A/N: A short chapter, but writing it was more difficult than I expected. I couldn't quite capture that raw emotion in Jeff Buckley's version of Hallelujah that makes it such a powerful song. But, enough of my self-deprecation. A big thank you to captain ty for the review! Hopefully the next chapter will come out sooner than this one did. Enjoy!
www . youtube . com/watch?v=y8AWFf7EAc4
Inspired by Leonard Cohen, Jeff Buckley (who created the only cover of a song that I love more than the original), and rain storms.
XV. Hallelujah
and love is not a victory march
it's a cold and it's a broken hallelujah
"Say hello to Ford and General fucking Motors!" Webster shouted from the back of the troop truck as the Germans marched down the center of the road, flanked on both sides by Americans.
Lorena covered her ears to block out the noise, but between Webster's screaming, the echoing footsteps of marching, and the rumbling of Army vehicles, it was impossible. She had never had such a terrible hangover before. Sure, she had gotten them bad, but never to the point where death seemed like the only escape. Then there was the kiss, an embarrassing minute of her life that she would take to her grave. In her moment of temporary insanity (and it was insanity to do anything with Lewis Nixon, no matter how much money he came from), she had lost some of her self-respect or perhaps what was left of it. If there was one thing that Lorena knew for sure, it was that once a woman wakes up on the floor, she begins to reexamine her life. And so she did.
One: VAT 69 was not her friend. Actually, alcohol in general was not her friend, because whether it was scotch, whiskey, gin, tequila, rum or bourbon, it tricked her into to doing stupid things (like kissing men that she had no business kissing and emotionally spiraling downward). Two: while men were often the root of her psychosis, nothing would ever be able to take their place, so it was useless to try to find something that would. Three: Ron Speirs was important. There was no getting around it. The sound of him walking made her heart stop and his smile was enough to send her into a hormonal frenzy. He was important, and hiding that fact was futile.
"What the fuck are we doing here? Huh?" Webster continued.
Private Garcia had been able to stop him last time, but he was on a roll and there was no end in sight for his tirade. Lorena understood that he was angry, that he would have rather been cooped up in the library or lounging around the green pastures of Harvard University, but that was no excuse for his maniacal behavior. Finally, she decided enough was enough.
"David, sit down and shut the fuck up. They don't understand a word you're saying. You speak German, they speak German. So if you're going to talk to them, do it in German! In English, all you're doing is aggravating people and preaching to the goddamn choir. Now, sit down and be quiet or I'll shoot you in the face and throw your lifeless body into that ditch."
Until the convoy reached Landsberg, they were silent.
Winters ordered several groups to go on patrol in the woods surrounding the town of Landsberg. Bull, George Luz, Frank Perconte, Pat Christenson, Joe Lesniewski, and the replacement Patrick O'Keeffe made up one of them, and Lorena tagged along. She was desperate to get away from the noise of the people, of Ron's cold eyes, of everything. She loaded the handgun and let the hard, heavy weight of it rest in her palm. The comfort she felt with the weapon was almost alarming, but it removed any doubt that she might have had about the state of her mind.
"Hey, George, does this kinda remind you of Bastogne?" Perconte asked as the seven of them trampled through the German woods.
"Sure, Frank. 'Cept, of course, there's no snow, we got warm grub in our bellies, and the trees are fucking exploding from Kraut artillery. But, yeah, Frank, other than that, it's a lot like Bastogne," Luz said sarcastically, rolling his eyes.
"Right," Perconte said, looking up at the high, in-tact tree tops.
"Bull, smack him for me, please." Thump. "Thank you."
"Why don't you have Lorena keep him in line? She sure told Webster a thing or two," Joe said with a smirk.
"Ha! 'I'll shoot you in the face and throw your lifeless body into a ditch,'" Luz mimicked. "I don't think I'd have thought any less of you if you did."
Lorena smiled as she walked between Bull and the jumpy replacement. For the first time since she had arrived in Europe, Lorena felt as though she belonged. After she suffered with them through the hell of Bastogne, the men no longer cared about her prior crimes. Whether she was a killer or a murder wasn't important. She was a soldier, a Daughter of Mars, and that was all that mattered to them.
"Good to know, George."
All of a sudden, an eerie quiet filled the air and they halted in the middle, beneath the creaking trees. They moved slowly toward the tree line, the branches snapping beneath their boots. As a clearing came into view, seven stomachs churned and seven hearts physically ached. Star light, star bright…
When Ron caught his first glimpse at the camp, his heart rose into his throat. The stench alone made his organs spasm, but the sight of all those walking skeletons broke him. As the gates opened and the 101st started to enter into the hell, the men in the striped uniforms reached out to them. Ron shuddered as a frail hand grazed his arm and he forced himself to take it all in. From thatched-roof huts, more of them emerged and hobbled toward their liberators. A thick bubble of emotions, each melding into the other, lodged in his throat and choked him. He didn't speak, didn't open his mouth in fear of crying openly. Instead, his face twisted into grimace and he ground his teeth together until his jaws hurt. The underworld that he had heard about in Sunday school was nothing compared the steaming hades that surrounded him. Those men had spoken blindly of hell, of torture, of eternal damnation. Those men were fools. They knew nothing.
