It was the invasion Christof had warned her about the week before.
Tears streaming down her face, she ran through the darkness, somehow managing to avoid being seen by either the Germans or the French Resistance.
When she got to the chateau where Christof was staying, she heard gunfire. Dead Germans lay in the street alongside dead Frenchmen, some of them her neighbours.
She burst through the doors of the chateau and followed the sounds of the guns and angry French voices.
"Papa!" she called out, stumbling through the darkness.
Marie found them in the room the Germans had taken over as their command center. One of the Frenchmen recognised her and let her pass.
Christof was on his knees, his hands raised in the air. His handsome face was bloodied and his uniform torn.
Her father held the German's Luger in his hand.
"What are you doing here, Marie?" he thundered.
"What are you doing, Papa?" she ignored his question.
"I'm going to kill the German dog who would lay his hands on my daughter!"
"You cannot kill him," Marie shouted. Strong hands restrained her from running over to take Christof in his arms.
"Why not? What's one more dead German?"
The question hung in the air for an eternity.
Marie burst into tears. "Because I love him!"
A stunned silence fell over the room.
"No," her father whispered, disbelief and anger in his eyes. He turned to Christof and raised the pistol to shoot the German.
"He is the father of your grandchild!"
The hands holding her recoiled and she ran over to stand between her father and her lover.
Marie knew that in her father's eyes, the sun rose and set around her. But in that instant, they became strangers, their relationship forever changed. Still, she refused to back down.
"The Americans are landing in the western fields because I found out the southern fields are mined," her voice was defiant. "You were able to shoot your way in here because I told you how many soldiers are stationed here and where their guard posts are! You know how many guns and tanks left last week because I told you! You used me to find out things you could not find out on your own, Papa!"
No one spoke for a long time.
"What would you have me do?" her father growled. "The Germans came here as conquerors! They destroyed and humiliated our army, and we should kill them all."
"Not him!" Marie pleaded. "Turn him over to the Americans. You don't have to let him go. He can't hurt you anymore."
"Marie," Christof looked both relieved and hurt to see her. Relieved that she might be able to save his life. Hurt that she had used him to gather intelligence for the French Resistance. "Please go. Please don't see me like this."
"Shut up, dog!" one of the other men slapped him across the face.
She turned and pressed her forehead against his. Both were crying.
"I'm so sorry, Christof," she sobbed. "I'm so sorry."
"Don't be," he whispered. "Don't be sorry about anything."
"Tell them everything," she implored her lover, grasping at straws to save his life. "Tell them everything you know. Tell the Americans."
Marie shrieked in agony as she was lifted away from Christof and carried away.
"Take her to my house," her father said, his voice sad and angry. "And stay with her. Do not let her leave again."
She struggled, but was unable to break the grasp of the men who held her.
* * *
American and British paratroopers landed that night, and were followed by the sea invasion in the morning.
Marie's father returned at dawn, but he did not speak to her. She stayed in her room, crying.
Their village was one of the first to be liberated by the Allies, the Germans and the Ostlegionen driven back or destroyed. She did not find out what fate befell Christof, no matter how much she begged her father to tell her.
She rarely left her house, her status as a pariah cemented when word of her pregnancy spread. Other women who had taken German lovers were stripped naked, their heads shaved and were paraded around the towns and squares of France, but this fate was not hers.
While she made no secret the she loved Christof, it was also widely known that she had been instrumental in feeding military information to the French Resistance leading up to the Allied invasion. So the others in town mostly left her alone, as long as she kept to herself. It helped that her father was a prominent figure in the Resistance cell.
The following March, her daughter was born. Marie named her Christiane and waited for the war to end.
Although only twenty, she grew up quickly. Both her mother and father seemed disappointed and angry with her, and there was always tension in the house. She hoped the baby would bring them around, but if anything, the presence of the little girl only made things worse. It was as if the child's crying was a constant reminder that their daughter had dared to bed a German.
Marie was unable to find a French suitor; apparently none of the local men wanted to have anything to do with a woman who had been soiled by the enemy.
Peace with the Germans was made in May of 1945, and attention in Europe turned to rebuilding their war-torn cities and coming to a truce between the Americans and the Soviets.
On a warm summer day, a single car drove up to their house.
Marie ran out the door as soon as she saw the driver.
Christof lifted Marie into the air and spun her around, joyously laughing for the first time in months. He took his daughter in his arms and fell in love with another young French girl.
Any worry Marie had about Christof being angry with her disappeared instantly.
He asked Marie's parents for their blessing to marry their daughter. Her father only waved dismissively, and her mother readily agreed, as if to get her out of their house and town that much quicker.
Without another word, the young couple packed up her belongings and loaded them into Christof's car.
Marie clutched her husband's arms with one hand and held their daughter in the other as they drove out of France, knowing that she had left her family behind forever.
