He woke up smelling her hair.  He roused her gently, saying that he wanted to reach Krakow by noon.  Nora smiled at him, her tangled hair framing her face.  As he got dressed, she told him about visiting Krakow as a little girl when her father would lecture there.  Kurt said that with any luck, they would get an overnight train and that they’d be in Warsaw tomorrow morning.  Kurt went over the plan in his head as he dressed himself.
  
“I’ll be back soon,” he said as he stepped out the door.  He looked back at Nora, she was sitting on the bed, wearing a grey tweed suit with her hair braided around her head.

“Hurry,” she said, a happy anxiety in her eyes.  Kurt nodded and headed out.  His body was humming.  He didn’t feel the cold at all as he walked to the administrative office.  In his head, he urged the secretary processing his papers to hurry up.  This was his destiny!  He was teetering on the edge of something that surely God himself had put in motion!  When he was handed the keys, he felt and incredible rush of giddiness, but he maintained his calm, slightly bored demeanor.  He held himself from sprinting back to his barrack, even though he could practically feel the adrenaline fizzing in his veins.  His heart raced as he opened the door.

“I’ve got it!” he announced as it swung open.  But Nora wasn’t there.  Kurt’s heart stopped cold.  He suddenly felt like he’d been doused with ice water.  He called her name.  No answer.  Calmly, he stepped back out of the room, peering up and down the hallway.  This had to be some kind of misunderstanding.  He could sort this out as soon as he found her.  Nora could take care of herself.  She didn’t look like a prisoner; she could fake not sounding like a prisoner, right?  Kurt tried to think rationally to himself.  She’s not by the front door, so try somewhere else.  Back door.  Kurt took in a deep breath.  Yes, the most logical place to start.  His muscles felt like they were full of jagged shards of ice as he walked towards the back door, every bit of his will straining against the urge to run.  He reached the door and turned the doorknob.  He opened the door.

“KURT!”  

He heard her, he saw her, her eyes wide and flashing with terror, then relief and wild joy.  He saw Preuss, a hand on her arm, trying to pull her away.  He saw Preuss’s other arm raise, the flash of cold steel.

BANG.

Her eyes still looked at him, but their focus softened ever so slightly, the happiness in them dimming like a radio signal slipping out of tune.  She fell.  Her knees crumpled beneath her.  Preuss’s hand on her arm gave way.  She collapsed on the ground, her eyes still open and staring.  Preuss sighed and swore.

“Caught her trying to escape,” he said.  Kurt just stared.  Blood pooled beneath her.

“She had a suitcase and everything,” said Preuss, “Must have been planning this for a while.”  Kurt remained silent.  Preuss looked down at Nora and gave a contemptuous little sniff.

“Oh, I forgot,” he said, his voice empty, “She was your favorite whore, wasn’t she?”  Kurt blinked at him.  He felt his head nodding, his mind still in shock.

Preuss gave a cold little smile, “what a loss, then.  I’ll send for a crew to clean this mess up.”  He stepped over her body and went through the door.

Maybe she’s playing dead.  Kurt fell to his knees, scooping Nora up into his arms.  Yes, she had to be faking it.  It was the only way to get Preuss to go away so that Kurt could get her away.  Kurt felt the warm blood soaking into the fabric of his uniform.  HE tried to prop her head up, murmuring her name.  He could feel the place on the back of her head where her skull was missing.  She was gone.  Kurt’s pain was physical.  He didn’t say anything.  He didn’t weep.  He just knelt there, cradling Nora, breathing.  He felt his heart beating.  He felt the warm wetness of the blood spilling over his chest and thighs.  He sat there with her, unaware of time.  It could have been a very long time before the removal crew showed up, or it couldn’t have been long at all.  Kurt stared at the two bald, skeletal figures who had come to take her.  They stared back at him, their alien eyes curious and unsure.  It was their job to take her away.  He had to leave her.  So he left them to their duty.

Other guards cast curious glances at the blood on Kurt’s uniform as he passed them, but backed off at the sight of his fury.  There were no words in his mind, just a continuous, raging shriek of raw sorrow that overwhelmed all of his other senses.  He threw open to door to his barrack and entered.  He rifled through his belongings, throwing things over his head until he found what he wanted.  His SS dagger, given to all recruits as a weapon for combat and as a reminder of their highest creed: My honor is loyalty.  The words etched in fine gothic lettering on the blade were utterly hollow.  Kurt had just lost the only thing he could possibly be loyal to.  What good was honor to him now? He ripped off his shirt and pressed the blade to the white skin of his wrist.  Just press it down and drag it up your arm…  It was mockingly easy.  Just cut open the pulsing veins in his wrist, and he could finally leave the SS, he could be with Nora.  His breath shook as it heaved in and out of his quaking body.  Hot tears clouded his vision and poured down his face.  He felt his hand trembling around the handle of the dagger.  Just cut it and end it all!  But the blade didn’t move.  His body refused the movement.  Kurt clenched his jaw and threw down the knife with a scream of frustration.  He went back to his belongings and found his pistol.  Die just as Nora did.  Quickly, painlessly, leaving behind a horrible mess for someone else to clean up.  He pressed the muzzle to his temple.  He cocked the thing and put his finger around the trigger.  The metal felt cold in his hands.  This was even easier than with the knife.  He’d done this thousands of times before.   He wouldn’t even have to wait for the results.  Just pull the trigger and end it all.  

But… no.  This wasn’t it.  

Kurt didn’t want suicide.  He wanted something beyond it.  Surely by now Nora’s beautiful pale body was being burned in the crematory.  He wanted her to rise from those flames.  He wanted her to have never known him.  He wanted those that he’d killed before to emerge from their mass graves, shake the dirt from their eyes, and live.  He wanted to take back the playful schoolboy who joined the SS hoping to be a spy.  He wanted to erase his existence.  He wanted God to remove him from His memory and throw him away as a mistake that never should have been.  

Kurt fell backwards onto his bed, eyes shut.  The pistol slid from his fingers and clattered to the floor.  He was empty, simply and utterly empty.  Nora was beyond him now, her soul embarking into a darkness that the living could never comprehend.  Kurt wished to be in that darkness with her, holding her hand and voyaging forward toward to unknown, perhaps toward God.  But he couldn’t.  God wouldn’t let him.  God wouldn’t want him.