by Kitty Parker
Bryce, of course, howled with laughter.
Glaring at my so-called friend, I turned to apologize to my accidental crash-mat, only to find myself staring up at the one person I wasn't prepared to deal with.
Life's ironic, isn't it?
"Are you alright, Lotte?" asked Kurt, trying not to look too amused.
"Fine," I managed to squeak out.
"Here, let me help you." He offered his hand.
I hesitated, then took it, and he pulled me to my feet. "Thanks," I mumbled.
He smiled, somewhat shyly. "No problem."
I looked around for Bryce, preferring a cheesy tourist picture to an awkward conversation with Kurt, but he had "mysteriously" disappeared. Dork.
Nervously picking invisible lint off of my shirt, I bit my lip and turned to Kurt, who was intently watching nonexistent birds flying overhead. Now was as good a time as any, I supposed.
"So," I tentatively began, testing the waters for hostility. "Uh, what's new?" I flinched as soon as the words had passed my lips. What an idiotic way to start a conversation.
Kurt cleared his throat. "Maybe, um…maybe we shouldn't beat around the bush this time."
I had the feeling that this was another American idiom that I was unfamiliar with, but I chose to keep that suspicion to myself.
"I think…" Kurt continued, seeming to gain confidence as he went. "I think that we should just get our issues out in the open so we can get past them."
I nodded. "Ok."
There was a moment of silence until Kurt, sensing that I wasn't going to go first, took the initiative. "Lotte, I'm really sorry for what happened back in Madrid. I just didn't know what to do. I mean, you were in your underwear-" (here I blushed furiously) "-and it sort of threw me for a loop, you know?"
I smiled feebly. "I know. I…I think I overreacted…a lot. I was stressed, and you came in and…yeah…" I bit my lip nervously. "Er, for the record, I probably would have freaked out and done something stupid if I were you and I had walked in on me in my underwear."
Kurt blinked. "Okay…"
"Yeah," I flinched. "I know that didn't really make any sense." I stared down at my shoelaces. They really were fascinating, you know.
There was a rather pregnant pause.
"Um," Kurt continued, running a hand through his hair in an agitated manner. "I guess, while we're at it…I should apologize for…pretty much everything I did to you since 1997."
"You don't have to," I mumbled.
"But I want to," he insisted. "What you said the other night, even if you were overreacting," he added pointedly, noticing that I had opened my mouth in protest. "…it made me realize what a dick I've been to you all this time. I mean, I never actually wanted to be mean. You were just…entertaining when you were pissed off, I guess, and I was stupid…very stupid."
"Well, you were born with a Y-chromosome," I joked half-heartedly, attempting to lessen the tension of the conversation. "Stupidity is unfortunately one of the side effects."
He chuckled appreciatively, though not quite as cheerfully as I would have liked.
I swallowed uncomfortably. "I…I want you to know that I…well, I think this is really decent of you, Kurt. It's not exactly easy to apologize. I would know." I took a deep breath in to brace myself for what I was about to confess. "I, er…I've been trying to work up the nerve to apologize to you for…you know…since…well, since right after it happened."
He nodded solemnly, but didn't give any sort of hint as to his feelings about my cowardice. I was worried that he thought I was a massive bitch for not talking to him sooner.
"I…heard the conversation you had with Adam the other night."
Kurt's immediate shift into panic mode made him look as though he had a pair of googly-eyes glued onto his face. "It's not true, Lotte!" he vehemently denied. "I wasn't horny! Adam's just an idiot."
I stared at him, nonplussed. "I wasn't even going to mention that."
Although Kurt was usually pretty hard for me to read, right then he seemed as though he would have liked nothing better than to fling himself from the top of the Reichstag and land with a splat on the street below. "Oh."
"I was just going to say that Détente sounds like a pretty good idea to me. What say you, Nixon?" I stuck out my hand.
Kurt stared at it for a minute before replying, "Sounds good, Brezhnev."
We shook on it.
"By the way," he added. "I hate Nixon."
I smiled. "Well, I'm not exactly the biggest Brezhnev fan, either."
