Past Tense, Part Four, chapter one
Oct. 22nd, 2007 09:58 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
skull_bearerPart four, chapter one
The aid packs arrive the next day- Thursday, potatoes and cabbage- boxes of clothes and luxury food and a new radio for the hospital. The food and radio are taken quickly into the hospital, they probably suspect that they’ll be stolen if left outside, Erik thinks. The radio has nothing to fear, it‘s worthless to them, but they’re right about the food.
He and Charles watch as the supplies are unloaded from the back of the army truck. The boxes are pine and plain cardboard, but a few of them are open, and what’s inside makes Erik’s mouth water. Chocolate, butter, good white flour, wrapped meat- he suspects it’s pork, but who cares at this point?
It didn’t bother him because he hadn’t believed in god since his little brother died. They never found his body, but had the funeral anyway. Moshe Lehnsherr, died third of March nineteen forty one. A rabbi friend of his mothers had come, and listening to them, praying for the soul of his lost brother, Erik had known it was a lie. God hadn’t looked after Moshe when he had been out stealing food, hadn’t looked after his sister when she was raped and he probably wasn’t looking after him now. He certainly wasn’t looking after Erik, and he didn’t know why he should bother worshipping a god who quite obviously didn’t care in the least about his ‘chosen people’
He hadn’t said anything afterwards, and paid lip-service along with his parents because it was easier than not to and they’d had other things to worry about.
He sees no need to do that here. The only person who would see it would be Charles, and he was a Christian and wouldn’t care.
Erik glances at Charles, his friend’s eyes are on the boxes of food, bright with hunger, the scabby skin at his throat rolling as he swallows.
The cuts there are his fault, they had eventually found a razor for his friend to shave with, blunt and notched, but no mirror. He’d been Charles’ mirror, doing his best not to cut his friend and stumbling apologies when he inevitably slipped. And when he had started to need to shave, it had been Charles holding the sharp blade against his throat, and it never occurred to Erik to be afraid.
Charles catches Erik’s gaze and they share a glance, calculating. The kitchens are on the ground floor, it would easy to climb through a window and raid the cabinets. Hiding the food after the staff starts looking for the thieves might be hard though.
He’d been used to hiding food, after the ghetto, but Charles wasn’t. His friend hadn’t said much about his life before the camps, language had been hard to begin with, but he’d guessed his friend came from somewhere where you didn’t have to worry about being hungry. When they had been given the ham from the Canada thief, Charles had wanted to eat it all immediately. He’d made him wait, and when they had been forced out on roll-call for a full day- no food or water, and if it hadn’t been raining the salty ham would have been more torture than blessing- Charles had agreed.
Erik suspects they aren’t the only ones hoarding the food they get. It’s pointless, they won’t starve here, but some habits are just too hard to break.
Those unloading the supplies are careful with the food, but the boxes of clothes are thrown out wholesale, some splitting open when they hit the ground. None of the men in the truck will look at them, any of them, keeping their eyes on their work or on the ground. Occasionally one will look over at the hospital, where one of their number disappeared when they arrived. They don’t talk.
“Volk.” Erik jumps; the man who’s spoken is one of the German Jews from a tent close to theirs. He grins at them, the sight of his yellow teeth making Erik wonder about the state of his own- he hasn’t owned a toothbrush since before the ghetto. “Reichsdeutscher. German citizens. In Dachau, they brought them into the camp, made them see what they’d done. Made them help.” He grins again, appreciating the irony. “They’re making them help again.”
Erik turns back to the men unloading the truck, trying to suppress the feeling of being surrounded by enemies. No one’s looking at them, and he reaches out to touch Charles’ arm gently. It always surprises him how warm his friend’s skin is. Warm and comforting. Charles glances at him and smiles tightly, then turns back to watching the Germans warily, as though he’s expecting them to draw guns and shoot them down at any moment. After three years, it’s a hard habit to shake. Erik spreads his fingers, curling them around Charles’ upper arm. His friend looks at him again, his smile more natural this time, and reaches over with his free hand to touch Erik’s fingers. Erik smiles, and wishes he could kiss him. The touch is comfort enough, but the intimacy of a kiss would be wonderful.
