"Poison Remembrances" by Oli Sakadinsky |
“Dieter Laurent Neumann, I will not allow it!” Irma Neumann scolded. “They can find someone else to fight. Tell them you are needed at home— they must understand!” The pitch of her voice climbed higher with every word, and each screech drove through her husband’s heart like a blade.
Dieter shook his head. “But darling, they didn’t recruit me. I enlisted myself.”
Irma, bless her, didn’t miss a beat, and snapped back, “But why? This fight is for the Kaiser, not for you! You hold no aggression against the French! Think of your dear mother, what would she say of your poor decisions?”
Chuckling, Dieter’s gaze settled on the scenery out the window. Shouldn’t Irma know better than to argue with him about this? The reasoning behind his abrupt departure for the army was so clear to him— how could she not see it?
His wife’s tense, crossed arms warned against him articulating such frustrations, so he gathered the wisdom to refrain from doing so. Instead he joked, “She would say, “Mon dieu, Laurent, you are a grown man! It’s not my time to make decisions for you!’” He accentuated his speech with his mother’s thick French inflections, and used his second name, which she had chosen for him herself.
Despite his efforts, Irma recoiled at the humor that danced in his eyes. “Dieter, there is no sense in leaving. What will become of the shop when you’re gone?” She gestured around the room, almost toppling their merchandise: tall racks upon which sat row after row of pastries. The couple couldn’t help but balk at how full their pastry rack was. Before the war had started, the Neumanns’ community-renowned Blechkuchen squares seemed to vanish of their own accord; now, they sat untouched. Dieter turned his head back to face his wife, and in an attempt to take advantage of the attention she held, Irma’s tone turned pleading. “Please stay. What are you going to accomplish in fighting? You don’t even know the circumstances, so how can you know what difference you will make? You disconcert me with the blind faith you have in a country that might as well have been wrong in this conflict. Men die on the front every hour, Dieter. What could be so important about that mess for you subject yourself to such a gruesome fate? Here, you have a roof above your head, you have the bakery to attend to, and you have me. Does your home hold any importance to you in the slightest?” Tears glistened above her soft blue eyes, and Dieter saw in them the sky in February— leaving both a beautiful resonance and a distinct chill. As gentle a hue as her soft, honey-blonde hair was, it would be seared in his mind until he saw it next, plaguing him as a vivid reminder of her absence.
Grasping her hands in his, Dieter spoke with great care. “My home is here, with you in Strasbourg, but therefore it is Deutschland as well. It does not matter what one side has done to provoke the other! I only care that my homeland has people to protect it; I am just doing what is right. At the moment, my country needs me more than you do— you are strong, while it is weak. Forgive me Irma, but I must go.”
With that, his hands detached themselves from hers. Rather than facing those piercing eyes one last time, he kissed her on the forehead, grabbed his pack, and trod out the door and into the night. He must have passed three other shops before he felt a delicate finger tap his shoulder.
“Irma, my mind is ma—” Before he could finish, Dieter was wrapped in a tight embrace, and his wife had slipped a smooth, rectangular object into his hands. Looking down, he saw it was a journal, bought brand-new from the local bookshop.
Answering his questioning gaze, Irma explained with a regretful shake of her head, “It’s so you remember who Dieter is, you foolish man.” She then spun on her heel and raced back off down the street, leaving Dieter to turn her gift over and over in his hands.
It had been two months, and Dieter still drew her every day. He drew her hands kneading bread, her cheeks when she smiled. Every drawing he kept in the leather-bound journal that fit, if with slight difficulty, into his breast pocket just above his heart. Though its edges were worn and flying debris had left in it soldier-worthy wounds, the journal was never lost. How could he lose it? It was his lifeline. When bullets whizzed past Dieter’s ears and fear encroached on his heart, he absorbed Irma’s strength through his sketches. He would never loose the Dieter of the bakery to the Dieter of the battlefield, so long as he had his wife to guide him.
On that particular overcast day in early April, when the new recruits came, he had been drawing those February eyes of hers. As he had no colors to work with, he couldn’t quite do them justice, but even the outlines of her eyelids lessened the ache in his heart. On occasion, he had attempted to illustrate other things. Many times, the jesting soldiers of his company had suggested he capture the “ominous beauty” of spoons scraping empty mess-tins, so they could send it to the mistreated lads that brought the rations. Try as he might, he couldn’t bring himself to do it—temporary hunger meant nothing to him, while Irma meant everything. He mulled over where she was at that moment, and what she was doing. Dieter could picture her slight form scolding him for leaving her, and to solidify his vision, he began sketching it out in his journal. She was frowning, with her hands on her hips, and a second after his pencil left the page, the ache in his heart returned. Such a face was meant for smiling.
The crisp breeze that plagued the German encampment shot across the soggy grasses and struggled against the page Dieter, with great diligence, adorned with his chipped nub of a pencil. Dieter sighed and gently closed the pages, securing them with a stray piece of stained string. It was about time he made his way back to the others.
The camp was a hub of activity. Rumors of an upcoming French offensive were circulating among the ranks, rumors that were only fortified by the endless rows of young men that flooded into the headquarters.
Dieter pitied these unfortunate recruits. The timidness and lonesomeness in their otherwise blank eyes contradicted the decorous air with which they held their shoulders back. Their lips were pulled taut into indignant lines that looked like scars marring their faces, as if the tighter they were pressed together the less their fear would show. One soldier in particular was having trouble with maintaining the signature heroic grandeur so common among the more youthful forces. His eyes darted about so fast and with such insistence that Dieter thought they might just drag the poor boy around whichever way they pleased. The recruit’s chestnut hair was untamed, as if it was the last thing on his mind, and the undisguised lost expression on his face brought out the patronizing Dieter he’d thought he left at home with Irma.
The ranks of reinforcements dispersed, and, having nothing better to do, Dieter approached the brown-haired soldier. He cleared his throat and joked, “Quite the view, don’t you think?” Dieter smiled and gestured around the camp, indicating in particular the shell-holes from previous battles that littered the ground.
The recruit checked his surroundings for himself and gave a hesitant nod. Hoping to get at least a little speech out of him, Dieter continued, “What do they call you, soldier, and what’s your age?”
“Saelac. Seventeen.”
“Well, Saelac, I’m Dieter Neumann, and it’s almost time for supper.” Dieter began to tread towards the dingy kitchens after the rest of the men, with Saelac scampering along in his wake.
It seemed that the potency of the rumors increased as they got closer to the food. According to the wild notions of the men, the French were prepared to win the war for the Allies, and the defensive effort that was being fortified to stop them included Dieter and Saelac’s company.
Dieter stayed out of the thick of it, but nevertheless strained his ears to hear new developments of the conversation.
“I heard they’re led by a Robert Nivelle, the same one from Verdun,” said one man of the French forces.
Another, newer recruit chipped in, “They hope to squash us right away. You don’t think that will happen, do you?” He made an obvious effort to mask the fear in his voice, but such a habit was all too transparent to those more experienced.
In response, one of the men in the group surveyed the troops, skepticism scrunching his nose to add to the effect. He concluded, “I hope not, with lads as sorry as ours!” The table erupted with laughter at the feeble attempt at humor, and Dieter smirked before returning his attention to his own table and Saelac, who was seated across from him. Dieter cast an expectant look at the young man, waiting for him to start speaking, but Saelac just directed his gaze downward and pushed the crumbs in his mess-tin around with his fork. Recognizing that no conversation would come from his new friend, Dieter sighed, and having finished his own meal, got out his sketchbook and set to work on one of Irma’s knuckles he hadn’t quite depicted to his standards.
