A Love in War

Marie's toes tingled, and the pain turned to pleasure as each gave their virginity to the other.

Their lips met hungrily and she pulled him in to her until she felt her womb flood with his warmth.

Looking up into her lover's eyes, Marie uttered words which she knew she would only cause them grief, yet she meant them from the depths of her soul.

"I love you."

***********************

She returned home right on schedule, having managed to clean herself up as best she could. Christof assured her that he would disposed of the blood-stain sheets without anyone knowing and they shared one more kiss before leaving in his car to go back to her house.

In public, they never showed any affection, not even holding hands. But Marie always had a secret smile for Christof.

Luckily, her mother had gone to the market and her father was nowhere to be found. Marie bathed quickly, washing away all evidence of the tryst with her lover.

A little while later, her father returned and debriefed her. She let him know that the garrison's commanding officer was out on leave and that a new anti-aircraft battery had arrived.

That night, Marie lay in her bed, touching herself. Remembering the hurried excitement of her first love-making. Remembering how Christof's weight pressed down on her. Remembering his masculine smell.

Marie fell asleep dreaming of Christof's arms around her.

***********************

Over the next couple of weeks, Marie continued to see Christof on a regular basis. They were never able to be intimate again, but she knew she was walking a dangerous line. In the back of her mind, she knew the reports she was giving her father were being passed up the chain in the French Resistance, which in turn were being reported to the Americans and British.

She didn't know what her role was in all of this, nor did she pry. Marie trusted her father's judgment and continued to view her interactions with her lover as part of the war effort.

At the same time, she knew she was falling in love with the German officer. He was everything a husband and lover should be. When they were together, she felt her heart skip a beat when he smiled. She found herself laughing at his stories and wanting nothing more than for him to hold her.

Near the end of May, she sensed something was about to change.

Her father was gone for long stretches of time, more than usual. So was her mother. She heard men coming to the house in the middle of the night and leaving very quietly. The Germans seemed to be moving men and equipment around.

The air raids were coming more frequently.

During one of her meetings with Christof, he seemed distant, although not distracted.

"Ma chère," he started nervously. "When the war is over, may I see you again?"

"What are you talking about?" Marie asked, confused.

He shifted uncomfortably. "The war will end soon. The Americans will turn the tide and we would be wise to make peace with them before the Russians come to Berlin."

It was the first time he had spoken to her about the conduct of the war.

"Do you know when?" she dared to ask.

"When the Americans are coming?" Christof shook his head. Marie breathed a sigh of relief, afraid she had overstepped her bounds. "No, but it will be soon."

Neither spoke for a long moment.

"Marie, when the invasion comes, we will either fall back through Belguim and Holland into Germany, or we will be killed or captured by the Americans." He took her shaking hands in his. "I would like nothing more than to spend the rest of my life with you. . . . If you'll have me. So when I return, may I call on you and court you properly? As a gentleman, not an invading officer."

Her heart melted at his dejected smile.

"Of course," she replied gently. "And when you return, we will make love as husband and wife."

They gazed into each others's eyes, knowing the remaining time they had together was slipping away. They kissed tenderly and held one another until it was time for Christof to drive Marie home.

She reported to her father that Christof believed the Americans were coming soon, and the absence of several tanks at the motor pool.

Then she retreated into her room and cried herself to sleep.

***********************

The air raid sirens sounded, but something was different this time.

Her father and his fellow partisans weren't sneaking around any longer. Explosions could be heard, closer than Marie could ever recall.

There was lots of shouting.

She got out of her bed, and dressed quickly. Her father stood in the living room, holding an odd-looking weapon, which she later found out was a British Sten gun. The other men with him were similarly armed.

The blood drained from her face.

"Go to the basement, mon ange," he said sternly. As if to punctuate his order, an explosion rocked the house, causing the glass windows to shake in their panes.

Marie went to her room, to get her coat. When she came out, her father and the other Resistance fighters were gone.

Blinded by her love for Christof, she ignored every instinct she had to hide and ran out of the house towards the German garrison.

In the night, she made her way through the town. The sky was lit with searchlights and explosions. Strange shapes fell from the clouds. Tracer fire from the German guns hunted the American planes and gliders.

It was the invasion Christof had warned her about the week before.

Tears streaming down her face, she ran through the darkness, somehow managing to avoid being seen by either the Germans or the French Resistance.

When she got to the chateau where Christof was staying, she heard gunfire. Dead Germans lay in the street alongside dead Frenchmen, some of them her neighbours.

She burst through the doors of the chateau and followed the sounds of the guns and angry French voices.

"Papa!" she called out, stumbling through the darkness.

Marie found them in the room the Germans had taken over as their command center. One of the Frenchmen recognised her and let her pass.

Christof was on his knees, his hands raised in the air. His handsome face was bloodied and his uniform torn.

Her father held the German's Luger in his hand.

"What are you doing here, Marie?" he thundered.

"What are you doing, Papa?" she ignored his question.

"I'm going to kill the German dog who would lay his hands on my daughter!"

"You cannot kill him," Marie shouted. Strong hands restrained her from running over to take Christof in his arms.

"Why not? What's one more dead German?"

The question hung in the air for an eternity.

Marie burst into tears. "Because I love him!"

A stunned silence fell over the room.

"No," her father whispered, disbelief and anger in his eyes. He turned to Christof and raised the pistol to shoot the German.

"He is the father of your grandchild!"

The hands holding her recoiled and she ran over to stand between her father and her lover.

Marie knew that in her father's eyes, the sun rose and set around her. But in that instant, they became strangers, their relationship forever changed. Still, she refused to back down.

