#fleuraufusil

hello @a-french-guardsman i heard you‘ve been tired and possibly a little blue so. here is something. something good and pure. i don’t know where i was going with this. but there was research in going into it <3

The date was the 25th of May, 2013. Nimble fingers of morning rain touched on the windowpanes of a nice parisian apartment. It was quite gloomy inside, and yet not at all cold, it was early in the morning and the place was overcome with silence, save for some soft breathing that could be heard from the bed. Two figures lay there, together, as close as they could muster, yet in a way that would not cause discomfort to either one. They had their age, now, they had to be careful, yet their love had not grown any more cold over the years, only the more affectionate and tender, the more caring.

          victorian england. how wonderful a place. if you were rich and white. when the thought first came to be that it would be open to visitors of a much larger scale now, friendlier, softer around the edges, though rough enough to be addictive if only so slightly in its realness -- well, no one imagine a success this great. of course, the academics and historians, they were expected, -- literary minds seeking inspiration, too. but through wise advertisement and a vast collection of possibilities that would please just about anyone -- the park really got out there.

people of different classes would come by every day. for a vacation, or for a weekend. for a family time or on their own. the stories were what got spoken about. the vivid characters more often than not brought out of your favourite penny dreadfuls or other histories of the sort. they all came together and the guests had them at their mercy. everyone made it sound like they did not, like there was a challenge to it, but there really was none. everything in that park was there to be killed or fucked at will. and in all honesty, that was most of their purpose anyway.

the painter, basil hallward, from the novel of oscar wilde -- the picture of dorian gray. it was clear they would be appearing. it was a passion project of sorts, yet somewhere along the way it got lost in the demagogy of commerce. hallward’s character was polished and mellowed into something else -- shifted from the original concept, yet close enough to please those who went beneath the surface. he was out painting now. the sun was up and he painted the same image that he did every time when he got to this point of his loop.

There once was a boy... And ever since his childhood, he wished for nothing more than to fly. It wasn’t the humblest of wishes, his Ma would tell him, laughing softly and caressing his hair. But the boy knew better than to feel hurt by such assumptions, he knew well that his wish was no less humble than a dog’s to bark, than a deer’s to run, than a bee’s to collect honey. Oh yes, when he was little, he was always all scraped knees and bloody palms and his head high up in the clouds, though he has long since fell of the tree he’d climbed before.

When he was eight, his father heeded his wishes and just that once took him to see a show of aviation. The boy felt extremely fortunate, then, more so -- he was perfectly certain to be the luckiest boy in the world. And his father stood behind him with his hand on his shoulder, and his younger brother held his hand. And the boy’s eyes became at home in the sky. He’d seen the aviators step off their planes, he’d seen them laugh and take off their glasses and their gear... Some of them utterly charming for the perfect features of the face, some just for the trace of heavens on their lips, that they stole while flying higher than the boy could ever hope to climb.

If Lacroix had any issue with his homosexuality, they were confirmed by his meeting with Jan Skála, the seductive Czechoslovak flight sergeant. Not only he was handsome, but he was also good of spirit, and the Frenchman could not help but falling deeply and irresistibly in love with him. Never did he get an occasion to escape from those unlawful thoughts; even when he slept, he dreamt of the other young man and the way it should feel to embrace his bare torso.

Once he had somehow managed to forget about the guilt, he decided that he should not be the only one in the confidence, and that Skála himself should know about this secret love. On a piece of blank paper, the Frenchman, who was brave but not reckless, laid anonymous words in the shape of a handwriting that was not his, to be sure he would not be recognised. There, he spared no desire, voiced them out plainly and explicitly.

Then, he waited for his superior to be gone, and laid the letter on his bed. Ah, yes, his superior indeed - it would be such an outrage to find a mechanic addressing such a letter to his sergeant, even when one put the homosexuality aside. But Lacroix did not care. As he said, British rules were not his rules, neither were they Jan’s, he hoped.

He had no idea how the other would react. By the time he had read the letter, Lacroix was talking with his French comrades, outside in the camp, but only half interested in the conversation. Rather half worried about the letter. Would Skála know it was him who wrote it? How would he react? He was not even sure he had any attraction towards men, even less towards himself.

When the pilot was out, he was rather disappointed to see that his face expression was perfectly neutral - it made sense however, and Lacroix went after him, replacing his side cap on his head.

“There, there, sergeant, have you eaten well? I’ve just made some repairs on your Spitfire, and it’s all ready for scramble now. I didn’t have much to repair, mind you, sir, you pilot it quite well. Has a scratch or two at most. Thank you for sparing my efforts.”

Jan still had his head full of the letter of course while he marched on, and as such he barely even saw Armand approach him until the other spoke to get his attention. A single look at him would have been enough to remind Jan of the way the two of them interacted with each other, the way the other behaved just as soon as he was aware Jan was around. There was only one danger with the French -- their sass.

For a good while, the pilot thought the other’s politeness was just a pose to spite the British, an ironical take on something he did not mean at all... Ah, but now he wasn’t so sure. Coming to face him after he could still feel the paper in his hand, coming to see him as Armand put his sidecap on his head once more and even in that gesture somehow managed to maintain that look of one who does all to serve him. He was smiling, in his blue eyes the sun was reflected and his hands clutched onto whatever at hand with a certain anxiety.

So Jan noticed, anyway.

Was there any space for doubt, really? Ah, but there always had to be. In Britain, in the army. The letter was dangerous for himself as well as its author. If it really wasn’t just a provocation, he best keep this other man safe. Be it Armand or not. But the gaze held a bit too long -- the way Armand looked upon him almost hopeful, there, with his lips the slightest bit of space apart as he watched him, with a smile.

