Rise of the Death Walkers (The Circle of Heritage Saga) (21 page)

"Ok." I said. "I think I know the way you stop me if I turn wrong." She nodded at me and I headed back toward Wiesenthal.

I reached the destination with no problem using the street signs. This seemed to impress Irma somewhat. "You are already learning your way around quickly."

"Yes some of the German I read on the signs is similar to English and I remember other words you have told me tonight. I hope to learn quick enough to where we can talk freely about what we want to. Your English seems to be getting a little better too." I stopped the car on the side of the lost like others had stopped theirs and got out to open Irma's door for her.

"It does seem a little lighter to speak with you the more I hear you talk." She smiled shyly at me.

"Lighter? Oh you mean easier." She nodded when I corrected her. I offered her my arm and we walked toward the river. The sun was just easing toward the horizon as we walked and the reflection on the water was breathtaking. When we reached the edge as far as we could walk I noticed that there was a crashed stone road that followed the river.

Irma pointed at the road and supplied, "In the past there used to be teams of horses that would tow barges up and down the river. That's why the roads are here."

We started walking down the road and I noticed every few hundred feet, there were benches positioned looking out over the water. We reached one and Irma said. "We can sit here and watch the sun go down."

She sat down and patted the seat next to her. I sat down very conscious of her sitting next to me and she scooted closer to me. I could feel the warmth of her leg on mine. "I like sitting here and thinking about things when the sun is setting. I think about past hurts a lot but when you are here they don't hurt as much."

I heard her sigh and then said softly. "If there is something you want to talk about I am here to listen for you."

She bit her lip and looked out over the water. After a short time she began to softly speak. "His name was Tom and he was American like you, but older and not as dark. He was twenty five and had dark hair like yours. I met him in a club in Wiesbaden. Sonja was with me that night. He started out being gentle but quickly he became more distant and at times he was mean. I fell in love with him and hoped when he noticed he would become gentle again but his friends were more important to him than I was. We were together for four months and then he was gone. I tried to find him and write to him but nobody would tell me where he lived, or where he was transferred to. I tried to find him through the embassy and did finally get his address. I wrote him a letter but I never got a reply from it. It's been six months now." I could see the tears in her eyes and gently brushed on from her face. "I guess I was just too normal for him and not special enough to keep his attention for longer than a quick night in bed."

I lifted her chin and turned her face so I could look in her eyes. "Irma, you are a very special person. Don't ever forget that. You are not pretty or plain you are stunningly beautiful in ways that many men would never grasp." I brushed the tears from her face and smiled at her. "Smile, Irma and light up the world with your beauty." She smiled and I brushed the hair out of her eyes. "That's the way to do it girl. May I ask how old you are?"

She looked at me with those sparkling blue eyes and said softly. "I am nineteen."

I smiled to her and said, "I am nineteen too!"

She looked at me and said softly, "Really? I thought you were older. Your eyes look older."

The sun had set and the stars were beginning to come out. We sat there for a while holding hands. I felt something loosen in me just by being with her and the Katie in my mind was gesturing I should go ahead and tell her everything. "Her name was Katie and I met her when I was fourteen." I went on to tell her everything that happened leaving out only things concerning my destiny and special things from the tribe. As I told her I could not stop the tears from escaping my eyes and she held my hand tighter. She watched me with tender eyes as I told my heartbreaking story and when I came to the part where Katie had died she gathered me into her arms as I sobbed uncontrollably.

She ran her hand though my hair and made comforting sounds in German. After I calmed down somewhat she spoke softly. "Jeran, I thought my story was life ending but I don't think I would have survived what you went through."

"My name is Jason, Irma." I told her "I lost it completely when Katie was killed and killed the man that had thrown her over the railing. I was in a mental institution for a long time and I escaped from there and changed my name and joined the army."

"Jason." she tried my name on her tongue a couple times. "Jason I do not hold it against you for killing that man he deserved to die. I somehow sensed you could be dangerous but you are unbelievably gentle also."

I pulled back and wiped my face. "You know my real name but stick with Jeran for now that's how I am known here. I will understand if you never want to see me again I am a monster."

"Stop that Jeran now!" she said firmly to me and held my face between her small hands. "You are not a monster Jeran and never will be. What you faced would have.." She struggled to remember the right words. "challenged any person."

She moved in closer and said softly. "I will see you again and that's because it is what I choose to do. Not because of something you did." Her face was inches from mine now and she stopped when she saw me pull back.

She backed up and said softly. "Think about this Jeran. Do you think Katie would want you to be alone for the rest of your life or to do what you are doing now?"

I looked at her puzzled by what she said. "What do you mean by that?"

"You joined the army to find an easy way to end your pain by doing something dangerous which could result in getting yourself killed." I frantically searched my memory to find out what I had said to her. Nothing I had said would have ever led to her deducing my purpose in the Army. She waited for me to reply and when I did not she continued. "Do you think Katie would want you dead just because she is dead?"

I took an opportunity to really think about what she said. After a bit I said. "No she would want me to live and if possible find love again."

She put her hands back on my face and said "Then give love a chance to heal you Jeran because she would want that."

I looked at her eyes and notice for the first time they were not truly blue but closer to grey than blue. "I think I can do that." I said softly.

We sat there looking at the stars for a while and Irma put her head on my shoulder and her arms around me. I started humming an old tribal song that popped in my head. "What's that Jeran? It sounds pretty."

I was pulled out of my thoughts at the sound of her voice. "It's an old tribal song about the maiden of the mountains. She had lost love and had been thrust back into the world between two grandiose mountains which were occupied by two separate tribes that were once one. The story explains how her heartbreak softened the hearts of the opposing chiefs and healed past wounds to make the tribe as one."