Charles’ skin was as warm under his lips as under his fingers. It was their first day in the tents, and they were still getting used to the idea of actually having privacy. It felt wonderful to be able to sit there, out of sight of the world, and just kiss, something so dangerous outside that they so often barely dared to touch. He’d kissed his friend’s cheek first, smooth skin, then Charles had turned and their lips had touched. Kisses, slow, unhurried. Charles’ arms around his waist, his fingers tracing circles on his side, his on Charles’ neck. He smiled into the kiss, one hand reaching up to run over Charles’ scalp, breathing again only when his friend drew away.
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The last of the boxes are out, and the men climb back into the truck, and drive away.
Had this been a concentration camp, Charles knows, they would have been fighting over the boxes before they were even out of the truck. But they aren’t the only ones caught in the hospital’s spell of security, and no one moves at first, stupefied by that comfort.
Erik stirs, taking a half-step towards the crumpled pile, then glancing back at Charles. Shall we? Charles doesn’t need the dreams to read Erik’s mind, gives a small smile and joins his friend in picking through the boxes.
Most of the clothes are worn and ragged. Donations from war-torn people thinking some good might still come from their castaways. Stains and patches, tears and stray threads spill from the battered cardboard boxes. Some of the boxes wear stamps from Britain or America, but some are bare. In one of the anonymous crates he find a dull brown jacket with a discoloured patch where the star once was, Charles wonders if it still smells of ash.
They all avoid these boxes of the dead. In a crate from France, Charles finds a pair of stout leather walking boots about his size, and he allows himself a smile. He’s been wearing a pair of shoes two sizes too small, and it would be nice to wear something that doesn’t hurt his feet.
Erik had offered him his boots in that first winter, but even if he’d been as cruel and desperate as to take them they wouldn’t have done him much good. It was only chance that they’d fitted Erik so well, and his feet were much smaller than his friend‘s. He wouldn’t have been able to walk.
Instead, he’d worn the splintering clogs that had been thrown at him on their first day in the camps, rough hewn and almost impossible to walk in. The first few months had been torture, splinters driving under his nails and the soles of his feet before the skin had toughened. Even the pain had did to a dull ache, he tried not to walk, and in a way it had been a blessing that the walk from Auschwitz to the train had been in winter, when he -couldn’t- feel his feet.
Erik’s been digging in a box, it’s stamped, but Charles can’t read the language. He straightens, and tosses Charles a coarse, faded khaki jacket with a hood. It’s much too big but Charles puts it on anyway, smiling gratefully at Erik. His friend knows how self-conscious he is about being bald- God, wasn’t the number enough? That he’ll have to go around ever after looking like a camp inmate?- and was probably on the look out for something to hide it. Charles pulls the jacket on despite the day’s warmth and the musty smell, and draws the hood over his head.
Erik smiles at him, amused at how he looks, then picks up a loose woman’s blouse, tangled in a sleeve are twisted pieces of metal on a length of chain. Charles doesn’t know what it’s meant to be but Erik obviously likes it and put it on. The pendant’s been scraped raw in places and the sliver-white seems blindingly bright contrasted with the dull grey of the rest of the metal. The sharp reflections of sun on metal are cruel to Erik, highlighting the sunken flesh of his hands and face, the sharpness of his cheekbones and the way the tendons in his neck stand out. Only his eyes are flattered, the gleaming flecks silver on blue grey.
It was odd, he had rarely thought about how Erik looked. He wasn’t beautiful, or ugly, he was just Erik; someone so far removed from everything that appearance meant nothing any more. He noticed when he was tired, that he looked better now, his expressions and his moods, but aesthetic appreciation had passed him by.
Erik looks at him curiously, feeling his eyes on him. Charles reaches out and touches the shards of metal hanging from the necklace. The edges are sharp where they were snapped off, and already warm from Erik’s touch.
Erik loves metal. Charles envies him this, that connection. He used to feel that once, towards people, until that was betrayed in the most horrific way possible and their very minds attacked him. Metal has never betrayed Erik like that.
The necklace seems oddly fitting, the dingy grey matching his hair, the white edges the metallic flecks in his eyes.
Broken, like both of them.
Charles snatches his hand back, forcing himself away from the easy intimacy of his friend’s presence.
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Charles eyes flicker, blink, look from side to side. Erik knows that fear, has felt it often enough himself. The shards of metal are sharp when his hand clenches around them. Sharp, cold, familiar, real.
The sharp, jagged edge of a spade.
