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"I can't believe you have the energy to watch the news this early in the morning, Elfriede."
August bustles around their kitchen, making his morning coffee and toasting bread for both of them. He moves with the disciplined, no nonsense precision of a war vet, even in old age. You can take someone out of the army, but you can't take the army out of them, Elfriede reflects. But when he says things like that, it's evident that even if he grew up fast in the mud of Vermorel, he's still very much the same old August in some ways.
"Force of habit, it's always important to know what's going on," she shrugs. "Besides, there's nothing else on TV." Elfriede still prefers the papers, but her eyes aren't exactly up to reading grainy newsprint any more.
"Well, at least I get to watch it, sometimes see things as they unfold," August says, pushing his hair out of his face. There is no more brilliant red in it - aging and the stresses of battle are to blame. "Much better than reading big words on dull gray paper, don't you think?"
Their granddaughter had gotten them the TV with her first paycheck. Elfriede, ever practical, had gently chided the girl, saying they didn't particularly need one and that it was cash better spent on something for herself. August, on the other hand, had taken to it immediately, although he did have a bit of difficulty figuring out how to work it (i.e. not losing the remote) - radios were more his speed.
Over breakfast, they talk about little things; groceries, fixing up the extra rooms for their grandchildren who live in Sandkuhl who are visiting soon, what to do about that leak in the bathroom. It's a quiet, content sort of happily ever after.
--
The first thing Elfriede Rauss thinks when she wakes up is how bad her knees are getting.
She rolls over to the other side of the bed, turning off her alarm clock. As she feels the emptiness next to her, she thinks of how she's been dreaming of August lately. Of what could have been. Of what Leylandian shells have made sure will never come to be.
Lots of things have changed - her arthritis is a very painful reminder of that. Her legs can now barely carry her the distance that used to make up her postal route. Speaking of the post, people prefer to phone each other now and nobody writes letters anymore. (And that might go out of fashion soon, too - there's this newfangled thing called the world wide web, which Elfriede hasn't bothered to look into much, although she knows the basics of how it works from observing people using the computers in the Borschberg public library. It's not like she'll be around for much longer to feel like she's missing out.) The blauerose fields outside her window are manicured and well-maintained, milked dry by Borschberg's local government for the tourists, but not the same as they were that summer in 1915 when everything started going wrong and right at the same time.
As she thinks about her dream last night in the shower, she thinks of all the years since then. Time hasn't been standing still. Not at all.
--
A few days after Elfriede's disastrous visit to the trenches, she is invited back for the funeral now that the hostilities are relatively calmer. She wonders why August's COs allowed this, given what happened the last time she went to visit, but decides it's unwise to ask questions when you're getting what you want. Not that she exactly wants to see the corpse of her best friend and almost-lover being lowered into the ground, but never mind, that's just semantics.
She goes back with Gottfried, as planned. Marius meets them once again, but doesn't lead them to Windmill Corner in Factory Row like he did last time. This time, he walks with them to a quieter portion of the network of trenches - nobody here is rolling cigarettes, playing cards, sleeping. The air is solemn. There are candles everywhere, some lit, some blown out. Bunches of wildflowers too, in the absence of an available florist from whom to order a proper bouquet. Seeing fresh mounds of earth everywhere, marked with makeshift headstones, Elfriede realizes that this place serves as a cemetery, the fallen buried here when there is a long enough break in the fighting.
Eventually, they reach a small flight of stairs, leading down to a small, cramped room. The small altar, the crucifix, the carvings on the walls are surprisingly ornate for a makeshift chapel in the Vermorel trenches. The men of 8th Company (sans Bergengruen) and an army chaplain crowd in the dark, candlelit space. It’s far from a proper military funeral, but it’s serviceable. She wants to stay at the back, avoid attracting undue attention like she did last time, but the chaplain points to a spot in the front pew - where a widow would sit. She doesn't know if the chaplain is just assuming or if he's been told about her and August's last moments, but she does not refuse.
