So, I'm sounding like a broken record. I am so sorry this had taken me another long time frame to write. I hope everyone is still out there and doing well (and staying healthy!). I have good news - a) I am working from home at least until the end of April and things are super slow due to the virus closures, so I plan on focusing quite a bit on getting WFR done and b) I'm being moved to a new position at my organization this summer that will involve significantly less travel so I hope to be able to have more time to get in writing mode. Thank you everyone for your patience and continued reviews to let me know you are still reading :) They motivate me more than you will ever know.
When Joe thought of it, the memories of the war were painted in colors rather than words. Words were hard, were confusing, were never enough to encapsulate the reality what it was like. The colors in his mind were visceral and bright; they could bring stark clarity to what words would only clog with pointless adjectives and uncertainty. Blood would always be red, no matter how it was spilled or who it came from. Fire was always orange, whether it was a city razed in the night or a lighter flicking in the boggy darkness of a foxhole.
But in the end, World War II was remembered for him as overwhelmingly gray. Gray like the clouded sky beyond his drifting parachute, like the wet clay of France drying to a crust on the soles of his boots, like the stone buildings blown into drifting, swirling dust around him in Carentan and Nuenen. Gray like the uniforms of the German soldiers that always seemed to be just beyond the horizon and gray like their dead bodies stiff and frozen in the snow. Dark, sad gray like Caroline's eyes when they looked to him from beyond the Luger he was pointing in her face, from behind the curtain of dirt filling the air in the village as she was dragged away, and from her chair in that bloody, damp dungeon. Gray like they were now, in this conference room, unblinking and unfocused in the distance as he argued with her lawyer.
"Why didn't you, I don't know, fucking object or something?!"
"Object to what, Corporal? Everything he did was allowable."
"So lying through his goddamn teeth is fine now, is it? He can just make up whatever shit he wants and we have to sit here and take it like a bunch of fucking imbeciles?!"
"He's allowed to make conjecture based on the evidence – "
"It was based on bullshit –"
"– that lined up pretty perfectly with his theory, don't you think? I mean, if he was pulling things out of thin air I would imagine you would have had a better answer up there than 'No, I don't,' when asked for a rebuttal, wouldn't you?"
Gray like the air so obscured by ash and gunpowder it was hard to take a breath. Gray like the fetid flooded plains of Holland after the dykes were blown and floodwaters drowned livestock and civilians alike.
"Don't blame this shit on me. If you had maybe warned me I wouldn't have been blindsided!"
"I did the best I could prepping you – or did you conveniently forget meeting until 3AM this morning? Maybe if Caroline had decided to cooperate when I asked her weeks ago instead of the day before I had to start giving my case I could have known what information you had and flown you in from that hospital with enough time to practice cross examination. But she decided to keep her mouth shut so here we are, predictably, scrambling to save a case where she sabotaged herself to the point where a law student could convict her!"
Gray like the cold waters surrounding the Statue of Liberty as she disappeared what seemed like so long ago he barely remembered how miserable it was on that overloaded ship. Gray like the constant mists of England and the damp film that clung to his clothes wherever he went. Gray like the smoke wafting off the wreckage of disintegrated planes left in distant French pastures.
"What, you have nobody else to call? No doctors, no other Nazis, nobody that could confirm that she was fucking mangled by them? I find that hard to believe."
"Who would that be, Corporal? Go on, you know as much as I do here. That old neighbor? She's lost her mind and hasn't said a coherent thing in months – which is also your fault. Some Nazi doctor who treated her? Show me who isn't dead or plain disappeared. The American doctors? We already know everything they have to say from their reports. They'll only show if this gets sent to Nuremburg. So, who else? Who else, Liebgott?"
Gray like a dying cigarette in a frozen foxhole. Gray like the lead grime permanently embedded into his numb fingerprints after hours spent reloading magazines with round after round after round. Gray like the innumerable dawns staggering up Currahee, each footfall more painful than the last. Gray like the rain falling on Caroline's face as she lay in the mud, staring up at him with an expression he didn't think he was capable of comprehending before that very moment.
He sunk, defeated, in the chair across from her, cradling his aching head in his palm. "I don't know."
"That's a phrase you use often, isn't it?" the lawyer spat harshly at him, angrily snatching his cap and briefcase from the tabletop. "If you want to start yelling at me again for my handling of this case I expect you to at least have an idea of what can be done differently for Christ's sake." With this he yanked the door open and stomped into the hallway, slamming it shut behind him with a force that shook the frame.