"Can you sing it for me please?" she asked softly.

I began signing the words to her as my grandmother had taught to me. The song was long soft and sad. The sound of a strange language that had never touched the banks of this river lingered on the soft star filled night. I could not carry a tune in a bucket in English but my grandmother had told me that my voice in the native language of our tribe was mesmerizing.

When I finished the song and the last notes of the song were still lingering on the night air I heard Irma sniffle. "It's so pretty and sad sounding Jeran. I could not understand anything you sang but I could feel the pain in the song and the happiness toward the end of the song." she sat up and had tears in her eyes. "Can you teach me your language? What's it called?"

That stumped me for a moment. "Well we call it the ancient tongue. Only the members of our tribe speak it. It's not even close to the language we use to communicate between tribes or English for that matter. I would have to learn German first and teach you more English before I could try to teach you that language. It is rather complicated." I pushed the strand of hair out of her face again.

She looked at me astonished. "You already speak three languages?"

I smiled at her and said. "No I speak six but I was taught them from birth. There are three primary languages within what we call the six nations."

"The six nations? What is this?" she asked baffled.

"Well there are six tribes in the northern part of the American continent who have been together in a form of a government for close to six hundred years now. They are the tribes of the Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, Seneca and Tuscarora. They formed together to stop territorial disputes among our people and let us become farmers as well as hunters. I thought how to explain exactly what the six nations were.

"It's really complicated and I would need to know more of your language to begin to explain it to you."

"Your people have a lot of history to them." She smiled at me. "We will teach you German and then you can talk to me more easy."

I laughed and said. "That we can do. This may take some time to do."

"I have lots of time," she said to me and I was suddenly comfortable with the concept of more time with her. She grabbed my hand and pulled me up. "Let's go to the Silbermine and get something to drink and listen to music."

I let her pull me along the road as I wondered what had changed in me. The pain in my heart was still there I loved Katie still very much but it seemed I had room to love more than one person. I reflected on this and remember something that my grandfather had told me years ago.

"Jason a man is capable of falling in love many times but each time he does it will be special. You will never lover two women in the same way but it is still love. You grow from each relationship you are in and learn something new each time. You come to appreciate the subtle differences in life between women."

I had asked him how many women he had fallen in love with and he grinned at me.

"You will never get me to admit to more than one as long as Mimi is still alive."

Maybe this was what my grandfather had been trying to tell me. When I reflected, I could still feel the love I had for Katie and if I thought about my feelings for Irma. I could feel something much deeper than friendship. She was a very special person. Somehow I had known this from the first time I saw her.

Irma got my attention by pulling on my arm. I had stopped without knowing it and she waited beside me. "What are you thinking about Jeran?"

"I am thinking about what you said, Irma. That Katie would not want me to be alone the rest of my life and she would want me to be out in the world and not withdrawn." I looked into her blue-grey eyes and said softly. "You are a very special person to me Irma and I could see myself falling very much in love with you." As I said this I lifted her chin and kissed her gently on her lips.

Chapter 18 - Night on the Town

We pulled up to the club around twenty-one hundred and parked a couple of streets behind it. Even though we parked so far away from the club, we could still hear the music clearly. Heavy vibrations from the bass in the club could be felt in the stone of the street. Irma took my hand and led me down the street to the entrance of the club. When we pulled the door open the concussion from the blast of sound that assaulted us was almost enough to knock us off our feet.

Irma had asked me to stop at the apartment building where she stayed with her parents and wait while she went in to change. I had sat in the car thinking while I waited. When she came out she was wearing a white short sleeved blouse and light blue skirt that reached about halfway down her thighs. I noticed she was carrying a yellow book about the size of a jumbo sized desk calculator.

I did not comment on that until we were in the club and seated at a table as far away from the dance floor as possible, near the front of the club and the bar. The bar itself was impressive. It was in an "L" form and wrapped around the wall along one side of the club ending at the DJ's booth which looked out over the dance floor. I could see the sea of people milling around and talking in loud voices to be heard over the music. It gave me the feeling of sardine stuffed into a six ounce can that already had fifteen ounces of sardines in it.

I let Irma sit down first and slid in next to her. She pulled out the book and flopped it on the table. Leaning over to me she said in a loud voice. "English/German Dictionary. I thought this could help us out tonight."

I nodded to her and shouted back. "That's if you can hear yourself think in this place." She flashed a grin at me and turned to the waitress who had come to our table. After she ordered what sounded to me to be a coke or cola as she said it she asked me. "Do you want a beer or something?"

"I will take a coke. " The waitress looked like she was sizing me up like a side of beef and turned away to go back to the bar to get our orders. I took a look around the club at the crowd and noticed spatters of English conversation floating back to me. The place was obviously popular with the locale soldiers and young people alike.

Irma tapped me on the shoulder and asked. "What do you think?"

"It's loud for one thing and I can't quite place some of the music they are playing." The beat of the music was definitely something you could dance to but it had an unfamiliar sound to it. There seemed to me a mixture of instrumental and electronic music intertwined.

"It is called Euro-Techno. They play a lot of that here but they play hit music too." She waited for the waitress to place the drinks on the table and I paid for them. "There are a lot of Americans from your Kasern too. I do not like most of them because they are too pushy."

I nodded at what she said and commented. "I noticed a difference between people raised in the country and others who spent their life in the cities." She nodded at me.

"Could you excuse me for a moment? Which way to the men's room?"