Chapter Thirteen #4
He stirred the eggs far too furiously. ‘We are lucky to have so many eggs.’ He edged a broken brick on the floor with his boot as if to remind her of the rubble, dust and torn curtains around them. ‘And such a palace to rest in.’
He no longer wanted to play the game and she suddenly felt alone.
Her eyes began to smart. Fearing he would see, she stiffly turned away.
‘We should get some sleep.’ Yet she remained unwilling to move.
Instead, she followed the swirls of the wooden carving on the sideboard with a single finger as she chose her words carefully. ‘Aren’t you afraid, Sam?’
‘I’m afraid of many things.’
‘Aren’t you afraid you will never have all those things?’
He did not answer.
‘Aren’t you afraid of never falling in love?’
‘I thought I was in love once. But now I know that it wasn’t real love.’
She turned to look at him. ‘I don’t understand.’
‘I thought I loved Moira. It wasn’t love, and whatever it was did not last.’ He pushed the saucepan aside.
‘I think I would like to fall in love even though it may not last. I have never been in love. It must be wonderful to fall in love.’
‘It’s not always wonderful. It can be painful too.’
She faced him again. She wanted to ask him more about his experience but she felt a barrier being erected if she continued to pry.
‘I want life to be normal again.’ She frowned, suddenly, unsure of herself.
She had thought her life was normal until the war started, and even then she had still trusted what she’d been told.
Now she didn’t know what normal was. Instead, she said, ‘I don’t think I will ever have children. ’
‘You can’t know that.’
‘I’d probably make a terrible mother.’
‘You will make a marvellous one,’ he said, abandoning the stove and saucepan and crossing the space between them. He wrapped her in his arms. ‘Stop your vexing, Elsa.’
‘I don’t understand “vexing”. I can’t help being afraid of the future. What will happen to the German people when the war ends? What revenge will be taken? At times I feel so alone.’ She tentatively rested her head against him and was welcomed by the steady beat of his heart against her ear.
‘You are not alone. You have me,’ he whispered into her hair.
Only for now, she thought. Soon you will leave.
Her body softened against the gentle rise and fall of his chest. The thought of him going felt a loss too big to fill.
Why had she resisted his kiss earlier? What a fool she had been.
As she listened to his breaths, it dawned on her that she could change things.
An overpowering desire to do just that rose up through her like a swelling wave.
She lifted her face and sought his lips with her own, determined to feel his lips on hers.
And she did, briefly, their touch as electrifying as she knew it would be.
He pulled away. ‘You are upset, Elsa.’
She opened her eyes, more hurt than surprised. She had shocked him. In truth, she had shocked herself, but the desire was still there, pooling deep inside her and aching for more.
‘I’m not upset.’ She grew braver and touched his jaw with her fingers. ‘I want us to kiss.’
He moved his head away as she attempted to kiss him again. ‘This is not make-believe.’ He held her at arm’s length. ‘We should get some sleep. We will need to leave early in the morning.’
‘And tomorrow we might die!’ She groaned at the hopelessness of it all. ‘Oh, Sam! Don’t you want to feel normal?’
He walked away from her, shaking his head.
She lifted her chin. ‘Is it that you don’t find me attractive?’
‘Don’t be stupid. Of course I find you attractive. I tried to kiss you earlier, remember?’ Sam began to collect their plates, dropping each one into the sink with a clatter. He no longer had an appetite for the eggs he’d prepared.
‘So why won’t you kiss me now?’
He dropped the final plate in the sink, causing it to crack in half. He stared at it briefly before pouring himself a glass of water and gulping it down.
‘Sam?’
He frowned and focused on the glass in his hand, before discarding it in the sink with the rest of the crockery. ‘It is not that I don’t want to kiss you, Elsa!’
‘Then why have you changed your mind?’
He braced himself against the sink with straight locked arms. ‘I haven’t,’ he replied, pronouncing each word as if their clarity was an art he must master.
‘I know what you are thinking.’
He shook his head vigorously. ‘No, Elsa, you don’t.’