In the aftermath they didn't move for a long time, not until he forced the energy to look up at her from his slumped position when he realized he hadn't heard her speak a word that since lunch hours ago. Even now as they sat only a few feet from one another she felt far away, distant like he had become familiar with despite the sound of her steady breathing filling the room with his. It had been the same earlier, when even though she met his eyes and answered his questions it felt that only part of her was listening and the other was in a place he didn't know about.
Her gaze, red-rimmed and dull, hadn't moved from the floor and her thin frame seemed engulfed by an invisible force he couldn't see, beating her down until she was seemed smaller as she sat in her chair. His immediate urge was to touch her, to bring her back from wherever she was, but he couldn't force himself to do it. An irrational fear that she might shatter at his slightest movement locked into his brain and wouldn't move no matter how he told himself he was being an idiot. So he sat there, doing and saying nothing, as the clock on the wall ticked the minutes by with uncaring relentlessness.
Eventually, just as he felt like he was going to go numb, he felt her gaze land on the top of his head and he raised his face from blankly staring at his lap. She had turned her head to watch him and he saw her eyes trail from his down his neck to the sling. He didn't know what to do now when it had become so apparent that his usual reassurances – she won't go the Nuremburg, they'll be together again – couldn't be believed with any certainty so he finally settled on the one sole fact that was indisputable: "You are still testifying tomorrow."
Not moving her gaze from the lump of bandages still visible despite his uniform she replied, "I told you I would try, Joe. I'll keep that promise."
"They just have to know…" he trailed off, the repetitious belief that he had been telling himself since he learned of her confinement fading with the knowledge that they did know. But, the nauseating events of today told him, it wasn't enough to spare her. His mouth closed and in the uncomfortable pause as his words went unfinished he hastily dug for his cigarettes, seeking a distraction like he always did when the only other option was to face the ugly truth. His fingers found the pack but when he pulled it out it tumbled from his limp grip onto the table and he didn't pick it up again.
Caroline didn't blink, her face not giving away her thoughts. For once he wasn't sure if his did, if this unsettling doubt and terror created today played baldly across his expression without any control on his part. The thought was unnerving, even if Caroline was the one person he could trust with his vulnerability, and he swung between praying that he wasn't feeding into her already pernicious guilt and the exhaustion at the thought of trying to hide that he was no longer as sure that she wouldn't find herself facing a noose in Nuremburg.
"Thank you," she said into the uncomfortable quiet, her voice barely above a whisper.
He stared at her until her gaze reluctantly moved from his sling to his face. "For what?" he asked, quickly because he felt he already knew the answer.
"For…" her lips closed, the clinking of the wrist irons harshly renting through the thick, humid air as she shifted in apparent apprehension. Her shoulders rose and fell. "For everything you've done –"
He swallowed a long sigh, so weary of the abuse she turned inward, of how resignation kept coming to the surface of all of their interactions, fueled by a remorse he could never defeat. He couldn't handle it, not now. "Please, Caroline –"
"For never abandoning me," she continued quickly, "despite… everything. You have always been here for me, Joe."
He paused, his exasperation dissolving as quickly as it arose. "I wouldn't say that, darlin'," he responded slowly. "There is one exception, a pretty fucking huge one."
She smiled humorlessly then as she studied the table between them, and her eyes glittered wetly in the weak light. "In that camp, in that room, the one you found me in that night… I had been there before, during my training. It was the same one I killed my mother in."
This was a fact he hadn't known and her sudden revelation hit him like a slap to the face. But in the end he found himself too tired to do anything but mutter, "Fucking Christ," and sit up to go for the cigarettes once more. He was past shock, past the outrage that gripped him so fiercely as he broke Henrich's bones. What could he do – jump from his chair to rage and yell about how dare they when facts far more horrible didn't even matter enough to stop this prosecution?
"It's strange, in a way. Same room, same pistol, same man. A pull of a trigger never changes, no matter who is on the other end." She lifted her chained hands to swipe at her nose and the small, fresh trails of tears appearing on her cheeks. "But that really makes all of the difference, doesn't it? The first time, I told myself that I couldn't feel anything, that I was beyond empathy and compassion. I told that to myself over and over and over during those months and, for one important second, I finally believed it. And it turned out that was all it took for me to kill her." The last words hitched and she paused, taking a breath. "And now, I didn't need to tell myself anything. I wanted to shoot him… What does that mean, Joe? I just can't…"
She trailed off and he took a long draw while looking at her, trying to use the cigarette to cover the pained expression that was likely on his face. "It means you're human. I told myself when I jumped into France that I was beyond feeling anything but the need to kill Germans." He thought again of those dark hours alone in the trees, and the sound of his heart pounding in his ears as he stood over the crying German he had disemboweled, and then the feeling of cold nothingness as he stepped across the man to continue on and abandoning him to an agonizing, slow death.