Erik lets go of the metal, and tries not to look to obvious as he looks around. No one is looking at them; they’re all too busy digging through the piles of rags, the old frenzy in their eyes, trying to be the one to find something useful before someone else did.
They remind Erik of flies squabbling over a corpse, and he has swallows his pride- an easy thing now- to join them. They do need clothes, and if all he finds is useless, then they can perhaps find something that can be traded for what they need.
‘Organisiem’. Organizing. The most important word in the camp. To trade anything- anything- for what you desperately needed. The second winter, Erik remembered Charles trading some stolen bread for a few pieces of paper. Paper Charles could use to line his shoes and stave off frostbite. A ragged shirt swapped for a place on the top level of a bunk- hard, since he had to buy space for Charles as well. Some broken shell-casings from the SS’ guns for a pair of gloves.
Charles doesn’t join him; Erik glances at him and picks up a box. Even though it’s full of cloth it feels heavier than it should. He turns it upside down and clothes tumble out onto the muddy ground. Erik kicks aside a decaying pair of trousers, and picks up a plain shirt. It was probably once meant to be white, but it’s now a dirty grey. The fabric’s good though, and unlike so many others it doesn’t look about to unravel. Under a dress that more closely resembles a bed sheet, Erik finds a second, a button-down shirt which he throws to Charles.
His friend catches it, but doesn’t respond, just looking at him, and Erik frowns.
Charles wouldn’t have lasted long by himself. Neither would Erik, in the state he was, but Charles wouldn’t have understood the laws of the camp before it was too late. He wouldn’t have understood that there were no laws, and would have ended up starving or being shot before long. He remembered the look on his friend’s face when he’d first stolen from a fellow inmate. And ugly scene, the man had been in the camp longer than they had and had fought to keep hold of the bread Erik was trying to take from him. But he’d been stronger, even with his torn shoulders, had grabbed the bread and run, snarling at Charles when his horrified friend didn’t follow at first.
They may not be in the camp, but they certainly can’t afford to turn away anything that comes their way. The clothes on their back are the only ones they own, and they are ragged and ill-fitting. That Charles would still try and hold himself above this irritates him. Is he going to look down on him for this?
Charles meets his eyes, and for a moment they just look at each other, their unspoken words heavy in the air. Erik sighs, and Charles looks away, and they compromise. He picks up one box, his friend another, and they move into the shadow of the hospital. They need to do this, but if preserving a little dignity is so important to Charles, even now, it’s the least Erik can do.
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After three pairs of mismatched socks- all black, so it’s not noticeable- a pair of loose khaki pants about Charles’ size, two underpants that might be salvageable after a wash, and two pairs of trousers- one faded grey, the other black with a hole in one knee and Charles thinks that they might be passable. It was nothing he’d want to meet his rich grandmother in, but it would be nice to wear clothes that made him feel human again, rather than the worn threads they’ve been wearing recently.
Or the striped rags he been thrown the first day in Auschwitz. The pants fit, but the sleeves of the jacket clung halfway up his arms, while the rest was too loose to provide warmth. The shirt was the worst though. Not because it stank of death, or because it was badly torn or even because it was bloodied along the back around the gunshot rips that had killed the previous owner, but because of the triangle. The pink triangle that marked him out as the lowest of the low. All because of his stepbrother’s mindless insults. He thought he was going to be sick.
Charles shakes himself, then eases himself to the ground. His feet are starting to hurt and it’s tiring to stand for so long. Erik absently tries to sit on one of the discarded boxes, but even his frail weight is too much for the cardboard, which folds under him with a faint sigh. Charles can’t help it, he snickers. Erik tries to glower, then smiles self-deprecatingly. They look at each other.
“I can’t do that!” A voice suddenly snaps out.
Charles jumps, and Erik’s head snaps around, both craning around to stare at the window above their heads where the voice has come from. With a jolt, Charles realizes it’s the same window that stood over their bed inside the hospital.
There was nothing to do in the hospital, and watching Erik just made him feel sick with fear. His friend got better after each injection, then slumped back into exhausted unconsciousness soon after. The fear that he would never recover, that the nurses would eventually give up and refuse to waste any more medicine on him. He’d stared out of the window, trying to distract himself from the fear and the memories. It had been frightening at first, seeing the army outside. So many guns, so many bullets. It was impossible to have looked so many times down the barrel of a gun and not be terrified of them.
“They can’t stay here forever.” A different voice this time, more reasonable.
