“So what are you changing?”
“Nothing. I just try to keep people alive. Maybe their lives matter.” Where mine doesn’t anymore. Or does it? Could it be something again? He sighed, weary beyond being able to think very clearly. “Your life matters.”
“Why?”
“It matters to me, Captain.” The last word was his only protection. “The war is almost over. We all know it. Some of the prisoners don’t escape because they know we’re almost through.”
They’d smuggled a radio in, were listening to the BBC, like, Armin assumed, most of the guards, though it was treason and people got into a lot of trouble if caught. Even he listened to the radio, though he could barely stand the tug of hope/despair, didn’t have the strength left to feel very much at all.
“I’m just another enemy soldier,” Mark ground out. “I’m an American. I’ve killed Germans.” Both of them flinched. “I just don’t understand why you give a damn about me.”
“There are two-hundred thirteen men in this castle, Mark.” Another simultaneous flinch, this time at the sound of the name. “Any one of those men might believe you’re stupid, but I’m not one of them.”
Mark’s eyebrows knitted together.
Armin glanced at the door. Much longer, and the doctor would start getting concerned. Or suspicious. Either option was equally dangerous. Without meeting Mark’s eyes again, he said, “I want you to live to see the end of this war. That’s all.”
“I don’t believe that.” Mark’s words were quiet, clearly meant only for Armin. Then he reached across the divide, and the soft squeak of Armin’s glove inside Mark’s slowly closing hand seemed to shake the entire castle. “I don’t believe that, and I know damn well you don’t believe it either.”
Armin’s heart thundered, and he had to force his voice to stay even and cold. “You read men’s minds now?”
“Yours, yes.” Mark’s thumb ran across the back of Armin’s hand, the hiss echoing up the length of Armin’s spine.
Something between them had changed. Something physical. With a panicked feeling in his gut, Armin realized the space between them had shrunk, that one of them—both of them?—had moved closer. Just looking at Mark like this, he could feel that kiss in his office, and he was more aware than ever of the men lurking outside.
He jerked his hand away and stood, startling when his boot heel snapped sharply on the stone floor. “This is foolishness,” he muttered over his shoulder, and didn’t wait for a response before he left.
The doctor was already waiting outside, and watched as Armin locked the door. “You’d hope reason can prevail in this place,” Armin muttered darkly, and met the doctor’s eyes. “I told him to wait out the war.”
“They are young men with too much energy.” The doctor sounded like he was much older, when in truth he wasn’t. None of them were. They would emerge from this war—if they emerged at all—as brittle old men, good for nothing but feeding pigeons in the park, assuming the war left behind any pigeons to feed or parks in which to feed them.
“Young men, yes. And every one keen to be called hero before they lose their chance to be one.” Armin climbed the stairs and nodded when the sentry saluted him.
They separated and Armin returned to his office, where the fire was blazing hot after the coolness of the cells. He worried whether Mark would be warm enough, worried about food—once in the hole, a POW lost all privileges, including the right to receive Red Cross parcels, which left him with nothing more than the rations of the guards or sentries. It meant no coffee, no sugar, and definitely no chocolate or cigarettes. Down in the hole where diversion was a precious commodity, he knew that food was one of those details that occupied a man’s mind more than usual.
He took Schäfer’s report—they were annoyingly blind to what the POWs were planning, as any attempt to place a stool pigeon had ended in failure, if not humiliation—and concluded the evening with a sparse meal taken in front of the fire and a book.
When he went to bed, and lay there in the haunted quiet, he briefly touched the back of his hand to his face, remembering Mark’s touch, albeit it had been weakened by the leather. That Mark would touch him, that Mark wouldn’t just tell him to go to hell was perhaps a miracle, or perhaps a form of torture.
In a place like this, it could likely be both.
Chapter 19
Mark sat on the rack—he couldn’t think of this piece of junk as his rack—and hugged his knees to his chest, searching for whatever warmth his own body offered. The thin blanket around his shoulders was hardly adequate. His teeth hurt from chattering, so he clenched them tighter, which didn’t help much, but he told himself it helped.
