Caroline

Darling, because the name Caroline represents freedom, peace, and courage. Father’s words remain carved in my heart, a torch that lights my way through the murk of time. While the world around me evolves, he remains fixed in my memory––Walter Fischer, untouched by age, preserved exactly as he was seven years ago. The time he chose to die. In my fading memory, he has always been a forty-five-year-old man with a face that seemed carved from stone. His jawline, sharp and unyielding, descended to a square chin, casting a subtle shadow that gave his face an air of severity. High cheekbones, sharp and prominent, cut down towards his jaw, framing a nose that was straight and almost severe in its symmetry. He had medium-length hair of a rich chestnut streaked with silver at the temples. Wrinkles thrived over his dry skin, especially around his sunken eyes beneath the thick, unrelenting brows. His blue-grey iris around the dark pupils haunts me most in my dreams––a calm sea on the surface, yet with unfathomable depths underneath. Father existed as a figure of silent melancholy, a figure who often mumbled to God. His days were a monotonous rhythm of stillness, broken only by his solitary pilgrimages to the church and the woods. He seldom spoke––his scarce words were rare gems, reserved for those few moments he deemed worthy of sharing. Ever since I learned to read, father read me the Bible and shared with me lessons of life. His room held only a few books on the wooden shelf: the Bible, Dostoevsky’s entire collection, War and Peace, Siddhartha, Plato’s Republic, Faust, Thus Spoke Zarathustra, and Inferno, but they were all well-worn, filled with the annotations of a man who had wrestled with their words, searching for truth and meaning. His teachings were solemn, each word carefully chosen. With his steady gaze fixed on me, he would speak of good and evil as if they were forces he had encountered personally. He also spoke of kindness, resilience, and peace, not as abstract virtues but as necessities for survival. He talked most about books, his books, and the importance to read, since books abstract one from reality’s madness. He shared Dostoevsky’s thoughts on suffering, consciousness, and redemption, using them to frame his words that seemed to come from some far-off places in his memory, places behind his sealed heart. Although I could not fully grasp the meanings behind his words, I clung to his profound teachings and kept them in my Moleskine journal, decorated with my childish drawings of hearts and flowers. One day, the silence that he offered the world became all-encompassing. It made sense to everyone, except me. Should my life one day come to a sudden close, I would not wish to open my eyes once more, only to face the weary monotony of my unremarkable existence in a fractured world. Those were his last words… words stripped from any emotion, spoken in a voice as dull as his eyes. I could not fathom the depths of his despair, hidden so well beneath the surface of our peaceful conversations. As time goes on and as I flip back to my old journal entries full of his teachings, the words gradually sink in while my curiosity of father grows. The life lessons he imparted to me became fragments of a puzzle I could not complete for eight years, each one a reminder of the mystery he had left behind. Reflecting back, aside from knowing that his favorite book was Notes from the Underground, I realized I never truly knew my father as a person. I tried asking mother about him, yet she sealed her mouth of secrets. Today marks the eighth anniversary of father’s death. After spending the windy night with him in the graveyard behind a discarded bookstore, I arrived home late. Craving to see his face, I climbed up to the attic, father’s sanctuary, and saw gusts of storm blowing inside through a gap under the open window. I rushed forward, stepped on the table, reached forward, and strained with all my muscles to seal the window. In a loud bang, the window closed and the wind ceased, but the attic failed to escape the chaotic disarray. I anxiously knelt, searching like a madman for that one precious photo with the face of unfinished thoughts. Out of the corner of my right eye, I saw that photo dangling from an almost invisible gap between the table and the wall. I pushed the table aside, and the only picture of father drifted down while a blue butterfly miraculously flew out between the gap. The butterfly fluttered softly, its wings as delicate as fine silk, shimmering with shades of azure and sapphire under the dim moonlight. A faint silver lining edged each wing, giving it an ethereal glow as it moved through the dusty air. After caressing the photo, I followed the path of the butterfly as it flew towards the right and disappeared behind my father's old bookshelf. Peeking through an unnoticeable tiny gap between the bookshelf and the wall, I watched as the butterfly peacefully landed on a mysterious object, half-obscured by a veil of spider webs. I slowly reached for the object and brought it closer, blowing away the cobwebs. It was a thick leather notebook. My heart racing, I flipped it open. Alexander von Ulrich In a cursive handwriting, an unfamiliar name appeared in the top left corner of the empty page. Flipping into the second page, a folded envelope dropped out. I opened the envelope, hands quivering. A letter written on October 20th, 1940, appeared, written in German: Dear Mr. Alexandra von Ulrich, We appreciate your faith in patriotism and your ability. Our president is pleased to appoint you as a Generalmajor. Do you accept it? If so, please move to the Militärbefehlshaber in Frankreich on May 2nd. We will prepare your flight. Sincerely Otto von Stülpnagel