Among the Cornflowers

They were here again.

Standing in the doorway, half-bathed in the hazy light of the evening sunset, Bernadette Winter counted – one, two, three, four pairs of pristine black boots standing tall and proud like soldiers reporting for duty. They weren’t enough for an official gathering; no, four pairs of boots meant a small gathering, something intimate. Four pairs of boots meant three guests, and three guests meant that the low sound of laughter drifting down the hallway signalled a party. The house was being used to entertain friends.

No, entertain the enemy, Bernadette thought bitterly, her skin crawling at the thought of those men setting in her pristine living room, jackets thrown across the backs of the chairs as they sipped their poison from her finest china. For a few seconds she allowed disgust to wash over her body in waves, lips curling downward in a scowl momentarily before she rearranged her face into what she hoped was a neutral stance.

“Constance,” she called, waiting only a few seconds before the unruly-haired maid scuttled forward from the kitchen. Bernadette held her jacket out, waiting until Constance had hung it up before speaking again. This time her voice was low enough that it could barely be heard above the sound of raucous hilarity echoing down the hallway. “How long?”

“A few hours, Frau Winter.” Bernadette visibly winced at the use of the German honorific. Constance didn’t seem to notice and continued without apology. “They came with Herr Winter. I have just served them, I do not know how to say in German – hors d’ouvres?”

“Vorspeise.” Bernadette touched Constance’s arm lightly, giving her a gentle smile as she did so. “It’s vorspeise. Thank you, Constance, that will be all.”

Constance nodded quickly, turned on her heel and marched down the corridor before ducking into an archway and disappearing from view. Once again Bernadette let her mood dictate her facial features, knotting her eyebrows together. Second doorway to the left – it was where they always met. Any other day, Bernadette would have slipped her shoes off and walked quietly to her bedroom, ever the willing wife. However, today was not any other day.

Without even thinking, Bernadette strode down the hallway, thrusting the doors to the living room open wide. Four pairs of eyes greeted her as she stood with one hand on her hip, hostility rolling off of her. She scanned each face individually as she tried to remember the names of the men her husband worked with, before settling on his bloodshot, muddy-brown eyes.

“Karl.” There was no warmth to her voice, despite the dazzling smile she had plastered across her face. “Darling. A word, please?”

He looked up momentarily, a lopsided grin spreading across his face. “Hello, sweetheart. Care t’join us?”

“In private,” Bernadette said with a steely glance in Karl’s direction, her smile faltering slightly before she turned to the rest of the room. “Urgent family business, Herren. I do apologise.”

The heaviest of the group, a heaving man in his mid-fifties with cheeks as red as the fire crackling in the hearth next to him waved away Bernadette’s apology with his stubby fingers. “Nonsense, my dear. No apology necessary. We all have wives. We know what they are like.”

Bernadette’s skin crawled as she watched the man wink in Karl’s direction. Karl blushed, a soft hue adding to his already ruddy cheeks. She resisted the urge so scowl once again – a woman never scowls, it causes wrinkles, she remembered her mother telling her years ago – and instead beckoned towards the door.

“I won’t keep him too long Herren,” she said as she followed a staggering Karl out of the door. “I know you must have important business to attend to.”

“Very,” the man closest to the fireplace said with a guffaw, raising his glass in the air. “Very important business.”

Bernadette let a high falsetto laugh escape her lips, flashing a charming smile his way as she closed the door. Almost as soon as the latch had fallen into place with a soft schrick, Bernadette switched effortlessly from German to French, the smile dropping instantly from her face.

“You promised they wouldn’t be here again. Get them out. Now.”

“Bernadette, I can’ just…”

“Yes!” Bernadette almost shrieked with rage-fuelled laughter. Karl, through his drunken haze, managed to direct a pointed stare her way. She lowered her voice again. “Sorry. Yes, Karl, you can. Tell them to go. Tell them I’m ill. Tell them my father is ill. Hell, tell them you’re ill. I assume anything official is finished seeing as you smell like a damn brewery and you can’t string words together for love nor money. So get them out.”

Karl stared at his socks sheepishly, refusing to meet Bernadette’s iron gaze and the latter had to resist the urge to smirk triumphantly. She kicked at the nearest boot – childish, but the action let some of the pent-up anger out – to accent her next point.

“I want them gone,” she reiterated, crossing her arms. “And I want them gone now.”
________________________________________
“Dette, please, come to bed.”

Bernadette ignored the disembodied voice coming from the bedroom, instead choosing to lean further out from the balcony to look at their surroundings. The apartment they had been forced to move to after Karl’s promotion was a massive downgrade from their house in the countryside but even Bernadette had to admit that it had a beautiful view over the city. When they had first moved, Bernadette had sat on the balcony night after night, marvelling at the way in which the twinkling lights of passing cars were reflected tenfold in the gentle lapping of the river water. She watched children play in the streets, and couples strolling arm-in-arm as they made their way to the tiny riverside cafes for a midnight rendezvous – much like she and Karl had once done, smiling brightly to the children who waved as they passed.