He opened and closed his nearly numb left hand, searching less for warmth and more for the sensation of smooth, cool leather. That touch had driven Armin to his feet and out of the room, and for the last few hours, Mark had agonized over whether it had been a stupid thing to do. Armin had been edgy the entire time, glancing at the door and fidgeting like a deer in wolf territory, so Mark supposed it had only been a matter of time before he left. Maybe the touch had been what finally brought Armin to his senses, but Mark couldn’t help being glad he’d taken the opportunity anyway. God knew when he might have the chance again.
Especially if I escape.
The escape plan was still going forward. No doubt about that. And if Mark didn’t get out with the group who’d slip out of the tunnel—especially if the bastards didn’t wait for the men who’d dug themselves a trip to the hole—there’d be another attempt sooner or later.
In the back of his mind, though, he heard his conversation with Armin repeating over and over. When he wasn’t obsessing over why the man gave a damn, he couldn’t help thinking of what Armin had said. His warnings. It was the dead of winter, after all. Though Germany’s winters were, unlike its inhabitants, relatively tame compared to those in Iowa, Mark hadn’t ever had to brave one of those without a thick parka, hat, gloves …
Just how far would he get if he escaped?
The next village could be reached in an hour or so on foot, though considering that the villagers likely had experience with escapees, it might be wiser to avoid it and go farther. Several of the guys had maps, smuggled through in parcels, others had money, sometimes stowed away in books. There were prisoners quite handy with making civilian suits out of blankets—needlework had rarely if ever been so popular with men, he assumed.
He himself hadn’t been in Ahlenstieg long enough to receive those kinds of parcels—the Red Cross ones never contained the interesting things. But they were around in the castle. They could be bartered. There were digging tools that looked suspiciously like a German make, so maybe even a guard or two had been bought and bribed.
And those were just things he knew from watching and listening—there were other plans in the works, but Mark assumed nobody had told him yet because he was a relative newcomer. Or maybe because the Kommandant paid him just a little too much attention. Mark couldn’t begin to guess what people thought about that—whether they noticed, whether they suspected Armin or even him, but he had to be careful.
From here, though, if he managed to reach the next bigger city, getting on a train, or even walking to the south—Switzerland—was the next step. To the US Embassy. And then? He’d be sent back into the war, to duty. Maybe carry with him information about this prison, maybe help in its eventual liberation.
And then what? The war would be over soon, Armin claimed. The men said the same. Not much longer now. Though how long “not much longer” really meant was up for debate. Weeks? Months? Decades?
One way or another, Mark wouldn’t be here forever. Escape. Liberation. Death. Somehow, he’d leave this place. So would Armin. Where would they go? It had taken eight years and a war to bring them back to the same place. Mark couldn’t begin to imagine the circumstances that would have to align to bring them together a third time, particularly if Armin was ever captured by the Allies, or overrun by his prisoners.
It was hard to imagine a future for the Kommandant that didn’t include a bullet between the eyes. Though as haunted as Armin seemed at times, maybe he wanted that future.
Mark shuddered as he recalled the way Armin had … left for a while today. Just a moment in the doorway of Mark’s cell. Maybe not more than a minute, though it had seemed longer, he’d been someplace else. His expression had always been unreadable, changing so subtly whenever he responded to anything that Mark wondered if any of the other men even noticed. But today? That wasn’t unreadable at all. There was simply nothing there. Hollow eyes. Slack face. Jaw tight. He’d been eerily similar to Silent Joe just then, vacant and distant.
Mark shivered again and closed his eyes. This war had left scars on all of them, Armin included apparently, and he doubted Armin would simply stroll back into a quiet, civilian life after all this was over. That bullet to the forehead was probably his best bet.