August's ashes are on the altar - they can't afford to let dead bodies stick around for very long, even if already interred, since the trenches aren't exactly the most sanitary living quarters. Two photos of him, one in his formal uniform, and a more candid group photo with the rest of 8th Company, both taken in basic training, flank the urn. It's then it hits her that he's really gone - she can't even see him lying in state in a coffin, ready to face the infinite, just a cold, impersonal pile of ashes. The boy she loved (and still loves, very much so) is now nothing but dust.
You are made from dust, and to dust you shall return.
The service is the same as every funeral mass she's been to - four total, for August's parents and for hers, five if you count the "funeral" August gave his pet bunny Hilda - but this is the first one where she's really been seized by a sense of loss. All the other times she had someone she knew she could lean on. This time, everything that lies ahead is murky.
Time is doing that thing where Elfriede thinks it's standing still but it really isn't again. From boredom with the monotonous Catholic rites or from a kind of numbness that springs from feeling too much (her own sort of shellshock, though it wouldn't hold a candle to what Wolf is going through), she doesn't know.
The chaplain's sermon contains no talk of glory, nothing like the verses August and his contemporaries had devoured, the fairy tales they'd been fed as little boys, or the posters that had seduced them into coming to this grim place. He speaks with sympathy for the horrors of the war - glancing pointedly at Eugen and Wolf - and reflects that whether right or wrong, they're here, and here, the dugout in the wasteland which was once the fertile fields of Vermorel, is where they'll be for the foreseeable. Nothing to do but fight on, not for politics, not for some abstract honor, but for each other. It reminds Elfriede too much of her last conversation with August before he shipped out.
And if I die, I've died for you.
Everyone rises for communion and only she is left. She stares blankly at August's formal photo, at the small smile on his face, the same expression he used to make when she offered to take over his shifts or when they shared an inside joke but laughing out loud would have earned them an icy glare from Mrs. Mueller.
The Mass ends and the chaplain asks August's comrades to share a few words for him. Elfriede maintains her composure as she listens to the short eulogies. Even Eugen manages to keep his flowery speech to a minimum. When he finishes, he turns to Elfriede and asks, gently, if she'd like to say anything. She blinks back tears and talks about her dead friend as she remembered him, as August from the post office. Not Private Weil. For no matter how much he'd changed, many things about him had stayed the same. And she doesn't mean to discredit the baptism of fire which made him the "real man" he wanted to be - she means that he was brave and loyal and loving to the end as he'd always been. He didn't have to try so hard to be a great man. He already was one.
As they leave the chapel and take the urn outside, Elfriede lets herself cry. Tears come rushing out as the newly dug hole is blessed, as she scatters earth over it. They don't stop when a headstone, no more than a medium sized boulder, is fixed on top of it. And they certainly don't stop when the men of 8th Company salute sharply, and begin to sing the Wesslinger army's funeral lament.
A bullet flew towards us/Was it meant for you or me?/It did tear you away/And you lie at my feet/Like you were a part of me
At this point, the tears stop flowing, not because Elfriede has calmed down, but because there are no more left to cry. Once the funeral rites are over, everyone returns to their respective sections of the trenches - the war leaves no time for tears. Elfriede remains, staring at the tomb, transfixed. Eugen, who she'd entrusted August's post office brooch to, elects to stay with her awhile, before she leaves to catch the last train home. As he takes her hand in his (fumbling a little due to his, well, recent loss of his sense of sight), something tells her this isn't just gentlemanly decorum.
August's little bag of possessions which he'd lugged with him on the train to Vermorel and a generic letter of condolences from battalion HQ are given to her before she leaves by Marius, presumably after the casualty officers have cleaned it and sifted through his things for contraband to confiscate or equipment to repurpose. August was an only child and his parents had died in a cholera outbreak - the girl he died confessing love to is the closest he has to next of kin. Elfriede examines the package as the train steams away from the trenches and back to Borschberg. His things are terrifyingly neat and sterile, so unlike August. His bag doesn't contain much. A bare bones first aid kit. His dog tag. A biscuit tin and thermos, both empty. A letter opener he’d had since their post office days - for its intended purpose or an extra line of defense in case of ambush, Elfriede doesn't know. A lighter and a half-finished pack of Levasseuri cigarettes (looks like the coroners weren't that thorough after all). Elfriede has been going through his things mechanically, trying not to break down, but when a photograph of her falls out of a small notebook stuffed with torn and dirty sheets of paper, everything feels too much and she slumps against the window, wanting nothing more than to collapse into bed.
