Letter.

Letter.
Tristan Schweitzer--1989

 

My Dearest Tristan,
If you are reading this letter than I am dead. No doubt, Deiter has given this to you: I trusted that man to do so and if it was him who did hand you this letter give him my blessing.  Even though we did not get along, give him my well wishes that he survives and makes it out for his daughter's sake. Now I will put myself to the gargantuan task at hand: what to put inside a trivial letter that will be the last true sentences you or anyone who reads this worthless piece of paper will hear from me. I commend myself for being so easily sold to the hot air that my words provided for me. For if words change, than, in the end, what is permanent? I am nothing but a thought now locked in someone's distant memory for my physical self has long since passed away.

 

I will put the hardest first and in the simplest terms. Tristan. Tristan Anshelm Schweitzer. I love you. In plain words, I love you. If anything, I ever did made you think otherwise, you were deeply mistaken because you are the only one I ever cared for. We've spent three years together, all through wartime, never seeing peace, and yet we have managed to stay together, let alone alive, until we arrived here. If anything, there are three instances that I hope you never forget. One being the first day we met. Some say neither partner remembers it properly, but I beg to differ, I remember exactly what happened during those first few weeks of training in the lowlands of France, when you came tailing behind the two colonels that day back in 1940, you looked as though you had just seen a ghost and I thought that I had just gotten myself into another living hell when the Vogel immediately smote me on the first day for making faces at him while in formation. It took months for me to come to terms with what was happening within my psyche and for me to agree with the feelings that I was having about you but once I did, I knew that my life could take one of two turns: Either I would be dead within, maybe, a week or living happily with acceptance of mutual affection.

 

Which leads me to the second, That time we first expressed our feelings for each other. The cold day, caught in the middle of Russia with no one around but each other, a Russian division standing between us and the safety of our panzers. When I ran into that building to try and get away from that cold winter air, you were in that room, scared out of your wits for another one of your attacks was coming on. We both were terrified, there was very little chance that either of us would come out alive and that was the moment that I knew. Everything that I had been feeling, everything that I had kept up inside of me, every emotion, every snippet of though, every unuttered word and awkward silence simply had to come out. I loved you, and that was all that I ever needed to tell you. Holding you tightly I recall looking into those pools of emerald green that were your eyes and simply leaning in to kiss you. My whole world could have ended that day for you had a loaded rifle resting on the ground right next to you, but you didn't pull the trigger and for that I thank you. Tristan, I love you. We both knew the risks involved with the love we shared, but yet there was something undeniable. We needed each other and there was a way to do it without anyone knowing. And until the Vogel found out almost two years later, we had kept this our secret. On that note, we both owe Vogel a lot more than our lives.

 

Three: The Arrival at this cursed Gulag; the arrival with everyone that remained of our tattered and scattered group. We held ourselves close to each other that night; carefully running the stinging acid over our arms to get rid of the blood type tattoos so that we could blend in with the rest of the Heer men that had come in as well. I was scared, Tristan. I was scared that that would be it. Once more, like that time we had found ourselves stranded in Demjansk, we found ourselves stranded here, but this time, there was no line that we could strive to reach, this time there was only those barbed wire fence and miles upon miles of barren tundra. We slaved away carving those damned rocks from the ground, only resting those 8 hours that they allotted to us, resting together. Our arms around each other and huddling close to get away from the bitter cold. We did not break then, my love, and we will not break now. And yet this brings me one step closer to my request. My love. I am dead, yet I will always love you. But let this stand: You and I will always love each other, but since I am not there, there is always room in that heart you have to love another...

 

In the End, there is only one thing that I want you to do for me; there is one last final request. Tristan, my dearest Tristan, don't wait for me. Please don't wait for me, my love. You are a wonderful person and I don't want you to live the rest of your days mourning for me when there are so many others out there who would be enchanted by your loving and sweet demeanor. Your playful and funny personality, please, don't squander it waiting for me. I love you Tristan. I love you and it would tear me apart to see you so sad. Please don't cry for me Tristan. Please, I implore you to not waste your person waiting for me.

