Erich - Ten.

Erich

There was nothing I could have done to stop the raid on the elders. Only Dietrich knew his own goddamn evil plan. He didn’t even tell his firing squad until they were already out on the mission. I was just lucky he didn’t ask me to be on the team.

Kaminski was dead before I heard about the raid. I never met the man but I knew of him. He always stood out to me. The way the old man carried himself down the street with dignity. His spectacles broad black hat and the way he towered over everyone. He would nod at the guards on duty. As if things were the same as he had been before the occupation. Jim loved him. Everyone loved him really. I used to hate him. He was so human. He made it hard to do my job.

I couldn’t bear that I hadn’t been able to stop the raid. This was my job. Get information from the inside. Stop things like this from happening. Why was I risking my life spying on the soldiers if I couldn’t do any good?

I would have no way of knowing what was going on inside the wall until nightfall. It was midday when I heard what happened. No one on base knew until the firing squad threw the body away and came back. I had a quick panicked talk over the radio with Hersch. Just to make sure everyone was safe. I couldn’t risk talking to him for long though. I would have to go in and meet with Hersch and Berezovsky later. Before I went to Gabe.  

I went to Gabe’s room every night. Seven nights now since we started. We realized quickly that Peter rarely slept at home and when he did he left by one or two in the morning. I don’t know how I stayed away so long. Now you couldn’t keep me away.

But it would be hours before I could see Gabe. When I heard about the attack on the elders I felt like I would boil over. I needed to talk to someone right away. Someone who would be as angry as I was.

“Goddamn it!” I snarled as I stormed into the medical bay. “Why didn’t I know about this raid?” The room was empty save for Düeffert as usual. He didn’t look good. Folded over at his desk. Glasses pushed up on his forehead while he rubbed miserably at his eyes.

“Keep your voice down,” he said angrily. “I just had Gabor in here. He could still be around.” Düeffert glanced towards the door. “He pinched his back, carrying the body,” he hissed through gritted teeth. I was sure I had never seen Mathias so angry.

I lowered my voice and sat down opposite him at his desk. “So you heard.”

Mathias swiped at his desk. Scattering papers and jerking himself sideways on his spinning chair. “Of course I heard. S**t”

“We killed their doctor, Düeffert. The only one they had,” I said. As if he didn’t just say he knew. I needed to hear it myself. I had to get the words out of me. “Goddamn it, I’d have shot them myself if I had known where they were going.”

Düeffert kept rubbing his eyes. He’d let out most of his anger but now he just looked defeated. “I know. I know. Look, I’ll step up your supply, all right? There must be someone else inside who can administer antibiotics.” Kaminski had trained Jim. I was confident he could do it.

“You shouldn’t.” I hadn’t told Mathias that I was the one supplying the Resistance with guns. He didn’t know I was responsible for Hochberg’s death or that I’d stopped slipping so many supplies through because I knew Dietrich was watching all of us.

He wouldn’t hear it. “We’ve talked about this. Just let me do it. Jesus, it’s the absolute least I can do for these people.” I didn’t argue with him because Hersch always seemed so grateful for the antibiotics. More than the guns even.

            “Be careful, then.”

            Mathias snorted. “Careful, right. As long as I can help people and f**k Dietrich at the same time I’m with you until he guns me down. I’ve had about enough of this place.” He got up and stormed across the room. Towards the framed photo of Hitler on the far wall. “First Kaspar, now this nightmare with the doctor…”

            “Wait,” I took a step towards him. “What about Kaspar?” Moritz Kaspar was a high-tier battalion member. Just a few rungs below Dietrich in command. Big. Quiet. A loner for the most part except when he gave orders. He’d disappeared earlier in the week. I’d only heard he’d been dismissed.

            “You didn’t hear?” I shook my head. “I thought it was everywhere. He’s been discharged. Deviancy.”

            “Deviancy!” I realized immediately that I sounded too alarmed. I sat back down and made an effort to keep still.

“I know, it’s mad.” Düeffert said with a tone of agreement. “He was going into the Polish quarter at night. There’s a brothel with painted boys on the east end, I’ve heard.”

