Pro Amare Mori

Words by Camryn Reschke

Art by Yaleeza Patchett

Pro Amare Mori

Beyond the long stretch of land that no man dared to cross, lest he had a death wish, a group of singers rejoiced after the lively carol came to a close. The performers had sung of holiday cheer, yet, he thought of his family—standing solemnly in the grand sanctuary of the town’s synagogue, reciting Kaddish as they surely had every Shabbat since this dreadful war had begun. Despite his daydreams, Lorenz Schulz was not beside his family in Strasbourg. He was, instead, a few miles outside of the Belgian city of Ypres—sat in solitude and silence on a dirty trench’s fire-step. On most days, one could hear straight across no man’s land, and if he were lucky enough to understand the language, he would hear vulgarities and casual conversations alike. But on his side of the trench, there was not a sound. There was no singing, no din of elation—or any other emotion, really. He could only hear the occasional flicker of a lighter, or some soldier clearing his throat and spitting into the dirt floor.

His lieutenant sat across from him, shielding a piece of paper from the snow and staring at it absently. If he were not so close, despite his being completely unfocused, Lorenz would peer over the side of the trench. Maybe his lieutenant would understand. It was he, anyways, who had affixed small fir trees and dimly burning candles upon the parapets for the occasion. It was Christmas Eve, and while Lorenz had little stake in the festivities, morale was markedly heightened by the occasion. For him, all it meant was that the rations might be shared more liberally among comrades. But it was growing late, and there was no guarantee they would even arrive that night.

After a cautious glance toward his lieutenant, Lorenz slowly lifted himself off the bench he sat on and stared over the trench towards the enemies, who rejoiced not even a hundred and fifty feet from them. They had begun to sing again, and even an out-of-tune flute could be heard among the tenor-dominated voices.

He felt the hardened stare of his lieutenant against his back like the bayonet secured to his rifle. With a slow and shaky sigh, Lorenz slowly slid back down onto the bench. But the lieutenant did not reprimand him. It seemed all the German officers beside him stared into the sky, perhaps wishing that one of them would start in the same song. Lorenz wished now that he was viewing the lovely winter sky from the window of his bedroom, or his studio in the center of town, hearing either his mother’s soft songs sung in Yiddish or the street acts performing late into the night. The singing paused for a minute or two, and Lorenz could faintly hear the French officers discussing something amongst themselves. Beside him, an officer had cleared the space to build a small, terrible excuse for a fire.

When the singing resumed, it sounded somewhat strained. The pitch was wavering and it was accompanied by the snapping of a twig—or perhaps some poor soldier’s frozen bone. His lieutenant stood, peering over the wall of the trench. He was silent for a moment, his eyebrows tightly knit into an expression of bewilderment.

“Schulz, be ready to fire,” his lieutenant tapped him on the shoulder roughly as Lorenz began to scramble for his rifle, which rested on the other side of the trench.

The weight of the now-loaded weapon was able to steady his shaking hands. It had been a few months now since he had joined up, but still, he could not reconcile the idea of killing another man from where he could see. Sure, the bullets he had fired in the previous months certainly took a few enemy soldiers out, but his gaze would never linger long enough to confront what he had done.

His thoughts had kept him from seeing the French officer before him, standing atop the trench so that he was much taller. He was singing a carol: “Adeste Fideles.” But his voice was a strong, rich tenor, and he could recognize his talent even if Lorenz did not know what was being sung.

When the song was finished, the Frenchman looked to his side and fiddled with a branch of one of the fir trees placed upon the parapets. He seemed quite amused by the display of Christmas cheer. Even more amusing were the atrocious red trousers of the army-issue uniform he wore, and the shoddily groomed mustache above his lip that quirked into a smile.

He spoke with the Lieutenant, and Lorenz loathed his ignorance of the French language. What should have been a tense encounter soon devolved to laughter, and Lorenz could only watch the two banter back and forth like old friends, mouths spread in innocent smiles.

“What are you doing?” He asked hesitantly, looking over to his lieutenant.

“Well, Schulz,” he began to climb atop the trench wall as if the fire-step was not a mere meter away. “There will be no fighting tonight. It is Christmas Eve, and the Allies would like an armistice.”

With an unrelenting curiosity, Lorenz followed the lieutenant as he made his way across no man’s land, and soon many other German soldiers followed suit. There was a congregation of Englishmen, Scots, Frenchmen, and Germans like himself in the center of the battlefield, surrounded by the frozen bodies of the dead strewn about, covered now by an ever-thickening blanket of snow. One could hear several languages, and it was difficult to communicate, but the animosity that once gripped the battlefield with such fervor began to dissipate with the snowy wind. The soldiers of various descent and allegiance laughed with glee and began to trade memorabilia. Lorenz watched as an Englishman passed around a photo of his wife, while the German soldiers who saw the photo lusted quite openly for the woman. She was nothing impressive, but Lorenz figured that, with the cold of the last few weeks, anything warm might do.

