The towering buildings around him were weathered by the sharp consonants of the language and stained with the black smoke that seemed to hang just outside the windows, creating a mirage of harrowing age in a lively place. Since the rise of the wall, Darek noticed the eyes of passing strangers were cast downward, whispering their conversations at their feet instead of towards each other. Long, spiralling barbed wire that built itself into a strong myriad of brick, wood, and steel scraps was only strengthened by the glaze of their gaze. However, the heavy barricade crumbled underneath the weight of lovers who leaned over to share one more kiss.
Shifting from one foot to the other, he anticipated being relieved of his shift, familiar with the tense standoff underway between two intimidating forces he’d rather not consider any longer. Each day was hazy as the smog hung lifelessly in the air, as bored as Darek.
Walking to and from his post may have been his favorite part of every day. Fran Zimmer’s children called out to him like always to play a few rounds of an endless kick-back-and-forth. The ancient Hans Bauer never hesitated to offer him a smoke accompanied with an hour of small talk, his thick accent even Darek had trouble fully understanding. Through the entire mile of winding streets to his front door, Darek was met with sweet young women batting delicate lashes, although they couldn’t create quite enough momentum to catch his eye for longer than a few seconds.
Stumbling up the front steps of his home, he thumped his boots against the post, shaking the sticky snow off his coat and hat, ruffling his dark hair so it swept messily against his forehead, sticking straight up in several spots around his ears. Gently, he pushed the door open, attempting to sneak across the creaky kitchen floorboards and frighten the large woman whistling pleasantly at the sink. Rushing behind her suddenly and squeezing her shoulders with a loud greeting, the woman jumped several inches and let out a string of dirty exclamations, setting Darek’s cheeks into a wide smile. She turned to scold him as if he were no different than the children playing in the streets.
“Sohn einer hündin! Don’t you know to be kind to your mother?!”
“Well, I am only der hurensohn, as you said.”
As he pulled her into a bear hug, he reached behind her and grabbed a slice of the soft potatoes she had just taken off the stove. Pulling away, she grinned at his starchy smile and squeezed the tip of his nose lovingly. A young man in a German uniform, Darek was easily confused to be several rankings higher than he was due to his tall stance. His broad shoulders sent girls into crazed fantasies of wedding bells and his large hands impressed every man he greeted. Yet if you asked his mutter, she would laugh heartily with her beefy hands entangled in her flour splattered apron and tell you his best feature is his strong German nose; large and bulbous. Dominating his face, she would coo, it ages his softer features as if it were the finest beer in the festival.
At the table, he sat with his mutter and vater. His vater had been ill with many aches for several years but failed to lose his German appetite. Sausage and cabbage sat in black pot on the stove accompanied by a large bowl of soft potatoes sitting in the middle of their table. A visitor who sat at the table with them would have only heard the clink of glasses and scrape of forks shoveling food from their bowls. After many comfortable minutes of silence, his father spoke up.
“Rebkah, stopped at the home this morning when you were at the store, Marie.”
“What did she need, dear,” his mother asked as she gave herself another helping of cabbage.
“She was looking for Darek,” he stated, leaning back in his seat, “Would you care to tell you mother why she came around, Darek?”
“I can not fathom why she’d be around, papa,” Darek stifled a grin as he pictured his stiff father awkwardly stuck at the threshold with Rebekah Stein, “Though if you had not answered her knocks, she would have made conversation with the door.”
“Hmmm, she seemed to think that you were interested in marriage,” he grunted.
Choking on his potatoes, his mother let out a wild laugh. As he managed to take a drink, fat tears rolled down her cheeks as she continued to shriek in amusement. She fanned her rosy cheeks to calm herself down.
“Oh, my dear, she must have had the wrong house,” she giggled.
“Nein, she was here for our Darek.”
Reaching across the table to cover Darek’s knuckles with her palms, she began somberly, “My love, I know I press marriage on you and often groan of my wants for chubby enkelkinder feet running around this home and eating my sweets,” her hand tightened on his and her voice trembled in humor, “But if you think I will let you marry Rebekah Stein then …” She once again burst into a great fit of pure amusement.
His father looked on at the scene before him and mumbled along at such a ridiculous idea. Letting Marie calm down, he continued.
