Stam stood with her back to a mirrored wall. A long time—a very long time—had passed since her last look at herself. It was moments like those from earlier that would start her wondering what it was that made her so different; she would wonder what made her face so unlike anyone else’s. In her time at the church and among the students, she was always held in strange regard; her behavior, it seemed, accounted for much of it, but she could never shake the feeling her two eyes, two ears, one nose and mouth somehow also set her apart. She wondered, with the idlest of curiosities, what her own face looked like.
In time, a girl entered the restroom in which Stam had taken up refuge. The girl proceeded to a stall and ignored Stam until, after flushing and moving toward the sink, she eyed the pale figure with some skepticism. Stam remained where she was as the girl dried her hands and left, seeming unnerved by Stam’s statue-like poise.
This was how the day went on. Now and then, a girl would stop by briefly, more or less ignoring Stam, and then be on their way. One girl entered and walked right back out. Another stepped into the room and used the mirror to apply lip gloss with trembling fingers.
Stam was a poor judge of time, and having left her phone in the car, was unsure how long she had been waiting—until suddenly, the room was overtaken by almost a dozen women and girls of all ages chattering back and forth about the day’s sermon. They stood with Stam, some of them seeming to wonder about her as they waited for their turns in a stall. A few more trickled in over time, but before too long, they had all gone. Mass was over, and so by Stam’s estimate, it must have been around 11:45 a.m.
Not long after, there was a knock at the door and David peeked inside. “Uh, Stam? You in here?”
Stam was out of sight around a wall, but she replied, “Yes?”
“Are you okay? What are you still doing here?”
“I’m fine.” She fell back on a lie rehearsed long-ago. “My ride is late.”
David seemed dissatisfied by this answer. “Is anyone in there?”
“Just me.”
He entered and stepped around the corner where Stam stood still avoiding her reflection.
“That was like, five hours ago.”
She said nothing.
“I didn’t know you were still here. You should come and hang out—I’m stuck at the church until three.”
His father was a Deacon at the parish, and thus, David often wound up at the church every Sunday more or less performing the same duties Stam took care of at night—cleaning, straightening, and so on—though he did so less willfully than she. Prior to today, they had had few notable interactions; his sudden fascination with her was mysterious.
“I’d rather not,” she replied.
David seemed unsure how to react. He stood watching her for a bit, and then glanced at the reflection of the back of her head.
“Hey.” He pointed to it. “You should turn around—there’s a really hot girl in the mirror.”
Stam made no move. Her eyes remained on him, and her expression showed no hint of amusement, but David recovered quickly. “Okay, you’re too smart to fall for that.” He laughed, and again waited for some kind of reaction, but when she had none, he was forced to continue. “So… why won’t you go to the dance with me?
“I’m not interested,” she reiterated.
“Do you like me at all?”
“Yes.”
“You do?” He let his excitement show.
“You stood up for me. I appreciate that.”
David laughed. “Is that the only reason?”
“Yes.”
Excitement was traded for disappointment. “Oh. Well, I guess it’s obvious I like you….”
“It’s not.”
“It isn’t?”
Stam was silent. She had already answered once.
“Well, I do,” David insisted.
“That’s nice of you,” she replied.
He looked uncomfortable. “I guess I’m bothering you.”
“Not really.”
Silence took over between them. David was unclear how to move on—smoothly, anyway—at this point, and decided not to try. “So,” he said, “are you going with somebody else?”
“To the dance?” Stam raised an eyebrow. “No.”
“You just don’t want to go at all?”
“It’s not something I’d find enjoyable. I don’t have romantic feelings for anyone. I can’t dance.” She answered with a laundry list.
“Well, the dancing thing doesn’t matter. I can hardly dance either.” He realized what he’d said was unlikely to elicit much of a response. “So… why don’t you like anyone?”
“I like some people.”
“Okay, but like—like romantically, as you put it.”
“… I don’t know.”
“How could I get you to like me that way?” His confidence seemed to be returning.