“Would you like to see the trenches?”

A small-framed and shivering Frenchman tugged on the shoulder of Lorenz’s jacket, turning him around. He spoke fair German, albeit quite choppy and oddly enunciated.

“Yours?” He looked to his lieutenant, but he was now lost in the crowd of soldiers growing with each passing moment.

“Yes. It is safe, promise,” the soldier laughed, and the youth of his face revealed itself. He could not have been more than 16 years old.

Lorenz looked up to the sky and sighed before nodding. Each step they took towards the French trench was hesitant, mindful of the land mines and barbed wire that littered the field.

The French did not seem better off than the Germans. Provisions seemed to dwindle all the same, and it stunk of rat shit and old blood that had surely seeped deep into the soil before them. The trench was empty, except for a man who muttered to himself and angrily reloaded his rifle over and over, searching for something to adjust with each time.

This Frenchman looked up to Lorenz and scowled. His expression was full of disdain, and as he whipped his rifle to position on his shoulder, Lorenz was certain he would join his brothers’ bodies on the frozen ground where he now stood. It was only Lorenz and the soldier before him now, as his guide from before had abandoned him, likely to make peace with another enemy.

Lorenz threw his hands up in momentary surrender. “I do not shoot,” he spat in choppy, stunted French.

The man stared at him for a little longer, his eyes narrowing and inspecting him closely. After a far too long and tense minute, the rifle was set on his lap. “Not another word, Fritz.”

This time, the Frenchman’s German was perfect. He spoke with a well-practiced accent that reminded Lorenz of the townsmen at home.

Lorenz stood tall above the still-sitting French soldier, whose eyes would not move from his face even for a brief moment. It was the most intimidating stare, for his eyes were a very light shade of blue, and his skin was like snow, with freckles that dusted his cheeks and the bridge of his nose. Despite the conditions, he seemed to keep himself clean and well-groomed, with his hair falling in refined curls.

“You do not speak French,” he said, his eyebrows twitching upwards briefly.

Lorenz could only nod, for as they had both seen, the statement was entirely true.

“Where are you from, then?” He asked, the first non-aggressive thing to come from his mouth.

“Strasbourg. In Elsass,” Lorenz responded, and the look of disgust on the man’s face proved he had not thought out his words too carefully.

For the French, this land was almost sacred. Something about Jeanne d’Arc, he had heard. It was not quite the French Eretz Yisrael, but it was land now ravaged by the “Black Stain” of Europe, his kind. For this, it was land that was to be reclaimed by the patriots of France. And it was not Elsass: it was Alsace. This false name did not belong to the land, and it was entirely rejected by the patrie.

“I see,” he said curtly, turning over the rifle in his lap. A threat. “My family once lived there.”

“And now? Where are you from?”

“Rouen.”

“What is your name?”

“Antoine Rémy Dussault.” He looked away from Lorenz for the first time during the stunted conversation.“Yours?”

“Lorenz Schulz.” Lorenz shrugged. “Not Fritz.”

“Ah.” Antoine seemed to stifle a laugh with a dry cough, waving in front of his face with his hand weakly. “That performance was pathetic.”

There was a brief moment between the Frenchman’s statements, where his guard had been dropped. But it would return with the latter, a similar shadow of stoicism falling over his face.

“Your singer? I thought he was quite lovely,” Lorenz tilted his head.

“We should not pause for this. It’s practically mutiny,” Antoine rolled his eyes. “There’s no reason to put an end to the fighting for just one night.”

“How patriotic.” He said with slight unintended scorn that could not be masked with the smirk he plastered on his lips.

Silence fell upon them again, and it was only interrupted by the soft sounds of the Frenchman rifling through his pockets. He pulled out a pipe and a lighter, as well as some tobacco. The tobacco rations for the French were practically a sight to behold, at least compared to the cheap blend that Lorenz received every so often with his meal. Antoine finished packing the bowl before circling the lighter around its edges for a clean burn. Despite the sufficient preparation, he coughed after the first two inhales.

“Are you new to that?” Lorenz cocked a brow, laughing quietly.

“Mind your business, Schulz.”

“It was all in good fun, my friend,” He smirked, watching as Antoine once again warmed the bottom of the pipe for another long draw, now accustomed to the burn. His hands, ungloved and rosy from the cold, gripped the pipe in a delicate way as if he were holding a paintbrush and studying his canvas.