Sure enough, curiosity drove Saelac’s gaze up until it rested on the homey leather of the book, and to Dieter’s surprise, a slight smile danced across his features when he beheld Dieter’s intricate sketches. “You draw very well,” he commented. “Is that your wife?”
Dieter beamed at the very title and affirmed, “Yes, it’s my Irma.” He stopped there, seeing no need to continue— after all, Irma’s beauty spoke for itself.
Saelac regarded the artwork a bit longer before asking, “Do you do posters?”
“Posters?”
“Yes, you know, the ones to rally the people to join the war effort.”
Dieter could recall what he spoke of pinned up along the same street as his bakery— glorifying Germany and antagonizing the enemy— however, he’d never thought to contribute by making his own. “No, I’ve never drawn one, but I’d be willing to try,” he decided out loud.
He turned to one of the few remaining blank pages and got to work, outlining the basic details of the image in his head before moving on to the more meticulous ones. Somehow, this was different than drawing the comics of the mess-tins. It didn’t hold quite the magical effect that drawing Irma did, but if felt to Dieter as if it meant just as much. It had a sort of mystical air of its own, the thought of expressing one’s home in such a marvelous light. By some miracle, as his pencil flew across the page, the threat of the French attack lost importance. The sketching brought Dieter to the conclusion that Germany would be safe so long as Germans protected it, an idea that began to be portrayed on paper for all to see.
Saelac observed Dieter’s work, peering over his frantic arm as he shuffled it here and there. While he offered no comments, he was content enough with just watching.
In the absence of food, most of the others had deserted the area and separated back into their regular groups, leaving Dieter and Saelac as some of the last remaining presences. Dieter was unfazed by this, and only stopped moving his pencil when he was satisfied with his work. Letting out a breath it seemed he had held for his entire process, he sat back on the bench to the sound of the pencil clattering to the table, dropped from its master’s loving grip.
Saelac met Dieter’s eyes and glanced back at the journal as if asking for permission. When Dieter nodded in response, Saelac turned it to face him so he could give himself a better view of his new comrade’s work.
Depicted were two soldiers that stood on either side of a line. The soldier on the left sported the standard French uniform, and was marching as if he intended to cross the line. Dieter had included even the expression of his face, which with arched eyebrows, a pointy nose, and a maniacal grimace, looked as malevolent as a predator about to strike. Preventing the French soldier from going any further was the other man, a German infantryman like Dieter and Saelac. This soldier was a striking contrast to the French one, drawn with a determined expression and a hand held out in front of him in a “stop” signal. His clothing, his raised arm— everything down to his very stance was respectable. Scrawled across the top and bottom were the words, “Wenn unsere Heimat in Gefahr ist, kämpfen wir wieder! Schützen Sie, was dein ist, weiß, was richtig ist!”— “When our homeland is in danger, we fight back! Protect what is yours, do what is right!”
Saelac grinned. “This is very good,” he commented, handing the journal back to its owner.
Dieter thanked him, and suggested they get some sleep. “We will be best prepared for whatever is in store for us tomorrow if we are well rested,” he explained, and led the new recruit back to the heart of the encampment.
The intrusive racket of heavy footsteps woke Dieter and Saelac before the standard waking hour, leaving Dieter to rub his eyes and look around with a perplexed expression on his face. His confusion would not be lessened from his vantage point, so with great reluctance he hoisted himself to his feet and motioned for Saelac to do the same.
It was near impossible to find a still man among the restless, bustling troops. As something of great importance must have been under way, Dieter didn’t want to disrupt his comrades, but given time huffed in frustration, his ignorance of the situation making his head ache. A soldier who seemed far less preoccupied than the others walked by, and Dieter shot his arm out to get his attention.
“Comrade, what’s going on? The company rose before the usual time today.”
The soldier brightened at the inquiry, flashing Dieter and Saelac a gap toothed smile. “We’re heading to the river,” he revealed, as if it was obvious. Saelac had no reaction to this news— he was just as confused as before.
Dieter, however, furrowed his brow. “The Aisne? I thought the fighting there was over.”
The other man snorted, and scoffed, “Bah, far from it. The French Commander in Chief claims he can finish this whole war business in a matter of days. We’re sending reinforcements to Reims to prove him wrong.” He had to stop to chuckle to himself before adding, “Foolish Frenchman. Can’t he see that the war has changed? They’ll be slaughtered, is my bet.”
At the word “slaughtered,” Dieter felt the familiar pang of distaste at the forefront of his mind. It was a disgusting, savage word. The Germans were noble in protecting their country at all costs, and under no circumstances exhibited any such savagery, in his opinion.
The soldier must have interpreted Dieter’s sudden silence as an urge for him to continue, so he elaborated, “We leave in a few hours for the front. Herr General has informed us that if we keep a good pace, we should reach Reims by nightfall, and be fighting by this time tomorrow.”
“Thank you, we had no idea,” Dieter said, recovering from his bout of quietness.
“It was no bother, comrade.” He departed, leaving Dieter only to shake his head, eyes downcast.
True to the bellicose soldier’s word, Dieter and Saelac’s company departed from the front the moment they’d been provided with food. The impatient general wasted no time in getting the men moving, so the pair munched on stale rolls of bread as they walked, pressured onward from both ahead and behind by soldiers eager for activity.
It seemed that wherever Dieter looked, the land was scarred by trenches, shell-holes, and in the most gruesome cases, blood stained grass. The difficult distinction of human gore from earthy sludge was regretted by all, without exception. As the two soldiers marched along side by side, the younger’s eyes widened as he beheld the sights around him. The movements of his boyish head contradicted those of his spinal column, as one swiveled in fits of anxiety while the other stiffened at the same provocation.
Dieter’s unwavering, expressionless eyes softened at this, and he suggested, “Don’t let the officers see you like that— you’ll be punished. Try fixing your gaze straight ahead so you aren’t as much affected.” Saelac nodded, his neck still stiff, and fixated his glazed blue eyes on the horizon. He held this position until the first clusters of tents could be seen on the otherwise barren countryside.
The company had made good time, as the sun still wavered within view, as if debating whether to stay up and witness the action or not. They were instructed to stay in their current location, as with the looming threat of heavy French artillery, it would be unwise to populate the exposed trenches used in the first battle, the ones closer to enemy lines. Those were utilized for observational purposes only, the company was told.
Before Dieter and Saelac were given further directions, they were encouraged to eat, as each individual would need to be at their very strongest to repel the French offensive. The atmosphere was tense, as nothing stood between the soldiers and the bloody battle ahead of them but the will of the opposition’s commanders. The fighting could break out at any moment, and every soul in the camp could feel it scraping at their consciousness, demanding to be acknowledged.
It seemed to Dieter as if every nervous foot tap, every spoon flick, was administered upon his head, causing him to grind his teeth together in angst. Its incessancy was inescapable. At the first call of his name, he shot to his feet, toppling his mess tin onto Saelac in the process. “Yes?” he responded, scolding himself for the quaver in his voice.