“Where are they meant to go? Especially in the state they’re in! You have to understand that.” The doctor’s voice, harsh.
“I’m not saying they have to leave now, just that you need to make plans for the future. Get them ready to leave. Encourage them to think of leaving. You’ve gotten some of them out of the hospital, get more of them out.”
“They have to stay here, because they can’t cope outside. The girl is barely managing as it is, she can’t look after herself.”
The voices grow fainter, moving away from them.
“They’re not going to get better at coping cooped up in here. If the girl isn‘t improving, maybe moving her outside might help.”
The doctor sighs, and his next words are more like a whine, “Where can we expect them to go?”
“They came from somewhere, when they’re well enough, they’ll be able to go back there.”
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The way back is slow, Charles’ shoes are clearly really starting to hurt him, but it’s the words they have heard that weigh them down like stones.
To go back.
There’s little Erik can be sure of in this world, but one of those is that he never, as long as he lives, wants to go back to Poland. It isn’t the memories- he carries those with him wherever he goes- or the fear of the places, the ghetto and the woods and the camp, but of the people. It’s the laughter of their neighbours when they were thrown out of their home. It’s the police who shot his grandparent. It’s his sister’s old boyfriend who spat at her in the street. It’s the people who jumped at the change to degrade and hurt and even kill them the moment the Nazis gave them the opportunity. Because while the Nazis might be gone, these people will still be there.
But when Erik sees the doctor and a nurse half-helping, half-carrying a delirious girl into the tents and leaving her there, her moans muffled by the canvas, he can’t help but wonder if they might be here too.
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Charles drops the ragged pile of clothes on the floor and collapses backwards across the beds, curling up on his side and dragging off his shoes with a growl, throwing the things against the tent wall in vindictive pleasure.
Erik glances at the canvas, then at the tent pole to make sure nothing has slipped or overbalanced, then sits down next to Charles. “Your feet hurt?”
Charles rolls onto his back, “Yes. These shoes are too small. It’s not bad when I don’t wear them for too long, but-” He waves a hand, and Erik nods, he‘s been on his feet far too long.
Erik glances at him, for Charles- who doesn’t want to worry Erik as much as Erik never wants to worry him- to admit that he might be in pain shows that it really does hurt. The throwing of the shoes alone is evidence enough. “You won’t have to wear them again,” he offers, resting one hand on Charles’ calf. The muscles are tense from the exercise of walking around all morning, and he traces them idly with his fingers.
Charles’s fingers, those first few weeks after they met. Tracing out the taut, slowly healing muscles of his shoulders before digging in, trying to soothe the intolerable pain that built there after standing on roll-call all day. Guided by nothing but Erik’s grunts of pain and his own knowledge of the human body.
Erik pauses, remembering. He runs his finger along the muscle from knee to ankle, more firmly this time.
“Hmm.” Charles smiles, and Erik takes that for assent, lifting Charles’ foot from where it’s hanging off the bed and starts stroking along the top of it. His knowledge of anatomy is poor, but he can feel the way the tendons are supposed to be. He pushes down more firmly with his thumb, running down from ankle to toes.
“Erik, what are you doing?” Charles tries to sit up and draw his feet away, but Erik won’t let him, taking hold of both ankles.
“Your feet hurt.” Erik explains. If Charles can’t understand that simple answer then there’s no point in explaining further.
“That doesn’t mean you have to give me a foot rub.” Faintly exasperated.
Erik looks up, “You’ve helped me when I couldn’t stand straight. Allow me to help you when you can’t walk.” A small smile pulled at his lips and he starts again, rubbing circles on the instep with his thumb.
Charles frowns, “I don’t have any trouble walking Erik, and you don’t need to do this.” Again he tries to pull away.
Again, Erik doesn’t let him. Why was Charles being so stubborn about this? He’s certainly never turned down backrubs, even when he could stand straight. Why in the world was Charles complaining?
The incredible pain when Charles’ fingers found the raw, knotted tissue and tried to smooth it out, the rawness almost welcoming after the dull, draining pain of before.
The memory makes Erik pause, “Am I hurting you Charles?” He asks softly.
Charles sighs and flops back on the bed, head almost hanging off the far side. “No Erik, it feels fine, just…” He trails off, then sighs.