Lorenz nodded resolutely before standing up, the aching of his knees hardly going unnoticed. “Well, Dussault. It has been lovely to make your acquaintance, but I fear I am growing quite exhausted.”

“Sleep, then.” Antoine sighed, glancing up to Lorenz with eyes that appeared just as tired as his own. “Tomorrow we wake, and the peace will be finished.”

Lorenz shrugged. “I don’t foresee the festivities ending so soon. I will be enjoying my moments of quiet and rest.”

“The next day, then.”

“You’re eager to shoot at us. Quite a shame.” He laughed as he hoisted himself out of the trench. Taking a moment, he dusted his backside off. “Good night, Dussault.”

“Merry Christmas, Herr Schulz.”

Lorenz could not think of an apt response as he walked back to his trench, stepping carefully to mind the landmines and frozen bodies that were strewn about. The snow fell steadily, looking more like ash than wintry precipitation.

* * *

It was hard to sleep much longer with the reflection of the sun on the blinding white snow, nor was the blistering cold any help. He woke slowly, feeling almost hungover despite his sobriety the night which began this impromptu truce. There was a light layer of snow that coated his uniform. He felt a fool for sleeping out in the cold. The barracks were not much warmer, though. The soldiers usually slept in a barn a mile away, and it was difficult on most occasions to make it there without being shot at in the night. Sleeping in the trench was abhorrent and inhumane, but it was better than catching yourself on barbed wire or finding yourself in the way of a stray bullet.

He stood, rubbing his eyes tiredly and looking around. Several of his fellow soldiers were slumped over in their seats, likely fighting off the last night’s intoxication. He was surprised they weren’t awoken by an ambush from the opposition. The festivities may very well have been a ploy, feigned camaraderie laced with ill intent.

He had heard sparse chatter about snipers who were so against the peacetime that they shot men in no man’s land regardless of allegiance. To them, it was mutiny whether their own brother was committing it or not. He didn’t understand why those men might ruin their one chance at peace and a good night’s rest. Lorenz would never discount the worth of the latter, not after the slew of restless nights in his time at war.

There was a sharp sound of metal against a solid surface. His first instinct was to duck, but it hardly sounded like the distinct sound of a bullet striking a helmet. Lorenz peered over the trench’s edge and watched as a French soldier—no, Antoine—struck the frozen ground with a shovel several times. He was standing over a body that had been retrieved from its resting place in no man’s land. If he were trying to bury it where he stood, the body would resurface after a single mortar strike. It was a pitiful sight.

Lorenz rubbed the sleep out of his eyes and pulled on his thick winter coat that he kept stored under the chair he had slept in. It was covered in dirt, but it was not thoroughly soaked. That was all that mattered in the cold. He looked around, comforted in the peace that had befallen the usually bustling trench. It was safe to move about the land.

As quietly as he could manage, he hoisted himself over the trench’s walls, walking towards Antoine as he rubbed his ungloved hands together for warmth.

“Would you like any help with that?” He asked, waiting for Antoine to look up to face him.

“Our commanding officers have extended the truce in order to bury the dead and to attend a service at the local church,” he said flatly, not seeming to have heard what Lorenz had said.

“Well, when I woke up to the sounds of the morning wind and not a violent shelling, I figured as much.” He nodded, still looking at Antoine with something along the lines of curiosity if not bewilderment. “Would you like me to help, then?”

“This is a French soldier. You needn’t assist.” Antoine cursed under his breath before exhaling slowly. White clouds came from his lips as he spoke.

“I will fetch a shovel.” He nodded resolutely and left without giving the man a chance to protest.

And so Lorenz did, finding a rusted old shovel on the dirt floor of the second trench back. The supply trench was never well organized after the constant bombardments.

Antoine had not made any progress with the frozen ground beneath him when Lorenz returned. His seemingly strong arms trembled from exhaustion. Sparing a mere glance to Lorenz, he hacked away at the soil that had only been stripped of its white layer of frost. The pained expression on the man’s face did not fade so easily, an immovable impression upon his skin.

“Why haven’t your men gone off to the chapel?” Antoine asked after a moment of silence.

Lorenz shrugged. “A long night of drinking with yours, I suppose.”

“But you’re upright, aren’t you?” Antoine rested his arms atop the shovel’s handle, looking directly at Lorenz. His eyes were rounded by dark purple streaks of exhaustion, and it seemed he hadn’t taken a moment to shave in a few days. His sharp jawline caught Lorenz’s attention.

“Why, yes, I am.” He said, digging into the frozen solid dirt once more, “I’m not much of a drinker.”

Antoine didn’t move, nor did his eyes. He was studying Lorenz, staring holes into the cheeks that now grew warm and red under the pressure of his intense gaze. He sighed heartily before stabbing the shovel back into the ground.

