homeless marguerites - Part 8

No matter how fine Eva Lutz came along with Annie Anderson, she still scolded her father for being reckless about family safety and privacy. Annie was not the first and was not going to be the last one Harald had suddenly decided to support without any specific investigation. Eva truly believed her father should be a great deal more careful with this attitude of his. Especially cases like that of Annie's were too dangerous to play with. Harald on the contrary believed, that such hard times were foremost times to help others in anyway it was to be afforded. Yet he was not totally denying his daughter's logic and anxiety and every time she tried to talk him into changing his ways, he just smiled and walking away he said that having killed in the war, made them responsible for the survivors.
Annie was, as she claimed, an American journalist. She had clearly come to gather information. She strayed freely all over the city trying to find a young man, as she had told them. She neither had much clue about who he was or how he was to be found, nor was she telling them much of what she already knew. The Lutzs only knew that this guy had lived in Paris under another name and that he had suddenly disappeared; that Annie could only find a postcard of the Frauenkirche hidden in his flat, which made her believe that he must have been from Dresden and that he must have returned home.
This was no convincing story, yet Eva had developed some kind of sympathy with Annie. She felt Annie's story happening all around her, she knew so many different versions of it in as many languages as possible. Sometimes she blamed herself that the real reason why she trusted Annie so much and would do all what was to do for her to find her guy, was the guy she herself had lost in the war. Making sure no one was looking at her; Eva touched the ring on her finger at this thought. Silently she took a secret look at an old photo in her drawer, which showed 9 youngsters of about 17-19 years of age. Eva smiled at her own picture sitting next to a relatively taller guy with really broad shoulders with her hand in his on his lap. She caressed his face with her fingertip, put the photo back and went to the window, gazing at the view of the city.
His father had been a close friend of Eva's father, Harald Lutz. They had actually been brought up together and they started seeing each other since last years of high school. He was not Eva's first love, but the true one; for Eva knew him better than to misjudge anything about him. Perhaps Eva had been the only one not surprised when he said he had willingly joined the army, both his parents and Eva's had been shocked to this news, they took every possible effort to make persuade him change his mind, it just did not work. Eva had just smiled for she had been absolute, Stefan would not have stayed for more than six months, and then he would have found any, just any excuse to come back home. It had taken less than thattime, when Stefan had been reported as lost and most probably dead. Eva had hesitated a longt to ask his parents if they would let her keep some of his belongings which were returned to his parents.
Eva sniffed trying to get rid of thoughts and memories which were as disturbing as Stefan's absence itself. She heard her father come back home with someone else talking to him in anger. From his words Eva estimated, the other one must have been Stefan's younger brother, the only one left from their family. He must have again picked up a fight, for Harald called for Eva's help.
Eva closed the window, rubbed her right eye and leaving her room she told herself that Stefan must have had simply lost his way home to have such a dig delay.