And why the hell did he care? This man was his captor. The Kommandant of a prison camp. By all rights, Mark should have been hoping for the chance to pull the trigger that delivered that inevitable bullet.
But he wasn’t.
And more and more, he didn’t want to leave. He hated this place, but he didn’t want to leave Armin behind. If he did, he’d never see him again. But what choice did he have? He couldn’t take Armin with him.
The monotony of waiting was only interrupted when one of the guards brought him a bowl of soup and some bread, likely from their own mess, though if that was the kind of food the guards subsisted on themselves, he could imagine why the garrison collectively resented the prisoners. At least with the parcels coming in more or less steadily, they were wanting for nothing but freedom and women.
He ate without appetite, wondering if this coarse dark bread was the same thing Armin ate in his coffin of an office. But the food warmed him enough to get to sleep, and when he woke, a window high up in the ceiling let in some gray, joyless winter light through cracked glass shadowed by iron bars. Those shadows were reminders of where he was. Otherwise, nothing. He might just as well be entombed. No step of a sentry, no signals he could hear. He must be on the far side from the main yard, because he couldn’t even hear the bell that summoned men to Appell every few hours.
He thought he heard air raid sirens, though, maybe around noon, but couldn’t imagine anybody would try to bomb this place. Later, when the light was beginning to fade, two guards came to pick him up for a walk. They led him outside, through passageways and then a door in a corner that took them outside the castle itself. There was a yard that was fenced in, steps in the snow showing several such joyless walks before his, the armed guards keeping eyes on him and on the fence. Beyond the fence, a steep slope, barren trees, snow, frost, brambles. He searched for the place where the Dutchman might have died, but no trace remained.
One of the sentries eyed him and offered him a cigarette. Mark hesitated, but took it, and all three of them stood there for a few moments, smoking. No sound, just the shifting of men on frozen ground. He looked up, tried to get his bearings of the castle, understand what was relative to where, and saw a figure retreat from the window just a moment too late or he’d have spotted who he was. The peaked cap marked him out as not one of the sentries (who wore that coal scuttle helmet). Armin? Watching over him even here. Something clenched painfully in Mark’s chest at the thought.
Whatever undefined something existed between them, they needed to forget about it. Both of them. It did nothing to keep Mark warm at night—its presence was as cold in his chest as Armin’s absence was against his body. Prior to coming here, he had thought there was nothing as pointless as those middle-of-the-night fantasies and moments of idle pining he’d had in the years since Berlin, but he’d been wrong. This served no other purpose than to drive Mark a little closer to madness. At least before, they’d carried him through those nights when he’d struggled to be the husband Grace had needed him to be. Now they offered him nothing but fantasies and a handful of fond memories to remind him just how hellish life had become.
Which of course meant that wishing he’d glanced up just a moment sooner and caught a better look at Armin’s face … that was just insanity.
“Hey.” One of the guards nudged Mark. Not roughly enough to knock him off his feet, but with enough force to remind him they weren’t just a cluster of friends sharing silent thoughts and smoke. “Finish that thing. It’s cold out here.”
Mark looked down at the cigarette smoldering between his fingertips. One of the other men had bragged about taking as long as humanly possible to smoke during his time in the hole, drawing out each drag and each release of smoke for no other reason than to make the guards stand outside in the snow. Damn fool was lucky that hadn’t cost them all this little bit of generosity.
Mark didn’t fuck with the guards. He just put the cigarette to his lips and finished it as quickly as possible. Then he dropped it on the ground beside the ones the guards had already smoked, letting the snow extinguish it, and followed the two men back toward the castle.
It was painfully cold, more so than in the hole, but on the way back, Mark caught himself wishing they’d take him around one more time. Just a few more minutes out here in this bitter, German cold before they dumped him back in the aptly named hole.
So that was how solitary confinement worked, then. Drive a man insane until he wants nothing more than to freeze his balls off outdoors if that’s the alternative to going back in.