“You really needn’t help me with this,” Antoine repeated, wincing as if he had strained a muscle in his back.

Lorenz looked at him with a cocked brow and laughed softly.

“You seem to be struggling.” He shrugged. “Today we are still brothers, no?”

“Hardly.” Antoine turned his head to spit before he resumed the mindless shoveling.

The earth below them shifted ever so slightly. They had broken the seal created by layers of snow, ice, and even the blood that now coated the field. Antoine bent over the body and stared at its frozen face, eyes still wide open with fright. There was no guesswork involved in figuring how the man died—between his haunting eyes was a puncture wound from an undoubtedly German bullet.

“Did you know him?” Lorenz asked, his voice just loud enough to be heard over the other man’s exhausted breathing.

“Only in passing.” Antoine shook his head. “He was one of the younger recruits we got shipped over a month back.”

Lorenz nodded solemnly. He did not want to look at the man—hardly more than a boy, really—any longer. He glanced around at both trenches, then to the area between where the two now stood. There were other formless and snow-covered lumps lying on the ground, but Lorenz would not tend to them. When the rest of his battalion awoke, maybe they would feel inclined enough to unearth the German dead. But it made him ill, and he could hardly bear even knowing of their presence.

Beside him, Antoine lifted the corpse’s stiff arm, preparing to drag it back to the trench. He looked up to Lorenz for a moment, his eyes asking the question that his lips and his pride would not allow.

“I can’t.” Lorenz shook his head quickly, the idea making his stomach ache with nausea. “It’s against my faith.”

It was not a lie, it was only a convenient excuse. It was what he had been taught in yeshiva as a young boy. Corpse uncleanliness, tum’at met, was the highest grade of bodily defilement for a Jew. But beyond that, he could not bear to drag the body of a boy-soldier he may very well have killed back to the enemy trench.

Antoine seemed to understand, or if he didn’t, he kept silent. He staggered backward with the soldier’s frozen body, leaving a trail in the snow. When he made it to the trench, he did not return to the spot where Lorenz still stood, stunned by the brutality of it all and the guilt that had befallen him.

Lorenz stumbled back to the German trench, falling into a chair with a heavy sigh. The trench became more alive with men’s voices as they woke from their liquor-addled haze of a night. He could hear a din of pained cursing; the inevitable headache from last night’s fun had likely befallen his compatriots. Across the way, though, he heard more music—bagpipes—but he had never heard them played so well.

Lost in his mundane and trivial thoughts, he had not seen the lieutenant standing before him. He looked more disheveled than Lorenz had ever seen him with his pants zipper halfway down and his belt loosely buckled. Of course, he would be thoroughly reprimanded if he were to point this out to his usually well-kept superior.

“Do you feel that this is right?” the lieutenant asked calmly, looking across the snowy field towards enemy lines.

“Me, sir?” Lorenz asked, and it came as a surprise that he was not smacked upside the head for his cluelessness. “I cannot say …”

The lieutenant nodded slowly, as inconspicuous with his thoughts as ever. His lips thinned as he pondered the apparently perplexing response. “Nor can I. Lord have mercy on me if high command catches wind of this. For now, though, I advise you to take caution.”

The thought hadn’t dawned on him until then, and the lieutenant left him alone as his mind lingered on this realization. While the truce was comfortable, no doubt, it was something that was not explicitly prohibited but perhaps was implied. Oh, how the Kaiser would seethe had he seen last night’s fraternization between the Germans and those men who wished to desecrate their land of culture and morals! To hell with the Kaiser, he thought, pinching the bridge of his shapely nose. Was Kaiser Wilhelm not the one boasting of the glory of the German nation without stepping a single one of his fat and clumsy feet upon the ground of the battlefield? Did he not throw the drunken men who lay beside him into a war in which they had no personal stakes but the lies and hypocrisy shoved down their throats while in school?

His mind’s racing was accompanied by the cacophony of shovels piercing the frozen ground. There were always more men to bury, more letters to write home proclaiming their deaths, and more uniforms to steal from their bodies for warmth in the ever-cold winter nights. Such was war; the conditions demanded this brutish behavior and thievery. No man wished to miss out on the opportunity.

Lorenz looked over to his rifle, which leaned against the dirt wall beside him. With that weapon alone, he had taken more from those dead men than any looting could ever manage. Even with this in mind, he made no move towards no man’s land, and instead pulled out a small stick of charcoal he kept in his pocket, as well as a sheet of paper from his satchel a few feet away.

