A third looks over, a giant with dark hair and thick lips. His arm, when he raises his flask, is the size of my thigh.
“My god...you didn’t have the view I did. Did you see Rolf's wife? Holy Christ.”
“What an ass on her!” tow head says, smiling.
“And she has that look—” the drunk one leers.
“—Like you want to surprise her,” the giant says. “Yes, I saw. Lucky bastard.”
The fourth one listens intently. Of them, his eyes shine clearest, a blue that looks like steel in a ferret-like face. His uniform is the least rumpled, the least sweat-stained. He also wears a slightly different insignia at his collar.
“He should not have brought her here,” he says only, into the silence.
Tow-head takes the flask from his giant friend. “He’s in love. It’s romantic, isn’t it?”
The ferret-faced man’s German remains clipped. “It is no excuse for stupidity. Blauvelt was not subtle in his attentions. I would not want the assignments Rolf pulls after this meeting.” He mutters, softer, “...Especially with his pedigree.”
“What?” the giant asks. “What did you say?”
“Aww, who cares?” the drunk one says. “He’d cut our balls off if we breathed on her. Let’s go find our own tail...some that doesn’t have a Luger attached to it.”
They walk through me and past me down the corridor from which I’ve come, as if I were a puff of smoke. I watch them leave out another door, but my feet compel me to continue in the other direction.
The sounds of the party grow louder. I follow the clink of glasses, the low murmur of voices, but above this, the rise and fall of the emotional speech dominates. Occasionally the words are broken by wild applause, both by those in the room ahead of me and by a crowd far bigger that carries through the loudspeakers themselves.
“...The training of our officers is excellent beyond comparison. The high standard of efficiency of our soldiers, the superiority of our equipment, the quality of our munitions and the indomitable courage of all ranks have combined to lead at such small sacrifice to a success of truly decisive historical importance. What need have we of homo fervens? Of Syrimne? Should we weaken our humanity further by dependence on foreigners and half-breeds...?”
Another swell of thunderous clapping drowns out his words.
I enter a room with ceilings two or three times the height of the corridor. A giant banner cascades down a fireplace of river-polished stones. I stare up at the black swastika riding the center of a white circle on a blood-red background.#p#分页标题#e#
Away from the crowd gathered under metal speakers, men in uniform talk in small clusters, eating and drinking with women in party clothes that make them look like gaunt, long-necked birds. The ecstatic voice can be heard from speakers in the high walls, as if it lived in the ceiling, like a voiceover in a movie...or God. Even those talking amongst themselves split their attention, soaking up his words as one breathes in air.
My attention is drawn to a group standing off by itself.
An older man in a medal-covered uniform smiles, listening to a beautiful woman with dark hair and wide eyes, who looks embarrassed as she answers a question in a low voice. Her curved body is draped in a glittering blue dress and pressed into the side of a harder body next to hers. Her thick, dark hair is piled in elaborate curls on top of her head, studded with diamond-like pins that match her dangling earrings and the stones on her dark blue shoes.
She clutches the hand of the man next to her, who is tall, who wears a German infantry uniform that is at least a few cuts above the rank and file. As I focus on the three of them, I hear their words.
“...We will have these English scum routed in no time, do you not agree, Rolf?” The older man takes his eyes off the dark-haired woman, staring up at the tall man at her side. “What have you to report from the front of late?”
The taller man takes a drink from a glass half-filled with ice and amber liquid.
I can’t flinch exactly, nor feel real surprise, not in this place...but I stop walking when I see Revik’s profile. Except for the clothes and haircut, subtleties in his expression and posture, he looks exactly the same as when I last saw him, minus the bruises and with a bit more weight on his long frame.
He glances at the woman, his light eyes as still as glass. He tugs her closer before he looks at the man across from them, who frowns.
Revik’s voice is low, familiar in all but its tone, which is not quite insolent, but close to bored...younger somehow.
“With all respect, Commander Blauvelt,” he says. “These British are stubborn. It will be months yet before they fall. And if the Americans become involved...”