He took another long pull of the tobacco. "It was going to destroy me until I met you. We all just do the best we can under the circumstances, Caroline, but had I also know for sure that if I'd gotten to that room five minutes earlier it would have been me sending a bullet into Mueller's brain instead of you. He was a dead man either way."
"And you're okay with that? With killing, for me?" she asked in a strained voice.
"Yes," he replied firmly. "Because you matter to me. I only wish you could have been spared all of this." He waved his hand through the air, wordlessly encompassing everything he meant – being tortured by them again, having to go back to that camp, being here now – before dropping his Lucky to floor to be crushed by his boot. Sitting up, he focused back on her. "You may not have heard anyone say this before, but I would do anything for you. It's why I'm here now. And it's why we have to stop having this conversation. Whatever happens, however this ends, we are going to be there together no matter what."
Her eyebrows drew together and before he could comprehend what was happening his hand was grabbed in a tight, clammy grip on the tabletop. At the same time the door behind him opened and he heard the sound of more chains clanging together, likely from the MP coming to escort her back to the detention center. She spoke, her voice low and wavering. "Promise? It's the last time I'll ask Joe, I swear. But I need you to promise no matter what happens –"
"It's time for her to go back," an MP behind him droned in a bored voice. "Wrap it up."
He ignored the man. "Promise," he replied quietly, not breaking her stare and squeezing her hand back just has hard. She nodded, another tear racing down her cheek. She wiped it away quickly, glancing above his head at the intruder. "You'll be there tomorrow? You won't be late?"
Her question made him think again of his frantic run across the entire fucking city yesterday morning, only to find Henrich already there and her panicked gaze desperately searching for him. It almost made him regret the errand that delayed him.
"Of course I'll be there, waiting for you," he replied.
He left before she was reshackled both because the sight made his blood pressure spike to a concerning level and he was pretty sure the MPs were going to shove him out anyway so the petty side of him wanted to deprive them of the pleasure. The steady rain that nearly drenched him this morning had stopped and when he stepped outside the sun was bright, making the remaining puddles evaporate in drifts of steam swirling in the heavy traffic. The heat instantly made the sling start itching against the back of his neck as he unsteadily balanced his cap back on his head. Yanking at the strap in irritation, he descended the steps to join the crowd of soldiers and civilians clogging the sidewalk. He supposed he should search out Nixon, but if he did they would likely only end up fruitlessly analyzing how big of a disaster his testimony was and that didn't sound particularly appealing. So he let the crowd pull him along aimlessly, distractedly listening to the Germans complain to each other about the Americans occupying Germany and the Americans equally bitching about being stuck there. When he had enough of both the confusing tangle of languages and the careless bumps by assholes pushing past jostling his shoulder, he turned down a quieter side street. As the sound of traffic slowly faded to the echo of his footsteps he found himself going over the day anyway, his mind feeling like a spinning wheel that was impossible to stop no matter how hard he tried to get a hold of it.
The direction the prosecutor took today wasn't entirely surprising. Last night was a grueling blur of paperwork and testimony practice, but Caroline's lawyer hammered him enough with the different tactics he might face that when the prosecutor immediately brought up her untruthfulness he thought he was prepared. But in no fucking way was Caroline's lawyer able to replicate the rapid, incisive questions that left his tired brain spinning and enclosed a trap around him without him even goddamn noticing.
It didn't even take fucking thirty minutes, he realized with frustration, before he was on the defensive and struggling to keep up with the rapid shifting of the narrative that the prosecutor was successfully weaving in front of him.
To think, he had been so afraid months ago of failing to find her and leaving her to die that it he nearly got killed saving her, only to ultimately fall short here of all places. The second he carried her out of that building at the camp he thought the worst was over, as if doing so was like making a neat little checkmark next to Rescue Caroline on a to-do list and nothing but smooth sailing lay ahead. Getting shot in the fucking back screwed that up anyway, but this… he never imagined this.
He stopped, leaning against a wall and screwing his eyes shut against the hot, piercing sun giving him a throbbing headache.
She hadn't said it, but he could tell how little faith she had that his performance today changed anything, that he had maybe saved her again. This time, they both knew he hadn't. The gulf separating them was still widening, even after all these months, as the routine, impassive machinery of American bureaucracy successfully achieved what the determined evil Henrich and Mueller couldn't. And now he couldn't even summon the anger to shout at everything that kept digging into the depths, because he now knew it would be a futile argument into nothing but a blank void. Paperwork didn't have to answer back and there were no threats he could make or missions to go on to make it do so.