He messily sketched the blond Frenchman from before. The charcoal did not perform well when it came to capturing the likeness of Antoine’s shockingly light eyes, though it did allow Lorenz to gently shade the contours of the man’s jawline with ease. The French uniform he proudly wore escaped his memory; thus, with some artistic liberty and personal desire, he forwent it completely. His face turned out quite remarkable regardless, framed by messy and mud-speckled curls that would surely catch the light of the sun with such grace and elegance if there were any sunlight to be had during this dreary winter.

Oh, how he wished to return to his once-loathed single bedroom apartment, for the easel his father had gifted him if nothing else. He longed for the scent of old oil paints and linseed oil, for the feeling of the smooth wooden brushes and tautly bound canvas. To be studying a nude muse as he revealed the curvatures and muscles of his form, in a room that smelled of old books and leather and turpentine—It felt like a memory of lifetimes past, nothing more than a distorted image in his mind with only vivid remnants of his senses in that moment remaining.

Somewhere in the distance, he could hear the sound of church bells ringing out. He had not noticed his comrades leave the trench, but now he seemed to be alone. Only one other man remained, Moritz Anschild, cleaning his weapon absentmindedly. He glanced up to him, gave him a weak smile and a nod towards the east, from where the sound seemed to originate.

Lorenz nodded politely in response, looking up to the sky as it neared noontime. The sun was unable to shine through the thick sheet of winter clouds above it, which threatened snow come nightfall.

He rose from his seat, folding the drawing and returning the paper to his satchel. To cross no man’s land felt like opening himself up with complete vulnerability. Still, Lorenz rushed across the snowy land and found himself ducking beneath the barbed wire that threatened to tear his skin to shreds, and into the enemy’s trench.

It seemed that many Frenchmen had left to attend the service as well. For a moment, he pondered making his way to the church, just to hear the music of the choir, which always enchanted him as a young boy with an affinity for all things artistic. Then, he saw Antoine, who sat smoking from his pipe on a wooden bench. The drawing had not done him nearly enough justice, especially in his eyes, which stared blankly at the soil floor beneath him but retained their beauty.

“Dussault,” he called out as he made his way over, sitting beside him on the bench, “why are you not with your men in praise and worship?”

Antoine looked at him for a moment, his eyebrow cocked before he laughed softly. “I suppose reconciliation might be well-deserved in a war like this.”

Lorenz wished he knew what he meant, but the meaning was simply lost.

“Why have you been so eager to seek me out these past hours, Schulz?” Antoine handed Lorenz the tobacco pipe and waited for him to cough just as he had. Lorenz was well-acquainted with the burn in his throat, though.

“I may as well take advantage of this armistice, yes?” Lorenz shrugged nonchalantly, exhaling the smoke as he continued. “We shouldn’t be here, Antoine.”

“I’m afraid there’s little that can be done about that, my friend.” Antoine laughed— a real and true laugh. Lorenz smiled in response, waving his hand vaguely in the air.

“Rations have not yet arrived for us. Not in a few nights now.” He shook his head.

“Oh, that’s a shame,” Antoine frowned, more expressive now than he had been until this point. “I am sure there’s still bread to spare. Would you like some?”

Lorenz nodded, watching as Antoine stood and took a piece of bread from his satchel, which he had hidden under a few layers of men’s jackets. It was not much, but Lorenz hadn’t eaten for quite some time, so it would be just enough. The taste was strange; it was as if the recipe had called for far less flour than had been haphazardly tossed into the mixture. It was dry, so terribly dry. He could only poorly stifle a cough when some of it became stuck in his throat.

Antoine laughed, shaking his head and patting him on the back several times. Lorenz felt his hand linger on the last touch, though he could have thought it only in his mind.

“Thanks.” Lorenz cleared his throat, smiling weakly when everything had settled within him.

“I’ve heard some whispers from your folk about a football game tonight.” He shrugged, taking a drag from his pipe. “I was quite the athlete in secondary school, but those years have long since passed.”

The man’s physique seemed to counter that claim. He was built like the athletes Lorenz had seen, the ones he had studied in the studio and reflected upon the paper with charcoal and graphite. He could only imagine his form unobscured by the deceiving cover of the French uniform. Lorenz tried to push the imagery from his head, though he had earlier drawn that very image.

“I hope this match plays out as this war will,” Lorenz smirked, a playful edge to his voice. “Then perhaps I shall pay Rouen a visit in the near future.”

“Be my guest, as a tourist of course.” Antoine shook his head. “The streets can be quite confusing, perhaps you will need a guide to the foreign land. I’m not … unfamiliar, you might say.”