There was something to his attentiveness beyond just asking how Jan’s lunch went. “Thank you for doing a good job, and a great service to the country, corporal.” He smiled, too, wondering about the letter stuck in his breast pocket. “I appreciate you still fixing her up after all this time. I feel like you understand her almost as well as I.” He joked, as always.

Lacroix simply pulled his tongue, like a child, at the pilot when he teased him. “Well, sir, I’m a mechanic. Women must think mechanics are more approachable, because you all pilots are known to be ever so popular around the weaker sex. And I was the only one who spoke proper English, so it’s how it happened. But you’re just making fun of me anyway, you wretched Czechoslovak.”

The young man tucked his tools beneath his belt, then climbed onto the Spit’s wing. “No, sergeant. She said “that handsome Czech pilot… with the beautiful eyes… that superior of yours. I am sure she was talking about you. And she showed me the flowers, even.” However, the Frenchman looked almost relieved at Jan’s response, even if he expected it. For some reason.

“O God, no! I won’t go! I have no interest in women whatsoever. They’re so futile, with their manners and their acute voice and their sudden passion for foreigners, even when they’re ugly. God, I won‘t ever understand them. I’d rather have a drink with the boys, sir, you see?”

He wiped at his forehead as though it was an impossible thought. Him - dating a woman - a British woman - who’s all about the pilot stereotype! And, surely, if it wasn’t a pilot who came to meet her, she would be disappointed.

How vain!

Jan couldn’t stop himself from laughing out loud when he was promptly called wretched, like his amusement had anything to it but kind-hearted humour of one comrade to another. Then again, so did Armand’s reproach. “By no means, my well-esteemed sir, I would never. If anything, I am happy for you, as you got the chance to look that lovely flower in her face whilst she stuttered on about the good looks of another man. It must have felt wonderful.” Ah, that sarcasm and a play on masculine pride. 

“--That is, if you did not feel like agreeing.” What was that, now, however? Something of an internal joke? Something only Armand could understand? Jan certainly did treat it that way, whilst humbly hiding his smile and looking away only for so long before the other started moving up onto his plane. He couldn’t stop himself from watching that, either, as he himself valued thoroughly the new found peace of the ground.

“And you were so sure... What a poor sod. Maybe she did mean someone else? We have plenty of handsome men to choose from. I will ask them if they feel drawn by the offer. Sure some will. Some of the boys you would so love to drink with. Some of them could actually appreciate a woman’s company.” 

Was there a reproach to that, too? Ah, but it would be so hypocritical of him to moralise. But he still did feel some appretiation towards the so-called weaker sex, remembering well his mother and the things she went through to hold their family together even after their father died. He held her and in effect all women to a great respect in fact.

Jan seemed impressed - he seemed happy, too, happy like a child, and looked at the plane like a Parisian bourgeois woman stared at jewels behind the shop’s window; except that the jewels were not hers, and yet that plane belonged to the Czech pilot in his handsome uniform, now.

“Yes, yours. Yours plane. French plane. French pilot now,” he tried to answer in his clumsy English. “Pour le pays des droits de l’homme. Tu ne le regretteras pas, je promets…” and he squeezed Jan’s shoulder with that, as to reassure him that yes, he had made the good choice, the right choice of freedom and a soon to be independent country.

He understood nothing from Jan’s sentences in Czech, of course, but he sounded well pleased and the sound was sweet to his ear; and so the tender, loving French soldier embraced him first, and then let the Czech caress his face and hair, smiling like a teenager in love. “You’re welcome. But not mine plane. French government plane. Did nothing.” It was false - he did something, something very risky, taking in an enemy soldier to make him become a French one; but he was sure that Jan was honest, and not a spy.

Jan understood the little English, much less of the French but nonetheles there was the universal gesture in the other’s touch, and in the way he looked at him and even in the way his lips breathed the words out so softly, so naturally as if it were the air necessary to sustain him. The honorable Frenchman...

Jan sighed softly as he held him in his arms and then looked upon him with that same warmth when he allowed his fingertips to gently brush at the skin, at the hair... “Děkuji, děkuji, děkuji. Ne, já.. Nic, co bych řekl, nebylo by dost...” There came to be in him a desire he had not known before, awakened by the sheer innocent excitement of the moment, by the closeness of the other’s face to his, ah how wonderful would it feel to taste those lips on his own.

The year was 1943. The war was raging on on the outside, and even if bombs were not going off, even if the sky was clear as the stars on it, one could not help feeling the scent of iron in the air, could he not just? The year was 1943 and the night was crisp and cool with a promise of another day of restless waiting tomorrow, clouds of fog formed where men breathed them out, leaning against rough walls, waiting on their dates, waiting on the stars, waiting on god perhaps. Deus Ex Machina. He was not coming.

The year was 1943 and men were freezing out, waiting on their dates, and glasses of beer spun around the bar and aside from all the terror of the cacophony of voices in a lively room, a tender tune was making its way. One instrument at a time, but soon they were joining together as they formed one, as they formed a song of gentle remembering. A Czech song that the musicians came to recall being played last night, and the night before, and countless times before that. It was a favourite and it was the one underlying element of all else when nothing made any sense anymore.

At the bar, a man. A certain melancholy settled in the curve of his brow, in the wrinkle engraved between his eyebrows in a moment of contemplation. He was half turned with his ear towards the crowded room, his eyes wandering through the crowd, while the other half of him remained faithfully with the counter. His fingers tapped a tender rhythm on it that went along with the song, -- a pianist indeed... Still he was not appeased, as he was also one of the men caught waiting, while sipping his wine.