All things considered, it was a beautiful day outside. It was the time of year where spring was just about to turn into summer. The farmers would soon be planting their summer crops of corn, grain and tobacco. As part of rehabilitation, some prisoners would be loaned out to the countryside as labour hands. Felix never got to go. He was considered a "high profile" prisoner, and thus was never allowed to leave the prison.
But he made the most of his time outside. After taking a moment to adjust his eyes from the darkness of the prison, he stretched his arms wide and smiled at his new friend.
"Now this is more like it. What an awesome day. I don't really get to go outside much anymore. You start to take simple things for granted, and it hurts even more when you lose it. Like just being able to go outside and enjoy a spring day" he said.
"It is very lovely today," Violet said, letting the wind gently blow her hair to the left of her face, "Perhaps I should have packed us a picnic lunch"
Felix took a moment to look at his new friend. With the light shining upon her in just the perfect way, she looked incredibly beautiful at the moment. If he'd been a younger man in a different life, he might have been tempted to make something more out of just a simple picnic lunch. But that was a long time ago, and he was a different man now.
"I'm not sure Olaf would let me have that much fun" he said, pointing to the old guard. Olaf was standing by the door to the prison, his arms crossed and his old eyes watching his prisoner intently for any sign of misbehaviour.
"It is his loss then, I would have made him something as well," Violet replied, sitting down on a spread blanket and loading her typewriter. She loaded the paper, adjusted the spinner, and set the reel, pulling the bolt back and letting it fly home, "I am ready to continue our work, but I'd like to ask you something first"
When the reel slammed home, Felix still found himself tensing up. The noise wasn't as loud as it had been in the interrogation room, but his ears still picked it out over all the noise around him. At least outside, he could monitor movement and see the zones where his enemy was likely to approach.
He calmed himself and lied down on the grass next to Violet's blanket. Looking at the sky had a calming effect on his mind, and replied, "You've been asking me questions all day. Is this one different?"
"Slightly" Violet replied, looking at her neatly stacked notes, "You mentioned that once, you were in love. Can you explain that further?"
Felix sighed, "Yeah, I guess I had to talk about her eventually. Alright, I'll explain, but if I come off as stupid or something, just don't copy it into our story, okay?"
Violet nodded and sat ready at her typewriter.
"So, after I bought half of the Deli, I started getting more attention around town. Not as a thief, but as a businessman. People I didn't know would come into the shop and shake my hand. They'd ask me questions about business and products. I had no idea what to actually say half the time, so I'd just use whatever words made the most sense, and they seemed happy" Felix said, remembering the long days.
"Well one day, this woman came into the shop. I was at that age where a young man starts noticing women in a different way. I think you know what I mean. Girls aren't just other people anymore, but something more, like something you want. And the first time I saw this woman was the first time I felt that way" he said.
Click, click, click, stop.
"Can you describe her to me? What did she look like? What was her name?" Violet asked as she typed.
"Katrin. Katrin Schliender. I've forgotten a lot of things in my life Violet, but I'll never forget her. She was tall, even when she wasn't wearing her heeled boots, had to be 6'2 or 6'3. She had black hair, as black as a moonless night. Unlike the other girls from town, she kept her hair short, only to the bottom of her neck. I think the thing I remember most about her was her eyes. The colour was, well, I still don't know what to call it actually. Do you know anything about colours?" Felix asked.
"I'm not the most knowledgeable person, but I will try. Start with the colours you do know" Violet said.
Click, click, click
Felix let himself relax from his tension, and picked a single blade of grass from the ground and held it up so Violet could see, "Sort of like this colour, but more towards the colour of water. About halfway in between that"
"Aquamarine. That is the colour you are describing" Violet said, as she continued to type.
Click, click, click, ching!
"Aquamarine, I like that. It sounds mysterious. Those were the colour of Katrin's eyes, Aquamarine" Felix said, still picturing those eyes in his mind.
"It is a very unusual colour. Girls from Ledien are typically born with brown or blue eyes" Violet replied.
Felix shifted to his side and looked at Violet's eyes. Her eyes were a deep blue, much closer to the water. They were beautiful, maybe not as beautiful as Katrin's, but still more beautiful than his own.
"I don't think she was from this country. She spoke with an accent, much more musical than other girls. Sometimes, she would say her v's the way you or I would say a w, or mix up her words, 'I go to store' instead of 'I'm going to the store'. But when she sang in her own language," Felix sighed before he spoke again, "That was probably the most beautiful thing I've ever heard"
"What was her trade?" Violet asked, loading another sheet into the typewriter.
Clink!