“Hannah likes you,” Stam replied. “She and I aren’t so different—maybe she would go with you.”
David scoffed. “Hannah’s a bitch. You’re nothing like her. I like you.”
“You said that.” Stam had a vague impulse to look in the mirror, as if it might provide some clue as to what distinguished her from Hannah, Sarah or Samantha, but did not indulge. “What is it you like about me?”
“It’s like, your personality. You’re different from everyone else.”
“How so?”
“Stam—you’ve been hanging out in a bathroom for five hours. Most girls who do that are usually doing their makeup.”
“I don’t own any makeup.”
“Yeah, ‘cause you’re pretty without it.”
Stam, once again, did not have the anticipated reaction. David did his best to hide his shock that several of his best lines had now fallen flat. “You’re just… really unique.” He approached her and let his voice drop to the point of almost begging, “Come on. I wanna get to know you better.” He smiled. “Will you go with me, please?”
She looked at him. Her voice lacked even a hint of malice, but the reply seemed set in stone. “No.”
* * *
The day was one like so many others: an endless grind of grueling exercises. In the early weeks, it was just like Jens said it would be: they collected firewood and built camps and occasionally wrote poems praising the Führer. Recently though, things were changing: Gunther had been up since before sunrise running around a track while Rudolf, an older boy closer to Jens’ age, barked commands at the ten boys grouped with him. When that was over, they learned to dig trenches, how to put on gas masks, sat through a lecture about the dilution of racial purity in Germany, ate lunch, and after some more running, sometime in the late afternoon, Rudolf handed Gunther a rifle.
“How’s it feel?” he asked.
“Heavy.”
“Go on and hold it up.”
Gunther cautiously brought the rifle into what he believed was a readied position. Some of the other boys chuckled as Rudolf moved Gunther’s left hand to its proper placement and raised his right elbow and shoulder. “Like that,” he said.
Gunther nodded, more than ready to hand off the weapon. He looked over at Luther, who had gone well out of his way to make sure he was never standing beside his brother.
“Go ahead and squeeze the trigger,” Rudolf instru-cted. “Get a feel for it.”
Gunther resisted at first, then pulled it and—
BAM!
He felt himself thrown backward several times his own height. He landed flat on his back with the rifle lying on his chest. His arm ached horribly; he clutched it, wincing and doing his very best not to whine or moan. He focused on this rather than the laughing faces that appeared above him. Rudolf was laughing the hardest. “That was quite a scream.” Gunther didn’t remember screaming; he only remembered feeling like a horse had kicked him in the chest.
Rudolf picked the rifle up off of him. “Oh, come on….”
“Hey, Luther, hope you’re not as much of a wuss as him,” jeered one of the other boys. Luther ignored him, avoiding any display of sympathy or embarrassment.
“It hurts,” Gunther groaned.
“Let’s go.” Rudolf took hold of Gunther’s arm and pulled him up.
Once on his feet, Gunther pulled the collar of his shirt away to look at the front of his shoulder, which was already a bright purple color. Luther caught sight of it and winced. With some reservation, he turned to Rudolf who was handing the gun off to another boy. “Rottenführer, he should go to the medic.”
Rudolf glanced over and saw the bruise on Gunther’s arm. He shrugged. “Ain’t always gonna be a medic around, you know.”
Luther looked at Gunther and gestured toward the nearby infirmary with a cock of his head. Gunther didn’t really want to embarrass his brother further, and he wasn’t sure which would be worse: staying or going. He stood with the group another minute or so, but finally gave in and took off toward the building. Luther kept his attention on the training.
Gunther remembered how thrilled his father had been when he’d found out the local HJ met and trained on a Wehrmacht boot camp. “It’ll be just like the army, boys,” he’d said, excitedly. Gunther had feigned appropriate joy about the matter, as the last thing he needed was his father thinking there was anything unusual about him, but in reality he didn’t want to be in an army, and that was what this felt like. As he walked, he passed several groups of other boys from other villages; there were boys even younger than him going through the same rigorous exercises. And then there were the older teenagers—older than Jens or Rudolf—who had guns of their own, marching in formation. Gunther hated marching. He hated everything about this.
