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War wasn’t just a fight, a continuous state of alert. To Citron, war was a state of mind. A mentality, a way of thinking. And getting rid of it wasn’t something Citron has ever thought about. He was a partisan, a soldier fighting against the enemy, against his own people sometimes. Death slept with him so many nights, it became soon a loyal companion.
He was used to hiding, to run away, to kill. But he wasn’t used to calming, to peace, to the sweet hustle of the peaceful Stockholm. And he didn’t know how to get used to it, how to not take his gun every time someone knocked at their door, every time they left the house. In this sudden peace, he was ready to fight a non-existent enemy.
“Jørgen…” sometimes, he even forgot what his real name was. Nevertheless, he never forgot the man pronouncing it. Citron sighed, still looking through the windows of their small house, an attic in an old building in one of the quietest neighborhoods of Stockholm. “My name is Citron”, he said, after a long silence. He could hear Ellis’ sigh, behind him. Always so damn stubborn. “ You’re not Citron anymore. The Gestapo isn't looking for you here. You’re free.”
Free, Citron laughed at the word. He shook his head, a hand running through his hair. Would he ever be free? “I will always be Citron.”
Silence. Their lives have turned into a compilation of different types of silences. The silence they kept when they were too tired to speak, the silence while eating, and the tense, painful silence they were sharing in that exact moment. Ellis hated that kind of silence; it was more usual than before, and either of them was brave enough to break it most of the times.
Ellis gave up, he didn’t need to win this battle. Not this one. He sat beside Citron, in the small couch they have near the windows. Stockholm seemed to be his new home, maybe his only one. Ellis, the man without a homeland, without nowhere to came back. Sometimes he wondered if that was the motive of Jørgen’s silence, the murrain hitting hard.
“You’re bleeding” their silence interrupted by Citron’s voice. Ellis laughed, an ironic laugh, and nodded. “Could you help me?”
War was always there. In Citron’s mind and heart, in Ellis’ skin, bruised and still healing from the explosion at the illegal printing press. In the blood emanating from Ellis’ wounds. In Citron’s hands, trying to clean those wounds he still felt guilty for.
War was everywhere, and nowhere to be found.
Citron couldn’t sleep at night. He wasn’t used to the silence nights. To be fair, he wasn’t even used to have a bed. He slept on a mattress on the ground, in a garage with the rest of his companions. Most of the nights, he didn’t sleep. He was too busy to rest. Now, sleeping was a task, almost a duty he didn’t want to fulfill.
Sometimes, he could hear Ellis and his typewriter in the living room, too loud to ignore it. He would find him sleeping over the machine the next morning, with a glass of whatever alcoholic drink he could find around the house, or afford that day.
“What are you writing about?”
It was a quiet evening. Citron was, again, looking through the windows. Passerby running to their houses with the spring rain beginning to wet their clothes. He turned, looking at his busy companion, and he extended his hand to him quietly asking for the cigarette. Ellis passed it to him, before replying “about our fight. About Denmark”.
Our fight. “The fight we lost”, Citron added, taking a long drag on Ellis’ cigarette. A shared war, a shared cigarette. It seemed strange to imagine a life without Ellis’ presence. His annoying, yet welcomed presence. “We might have lost, but we tried. We survived.“ and that was more than enough for the Briton. Not for Citron, who would have preferred Death to become his last lover. At least, that was his plan when he joined the rebels.
“Not like your arm.” the danish kept saying, “It needs to heal, you should stop writing for a while, Bartlett.”
“I want to tell the truth, I still want to fight for freedom. The freedom Denmark deserves.”
“Sometimes I wish you could shut up.”
Silence. Silence . Cold and sharp, taking their breath away. Again, all over again.
The abrupt creak of the couch, when Citron got up too quickly and moved it. A step, another, the smoke of the cigarette all over Ellis’ table. “ Our fight ”, he repeated, and leaned towards the brunette to kiss his pink lips. Ellis was caught by surprise, his eyes still open when the kiss happened. Wait, he wanted to say, so he grabbed Citron’s shirt, prolonging the kiss. A wet, small sound when their mouths opened, trying to find each other’s tongue. A slow dance, testing the fields, too afraid of being left behind again.
Citron’s hand traveled to the left side of Ellis’ neck, where he still had small injuries from the explosion; to his jaw, caressing his scarred skin. Ellis tried to pull him closer, but the kiss ended with both of them breathing hard.
“J-Jørgen…!” Bartlett stuttered. Distance, loneliness. “Citron!” an unanswered plea, the clear sound of a door closing.
War was now a door, separating him from the rest of the world. War was in Citron’s feelings, in his tainted view of life and death. Of love. War was inside him, asking him if he did enough, if he could have done more.
He hated his room. Large, full of the outside light, with a bed. He preferred the floor, cold and ungrateful, just as he’d imagined Death. How many times did he imagine his own death? A single bullet to his heart, to his head, and it would be over. He was so used to lose that his life seemed a borrowed victory. Sometimes he blamed Ellis. Sometimes he thanked him, in silent.