“It’s your turn to scout for enemy activity. Move along, frontschwein!”
Dieter cast an apologetic look at Saelac and asked him, “Can you handle yourself while I’m gone? Will you be alright?” The young man nodded at his mentor. It was a tentative nod, but a nod nonetheless, which sufficed for Dieter, who was already scurrying away to the dreaded trenches.
He took his own advice and avoided surveying his surroundings as he approached his destination. It wasn’t long before the unmistakable array of barbed wire came into view, and Dieter shivered despite the stuffy heat his uniform provided. He had been warned just as much as the next man how frightening these particular trenches were, being so close to the enemy artillery and whatnot.
From what he could tell, nothing was occurring that was worth worrying about. All seemed normal among the French infantrymen until... no. Ammunition was being loaded into the weapons, and every instinct Dieter had in him forced him deep into the nearest trench as an ear-splitting boom shook the earth. All he could feel was the suffocating presence of collapsing dirt as German forces flooded towards the trenches and blackness consumed his vision.
The echoes hurt Dieter’s head. He needed something to hold onto. Reaching out, he felt a familiar hand grip his, belonging to none other than his own mother. “Maman?” he questioned, speaking French out of habit in respect for her culture.
“Oui, Laurent.” She smiled, and the echoes died down, relenting to the authority of the tranquil expression. “Are you well, my son?”
Dieter Laurent Neumann’s face contrasted hers, curling into a frown. “I wouldn’t know,” he admitted. It was true— any attempt he made to examine his own condition resulted in failure.
His mother breathed out a gentle chuckle. “That is fine, Laurent. My dear, poor Laurent....”
“Do you recognize him?” asked a voice.
“No,” answered another, “but I can’t say for certain he’s a boche, either. His uniform is too filthy to tell. Besides, I wouldn’t recognize every soldier here on Nivelle’s orders.”
“Well, is he alive?”
“He must be— watch his chest rise and fall! He’s breathing.”
“Then wake him up so we can be sure!”
At the sound of their voices, the figure beneath them stirred, and his eyes flickered open. The nearer of the two figures before him snapped a hand to the handle of his knife, but relaxed it when the fallen man mumbled, “Maman? Maman! Where am I?” His squinted eyes rested on the person who had reached for his weapon. “Who are you?”
“I’m Jean,” the man gestured to himself, “and this is Gaspard. Might I ask who you are?” His words were hesitant. This soldier must have been having troubles with his memory, and Jean did not want to upset him by asking questions he could not concoct an answer to.
To his relief, however, there was only a brief, puzzled pause before the man stated, “Laurent.”
A dissatisfied look crossed Laurent’s features, but was wiped away by Gaspard when he inquired, “What happened to you, Laurent? The entire top half of your uniform is torn to shreds!”
Laurent furrowed his brow. “I don’t know,” he said. The flesh above his heart felt exposed, and not just because his uniform was absent there. A certain weight was missing there, but Laurent could not quite discern what was absent.
He raised one of his hands to wipe the grime from his face, but pulled it away to find it stained with sticky blood. “I must have been hit in the head,” he continued, showing the pair his palm, “because I can’t seem to remember anything at all.”
Gaspard snorted, “Oh, what I’d give to be like that.” He extended his own hand to help Laurent up, and the three of them together set off toward the French encampment.
Regardless of careening off balance every few steps, Laurent pestered Jean and Gaspard for every detail of their situation. To humor him, they recounted the circumstances of the war, and how they were fighting to protect their homeland, because it deserved every ounce of defense the French people could provide.
“Is that why I’m here, too?” Laurent asked.
Gaspard nodded. “Must be. It’s why every Frenchman is here, I’d hope.
There was a brief lapse in conversation before Laurent remarked, “That seems to me like the right thing to do, protecting where you come from.”
“Where we come from,” Jean corrected.
A smile enveloped Laurent’s face as he hobbled along after his two new friends, advancing on the warm glow of the tents ahead.
The French had obviously very well prepared for their offensive. Within minutes, Laurent’s head had been bandaged, his hunger had been combated with a meal, and he had been situated comfortably at a rickety table across from Jean and Gaspard. Random stacks of supplies were scattered all about the headquarters, and Laurent snatched up a scrap of paper and a pencil and began to doodle absentmindedly.
Jean took note of this and inquired, “Do you like to draw much, Laurent?”
Laurent looked down, as if unaware of what he’d been doing. “I suppose I do.”
“Good,” Jean commented, “we’ve been in desperate need of some morale. Have you drawn war posters before?”
Laurent didn’t hesitate in saying, “I can’t remember.” Such an answer had become a commonality for him by then.
Gaspard laughed, “Of course you don’t. But why not give it a try? Come on, draw us something that will rally the troops!”
Laurent, ever the obedient comrade, set to work, outlining two figures on either side of a line— on the left, a French soldier, and on the right, a German one. With his extended arm preventing the evil, wide-grinned foreigner from invading his country, the Frenchman was depicted as a symbol of valiance and pride. When he’d finished, Laurent captioned the image, “Quand notre patrie est en danger, nous battre! Protégez ce qui est à toi, faire quoi est juste!”— “When our homeland is in danger, we fight back! Protect what is yours, do what is right!”
Just as Laurent was handing his masterpiece over to Jean and Gaspard, a pained cry erupted in the distance. Gaspard swore. The Germans must have decided to launch a counterattack.
Sure enough, heavy bombardment rained down from the sky, just as men rose from their trenches like corpses from their graves. While the French artillery chiseled away at the German numbers, the enemy defense was a thick one, and forced the French to deploy their own infantrymen into the field.
All of this occurred as Laurent still sat at the table, his mouth hanging wide open. His hands twitched to an absent weapon, which was noticed with a grunt of frustration. He must do something, he must do something, he must do something!
“Get me a gun!” he ordered of Jean, who gave him a stare proportionate to Irma’s.
“You don’t mean to—”
“Yes, I do!”
A gun was placed in Laurent’s open palm, and he raced off in the direction of the fray, tripping every so often. Chaos ensued before he even reached the edge of the fighting, as blood splattered his shoes and inhuman screeches pierced his ears. How could those be humans, eliciting such revolting effects from each other? A grenade arced over Laurent’s head, and in a panic he dove into the nearest trench just as the telltale debris whizzed past his ears.
The second Laurent regained his bearings, he saw that he was not alone. His company was boy with dark brown hair and a German uniform, aged around seventeen. The poor soldier was huddled against the wall, his back pressed so hard against it that it left an indent, visible when he straightened to better assess his opponent.
They took a few moments to stare at each other, Laurent’s eyes narrowing in confusion as his counterpart’s widened in disbelief. “Comrade, is that you?” the smaller one whispered.
Laurent balked. How could he have understood his enemy’s native German speech? “Non, pas ‘comrade,‘ not ‘comrade,’” he argued.
The German’s hopeful gaze wavered at this. “Why do you speak French to me? It must be you, Dieter!”
Laurent blinked. “Dieter,” he repeated, as if the name belonged to an old friend he was trying to recall the features of.
“Yes, Dieter— you. We all thought you were dead! You’ve been missing since the French took control of the trenches, and when our counterattack was successful I went back to where you were scouting and found this laying in the muck.” He cast about in the pockets of his uniform for what he’d been referring to, and when he found it, handed it to the other man.
