Hans was twenty years old when he first met Alaina. Her name meant precious, and she was very much so. Her hair was dark, the color of chocolate, and her eyes a subtle green. She was slender with the slightest hint of womanly curves. Their courtship lasted a year, and they were wed in the spring of 1938.

It was a changing time, not only for Hans, but for the country as well. In November of that same year, Alaina became pregnant with her first and only son. In the winter of 1938, he was born and raised on the very same farm that Hans had been.

That winter, Hans’ mother, Berdine, passed away. The flu claimed her life. She joined with her husband and was happy once again. Like most impressionable youth at the time, Hans took an interest in the Nazi party. Or maybe the Party had found an interest in him. They had all the answers; or rather, Hans believed they did. And Hans was looking for answers.

Alaina wasn’t looking for answers, and she was very opposed to Hans’ involvement with the Party. She pleaded that Hans stay in Kassel, stay with her son, to protect them. But Hans didn’t listen. He wanted answers and she didn’t have them.

Luck, as Alaina saw it, had stationed Hans in Kassel, allowing him to be with his wife and child. He had become a proud member of the S.S., and for a few years, their lives would be perfect. Or rather, as perfect as they could be, considering Alaina’s opposition.

1942; not a good year for the Germans. The British Air Force flew over the small city, as they did many others, and dropped hundreds of small containers. These containers changed thousands of lives in seconds. All three Sheimers survived the bombing of Kassel. Their survival, though joyous as it was, began a fight between the lovers, and ultimately ended their marriage.

Alaina begged her husband to abandon the army, to flee the country with his wife and son. She screamed until hoarse, not for their survival, but for their son’s. He was now four years old with chocolate brown hair, like his mother’s, and diamond blue eyes, like his father’s.

“Why have we not left this town? They’re going to come again, and they’re going to kill us because we were foolish enough to stay!” Alaina cried.

“I can’t give up!” Hans had shouted back. For him, pride had taken precedent. Many of the Nazis felt this way, felt that self preservation merely amounted to surrender. Hans refused. “I will not abandon the Führer.”

“And what of your family? Will you protect us as you do the Führer if we decide to leave?”

Hans, angry with her defiance, slapped her across the face. She fell to her knees as her cheek swelled. She averted her eyes as Hans stood over her.

“You will stay here with me, and you will defend our home,” he said with finality. He walked out of the room, slamming the door behind him. For the rest of the night, he walked the streets of Kassel thinking about what he’d just done.

Hans’ child, who had witnessed the whole thing, remained on the floor by his mother, playing with a model plane. Alaina sat next to him for an hour, watching her son as the swelling in her cheek rose. Her hair hung down, covering her tear-soaked face. She smiled at her son, and he smiled back.

The next day, when Hans returned from duty, he found his home to be empty. His little boy and precious Alaina was gone, both on a train to somewhere safe. The note he discovered was short and written in haste. They were leaving, and wouldn’t be back. Hans threw a chair across the room, and screamed. A moment passed before he grabbed his rifle, and returned to duty. It was his only answer.

That was the evening of November 22nd, 1943. Alaina and her son rode comfortably on a train heading north out of the city, unaware that above them, 569 of Britain’s finest pilots had returned to Kassel, humming in the sky like a swarm of bees. They’d followed the railway south, and spotted a train leaving the city. Believing it to be a military transport, the planes began their decent.

The shells began to fall from the bellies of the planes, landed left and right of the track. One such container fell spinning like a dead bird, and landed next to the third compartment. For a moment, it was brighter than day. So bright that Alaina and her dear child could see nothing at all. She had been smiling.

Words: Brian Maurer

I meet her in the gallery where I work. She’s a volunteer at one of our cocktail parties. She is tiny, cute, with a gap between her front teeth. She is the only thing that makes the night tolerable.

Her name is Bowie, like the singer, and later I tell people I’m in love with her. I am in love, I pronounce with certainty. I am in love with a girl named Bowie. That same night I meet her boyfriend, who studies art with her at university. He is quiet and handsome in a striped orange scarf. She wears earrings that are asymmetrical, like her haircut. I think I love them both – I love their artfulness and their youthfulness and their hopefulness and their hopelessness. But then, I am good at enthusing.

When it’s time to leave she asks me how to say I miss you in French. I tell her Tu me manques and she says Tu me manques and I say Bonne soirée! and she says A bientôt! But then the waiter says Non! so we say Pardon? and he says Arigato! and we cry Arigato, arigato, aaaaariiiiigaaatooo! to each other over the heads of the fiberglass pig sculptures, and we’re laughing because the waiter misheard us and thinks we’re saying goodbye and not see you soon, because of course we’ll see each other soon, and this isn’t anything as sad as goodbye.

We email back and forth, signing off with Bonne journée! and A plus tard! She tells me about her dreams, her annoying professors, the names of her imaginary pets. She writes that my smile is marvelous and she hopes I will always be happy.

I trill – my smile is marvelous! But as I begin to type the phone rings. It’s a client. I somehow forget to press send.

Bowie forwards me pictures of her artworks, asking for critiques. Sometimes I reply at length, sometimes I don’t at all. I suggest we exchange Cantonese for English and French, and she says, yes, avec plaisir, whenever I have the time.

One day she emails to say that a close friend has been diagnosed with stomach cancer. I write back, telling her to be strong for her friend’s sake. I promise to contact her again, just as soon as things quiet down at work.

And then I receive a message: she has paid a visit to the hospital. She brought her friend a gift, a piece of chocolate in the shape of a chicken wing. This made her friend smile, which made her smile, but then her friend felt sick and threw up. Afterwards neither of them spoke, and she sat holding her friend’s hand until it was time to go. Her friend’s mother stood at the doorway the whole time. Her eyes were red and dry.

I start to reply, but a man walks through the door and asks for the price of a painting. I mean to finish writing to Bowie, but I never quite get round to it.

A day and a month later she sends me a note attached with an image. She asks: What do you think?

I look at the picture and see an old white shoe on a stick, but of course that’s not what I say. Instead I tell her It’s nice out of indifference, and Thanks for sharing out of politeness. Finally, I inquire about its concept because I feel guilty and lazy and too busy to write anything real.

There isn’t really a concept, she answers. The shoe was a gift from a friend – the one who died of cancer. Please could I give her some feedback?

I immediately hit reply. This time, I remember to send.

*    *    *

Three months have passed since our first and only meeting. We’ve arranged to have lunch in a cha chaan teng.

So now I’m sitting in front of a girl I thought I loved, listening to her talk about real dreams, fake loves, dead friends and living lovers, and I can’t help wondering why she no longer fascinates me, why it’s so hard to talk to her in a way that feels natural, and why it is I can’t be a kinder, less selfish person.

I pay for our meal and we linger at the table, doodling halfheartedly on the receipt. She draws the characters for her Chinese name; one means metal, for strength, and another means beauty, since she’s a girl. We hug goodbye and I put the receipt in my pocket. Except that’s not where I put it, because when I look for it, I can’t find it anywhere. The next day I write her a thank-you note. I send her a link to my pictures, and say sorry for not sharing them before. She writes back almost instantly to tell me her favourite, a colour portrait from New York. She writes: The blue is burning like fire.

I glance at her message between phone calls. I turn back to my work, my life.

-Lara Day