Alcohol helped most of the nights. Drinking and smoking, until his consciousness was lost in a sea of uncertainties, drowning him in the guilt, the contradictory pleasure, the fear. Some of those nights, those feelings were stronger than any attempt to move on. It was even harder when he kissed Ellis, who still had a way to keep fighting. Even after facing the cold embrace of Death, Ashmead-Bartlett didn’t give up.
How could he? Without a war to fight, without a target to shoot. He was nothing but a soldier, survivor of a war that took everything from him. Everything, but his life. What was life before the War? Who was he before joining a fight for freedom? An imperceptible stain on life’s map.
War gave him purpose, War made him who he was, who he is. War was a chimera, tainting his feelings and turning them into emptiness threatening against his sanity.
There was no knock, no sign of the other presence entering his room. Blue eyes looking at him in the darkness, and a small whisper, “it’s not over. It will never be over”, Citron said. Ellis shook his head, War would never be over. But they could still fight. And be happy at the same time, be grateful to have the opportunity to be… alive.
The situation wasn’t an exception, a moment of weakness. Ellis was well aware of Citron’s habits, drunkenness and its effects appearing the next morning. He tried, sometimes, to reach out for him. He tried to bring him back to reality, to the new life they could share. Citron never accepted what he called “his pity”.
“Are you going to fight?” a simple question, an insignificant whisper in the cold silent of the room. Ellis’ dark hair had a mild gloss of blue caused by the moonlight. Another doubtful step. “Citron…”
“Jørgen.”, the danish retorted. Several minutes went by before he felt brave enough to meet the journalist’s eyes. “I still wonder…” he began; his voice was soon lost to an unbearable pain that Ellis couldn’t stop. His hazel, golden eyes abandoned Bartlett’s gaze and he looked through the window. The external light illuminated his face, and Ellis was able to distinguish the tears sliding down Jørgen’s cheeks. He remained quiet (to his very own surprise), and the silence was broken by a bittersweet laugh. “when they will attack again. When they will destroy this calm.”
They, ghosts of the past, an eternal reminder of those men and women that easily turned Denmark (and Europe) into a nightmare. Nazis . Demons in black and green, proudly wearing their symbol of hate; dark identities even behind the most familiar eyes. Don't trust anyone, Citron told him once, not even me. But me turned into us, and two soldiers became a lonely battalion, the last stand in times of treason.
“Do you regret running away so much?” Ellis Ashmead-Bartlett and his goddamn questions. How easy it was to hate him and his perfect way to discover the truth behind the veil. The perfect motive to hate a journalist. Citron shook his head, not a single word leaving his mouth.
Another step.
The distance between them finally disappearing with the hollow sound of steps. Ellis crouched in front of the Danish, taking off his glasses with a delicate movement. Citron evaded his eyes for a moment, and Ellis waited patiently for the right moment to wipe his tears off. Crying in front of the other wasn’t something they were used to do, and he had his own demons too, rejection being the strongest one of them.
“I don’t”, Jørgen eventually said. Their gazes colliding, an eclipse of dark and light. The tepid touch of Ellis’ hand made Citron shudder, closing his eyes again. Bartlett was a reminder of Life where Death was quiet and cold. “I don’t”, he asserted, resting forehead on Ellis’ shoulder.
War was guilt. An agonizing pain, constricting his chest every time he inhaled. War was a series of missing faces, ghosts of his past. Of those who fought with him and died, of those who died by a cruel mistake.
“Surviving doesn’t make you less a hero” barely a whisper in his ear, and Citron felt his entire world turning upside down. A sudden fear of falling. He grabbed Ellis’ clothes, his lungs liberating a tension that was leaving him without air, without life. He dared to cry in his lover’s arms.
Life was a glimpse of hope for freedom. Surviving, moving on, getting back to the fight. Life meant being pulled out of his darkness, a warm hand reaching out, always ready to reach out. Life was the soft touch of Ellis’ lips against his skin.
“Jeg elsker dig”, he murmured against Bartlett’s lips, holding him as he was trying to hold onto life once again, as if his life depended on it. A confession, hidden for so long under the sound of guns and midnight moans. There was no point of keeping it as a war secret. “Jeg elsker dig, Ellis…”
“What…?” Ellis asked, defeat in his tone, as his danish skills couldn’t help him now. Jørgen smiled, caressing his lower lip with a thumb in the darkness of the room. “I love you”, a whisper decorated with his thick accent.
Life was a kiss. A promise.
Jørgen cupped Ellis’ face, pulling him closer, giving into him, giving up the pain. Ellis grabbed Jørgen’s white shirt, asking him more, asking him to never leave. Again.
Resting his forehead against Jørgen’s, he tried to repeat every word, but it ended in a soft laugh by the soldier. “Your danish is still horrendous…” the familiar, teasing tone Citron used in their firsts days fighting together was back again, and Ellis rolled his eyes. “I could say the same thing about your English”.
Maybe this was happiness, the kind of sentiment that only Ellis awaken in him. Perhaps, he thought, we could be happy after all.