Antoine’s last statement—though he thought it to be a euphemism—had left Lorenz with a fair amount of confusion, but he managed a timid and uncertain laugh. Lorenz felt Antoine’s knee against his as he leaned back onto the dirt wall of the trench. With his eyes shut, Lorenz chose to stare at Antoine without fear of judgment. He could see a scar trailing from his temple to the crease of his eye, long healed. His nose was almost perfectly straight and angular, and Lorenz surely would have envied this years ago. There were a few beauty marks that peppered his face and neck, a sort of natural arrangement upon his skin. Careful adjustments needed to be made to the portrait.

“Perhaps I will attend reconciliation.” Antoine sighed, and since Lorenz made no attempt to mask his confusion with his subsequent silence, he clarified, “Confession. You tell a priest your sins, and he and the Lord absolve them and offer you repentance.”

“Ah.” Lorenz nodded quickly before standing. He wiped his sweating hands on his uniform discreetly. “Well, I will leave you to it, then.”

“You needn’t leave with such haste.” He opened his eyes and looked at Lorenz for a long while.

Lorenz could feel the weight of the air around them, heavy with a tension unknown. Antoine’s stare lingered, flirting with both intimidation and a strange attentiveness that caught him off guard.

Eventually, Antoine stood and pulled a thick jacket over his shoulders. He turned to face Lorenz and smoothed out a non-existent wrinkle on the man’s uniform. The superfluous touch was unexpected. Lorenz nearly recoiled in surprise, though not for lack of wanting.

“I’ll see you for the match, right?” Antoine smiled casually, only walking away once Lorenz had nodded to affirm his plans.

* * *

Lorenz soon changed into already dirtied clothes and the boots he kept tucked under a bunk at the barracks. They were torn and tattered, hardly kept in one piece by their stitching.

He did not entirely want to join in on the supposed football game. There was no one reason. Instead, it was the great unease he felt, and perhaps the cold that begged him not to join in on the fun. Watching his comrades run around like schoolboys again would be too enticing to ignore, though. This truce would not last forever, either. There wasn’t a joyous moment to waste.

“Schulz, are you going to be playing?” Moritz Anschild grabbed him from behind on the shoulder, turning him about-face.

Lorenz glanced over the now empty land between the trenches, the bodies now removed from their exposed tombs.

“Yes, I might as well,” he said, giving in to the invitation.

Anschild nodded quickly and moved on to the next few men, asking the same question and receiving answers to various degrees of enthusiasm. When he had recruited enough players for a team, they climbed onto the firestep before pulling themselves over the dirt walls of the trench.

He didn’t have to look too hard to find Antoine, who looked as if he had already played a game or two with his comrades. He had tossed his jacket to the side, and his hair fell messily in front of his face. Lorenz watched as he kicked the ball swiftly towards his teammate, shouting something in French and laughing. He hadn’t seen such joy on his face—or anyone else’s for that matter. Granted, it had only been a night.

The ball, tattered and hardly spherical anymore, rolled to Lorenz’s feet. He stared at it for a second, before picking it up and tossing it over to the players once more. By then, Antoine had seen him and waved happily, beckoning him over.

“Schulz!” He set a hand on Lorenz’s shoulder, smiling brightly. He said something to a friend in French, and Lorenz wished he knew what he had said.

“I’ll kick your ass. I’ve realized my athlete days are not far behind me!” Antoine smirked.

“I’m sure.” Lorenz nodded slowly, rolling his eyes. “It can’t be fair that your team has warmed up.”

“The ever so righteous German Army shouldn’t need such a warmup,” he said, nudging Lorenz before jogging back to his team.

Lorenz did the same. He stood beside Anschild, who had grabbed the ball from the French and stepped to the side. He would toss the ball in first.

As soon as the ball landed and rolled towards the men, it was a jostling fight to be the first to kick it down the field. The Germans had placed two of the fir Christmas trees a few yards back to serve as the goal. Between them, a soldier stood guard as the goalie.

The ball was taken first by the French, and they rushed towards the end of the field. Lorenz was the fastest runner amongst his teammates, it seemed, as he raced down the field after the French offense. He was tempted to grab the man’s jacket, to play dirty and tug him backward roughly.

The Frenchman lost his control of the ball as he dribbled between each foot, and it went rolling to the left, just enough to where Lorenz could secure it quickly with his foot. He made a quick pivot and dashed back towards the French goal. His lungs were burning from the cold air he inhaled desperately, but he pushed through the discomfort before passing the ball to Anschild, who was surprisingly agile.

Anschild passed it back to Lorenz as soon as two French players caught up to him. But Lorenz hardly got to run another yard before he was thrown to the ground, right before he was about to make the goal-winning kick. He felt the ache in his side grow stronger. Someone was lying atop him now, making little effort to move.

“Sorry, Fritz,” Antoine’s familiar voice rang, and Lorenz looked up to him in surprise.

“Cheating prick.” He scoffed, but he could hardly keep from laughing.