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Kurt Matthews' idea of Détente put Richard Nixon to shame (though most everything did). He turned into one of the nicest guys I knew. In fact, while it was somewhat touching, his transformation was almost creepy. I had to wonder if my life had suddenly turned into a cheap remake of Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Nice Kurt must have been some sort of alien duplicate.
When I voiced this theory to Eden, she informed me that I had been watching way too many black and white horror movies and that they were starting to get to me.
"It's not my fault!" I retorted, almost crashing into a lamppost as the entire choir walked down Ebertstraße. "That set of fifty horror classics was on sale for only twenty dollars! That's forty cents per film, Ede. House on Haunted Hill, Nosferatu, the ORIGINAL pre-Andrew-Lloyd-Webber Phantom of the Opera with Lon Chaney…how could I possibly resist?"
Eden rolled her eyes. "What is it with you and old movies?"
I shrugged. "Just a mild obsession."
She grinned and pinched my cheek. "Well, it's an endearing quirk, and I love you for it."
"Love you, too, grandma," I teased. "Want to watch Night of the Living Dead later?"
"You brought that DVD set with you?" she asked, surprised.
"Of course!" I proudly exclaimed.
She chuckled. "Well, as shocking as it may be to you, Lotte, I'm not really one for watching zombies ambushing and eating people."
"It's black and white!" I objected. "It's not like it's gross or anything."
Eden rolled her eyes in a loving sort of way. "I can't, anyway, sweetie. I promised Matt that I'd go up to the top of the tower at Alexanderplatz with him."
"The Fernsehturm?"
She nodded. "Yeah, that."
I grinned. "You'll like it. There's a great view of the city. It's pretty romantic, too." I waggled my eyebrows suggestively.
"I know," she giggled. "I think that's why he suggested it."
I beamed, delighted at my best friend's good fortune in the realm of romance. "You guys make such an adorable couple."
Eden sighed contentedly, a blissful smile spreading across her lips. "Yeah…"
I allowed Eden to float around on cloud nine for a little while, slightly amused by the dreamy expression on her face. When she nearly strayed into the bicycle path (in front of some speed-demon in a spandex suit, no less), I decided that it was wise for her to return to Earth.
"Oh!" she exclaimed as I yanked her out of the line of fire, saving her from the psychotic bicycler, who shouted something that I assumed to be nasty over his shoulder in Polish. "Uh, sorry about that."
"No worries, lover girl," I teased.
"So, do you have any idea where we're going?" she questioned.
I took in my surroundings and felt my heart drop into my stomach, dread washing over me like a tidal wave. "I have a feeling I do."
Eden, confused, went to interrogate me further, but it proved to be unnecessary. We had stopped walking. Our destination stretched out before us: a square expanse covered in dark, rectangular stone slabs of various sizes - the Holocaust Memorial.
Mr. Faulkner began to make a speech about the symbolism of the monument, when it was built, who designed it, and so on, but all I could decipher over the whirring of my own thoughts was a faint mumbling sound. To say that I was preoccupied would have been a massive understatement.
No one in my family dealt well with the past. Not our homeland's past, anyway. We wer
e all fairly easily upset by it and therefore preferred not to talk about it. It was a nasty chapter of our history that we had no desire to reread. I was no exception. I tended to steer clear of things that would force me to think of the atrocities for which I couldn't help but feel somewhat responsible. When I couldn't avoid them, though, I would invariably fall into a downward spiral of guilt and sorrow. In junior year, I had been forced to watch Schindler's List for a history class, and I hadn't been able to sleep for three weeks afterward. The images of human suffering and brutal death kept replaying in my mind like a bad Cyndi Lauper record on repeat. I simply couldn't get past the fact that my ancestors had had something to do with it.
While it was true that none of my family members had worked in concentration camps (I doubt that they even knew about the "Final Solution"), I had never been able to banish the overwhelming feeling of eternal remorse from my heart. And as I stood there, staring at grey blocks of stone in front of me, they stared back - a physical manifestation of my deepest sorrows and regrets.
I vaguely registered a hand grasping mine and yanking me into the maze of rocks. "Come on, Lotte," Eden urged.