 

You are wonderful, Tris
I will love you forever.
Joachim

 

Tristan Schweitzer had read that letter over and over again, the paper it was on was torn and shredded and bent in places, it was losing its color in others and smeared with his finger prints around the edges. It never failed that when he read the letter he could feel the tears come up in his eyes, the salt stinging them and turning them red just like every time before reading that scrap of paper. He sat alone in his small apartment, the smell of old dog, mold, and construction dust hung in the air, it smelled exactly as it had for the last 35 years. It was home to him. He gently lifted a hand to run it across his forehead. His left hand only had his pinky and pointer finger left and his right hand was no better with the single addition of his middle. It was an old wound, an irreparable one, but it was merely a physical blemish.

 

Over those years he had aged, his already thin body becoming thinner and growing frailer with each passing day. He had already gone blind in one dreary green eye, the other slowly following suit, his senses had become dull, the constant treatment for cancer slowly taking a hold of him, his once silver blonde hair had gone gray and fallen out, leaving him with nothing but age spots splattered across his face where once a horrendous bout of acne gripped him in his younger days. Every crease of age seemed to deepen as he let a single tear stray down his cheek, thanking God that Benjamin was not here to see it. Benjamin Harding, the American, would never understand.  The man who had been his housemate for almost 20 years, the one person who he always saw every morning when he woke up and every night before he went to bed would never understand. He leaned his head back and rested in his chair facing towards the window. He could see the Wall from his vantage point. 20 odd years living together and Schweitzer had done specifically nothing, besides, he did not even think that Benjamin was like that or ever was like that. He did not love that man. He merely lived with him.

 

He did not even think Benjamin knew the truth about him.

 

Schweitzer blinked behind his glasses, why did he read the letter as often as he did? All it did was bring pack painful memories. At times he could feel the weight of Joachim still in his arms, holding him, that feeble weight that he last held him at; that dying weight. After coming back from the Gulags he had lived off the street, flitting from one shelter to another, he had been part of an uprising, had been sent to jail, he attempted to get over the wall, and had watched everyone he knew and had known before the war wither and die until there was just him. Schweitzer did not even own the house that he and Benjamin were currently living in. It had belonged to his old Officer, Vogel. But he never spoke of that. He never spoke of Vogel anymore; he spoke of a Theodor Müller to Benjamin, since according to official records Albert Vogel still remained missing and was presumed dead by Allied fire at the Normandie landings. There was no more Vogel, but there was a Müller who had been kind enough to give Schweitzer his house when he fled. Where he had gone, even Tristan did not know.

 

Sometimes Schweitzer wanted to run. He wanted to just up and leave this place and find somewhere else to go, but that drive and the means within him had long since faded away with age. He was here and it looked as though he was going to die here like he was meant to. He had come from Dresden and had been taken hundreds of miles from his home, shot at, tortured, beaten, nearly run over and practically frozen to death only to be deposited practically right back where he started years later and a practical wreck with nothing more than the clothing upon his back and the shoes on his feet to bring him to where he needed to be.

 

The gentle crackle of the radio, near the window sputtered into silence for a moment and then flickered back on again, repeating the pattern time in and time and again. Tristan watched it for a moment as though by merely looking at it was going to fix it before he was forced to pull his body from the chair. Every bone creaking as he got up, he took a good few minutes to straighten up and even then the bend in his back with age prevented him from reaching his full height anymore. Schweitzer coughed a bit before he went over to the machine to adjust its dial so that the constant changing of sound level would not drive him crazy. Taking the dial in his forefinger and middle finger on his right hand he twisted it in different directions until finally the steady crackle and voices returned.