‘You have had time to think. You are afraid what people will say when they learn you have kissed a German woman. But no one needs to know. I hate this war. Everything is ugly. Everything is filled with hate. I want to feel good again. I just want to feel something and I think you do too.’
His head had lowered as he listened, as if his strength was draining from his body one drop at a time. When he finally spoke his voice was one of deep sorrow, the anger and frustration having left along with the tension in his body. ‘I just . . . don’t—’
‘Don’t think, Sam. Nothing is normal. Why should we behave as if everything is?’
She stepped closer and smiled, confident that her concerns were his too, but now she had set a torch to each one so they were no more significant than the ashes in the grate. Nothing now stood in the way.
He turned his head to look at her. He half smiled and lifted his hand so one finger glided down the curve of her jaw. ‘And what if I don’t want to stop kissing you?’
Her breath caught in her throat. His carefully chosen words were meant as a warning, but they only served to convince her this was right. She grew brave. She grew confident. She grew fearless. ‘Then don’t stop,’ she whispered as she sought his lips with her own.
Their first shared kiss was tentative, testing this new experience that felt both so wrong and so right.
His lips were soft, their touch less shocking than her first clumsy attempt, yet together their union had the power to cast a heady spell over her mind, causing it to slow until the simplest thought outside how he felt and tasted seemed impossible.
It came to a natural end and their lips reluctantly parted.
She listened to their breaths mingling between them as she waited for guilt to set in.
Nothing. Only a growing hunger for more.
She looked up and saw her own feelings mirrored in his eyes, the unspoken message encouraging them to eagerly kiss again.
This time she felt no fear, for they were both willing accomplices in this new thing between them.
A journey that she knew in her heart could have no happy ending, but somehow, in that moment, she no longer cared.
This kiss was more driven, more passionate, absorbing her into the core of his soul with each press of their lips and each gasp of breath.
She felt true contentment, playful, but focused, daring, yet ultimately carefree as she chased each of his sweet demanding kisses with one of her own.
He took her hand and led her up the splintered stairs to the empty bedroom above, each step hindered by only their kisses between ragged expectant breaths.
The room was dusty and dark, with one double bed littered with rubble.
Sam tore off the top sheet, sending up a cloud of dust and small debris into the air.
Before the last brick fragment had stopped rolling across the wooden floor he had reached for her and they were kissing again as they both hurriedly took turns shedding each other’s clothes and discarding their own.
He cupped her face. His hands were trembling against her skin as if he feared she might break.
‘So beautiful,’ he murmured as his gaze absorbed each feature of her face.
Trembling, she placed her hand on one of his, turned into it and kissed his palm.
He groaned softly as her lips moved downwards to the delicate skin of his inner wrist. He reached for her again and she welcomed his own sensual exploration .
. . Her head fell back in wonder as his trail of kisses, from her neck down the body, finally brought him to his knees.
* * *
Sam woke with a start to Klara shaking his shoulder violently and with one finger pressed firmly against her own lips.
Every one of his senses snapped into high alert.
He waited and listened. Despite the reassuring sound of Elsa’s soft breaths beside him, the house was silent . . . yet something felt different.
He heard a car door opening outside. Muffled male German voices carried to him through the window.
He woke Elsa with a gentle shake of her arm.
She opened her eyes. They widened as she noticed his expression and Klara standing by the bed.
He shook his head and pressed a single finger against his lips just as Klara had done moments before.
Her gaze darted to the window when she heard the voices too.
They quickly, silently, dressed. He chanced a peek out of the window. Soldiers, lots of them, getting out of the back of a truck, rubble crunching under their boots. He ducked down before anyone looked up. Elsa, Sam and Klara froze as someone banged his fist on the front door and shouted.
Elsa translated. ‘They want to know if anyone is here. They are looking for food.’
‘They’ll see the plates in the sink. They will know we are here.’
Elsa finished securing her skirt around her waist. ‘I will speak to them. Remember, you are my mute half-brother.’
