Chapter 6 - Arvid's story

After a few silent moments Peter seemed to remember something. He cleared his throat and murmured, looking across the room. "But what about you, Arvid?"

"Yeah, I guess it's my turn now, to get it over with," Arvid said under his breath and let himself fall heavily into an armchair.

"Please tell us." Thomas asked. If he had to endure more of this, it was best to talk about it now and after that try and bury everything as deep as possible in the back of their minds.

Helga stood behind Arvid and twirled his dark locks absentmindedly around her index finger when he started to speak. "I really tried to kill myself," he murmured. "I just didn't see any perspective at all. I felt so scared and trapped." He took Helga's hand and kissed her palm. "I still keep apologizing about that to her." He smiled sadly upwards then looked at Otto, begging him silently to continue.

"Helga and I were really worried after his outburst in the restaurant, so we went to his flat later in the evening, despite the fact that he had told us not to come." Otto spoke slowly so Nestor could follow his words.

"It was so strange." Helga added in a trembling voice, "There was no music playing. No sound at all. He always used to practice when I came upstairs, or at least there was a record playing." Peter and Thomas nodded their agreement to that. It had never been completely silent in Arvid's apartment.

"We...we found him in his bathtub." Otto had a hard time to talk about it. "He'd...he'd cut himself with his favourite record."

Arvid pulled Helga onto his lap, his eyes focused on her skirt. He just couldn't look at anyone in the room. He stroked Helga's knee when she continued, tears running down her cheeks freely. "We must have been just in time. Otto ran for my mother and I... I made a pressure bandage on Arvid's wrist and kept pressing and pressing until his...until..." She couldn't finish her sentence. Arvid rocked her in his arms.

"I can't tell how grateful I am that I had taken several lessons in first aid before that day." She sniffed, kissing her husband deeply.

"I hurriedly told her mother what had happened and she grabbed her nurse bag. We ran like mad down the stairs, through the street and again up the stairs in the other house. Even while running, she explained to me what I had to do to save Arvid; that he needed my blood. We prayed that his body would take it..." Otto stopped and shook his head. Thinking back about it, and how incredibly lucky they had been, rendered him speechless.

Arvid spoke again, "When I woke, I felt incredibly dizzy and didn't know where I was. All I saw was Helga sitting again in a completely white room, holding my hand and sleeping in a chair beside me."

"My mother and Otto's father had managed to get Arvid secretly into a hospital that was still under the reign of the resistance." Helga found her voice back, stood and poured everybody another drink.

"I was so angry at first. I didn't want to live." Arvid reached for his guitar and started to play lowly, as though it would help him to speak about it. "Helga convinced me otherwise. I didn't know she loved me that much." Helga stood behind his chair again. She knew the theme he was playing so well. It was the one he always played to cheer her when she was too homesick to do anything. She took his glasses off and bent his head back, so she could kiss his eyelids, his nose. He smiled and kept playing. He had found his balance back in America and with her love.

"My father had a plan how to get Arvid out of the country together with another man who'd spoken out against the Fuehrer out in the open as well." Otto interjected. "I had to make a fast decision whether to go with them or to stay. Helga needed help. Arvid was still so weak, and I didn't want to join the damn Fuehrer's army, so I decided to go with them. We got onto the last ship that was leaving for the United States." He finished and shook his head, still not believing their luck after all those years.

Thomas and Peter said nothing at first. There was so much that wasn't explained but they didn't dare to ask more questions. They all let Arvid's music calm them until something occurred to Peter. "Is that when they got your father, Otto?"

Otto nodded, "After we all were safe on the ship and it was out of Germany's authority."

Even though Otto's father had survived too, no one spoke for a long while.

Peter lay back again on the couch, using Thomas' thigh as a cushion. Otto and Nestor started to dance slowly again, Helga sat on the floor, leaning against Arvid's good leg.

"When we arrived over there, we didn't say we were Germans." Arvid set the guitar aside and moved with Helga towards the other couch, mirroring Thomas' and Peter's position, laying his head on her thigh.

Suddenly Otto grinned; snuggling up with Nestor in the armchair. "You should have heard him try to use his few English words to explain that he was actually Spanish and Helga and I from France. We prayed there wouldn't be any Spanish or French speaking people around us."

For the first time Nestor started to speak, "I was near them. I sensed there was something wrong with them as soon as they moved into the hotel I was working in. They looked so lost." Nestor's German was good. He just had a heavy accent and spoke very slow. "I knew I shouldn't trust any strangers but I had," he looked at Otto with affection,"... I fell in love with this tall blonde guy at first sight, I guess." Nestor stroked his hair out of his eyes with a nervous gesture.

Thomas grinned. Otto as homosexual as him and Peter, he just couldn't believe it. He thought they were an exception. "Please go on." He encouraged.

"I brought them food." Nestor smiled at the memory of their faces, scrunched together at each foreign meal he served them. They ate it each time, grew to love some of it, and hated other things.

"And he got me a job as a gardener for a wealthy Manhattan family." Otto added, circling his hand over Nestor's back. "In the evenings he helped us practice our English since he grew up bilingual."