 

He gently patted the top of the radio box. That was the one thing that, like Benjamin, was always there for him. It had been there when he moved into the house and he had not moved it feeling and fearing that if he did move it some sort of break between him and the past would occur. He did not want that.  There were things in the past that he wanted to forget, but to be disconnected completely from the few happy memories he had shared... that would be his suicide.

 

'G-good r-rad-dio...' he stuttered to the box as though it could answer back.

 

Sometimes he wished it could answer back, they’d have a lot to say to each other, he mused. Schweitzer paused, a frown creasing his face, or perhaps it was better that the radio was only one-way; there would be too many painful mentioning that might come from the radio.  There would be too many dark memories that might crawl from the spaces between the grids of black wire on the speaker.  Perhaps there would be too many things that it could say to him of those years gone by.

 

Schweitzer let himself drag a finger down across the ridges that sat in front of the speakers. That radio was his only friend. He still frowned as he looked up to the window, some slight staying of motion catching his eye. What on earth? He was looking down to the street, there was one man running down the road. Tristan blinked. That was unusual, but the most unusual things were yet to come. He watched the fellow run down and then turn the corner and disappear out onto the main road which soon blocked him from Schweitzer's view. He kept watching the street before a cluster of more people came running down the street again, in the same suit, they turned onto the main street and disappeared. Tristan was suddenly intrigued. What on earth was causing these people to run so fast to where ever they had to get to? Did they not know that they were running straight towards the Wall?

 

If they were trying to jump the Wall that would be instant death...

 

Taking his hand from the radio, he limped out of the room and quickly moved to descend the stairs. Each ill-kept board on the steps and on the floor of the ground level creaked underneath him as he made his way out the wood door onto the sidewalk. The crowd had moved on by the time he got down there, his one good eye looking around frantically for any more stragglers, anyone he could talk to about why a sudden group of people had just suddenly gotten the urge to just go tearing through the streets of Berlin, so close to the wall like some sort of deranged mob. Some part of him told him that there was a logical explanation for that, but then there was another side of him that told him otherwise. After the Gulags he had found himself more attuned to the bad and wrong of the world, it was some primeval form of paranoia. He had suddenly found himself tapping into it time and time again; it was much like what caused the animal ancestors to look over their shoulders in the waning hours of the day. Something just felt wrong. Something simply felt too out of place for his liking when he had left his house.

 

As he looked towards the Unter den Linden he was suddenly struck in the shoulder and would have tottered over had a hand not reached out and grabbed his arm to steady him, 'Sorry, old man,' said a youthful voice.

 

Schweitzer was barely able to regain his footing when a tubby, black haired boy with a green streak where his bangs were ran into his line of sight. The old man gave him a gruff answer, 'Wh-where a-are y-you g-going?' he huffed as he held a hand to his back.

 

The kid was already half way down the street before he answered back, 'Didn't you hear? They're opening the wall! It's going down!' He spoke with excitement, just utter excitement. Even though he could not be more than sixteen years old, sixteen years behind the wall was enough for any person. 'The damn guard shot a man and now we're going to take the check point!' the boy shouted to him, 'The wall's coming down! Revenge for that man!' with that the boy was gone.

 

Revenge for that man...

 

Revenge for that man...

 

Revenge for that man...

 

Over and over again those words repeated in his mind. Over and over again that sentence rattled within his mind, he processed it. Those words meant so much more to him than the simple face value. Revenge...

 

Something within Tristan Schweitzer snapped at that moment. Some long dormant feeling that had bred and festered within him finally had gathered the power to break through the barrier.  It broke the barrier that had been ingrained on his mind from years upon years of repression. Revenge for that man. Revenge for his man was the kind of revenge that he wanted. He wanted to avenge his Joachim not for the man that the check point guard had shot in killed but that was what he needed now. He needed a reason. He could see Joachim dead on the ground, he could see in his mind Joachim's body when it was dragged outside of the compound and tossed into the shallow grave with other individuals who had been killed or died in their sleep.

