December 25th, 1914. The cold winter wind bit at the tips of ears and noses. Even the perceived safety of the trenches was no match for that bitterness. The sounds of flicking cards echoed in their ears. Following it were exclamations of complaint and joy.

“Keep it down, will you? I swear, the Allies can hear you with that kind of commotion.” A man complains from the corner, a pair of spectacles resting on his angular nose and a book resting in his hands.

“Apologies, Ruhm...You sit there so silently it seems you disappear.” One of the soldier’s remarked, others nodded in assent. The other slams the book shut, causing many of the men to jump, and places his spectacles on the grossly old stool.

“Well, hopefully that helps you remember.” He strolls up to the table stolen from an abandoned house, running a hand through his brown, greasy and unkempt hair while his piercing, tired grey-blue eyes scrutinize the members. He feels and looks too old for this yet too young to retire. A young soldier returns, “They’re ready.” Ruhm and the others prepare, combing hair and straightening uniforms. Ruhm hesitates but takes his Unteroffizier’s hat from the rack along with his trench coat, slightly combing his mustache before joining them outside.

” They’re pansies, Alicio. The Germans’ll never reveal themselves.”

“They are people, sir. We have fought them for months now. They’re just scared. We all are.”

A fiery redhead responds to his friend, a rather thick French accent masking and warping his words. As this was mumbled there’s a stir of commotion in the crowd, the Frenchman pushes and squeezes his skinny body through the others to the front. There’s a group of Germans scattered facing the Allied group as if to start a staring contest. One steps forward and extends a hand in greeting, trench coat billowing behind him. The platoon officer returns it with a firm handshake.

One by one, pairs of Germans, French, English and others emerge. Communication is like charades with long wafts of silence, only a few can hold up a simple conversation. But eventually they’re able to come to an understanding, even a game of football starts up. Alicio finds himself in good company with the Corporal, lighting a cigar for him, he strikes up a conversation.

“Hello, my name is Alicio.” His voice is rather fluent and beautiful with the melodic accent but the Corporal seems jarred.

“...You can speak German? Fluently?” He seems bewildered, blue eyes widened in shock and his gruff German accent cracking slightly.

“Yes, I learnt it in college.” Alicio remarks proudly, the other clears his throat with a small bout of silence. The Corporal seems like he wants to speak yet cannot find the words.

“Ruhm...My name is Ruhm.” He takes an awkward drag of the cigar, as if trying to ease his own anxiety. Alicio smiles, giving a small chuckle. They talk for what in reality is hours but is merely minutes to them. Alicio is able to draw out the man’s story, in return telling is own. Family and times past, how much they yearn to be home...if home is even still standing.

As the festivities end, both sides slowly return to the trenches. Ruhm turns, thanking Alicio for the wonderful time.

“Wait!” He places a hand on the Corporal’s shoulder, “I have something for you…” He produces a note from his blue coat, hastily scribbling on it with a piece of charcoal. Ruhm smiles, taking it from him with another thank you. As he makes his way back to his fellows, Ruhm unfolds the paper.

West trenches, 2400 -Alicio

Ruhm screeches to a halt. Was he really going to do this? Visit a man opposing him? Possibly get murdered?... He brushed it aside, stepping back in with a keen eye inspecting the paper. His conscience told him such a thing was ridiculous, yet something deep down yearned for some interaction with someone different than him. He lays in his crude “bed”, in reality it’s an uncomfortable hole dug in the wall of the trench, contemplating and sleepless, he can’t take it. He needs to talk to Alicio.

The Frenchman lays in that abandoned tunnel, waiting for some sign of another through the small hole in the thin dirt and rock layer next to him. On the other side lays a gramophone and a record, all set to play. Did the other remember? Was he too afraid to see him again? He wouldn’t blame the poor man if he was. After an excruciating few minutes, feet echo through the hole and a shuffling of gravel. Alicio slides a cigar box through the hole, a hand takes it and the accompaniment of a striking match reassures him.

“Ruhm, do you like music?” He asks into the air. The response is a firm, “Ja”

The Frenchman reaches to adjust the needle, then cranks the small handle on the side. Scratchy and muffled music begins to play. Alicio hums along with his angelic voice.

“An American friend gave me the record. They say it’s a love song.” He comments, expectantly waiting for a response with butterflies in his stomach.

“It’s good, very good” is heard from the other side. Alicio gives a flustered chuckle.

“I’m happy you like it.”

Little does Alicio know that the other is blushing furiously. The cigar pack was a surprise, but the music was a gesture that was rare with this tension. Ruhm had left behind those mundane things when he was drafted only taking some books. This was a long-suppressed feeling and it panicked him, yet gave him a sense of childlike happiness. Is this love? Why with a Frenchman of all people? He should hate him! What is he doing?! Ruhm stands up abruptly, pacing away in a flurry of fluster and slight anger. Such feelings should be reserved for a woman! A nice lady to settle and have children with! How would his fellow soldiers, the ones who all look to him for directions and leadership, view him? As a pansy! Sick! A pervert! He curls into “bed” yet sleep still eludes him for the next few hours. The only sound is the whimpers and small cries of a fearful man.

