Chapter 495: Legacy of the Fallen
Bruno stayed at Luise’s estate for the afternoon, reminiscing with her about his time serving alongside Erich. He hid nothing. Neither did she.
They spoke of how they had each come to know him. Luise went first. They had met by pure chance at a coffee shop in Berlin. She was visiting distant family, in a hope of getting a small loan. But they had rejected her.
In a state of destitution and depression, she was about to spend her last pfennig on coffee, when Erich chose to buy it for her. And from there, they hit it off. It was a romantic story, something one might see out of a romantic comedy.
He didn’t voice it aloud, but Bruno suspected that from the way she described Erich, that Luise had fallen in love with the mask that Erich wore in public to conceal the demon behind it.
Then came Bruno’s turn to share. At first, he kept it light and jovial. Speaking about his first meeting with Erich where the man was little more than a spoiled aristocratic brat at the academy, was a revelation that left Luise stunned.
"You wouldn’t believe it now, but he was a pampered brat when we met at the academy," Bruno said with a dry chuckle. "Too proud to tie his own boots at first. But the field humbles everyone, eventually."
Then his tone shifted, like a shadow passed over the memory.
"He never mourned the dead. Not even ours. After Mukden, I watched him give the kill order like it was routine. The last of the Russians were holed up in a gully, wounded and waiting. ’Finish it.’ That’s all he said. And they did. Every last one.
That was when I realized something in him had changed. Or maybe it had been there all along, just waiting for a war cruel enough to awaken it."
Luise was silent for a long time... She didn’t know how to respond to this. She wanted to deny it was the truth, to defend the man she loved. But she also knew how he had met his end. And she knew in that moment.
She knew that Bruno told the truth, as best as he could remember it. It was obvious from the look on his face that there was no comfort in the telling, but there was honesty. And in the end, Luise received something she hadn’t had in three long years: closure. She didn’t feel better. Not at first. But she finally understood.
Just as Bruno was about to take his leave, they both heard something; light footsteps tumbling down the stairs, quick and eager.