“When are you going to get serious with a woman? Actually, serious. No leading them to destinations you will never reach together but committing.”
“Papa, I am young-,” Darek struggled to begin before he was interrupted.
“And foolish, do not forget foolish,” his father added.
“Ah! This is silly! You were the same way before you met me, Alber,” she scolded while gathering their dishes, “An arrogant arschloch like our son.”
* * * *
Sitting with the American soldiers was a breathe of fresh air after breakfast with his parents that morning. His father lectured Darek that his strong muscles will not last long to woo any woman he pleases and his mother persisted if it mattered so much then he shouldn’t be marrying at all. It was a long fight, exhausting Darek without having to say a word.However, American men are also loud, both in volume and personality. Even the shy soldiers presented themselves in exaggerated manners. Much of the morning was spent just behind the sandbags of the checkpoint, sitting, watching, and waiting to be needed. The men kept themselves entertained by sharing stories of their American wives.
“By God, she’s fan-tas-tic! Every night I came home tuh a hot meal and sometimes she ain’t had no underwear on as dessert!” The men hollered, slapping their knees, and Darek would grin along with them, the tips of his ears pink to hear them talk about women like the old goons at Oktoberfest.
“Well,” a man with a burly mustache chimed in, reminding Darek of a strongman from a circus, “Most of you know my Darla. She has the figure of a chilled Coca-Cola on a sweet, sweet summer day.” With that he drew out a picture from his wallet, flashing a photo of Darla pinned up against an expensive car, wearing tight shorts and a bikini top, fitting her slim figure well. “And those long legs... It’s, uh, too bad we over here and not in the arms of these girls, eh boys?” The strongman sunk underneath his uniform as if it suddenly weighed one hundred more pounds.
“Thank the goddamn commies for that, Earl.”
“Say, what do ya think of all this mess, son,” the strongman asked, nudging Darek, “You’re mighty quiet.”
Mustering up his best English, Darek responded, “War is between government. People kiss and shout over wall, separate from family. Big mess.”
One of the soldiers laughed abruptly, shocking Darek with its harshness. The man lit a cigarette, still chuckling and shaking his head at the young German.
“God, kid, you really are stupid,” he muttered plainly.
“Eh- huh?”
“You know what I think of you? Bullshit. You understand that, boy?” He didn’t wait for a response to continue. “My uncles fought your Fuhrer’s armies. Probably some of your uncles, right? America knows what you did to those poor jews. Took ‘em from their homes, stripped ‘em of their shoes, wedding rings. Pack ‘em into chambers, ain’t that right?”
Had Darek not been apart of the military for nearly two years, he might have wept at the accusations. “Ich bin kein Nazi,” he spat in somber retaliation. I am not a Nazi.
Slamming Darek against the wooden boards by his collar, the unnamed man growled, “What did you say to me, faggot?! I’ll kill you!” He released Darek’s collar and landed a solid punch to his chin. Two men pulled the crazed soldier off of the young German.
Darek scrambled to get up quickly and pat the dirt off his uniform. Unlike the passing people in the street, the American soldiers stared. Embarrassed, he tried to scoot past them all, sullen such a promising morning ended with his shame.
“Hold up,” a hand gently pressed against his chest. A short man with thick framed glasses looked at him apologetically. “Jason is an ass. We rarely get Germans assigned to our checkpoint anyways. And, as you could have guessed, it’s getting dry sitting around waiting for a fight. Do you have a moment or are you still set on storming out like a pussy,” he joked in a lighter tone as he turned away from Darek. “We’re going inside, gentlemen. Anyone need anything from Lesa?”
“A kiss!” Darek didn’t understand the joke as the Americans hollered again.
“Alright, alright. See you bastards in a minute.” Taking his hand off of Darek’s elbow, he took the lead through the small doorway they had sat outside. As the short man’s glasses began to grow hazy from the heat, he whispered an introduction followed by an explanation, “I think you need a minute to cool off. Won’t do anyone good for you to head back to your commanding officer in a fuss.”
Inside was a warm, dimly lit office. Papers were thrown all along a counter, resembling the chaos that was Darek’s hair. A faint bustling could be heard from behind several book shelves that made the large room feel cramped.
