.
Onscreen, Frank Albertson lit another beautiful cigarette--he was going through them like Rolf's friends went through champagne: quickly, indiscriminately, and in their haste to consume, without an ounce of understanding that they were rapidly drinking Paris dry of the tempting spoils it had to offer.
Elizabeth attempted to direct her scattered attention back to the film playing. Ginger Rogers and David Niven left their posh New Year's party before the clock struck twelve, and for a moment Bronte let their voices--Rogers' Missouri tones in particular--fill her head, as the American soundtrack ran barely muted under the somewhat delayed German dubbing, as though the German voices were waiting to hear what was said before doubling it.
The result sounded similar to an echo, and the thick, somewhat hard syllables of the tongue of the Fatherland imposed over the light, carefree and playful lilt of Rogers' canny accent squeezed Elizabeth's heart for an instant like a clammy fist. Was this moment prophetic? Is this how it would end? The good old U.S. of A. drowned in a mirthless chorus of Deutsch? Was it only, as most Nazis saw, a matter of time before Hitler consumed what was left of broken England and crossed the Atlantic to subdue the States? Boston? Philadelphia? Oh, God, she almost cried out, Brooklyn?
After all, would she herself have believed two years ago--when she first saw this picture back home--that the next time she saw it she would be sitting in a converted theatre in Paris? Occupied Paris, herself surrounded by Nazis?
She couldn't think about it. She wouldn't think about it. Her head was pounding. Her hands shook. An involuntary shiver shot up her spine. Fortunately, Rolf was oblivious, utterly engaged in the film's shallow plot of a foundling, an unlikely mother, and a decadent playboy.
Ginger Rogers stepped into the crowd at Times Square, her gown elegant, her hair and makeup exquisite, and David Niven attempted to order them both hot dogs. Then, during a raucous chorus of Happy Days Are Here Again, the lovers were separated, awash in a flood of people and mirth as the clock struck twelve. Not just people, though, Bronte could not keep herself from thinking, New Yorkers.
To keep any stray look that might catch the wrong person's attention well at bay, Elizabeth bent her neck and studied her hands in her lap for a moment. She fiddled with the bracelet on her wrist and moved her fingers to her pulse, deliberately counting the beats in an effort to calm her fluttering heart. What was wrong with her, after all? Tonight was no different than any other.
An Asian man stood in front of her, his hair long, his clothes a style unfamiliar to her. His face was at once sad and angry. "I don't know who I am anymore," she said. She could taste something bitter in her mouth, like fear, and could feel the weight of cold metal in her palm.
She felt, as always, as though she had jolted out of the portent with all the grace of a child waking from a nightmare, and counseled herself, as always, that she had not given herself away. For all that such moments felt as though she had been sucked down a drain and spit out, those around her rarely--if ever--seemed to notice, as though the time it took her to experience the visions was inequal to the time the visions actually spanned.
Elizabeth Bronte had had enough for one evening. She excused herself to the washroom, leaning over to tell Rolf quietly, so as not to disturb the rest of the crowd. If she could not have the cigarette she craved, at least she could catch a breath of fresh air, and attempt to get her head on straight.
.
...to be continued...
Disclaimer: I do not own Witchblade, nor the rights to its characters. Seek out Warner Bros. and/or Top Cow if you want to talk to people that matter. I'm not in their employ, and I'm not making any money off of their creation.
Writing a WWII-era fiction is no easy task. I love receiving feedback, but if your comments are more critical, or "so-and-so would never have done this in 1942," or, "buildings in Paris at this time were made largely from marble, and not brick," I must ask you to restrain yourself from sending them on to me. I've done the homework, and am ready to write the story. Any mistakes of time and place must be chalked up to deliberate anachronism on the part of Neftzer. Thanks for understanding. Also? Yes, I know that Gabriel gives two seperate ranks for the SS officer Rolf Germer, both Lieutenant, and Colonel, ergo contradicting himself (though it is unclear as to which time). Let it go. ;) I almost have...Here's an interesting sidebar to that: a little research shows that the ranks held by SS have almost no relation to what English or American military ranks might be. SS held positions such as, "Standartenfuehrer," and "Obergruppenfuehrer." Hence, in point of fact, debate over Germer being a Colonel or Lieutenant (even a Leutnant as he is referred to in the story) is entirely (to paraphrase Joey Tribbiani) moo.
by: Neftzer (c) 2003 Feedback Appreciated!
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