Speechless
First: THANK YOU ALL FOR YOUR MOST APPRECIATED; KIND COMMENTS; REALLY THEY MAKE MY DAY AND ARE THE REASON THE STORY IS STILL ONGOING!
Now to the unknown words here ^^
Lager: camp, or better, a place with thousands of people on it, but no space.
Hamburg: a city in the North of Germany
Gestapo: Secret Police hunting you down, worse or equal to the Inquisition
Rassengesetze: "laws for the affairs of the different races", stupid laws that affected the relationships with Jews like your marriage to a Jew is not legal anymore and bullshit like that. They were published in 1935.
SS: Real translation: Protection Unit. Or better: Assholes, working with the Gestapo the SS was mostly taking care of concentration camps and later in the World War they took care of killing every Jew they found. A bunch of bloodthirsty monsters.
Rabbe: the Jewish answer to a priest, the one who takes care of the community.
Dear Erwin,
how are you? Hamburg is a nice city but I prefer our tougher Berlin, though...Hamburg is slightly cold. My grandmother is still a beast and hard-drinking, I hope I inherited this quality from her. How is your mother doing? Is she better now?
My mother seems to be rather silent on her own mother's birthday. Yesterday she went to the harbour and it took a while till I could convince her of returning. She was strange at that moment. She looked at me, smiled and said: "What would you think of crossing the sea, my dear?"
I do not know what I shall think of that...
A rather short letter. But well it is only a month I am not home.
I know what you want to hear and I will tell you: I miss you. And I am concerned about your mother.
Answer soon,
Levi.
He looks so Russian, Erwin thinks as he detects the unknown Officer, who seems to have Reiner as one of his prisoners. He is tall with sharp cheekbones and thin lips. He looks very tired but listens to Levi's rough and fast Russian. Then slowly nods and Erwin's heart misses a beat. The Russian gives him a careful look, then waves them in.
He and Levi enter the Lager. So many soldiers, Erwin thinks, too many. They sit together, silent, staring at places Erwin can't see but he knows that these men will not live long. Levi watches him and Erwin stares. He stares at every yet dead man sitting there.
But he sees that he will not find what he seeks. He will not find Reiner in this mass. He wants to return as he detects a blond, tall man, sitting silent next to two soldiers, lying on the floor.
They are dead. Their faces are upside glaring into the grey sun. Erwin envies them. Dead people do not suffer...
He approaches carefully to the former General and coughs softly. Reiner doesn't seem to react. He sits there, staring at his hands. Again he coughs and this time Reiner looks up at him with no expression on his normally arrogant face. They glare at each other for seconds than Erwin raises his voice. It sounds raspy and utterly old.
"Where are the weapons Reiner?" Silence. No one talks. It is dead silent in this overpopulated Lager. The man he has spoken to continues to stare at him. Erwin feels uncomfortable. He doesn't want to stay here longer than absolutely necessary. This place is already a cemetery. A loud sigh. Finally Reiner shrugs. Then answers in an ugly soft and horribly understanding voice:
"Where the fuck do you think I put the fucking weapons hun? They were taken with the last plane, you bloody idiot!"
He wants to break down. He wants to fall. Deep. Deep. Deep. And when he reaches the end there will be no senses, nothing. Nothing than lovely emptiness welcoming him. That is all he asks for.
Nothing more nothing less. Is that a too great favour to beg for?
The idea of watching his men getting shot one by one is more than hell: it is damnation. Fucking, shit damnation.
Why is there no weapon with which he can shoot himself? God, he turns around and detects Levi, looking strangely as desperate as he is right now.
They hadn't really talked when they had arrived at the train station. But there had been this moment where suddenly Levi's hand had pressed his own and before Erwin could have thought about his doing he had kissed Levi's forehead. And all of this had happened in the middle of the entrance hall with thousand people that had been running around them. Only in this horrible moment he had firstly understood that he had loved Levi. And maybe even that he would have loved him forever.
They are on their way back, Levi walking so fast Erwin is sometimes afraid of loosing him. Stalingrad finally reaches dusk. The night begins. The German is glad for that. It means that his soldiers will not be shot right now. Because there is no light in the city of hell. And how do you shoot people without light?
A final look at the horizon. A strange picture...everywhere smoke and black, grinning ruins.
And little hills of corpses starting to burn.
This cold, Erwin thinks, I will never forget that cold. And then: a sudden weakness fills him, lets him tremble, lets his organs shake as if he gets tortured by electroshocks.
And this hunger...and he falls like a fresh slaughtered tree down into the snow, not willing for one second to stand up. Actually to ever stand up at all.
Finally...God has listened, he murmurs and he closes his eyes and falls into loving, lovely emptiness.
Erwin!
I hope this letter does not come into the wrong hands. They've visited us. The Gestapo! Two hours before we wanted to leave. They took my father and my grandmother, can you imagine? My grandmother! This old lady of fifty! They've treated her like a thief and my father like a murderer! Don't ask me what they've done, I do not know! And actually I do not want to know! I am so confused, my heart beats worse than ever and mother will not stop crying! I am so confused. What shall we do? I am afraid. I know...but I am afraid. I sit here in this bloody Hamburg without father or grandmother-
My aunt has finally taken care of my mother. We will come soon home, I hope, meanwhile a cousin of mine will travel to Berlin and gives you this letter. I am still afraid. I can't sleep. Hopefully, really hopefully my father and Grandma will get released soon. It must be a mistake! A horrible mistake as simple as that.
I have a strange wish Erwin but I wish to lay in your bed and listen to the screaming and giggling of the children playing on Alexanderplatz while watching you reading a book. A strange wish, I know, but it is the only real picture I can imagine. Everything else is so unreal, so horrible, horrible unreal.
Let me be where you are right now and hold me for a moment, so maybe, only maybe I can close my eyes and dream of reality.
I need you,
Levi.
Levi's had father never returned, his grandmother had come back broken and had died soon after...
They had been 18 when this had happened in October 1935. Shortly after that the Rassengesetze had been published.
A year later Levi's mother had committed suicide after a group of boys had chased her through whole Berlin for buying some buns. She had been totally startled when she had come home and hadn't left the apartment, Levi and she had been living in, till she had died.
The funeral had been one of the most odd and strange things Erwin had ever seen until then. They had been alone, because Levi's family in Hamburg hadn't had any money to come and his aunt had been horrible sick after her husband had been murdered by the SS. Of course it had been said he had died of pneumonia. After he had beencalled to the Police. And had stayed there for more than a month. The corpse hadn't been given back.
The Rabbe, an old nice man had given the speech and after that he had invited them to his house, but Levi had refused.
It had been quiet when they had returned to Levi's small apartment. A silence you could grip, so heavy it had lay upon this place like a horrible curse.
They had stood there a while, even hours maybe. Without thinking he had watched the sun dying, the light fleeing more and more, inch by inch, until complete darkness had returned.
And silently, very silently Levi had cried, with his small back to Erwin, he had cried. And Erwin had been speechless, because what else can you be in times likes these other than speechless?