With nowhere else to go, he made his way back to the hospital. He had been informed on his way out this morning that he had lost the private room Nixon wrangled for him and was going to be moved into the convalescence ward. Although he already missed what really had been his first real bit of privacy after over three years of a life in the barracks, he was glad to no longer be hounded by the nurses every second he was awake.
After checking in with the nurse managing the entry desk and being sternly told to report back in an hour for a dressing change and examination of his wound, he followed the provided directions into a large room with cots lining both sides with characteristic military precision. In contrast to the neatly made beds, the windows above them were mostly gone and replaced with hammered wooden boards. In the absence of natural light lamps like the ones in Caroline's prison were placed throughout, throwing unnatural and harsh shadows in the falling evening. Most of the beds were full of men in much worse positions than him, held immobile by either drugs or stiffly plastered bodies. The lucky ones – ones like him – had already been sent to England and back home, or at least to the more stable areas of France. Those left were still too fragile to move, and the sight of them made a familiar and uncomfortable pang twist his gut.
Averting his eyes from the still, solemn figures lumping the beds, he found his footlocker sitting on a cot whose crisply tucked sheets would have made Sobel proud. Filled with his shit, it was too heavy for him to move with one arm to tuck underneath the metal mattress frame without causing a lot of noise and grief, so he flipped the lid back to unpack what he could. Clothing, his toiletry kit, and army-issued odds and ends took up most of it. Once he piled these on the bed plus the extra pair of boots that inexplicably showed up, he was left with the belongings he arrived with: his bag from England and Caroline's knapsack. The worn leather of the knapsack was smooth and warm under his fingertips as he carefully lifted it out to place next to the other items. He had agonized forever about it, but ultimately decided not to give it back to her yet. He wasn't sure if the contents would be confiscated by the MPs and likely lost or thrown away. And until today he every intention of presenting it to her as a surprise when she was a free woman, and enjoying the relieved look on her face.
Now he wondered if she was ever going to see it again. The thought was so painfully sharp for a moment it was hard to breathe, especially after spending all fucking night daydreaming about how it would be giving the broach to her after he got it back. The German jeweler he left it with yesterday morning promised to have it done by the end of the week, and Joe had left a lot of money and more than a few threats of the consequences if it ended up on the black market to ensure that would happen.
It was meant to be a gift, one he wanted to give in a place free of wrist irons, lawyers, and anybody in a fucking uniform, really.
He turned away from the bag, physically removing his eyes from it before he lost it and did something that would look really bizarre like bury his face in her clothes that were still inside. Pulling out the canvas army bag Guarnere and Toye had procured next, he unceremoniously dumped it out onto the bedspread. The medicine bottle rolled and clinked against the side of the locker, the three pills remaining inside rattling with a familiar sound that instinctively put him on edge with the nauseous memories of his drugged, Sobel-tainted expedition across the fucking country. "Fucking bastards," he muttered to the medication, swiping the bottle and throwing it into the metal trashcan near the bed with a little too much vehemence. The resulting ping echoed through the room.
"Jesus Christ, be a little louder, why don't ya?" someone swore from a bed further down the line.
He ignored the remark, kicking the empty bag under the bed. What was left of the money those one-legged dolts shouldn't have given him was still there, making him thank whoever was listening that he apparently got the one honest orderly in the Medical Corps moving his stuff. Finally, besides the ball of leftover bandages there was a small bundle of letters they had collected while he was comatose. Shoving aside the clothing to make space to sit, he balanced it on his lap to untie the twine keeping it together. Most of it was bullshit notices from the Army typed out in robotic, emotionless language – changes to his pay while he was classified as injured, the award of another Purple Heart, orders to move him from France to England, the blanket reminder they sent everyone going back to England, injured or not, to not be a drunken idiot harassing the locals while there – all of it dutifully delivered to him even though he was basically dead. If only such goddamn fine fastidiousness had been applied to getting them fucking coats in the Belgium winter.
Those joined the pills in the trash.
The rest appeared to be from his unit and he flipped through the envelopes to figure which should be read first. Malarkey had written the most, followed by the rest of the guys in his squad. There was one from Winters probably wishing him a speedy recovery in far cleaner language than the others, and a curious one from Webster as well. He had been so ready to punch the shit out of that guy last time they were together, right before it felt like a speeding train struck him in the back and he had watched a fine spray of his own blood land across Webster's surprised face –
He blinked, refocusing on the envelope in his hand.