 

His breath increased as he felt his remaining fingers and the stubs of his thumbs curl into fists, the shaking traveling up his arms. His eyes started swimming again as a pressure seemed to tighten itself around his aged heart. A sickening sensation crashed right into his stomach as he turned on his heels around back toward his house.  He limped as fast as he could to the gate that lead alongside the house and to the minute back yard that was split between 4 buildings. Most of the small yard was taken up by a flower and vegetable garden bed and right next to it was a thin garden shed. That was where Schweitzer was going. He had to use both forefingers to turn the latch and open the door. He had no idea what he was looking for, he merely shook with anger. An adrenaline rush throbbed within his body as he looked through his options, a hoe; a rake... all he wanted was something that he could hit, something he could use to shatter. Something he could destroy with, for that was what he wanted to do. He wanted to smash in something.

 

Revenge.

 

That was when he saw it, beside the crow bar was resting the perfect candidate to meet his criteria. Reaching his hand into the tool shed he pulled out the sledgehammer only to find that he was too weak to carry it. His back was bent with age, forcing him to drag the head of the hammer along behind him. Holding the handle he moved out the yard, back down the side of the house and out onto the street again. Those people that he had seen were not armed as far as he knew. They were young, young like the kid that had run into him, and he knew well that at that age consequences for actions were not bright on the youth’s mind. He knew that all too well. With a huff and a cough that sounded like he had water in his lungs, he started moving towards the main road.

 

Schweitzer grasped the handle of the sledgehammer, dragging it behind him as he followed the crowd of people that had flocked into the street. Towards the Wall, to the Wall. He pulled the hammer behind him upon the concrete walk ways towards the Gate, his forehead creased as he frowned with some sudden and unrelenting anger. Who exactly that anger was directed to even he did not know, he merely was angry at himself, at the Russians, at the war, at the post-war, at the world, at life itself, everything that had happened to him and everything he had caused, every bullet he had fired and every road he drove down. This sort of hate that suddenly flared up within him was so unnatural to him. It was an alien concept he had only seen in one other person in his life. Clank, Clank, Clank... the head of the sledge hammer trailed behind him, keeping time within his irregular heartbeat.

 

It only took him a matter of minutes, passing rows of houses and quaint shops, most with boarded up windows that had not been designated yet by the Government into working businesses. The Brandenburger Tor was in his sight and slammed right in front of it was the Wall. The Wall, splattered across with slogans and art, but that could do nothing to mask the true symbol of oppression that the Wall really was. No amount of beautiful pained colors, words, or symbols could hide it. It was there to show who was really in power, exactly who was pulling the strings upon every person within his home country.

 

Schweitzer knew true hate. True hate is what brought this decrepit old man from his hiding place of 35 years and out on to the streets of the dirty streets of the Soviet occupied city. It was true hate that drove this old man to forcibly  push his way through the insurgence of people that had clustered in front of the check point and the Wall, yelling to open the gates. He found within himself that day the ability to truly hate. And when he saw that Wall and the poor guard trying to fend off everyone from those people that crowded and pushed towards him, Schweitzer felt the fire flare up within his chest.

 

It was these people that had done this, these people who had kept him where he was, had stripped him of his dignity, his very identity. It was these people who had pushed him down further into the gutter.  It was these people that had torn out his heart and had crushed it like some repulsive animal right before his eyes. It was these people that had took his Joachim from him. He had done everything he could to stay alive in the Gulags but to what point now? He had not been able to save the one person he loved. It had been too much for Joachim, just too much. That wound at his side only got worse, it festered and eventually spread and that was what killed him. Schweitzer could do nothing about it.  He could only hold him close and watch him slip right through what fingers remained on his hand during those last excruciating hours on the floor of the barracks. That stung Tristan, a blow he would never recover from.

 

He raised the sledge hammer up, and with every fiber of his body, every last drop of strength he possessed within his scarecrow frame, he swung it into the wall.

 

He cried with anguish as he had never done before.