“What do you want to do?” Margaret asked him.
“Live with you forever, wherever,” her sweetheart replied.
“Are you sure?” insisted the young nurse.
The war was over, and the bombs had ceased to fall, and Winston Churchill’s voice was heard no more, and the whistling of V2 rockets had faded. They were enjoying the silence, here among the flowers and the scent of their blossoms. The sun beat down upon their cheeks, and the clouds rolled past unbothered by the shadow of any airplane. It seemed to them that the sky had never looked so pure. Margaret pulled the petals from a buttercup, playfully repeating: “He loves me, he loves me not...” She felt the insouciance of her childhood come back to her. Finally and for good, the Allied forces had triumphed over the forces of evil, and the Nazis had been cast down. Berlin was fallen into ruin, like Sodom and Gomorrah before it. The Third Reich had crumbled. For five years during the war they had not seen the sun, though it still shone. They had not seen the moon, though it still glimmered. Their future had been without hope, and so nothing brought them joy. They had run from one shadow to another, hiding away in basements and cellars or underground stations, fearing the worst as the bombs rained down above and the threat of the enemy was everywhere. They had trembled, together yet alone. They feared death might come at any moment, together yet alone. The people of London had been hard pressed during that deafening spring, and now John had taken the opportunity to bring his sweetheart out to the country.
A few months earlier, John’s home had been hit during an air raid, and the young man was grievously wounded. Margaret and her colleagues tended to injured civilians in the London shelters. “Can I help you?” John had asked her as she tied a knot around his right leg with a white sheet. She had to stop the flow of blood, and John was losing lots of it, yet he was alert, strong and calm. Margaret was stunned and impressed by his serenity.
“You’re very beautiful,” he had whispered into her ear as she leaned over him to finish her makeshift dressing.
“Hush now, you’re not well. You’re losing blood.”
“It is you that pains my heart, dear nurse...” he sighed.
“I’m trying to save you, heaven preserve us!”
She had burst out laughing, but their fate was sealed. Margaret had fallen under the charm of that strong, courageous man who had tried to seduce her even in his pitiful state. While he was kept at the field hospital the two spoke often, and never ran out of things to say. Sometimes Margaret was afraid when she heard the missiles passing overhead. “Fear not, our Royal Air Force is the best in the world. They will not fail us!” John always said. He kept smiling, and Margaret was reassured. His optimism was unshakeable. Then he would tell her about the happy future that awaited them, the house they would live in, the work he would do in the garage and the car he would fix up for them so they could drive it all around the country on their adventures, in those rosy days when the war was over. “I want to believe you,” she had replied.
Alan Alfredo Geday
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