Alicio didn’t know what he expected, but surely not that. The other had walked away in a hurry. Was it the music? Was it him? Was he too headstrong? Ruhm had to have been at least slightly interested if he came to sit. The confusion and despair welled up like a knot as he set the gramophone back on the rotten table, covering it with a blanket, along with the record. He rips a small broken mirror from its place on the trench wall, looking at the mess that stared back at him. Why did he have to be French?! Why? How could he fix himself, make it better for that someone he finally felt a true connection with? Tears trickle down his delicate freckles, soaking into the malnourished ground below his feet.

It’s midday, months have passed, and the hostility and need for survival has slowly but surely rekindled itself in the soldiers around him. Ruhm however wasn’t thinking about that, Alicio was cemented into his mind as the gunshots and bombings crashed in his ears. He plays through that moment in that musty, man-made cavern. He should have said something, anything! Just to acknowledge the man. It was too late now. Ruhm was able to tear himself from his own thoughts for the moment to eye the planes above. The Luftwaffe. Ribs in the planes filled with bombs. Bombs that would soon drop.

“Runterkommen!”

A flurry of shrapnel and dirt was thrown into the trench, many types of screaming rung in his ears like church bells, human and otherwise. No one was fazed in the slightest, they only curled into a defensive position and prayed death wouldn’t take them. Smoke cleared, dirt settled, and the barbed wire was still layered in blood. Gunfire started up once again along with French and English shouting and tromping of boots across desiccated land. The beating of his heart consumed any rational thought, and critical thinking in Ruhm’s mind, as he saw him. Red hair, panting breath, the once blue coat stained with the fury of the Germans. No man nor fearful instinct could stop this, stop him at that moment as he crawled his way past the miles of barbed wire, gunshots clipping his flesh, to the wavering safety of a ditch. Alicio was still wheezing, his eyes lost in another world of serenity and crisis all at once, only looking at him.

“Please, Please! For the love of God please hold on! I beg you!”

Ruhm shakily pulled the coat off of him to expose the torn shirt and wound, tearing a piece of cloth from his shirt wrapping it around the others torso, red overtaking it in mere seconds. But this was enough time for him to tug the coat, hat and dog tags off another unmarked German just above, lying dead and cold, wrapping them around the Frenchman. A clever disguise.

Running was the worst idea he had ever had, yet he ran anyway. Only to be overcome with pain, falling and dropping himself and Alicio to the ahsen ground. He continued on, dragging the unconscious man with him. Pain mounting as if knives were driven through his body. Inch by inch until finally he fell into the trench, only light and shadow in his slowly fading view of the world.

It was a slow process, but Alicio woke to the smell of tea, musty wood and the surmounting pain in his gut, he attempted to sit up.

“Please, don’t move. It will only make it worse.”

A gentle hand presses him down, “Where is he? Is he...alive?” He was able to choke the last word out of his throat, no matter how painful it was to say. He only remembered Ruhm’s face, that was the only clear thing in his mind. Friendly blue eyes, trim mustache and messy chocolate colored hair, just like the day of the truce. “Please, I want to see him.”

Ruhm was unluckier, the agony was what woke him. Wheezing breath and half-lidded eyes trying to take in anything, some comfort. A figure was rolled up to his bedside. He could only make out the hair. Red like a fire. Alicio was in disrepair, but the wet eyes said it all. He was alive. The man was alive.  “Hello, Ruhm. I’ve missed you...so very much” The words were shaky, a small sob echoing in Ruhm’s ears. His face was numb, but the feeling of tears rolling down his cheeks overpowered that numbness. This had to have been a dream. It can’t be.

“I missed you too...Is it truly you?”

“Yes. It is only me.”

Ruhm weakly places his hand out, the other taking it carefully. Both shed the tears of the months of battle and denial, and the thought of losing the other.

“I thought I lost you.”

A pregnant pause followed, sniffles and a few coughs only to break the silence as Alicio processed. A small bout of anger bursts through the silent tears,

“Lose me?...What you did was suicide! Why would you do something so dangerous? And why for me?”

Alicio’s voice was a whisper of perplexity and slight anger, not at Ruhm but rather his action. There were only a few words in that moment that the German could speak while caught in the sweet, worried eyes of the other.

“...Because I love you…”

A small whimper followed signifying a new wave of tears, yet not of sadness.

“I love you, mon amour.”

A sweet, gentle kiss was pressed on the man’s lips. Warm and full of the last bits of life they had, dancing and twirling with the joy that was so far forgotten.

This was his haven.