--
Mrs. Mueller had taken pity on Elfriede eventually, despite her earlier steely refusal to grant the girl's request to enlist. Less than two weeks after August was buried, Elfriede returned once more to the trenches, this time as a field postwoman, as she'd sworn to do.
The job was taxing, to say the least. Difficult on the soles. Difficult on the soul. But Elfriede stayed, amidst all the days that seemed to bleed into each other because she was so damn tired and could remember nothing, because she knew it was for a fallen friend, and for everyone who, like her once before, hoped every day was the day they got a letter, even if, many times, the letters she delivered were notices that someone dearly beloved now rested in a ditch in a foreign land. Not to further the war effort, or for mad patriotism, like many of those with whom she fought. She did turn out like August, after all, getting embroiled in this political mess for a personal cause.
War made for strange bedfellows, sometimes quite literally. After a year of courtship - if trying not to die together can be considered courtship - Elfriede had married Eugen, who’d been allowed to stay in the trenches as a Morse operator through some truly impressive administrative gymnastics and against everyone’s wishes. She didn't see it as a betrayal of the boy who'd died for her. After all, he had promised to be there for her if, for whatever reason, August could not. There was a reason she had entrusted August’s brooch to him.
The affair was hardly walking the halls of Reinholdt Manor in wedded bliss, as Eugen had imagined. But, retaining a streak of his capital-R Romantic flights of fancy, he’d insisted on her getting a dress and a bouquet, even if those things were hard to come by now. (“How I wish I could look at you right now, Elfriede. It’s all right, I’m quite sure you’re still exceedingly lovely.”) And so they had wed, in the same bunker chapel where August’s last rites had been held. Elfriede wore a white dress sewn together from old, but clean, sheets from the infirmary, and held a bouquet of poppies she had gathered near the field. Sewn to her collar was August’s old post office brooch.
Their union was consummated on Eugen’s bunk in 8th Company’s stretch of the trenches. It wasn’t the easiest thing, considering only one of them could see, but it wasn’t all that bad. Slow and patient and quiet, nothing like what one hears in the bawdy songs men sing to distract themselves from the very real possibility of dying in the next battle.
At the time, many of their friends had asked if they were, perhaps, being too hasty. If being in the middle of war had given them a sense of urgency which was far too strong. Bergengruen, antagonistic as ever, had insinuated Eugen was nothing but a rebound. There were times Elfriede herself wondered if they were right, but she knew, in her heart of heart, that what they'd had was real.
--
Elfriede still lived in Reinholdt Manor, where she’d been happy with Eugen for a while. When he too died, he left her the house, the blauerose fields, and twins.
The income from the fields was enough to sustain her as she aged, and she quickly amassed a fortune. When some years down the line, the mayor tried to buy the fields and the grand old house, the handsome sum Elfriede paid him to get off her back and help maintain the grounds instead of acquiring them entirely was a drop in the bucket, but she still felt like she’d lost something as she stubbornly held onto her enchanting old ruin. Was it because the world she’d known was changing so quickly around her? It certainly was, as cars instead of stage-coaches now passed below the balcony of the mansion, where she sat like a made-up matriarch.
Despite everything, Elfriede wasn’t bitter. She was happy, in her own way. It was just that on some days, a longing for something she couldn’t quite name seized her.
--
At the Borschberg library, Elfriede sits at a computer, where she’s pulled up the website of the National Defense Ministry. Thanks to a phone call to her granddaughter (and the help of the teenage girl at the desktop next to her) she’d figured this whole internet thing out well enough to do what she wants to do – it isn’t that bad, really, and she wants to laugh at herself for ever worrying about it.