Taking a breath, he dropped it into the pile growing beside him and looked at the last letter left on his thighs. There was no name or return address in the corner. The envelope wasn't military-issue either. His full name was written on front instead of his nickname and it only had his unit listed for the address rather the hospitals, as the others had done. It was a miracle the letter had found him at all, and that only made him more curious. It was already mostly unsealed due to the shitty job the government censors had done re-securing it so he was able to pry it the rest of the way open with one hand. It was two sheets folded together, and as soon as he realized the writing was in German his heart whacked painfully in against his ribs. Caroline had written him before their reunion? She hadn't said…
No, he realized, that couldn't be it. The envelope had been ink-stamped to hell from being transported overseas by the War Office, and the scrawl he was blankly staring at wasn't feminine at all. That only left-
Joseph,
You probably weren't expecting this letter, and to be honest I wasn't expecting to write it. I imagine if you had gotten this from me at any other time you would have thrown it in the trash, and I would've understood because after three years of silence between us I gather you aren't particularly motivated to speak to me again. And, this may surprise you, I know that is my fault.
You are likely wondering why I am reaching out now. The truth is, I want to speak to you of the past, and I want to admit to you that I was a terrible husband and a terrible father. You know this already, but you probably don't know why. Truthfully, I don't quite even know the reason. My own father wasn't terrible. Nothing particularly awful happened to me in the earlier parts of my life. But I found myself angry, at you, at your mother –
Joe stopped reading. What the hell was this? From his father? Why did he send this? Why now? Why the fuck would he think Joe gave one shit about whatever pathetic excuses he had for being the cruel tyrant that ruined everything? Why try to explain anything when their relationship was so dead and buried that nothing could make a fucking bit a difference?
This was such bullshit, and the last thing he needed to deal with right now. It was enough that his mother reached out from beyond the goddamn grave (something he found himself believing without reservation now, even though it was objectively insane) but now his father wanted to patch things up with this shitty little letter? As if that would be all it took? An I'm sorry like that was a magical command to erase the past?
Fuck this. If this is what his mother meant by forgive then it was asking too much. She went through hell right beside him and if there was one person who would agree that bastard had no right to be sending any letters it should have been her.
He stood, fully intending to crush the paper and throw it into the waste can just like his father predicted, but is effort was frustrated by, of all things, the hot fury that directed his eyes back towards the writing. It was a perverse curiosity, driven by a desire to know what his father dared to tell him and use it to reassure himself with the evidence that he was right to never speak to the man again.
More useless babbling about his father's apparent struggle with his life filled up the rest of the first page and Joe only skimmed it, not giving one flying fuck about any of it. Joe was the one in a fucking foreign country getting shot; if only he had the luxury of being dissatisfied with a boring existence in Brooklyn. Violently shuffling to the second page, he skimmed more, only to stop when he caught one line.
I didn't think I cared what happened to you as long as you weren't causing trouble for me, and you knew that because you didn't tell me you were enlisting. To be honest, I didn't know you were gone until the Army sent me a notice that you had graduated basic training and where to visit you before you were sent to Georgia for your Airborne training. Obviously, I didn't go. One, because the message you left in the address you gave the Army was clear and, two, I was too busy living up to your expectations of being drunk.
Fucking military had made him give a US mailing address when he enlisted. The goddamn lying recruiter had told him it would only be used for an emergency, and at the time he figured the only emergency that his father would care about was if Joe had died and a big fat life insurance check was coming. So he had put down his father's address and quickly edited his father's name to include the German word for asshole and figured that would be enough of a fuck you to go along with his son's blood money.
Shortly after that I became ill. My liver –
Joe skimmed again. An alcoholic drinking himself to death wasn't any news.
-focused only on my sobriety. Then I received a telegram saying you were missing in action, somewhere in Bavaria.
There were a few drops of ink splattered in this spot, as if his father had hesitated and let his pen drip onto the page before continuing on.
Joseph, I understand if you don't believe me but when I stood on the stoop that day, holding that message, I felt like the world was ending. I always knew you were smart and since you knew the language, I reassured myself that if anyone could survive it would be you. But still, that night, thinking of what could have happened to you, was the closest I came to drinking again. You were always so independent and resourceful as a child that I never worried about you, but in hindsight I found this idea was dulled by my addiction. Sober, I couldn't stop imagining what you were going through, and my regret that you left without needing to say goodbye and the fact that my trivial fear stopped me from reaching out before you went missing combined to nearly destroy me.
