A Love Story with a Prisoner of War - 4. Speak German

Mid-June 1941. One and a half month since Axel’s arrival

Axel was getting increasingly fond of us. Traces of trepidation on his face were no longer visible and were gradually replaced by small smiles. However, I had been forcing myself to stay away from Axel in every possible way - I let my brother, Jake, to teach him all the farming work; I avoided any eye contact with him; I sat at least a meter away from him in English lessons; I ate all the meals at lightening speed in order to prevent myself from staying too long in the same room with him. I just knew that these strategies would help me to get over the feeling sooner or later.

Axel got along with Jake pretty well. Everyday, Jake and Axel would start to work in the field at the crack of dawn. Thanks to Jake’s patient teaching, Axel’s farming skills were improving dramatically. Normally, for professional farmers like Jake and I, it took about 40 minutes or so to plough or weed one whole field. After 3 weeks of ultra-intense training, Axel could perform the same task within an hour. According to Axel, he had never set foot on a farm before he came here. So, in a novice’s standard, his productivity was pretty impressive. And what surprised me the most was that Axel never complained about the heavy workload - even though we needed to farm night and day, he was always willing to give us a helping hand. Thanks to Axel’s contribution, the farm’s outputs had significantly increased.

During working hours, in order to keep Axel out of my sight, I would be milking or taking care of the cattle whenever he was in the field with Jake and vice versa. You know, out of sight, out of mind. Keeping Axel out of my sight helped me to concentrate on my work and forget about his radiant smile, about his mellow voice, about his full pink lips, about… about his everything.

I only came into contact with Axel in English lessons at night-time. During lessons, I avoided any physical contact with him; I focused myself solely on the teaching and I constantly reminded myself not to gaze at him for more than one single second. I knew, regardless of the pain that I needed to undergo, I had to get him out of my head, completely.

His English ability, in addition to his farming skills, was progressing steadily. Each lesson lasted for about 2 hours, sometimes 3, depending on how fatigued we were on that particular day. After a month of English learning, Axel’s utterances were no longer indecipherable; now he was capable of producing simple and comprehensible sentences, though they were not very grammatical at times – notable examples include ‘To-day wairter (weather) be good’ and ‘I am no untersand (understand)’ Teaching him English was not easy at all as we did not speak a ‘common language’. I relied mostly on drawing pictures to illustrate the meanings of different vocabulary, but when it came to abstract nouns like idea, concept, trust, I had to surrender. To fasten his learning process, I spent one whole day to produce a list of elementary vocabulary along with the corresponding illustration. There were about 350 words on the list and Axel was required to memorize 10 each day. Though Axel was not very intelligent in terms of language acquisition, he was very diligent. It took him about half a month to memorize the whole list and I was very impressed by his process. In addition to learning new vocabulary, I spent most of the lesson time with his pronunciation. On the whole, his speaking ability was improving, even my mum were full of praise for his tremendous process; however, he still couldn’t articulate the ‘r’, ‘f’, ‘v’, ‘n’ sounds correctly.

Axel was really passionate about the learning and his attitude made me fall in love with teaching English. All I could say was that I really did relish being his English tutor.

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One day

It was 1 o’clock in the morning.

I woke up all of a sudden.

My throat was as dry as a desert.

I needed water.

I left my warm bed and went downstairs to fetch some water.

While I was walking down the stairs dreamily, I heard someone weeping. I was appalled and didn’t move for a few seconds, wondering if I heard it wrong. The sobbing noise was like a baby crying for his mother, and it just went on and on. I descended to the bottom of the staircase carefully, and I grabbed a hardcover book nearby for defense. I tiptoed to where the noise came from – the window ledge.

I walked closer and closer to the window; and a familiar figure came into sight - It was Axel. He was gazing at the starry sky, weeping.

I put down the book on a table and walked to the window ledge without making any noise. I knocked on the window and he turned around instantly, petrified to see me. The tears in his eyes were shimmering in the moonlight as if they were diamonds. Though it was dark there, I could see liquids cascading down his cheeks. His eyes, as usual, were enthralling; they were like a pair of magnets, attracting all the iron and steel objects nearby.

I opened the glass door and sat next to him.

Startled, Axel wiped away the tears immediately with his sleeves.

‘Are you okay?’ I asked gently.

‘Yes.’ He replied shakily.

‘Why are you crying? Anything wrong?’ I continued.

‘I…I…’ Telling from his struggling facial expression, it was quite obvious that he was searching in his vocabulary bank to find the right words to say. ‘I… I…want… home.’ He said in a husky voice.

Oh, he was homesick. I should have guessed that. Having stayed in this unfamiliar surrounding for a month and being separated from his family for so long must be a great torture to him. I had been very fortunate all my life; I had never experienced anything similar. I couldn’t really understand his feeling.

‘Everything will be all right, you will go home very soon. Everything will be all right, you are safe here.’ I said in slow motion, hoping that he could understand every word I said.

Silence.

Axel looked me in the eyes and neither of us spoke. I could literally see the sorrow and puzzlement behind those alluring eyes.

‘You are s-a-f-e here. The w-a-r will soon be over. E-v-e-r-y-t-h-i-n-g will be fine.’ I said, trying my very best to comfort this poor soul.

‘My…my dad and bather (brother) are fi… fighting in the war. I want them okay. I want see dad and bather.’ Axel said. Meanwhile, fat droplets of tears were flowing down his cheeks.

‘I want Jermany (Germany), I want home, I no want war.’ He continued.

His words were like a super tank trampling over my heart; they had broken my heart instantly.

I sat closer to him, opened my arms and wrapped him up, so tight that I could feel his heart beat. I let him cry on my shoulder, and his body was shivering with sorrow. I patted gently on his back, whispering, ‘Everything will be all right. You are safe here. You are safe here.’ I held him tight in my arms, trying my very best to tell him that I’m here for him.

While he was choking with pain, I gazed at the picturesque view in front of us – the starry sky, the rolling hills in the distance, the vast crop fields beneath – everything was so heavenly and tranquil. Honestly, I really couldn’t imagine what was occurring at that moment on the other side of the world - I felt so blessed, so blessed to be sitting here, warm and cozy, safe and sound. However, at the same time, I couldn’t help feeling guilty since all of my friends had joined the army, and were probably fighting in the battlefields. Words simply couldn’t describe my mixed feeling.

Though I couldn’t understand Axel’s feeling completely, I just knew that it must be an extremely tough time for him; so I let Axel cry to his heart’s content in my arms. I didn’t know how long we stayed this way, and all I wanted was to stay this way with him forever. It just felt so good, so good to embrace him, to pat him gently from time to time, to just… to just sit beside him.

The unwanted feeling, once again, was back, but I didn’t give a damn this time; I wanted him to know that I care about him; I wanted him to smile; I wanted happiness for him.

‘Hey, Axel.’ I said.

‘Yes?’ He said.

Out of the blue, an idea popped up in my mind.

‘I know you want to go home. I do not speak German, but do you want to talk to me in German?’ I asked him.

I knew he missed speaking German and pouring his heart out might help relieve his pain and anxiety, so I guess it would be a good idea to give him an opportunity to open up his heart.

After hearing my suggestion, he stared at me for a few seconds, and then he started to babble in German. Although I didn’t understand a thing, I kept pretending to understand everything. Axel’s speech went on and on and on; and I just sat there beside him, reveling in his voice, and most important of all, feeling his presence; Axel’s presence.