Terribly efficient, aren’t they? Elfriede thinks, as she looks around the page for a bit before clicking on “grave search.”
The page has a form of sorts to fill out, and she hopes something will turn up as she types in the answers.
Full name? August Weil.
Date and place of birth? September 13, 1893. Borschberg, Wessling.
Date and place of death? January 20, 1916. Vermorel, Levasseur.
Last rank held? Private.
Last unit? 8th Company, 28th Infantry.
Time does that thing where it seems to stand still again, even if it isn’t. Elfriede stares at the monitor as she waits for the search results to load. She doesn’t know how long. Three seconds? Five? Ten? A hundred? It’s been a whole lot of seconds, at any rate, when an answer pops up.
Wesslinger War Cemetery at Vermorel.
--
"Round trip ticket for one, please," Elfriede digs her wallet out of her purse, "for the earliest available train to Vermorel tomorrow. I'll be there three days."
The boy at the ticketing booth on the ground floor of the station does a double take. "You're traveling alone, Ma'am? At your age? It's quite far."
"Don't worry about me," chides Elfriede, a little annoyed but mostly amused. "I ran around in less than ideal conditions the First Lassallian War and I managed not to get trench foot, so I can handle myself."
"Oh, sorry Ma'am, I didn't mean to-"
"It was a joke, son," Elfriede laughs as she hands over a wad of bills.
"If you served in the war, I assume you're going to see the War Cemetery? Who are you visiting, if I may ask? A husband?"
"Yes," says Elfriede. "Well, not my husband, but he could have been." This boy is pretty sharp.
"God rest," the boy answers, handing her her ticket. "Take care tomorrow, Ma'am."
--
Elfriede sleeps maybe two hours? Just one? She doesn't sleep much, at any rate. At 6am, she's awake. At 8am she's on the platform of Borschberg train station, about to take the same route that changed her life forever.
She boards the train, hugging her purse to her and plopping her small suitcase in the next seat. She cradles a bouquet of Borschberg blue roses, freshly picked from the manor grounds before she left. Unlike the first two times she went to Vermorel, she's alone. No Gottfried. No Marius.
The congested, even suffocating buildings of Borschberg slowly thin out then fade into the distance. The train weaves through several towns as snacks are served. A young man with his dog gets into the seat across from her when the train stops at Relbruck.
The buildings get smaller and less packed. The train takes a two hour stopover and lunch is served. Elfriede gets down after eating and buys two small candles, plus a pack of biscuits - the brand August used to like, munching away as they sorted post when Mrs. Mueller wasn't looking, slipping a few to Elfriede with a wink. She gets back on the train, and it steams out of the station half an hour later.
The only buildings now are brightly colored houses. One of them reminds her of the house she grew up in. The train is weaving through small towns now, even more remote than Borschberg. Elfriede sees a young couple and thinks of Eugen and what they had. Thinks of August and what could have been.
The train stops at Halmacht before crossing the border to Levasseur. It's 2pm and tea is served. Elfriede looks out the window the whole time, thinking of how different everything looks now. Halmacht is still a small town, the furthest in Wessling, but it's definitely much more developed all these years later.
The train leaves the station and Elfriede readies her passport before they move into Levasseur. In two hours she'll arrive in Vermorel. She dozes off and pulls her luggage closer.
She is awakened by the dog nipping at her ankles. The young man across her is apologetic, helps her with her bags, and escorts a groggy Elfriede off the train.
When she gets downstairs, she looks around Vermorel. The area is positively bustling and it's much more developed now. There is no farmland in sight, at least in this part of town, although Levasseur's Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries is here, in an imposing building with neo-classical architecture across the street. A monument to the First Lassallian War stands in the middle of the square. Elfriede realizes time is, again, doing that thing where it seems to stand still but really isn't, and forces herself to focus so she can get a cab.
--
Elfriede's hotel is five minutes away from where the trenches used to be, where a museum and the war cemetery now stand. She sleeps until 10am but it's fitful. At 10:30, she is dressed, and readies her purse and her bouquet. At 11:00, she finishes her breakfast and heads off.