Joe exhaled, feeling the paper go limp in his fingertips. So that's what this was all about. The Army had notified him when Joe got trapped behind the line and he had a revelation that he was a shit father to his son. Joe's teeth caught the inside of lip, worrying it as he tried to make sense of it all. His irritation was still hot and bright – Why did it take him being nearly fucking killed for his father to give a shit? Why was he putting Joe in this position? How much self-pity can this asshole stuff into one paragraph? – but Joe knew his father well enough to get what he was trying to do and how hard this letter must have been to write. He had to inherit his stubborn pride from somewhere, after all.
But what the hell was he supposed to do about this now? Ignore it and maintain the icy status quo? Reach out and risk being disappointed? Follow his mother's command and forgive the unforgivable? Was that even possible?
Now I've been told that you indeed have survived, although you were injured. I've tried to find out, but they won't tell me where you are or how badly you are hurt. I only hope that this letter reaches you and that you are in a condition to read it. I feel like we have a second chance – at least, if you want one – and in my condition I can't afford to pass it by. Whether you are discharged now for your injuries or stay there until the war is over, whenever you return to the United States I hope you are willing to come back to New York, even for only a visit. I still live in our old apartment and I'll be here, waiting with as much time God has left me. If you decide against it rest assured I understand and won't bother you again.
Another hesitation, ink blotches staining the page.
I know it asking a lot from a man I could never seem to treat like a son, but I hope to see you again someday.
Sincerely,
Father
Well…
Well, son of a bitch.
He didn't sleep well that night. His head was so crammed with a never-ending loop of that letter, Caroline's rapidly upcoming fate, and what the hell he could do about both that it felt like thoughts were leaking out of his ears. The only saving grace was that he was wide awake early and was able to get his wound re-wrapped and the nurses' help with his uniform quickly in the quiet lull of the fading night rather than trying to squeeze through the clamor of the rushed shift change and patient rounds coming with the morning. Subsequently he found himself sitting on the steps of the building serving as the courthouse in the cool blue light of dawn, alone and with the silent, locked doors behind him. A few straggling soldiers, weaving with the tailings of last night's binge still in their systems, straggled by in the direction of the base but otherwise the streets were mostly empty. The lit end of his cigarette glowed a dull orange against his knuckles, the only light in a block still mostly dark from the bombed power grid.
Forgive. He naively thought this meant coming to grips with Caroline's duplicity and past actions, for his own conduct, for whatever hung over him like a knife made of guilt. His history with his father hadn't even entered into the equation. After all, he was perfectly fine with concluding he really had no father and moving on with adulthood free from that cage of a relationship. But the letter had thrown everything into confusion and made him realize his anger towards his childhood was so deeply rooted in his psyche that he unnervingly didn't even notice it anymore until he pondered his father's words as insomnia piddled away the hours, wondering what a dying old man deserved and how far he would have to go to finally be free of what turned him into someone who felt relief when war had given him an outlet for his rage against… everything.
Picturing himself returning to the old neighborhood and stepping back into fucking time by going to that apartment made his stomach curdle. It should be triumphant, shouldn't it? After all, he was proving to everyone that he survived the hellhole he was raised in, that he went off and made a man of himself despite having no help or guidance except the unwilling and unloving surrogacy of the Army. But instead it arose a similar feeling as the thought of returning to Kaufering did: an aversion to revisiting the scene of a crime to retread reluctant, painful footsteps. Kaufering should be razed to the ground, and so should the scenes of his childhood.
Maybe going back there again would help finally bury the past. Or maybe it would rip the old scars open, making them fresh and bloody again.
His cigarette was finished and his ass was growing numb on the concrete, but nothing had changed. Far west in New York night would be falling right about now, he thought to himself, and somewhere in the opposite direction Caroline should be stirring awake. In all likelihood this would be the last day of testimony, and potentially the last day he could hope she had a chance.
He took out another Lucky. The weak dawn light started filtering through the cool mist as he did so, washing him in a dim, gray morning.
It was different this time. Although the courtroom looked the same, with the same chair at the focus of the proceedings despite the cracks and scratches Henrich had inflicted on it. Same tables for the judges and the lawyers, same observer gallery. The only thing new was a modified radio-operator's headset resting at each of the positions and a jungle of wires leading from them to a blocky machine set up at the far end of the room.
"A new translation system they are testing," Nixon had said. "To remove the chaos of an interpreter speaking over everyone. It's fed to a group of them down in the basement. I think they'll use it in Nuremberg, if it works here."