I set my jaw and tried to keep my voice from shaking. “H-how could that be? If he’s a… if he’s a…” Homosexual. A homosexual like me. I couldn’t bring myself to say the word. “W-why wasn’t he arrested?” Jesus Christ calm down, I thought. You’re making it worse.

            Düeffert glanced around and lowered his voice. “You’re right. Protocol says he should be. But Dietrich, he knew it would reflect badly on him. A homosexual in his battalion, under his nose. Kaspar’s been with us since the beginning. Dietrich wants to be promoted once we move on from this place. Having one of his inner circle arrested for sodomy would hold him back.”

            Still, that seemed oddly forgiving for Dietrich. “I guess Kaspar’s lucky he’s not in a camp.”

            I should have known better. Düeffert cringed with the knowledge that he would have to finish the story. “He wasn’t lucky. I had him in here after Rothbauer and the rest of the goons came down on him. I did my best, but I don’t know how he’ll be. His neck was in bad shape and he…” He sat down at his desk. His face contorted. “You know what Rothbauer does, don’t you?” I nodded only so he wouldn’t explain. So I wouldn’t have to think about it. I knew what Rothbauer did. Vergewaltiger they called him. The rapist. Gabe. Leo. Don’t think about it. Dietrich rubbed his forehead and looked down at his papers. “Jesus, Amery, can you imagine?” For a paranoid moment I thought I heard something in his voice. Why did he ask me so directly? “And then once I had Kaspar here, all busted up, Dietrich comes down and asks if I can diagnose him, and says he’ll make it worth my while if I can cure him.” He spits the medical words out like poison. “I told him I couldn’t, and he had me sign an injury discharge. He warned me not to tell anyone but, Jesus, I want everyone to know.”

            I hesitated for a moment. Afraid of pushing my luck. But this might be the only chance to ask without bringing it up myself. “Can you not? Diagnose it, I mean? Cure it?”

            Mathias looked wearily at me. “I’ve read that you can. But if you ask me it’s all bullshit. You can’t diagnose a homosexual short of asking him if he’s sleeping with another man. As far as a cure,” I could feel myself leaning in and straightened up immediately so he wouldn’t think I looked to interested, “I’ve met doctors who swear by hypnosis and aversion. I had a bloke during my residency in Stuttgart who was injecting himself with saline just to fix it. Bullshit. Nothing works, nothing I’ve seen anyway. You’ll kill yourself trying to fix it.”

            In my mind I could see Gabe standing above me on the steps outside Wellington’s. He told me the same thing that morning. Leo died trying to change. I hadn’t believed him even then. But now I wasn’t so sure. Only a few days with Gabe and I felt like he held the whole world together. I had gone back to pretending after Wellington’s. I wasn’t sure if I could do it again. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to be cured anymore.

            I sat and thought for a long minute before I heard Mathias speak again. “If you’re going to keep this up,” he began, “be careful.” I froze and dug my nails into my palm. How did he know? Goddamn it, how did he know? “Sometimes I lose sleep just knowing I’ve smudged the medical inventory. I don’t know what you’re doing, but I’m sure it’s much worse.” Relief flooded through me. I let me shoulders relax even as my heart continued to race. He didn’t know about Gabe. Of course not. He meant the smuggling and the Resistance. It was not lost on me that being a spy was only the second most dangerous thing on my schedule. “I’ve seen what he does to people, Amery. The minute you’ve done what you set out to do, you have to get out of here. Go take shelter with whomever you have on the other side of that wall. Don’t wait around for Dietrich to figure it out, understand?”

Deserting. This was the first time anyone told me to do it. But not the first time I thought about it. Not even Gabe ever brought it up. Even though I knew it killed him to see me go back to base at the end of the night. Before I thought I would stay on the base until Dietrich caught on and he killed me. Even a few weeks ago I had nothing to live for. I thought I would finish out my miserable life doing something useful. But in the past few days I’d let myself see something different. I could leave the base. Stay with the Resistance. Stay with Gabe. Maybe I was still guaranteed to die at the end of this. But at least I would spend every day I had left with Gabe.

