Kathleen Creighton - The Top Gun's Return

"My mom had it tough after the war. Really…hard. Their house was destroyed in the bombing." He glanced at Jessie, his hands still busy with the glass. "You remember the scar on her face? Above her eye…down through here?" He drew a line on his own eyebrow to demonstrate, and Jessie nodded, not wanting to interrupt his reminiscence to remind him that she'd never met his mother, that she'd died the year before they'd met. She remembered the scar, though, from photographs, and Tris had told her how she'd gotten it as a child during the war. "That happened when their house was bombed. She had a brother-much younger, about six or seven, I think. Anyway, he was killed."

Jessie made a horrified sound; she'd never known this part. Tristan went on as if he hadn't heard her. "The hard part was after the war. Everything was in ruins…food was scarce. My mother remembered scavenging for scraps…fighting off dogs and rats." He looked down at the glass between his hands, and his voice sounded choked. "I don't think I understood, when she told me. I didn't know…" Jessie saw his throat move with his swallow.

She held herself still, hardly daring to breathe, hoping he'd go on, praying he'd tell her something about what had happened to him. He did go on talking after a moment, with his wry and painful smile, but it wasn't what she'd hoped to hear.

"At least my dad didn't go hungry," he said dryly. "Out in the country things weren't as bad-more food, less destruction."

He drained his glass and signaled the waitress for another, then waited in tense silence, drumming his fingers on the tabletop, until the foam-topped glass had been placed in front of him and the coaster duly marked. Jessie watched as he picked up the glass and drank, wiped foam from his lips with the back of his hand and only then began to talk again, as if, she thought, the engine that drove his speech mechanism wouldn't operate without the beer to fuel it. Unease stirred in her belly. She told herself she shouldn't worry about Tristan's ability to handle a few glasses of beer; being German, he'd always drunk beer, sometimes quite a bit. Never too much, though, and she'd never seen him drunk in her life. But she'd never seen him drink after spending eight years in a Muslim country without a drop of alcohol the whole time, either.

I shouldn't say anything, she thought. I can't let myself turn into an ol' mother hen. Tris would hate that.

He was watching the crowd again, but she knew he wasn't seeing any of the people who passed by their table in an endlessly shifting stream. His eyes were thoughtful and far away. His smile was wry, and when he spoke it was in a drawl, and so low she had to lean closer to hear him. "My mom and dad had it tough, growing up. No doubt about that. They sure never let me forget it, believe me. And I had it easy." He threw Jessie a bitter grin, one she'd never seen before. "They never let me forget that, either." He drank beer, wiped his mouth with his hand and stared moodily into his glass.

"I was an only child. I don't think they planned it that way, but…that's how it was. They both worked hard…gave me everything. I never had to work going through school. A lot of my friends did, had part time jobs to pay for the things my parents gave to me. So, yeah, I had it easy. I did. I know that. But in other ways, they were tough on me, my parents were. You've met my dad-" he looked up at Jessie and she nodded and smiled her understanding; she'd always been just a little bit afraid of Max Bauer "-okay, well, Mom was worse. They both got on me constantly, telling me I had to learn to be tough. That I was never going to make it in this life if I didn't. They always made it pretty clear to me they didn't think I was going to measure up in that department." He looked away, but not before she saw the shine of an old hurt in his eyes. "And I probably didn't-not by their standards."

"Surely," Jessie said in a choked voice, "you don't think-"

"I think… " he began, slurring the words. Then broke it off and shook his head, muttering something she couldn't hear as he lifted his arm to signal the waitress.

"Tris… please, " Jessie said before she could stop herself. Her breath caught when he threw her a brief, fierce look, and she saw in his eyes the same wild and defiant light that had burned in there the day before when he'd pushed the rented Ford recklessly toward suicide speed.

But he only asked the waitress for the check. Jessie saw his teeth catch the gleam of the strings of tiny lights that looped above their head as, with a cool, sardonic smile, he watched her count up the pencil marks on the edges of the coasters. He handed the waitress a wad of Euros and told her to keep the change, then shoved back his chair and rose, swaying as he reached for his cane. Heart pounding, Jessie made it to his side in time to steady him.

"I am a bit tired," he said, speaking firmly and distinctly as they eased in among the flow of people in the street. His arm lay heavily across Jessie's shoulders although he held himself almost unnaturally erect. "My dear, do we have a hotel room around here somewhere?"

Major Sharpe had made a reservation for them at a downtown hotel overlooking the Rhine. It wasn't far from Old Town, but definitely too far for Tristan to walk in his present condition, so they made their way against the tide of visitors still streaming into Old Town's pubs and taverns and restaurants, heading toward the vehicle traffic streets that bordered the restricted pedestrian zone. There, a long line of taxicabs awaited the usual exodus of revelers, most of whom could be counted on to be suffering the effects of too much Altbier . Jessie chose the first cab they came to, but when she opened the door she felt Tristan's body recoil and heard a sharp hiss of breath. Too late, she saw that the driver looked distinctly Middle Eastern.

"Tris, honey, it's okay," she whispered, her arm tight around his waist, a smile for the driver's benefit fixed firmly on her lips. "It's okay. " Still smiling, she bent down to peer into the cab. "Uh…do you by any chance speak English?"

Confronted only with a blank stare, she hopefully added the name of their hotel and was rewarded with a brisk, "Yes, yes-come, come!" as the driver flipped on his meter.

Light-headed with relief, Jessie half shoved Tristan into the back seat of the cab, then climbed in after him. As she settled breathless and quivery beside him, he gave a sigh and leaned his head against the back of the seat, muttering something she couldn't quite hear…except for one word: "bastards."

She threw the driver a worried glance as she leaned closer to Tristan and whispered, "What'd you say?"

His head moved wearily from side to side. "Couldn't…let 'em break me. Couldn't…don't you see?" He opened his eyes suddenly and turned to her, glaring like a wounded eagle. "I had something to prove. Understand? Somethin' to prove…"

Throat knotting and tears welling behind her eyes, Jessie could only nod. After a moment he leaned back with a sigh and closed his eyes.

"Bastards…never broke me," he mumbled, laughing softly, his body shaking with it. "Never…broke me. Guess I showed them, huh? Guess…I showed them."

She fumbled for his hand and found it, bony and strange in the darkness. "You sure did, sweetheart," she whispered. She closed her eyes, and tears oozed between her lashes. "You sure did show 'em."

Tristan slept in a shadowless room without doors or windows. He could hear no sounds, not even his own heartbeat, his own breathing. He was neither cold nor warm, he felt nothing, not even the press of his body against a bed or a floor…not even the brush of clothing against his skin.