Meanwhile, Lorena hadn't noticed Ron or any of the others pass by her. Bull knelt at her feet, his head lowered and his mind trying to process. She kept a reassuring hand on his tense shoulder. As she looked around, the men covered their horrified faces and the prisoners cried into their shirt fronts. The sorrow was thick, dense as the smoke that filled the spring air. Lorena could feel it settle on her chest like a heavy weight, one that had her knees buckling beneath her. A wail came from beyond the fence, a long cry in a foreign language. She listened to the sound with despair. Then, she caught a glimpse of the charred bodies, the limp arms that dangled from gaunt frames. Lorena Carlyle thought she understood loss and pain and suffering. She thought she knew oppression and cruelty and ugliness. She knew nothing.
Years ago, when Parker had called her a fucking spoiled Yankee brat, Lorena accepted it as a result of his fondness of Tennessee whiskey and his bad attitude. Of course, when she recalled the night later, she realized that he hadn't been drinking at all and that he hadn't been entirely wrong. She had been a debutante; spent the Dirty Thirties in Chanel gowns and imported jewelry … she knew more about luxury than she ever knew about anguish. Her scars were nothing compared to the horrors of the rest of the world.
"Nothin' is ever good enough for you. You ain't ever happy. So, people gave you hell 'cause your mama was an eyetie. Your daddy was one of the richest men in Boston and you could pay to have half those people killed. But, here you are, still fucking complaining. Such a brat…"
Lorena stared solemnly, her faith in humanity (and herself) finally dead and gone. Ron, his eyes clouded with tears, met hers through the wire fence. He wanted to run to her, to embrace her, to break down on her shoulder. At that moment, he needed a friend, a best friend, and she needed someone to hold her hand.
They all did.
How does one begin to describe Hell? Dante tried in his Inferno, but in his detailed tour he forgot to mention the one many American troops found themselves in today. I have watched these men survive through the harshest winter known to man. I have watched as their friends have fallen to Kraut artillery and they fought through their own personal sorrow. I have watched them starve, freeze, and come out on the other side with a light still shining in their eyes. But today, I saw tears in the eyes of these iron men. I saw their hearts break, their souls die, their faith diminish.
What I witnessed today was worse than Hell. It was Purgatory: an inescapable limbo that will consume me for the rest of my days. When the pictures of these camps are shown stateside, I ask of you, readers, do not look away. It will be difficult, nearly impossible, but please, look at the footage captured by the other correspondents. Have a moment of silence, remember, and make sure that nothing like this ever happens again.
Sleep had evaded Ron that night. He had been lying in bed for hours, his eyes squeezed tight to shut out the harsh glare of the street lamp that came through his window. He had gotten up at least ten times to go see Lorena. He had thrown on a pair of pants and a decent shirt, pulled on his boots, and made it halfway there before he turned around again. Just once, he made it all the way to her door, but couldn't gather enough nerve to actually make his presence known. So, when a soft knock came at his door at a quarter past midnight, he didn't groan and grumble as he flicked the light on and crossed the room. Lorena stood silently in the entryway, her black eyes cast downward. She was dressed in a skirt and pressed shirt, an outfit Ron hadn't seen since October 1944. He hadn't realized how much he missed it.
"May I come in?" she asked as she flicked her eyes up.
"Of course."
Holding the door open, Ron stood to one side and let her pass. Her heels clacked against the wooden floor, disturbing the still night air that settled in around them. The door clicked shut and Ron leaned against it. He folded his arms across his chest and Lorena stood awkwardly in the middle of the room. Her hands shook as she struggled to remember what to say to Ron, but his bare legs, covered only at the top by a pair of shorts, distracted her.
"I hope I didn't wake you," she said, still a product of her upbringing.
"No, I couldn't sleep, but neither could you, I guess."
"Well, actually," she began, "I wanted to say something to you. To tell you something."
"I figured as much."
Lorena scoffed. "Ha, yes. Ron, I… I'm sorry. I'm sorry for—for so much I barely know where to start. But being in that place today, it made me realize that my problems are so minuscule compared to what's occurring in the rest of the world. Then I went to women's camp and—it was worse than the men's camp, I think. They were bleeding and sick and had lost their daughters to typhus and their sons and husbands were gone and… I'm so selfish. For the longest time, I've been running around the world going 'poor, poor pitiful me,' when all these other things were going on. Parker was right: I'm nothing more than a brat and I'm sorry."
Ron stepped away from the door toward her. "You're selfish? You had just found out your father was dead and I was more worried about—"
"Please, Ron, you barely think of yourself. You are possibly the least selfish—"
"Maybe, but I should have—"
"No, no. How could you have—"
Their bodies were touching by the time they finished interrupting one another. Ron's hands were placed at the small of Lorena's back and her hands found themselves cradling his face. An electricity surged in the tiny space that remained between them and each tiny movement of their chests, hips, and thighs created an invisible spark.
"I missed you," he said.
Lorena's fingers ran through Ron's hair as he dipped his head down to capture her mouth with his own. Heat radiated from their cores and spread quickly. Ron relinquished his control willingly, allowing Lorena to take over; to guide him and lead him. She kissed all along his collarbone and left faded lipstick marks on his neck. Ron pressed himself against her inner thigh. She released a carnal moan and pulled back to look into his eyes.
Ron distinctly remembered the first time he saw her dark orbs staring back at him. They were hazy and soft and full of stars, a stark contrast to the next several times he saw them. But in the moment before their consummation, the stone-like quality that they once held had disappeared and in its place: espresso, rich and robust. Though, whether hard or soft, in the windows to her twisted soul, he found a kindred spirit. And he loved her.
"Please be gentle with me," she whispered as he unbuttoned her shirt and freed her breasts. "Amore mio… Il mio cuore è per voi."
And from your lips she drew the hallelujah… Hallelujah…
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