I turned in my chair and looked into his kind brown eyes. “I will.”

…

By the time I reached Gabe’s room that night neither of us wanted to talk much about Kaminski. I stopped by Hersch’s to talk to him first. Hersch didn’t have much to say but I could tell he was shaken. Kaminski had been a pillar of the community even before the invasion. He made everyone in the ghetto feel a little more human. Still, Jim was in even worse shape than Hersch. He only knew Kaminski for a few weeks but he sure made an impression. He sat stone-faced at the table poking through the black bag Kaminski had left for him. Jim was a poor replacement for Kaminski if you ask me but at least there was someone to carry on. He barely registered when I told him I would be bringing more antibiotics through. Hersch seemed pleased with me though. Rebecca sat across the table from Jim and held his hand. So apparently that was out in the open. Peter would be out all night helping evacuate the elders from their home. I wondered why Rebecca felt like I needed that information.

Gabe had heard enough about Kaminski too. He’d spent the afternoon in artillery with Berezovsky. “He wouldn’t stop talking,” he told me as I unlaced my boots at the foot of his bed. “About Jim, mostly.” Jim had run all the way to the butcher shop and nearly shot the soldiers as they carried Kaminski’s body away. The way Gabe told it Berezovsky had to wrestle Banhart off the roof.

I fell back on his bed and covered my eyes with my good hand. I didn’t want to talk about it anymore. Usually Gabe and I would sit on his bed and talk about the day and share a cigarette. But it had been such a long and terrible day. I just wanted Gabe close to me. He sat down next to me on the bed. The mattress creaked under his weight.

“Christ, Gabe, it was awful over there today.” I didn’t even tell Gabe about Kaspar and Rothbauer and his goons. Even though what Düeffert said was eating away at my insides.  “All I can think is I should have known about the raid. I should have…” The light touch of Gabe’s hand on my face stopped up my voice. He sat beside me. Running his fingers over my temple and through my hair. I could feel the darkness that had been seeping through my body all day melt away. I bent my arm towards him and rested a hand on his lap. Tilted my head back to look at him. How did he look so beautiful even at the end of a day like that. “I don’t know what I would do if I couldn’t come here.” I really didn’t. Gabe smiled just a little. Leaned over to kiss me.

“Come on,” he said as he edged towards me. He brought himself down on top of me. My hips between his knees. “We don’t have to talk about it.” He bent to kiss me again and tugged off his shirt and I couldn’t have thought of anything but him if I wanted to.

How had I survived without Gabe? After only seven days I couldn’t imagine making it through a day without knowing I would get to go home to him. We were living in a way I couldn’t picture before. Still secret, yes. But no shame or fear or urgency. Not between us. I could kiss him when I got to the top of the stairs. I could ask him about his day. I could listen to him play his violin. We could lie in bed together when it was over. We had sex every night. Sometimes twice if Peter stayed out long enough. Long nights fumbling and whispering and tangled up in the dim light of Gabe’s prayer candles. Gabe was patient when he had to teach me something new. And I wanted to learn. I didn’t know sex could make you feel whole and real. I thought that stuff was just for the movies.

But there were hard things too. I realized quickly how Leo still clawed his way into Gabe’s mind. There were things he wouldn’t let me do. They were small things. But I knew better than to push him on them. I couldn’t hold his wrists or tug at his hair during sex. Once I tried bending him over the bed and he shut me down. We started trying other positions because I could tell he didn’t always feel safe with me behind him. After a while he didn’t need to try to explain himself anymore. I could tell when something I did forced him to remember what Leo had done.

I tried not to feel hurt that he thought I would do to him what Leo did. I knew that I didn’t have much to do with anything. I would have listened if he had wanted to talk about it. I had a rough picture of what had happened that I cobbled together from the things that he wouldn’t let me do. But Gabe didn’t want to talk about it. I could understand that.