Erik recommences, rubbing his fingers along the arch of his foot. “Just what?” He says; hard, calloused pads under his toes, the nails worn ragged by boots and clogs. Charles growls something incoherent and tries to pull away. A flash of annoyance. “Charles, what is the matter?”
“You don’t have to do this.” Charles pulls himself up on his elbows.
It’s Erik’s turn to sigh, the conversation is going nowhere. “No, but I want to. You are in pain. I want to help. Is that simple enough?”
“Do you really want to?” The irony in his Charles’ voice more closely resembles that Erik hears in his own. It doesn’t sound right coming from him. Besides, the words make no sense.
“Do you really want to help me when my back hurts?” Erik challenges. It occurs to him that if Charles were to say ‘no’, it would be the most hurtful thing Erik has heard for a long time. Charles is the only person he can bring himself to trust, the only person he has left to love. To find out his friend was helping him out of some sort of obligation would be incredibly painful.
Luckily, he knows Charles better than that. His friend sighs, and Erik knows he’s backed him into a corner. “I always want to help you. I hate seeing you in pain.”
And God knew, that had been a common sight since they’d known each other.
Erik smiles, but it fades quickly when Charles takes advantage of his distraction and pulls his feet away, sitting up and tucking them under him. Erik sighs, he doesn’t even feel irritated any more, only tired. He really doesn’t have the energy it takes to go dancing around whatever it is that’s bothering Charles. “I don’t like seeing you in pain either. I do actually want to help you.” He puts a hand on Charles’ thigh, coaxingly.
Charles doesn’t answer, and it occurs to Erik then that whatever is bothering his friend must be more painful than he’d thought, because Charles isn’t answering or looking at him, and actually pulls away, hugging his knees. His lip is thinned on the left side, a sure sign that he’s biting it, and his hands are clenched harder than they need to be. He’s not about to cry, but whatever it is is hurting him more than he’s let on.
Erik slides his legs onto the bed and pushes himself back until he’s next to Charles, and starts rubbing his back gently. Obviously Charles doesn’t mind him doing that, because he doesn’t push him away or draw back, only closing his eyes and sighing “I’m a mess.”
Again, Erik feels a smile pulling at his lips, “So am I.” He agrees, running his hand up and over Charles’ head; the bare skin is warm against his palm. This time he’s gone too far and Charles pulls away. “What is it?” Erik frowns.
Charles shakes his head. He’s smiling too, hollow and empty. He knows how absurd his behaviour is. “I look terrible.” He says flatly. “I don’t like it when you touch me.” He clenches and unclenches his hands. “I feel terrible then. It’s bad enough that I have to look at myself.” One hand runs over his head, bald, a memento of the camps he’ll have to carry along with the number. “I’m sorry.”
So’s Erik. He doesn’t know what he can say, or even if he has the words to explain the rush of emotions Charles’ words prompt. Sorrow for his friend, for both of them, anger at what has been done to them. Irritation, at himself for his blindness and at Charles for not being stronger, and finally empathy. Charles isn’t the only one to have flinched away from his reflection in the window or water pail or the other’s eyes, the only mirrors they have.
It’s not even just physical, although that’s part of it. The few glimpses he’s been able to make of his reflection show a stranger’s face, and when he remembers how Charles looked when they first met, he finds it hard to reconcile the image of the healthy, delicately featured boy with the gaunt, bald figure standing in front of him. Losing his hair suited him, oddly enough, accentuating his fine bone structure and large eyes. Or at least it did, before those bones became far too obvious and those blue eyes dull and haunted.
Because that’s the worst part, because right now every feature on their faces recalls what they’ve suffered. Hunger and desperation and loss written in prominent bone, every scar, every stretch of skin.
But Erik doesn’t have the words to explain this, some of those words don’t exist and others he never wants to know, so he does the only thing has left, and puts his arms around Charles.
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Charles gives a tired little sigh and turns into the embrace, tucking his head under Erik’s and turning an innocent hug into something more intimate. His arms creep around Erik in turn and for a moment he’s reminded of those old movies he used to watch before- before. He remembers how often he saw the hero holding the heroine exactly as Erik is holding him now. He wondered how strange it must look to see two men like this.
Charles wonders about it sometimes. He had a girlfriend once, when he was studying in England and Marko was planning his sister’s rescue, and while he had some idea what to do with her if the time came -which it didn’t- he has no idea what to do with Erik beyond some crude jokes and the horrible memories of what the kapo did to those men- which he would really rather forget. For the time being, their bodies are in no state to do anything but kiss and cuddle, but… though Charles has no idea what sex with a man would be like; when simple touching is sweet and kissing a dream, sex with Erik must be wonderful.