Antoine stood with no haste, and he ran his hands down Lorenz’s waist intimately as he did so. It sent a strange feeling through his body, but he was quick to stand and brush himself off to continue playing. From the corner of his eyes, he saw a fellow soldier make a remark to Anschild and laugh. It became easier to keep his distance from Antoine while playing.

The next hour was spent breathlessly chasing the ball, never minding his steps though the land was embedded with landmines in waiting. Even in a war as active as this, Lorenz could hardly remember the last time he had ever exerted so much energy. In the months before this, he had lacked the energy to give to any task in particular. Nothing was so draining as war, he had learned.

When the game was called, and the sun began to set, Lorenz could feel his legs trembling from exhaustion. He was not alone in this—Anschild was lying on his back, breathing so heavily one might have thought he was asthmatic. Antoine seemed to be the exception as he played roughly with his comrades. They passed a bottle of beer between themselves, and Lorenz couldn’t help but notice the way Antoine’s face recoiled and contorted after every sip.

They met eyes, and Lorenz cursed himself for staring like a curious child. The Frenchman made his way over, still beaming from the victory of the football match.

“Would you like to drink with me? I know you aren’t keen on alcohol, but it is only a celebration of our victory,” Antoine asked, pulling his heavy greatcoat back over his shoulders.

“I’m quite alright. It’s hardly my victory to celebrate.” Lorenz laughed sheepishly, his eyes scanning the crowd that began to disperse.

“That’s not an issue, I’m willing to share the prize.” He shook his head. “But we can take a sober stroll into these woods behind us if that is more your taste.”

He pondered his response for a moment, glancing back towards the German trench. Most of his comrades had retreated to their side and those who hadn’t paid little mind to them, except for Anschild. Still lying down, his eyes indiscreetly flicked between the two men, and his expression—while minuscule—reflected an apparent confusion and slight disinclination.

Beyond his concern of their private fraternization being seen lay the uncertainty brought about by the invitation. He saw no reason that demanded such kindness from the Frenchman, though Lorenz could not will himself to decline Antoine’s invitation on account of his flowering and senseless attraction to him.

Reluctantly, he nodded. “That sounds lovely.”

Antoine smiled and nodded as well. “Wonderful. I will let you return for now unless you’d like to leave at this moment?”

“If I return, my rest will turn into a full night’s sleep.” Lorenz shook his head.

They made their way to a less busy sector of the trench, sliding down the packed dirt walls. The French soldiers had returned from their brief celebration of victory, and Antoine dismissed several men, likely inviting him to a cigarette or a bottle of whiskey with a short, unexplained excuse. After he had shaken his compatriots off, he helped to pull Lorenz over the steep and icy wall with his arms shaking from overexertion. They started towards the backside of the field that was lined by a thick forest of trees. The damp and newly fallen snow beneath their war-weakened boots crunched with each step, heavy with the exhaustion that nightfall brought to the battlefield.

“And like that, it is over.” Antoine glanced over to Lorenz. “Christmastime is not the same without my family, Lorenz.”

“I understand.” Lorenz nodded. “Perhaps you will be granted leave in the near future.”

Only four days ago, he had not spent the final day of Hanukkah with his family as he had for the prior twenty-four years of his life. It occurred to him that he had instead spent this holiday of resistance and miracles spilling French and English blood into once dutifully tilled farmland soil.

“One may only pray.” Antoine smiled for a moment before it was replaced by a pained expression. “I was permitted to leave only a month into the fighting on account of my father’s illness. But it is all so different. Many men return to their wives and little ones, but for me, that is not the case.”

“I’m sorry for that,” Lorenz said, glancing over to him again with concern. “I have not returned since this has all begun, yet my family writes of the changes already.”

“Where will you go after this war?”

“Home, most likely. My family is in no position to leave whatever the result.”

“We nearly left for America only a year prior. What rot it would have saved us from!” Antoine laughed, though his tone was not reminiscent of any sort of joy.

Lorenz laughed along with him in a similar tone, looking around at the trees that surrounded them completely now. They must have walked a few hundred meters into the forest, the noise from the trenches having faded from earshot. The air around them no longer stunk of rot and decay, but of pine and the remnants of gunpowder that polluted the snow. A small clearing appeared to them in the otherwise dense flora.

“Have you ever seen the opera?”

He stopped walking. His brows knitted together before he shook his head with hesitation. “No. I visited Vienna once as a child, but my parents took no interest in the opera. Though, perhaps I would have met your lovely singer if I had seen a show.”

“A ‘show’? Really?” Antoine smirked, nudging him. “It is nothing less than a performance. It is dramatic, and beautiful, and often terribly embarrassing to see a grown man in such decadent apparel.”