            But because he wouldn’t tell me I had no way of knowing if I was about to do something wrong. That night I thought I was doing well. I had him on his back, which was new for me so I was trying my best. He liked it that way. He felt safe when he could see me. I liked that I could see his face. I didn’t mean to hold him down at all. Only I was feeling emotional after everything that happened that day and we’d been going hard at it and I just felt drained and exhausted when it was over. I laid my whole weight on Gabe’s chest let my head fall in the warm space between his shoulder and his neck. I turned my head to kiss his throat and breathed in deeply the warm smell of smoke and sweat on his collar.

 He was fine for a minute. He even ran his hands over my arms and scratched lazily at my back. I thought for a bit about how to finish him off. Gabe might have wanted to show me something new or maybe I could show him how well I could do on my own. By the time I realized something was wrong he was tense like a plank under me.  “Get off,” I heard him say.

“What?” I couldn’t put together what he meant.

“Get off!” he demanded again.

I should have listened right away. I would have. Of course I would have. I just didn’t understand yet what was wrong. Like an idiot I raised my head to look at him instead of getting off like he asked. Gabe’s eyes got big and frightened and his breath came in short gasps. “S**t, Erich, you’re holding me down!” He twisted in my grip and I realized I needed to give him space. I rolled off him but it was too late to save Gabe from his panic. He scrambled away. “Bloody hell,” he breathed once he was free of me. By then I knew I’d done something awful. All I wanted was to comfort him. I extended my hand towards him. Gabe recoiled so hard he fell backwards off his knees. “Please, God, don’t touch me.”

“I-I’m sorry!” I stammered. Bewildered and helpless. This was the worst that I’d done to him yet. Usually when I did something wrong he would stop me immediately and I wouldn’t ask questions. This was much worse. I sat up. “What should I do?”

Gabe stayed where he was. Sitting with his knees pulled up to his chest on the far end of the bed. Covering his face with his hands. I could still see the shame all over him. “Stay over there.” He took a few deep shuddering breaths. “Just stay over there.”

“Gabe…”

“You can’t do that,” he whimpered. He balled up his fists and pressed the heels of his hands to his eyes. “Please, you can’t ever do that to me. The weight… and breathing in my ear, you just… you just can’t, understand?”

            Of course. I should have known. He couldn’t stand to be held down. Four nights ago I held his wrists down on the bed and he jerked his hands away. The regret and embarrassment crashing around in my chest was quickly overtaken by rage. Leo. He held Gabe down. Gabe could hear Leo’s breathing in his ear. Telling myself that the b*****d was already dead did nothing to ease the fury that coursed through me. But raging about Leo wouldn’t do any good. I was making Gabe unhappy just being there. I had to go. Ashamed, I sat up and put my feet on the floor.

            “No, don’t!” Gabe had fallen over onto his side. His head at the foot of the bed. He turned over his shoulder to look at me. “Please, stay with me.” He was still naked. I could count his ribs. He had gotten skinny in the ghetto even as I smuggled in food. I looked at the slope of his shoulders and the notches of his spine and the pale undersides of his thighs thought he looked so fragile. He must have felt so fragile too. Of course I would stay with him. I picked up the blanket off the floor and draped it over him. Then I lay down across the bed from him.

            For a minute I just watched as he rubbed at his eyes and listened to his sniffling. “I’m sorry Gabe,” I said quietly when I couldn’t stand the silence anymore. “I’m sorry, I don’t mean to…” I wanted so badly to touch him. To curb the impulse I massaged my damaged hand. “I wish I could… I only…” I didn’t know what to say. I wanted to know and I didn’t. I wanted to know so I could protect him. Make sure nothing ever reminded him of what Leo did again. But what I knew already was terrible enough. If I didn’t know everything then maybe I could still put it from my mind. I could sometimes forget the rage and the agony of knowing Gabe had been raped. And I couldn’t ask Gabe to tell me. He would have told me if he wanted me to know. Gabe reached across the chasm between us and put his hand on my forearm. I felt some small sense of relief knowing he wasn’t afraid to touch me.