The viewers weren't included in this system so the gallery was empty save for himself, as even Nixon couldn't bear the thought of spending the day listening to a one-sided conversation. After extracting more than one promise from Joe that there wouldn't be any further incidents, he made himself scarce. Joe, knowing that without a subpoena the MP's threat to have him banned could be enforced at the first sign of a problem, intended to keep his word no matter what. He couldn't bear the thought of abandoning her on this final, momentous day.
That's what was different. This may as well have been a different room on a different planet because she was finally in that ragged chair, facing them all. However, despite how much of a coup d'etat his over-active imagination wanted this to be, she was clearly fucking petrified.
Pale as a ghost, deep bruises still marring her bandaged face, too-large headset slipping down the back of her head… she looked utterly overwhelmed. Intellectually he knew that could help her case – she looked nothing like a blood-thirsty Nazi – but he hated the sight of her like this anyway and had to take a few deep breaths to stop himself from glaring spiteful daggers at everyone else in the room. It was a small refuge that the relief was plain on her face when she was escorted in and saw him waiting for her, and she had kept her eyes mostly on his until her lawyer started his spiel.
He opened the same way he had with Joe and Henrich and spent most of the morning going over the same facts about her upbringing, arrest, and subsequent indoctrination. She answered in a soft voice, at times so quiet he could barely make it out, and affirmed what he was saying but added little else. And in the pauses in between she invariably looked to him again, the tired circles under her eyes as deep as his own probably were.
It was quiet. It was as uneventful. And as Joe looked at the bored expression crossing the prosecutor's face he realized it wasn't helping. As small and frustratingly timid as she seemed now, it wasn't convincing anyone that not two years ago she was the face of the bloodiest regime in history.
But there was nothing he could do. Even when lunch came and her lawyer told him, with some trepidation, that since she was still testifying she couldn't have any visitors he didn't do anything but silently nod and walk away, likely much to the man's surprise.
He found himself back on the steps, this time with the sun darting out from the clouds overhead and the mist long since burned away. He had bought a sad sandwich from the lunch cart, but it sat in its wrapper between his feet and he stared unseeing at it as he came to terms with what was quickly becoming inevitable.
He was going to lose her, this time permanently. And he had absolutely no fucking idea what to do.
As the reality settled on him his stomach turned, the sun became hot on the back of his neck, and the voices of the public around him echoed painfully in his ears. But his mind stayed intractably empty on something to grasp, something to hope for, that could pull him out of the quickly sinking ship he felt he was sitting on. What if she had been right all along, that she was guilty no matter what? What if her telling him to go back to the States was the best for both of them? To spare this pain of watching themselves be torn apart again?
He wasn't sure if he couldn't handle going through that, of watching them lead her away to Nuremburg and, by extension, the gallows. Everyone knew Nuremburg would just be a formality after this. Something might just simply break in him, something completely irreparable. And then where would that leave him? New York, alone and rudderless? On some god-forsaken Pacific island trading potshots with another enemy?
Or just simply… lost?
The truly gruesome details started when they reconvened. He sat slumped back in his chair, his good arm unconsciously cradling his bad one, his teeth grinding together until his jaw was twinging uncomfortably.
"What methods did Dr. Mueller use to correct you when he was dissatisfied with your conduct?"
"When did Henrich start engaging in inappropriate behavior towards you?"
"How frequently did either of these things occur?"
Caroline was staring at the floor in front of her instead of him as she answered, her uneasiness visible in her face.
"What happened with Goebbels at the Wolf's Lair?"
"What did Dr. Mueller and Lehmann do to you once they discovered your involvement with the attempted escape at Kaufering?"
"How were you treated after you were arrested for helping Cpl. Liebgott?"
Still, despite the pain lingering on the edges of her voice, her delivery remained even and soft. Rehearsed, he thought involuntarily. It likely was, in the nights in her room. How else could she be expected to deliver this information without completely falling apart? But, nevertheless, it gave off a damning air to the whole proceedings.
The projector at the back of the room clicked on again, revealing a blank screen. With a click, the image of her at a rally, in uniform, appeared. She was smiling with a strong and straight Sig Heil raised. Another click, her signing more autographs for school children. Another, her in Kaufering observing an assembled group of Jews with Henrich and the now-headless Nazi officer. And finally, her, in party khaki, saluting Hitler himself in the Wolf's Lair.
Fucking hell, he thought he was going vomit. Caroline sank lower in her chair.