As I was dragged further into the labyrinthine passages between the stones, the ground began to slope downward. The blocks, which had been knee-high at the entrance, rose up ever higher on either side, swiftly engulfing me in dark shroud of sorrow and isolation. Losing myself in my own overwhelming guilt, I didn't even notice when Eden turned and started down a side passage.
I kept walking forward on autopilot, ghastly images of starving, mangled, and charred bodies flashing through my mind. I shuddered, willing them to go away. They refused.
Before long, I found myself in the heart of the memorial, the eight or nine foot tall rocks towering over my head, glaring down at me accusingly.
"German," they seemed to hiss. "You're German…It's your fault…"
"I'm sorry," I whispered, staring up at them pleadingly. "Oh, God, I'm so sorry…"
As torrents of tears began to stream down my cheeks, I leaned back against the cold, hard stone and slowly slid to the ground, hugging my knees to my chest.
"Your fault…" the slabs accused. "Your fault…Your fault…"
I began to rock from side to side, staring up at the strip of blue sky straight overhead with a silent plea for mercy, for God to save me from the unforgiving stones surrounding me. "Oh, Lord…Lord…Lord…"
"YOUR FAULT!"
"FORGIVE ME!" I wailed, reaching my arms out to the heavens, begging for salvation. "Please! God…forgive me…" I collapsed in a heaving, sobbing wreck on the ground, the rocks once again silent.
I could have lain there for two seconds, two minutes, two hours even. Time no longer had any prominent place in my mind. I only regained some sort of sense of reality when I heard footsteps swiftly approaching me.
"Lotte?" a deep voice called. "Oh shit…LOTTE!" The voice began to sound panicked, and the footsteps sped up to a running pace. Suddenly, I was scooped up by a pair of warm, strong arms and pulled onto a jean-clad lap. I knew who had found me, but I couldn't bear for him to see me in such a wretched state. I refused even to meet the hazel eyes that I could feel boring holes into my soul.
"Lotte, what happened?" Kurt asked, his voice soft with concern.
I merely continued to sob in response.
Kurt let out a sort of choked noise and pulled me to his chest. "Oh, God, Lotte."
I buried my face in the warmth that his presence provided. I was probably making a mess of his shirt, but he didn't seem to mind. He simply rocked me back and forth like a child, running his hand up and down my back to soothe me. Every once in a while he'd utter something that, under normal circumstances, I would have found ridiculous, like "Shh, Lotte-angel, it's alright, sweetie, shh…"
"Kurt," I whimpered. "I-I…they…"
He gently put a finger to my lips, silencing me. "Shh. Calm down, sweetie."
I gulped once or twice, then took a few deep breaths to steady myself.
Kurt tenderly wiped at my cheeks with his thumbs. "You have mascara running down your face."
I hiccupped. "Do I look like a raccoon?"
"Nah," he assured me. "Definitely not. Now, do you want to tell me what happened?"
I shivered, the memory of the menacing, accusing stones still fresh in my mind. "I…I just…feel…being here…"
Kurt realized what I was talking about. The look of understanding and compassion that he was giving me broke into me like a pickaxe into a dam, and before the poor boy even knew what had hit him, he was drowning in the reservoir of my emotions.
"Oh, Kurt!" I howled, throwing my arms around his neck and sobbing hysterically onto his shoulder. "It's my fault! My fault! They're DEAD, Kurt, DEAD! And it's all my fault!"
He squeezed me tightly to him as though he could keep me safe from the horrors stalking me from within my own mind. "Shh, Lotte. It's not your fault. Nothing is your fault."
"But," I choked out. "My family…"
He began moving his hand in soothing circles across my back. "No, Lotte. It's not your family's fault, either. Nobody really knew what was happening until after it was over." He brought a hand to my face to brush a few wayward strands of blonde hair from my eyes. "Please don't keep blaming yourself like this. You'll just end up being miserable. Please, Lotte…"
I nodded silently, brushing the last of my tears away.
"Do you want me to go find Mr. Faulkner? Or Eden?" Kurt inquired.
"No!" I exclaimed, probably a bit more desperately than I should have. I simply wasn't ready to get up. "No, Kurt. Please…please, just…stay with me a bit longer…please."
He smiled and continued to hold me. "Of course."