            I began again. “Can I?” I slowly extended a hand towards him. Even with Gabe touching me I knew it was better to ask permission before touching him. Any touch might hurt him again. Gabe kept his eyes closed but nodded. I touched my hand to his face. Brushed my fingers over his damp cheeks. Gabe’s face contorted as he squeezed his eyes shut against more tears. He shifted towards me. Pressed his forehead against mine but kept his body angled away. We were close enough now that he covered me with the blanket too. “I’m so sorry, Gabe.” My throat felt raw but I willed myself not to cry. I couldn’t cry when he cried. I had to be strong for him. “I swear, anything it takes to make you safe…”

            “It isn’t your fault. I know you would nev…” his voice broke and he buried his head under my chin. I took that as a signal to put my arms around him. “How could you know?” he started again. “I don’t even know this is going to happen until it happens.”

            “I know.” I did know. My panics didn’t happen like Gabe’s. I didn’t break down the way he did. But sometimes a sound or a word would send me off the handle and I wouldn’t even know why. I would only have a sharp sense that my father was around and I needed to fight. The sound of a smashing bottle or a slammed door or the word “cocksucker.” I would start a fight when it happened. “You’re not the only one.”

            Gabe twisted his shoulders in a way that told me to stop holding him. I let go but he let me leave my hand on his face. “Will you talk to me?” he asked raggedly. “Tell me anything, something good that isn’t happening here.”

            For a few seconds I came back with nothing. I wanted to distract him. But for my life I could not think of anything good. Then he reached for his rosary. “I went to mass,” I began. “Catholic mass, back in Germany. After I realized that I couldn’t get back to England, it seemed like a way to be close to you.” Why was it suddenly easy to tell him things? This was a story I never imagined telling anyone. It was too personal. It made me sound vulnerable and romantic. Even when it happened I tried to convince myself that I wasn’t going to mass for Gabe. I could tell him now though. Telling him would make him happy. I needed him to be happy. “I thought if I talked to God He would carry the message to you.”

            Gabe’s tiny smile felt like a miracle. “That isn’t how it works.”

            I smiled back at him with a relieved laugh. I bit my lip immediately because I still didn’t deserve to feel better yet. “I still don’t know how it works. Why do they speak Latin?” I’d tried my best though. I must have looked crazy. Kneeling in the back pew praying furiously to a God I barely believed in. I thought about the photograph of a painting I’d seen once and pictured God with a beard and a dress. I knew from that photograph that one time He reached down to men but mostly He just floated away. “You’re closer to God than I am, at any rate.”

            He didn’t say anything for another minute. I listened to his quiet breathing and wondered if I should come up with another story.

            “When I was a kid I thought I’d be a priest.”

            My breathy laugh was more relieved than amused. “A priest!” Gabe nodded with another small smile. “Why?”

            “I liked church,” he started. “And it felt safe.” Gabe chewed on his lip a minute. “I could be alone, you know? No one would expect me to get married. I thought priests never had to think about sex. All the wrong feelings I had would just go away.” Gabe looked embarrassed. I gave him an encouraging look. I took his hand. “I didn’t really know what I was then. I thought, because I didn’t think about girls, I thought I was supposed to be a priest.” He narrowed the gap between us and brushed his hand over my chest. “I suppose I’m way past the priesthood now,” he murmured, tracing his fingers across my ribcage.

            This time I was ready with a good story. I had an even more absurd career in mind. “I thought I’d be a cowboy,” I said. I couldn’t keep my face straight once Gabe laughed. “It’s true! I love the westerns that play after the movie you paid to see. You know what I mean? The second movie, after the newsreel.” Gabe nodded then shook his head with a smile. I was so grateful for his smile.  Gabe was laughing and smiling and letting me hold his hand. I couldn’t change what had happened to him. But I could make him happy now. “I was too old when I figured out America isn’t still like it looks in the westerns. I used to think I’d take a train to California and find work on a ranch. I grew up in the city, I’d never seen a cow in my life. I thought America was all open spaces and I could ride across the desert on a horse and it would be the farthest thing in the world from Berlin.” Gabe wasn’t laughing anymore. I’d let the story turn sad. But I didn’t want to stop telling him. “A few years ago I got to stable Reich horses after a parade, the big kind of horses that pull carts. I loved that. Horses are nicer than people, I guess. I felt like if I only got on one no one could stop me from riding away.”