He grabbed her arm. ‘No! Wait. Stall them so I can try climbing out a back window.’
The door burst open downstairs and the soldiers entered, their determined footsteps thudding around the kitchen below.
A chair scraped across the floor downstairs, followed by a burst of laughter.
‘They won’t harm you and Klara. It’s being with me that will get you in trouble.’
She grabbed his arm. ‘You promised we would stay together.’
Sam straightened and stared at her anew.
Was she mad or naive? She knew nothing of the blackness that drove a man to blast another man’s face away.
He didn’t want her to be responsible for his life while he stood impotent without even a voice to call his own.
She had done it before. He didn’t want that to happen again.
‘They will kill me if they find out I’m British and they will treat you badly if they find out you are helping me. Stay here and I will put some distance between us. They are not going to harm you or Klara if you are not linked to me.’
She hugged Klara. ‘You can’t promise that.’
They could hear voices outside where some soldiers must have stayed with the truck. His only escape route was at the back of the house and time was running out.
‘Where you go, we go.’
He looked at Klara and then at Elsa’s determined face.
None of this made sense. Why would she not just pretend this was her house, give the soldiers some eggs and let them be on their way?
Why was she so afraid of her own country’s soldiers?
The soldiers burst into more laughter at the front of the house. There was no time to lose.
They made their way to the back window, but the drop was too far and the ground too scattered with jutting bricks and rubble for them to risk. Defeated, he picked up Klara and led the way down the back stairs to the back door.
Each step threatened to creak beneath their feet, and although he wanted to hurry, he was forced to move gradually, testing each wooden plank before fully giving the step his weight.
At times he failed, but by sheer luck the jovial conversation in the kitchen smothered the noise and allowed them to continue.
At the bottom he saw that the sun was shining through the open front door and bathing the floor of the hall in light.
At the other end was the closed back door.
No one was there to block their escape. It was time to leave.
He nodded to Elsa that all was clear, stepped into the warmth and headed for the back door with Klara in his arms.
He was about to open the door when the light suddenly dulled behind them. They stopped and turned.
A silhouette of a soldier, haloed by light, stood in the front doorway looking at them.
He stepped forward, revealing a rifle hanging limply by his side, a rising thread of cigarette smoke from his hand and an emotionless expression on his face.
He slowly lifted the cigarette as he watched them, inhaled deeply and exhaled upwards.
An arc of smoke lifted between them as if he was spraying them with an imaginary machine gun.
He called out in a tone that was neither angry nor friendly, stubbed his cigarette on the floor with the heel of his boot and jerked his head for them to enter before him. With a locked door at their back, they had little choice but to obey, yet neither moved.
Sam clenched his fists in the vain hope he would be ready if needed, but Elsa was in charge now.
She and Klara were the only ones who spoke German.
They were the only ones who could talk them out of this.
Did Klara understand the consequences if Sam was discovered?
She was just a child and his life was as much in her delicate small hands as Elsa’s.
Elsa finally found her voice and began to speak to the soldier.
Although her voice was tentative and friendly, Sam had come to know her well and could hear the fear in her throat.
The conversation sounded amiable enough, despite the back-and-forth patter of questions and answers.
She touched Sam’s arm briefly as she introduced him as Frantz.
He felt the covert pressure of her fingertips beseeching him to play along.
The soldier studied his face for a few seconds as if trying to find some resemblance between them.
His gaze slid to Klara’s dark head. He stared at her face, a frown of confusion on his brow.
Elsa spoke again and he caught Klara’s name amid the sharp German words.
Sam lowered Klara, who was immediately swallowed up by a hug, kiss and soothing words from Elsa.
The soldier said something and Elsa repeated Klara’s name and surreptitiously ushered the little girl to stand behind her.
Elsa swallowed as the soldier’s gaze slid to each of them in turn.
Suddenly he lifted his arm to signal the way to the kitchen and Elsa obeyed and led them into what turned out to be a room full of soldiers. Sam hesitated, then realized he had little choice but to trust her and follow.