"We have all become familiar with these pictures over the course of this hearing," her lawyer began. "And they are certainly strong evidence in the prosecution's favor that the defendant was willing and compliant. However, the reason these photographs are featured so prominently is that they were easy to find – they were published in official literature, magazines, propaganda, and so on. But what about the ones that didn't make it past approval? The ones we had to dig deep into the files to locate, and are fortunate weren't destroyed?"
Another picture appeared, taken at what appeared to be the same rally. Some Nazi official was blathering at the podium and Mueller and Henrich stood with a group of other uniformed party members behind him. Caroline was barely visible behind Henrich's shoulder, staring over the crowd without focus or expression. The lawyer changed photos again and a zoomed image of her waist and legs appeared. What was lost in the shadows of the larger photo was her wrist encircled by Henrich's hand so tightly her fingers looked slightly discolored from lack of blood. Her other hand was fisted at her side, unnaturally tense from pain.
Caroline wasn't looking up and remained shrinking in her chair as the image changed once more.
Another photo of the children, mostly dispersed after she had gotten into a waiting car to depart. Zoomed in, barely visible through the windshield was the image of her and Henrich in the backseat, and it appeared Henrich was angry from the harsh expression on his face and his opened mouth in mid-yell. He was holding the back of her neck to position her head in an unnatural angle towards him. Her lips were in a thin, tight line and her eyes were large and wary as they watched Henrich with an anticipation he recognized with a punch in the gut. She knew she was about to be hurt and were powerless to fight back.
"Fuck," he muttered to himself, shifting in his chair discomfort. He saw Caroline give a long, slow blink towards her lap but she didn't raise her head. Her breathing was shallow, heaving her shoulders up and down.
Back at the Wolf's Lair, at some sort of party. Hitler was standing on the right of the image surrounded by his bootlickers, including Dr. Mueller. A few other men in uniform lingered on the left side of the photograph, but there she was in view behind them. It was undated, but he knew instantly it had been taken after the night Henrich had violated her. She was alone, resting her back against the wall, with an untouched cocktail glass held listlessly in her hand at angle where it threatened to spill. Her dress left her arms exposed, and subsequently the fresh bruises Henrich and Goebbels had left were plain to see. But it was her face… she was looking unfocusedly at the ground, but her face was unsettling. It was a mixture of pain and despondency that was hard enough to comprehend, but added to that was a crushing… loneliness.
This was a picture of a beaten, broken woman in a room where no one cared about her in the slightest, where no one even looked in her direction. It was a picture of the loneliest woman in the world.
Her lawyer was talking but the words flew right past him. He looked to from the screen to her, swallowing and feeling a displeasing tightness in his chest, and willed her to look up and meet his gaze. He may just be one person sitting in the gallery, but he had to remind her that it was one more than she had when this fucking photograph was taken. Hell, from the way he was feeling at this second, looking at her despondent image, it was a distinct possibility that this was just as much for him as for her. Neither one of them were any longer the wretches left behind by cruel men operating in an even crueler world, and he needed to reaffirm that for them both.
Cruel men who now asked for forgiveness, either in courts like this or heavy-handed letters in the mail. But even though he may consider what his father wanted, the men in these pictures deserved nothing other than a small cell to rot away their remaining, pitiful years. And that's if an executioner doesn't find them first. And she's not condemned with them.
Before he could do anything else the slides changed again. The astonished silence in the room grew as everyone but her stared at it.
"And, of course, the night she committed the ultimate betrayal against the Nazi Party," her lawyer said, his voice growing quiet as well.
She was still in the suit he saw in that damning photograph from the kommandant's album, smiling brazenly next to the Kaufering sign. The same one from the picture her lawyer had just displayed, as she was looking at the Jews. But she had clearly gone through some serious shit in between when those and this one were taken.
It looked like a mug shot similar to Anne's, with her shoved against a blank wall. Her hair had mostly come undone, and spilled in tangled strands over her shoulders, gnarled with pine needles and dirt. Her jacket was in disarray, and the collar of her blouse had been ripped. Her neck was discolored and bruised.
Thick splatters of blood, black in the colorless image, covered her face and down the front of her clothes. Her cheeks were dotted with flecks, and thick rope was sprayed from her jaw across her nose like an ugly wound.
She looked triumphant, covered in Nazi blood, and it sent a shiver down his spine. Her eyes were wide and bright, her mouth set in a grim half-smile that he had never seen before. It could have very well been a picture of him after he slit the throat of the soldier who had captured him, after he gutted the two men searching for him with Schueller. It was an expression of someone who held no regrets for the life they took.
It was the look of victory, momentary and fleeting, captured in the gray miasma of her coming destruction.
Across the room, Caroline raised her head and locked her eyes on his.