Laurent could no longer see the smoke of the overheated weaponry; he could no longer hear the screams and the gunfire. In his hands was a mud-splotched, hole-riddled, leather-bound journal held together with a string. The string broke at Laurent’s slightest tug, and the book fell open to a random page. Someone had sketched the same woman over and over again, and as he turned the page, a striking image of a feminine eye glared through his heart. Its gaze looked like February. Laurent turned to the last page. On it were two figures, opposite each other, and in his handwriting was written....
Thud. The sketchbook dropped to the ground as Laurent fumbled in his own pockets for a creased slip of paper. Even as his eyes scanned over it, that was dropped too. The two images side by side were too much.
“They’re the same, boy— what have I done? I’m a traitor! Oh, what have I done, what have I done?” Laurent screamed and proceeded to stomp on the drawings. He was no longer Laurent, or even Dieter— he was a monster, smashing what had upset him. The sounds of war were back in his head, and they drove his foot down onto the papers with every crescendo of wails of pain. Tears flowed in streams down his face, blurring his vision, until at last, Dieter Laurent Neumann had exhausted himself of his ferocity, and trembled.
He bent down to retrieve the papers and, with one last sorrowful look, tore out the German poster from the journal and crumpled it into a ball with the French one. Wasting no time in discarding the ball, he hurled it out of the trench. The rest of the journal, however, he held close to his chest as he turned to his supposed comrade.
“Saelac?” His voice was hoarse from the screaming, so the young man had to strain to hear him. “Are you Saelac?” He spoke in the softest German Saelac had ever heard, coaxing him closer to his former mentor.
Saelac spoke as if to a child, “Yes, Dieter, I am Saelac, your friend. Do you not remember me?”
“I didn’t. Now I do, but then? No.”
The young man avoided pressuring him. “That’s alright,” he assured Dieter just as his mother had, “but your dressings are bloody. We must leave.”
His suggestion was easier to say than to do, for after resurfacing from the depths of the trench, Saelac was shot square in the leg. Dieter hoisted his friend onto his back, and no matter how many times he fell, did not stop until he had reached the safety of the tents behind German lines. Once he felt a stinging force rip through his shoulder, but he carried on regardless.
For a reason unbeknownst to Dieter, he was escorted to the medical train along with Saelac. He protested, as he could feel nothing, but the doctors would have none of it, as the German side had the clear upper hand. Dieter relented, letting sleep overcome him as he lay next to Saelac on their journey to the hospital.
Dieter awoke in an itchy hospital bed, his head and right arm bandaged. He felt a certain... disconnection with his fingertips that was unfamiliar to him. Movement was possible, but limited. He would never be able to draw again, of that he was sure, but he wasn’t upset about it. He didn’t want to draw again; he didn’t trust himself enough. How could he? He was no better than a traitor, fighting for the wrong side. But he hadn’t remembered his German allegiances. Those soldiers had been doing the same as him, protecting their home. Dieter gave up— it was impossible for anyone to be right in a mess like this.
He looked around, seeking for the source of the noise that awakened him. Saelac lay opposite him, shaking and thrashing around on the hospital bed. The nightmares, the terrible nightmares, had plagued the young man ever since the surgeons had amputated his wounded leg.
“Saelac. Saelac! Wake up!”
Saelac’s eyes snapped open just as a scrub-clad surgeon stepped through the door. Silence poisoned the air as they assessed one another. There was something about the surgeon’s eyes that seemed alien. Awash with color, they ensnared Dieter with tales of pain and tragedy, of loss and mistake. He wanted to know those tales.
In time, he did come to know them, the tales of Sven Vogt. The surgeon had told his new companions he’d been the “monster of the Eastern Front,” which didn’t bother them, as a monster made good company for a coward and a traitor. They settled in Strasbourg with what family they had left. The twenty years they spent there were almost a welcomed type of torturous, a blur of wartime confessions and utter denial. Gone were the times of the trenches, but the fighting never left. They fought the glory that graced their return home; the heavy silence that cursed their dinner tables.
Dieter had thought Irma would hate him for his horrible mistake, but whenever he met her February eyes, they softened to March, to a time before wars and petulance. He held off on telling his own tale until he could not stand his wife’s gaze any longer, and to her, Saelac, and Sven he relayed the whole thing. He cast his eyes down, shame evident in the very tilt of his shoulders.
However, Sven’s story was never revealed to them in its entirety until the latest possible moment. He summoned Dieter and Saelac to the local hospital, asking a favor of them. Their compliance was unquestioning— Sven had asked for nothing since they’d met each other.
The second the veterans walked into the designated hospital ward, Sven, in full uniform, began talking, telling them every twist, turn, and detail of his time in Russia. The words began to overwhelm him, contorting his face and gluing his eyes shut. He articulated each word as if it were his last, telling his friends how bloodthirsty he’d been after his mother’s death, and of the vengeance with witch he mutilated Russian soldiers. By the end of his narration, he was in pieces on the floor, sobbing into the polished linoleum. Without warning, he fled from the room, leaving Dieter and Saelac to exchange worried glances.
“What’s wrong with him? What is he thinking?” Saelac stuttered out, still stunned by Sven’s exit. He shuffled in his seat, wanting to go after Sven but restricted by his missing leg.
“I don’t know. Wait here, I’ll go bring him back.”
Dieter raced through the hospital, up the flights of stairs Sven had taken. He burst through the door to the rooftop just as the surgeon launched himself off the guardrail and plummeted to the ground.
Sven’s funeral might have been just as terrible as Dieter’s last day on the front. He and Saelac had been requested to write their friend a eulogy and read it at the funeral. They obliged, not men to discard a comrade’s memory after death. Late into the nights the veterans would sit in the two creaking chairs by Dieter’s fireplace, sometimes engaged in quiet conversation and sometimes silent. Working through Sven’s issues seemed the same as working through their own, and it left them empty of all but grief as Saelac would scribe for a Dieter who wouldn’t touch a pen, speaking up here and there to contribute. Regardless of the pain, the day came that Sven’s body was in a casket and Dieter had to help a crippled Saelac up the stairs and onto the stage, where they could look out and see the empty chairs and the empty eyes. Saelac, overcome with anxiety as he was, handed a finger-worn slip of paper to Dieter, who cleared his throat and read like he was reassuring himself.
“Today we honor the hero that wasn’t a hero. This is meant in the most respectful way, as the man we gather here for saw past the thick facade that veils the truth of war. Sven Vogt started as a simple man, but he, like the rest, was swept up in the current of the battles and the petty triumphs. The trouble is, he went off the waterfall sooner than the rest of us, because he was so wise as to see that what we’ve done in the Great War is inescapable in this lifetime.
“Sven would not have wanted us to lie to you. He would have wanted us to tell you the horrors of his actions. He was corrupted with vengeance and lost sight of who he was. All he wanted was forgiveness, but all he received was regret, consuming him all these years later. But for everything he had done, his eyes still held the same light as he persisted through the cards he had dealt himself. Regardless of his past, he was courageous for the decision he made to take his own life. He was a pioneer in profound self realization for our generation. To those he affected in Russia, he was a monster, but to those of us closer to home, with our own personal wartime struggles, Sven was a hero. But what is the difference between a monster and a hero? The war changed us how it liked regardless.