* * *
Danielle closed her great-grandmother's diary, tears in her eyes.
She felt a hand on her shoulder and tried to smile for Ma-mère.
"What happened to him?"
"Papa turned Christof over to the Americans when they arrived. He spent the rest of the war in a prison camp in Texas." The older woman sat next to her great-granddaughter. "After the war, he returned to Germany, and then came to get me. We were married in his home town in Freiburg and lived there until 1947, when we came to America."
A sad look passed over Ma-mère's eyes. "Christof went to work at a bank in Canton, but he was killed in a car accident two year later. My heart broke for the second time over him that day. The first was when I thought Papa had killed him."
Instinctively, Danielle took her great-grandmother's hands in hers.
"I re-married and that is the man the rest of you know as my husband, but Christof will always be my first and true love."
"Did your parents ever speak to you again?" Dani asked softly.
"Not until after Christof died," Marie replied, her voice filled with regret, touched with a hint of anger. "And they never treated your grandmother very well, even though she had done nothing to them other than have a father who was a German officer."
"He was a very handsome man," Danielle said.
"Yes, he was," Ma-mère agreed. "And he was a good man, too. Not all of the Germans were Nazis, and not all of them were evil. Your great-grandfather was the most wonderful man in the world. At least to me."
For the remainder of the evening, the pair—separated in age by 71 years—flipped through the worn scrapbook of pictures, reliving Marie's memories of growing up in France and her new life in the United States. At one point, Danielle had enough presence of mind to record several of the stories on her
smartphone, so that they were not lost forever.
Right before their evening meal was ready, Ma-mère drew out a small box and handed it to Danielle.
"What is this?" the girl asked.
"Aside from the pictures and memories, these are all that I have left of my beloved Christof," Marie lifted the lid, revealing some more pictures and a couple of other trinkets. "This was the ring Christof gave me when we left for Germany. I wore it until the day of his funeral. I had thought to bury it with him, but then I didn't want to give up everything he had given me."
Danielle looked on in surprise as Ma-mère slipped it on to her finger.
"I want you to have it, ma chère," Marie said gently. "Of all my children, grandchildren and great-granchildren, you are the student of history, and you will appreciate it most."
The young girl trembled as her great-grandmother's hand gently caressed her cheek.
"You also have his eyes," Ma-mère whispered. "His beautiful blue eyes. In three generations, you are the first to have eyes like his. And that is how I know my dear Christof lives on."
THE END
* * *
Battered But Not Broken
* * *
"I, Amanda Claire Stephenson, do solemnly swear, that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God."
There was some polite applause. The Army Surgeon General reached out to shake Amanda's hand for the cameras. The promotion ceremony was smaller than the last time she had been visited by the Army's bigwigs. Of course, this was merely a formality before her pending retirement. And it was less likely to make the news.
She forced a smile for the three-star general who stepped back for the next part of the ceremony. Her husband came forward and the smile turned genuine. Brent's hair had a little more grey, but he was still as handsome as the day they met. Twenty-one years in the airborne tends to keep people in shape.
He was dressed in a nice suit; to her, he looked so odd out of uniform, but then again, he had been a civilian for the past two years, having given up his military career to care for her.
With practised efficiency, he bent over and removed the oak leaves from her shoulder epaulets, then replaced them with silver eagles.
"Congratulations, Colonel Stephenson," the general said.
"Thank you, sir," she replied, her gaze never leaving her husband. He returned her loving smile. All of the military personnel there saluted, then broke into a chorus of congratulatory greetings. There was punch and refreshments, all generously supplied by the cafeteria at Walter Reed. The others at the ceremony were just like her: wounded war vets in rehabilitation before being medically discharged.
Mandy wheeled herself over to the food and fixed herself a plate of cookies and pretzels, never far from the watchful eyes of her husband. She made some small talk with a few of the officers, soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines she had gotten to know through physical therapy. She was almost done and within a week, she would retire from the Army and Brent would take her home to whatever their lives held next.
She only wished she was more than a broken down soldier and a wife who couldn't satisfy her husband anymore.
* * *
They met at West Point twenty-seven years before. They were both plebes. He was there to escape the poverty of rural Georgia. She was from a military family, and given her aptitudes and personal drive, a service academy appointment was all but a given.
Born Amanda Claire Thomas, she could trace her family back to English settlers in the 1740s. Her ancestors had served in every American conflict beginning with the French and Indian War through her service in Afghanistan and Iraq. Her younger brother was CO of SEAL Team Five and a handful of other relatives were scattered throughout the services.
Amanda's forefathers had fought at Saratoga and Yorktown; they fled Washington, DC ahead of the British and captured New Orleans. They stormed the walls of Chapultepec, laid siege to Petersburg and followed J.E.B. Stuart on a ride around the Union Army—twice. One of her great-great-great-great aunts had even disguised herself as a man and marched to the sea with General Sherman.