As he sat in the infirmary waiting for a nurse—alone but for an older woman tapping away on a typewriter on the other side of the room—he wished that something, anything, would distract him from all of it… and then something did. The door creaked open and Jens walked in. He smirked at Gunther, immediately causing his face to light up with an almost embarrassing glow—it would have been embarrassing to anyone other than Jens. He walked past Gunther and took a roll of gauze from a cabinet. The woman at the typewriter glanced up and Jens simply waved dismissively. “I’m all right.”
He dropped down beside Gunther and began wrapping a cut on his hand.
“Ouch,” Gunther offered sympathetically. “You okay?”
“It’s not even a scratch—did it on purpose,” he said. “What about you? Are you okay?”
“Yeah—it’s nothing.”
“Let me see.” Jens reached up to take a look. Gunther’s instinct was to resist, but he allowed it.
“Shit. Rudolf is an asshole,” he grumbled, his hand still on Gunther’s shoulder. “He thinks that fucking gag is funny.”
“I’ll be okay.”
“He’s still an asshole. I’ll deal with him.”
“Don’t….” Gunther shook his head, pulling away.
Jens raised an eyebrow and leaned down, trying to make eye-contact with him. Gunther obliged, though just for a moment, before looking down at the floor.
“Gunther,” Jens was very serious, “are you sure you want to be here?”
“… Yeah.”
“You’re sure you’re sure?”
He couldn’t seem to lie twice.
“Listen—life is a lot simpler than all these pamphlets and doctrines make it seem.” He looked Gunther deep in the eyes. “You shouldn’t ever do anything you don’t want to do. Nobody can make you. If things get too bad, there’s always a way out.”
Gunther looked at him quizzically. Jens smiled and pantomimed shooting himself in the head as he had done in the past. Gunther smiled back, not at what Jens was saying, but simply because he cared enough to try and cheer him up.
“In fact,” continued Jens, “I’ll go one better than that: not only should you not do what you don’t want to do… you should do what you do want. You can’t live your life running from fears—you’ve gotta chase your desires.”
Gunther nodded, understanding this, but he still felt dreary. It was a nice sentiment that Jens was expressing, but not entirely realistic. Still, Gunther was curious. “What do you want?” he asked. “Why are you still doing this?”
Jens wrinkled his face a bit, balking and not really wanting to answer, but he did. “Well, I guess this probably sounds contradictory, but… sometimes it’s appropriate to suppress what you want in the interest of not hurting anyone.”
“Huh?” Gunther didn’t understand, so he asked a more specific question. “Do you mean you don’t want to be in the HJ?”
“That’s part of it.”
“I don’t want to be,” said Gunther, “but I guess you do a better job of faking it. If my father wasn’t, well, the way that he is, he’d have noticed by now.” He sighed. “I have to stay here.”
“Why? Who cares if you disappoint your father?”
“I just….” Gunther was beginning to tremble as he searched for the right words. “It’s more than that….”
Jens put his arm around Gunther, “It’s okay,” and swallowed nervously as he looked up at the ceiling. He let out a breath and gave Gunther a comforting, gentle shake. There was silence between them for a time, until Jens said, “In two years, I’ll move up into the Schutzstaffel and maybe I can get out of here,” he said. “It’s not really what I want, but….”
He trailed off. Gunther looked at him, hoping for a continuation, but a medic finally appeared and offered Gunther an ice pack for his shoulder. “There you go, lad,” he said as friendly as could be. “Now, back outside with you.”
The medic brought Gunther to his feet, out from under Jens’ arm, and scooted him toward the door. Jens followed, and they found themselves outside, feet sinking back into the mud while groups of children shouted and struggled in their training exercises.
* * *
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