“But don’t mind a foolish soldier’s words. Make of Sven what you will. But I know that if he lived, he would stand beside us in our struggle against history. He would learn from his mistakes and love us like family, bearing his surgeon’s scalpel against the trials of tomorrow.”
Dieter shook his head. “But darling, they didn’t recruit me. I enlisted myself.”
Irma, bless her, didn’t miss a beat, and snapped back, “But why? This fight is for the Kaiser, not for you! You hold no aggression against the French! Think of your dear mother, what would she say of your poor decisions?”
Chuckling, Dieter’s gaze settled on the scenery out the window. Shouldn’t Irma know better than to argue with him about this? The reasoning behind his abrupt departure for the army was so clear to him— how could she not see it?
His wife’s tense, crossed arms warned against him articulating such frustrations, so he gathered the wisdom to refrain from doing so. Instead he joked, “She would say, “Mon dieu, Laurent, you are a grown man! It’s not my time to make decisions for you!’” He accentuated his speech with his mother’s thick French inflections, and used his second name, which she had chosen for him herself.
Despite his efforts, Irma recoiled at the humor that danced in his eyes. “Dieter, there is no sense in leaving. What will become of the shop when you’re gone?” She gestured around the room, almost toppling their merchandise: tall racks upon which sat row after row of pastries. The couple couldn’t help but balk at how full their pastry rack was. Before the war had started, the Neumanns’ community-renowned Blechkuchen squares seemed to vanish of their own accord; now, they sat untouched. Dieter turned his head back to face his wife, and in an attempt to take advantage of the attention she held, Irma’s tone turned pleading. “Please stay. What are you going to accomplish in fighting? You don’t even know the circumstances, so how can you know what difference you will make? You disconcert me with the blind faith you have in a country that might as well have been wrong in this conflict. Men die on the front every hour, Dieter. What could be so important about that mess for you subject yourself to such a gruesome fate? Here, you have a roof above your head, you have the bakery to attend to, and you have me. Does your home hold any importance to you in the slightest?” Tears glistened above her soft blue eyes, and Dieter saw in them the sky in February— leaving both a beautiful resonance and a distinct chill. As gentle a hue as her soft, honey-blonde hair was, it would be seared in his mind until he saw it next, plaguing him as a vivid reminder of her absence.
Grasping her hands in his, Dieter spoke with great care. “My home is here, with you in Strasbourg, but therefore it is Deutschland as well. It does not matter what one side has done to provoke the other! I only care that my homeland has people to protect it; I am just doing what is right. At the moment, my country needs me more than you do— you are strong, while it is weak. Forgive me Irma, but I must go.”
With that, his hands detached themselves from hers. Rather than facing those piercing eyes one last time, he kissed her on the forehead, grabbed his pack, and trod out the door and into the night. He must have passed three other shops before he felt a delicate finger tap his shoulder.
“Irma, my mind is ma—” Before he could finish, Dieter was wrapped in a tight embrace, and his wife had slipped a smooth, rectangular object into his hands. Looking down, he saw it was a journal, bought brand-new from the local bookshop.
Answering his questioning gaze, Irma explained with a regretful shake of her head, “It’s so you remember who Dieter is, you foolish man.” She then spun on her heel and raced back off down the street, leaving Dieter to turn her gift over and over in his hands.
It had been two months, and Dieter still drew her every day. He drew her hands kneading bread, her cheeks when she smiled. Every drawing he kept in the leather-bound journal that fit, if with slight difficulty, into his breast pocket just above his heart. Though its edges were worn and flying debris had left in it soldier-worthy wounds, the journal was never lost. How could he lose it? It was his lifeline. When bullets whizzed past Dieter’s ears and fear encroached on his heart, he absorbed Irma’s strength through his sketches. He would never loose the Dieter of the bakery to the Dieter of the battlefield, so long as he had his wife to guide him.
On that particular overcast day in early April, when the new recruits came, he had been drawing those February eyes of hers. As he had no colors to work with, he couldn’t quite do them justice, but even the outlines of her eyelids lessened the ache in his heart. On occasion, he had attempted to illustrate other things. Many times, the jesting soldiers of his company had suggested he capture the “ominous beauty” of spoons scraping empty mess-tins, so they could send it to the mistreated lads that brought the rations. Try as he might, he couldn’t bring himself to do it—temporary hunger meant nothing to him, while Irma meant everything. He mulled over where she was at that moment, and what she was doing. Dieter could picture her slight form scolding him for leaving her, and to solidify his vision, he began sketching it out in his journal. She was frowning, with her hands on her hips, and a second after his pencil left the page, the ache in his heart returned. Such a face was meant for smiling.
The crisp breeze that plagued the German encampment shot across the soggy grasses and struggled against the page Dieter, with great diligence, adorned with his chipped nub of a pencil. Dieter sighed and gently closed the pages, securing them with a stray piece of stained string. It was about time he made his way back to the others.
The camp was a hub of activity. Rumors of an upcoming French offensive were circulating among the ranks, rumors that were only fortified by the endless rows of young men that flooded into the headquarters.
Dieter pitied these unfortunate recruits. The timidness and lonesomeness in their otherwise blank eyes contradicted the decorous air with which they held their shoulders back. Their lips were pulled taut into indignant lines that looked like scars marring their faces, as if the tighter they were pressed together the less their fear would show. One soldier in particular was having trouble with maintaining the signature heroic grandeur so common among the more youthful forces. His eyes darted about so fast and with such insistence that Dieter thought they might just drag the poor boy around whichever way they pleased. The recruit’s chestnut hair was untamed, as if it was the last thing on his mind, and the undisguised lost expression on his face brought out the patronizing Dieter he’d thought he left at home with Irma.
The ranks of reinforcements dispersed, and, having nothing better to do, Dieter approached the brown-haired soldier. He cleared his throat and joked, “Quite the view, don’t you think?” Dieter smiled and gestured around the camp, indicating in particular the shell-holes from previous battles that littered the ground.
The recruit checked his surroundings for himself and gave a hesitant nod. Hoping to get at least a little speech out of him, Dieter continued, “What do they call you, soldier, and what’s your age?”
“Saelac. Seventeen.”
“Well, Saelac, I’m Dieter Neumann, and it’s almost time for supper.” Dieter began to tread towards the dingy kitchens after the rest of the men, with Saelac scampering along in his wake.
It seemed that the potency of the rumors increased as they got closer to the food. According to the wild notions of the men, the French were prepared to win the war for the Allies, and the defensive effort that was being fortified to stop them included Dieter and Saelac’s company.
Dieter stayed out of the thick of it, but nevertheless strained his ears to hear new developments of the conversation.
“I heard they’re led by a Robert Nivelle, the same one from Verdun,” said one man of the French forces.
Another, newer recruit chipped in, “They hope to squash us right away. You don’t think that will happen, do you?” He made an obvious effort to mask the fear in his voice, but such a habit was all too transparent to those more experienced.
In response, one of the men in the group surveyed the troops, skepticism scrunching his nose to add to the effect. He concluded, “I hope not, with lads as sorry as ours!” The table erupted with laughter at the feeble attempt at humor, and Dieter smirked before returning his attention to his own table and Saelac, who was seated across from him. Dieter cast an expectant look at the young man, waiting for him to start speaking, but Saelac just directed his gaze downward and pushed the crumbs in his mess-tin around with his fork. Recognizing that no conversation would come from his new friend, Dieter sighed, and having finished his own meal, got out his sketchbook and set to work on one of Irma’s knuckles he hadn’t quite depicted to his standards.