As I sat there on the ground in the middle of the Holocaust Memorial in Berlin, I came to the conclusion that I never wanted to move. There was just something so comforting about being in Kurt's arms, pouring my heart out to him, and being consoled. I held onto him as one would a boulder in a tempestuous sea, and he became the sole anchor keeping me attached to my sanity.
Even if Nice Kurt was a pod-person, I was ineffably grateful to be able, once again, to count him among my friends.
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"Erdinger, bitte (Erdinger, please)," I requested, handing the bartender three euros. He ducked below the counter and resurfaced with a delicious Hefeweizen beer in his fist.
I beamed at him. "Danke! (Thank you!)" Contentedly, I made my way back to my seat, wiggling my toes in the sand of the Strandbar on the banks of the River Spree. This was another of my favorite spots in Berlin. It was Thursday, the day before our concert, and Mr. Faulkner had given us some free time, so I had naturally dragged Eden and Jane on another "Lotte's Special Sightseeing Tour." Thankfully, my memorial-induced mental breakdown had subsided the day before, so I was acting like my normal self again.
"Are you happy now that you've got your beer?" Jane inquired with a quirked eyebrow as I plopped down next to her.
"Oh, yes," I replied, prying off the bottle cap and taking a swig.
She shook her head affectionately. "You're such an alky."
"Am not!" I retorted. "I don't need alcohol. I just associate the taste of beer with Germany and my family. There's nothing wrong with that."
Jane leaned back farther into her red-and-white-striped beach chair. "So culture is your excuse?"
I shrugged. "It's the same thing as it is with Russians and vodka, I guess."
She chuckled. "Kurt's part Russian, and he doesn't go around chugging alcohol made from potatoes."
I considered this, tapping my chin momentarily with my finger. "Yeah, but he's only one quarter Russian, so he doesn't count." Satisfied with that, I took another sip of my beer.
Eden perked up. "Oh, Lotte, speaking of Kurt, did I tell you that Matt heard him talking about you in his sleep last night?"
Said beer sprayed out of my mouth and all over the legs of some random bystander, who did not seem terribly pleased.
"
What?" I spluttered after making a quick apology. "He was talking about me in his sleep?"
She nodded. "Yup. That's what Matt told me, anyway."
"What was he saying?" I questioned.
"No idea," she answered with a shrug. "Matt said that your name was basically the only thing that Kurt said that actually made sense. He also apparently mumbled something about running out of purple rice and having to buy more from David Ricardo, but I don't think that has anything to do with you."
I quirked an eyebrow. "David Ricardo, as in the famous economist?"
"I think so," Eden affirmed.
Jane snickered. "Maybe Kurt's a closet activist for the creation of a purple rice free market."
"Because that's just such a hot trade commodity nowadays…" I quipped sarcastically. "But seriously, why would Kurt be talking about me in his sleep?"
Jane grinned mischievously. "I bet I know…"
I fixed her with a glare that would have made a Volkswagen speeding down the Autobahn at 150 miles per hour stop dead in its tracks. "Don't even go there."
She batted her eyelashes innocently and emitted a cough that sounded suspiciously like "wet dream." I smacked her upside the head.
Eden wrinkled up her nose. "Bad image."
"Tell me about it," I concurred, rolling my eyes.
Jane shrugged. "I think it's kind of sweet, actually…"
Eden and I shot her identical skeptical glares.
"…in a pervy sort of way…ish."
"That's probably not what it was, anyway," Eden decided. "People talk in their sleep all the time. In fact, you do it quite a lot, Lotte."
"I know," I admitted sheepishly. Hans had informed me of this many times throughout my childhood.
"The other night, actually," Jane chuckled. "You were going on about playing squash with Kaiser Wilhelm the Third. Apparently, you were getting your ass kicked, which makes sense, as we all know how notoriously horrible you are at racquet sports. Still, it was quite entertaining."
My beauty sleep had turned into Open-Mike Night. Grand.
"Well, sorry for waking you up," I apologized, downing the last of my beer.
Jane grinned. "Nah, it was totally worth it. It's not every day that you get to hear someone screaming at a dead monarch about drop-shots."