"The Americans are landing in the western fields because I found out the southern fields are mined," her voice was defiant. "You were able to shoot your way in here because I told you how many soldiers are stationed here and where their guard posts are! You know how many guns and tanks left last week because I told you! You used me to find out things you could not find out on your own, Papa!"

No one spoke for a long time.

"What would you have me do?" her father growled. "The Germans came here as conquerors! They destroyed and humiliated our army, and we should kill them all."

"Not him!" Marie pleaded. "Turn him over to the Americans. You don't have to let him go. He can't hurt you anymore."

"Marie," Christof looked both relieved and hurt to see her. Relieved that she might be able to save his life. Hurt that she had used him to gather intelligence for the French Resistance. "Please go. Please don't see me like this."

"Shut up, dog!" one of the other men slapped him across the face.

She turned and pressed her forehead against his. Both were crying.

"I'm so sorry, Christof," she sobbed. "I'm so sorry."

"Don't be," he whispered. "Don't be sorry about anything."

"Tell them everything," she implored her lover, grasping at straws to save his life. "Tell them everything you know. Tell the Americans."

Marie shrieked in agony as she was lifted away from Christof and carried away.

"Take her to my house," her father said, his voice sad and angry. "And stay with her. Do not let her leave again."

She struggled, but was unable to break the grasp of the men who held her.

***********************

American and British paratroopers landed that night, and were followed by the sea invasion in the morning.

Marie's father returned at dawn, but he did not speak to her. She stayed in her room, crying.

Their village was one of the first to be liberated by the Allies, the Germans and the Ostlegionen driven back or destroyed. She did not find out what fate befell Christof, no matter how much she begged her father to tell her.

She rarely left her house, her status as a pariah cemented when word of her pregnancy spread. Other women who had taken German lovers were stripped naked, their heads shaved and were paraded around the towns and squares of France, but this fate was not hers.

While she made no secret the she loved Christof, it was also widely known that she had been instrumental in feeding military information to the French Resistance leading up to the Allied invasion. So the others in town mostly left her alone, as long as she kept to herself. It helped that her father was a prominent figure in the Resistance cell.

The following March, her daughter was born. Marie named her Christiane and waited for the war to end.

Although only twenty, she grew up quickly. Both her mother and father seemed disappointed and angry with her, and there was always tension in the house. She hoped the baby would bring them around, but if anything, the presence of the little girl only made things worse. It was as if the child's crying was a constant reminder that their daughter had dared to bed a German.

Marie was unable to find a French suitor; apparently none of the local men wanted to have anything to do with a woman who had been soiled by the enemy.

Peace with the Germans was made in May of 1945, and attention in Europe turned to rebuilding their war-torn cities and coming to a truce between the Americans and the Soviets.

On a warm summer day, a single car drove up to their house.

Marie ran out the door as soon as she saw the driver.

Christof lifted Marie into the air and spun her around, joyously laughing for the first time in months. He took his daughter in his arms and fell in love with another young French girl.

Any worry Marie had about Christof being angry with her disappeared instantly.

He asked Marie's parents for their blessing to marry their daughter. Her father only waved dismissively, and her mother readily agreed, as if to get her out of their house and town that much quicker.

Without another word, the young couple packed up her belongings and loaded them into Christof's car.

Marie clutched her husband's arms with one hand and held their daughter in the other as they drove out of France, knowing that she had left her family behind forever.

***********************

Danielle closed her great-grandmother's diary, tears in her eyes.

She felt a hand on her shoulder and tried to smile for Ma-mère.

"What happened to him?"

"Papa turned Christof over to the Americans when they arrived. He spent the rest of the war in a prison camp in Texas." The older woman sat next to her great-granddaughter. "After the war, he returned to Germany, and then came to get me. We were married in his home town in Freiburg and lived there until 1947, when we came to America."

A sad look passed over Ma-mère's eyes. "Christof went to work at a bank in Canton, but he was killed in a car accident two year later. My heart broke for the second time over him that day. The first was when I thought Papa had killed him."

Instinctively, Danielle took her great-grandmother's hands in hers.

"I re-married and that is the man the rest of you know as my husband, but Christof will always be my first and true love."

"Did your parents ever speak to you again?" Dani asked softly.

"Not until after Christof died," Marie replied, her voice filled with regret, touched with a hint of anger. "And they never treated your grandmother very well, even though she had done nothing to them other than have a father who was a German officer."

"He was a very handsome man," Danielle said.

"Yes, he was," Ma-mère agreed. "And he was a good man, too. Not all of the Germans were Nazis, and not all of them were evil. Your great-grandfather was the most wonderful man in the world. At least to me."

For the remainder of the evening, the pair—separated in age by 71 years—flipped through the worn scrapbook of pictures, reliving Marie's memories of growing up in France and her new life in the United States. At one point, Danielle had enough presence of mind to record several of the stories on her smartphone, so that they were not lost forever.

Right before their evening meal was ready, Ma-mère drew out a small box and handed it to Danielle.

"What is this?" the girl asked.

"Aside from the pictures and memories, these are all that I have left of my beloved Christof," Marie lifted the lid, revealing some more pictures and a couple of other trinkets. "This was the ring Christof gave me when we left for Germany. I wore it until the day of his funeral. I had thought to bury it with him, but then I didn't want to give up everything he had given me."

Danielle looked on in surprise as Ma-mère slipped it on to her finger.

"I want you to have it, ma chère," Marie said gently. "Of all my children, grandchildren and great-granchildren, you are the student of history, and you will appreciate it most."

The young girl trembled as her great-grandmother's hand gently caressed her cheek.

"You also have his eyes," Ma-mère whispered. "His beautiful blue eyes. In three generations, you are the first to have eyes like his. And that is how I know my dear Christof lives on."