Sure enough, curiosity drove Saelac’s gaze up until it rested on the homey leather of the book, and to Dieter’s surprise, a slight smile danced across his features when he beheld Dieter’s intricate sketches. “You draw very well,” he commented. “Is that your wife?”
Dieter beamed at the very title and affirmed, “Yes, it’s my Irma.” He stopped there, seeing no need to continue— after all, Irma’s beauty spoke for itself.
Saelac regarded the artwork a bit longer before asking, “Do you do posters?”
“Posters?”
“Yes, you know, the ones to rally the people to join the war effort.”
Dieter could recall what he spoke of pinned up along the same street as his bakery— glorifying Germany and antagonizing the enemy— however, he’d never thought to contribute by making his own. “No, I’ve never drawn one, but I’d be willing to try,” he decided out loud.
He turned to one of the few remaining blank pages and got to work, outlining the basic details of the image in his head before moving on to the more meticulous ones. Somehow, this was different than drawing the comics of the mess-tins. It didn’t hold quite the magical effect that drawing Irma did, but if felt to Dieter as if it meant just as much. It had a sort of mystical air of its own, the thought of expressing one’s home in such a marvelous light. By some miracle, as his pencil flew across the page, the threat of the French attack lost importance. The sketching brought Dieter to the conclusion that Germany would be safe so long as Germans protected it, an idea that began to be portrayed on paper for all to see.
Saelac observed Dieter’s work, peering over his frantic arm as he shuffled it here and there. While he offered no comments, he was content enough with just watching.
In the absence of food, most of the others had deserted the area and separated back into their regular groups, leaving Dieter and Saelac as some of the last remaining presences. Dieter was unfazed by this, and only stopped moving his pencil when he was satisfied with his work. Letting out a breath it seemed he had held for his entire process, he sat back on the bench to the sound of the pencil clattering to the table, dropped from its master’s loving grip.
Saelac met Dieter’s eyes and glanced back at the journal as if asking for permission. When Dieter nodded in response, Saelac turned it to face him so he could give himself a better view of his new comrade’s work.
Depicted were two soldiers that stood on either side of a line. The soldier on the left sported the standard French uniform, and was marching as if he intended to cross the line. Dieter had included even the expression of his face, which with arched eyebrows, a pointy nose, and a maniacal grimace, looked as malevolent as a predator about to strike. Preventing the French soldier from going any further was the other man, a German infantryman like Dieter and Saelac. This soldier was a striking contrast to the French one, drawn with a determined expression and a hand held out in front of him in a “stop” signal. His clothing, his raised arm— everything down to his very stance was respectable. Scrawled across the top and bottom were the words, “Wenn unsere Heimat in Gefahr ist, kämpfen wir wieder! Schützen Sie, was dein ist, weiß, was richtig ist!”— “When our homeland is in danger, we fight back! Protect what is yours, do what is right!”
Saelac grinned. “This is very good,” he commented, handing the journal back to its owner.
Dieter thanked him, and suggested they get some sleep. “We will be best prepared for whatever is in store for us tomorrow if we are well rested,” he explained, and led the new recruit back to the heart of the encampment.
The intrusive racket of heavy footsteps woke Dieter and Saelac before the standard waking hour, leaving Dieter to rub his eyes and look around with a perplexed expression on his face. His confusion would not be lessened from his vantage point, so with great reluctance he hoisted himself to his feet and motioned for Saelac to do the same.
It was near impossible to find a still man among the restless, bustling troops. As something of great importance must have been under way, Dieter didn’t want to disrupt his comrades, but given time huffed in frustration, his ignorance of the situation making his head ache. A soldier who seemed far less preoccupied than the others walked by, and Dieter shot his arm out to get his attention.
“Comrade, what’s going on? The company rose before the usual time today.”
The soldier brightened at the inquiry, flashing Dieter and Saelac a gap toothed smile. “We’re heading to the river,” he revealed, as if it was obvious. Saelac had no reaction to this news— he was just as confused as before.
Dieter, however, furrowed his brow. “The Aisne? I thought the fighting there was over.”
The other man snorted, and scoffed, “Bah, far from it. The French Commander in Chief claims he can finish this whole war business in a matter of days. We’re sending reinforcements to Reims to prove him wrong.” He had to stop to chuckle to himself before adding, “Foolish Frenchman. Can’t he see that the war has changed? They’ll be slaughtered, is my bet.”
At the word “slaughtered,” Dieter felt the familiar pang of distaste at the forefront of his mind. It was a disgusting, savage word. The Germans were noble in protecting their country at all costs, and under no circumstances exhibited any such savagery, in his opinion.
The soldier must have interpreted Dieter’s sudden silence as an urge for him to continue, so he elaborated, “We leave in a few hours for the front. Herr General has informed us that if we keep a good pace, we should reach Reims by nightfall, and be fighting by this time tomorrow.”
“Thank you, we had no idea,” Dieter said, recovering from his bout of quietness.
“It was no bother, comrade.” He departed, leaving Dieter only to shake his head, eyes downcast.
True to the bellicose soldier’s word, Dieter and Saelac’s company departed from the front the moment they’d been provided with food. The impatient general wasted no time in getting the men moving, so the pair munched on stale rolls of bread as they walked, pressured onward from both ahead and behind by soldiers eager for activity.
It seemed that wherever Dieter looked, the land was scarred by trenches, shell-holes, and in the most gruesome cases, blood stained grass. The difficult distinction of human gore from earthy sludge was regretted by all, without exception. As the two soldiers marched along side by side, the younger’s eyes widened as he beheld the sights around him. The movements of his boyish head contradicted those of his spinal column, as one swiveled in fits of anxiety while the other stiffened at the same provocation.
Dieter’s unwavering, expressionless eyes softened at this, and he suggested, “Don’t let the officers see you like that— you’ll be punished. Try fixing your gaze straight ahead so you aren’t as much affected.” Saelac nodded, his neck still stiff, and fixated his glazed blue eyes on the horizon. He held this position until the first clusters of tents could be seen on the otherwise barren countryside.
The company had made good time, as the sun still wavered within view, as if debating whether to stay up and witness the action or not. They were instructed to stay in their current location, as with the looming threat of heavy French artillery, it would be unwise to populate the exposed trenches used in the first battle, the ones closer to enemy lines. Those were utilized for observational purposes only, the company was told.
Before Dieter and Saelac were given further directions, they were encouraged to eat, as each individual would need to be at their very strongest to repel the French offensive. The atmosphere was tense, as nothing stood between the soldiers and the bloody battle ahead of them but the will of the opposition’s commanders. The fighting could break out at any moment, and every soul in the camp could feel it scraping at their consciousness, demanding to be acknowledged.
It seemed to Dieter as if every nervous foot tap, every spoon flick, was administered upon his head, causing him to grind his teeth together in angst. Its incessancy was inescapable. At the first call of his name, he shot to his feet, toppling his mess tin onto Saelac in the process. “Yes?” he responded, scolding himself for the quaver in his voice.
“It’s your turn to scout for enemy activity. Move along, frontschwein!”