As she walks through the area to where the trenches used to be, the years she spent in this foreign land come back to her. She remembers the bad and the good. What she's lost and what she's gained. The days she spent huddling among sandbags near No Man's Land, clutching a pistol to her chest and hoping she wouldn't have to fire it, and the days she spent learning how to play cards with 8th Company, tasting whiskey and wondering just what made people enjoy it so much.
Elfriede gets to the war museum and looks at the exhibits. She doesn't linger too long, but she watches videos, sees photographs, looks at artifacts with a sort of amusement.
Everyone talks about big things having happened, but never happening. Did she know at the time that she'd been caught up in a big thing? A big thing that would end up warranting museums and monuments?
She wonders if there are any traces of her old friends here as she wanders through the museum. She walks to the exit, which opens up to the cemetery. Before leaving, she stops by the gift shop to see if there's anything good.
There are postcards upon postcards for sale. They have pictures of battles, candid shots of life in the trenches. There are some with portraits of soldiers, too, photographic tombstones for men who never got actual ones. Elfriede rifles through the familiar scenes, memories from years, years ago coming back to her until she finds something that takes her aback.
Yet again, time seemingly stands still even if it really isn't. Elfriede stands there for one, two, three, a whole lot of seconds. It feels like forever.
In the pile of postcards for sale, she finds a photo of August in his formal uniform. The same photos that had been there at his funeral, all those years ago.
Elfriede leaves with the postcards in her purse.
--
Elfriede follows the directions her son helped her find, and goes to the section of the cemetery devoted to Wessling's fallen soldiers. Beyond the war cemetery's boundaries, the area which was formerly the trenches is still visible, and it seems fairly well preserved. Even the barbed wire on No Man's Land is mostly intact, though she isn't sure how much is replica. A group of schoolchildren is on a tour of the area with their teacher. They're not much younger than she and August were when the war started.
Eventually, she gets to where she's been wanting to go. She's frozen. Just like that moment when she returned to the trenches and saw him for the first time in months and realized how much he'd changed, god damn it, he really was different, he was a soldier, but no matter what, in many ways he was the same August, her August from the post office in Borschberg through and through.
This time, she isn't looking at August. She's looking at a small white cross, in a plot of land full of other crosses like it. By the foot of the cross is a small stone plaque that indicates that Pvt. August Weil, of the 8th Company, 28th Infantry, born in Borschberg in 1893 and killed in action in Vermorel in 1916, "a brave hero and a beloved friend," lies here.
"Hello," Elfriede says, quietly, after making sure nobody else is around, though she probably wouldn't let the presence of others ruin the moment, and lays the blauerose bouquet on the grave. "August, it's Elfriede. I'm back. I've brought you flowers from Borschberg - I'm sorry, they're a little wilted but I still think they're beautiful. Also, those biscuits you used to love, the ones that came in the tin your mother reused to store her embroidery materials, they still make them, can you believe it? I didn't bring you any, because, well, you don't have much use for them anymore, but I wanted to tell you. There's a lot I want to tell you."
"I'm surprised they managed to move you here, from where we buried you in the trenches," she begins, like they're face to face and nothing's changed. "Are you lonely here? Everyone else is together in the Heroes' Cemetery in Sandkuhl, and I visit them when I go to see mine and Eugen's kids, but it's strange how you're the one I've know since forever, but I also haven't come to see you since forever. Not since I returned to Wessling."
"You'll never guess what I found," Elfriede pulls the photo out of her bag. "You're on a postcard now, August, did you know that? You would have loved this, you always went on and on about wanting to be enshrined in the world's heroic canon and all that stuff you and Eugen used to blather on about, and well, sadly, that didn't happen, not really."
Elfriede is tearing up a little now.
"But despite everything...August, please never think that you aren't remembered. Or loved. Because you are remembered and loved. Very much so. Promise me."
August seems to beam in loving assent, with his small smile on the postcard frozen in time.