“My apologies, mon ami. Had I known you had such an interest in the arts I would have studied for this impromptu exam,” Lorenz said playfully.

“Ah, how I missed your elementary French-language skills.” Antoine smiled. “You should polish up, for when you Germans lose this war.”

From the corner of his eye, Lorenz could see Antoine’s hand move with caution to the side of his arm, up to his shoulder, until it paused for a long while on the side of his neck, leaving a trail of warmth as it traversed his body. His thumb, gloved in black leather, stroked the taut skin. It became clear the reason for their travel deeper into the woods. Lorenz nearly recoiled under Antoine’s gentle contact. He had not had someone touch him like this in many years—with such tenderness and ardor—and to say that he did not desire more would be a lie.

“When you all lose this war, and the great evil is defeated, you will come to Rouen. I will show you what we fight to defend.” He continued as he leaned in closer, his hand moving to the side of Lorenz’s face now.

This gap—this space between them—now materialized. It existed on the battlefield, though for a night, it mattered not. Now, Lorenz pressed himself closer, and his lips rested on Antoine’s slowly and sweetly. With this act born of attraction and vulnerability, he risked shame or much worse. But the man did not move away. He deepened the kiss with his hand behind Lorenz’s head of black hair and tilted his face slightly to avoid crushing their noses against each other.

“Lord, have mercy,” Antoine said softly, an exhalation like a groan.

“We shouldn’t.” Lorenz shook his head weakly, though he kissed him once more. “What if someone sees?”

“Damn them, Lorenz.” Antoine punctuated his exclamation with another embrace, his lips grazing from Lorenz’s willing mouth to his Adam’s apple.

Lorenz gently pushed him away after a few heavy moments, his eyes filled with despair.

“You’re right.” He stepped away slowly. “We should return.”

Lorenz wished with everything that Antoine was wrong. He wanted to continue on, to kiss the lips that were so soft and so ardently desired. He wanted nothing more than to confirm his own private suspicions of Antoine’s physique—svelte and enticing. But he could not bring himself to accept the danger that came with such an urge.

“We could be court-martialed for such an act, or far worse.” Antoine shook his head hesitantly. “And this time we have is borrowed.”

He swallowed the sadness that arose. “I know.”

Antoine looked into his eyes, nodding slowly. He cupped his face once more, kissing him for a much longer time than before. Still, it felt rushed and messy, and Lorenz longed for one kiss more.

“27, Rue Sainte Odile. My home is there. When this war is finished, write to me, should you be able to,” he said, and a look of regret flashed over his face instantly.

“And you would have me?”

“Most assuredly.”

“I will.” Lorenz nodded. He felt as if his legs were going to fail to keep him upright.

“Farewell, Lorenz Schulz.” Antoine waved slightly with the same gloved hand that caressed Lorenz’s skin moments ago. He made a choked sound as his breath hitched.

Lorenz made the long walk back to the German trench, now alone. Night had long fallen, and his body ached for rest. The stiff and cumbersome words of departure bore a deep hole of regret and unease within the depths of his body—every inch of his person from his head to his heart and beyond. He would wake the next morning to artillery fire once more. There would be no performance by the French singer nor another declaration of an armistice. He would not see Antoine, nor his sweet eyes. This hell—brought upon by men he would never meet, men who would never know his pain—would not soon end.

He fell into the trench, surely looking drunk and destitute. What was he to do, now? To wake the next morning and fire at the men, only thirty meters away, who had shown great kindness these past nights? It was all he could do—bar commit mutiny, or suicide. But he couldn’t, and he wouldn’t. He could only process the events that occurred and the sentiments that had befallen him. At least there was something: there was the mere possibility of a future, one where he might find happiness with a man he had only known for a night and some hours more. For now, there was only the vision of Rue Sainte Odile and the dream of a world that had broken the fever of war.

About the author

Camryn Reschke is a first-year student of History and Creative Writing currently residing in Illinois. Between hours of classes and assignments, she enjoys writing and reading as much as she can within the historical fiction genre, exploring stories from the ancient world to the modern years. You can find her on Twitter as @camreschke, and look for her forthcoming work in Filter Coffee Zine.

About the illustrator

Yaleeza Patchett has been creating whimsical art and illustrations since a child; her inspiration comes from the cartoons, comic strips and animated movies she grew up with. In 2016, Yaleeza began expanding her art into her own business named Rowan Ink. It began with a simple pair of hand-painted, custom-made shoes for a friend’s birthday. Through her artistic journey she has expanded into different art mediums, but her true passion is sketching, illustrating and painting. Yaleeza currently resides in the south side of Indianapolis with her husband, her dog, and her cat. You can find her current artwork at Rowaninkstudio.com.