Dieter cast an apologetic look at Saelac and asked him, “Can you handle yourself while I’m gone? Will you be alright?” The young man nodded at his mentor. It was a tentative nod, but a nod nonetheless, which sufficed for Dieter, who was already scurrying away to the dreaded trenches.
He took his own advice and avoided surveying his surroundings as he approached his destination. It wasn’t long before the unmistakable array of barbed wire came into view, and Dieter shivered despite the stuffy heat his uniform provided. He had been warned just as much as the next man how frightening these particular trenches were, being so close to the enemy artillery and whatnot.
From what he could tell, nothing was occurring that was worth worrying about. All seemed normal among the French infantrymen until... no. Ammunition was being loaded into the weapons, and every instinct Dieter had in him forced him deep into the nearest trench as an ear-splitting boom shook the earth. All he could feel was the suffocating presence of collapsing dirt as German forces flooded towards the trenches and blackness consumed his vision.
The echoes hurt Dieter’s head. He needed something to hold onto. Reaching out, he felt a familiar hand grip his, belonging to none other than his own mother. “Maman?” he questioned, speaking French out of habit in respect for her culture.
“Oui, Laurent.” She smiled, and the echoes died down, relenting to the authority of the tranquil expression. “Are you well, my son?”
Dieter Laurent Neumann’s face contrasted hers, curling into a frown. “I wouldn’t know,” he admitted. It was true— any attempt he made to examine his own condition resulted in failure.
His mother breathed out a gentle chuckle. “That is fine, Laurent. My dear, poor Laurent....”
“Do you recognize him?” asked a voice.
“No,” answered another, “but I can’t say for certain he’s a boche, either. His uniform is too filthy to tell. Besides, I wouldn’t recognize every soldier here on Nivelle’s orders.”
“Well, is he alive?”
“He must be— watch his chest rise and fall! He’s breathing.”
“Then wake him up so we can be sure!”
At the sound of their voices, the figure beneath them stirred, and his eyes flickered open. The nearer of the two figures before him snapped a hand to the handle of his knife, but relaxed it when the fallen man mumbled, “Maman? Maman! Where am I?” His squinted eyes rested on the person who had reached for his weapon. “Who are you?”
“I’m Jean,” the man gestured to himself, “and this is Gaspard. Might I ask who you are?” His words were hesitant. This soldier must have been having troubles with his memory, and Jean did not want to upset him by asking questions he could not concoct an answer to.
To his relief, however, there was only a brief, puzzled pause before the man stated, “Laurent.”
A dissatisfied look crossed Laurent’s features, but was wiped away by Gaspard when he inquired, “What happened to you, Laurent? The entire top half of your uniform is torn to shreds!”
Laurent furrowed his brow. “I don’t know,” he said. The flesh above his heart felt exposed, and not just because his uniform was absent there. A certain weight was missing there, but Laurent could not quite discern what was absent.
He raised one of his hands to wipe the grime from his face, but pulled it away to find it stained with sticky blood. “I must have been hit in the head,” he continued, showing the pair his palm, “because I can’t seem to remember anything at all.”
Gaspard snorted, “Oh, what I’d give to be like that.” He extended his own hand to help Laurent up, and the three of them together set off toward the French encampment.
Regardless of careening off balance every few steps, Laurent pestered Jean and Gaspard for every detail of their situation. To humor him, they recounted the circumstances of the war, and how they were fighting to protect their homeland, because it deserved every ounce of defense the French people could provide.
“Is that why I’m here, too?” Laurent asked.
Gaspard nodded. “Must be. It’s why every Frenchman is here, I’d hope.
There was a brief lapse in conversation before Laurent remarked, “That seems to me like the right thing to do, protecting where you come from.”
“Where we come from,” Jean corrected.
A smile enveloped Laurent’s face as he hobbled along after his two new friends, advancing on the warm glow of the tents ahead.
The French had obviously very well prepared for their offensive. Within minutes, Laurent’s head had been bandaged, his hunger had been combated with a meal, and he had been situated comfortably at a rickety table across from Jean and Gaspard. Random stacks of supplies were scattered all about the headquarters, and Laurent snatched up a scrap of paper and a pencil and began to doodle absentmindedly.
Jean took note of this and inquired, “Do you like to draw much, Laurent?”
Laurent looked down, as if unaware of what he’d been doing. “I suppose I do.”
“Good,” Jean commented, “we’ve been in desperate need of some morale. Have you drawn war posters before?”
Laurent didn’t hesitate in saying, “I can’t remember.” Such an answer had become a commonality for him by then.
Gaspard laughed, “Of course you don’t. But why not give it a try? Come on, draw us something that will rally the troops!”
Laurent, ever the obedient comrade, set to work, outlining two figures on either side of a line— on the left, a French soldier, and on the right, a German one. With his extended arm preventing the evil, wide-grinned foreigner from invading his country, the Frenchman was depicted as a symbol of valiance and pride. When he’d finished, Laurent captioned the image, “Quand notre patrie est en danger, nous battre! Protégez ce qui est à toi, faire quoi est juste!”— “When our homeland is in danger, we fight back! Protect what is yours, do what is right!”
Just as Laurent was handing his masterpiece over to Jean and Gaspard, a pained cry erupted in the distance. Gaspard swore. The Germans must have decided to launch a counterattack.
Sure enough, heavy bombardment rained down from the sky, just as men rose from their trenches like corpses from their graves. While the French artillery chiseled away at the German numbers, the enemy defense was a thick one, and forced the French to deploy their own infantrymen into the field.
All of this occurred as Laurent still sat at the table, his mouth hanging wide open. His hands twitched to an absent weapon, which was noticed with a grunt of frustration. He must do something, he must do something, he must do something!
“Get me a gun!” he ordered of Jean, who gave him a stare proportionate to Irma’s.
“You don’t mean to—”
“Yes, I do!”
A gun was placed in Laurent’s open palm, and he raced off in the direction of the fray, tripping every so often. Chaos ensued before he even reached the edge of the fighting, as blood splattered his shoes and inhuman screeches pierced his ears. How could those be humans, eliciting such revolting effects from each other? A grenade arced over Laurent’s head, and in a panic he dove into the nearest trench just as the telltale debris whizzed past his ears.
The second Laurent regained his bearings, he saw that he was not alone. His company was boy with dark brown hair and a German uniform, aged around seventeen. The poor soldier was huddled against the wall, his back pressed so hard against it that it left an indent, visible when he straightened to better assess his opponent.
They took a few moments to stare at each other, Laurent’s eyes narrowing in confusion as his counterpart’s widened in disbelief. “Comrade, is that you?” the smaller one whispered.
Laurent balked. How could he have understood his enemy’s native German speech? “Non, pas ‘comrade,‘ not ‘comrade,’” he argued.
The German’s hopeful gaze wavered at this. “Why do you speak French to me? It must be you, Dieter!”
Laurent blinked. “Dieter,” he repeated, as if the name belonged to an old friend he was trying to recall the features of.
“Yes, Dieter— you. We all thought you were dead! You’ve been missing since the French took control of the trenches, and when our counterattack was successful I went back to where you were scouting and found this laying in the muck.” He cast about in the pockets of his uniform for what he’d been referring to, and when he found it, handed it to the other man.