So no, not so strange at all, Charles thinks, smiling against Erik’s shirt. It feels good, and safe, and normal in a wonderful way he can never quite get used to. This is how it’s meant to be, with them together, warm and safe and well fed. With Erik’s lips pressed to his head and Charles’s to the hollow of his throat. Safe. Warm. Safe.
Charles doesn’t move, doesn’t want to move, so his voice is rather muffled when he asks, “Do you think we should leave?”
If Erik is disturbed by this shift in conversation, he doesn’t show it. “Can’t we stay here?” his voice is slow, ironic, the stifling accent only emphasized, although his English has been improving. Then, “Where is here?”
Charles shrugs, feeling the weight of Erik’s arms on his shoulders. He doesn’t want to know. If he does, it’ll make everything more real, because if he knows that, he’ll know where Belsen is, and Auschwitz, and then those places will exist as more than memories.
Besides, he doesn’t want to think about it, he’s already pretty sure they’re in Germany.
It’s surreal to think it all started here. That somewhere in this country, someone sat down and drew up the plans for Auschwitz and Belsen and Dachau and all those other places, organized trains to pick up innocent people and bought the barracks and the gas and the ovens. Here. Someone here did this. And it was here that the Nazis found and trained the guards that terrorized them in the camps. Here that they found the dogs that killed his family. Here that they made the guns that killed Erik’s.
He doesn’t want to think about it, he’d never sleep at night.
“Where can we go?” he says instead.
It’s not just here, it’s everywhere. That fear. The comforting child’s blanket of trust that the world is basically good and trustworthy was torn away in Auschwitz, revealing the horror and madness of the world for all to see.
How can they leave this safe place, this oasis of sanity, knowing the terrors that wait outside, the monsters that wait inside human flesh? The can no more fight them now than they could in the camps.
Erik’s rubbing his back, but Charles can feel how tense he is, his hands are hard, his pulse beating rapidly against Charles’ cheek. “It’s not safe here either,” he whispers, and once again Charles wonders if he’s not the only one who can read minds.
He thinks of the man taken away, and shudders. Not now, not here, not me, not Erik.
Not again.
Then Erik proves he can’t actually read minds and kisses Charles’ forehead again. “They sent that girl away.” He rubs his face, “She couldn’t look after herself and they sent her out of the hospital. They’ll send the others out too, soon. They don’t care where they send us.”
Charles pulls away slowly, and stretches out his cramping legs, and is relieved when Erik makes no attempt to continue the foot massage. As nice as it had felt, he felt too filthy, too ugly to be touched in such an intimate way. So odd, that this was off limits when the far more intimate and tender act of kissing wasn’t. “They don’t want us as their problem.” He answers Erik’s question.
“They shouldn’t have made us their problem!” Erik releases Charles and sits back. The anger is burning off him, but Charles can see the old pain in his eyes, the old betrayal. A small part of Erik is still reeling from what has been done to them, the innocent outrage of a small child that even Auschwitz hasn’t been able to crush. Charles hopes he’d had a part in keeping that part of Erik alive, that no matter how easily Erik dismisses the hope Charles offers, part of him wishes for it, despite how impossible it might seem. “They should help us! They should find us somewhere to stay, give us money, or-” Erik’s breaks off, and he grinds his fists into his eyes. No amount of compensation will ever make up for what’s been taken away from him.
He’s nineteen, Charles realizes. In America, he’d be barely able to vote, not allowed to drink. He’s always seemed so much older.
Charles is eighteen, but he feels five years old. Five, and knowing that the monsters under the bed are all too real. He wonders how old Erik feels.
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Date: 2007-10-23 05:11 pm (UTC)Once again, I'm not quite able to say something adequate in response.
Perhaps it's telling enough that even though I saw this chapter on my f-list earlier today, I couldn't bring myself to read it before I had finished everything on today's to-do list. It's just too crushing, too real.
What I like best is the connection: Even with the end of the war, things aren't over. This elemental horror about what humans are capable of remains a universal constant. No the-nightmare-is-over happy ending and pink fluffy clouds. Because there is no happy ending, ever. I like that the story is this realistic.