She had distant cousins who were Indian fighters. Others put down the Philippine insurgency and occupied St. Petersburg after the Bolshevik Revolution. She could name uncles who jumped into Sicily and died at Tarawa. Her grandfather was an aide to Admiral Nimitz and her father was a Marine Sergeant Major. Despite his ribbing about joining the Army, her father beamed with pride when he pinned her lieutenant's bars on after her West Point graduation.
From their plebe year on, Amanda and Brent were inseparable. It was love at first sight. Army life was tough on them, though. After receiving their commissions, they married and were immediately sent to different sides of the world. She went to medical school and he went to South Korea.
In the twenty-one years they were in the service concurrently, they never had a full calendar year together. Between staff assignments, training schools, overseas deployments and graduate schools, they spent more time apart than together. Yet their love and devotion never wavered. They knew what they were getting into from Day One, and the distance between them made the time they had together that much more precious.
Brent was a regimental commander in the 82nd Airborne when the accident happened. She was in Afghanistan setting up a field hospital. While on a routine transport mission, the Black Hawk she was on got hit by one of the Stinger missiles given to the Mujahedeen by the CIA to use against the Soviets. The chopper crashed and her back was broken. Her left arm mangled. After being medevaced to Germany, both legs had to be amputated below the knees due to a staph infection, and she was paralysed from the chest down.
Her husband hopped on a plane to Ramstein Air Base and never left her side. When told that her rehab would take years, he filed his retirement papers and left the Army so he could care for Amanda—despite her protestations. He waited on her hand and foot as she endured over twenty surgeries to treat her wounds and rebuild her shattered body.
Mandy chided him for giving up a promising career, but he would hear none of it.
"Four stars are worthless to me without you," he told her. And that was that. Brent could be a hard-headed son-of-a-bitch sometimes. He was on the fast track to general and gave it up without thinking twice.
And deep down she was grateful that he was willing to sacrifice so much for her. She felt guilty because she could no longer care for herself; early on, he had to do everything for her. He drove her to and from the hospital. He cooked for and fed her. He made her do the exercises at home. Some days she hated him for pushing her as hard as he ran his regiment, but she knew she needed him. She needed his focus. His drive.
Yet she also knew there was an emptiness in their lives. They hadn't made love in almost three years. She couldn't. She had very little feeling or movement from her chest down. The skin grafts and pins in her bones sometimes made even simple things like holding hands painful. Never mind having sex.
Brent never complained. He never mentioned it. She knew that sometimes he surfed for porn on the computer when she wasn't around. When out in public, his eyes wandered. And she couldn't blame him. At her request, he masturbated for her. She would stroke his cock to orgasm and when she felt up to it, even gave him blow jobs, but it wasn't the same.
She was never going to fully be his wife again. And both of them knew it.
One of the things the Army does, especially for decorated heroes, is promote them on the way out the door. Even with his abrupt departure from the service, Brent was given his brigadier's star on the eve of his retirement, and her promotion to bird colonel was the same gesture. It let them draw retirement pay at the higher grade and put them up a peg or two when they went looking for p
ost-Army jobs.
Senior officers are valuable commodities in the private sector. In the two years of his retirement, Brent had done some consulting for the military, defense contractors, and a couple of think tanks. He found work as a talking head on CNN. Even before her retirement, Amanda was receiving offers to go on the lecture circuit, guest professorships and requests for her memoirs.
When they left Walter Reed, Brent took her back to the apartment they had occupied since returning from Germany. Most of the things were already packed up. The next week was a blur. There was a formal retirement ceremony, then she was discharged and they moved back to her family's house.
Over the next couple of months, they settled in. Once she got the hang of things, Mandy could get around quite easily. The master bedroom was on the main floor. They widened the doorways and modified the bathroom for her convenience.
Before discharge, both had been rated by the VA and she began drawing her compensation claim the day she got out. Brent's rating was considerably lower, but then again he was still a whole man. They had put a sizeable amount of money away while they were married and when combined with their pensions, they were doing well for two people at the reasonably young age of forty-five.
She went to physical therapy. He jogged and worked out a lot. They made a joint appearance on Oprah. They spoke to returning troops about adjusting to civilian life and visited with other wounded vets.
Their anniversary was approaching and Mandy was determined to do something special for her husband. He deserved nothing less.
Each night, she parked her wheelchair next to the bed. He would lift her gently and set her on her pillows.
"I love you," he told her before laying his head down next to hers. She usually slept on her back, although sometimes she would roll on to her side. Every morning, she would wake up, Brent's arm draped over her. As the first rays of dawn broke, he would stir. She went to the bathroom and he went for his morning run.
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