Laurent could no longer see the smoke of the overheated weaponry; he could no longer hear the screams and the gunfire. In his hands was a mud-splotched, hole-riddled, leather-bound journal held together with a string. The string broke at Laurent’s slightest tug, and the book fell open to a random page. Someone had sketched the same woman over and over again, and as he turned the page, a striking image of a feminine eye glared through his heart. Its gaze looked like February. Laurent turned to the last page. On it were two figures, opposite each other, and in his handwriting was written....
Thud. The sketchbook dropped to the ground as Laurent fumbled in his own pockets for a creased slip of paper. Even as his eyes scanned over it, that was dropped too. The two images side by side were too much.
“They’re the same, boy— what have I done? I’m a traitor! Oh, what have I done, what have I done?” Laurent screamed and proceeded to stomp on the drawings. He was no longer Laurent, or even Dieter— he was a monster, smashing what had upset him. The sounds of war were back in his head, and they drove his foot down onto the papers with every crescendo of wails of pain. Tears flowed in streams down his face, blurring his vision, until at last, Dieter Laurent Neumann had exhausted himself of his ferocity, and trembled.
He bent down to retrieve the papers and, with one last sorrowful look, tore out the German poster from the journal and crumpled it into a ball with the French one. Wasting no time in discarding the ball, he hurled it out of the trench. The rest of the journal, however, he held close to his chest as he turned to his supposed comrade.
“Saelac?” His voice was hoarse from the screaming, so the young man had to strain to hear him. “Are you Saelac?” He spoke in the softest German Saelac had ever heard, coaxing him closer to his former mentor.
Saelac spoke as if to a child, “Yes, Dieter, I am Saelac, your friend. Do you not remember me?”
“I didn’t. Now I do, but then? No.”
The young man avoided pressuring him. “That’s alright,” he assured Dieter just as his mother had, “but your dressings are bloody. We must leave.”
His suggestion was easier to say than to do, for after resurfacing from the depths of the trench, Saelac was shot square in the leg. Dieter hoisted his friend onto his back, and no matter how many times he fell, did not stop until he had reached the safety of the tents behind German lines. Once he felt a stinging force rip through his shoulder, but he carried on regardless.
For a reason unbeknownst to Dieter, he was escorted to the medical train along with Saelac. He protested, as he could feel nothing, but the doctors would have none of it, as the German side had the clear upper hand. Dieter relented, letting sleep overcome him as he lay next to Saelac on their journey to the hospital.
Dieter awoke in an itchy hospital bed, his head and right arm bandaged. He felt a certain... disconnection with his fingertips that was unfamiliar to him. Movement was possible, but limited. He would never be able to draw again, of that he was sure, but he wasn’t upset about it. He didn’t want to draw again; he didn’t trust himself enough. How could he? He was no better than a traitor, fighting for the wrong side. But he hadn’t remembered his German allegiances. Those soldiers had been doing the same as him, protecting their home. Dieter gave up— it was impossible for anyone to be right in a mess like this.
He looked around, seeking for the source of the noise that awakened him. Saelac lay opposite him, shaking and thrashing around on the hospital bed. The nightmares, the terrible nightmares, had plagued the young man ever since the surgeons had amputated his wounded leg.
“Saelac. Saelac! Wake up!”
Saelac’s eyes snapped open just as a scrub-clad surgeon stepped through the door. Silence poisoned the air as they assessed one another. There was something about the surgeon’s eyes that seemed alien. Awash with color, they ensnared Dieter with tales of pain and tragedy, of loss and mistake. He wanted to know those tales.
In time, he did come to know them, the tales of Sven Vogt. The surgeon had told his new companions he’d been the “monster of the Eastern Front,” which didn’t bother them, as a monster made good company for a coward and a traitor. They settled in Strasbourg with what family they had left. The twenty years they spent there were almost a welcomed type of torturous, a blur of wartime confessions and utter denial. Gone were the times of the trenches, but the fighting never left. They fought the glory that graced their return home; the heavy silence that cursed their dinner tables.
Dieter had thought Irma would hate him for his horrible mistake, but whenever he met her February eyes, they softened to March, to a time before wars and petulance. He held off on telling his own tale until he could not stand his wife’s gaze any longer, and to her, Saelac, and Sven he relayed the whole thing. He cast his eyes down, shame evident in the very tilt of his shoulders.
However, Sven’s story was never revealed to them in its entirety until the latest possible moment. He summoned Dieter and Saelac to the local hospital, asking a favor of them. Their compliance was unquestioning— Sven had asked for nothing since they’d met each other.
The second the veterans walked into the designated hospital ward, Sven, in full uniform, began talking, telling them every twist, turn, and detail of his time in Russia. The words began to overwhelm him, contorting his face and gluing his eyes shut. He articulated each word as if it were his last, telling his friends how bloodthirsty he’d been after his mother’s death, and of the vengeance with witch he mutilated Russian soldiers. By the end of his narration, he was in pieces on the floor, sobbing into the polished linoleum. Without warning, he fled from the room, leaving Dieter and Saelac to exchange worried glances.
“What’s wrong with him? What is he thinking?” Saelac stuttered out, still stunned by Sven’s exit. He shuffled in his seat, wanting to go after Sven but restricted by his missing leg.
“I don’t know. Wait here, I’ll go bring him back.”
Dieter raced through the hospital, up the flights of stairs Sven had taken. He burst through the door to the rooftop just as the surgeon launched himself off the guardrail and plummeted to the ground.
Sven’s funeral might have been just as terrible as Dieter’s last day on the front. He and Saelac had been requested to write their friend a eulogy and read it at the funeral. They obliged, not men to discard a comrade’s memory after death. Late into the nights the veterans would sit in the two creaking chairs by Dieter’s fireplace, sometimes engaged in quiet conversation and sometimes silent. Working through Sven’s issues seemed the same as working through their own, and it left them empty of all but grief as Saelac would scribe for a Dieter who wouldn’t touch a pen, speaking up here and there to contribute. Regardless of the pain, the day came that Sven’s body was in a casket and Dieter had to help a crippled Saelac up the stairs and onto the stage, where they could look out and see the empty chairs and the empty eyes. Saelac, overcome with anxiety as he was, handed a finger-worn slip of paper to Dieter, who cleared his throat and read like he was reassuring himself.
“Today we honor the hero that wasn’t a hero. This is meant in the most respectful way, as the man we gather here for saw past the thick facade that veils the truth of war. Sven Vogt started as a simple man, but he, like the rest, was swept up in the current of the battles and the petty triumphs. The trouble is, he went off the waterfall sooner than the rest of us, because he was so wise as to see that what we’ve done in the Great War is inescapable in this lifetime.
“Sven would not have wanted us to lie to you. He would have wanted us to tell you the horrors of his actions. He was corrupted with vengeance and lost sight of who he was. All he wanted was forgiveness, but all he received was regret, consuming him all these years later. But for everything he had done, his eyes still held the same light as he persisted through the cards he had dealt himself. Regardless of his past, he was courageous for the decision he made to take his own life. He was a pioneer in profound self realization for our generation. To those he affected in Russia, he was a monster, but to those of us closer to home, with our own personal wartime struggles, Sven was a hero. But what is the difference between a monster and a hero? The war changed us how it liked regardless.
“But don’t mind a foolish soldier’s words. Make of Sven what you will. But I know that if he lived, he would stand beside us in our struggle against history. He would learn from his mistakes and love us like family, bearing his surgeon’s scalpel against the trials of tomorrow.”