            Gabe didn’t seem to mind that the story wasn’t so happy. I liked talking to him that way. Even though by now he knew more about me than anyone else. It was the way we used to talk up on the roof at Wellington’s. Taking turns sharing a story without thinking too much about what we had to say. “I always liked horses, too,” he said. I was glad he said so. I always felt like a girl for wanting to ride horses. “We had two at Heathshire. My mum taught me to ride but I wasn’t much good at it. I know she always wanted daughters she could teach to ride.” Gabe looked sad again and I felt my heart twinge. “They wanted a big Catholic family, I know they did. But they couldn’t have more after me. I wanted to be everything for them because I knew it must have been my fault.” I couldn’t fathom what Gabe felt for his parents. Even for my mother I had trouble feeling much beyond shades of pity and respect. “Your turn,” Gabe prompted, acknowledging the pattern we had fallen into.

            By then I wished I hadn’t let the conversation turn sad. But Gabe had reminded me something I never shared with him. “My mother taught me some Irish,” I told him. “I mean, I know a little Irish.”

            Gabe found that even harder to believe than my cowboy confession. “Do you really?” he asked with a snort.

            His laugh brought my guard down. I never liked talking about myself or my home or my family. But telling Gabe was easy, if it made him happy. I couldn’t hold back my smile. “Think I’m a liar, do you?” I grinned, emphasizing the natural Irish lilt of my English. My mother spoke that way. Rising inflections and statements that sounded like questions. My accent would be entirely Irish if I didn’t suppress it. “Think I’m not an Irishman, do you?” I tightened the blanket around us and pulled him teasingly towards me. Gabe reached for me and I knew I didn’t have to be afraid to touch him anymore. I wrapped my arms around him and rolled onto my back. Planted kisses down his neck as he shifted on top of me. 

            Gabe was laughing out loud by then. “You’re breaking my English heart, Amery,” he giggled. “An Irishman’s no better than a German where I’m from.” There was nothing much to do but laugh when we thought about the sheer number of rules we were breaking. Gabe was still laughing when he leaned down to kiss me. I kissed him back with my hands on his hips and felt overwhelmingly grateful to have gotten a second chance to make him happy that night.

            When he broke away I found him looking gently back at me. “Can you say something to me? In Irish?”

            My face flushed and I felt grateful for the darkness. “I can’t really speak it much,” I conceded.

            Gabe knit his brow. “What did your mother teach you, then?”

            This was ridiculous. Embarrassing. I should have known he would ask for this if I told him. Now I half wished I’d kept my mouth shut. I prepared to lie. Brush the question aside. But when I looked at Gabe I answered without thinking.

            “I only know a song,” I confessed. “My father, father didn’t let her teach us Irish. You can guess he was ashamed she wasn’t German. Chris and I weren’t pure German, but he needed us to be. He didn’t even like her teaching us English. But, when he was gone at night, she would sing us to sleep.”

             “So,” he asked cautiously, “you can sing in Irish?”

            I looked over at the wall. I knew I looked embarrassed and bewildered but I couldn’t help it. “I can, a little. I mean…” I almost backed out. I could have told him I didn’t remember. “Only a little.” I knew he wouldn’t ask to hear. He must have known how hard it would be for me to bring back something so private from my childhood. Gabe always knew. But I also knew he was dying to hear. And as afraid as I was of showing him something so secret and so close to my heart, I wanted Gabe to hear. “I can, if you want,” I offered cautiously. The smile on Gabe’s face made me forget my fear for a second. He quickly nodded and turned his back to me. He knew this would be easier for me if he didn’t look. I wrapped my arms around him and pressed my chest to his back.

I’d barely sung a note in my life. National songs at rallies. Die Fahne hoch! Die Reihen fest geschlossen! Hymns on the rare occasion we went to church. Ach Gott, wie manches Herzeleid. But I never liked it much. My voice was higher than I would have liked and you could tell when I sang. I’d trained myself to speak lower and harsher by listening to my father and to Chris. It didn’t help that I’d learned to speak English the Irish way, the way that made my voice rise up high when I finished talking. I’d sung so rarely I was almost surprised I thought I could sing my mother’s song out loud. I had not heard the song in years. My mother stopped singing in Irish when Chris and I got too big. Certainly it got to a point when we got to old for lullabies. But I always thought she got scared that Chris would tell my father she was speaking Irish to us. I probably was not ten years old the last time she sang to me. But I remembered. Of course I remembered.