"When I wasn't so weak anymore he even got Helga a part time job as an assistant nurse." Arvid continued.

"You see, we all depended on him right from the beginning." Otto said in a loving voice and he kissed the corner of his lover's mouth.

"What about the music?" Peter was curious.

"It was unbelievable there;" Arvid said in a dreamy voice. "Each time we went for a walk we were surrounded by Swing music. Either it was coming from the open windows, or some band was playing it live in the parks."

Arvid paused and Helga remembered, "For the first time he talked about you two back then, Peter and Thomas. He said how much you'd have loved it there." Lost in thought Helga made several tiny plaids into Arvid's longish hair. "We missed you and we were so worried about you..." She trailed of.

"Anyway," Arvid didn't want the sad mood back. "One day we found out that Nestor played the trumpet like a god." Otto muttered a very passionate, "Yeah." And everybody grinned. "He had a performance with his brother in our hotel and we were invited."

"I was completely stunned by his ability to play," Arvid admitted. "He sounded like one of the famous ones." He stopped Helga from weaving more braids into his hair, "That's when I first got the idea for a new band."

Thomas and Peter were now sitting silently like kids being told a fairy tale. They were holding hands, sipping their wine. This part of the story was so much more calming then the first part. "And then?" Thomas urged his friend on.

"We told him about our band back in Germany." Otto explained.

"And my Helga revealed a secret she'd never told anyone." Arvid reached up and caressed her cheek. "She once learned how to play a violin."

"I...I wanted to play with them." Nestor added, leaning his back against Otto's chest.

"So we started to look for cheep instruments."

"It wasn't an easy task, but once we had them, we had a session...boy...your ears would have fallen off." Arvid, and the rest of his band, were all smiling; lost in their memories.

"I can imagine." Thomas was thinking about the evening and how they had the crowd cheering and dancing.

"And then you got famous..." Peter said dreamily.

"Well, of course not instantly. We started to play in parks and local bars, just as the others did."

"And then the ...the..." Arvid jumped up from the sofa because he still couldn't really believe what happened one day. He got over to Thomas and Peter, sat between them, putting his arms around their shoulders. "Count Basie came by accidentally when we played."

"What?" Thomas thought he didn't hear right, knowing how much that must have meant for Arvid, who played Basie's songs as much as Django Reinhardt's.

"Really?" Peter was just as surprised. "I can't believe it."

"We didn't believe it either." Arvid whispered.

"He said, keep playing." Helga crouched in front of the three.

"After two songs he gave Arvid a card and said, meet me there Monday evening."

"Oh my god." Thomas and Peter said simultaneously.

"Yeah, you could say that," Otto murmured from his chair.

"We practiced like crazy for the remaining three days," Nestor remembered; his voice still slightly shaking from excitement.

"And on Monday, I was so sick with nerves, I thought I couldn't play at all," Arvid admitted.

"We got to the place he told us really early, to be able to have another go on our songs." Otto smirked, "And guess what?"

"What?"

"Basie was listening to us the entire time. He was sitting at a table in the corner and we never even knew it. He invited us to play with him and his band for several shows. He said we are good." Arvid shook his head, leaning back. Thomas and Peter turned to look at him totally in awe.

"You really got to play with the great Count Basie?"

"Yeah, believe it or not. For a few weeks."

"Wow." Thomas scratched the back of his head.

Arvid got up again, pulling Helga from the floor, swirling her unexpectedly around and she yelled in surprise. Arvid caught her and kissed her briefly on the mouth. He really felt happy and now he wanted to try and give some of it back to the worn out people over here. He knew what Peter and Thomas had gone through. Willi had written many letters to him.

And Willi and Arvid had a plan.

Arvid was wondering if this was the right moment to ask, but maybe it would bring them other thoughts. Especially since Peter had demanded to never speak about the war again.

"Actually we wanted to ask you two something." Arvid was wandering through the room, playing an unfamiliar low rhythm on his guitar.

Thomas and Peter looked at him somewhat expectantly. Then both combed through their long strands of hair with their fingers, a gesture that made Helga smile. It didn't suit them when they had both cut their hair in HJ fashion. It looked much better this way; more like the boys she got to know what seemed like an eternity ago.

Arvid changed his play to "It Don't Mean a Thing" and said, "We'd like you both as our singers."

"What?" Both Peter and Thomas thought they didn't hear right.

"Yeah well, Nestor can sing pretty good, but he has to play the trumpet. I told Helga once how we used to sing along in school to impress the girls and she suddenly came up with this idea. What do you say?" He smirked.

Peter and Thomas looked at each other totally surprised.

"I mean if you want to." Arvid considered his words again and added, "Of course only a few songs. You don't have to be on stage all evening, you can still dance." He winked at them just knowing how much they loved to dance.

"Can we think about it?" Thomas asked shyly and laughed at himself suddenly because his voice sounded so thin.

"Of course," Arvid smiled.

Peter only shook his head.

----to be continued----