But he went back in, quietly and willingly, and as the big door slammed shut behind him and the lock snapped into place, he reminded himself he wouldn’t be down here forever. He’d be back with the other men eventually. Even if the Geneva Conventions hadn’t been a factor, Mark knew damn well he wouldn’t die down here.
Armin would never allow it.
And half in mockery, half in confirmation, two big gray military issue blankets lay folded on the rack. So neatly as to be almost prissy, which got a smile out of Mark. When he took one and unfolded it, two things slipped out of the folds and clattered to the floor: Melville’s Moby-Dick and a bar of US rations chocolate.
That clearly told him who’d brought in the blankets; if not for those, it could have been anyone. No doubt this copy of Moby-Dick came from the towering stacks of books in Armin’s office. But short of stealing from the prisoners, how had Armin got his hands, well, hand on the chocolate? Would be bend the rules—again—to offer such small comforts? He would. Mark thought he knew him at least that well.
He covered himself in those blankets and pushed back into the corner of the room, legs pulled up, not quite comfortable, but oddly warmed by the concern. The thick book was almost intimidating—he didn’t do waiting very well, and had rather been bored or played cards than tried to muster the focus to read or write letters in the times between flying missions. But with nothing but time in front of him, he could get to grips with whaling.
He opened the book and ran his fingers along the thick paper. An inscription caught his eye, and with the half-morbid, half-guilty thrill of spying on somebody else’s letters, he read it.
Man cannot help but strive, and although I know that some quests are hopeless, I do wish to capture a small flame from the past and kindle a light for us in our present.
The book seemed impossibly heavier with those words written inside. Barely breathing, Mark trailed a fingertip across the sharp letters, a little surprised when the ink didn’t smear beneath his touch. How long ago had he written it? Last night? This morning? While he’d stood here in the cell, alone, leaving the blankets and chocolate for him?
Mark closed the cover and rested his hand on top of it as if he thought it might suddenly fly open. Leaning his head back against the wall, he stared at nothing and listened to his own heartbeat.
And what if we do, Armin? What if we let this thing catch fire? How long do we let it burn?
He sighed and scrubbed a hand over his face. Reality was what it was, but that did nothing to stop him from wantin
g to grant Armin that neatly scrawled wish.
He drummed his fingertips on top of the closed cover that concealed the inscription from anyone who might suddenly materialize and read over his shoulder. So Armin had said his piece. He’d turned over the card they’d both known was on top of the deck. Now what? Mark reckoned he couldn’t exactly write a letter and mail it to the Kommandant. That had a lot of potential to raise some eyebrows that didn’t need to be raised.
His gaze drifted toward the chocolate bar. He picked up the bar, and wasn’t at all surprised that the wrapper was slightly loose on one end. When he peeled it back slightly, it had been sealed with some melted wax.
He carefully pulled it back, and chuckled. A pencil. You bastard.
He opened the book again. Opposite the inscription was a page that was blank on both sides. He glanced up at the door, and then slowly and carefully, so it barely made a sound at all, freed the page from its bindings. Then he closed the book, set the page on top of it, and wrote his response.
Chapter 20
Having to wait a full day until the guards picked Mark up again depleted most of Armin’s willpower. He debated with himself whether to wait longer. Maybe a week might be a safe period—safe to not be discovered, but hardly good for his nerves.
What could happen? Would a guard take an interest in the Kommandant taking an interest? He was the master of leave and postings; few would risk his ire and get leave cancelled or be transferred to a less cushy posting. Some threats were subtle like that, weren’t ever spoken.
So when he saw Mark down in the yard, smoking with the guards, he left his office and headed downstairs. He could move freely in the castle, after all, inspecting everything, and he made a point of exchanging a few words with one of the security officers on the way to the cells.
In Mark’s cell, he found the blankets folded, the book on top. The pencil was hidden, maybe to be found whenever Mark needed it, or maybe for the next occupant. He picked up the book, shook it, and picked up the folded sheet of paper that fell to the ground.
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