But Paris had gone dark a little over four weeks ago, to dissuade any Allied bombers from trying to impede the greater good that the generous Führer was trying to bring to France, Karl had told Bernadette as he explained away the changes with a lazy flick of his hand. Car lights no longer sparkled in the water and the Eiffel Tower, ever-presence on the Paris backdrop, held very little of its original appeal now that it was simply a hunk of metal in the skyline. No cars raced along the roads in the early evening, the sounds of their engines and the pip-pip of their horns fading from the city soundscape. Even the people were warier nowadays, choosing to stay inside for fear of being picked off by the burly Gestapo men that now roamed the street like rats.

Bernadette still liked to watch, though, cigarette in hand and the cool metal of the balcony bars sinking into her forearms. Especially when the sun sunk low into the horizon and the city was bathed in a spectacular red as it was now.

“Dette?”

Karl had been handsome in his youth, all twinkling brown eyes and mischievous smiles that had stolen Bernadette’s heart all of those years ago. Even as the war had broken out and the fighting had begun, he held a certain brightness to his soul, one of joviality and happiness. He had kept the persona of the man that Bernadette had met at university for a little over a year, before the war raging around their ears seemed to press him into a mould, creating a hollowed-out version of the man that she had once loved. Bernadette didn’t need to look around to see that, to trace the fine lines that were beginning to appear on his face. She could tell from the weariness in that one word.

Now, she couldn’t bring herself to turn around and look into her eyes, because she knew that the barren shell was all that was left.

“Sobered up yet?” she asked, taking another puff of her cigarette. A gull flew overhead and Bernadette traced its flight with her finger, looping and twisting her hand into the darkness. Sometimes, she wondered if even the birds in the city were free, or whether they were doomed to circle endlessly in the same looping, monotonous flight patterns.

“Mostly.” Karl exhaled, and Bernadette felt tears pricking the insides of her eyelids. “Listen, I’m sorry. For the drinking and the meeting. I know I said I wouldn’t have any more, but…”

“Karl,” Bernadette said, sighing elaborately as her interruption tailed off. Twisting her body around, she turned to face him, the cool bar digging into the small of her back. “You have to understand. Your country is taking everything from me. I cannot speak French in the streets anymore, because it may get you into trouble – instead I have to speak your stupid pig-Latin, even to the shopkeepers. I have a German passport now. Your stupid country has ruined France. The only solace I have left, the only place where I can truly be French, is my own home and I don’t want those,” Bernadette spat out the next words as if they were poison, “Nazi bastards anywhere near my home.”

Karl scowled defiantly. “Bernadette, I am one of those so-called Nazi bastards. And keep your voice down.”

“No.” Bernadette breathed in deeply, gulping down the cool evening air in sharp bursts. Her anger was dissipating now, leaving her stomach filled with the heavy tendrils of dread that had settled upon her the second that the war had begun. “No. You are a good man, and I know this. What you are pretending to be, this… this monster, this is not you. You do what you have to do to survive. Those men torture innocent people for kicks. And yes, I hate the man you have become and I hate that you’re one of them, but you are different. Deep down, you’re still the man that offered to teach me how to pronounce entschuldigung after hearing my pitiful attempts. You’re still my Karl. I just wish you’d walk away from the pond scum that you associate with now.”

“Dette, please.” It was Karl’s turn to sigh, pinching the bridge of his nose and closing his eyes. Bernadette felt the rage bubbling within her being again, and had to resist the urge to grab the shell for a man stood in front of her and shake him until he saw sense. “Please. You know you can’t talk like this. I understand that you’re angry and I would be too, but it’s treason to speak like this. You’d be killed.”

Karl’s voice broke on the last word, and Bernadette felt the anger melt away in one fell swoop. Stifling back a sob, she allowed Karl to envelope her in a hug, burying her face into the fold of his pyjama top.

“I can’t lose you,” he whispered into her hairline. Bernadette sniffled, the faint musk of Karl’s cologne and the lingering stench of the whisky he had been drinking earlier melding together effortlessly. It was somewhat calming; a familiar smell in the midst of absolute chaos. “I can’t. You’re all I have left. I hate this. I hate this too, you have to know that. This is necessary. We have to do this. It’s what Europe – and later the world – needs. A better world to live in, a place where everybody has a job and money and the means to live. National Socialism gives us that. Hitler is giving us that. Don’t you want that? The greater good?”

Karl stroked her hair softly, and Bernadette nodded against his chest. Truthfully, she didn’t want any of it. The lies forced down their throat by a totalitarian dictator, the false promises of jobs and food and everything else. Karl, like every other German she had ever met, had been sucked in by the assurances, but France had not. And neither had Bernadette. Karl didn’t understand that, and he didn’t understand her hatred.

And so, she simply remained silent as she watched the world burn around her.