Liebe und Verlust (Love and Lust)

Liebe und Verlust

The problem with being Death: I can't help but be distracted.
         And, as I've said before, I make distraction my holiday. That's all you can do, in a profession like mine. Maybe that is why I chose to holiday on a train heading away from Molching on a frostbitten day in 1939 Germany.
Why I rode next to the woman with the desolate face, as blank and white and unmarked as the ocean of snow speeding past the window, with the train swimming on among the stillness of it all. Hers was the face of nothingness.
And knowing.
Knowing that she did the right thing.
Knowing that Liesel would be happy.
I should tell you the truth. I wasn't riding that train because I felt bad for the woman; it wasn't even her I was there for. In fact, it wasn't even that time of the day. My real reason for being there would come in the form of an anaemic boy in the next car who would slump over sideways with sunset still in his eyes.

The Railway of Germany

Soon to be synonymous

with the deaths

of many,

including children.

She sat there, staring at the blank canvas of snow before her. I would like to think she was savouring the colours, as I often do. But, no. Her attention was solely on her little girl. And, her now dead son. Shame though, Germany was quite beautiful that day.
         Barron.
But beautiful.
The world is full of such beauty. Liesel's mother was no exception to this rule, either.
Liesel's mother was like Liesel. I know, I know. She is the mother, not Liesel. It should be: Liesel was just like her mother. Well, no. This is how I remember her mother. She was just like Liesel. The same blond hair that would make The Fuhrer proud, the same wiry body, well underfed, a starving smile. The only difference was the eyes.
Liesel's eyes were a dangerous pair, dark brown. Her mother's eyes, however, were the deepest, crystalline blue the world has ever seen. That does not mean they weren't dangerous. Oh, no! Those eyes were almost as dangerous as The Fuhrer himself, maybe more. For they carried the deadliest of weapons.
Love and loss.
Love can kill a man. Love can lead someone to the edge of the world, even further. Love can even start wars. Loss is just as potent. Loss can rob someone of their reason to live. Loss can mean the end. Loss can also give someone the means to carry on, to hurtle through the pain of life until⦠well, until they find themselves in my arms.
Alone, they seem dangerously unstable. But together, fused into one being, as in Liesel's mothers case; together they can kill.
Will kill.
Or, so she hopes.
Yes, will kill. Liesel's mother, armed with weapons of love and loss, had a plan: a plan to kill The Fuhrer.

A Mothers Baggage

Mothers carry a lot of

things in their luggage.

Hair products. Make up.

Clothing.

Liesel's mother caries more:

a death, a heartbreaking

decision and, among other

things, a gun.

Right down the bottom. Past her clothing. Past the few odds and ends of her simple makeup. The gun sat nestled between her belongings. It sat, big and fat, and black. It sat like a plump blackbird in the nest of clothing and belongings, humming a dire tune. Urging her. Urging Liesel's mother to exact revenge for her children. Urging her, like Liesel's father, to give freedom to the people. Urging her to free herself.
         The gun was silent. Anyone passing by, or who happened to sit by her would not hear it. Even I had to struggle to hear it. To the woman with a dead son and malnourished daughter, however, it was there. It hummed and hummed. It hummed louder and louder until it became a roaring chorus of drumbeats and a phrase. The phrase yelled over and over in her mind.
Tod dem Fuhrer. Tod dem Fuhrer.
Tod dem Fuhrer!
Death to the Fuhrer!
         Now, I don't condone the killing of others, nor do I like the idea that this woman had either. Yes, everyone dies eventually. And, yes, I am the one to finally pick them up and waft them away to eternity. However, killing someone before their time... Not my style, really.
         Now I do hope you are reading this after these events have happened. I would hate to spoil the entire war, or Hitler's downfall and death, or the rest that follows. I do that occasionally; tell the story before it has unfolded. If I did spoil the whole "World War 2" thing for you, I sincerely apologise. The fact of the matter is; Liesel's mother, like so many others who tried, does not kill the Fuhrer.
         Never the less, she will try. On a cold December night one year from now, she will attempt her assassination of Hitler. She will wait outside of a tavern in Munich, hidden among the dirt coloured snow in ambush. She will wait and watch as the Fuhrer, the figure of all her despair and frustration, enters the building. She will wait, even as the snow begins to crowd around her, falling from the sky in large, unruly lots. She will wait but only as long as it takes for a couple of drunken soldiers, still sporting their Fuhrers emblem, to come stumbling her way wanting more than a conversation. That is when she will become a slave, a form of entertainment for soldiers, and a woman made of hatred and no hope.
         For now, she is just another woman on a train, making her way to the next town in the hope she can find a new life.
         For now, she is a grieving mother, wrapped in her own sorrow and comforted to sleep by the hope of a better life for her daughter.
         For now, she is Liesel's mother.