Felix turned away from the typewriter and stared back at the sky, "That was the other unique thing about her. She owned a store in the city too, a big dress shop that catered to the wives of rich men. I think she made more money in that store in a day than my butcher's deli did in a month. But that wasn't really her trade. She sang in the opera. The lead singer, whatever position that is"
"Anyway, I hadn't seen her around Schalcten Street before. Her dress shop was on the other side of town, Kristall Street. The rich part of the city. Guys like me wouldn't even get to the intersection before the thugs or the police would chase us off. They had deli's there too, places that sold more meat than we could ever fit in our shop. But for whatever reason, Katrin came to our shop. She put an order sheet on the counter, about as long as my arm. She said she was having a big party at her house for the opening of a new opera she was going to perform in that weekend, and she needed a lot of meat for all her guests" said Felix.
Click, click, click, click
Felix put the damnable noise out of his mind and continued his story, "I took one look at the list and told her she was out of her mind. There was no way we could give her that much meat. It was our entire stock three times over. Well, she did two things about that"
"What did she do?" Violet asked, raising her eyebrow in curiosity.
Felix laughed, "She slapped me in the face, as hard as she could. And let me tell you something. For a young man to get slapped in the face by an older woman, that hurts your face as much as it does your pride. And she dumped her coin purse on the counter. 10 000 coin, just like that. And she asked me, 'Is that enough, little boy?; "
"Little boy?" Violet said in confusion, "Was she that much older than you were?"
Felix turned his head and looked annoyed, "I never went to school, how the hell should I know numbers? But I think I had to be 16 or 17. She was much older, I think maybe 29 or 30. Not a girl, certainly a woman. And that's what she always called me, Little Boy"
Click, click, click, ching!
Felix turned away again, and tried to press on, "So, I take the 10 000 in coin. I kept 5000 for myself, and spent the other half buying out every other deli and butcher that I knew of all their meat. We piled it into a red motorcar, and I drove it over to her house for the big party. Her house was huge. I mean, not like the Royal Palace, but damn close. You have to go through a big metal gate and drive another ten minutes up the road just to get to the front door. And the door itself was huge, about as wide as the entire deli shop. Katrin had servants everywhere. Like maids, butlers, that sort of thing. One of the butlers told me where the kitchen was to unload all the meat, so I spent two hours pushing a cart back and forth to drop it all off"
"Two hours?!" Violet said in disbelief, "Why did she need so much meat?"
Felix laughed again, "There were two hundred people that showed up to her party. It takes a lot of meat to feed that many people. They all mingled around her garden, which is as wide as this whole prison yard. I ended up staying for the party because no one told me I had to leave. I sat around for a bit with a couple of the stable boys, and yes she had a stable full of horses in this big house. Everyone there was dressed in clothes that cost more than my motorcar and my deli shop combined. And i was there in a brown leather jacket and a black cap. Probably the worst dressed person at the party. But then, just before dinner, Katrin came out of the house to welcome all her guests, and just..."
Click, click, click
"Just what?" asked Violet.
"You should have seen her Violet," Felix said in a sadder tone than he expected, "She looked like one of those paintings you see in the advertisements for the theatre. She had this red dress on, and the bottom part came all the way down past her legs. The top part of the dress exposed her shoulders, and you could see her arms. She was strong, probably from riding horses all the time. And I couldn't keep my eyes off of her. I'd never seen anything that looked that nice in all my life. Still haven't."
He continued, "Katrin talked to all her guests for a while. I decided I had enough of the party and I was gonna leave. I already got paid, and the stable boys got kicked out by the butler. But then she saw me, and she waved at the butler to bring me over. We walked up to her, and she smiled at me and looked at me with her aquamarine eyes. She said, 'Thank you so much for the meat. Everyone loves it'. And then she kissed me on the cheek. First time a girl ever kissed me. If I died right then and there, I would have died a very happy little boy"
Click, click, click, ching!
Felix closed his eyes. He was trying to remember the sounds of Katrin's party so his ears would focus less on the rifle-turned-typewriter.
"Well, that was it. I lost all sense of reason. I had to be around Katrin all the time, or I didn't feel right. They wouldn't let me back in the house after that night, so I started going to the opera. They didn't want to let a dirty kid like me in there either, but I always brought enough coin with me to buy an entire row of seats to myself. If the deli didn't do good business that week, I'd steal what I needed to make up the difference. Id sit right up front, in the middle of the empty row every weekend, and I'd listen to Katrin sing. Sometimes, she'd close her eyes when she sang, but when she opened them again, she'd look right at me, for the entire song" he said.
"Was she a good a singer?" Violet asked innocently.
Clink!
Felix rose, more annoyed with her question than the typewriter rifle, "Was she a good singer?! She was the best. When she finished her opera, the entire house would be on their feet to cheer for her. That cheering was louder than thunder. Yeah, she was the best singer"
"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to offend you. I've never been to an opera before" Violet replied, her blue eyes looking down at the ground.
Felix calmed himself, and laid down on the grass again, "That's okay. You should go, it will change your life. It changed mine, the third weekend I went to see Katrin sing"
Click, click, click
"How so?" she asked. The typing wasn't bothering Felix as much anymore. Maybe it was because he was remembering his favourite part of his life.