My mother sitting beside me on my bed. Stroking my forehead. Singing quietly so not to wake Chris. She sang when my father was gone or in such a deep drunk sleep he wouldn’t wake until morning. When she sang I knew he wouldn’t hurt us that night. The song meant I was safe. The way she leaned over me with her red hair like a halo. She was an angel. I knew now that the song only felt safe because she only sang it when she knew my father wouldn’t hear. But when I was little I thought the song kept us safe. Sometimes when I sat in bed touching my scars and feeling like a monster or when I woke in the night shaking and crying without knowing why I would play the song in my head like a record. I couldn’t forget.

Dún do shúil, a rún mo chroí, a chuid den tsaol, 's a ghrá liom. Dún do shúil, a rún mo chroí agus gheobhair feirín amárach.

Gabe’s ragged breathing made me sure that he’d started crying again. I ran my hand down the length of his arm but kept singing.

Tá do dheaid ag teacht gan mhoill ón chnoc, agus cearca fraoich ar láimh leis. Agus codlaidh go ciúin 'do luí sa choid, agus gheobhair feirín amárach.

Dún do shúil, a rún mo chroí, a chuid den tsaol, 's a ghrá liom. Dún do shúil, a rún mo chroí agus gheobhair feirín amárach.

I stopped for a moment because I was afraid I might cry too. I pressed my lips to Gabe’s shoulder and took a deep breath in and out. “What does it mean?” Gabe asked quietly.

I couldn’t pretend I didn’t know. These were the only Irish words I understood. “It’s a song for a child. His father is gone but he’s coming home from sea with fish and gifts. And it’s summer and it’s warm and everything is green.” I used to imagine that my father wasn’t my father. Maybe I had a real father in Ireland who had a beard and a smile. He was only gone for a while. He was at sea on an adventure. But he would come back with fish and game and presents for me. Just like the father in the song. I was grown up before I realized not even the boy in the song had a father like that. I put it together myself. It was a famine song. Something for mothers to sing to their children when they went to bed hungry. It had never been real. Just a pretty empty promise to help children sleep.

I didn’t tell Gabe that. I couldn’t tell him everything in the song. I hadn’t thought through what it would mean to sing that song to Gabe. There were words in the song I was still afraid to tell him. Chuid den tsaol. ‘S a ghrá liom. Rún mo chroí. I would tell him one day. When we were free and I gave him the rest of the letter. Then I would tell him what those words meant.

Gabe didn’t seem to notice the missing words though. They were words he didn’t expect from me anyway. “It’s nice,” he said with a contented sigh. I kissed the back of his neck and continued singing.

Tá an samhradh ag teacht le grian is le teas, agus duilliúr ghlas ar phrátaí. Tá an ghaoth ag teacht go fial aneas, agus gheobhaimid iasc amárach.

Dún do shúil, a rún mo chroí, a chuid den tsaol, 's a ghrá liom. Dún do shúil, a rún mo chroí agus gheobhair feirín amárach.

Gabe had relaxed his shoulders against my chest. “Thank you,” he breathed after a minute. He seemed out of things to say. “That was… I know it’s hard for you, but…” he sniffled and I hugged him close. “You don’t know what it means to me.” He took my hand and kissed its scorched palm. “I would be lost without you, Erich.”

I nuzzled against the nape of his neck. “Rún mo chroí,” I whispered without thinking at all. Gabe didn’t ask and I was grateful. Gabe yawned and stretched against me. “Try to sleep,” I said. “I’ll stay. You’re safe,” I assured him. Worried he hadn’t fully come back from his panic. I would make some excuse back at base. I would stay with him until he woke up.

“We’ll have horses at Heathshire, you and I,” he murmured sleepily.  

Even though I didn’t believe him, even though I still couldn’t imagine walking away from the city with Gabe, I whispered, “I know.”