“Hey Lesa! Put our guest to work, will ya?” He flashed Darek a smile, patted his back firmly, and exited through the same door they just entered from.
An exasperated sigh fell heavily on Darek’s ears as a high stack of binders made it’s way to where he was standing. He stood still, unsure of his orders now. The binders wobbled but never fell as she set them firmly on the office desks on his left side.
The woman revealed beneath the stack did not resemble the soldier’s description of American women. She was a foot shorter than him in a U.S. Army uniform, neatly pressed even as the day began to reach the afternoon. He mistook her grey eyes as blue and her curls had slumped, sending short, frizzy pieces to frame her pale, freckled cheeks. Examining him with far less interest, her eyebrows furrowed.
The longer Darek stared, the more he found him restraining himself to check if her hands were as soft as they looked, probably miniscule compared to his own long fingers. Interrupting his quickening train of thought, she broke the silence.
“So who heckled you?” He closed his mouth, not having realized he was gaping.
“Er-I not understand,” he fumbled.
“Oh for godsake, Bill doesn’t bring ‘em in for nothing. Who did you piss off? Offend? Make angry?” Her words were crisp and condescending but he devoured it, knowing none of the German girls on his street would have ever spoke to him like that.
“Angry American think Germans are Nazis.”
“Well, are you a Nazi,” she asked casually, if it were just a passing phrase.
Darek scoffed, becoming heated. “Is American women rude like the men?”
Shocked at his answer, she took another step closer to him, just a few inches away from being able to reach out and touch his chest. He felt sweat bead on his back despite the snow that piled right outside.
She moved around him just as swift as she approached, gathering more folders and papers to stack on the desks. He let out a breath he didn’t realize he was holding and moved to help her. Watching her small feet elegantly maneuver around the room, chuckling at the idea of comparing her to a famous Russian ballerina, comical because of the obvious physical and political differences.
“What are you laughing at?”
“Your words harsh. Your walk delicate like-”
“A ballerina? I work with those soldiers out there everyday. You have to be wittier than this, … um, I didn’t catch your name earlier…,” she offered.
“Darek Yeauer.”
“Yay-her?”
“Nein. Yeauer.”
“Alright. Darek, then.”
Before he could glance down at her smirk, perhaps coy enough to start something Darek’s parents would approve of, the walls shook and dust fell from the rafters, turning the room into a haze. From his shift in balance, Darek imagined an earthquake tearing through Germany, ripping a cavernous border along the oen already constructed. He motioned to cover Lesa but the walls stilled just as he reached to cover her. Pushing his arm down, she turned around without fright.
Confused, he followed her rush out the door. Immediately, his heart broke. Smoke billowed from their right. His mind struggled to keep up when it struck him, the Wall.
“What hap-,”
“A bomb, you shithead! Don’t you kn-,” then her voice and body were swallowed by the black fog. The screams were a scattering of puzzle pieces, too alike to distinguish. Nearly noon,
Submerging himself in the smoke, he lost his sense of sight in the thick air that groped his airway. He was pushed to side by a group of pedestrians, falling backwards onto a pile of rough edges. He yanked his hand away from a torso peeking from the rubble. Pulling himself to his feet, he headed in no certain direction, not knowing who or what to look for.
Then, that infamous cadence sounded on his left. The bitter gun fire made his ears ring but he was grateful. Coming to his senses, he dragged his feet towards the sound through the snow with only his handgun on his belt, eager to run to his death and leave the eternal fog.
* * * *
“...honor those brave men who fought courageously to spread communism to the far reaches of the world, giv-,” Anna had already heard every word before from the previous remembrance ceremonies. But then again, she never expected much from the Duke. “-this year of two thousand twenty-one! The sixtieth anniversary of the Soviet rise of power!”Turning away from the monitor, she looked at the extent of the room. Perhaps, it had once been a library or church with it's high ceiling and stark walls. Now it was just a large room used to house the cellmates of those who defied the Soviet government.
Bodies shuffled all around her, each person bored and agitated by the Duke's bland claims. She could see the white hair of Darek some rows ahead of her, sitting in his rusty wheelchair. Pushing the crowd around her, she made her way to him.
"Say, what was it like in the free world," she asked crouching down to his level.
"Humph," he grunted, "I can barely recall. It was all a fog."
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