"After the opera that night, one of the people who worked at the house told me that she wanted to see me backstage. I went back to her dressing room, and she changed out of her costume into an outfit that let me see parts of a woman that I hadn't seen before. I sat down on her couch, and she sat down on my lap. Katrin sang the entire opera again for me, but this time she sang it in my ear, softer and slower. And her breath on my neck felt amazing, better than anything else I felt before. And when she finished, she kissed me on the lips. I didn't really know what I was doing, I was 17 and I hadn't ever done things like that with a woman" Felix said
"Well, Katrin knew what she was doing. She put my hands where she wanted them to go, and then she started kissing places besides my lips -" he said before Violet cut him off.
"I don't think we need these details in the story" Violet said, annoyed.
Felix laughed, "Alright, I'll skip it. I'd rather keep that particular memory for myself anyway. After we finished, she told me to visit her house again the next day. Not knowing what she was on about, I asked her how much meat she needed me to bring. Katrin slapped me again, and then laughed. She said 'No meat. Just you, little boy'. So I came over the next day, and she took me horse riding. We'd ride all the way down to the river and back again, for miles until the sun came down. And that was my life for three years. I'd work or steal during the week, see Katrin at the opera, see her again in the dressing room, and ride horses with her the next day. Best years of my life, but everything comes to an end doesn't it?"
Click, click, click, ching!
"How did it end?" Violet asked, replacing another sheet.
Felix stood, looking away. He felt anger rising in his body again, and not just because of the typewriter.
"One weekend, we repeated the same thing. I'd listen to her opera, and we made love in her dressing room. But that night, she seemed different somehow, like her mind was somewhere else. I couldn't understand it, and Katrin didn't tell me anything. The next day, I came to her house to ride horses with her. But she wasn't at the stables like she usually was. I went looking for her in the house, and I looked in every room. Finally, I found her in her bedroom" he said, clenching his fist.
"She was in bed, but she wasn't sleeping. There was another man there with her. I didn't know who he was, and I didn't care. He had done something that no one else had ever done to me before. He stole something that belonged to me. The one thing in the world that I thought was mine. Katrin" Felix tightened his fist further.
"He stole Katrin from you. What did you do?" Violet asked, loading a new sheet.
Click
"Katrin had this lamp next to her bed. A big, heavy lamp, made out of steel. I took that lamp, and I hit that man with the lamp. And I didn't mean to keep hitting him, but by the time I was finished, I couldn't lift my arm. He was dead, and his blood was all over the bed. Katrin didn't scream. I thought girls would scream, but she didn't. She just looked at me and she said 'Little Boy, you weren't supposed to be here. We had fun, but this was never anything real. You need to leave', And that's all she said" Felix said while looking at the ground.
"And I realized something. The man hadn't stolen anything from me at all. I found out later that he was actually like me, just a kid from Schalcten Street. That's what Katrin liked to do. Not sing in the opera, or sell dresses to the wives of rich men. She liked to take young men from the dirty parts of the city, make them feel good about themselves and make them fall in love with her. And when Katrin got bored with one, she'd break the first one's heart and leave him before she moved on to another. But this time, I found out before she could make her move. And according to her, that made me special. I turned to leave, and she asked me, 'Do you love me, Little Boy?' " Felix said with tears in his eyes.
Violet stopped. That word echoed in her mind. Love. It was on the letter that Gilbert had written for her. The letter ended with the words I love you, Violet.
Felix turned and looked at Violet. She was completely lost in space, "Hey, aren't you supposed to be typing?"
Violet looked up at him, her own eyes on the verge of tears, "What did you say to Katrin when she said those words?"
Felix took a deep breath and replied, "I said, I love you, Katrin. One of the maids heard the noise when I beat the other man to death and called the police. They broke into the room just after I said that to Katrin. They beat me over the head with their truncheons, and then took me to prison"
Click, click, click
Violet typed in a flurry, but stopped right after she wrote the words I love you, Katrin. The sun was rapidly dropping behind the horizon, and old Olaf shouted at the pair, "Alright, time's up you two. Get back to your cell Felix or I'll drag you there myself!"
Felix looked at the old guard, and was annoyed, "One damn minute Olaf, we're almost finished this chapter!"
"Are you coming back tomorrow, Violet?" he asked, in a calmer voice.
Violet looked up, her blue eyes still looking sad, and yet beautiful, "Do you wish me to come back?"
He shrugged, "Well yeah, we're not finished the story yet"
Violet nodded, and quickly packed up her typewriter with perfect efficiency, "Then I will see you tomorrow. Good night, Felix"
He started walking towards the prison door, but stopped. Felix turned around and looked back at Violet one last time, "By the way, if you don't mind me saying it. You have beautiful eyes, Violet. You shouldn't look so sad"
Olaf had his truncheon out and shoved Felix through the door, "Alright you young punk, lets get a move on!"
The prison door slammed shut, with a thud almost as loud as the thunder. Violet, standing alone in the middle of the prison war, said words that she was too late in saying.
"Thank you."
