I’ll give you the biggest toast, my dear

“You deserve better, my dear,” He whispered, filling the glasses quietly. “And I know we can’t toast... but maybe if we cover the glasses, we can do it in a similar spirit,” Manny continued as he and I locked eyes.

“That might be bad luck to cover the glasses,” I said with a tremble, feeling my heart rattle and pulse. It felt as if it was caught in my throat. I couldn’t breathe.

“Lucy,” Manny said sweetly, “This may be our first date, but I’ve known you forever. Everything will be alright. I’ll protect you.” He poured the red wine from the dusty bottle and then closed it lazily with the cork, but not before smelling it and then offering me to smell it too. I shook my head to decline the offer. He wiped the bottle a bit. I saw that it said Merlot in large gold lettering across it, and Manny told me the glass was hand blown in the 20’s, made for French dinner table decor and drinking.

“I heard about Warsaw...so devastating. So many people died, Manny,” I said, covering my face with hands. He took my hand, and gently squeezed it. “I still cannot contact my family...”

“I know. I’m so sorry, Luc. And I heard my friend George got hurt in his own kitchen the other day. Just making tea, and suddenly half his house is ripped apart.”

I leaned a bit in the chair. The attic creaked. I almost laughed at how scared I felt. “Damn!” I whispered as loudly as I could. “I can’t even shift a little in a chair!”

“I’ll make the loudest toast to you, my dear.” He pretended to clink the glasses together and tried to imitate the noise with a swish of his hand and said, “Ting!” softly. I laughed, but I covered my mouth.

He continued, “One day, we will really toast and we’ll hear the loudest clink, and it’ll be a fine noise, and we’ll laugh as loud as we want.” He took a marble out of his pocket. Our inside joke, as I had one too. He had given me one of his most prized marbles when we first met. It was a Banded Opaque Lutz marble. I had it in my pocket always.

He tossed it on the chair, but it landed on a cushion. “And one day, I’ll drop all my marbles again like I did in school like the fool I was, and you’ll hear each individual marble hit the floor. And it won’t matter. You’ll hear that again too.”

Manny had a very nice and beautiful collection of marbles since elementary school and I remembered the day he dropped all his marbles in class trying to show them off to me. He was so embarrassed, but I had laughed out loud. He always kept his favorite marble in his pocket, a Corkscrew Ribbon Swirl. But he just tossed it like it was yesterday’s paper.

I tried not to laugh; my hand still covering my face.

Suddenly we heard a huge, booming noise. It sounded like a bomb. Then gunfire.

The house shook a little.

Our glasses shook on the table.

But, we were absolutely still.

After almost twenty minutes of sitting completely still, waiting for things to settle down, Manny tried to smile. I tried to smile back.

Living in Dębica, we weren’t too far from Warsaw, only about three hours away. Travel now was impossible with Hitler’s invasion. The feeling of being engulfed and ravaged by the Nazi’s Blitzkrieg, a people who I felt had no human face, only metal and fire coming forth with the sound of what used to be human beings stomping the grounds—-terrorizing and changing this land to suit their evil plans.

I had gotten separated from my family, as they mostly lived in Warsaw. Manny’s family lived here, but he didn’t have any way to contact them. During an attack, we found ourselves trapped in the crosshairs, as we were at a friend’s house having dinner. They let us hide in the attic as it was well hidden, and the door was on the ceiling and didn’t look like anything out of the norm to anyone unless you were looking for that sort of thing.

Our friends Hannah and Paul knew we were both Jewish, and hearing of the anti-Semite hatred the Germans had for us, and that Adolf Hitler and his Nazi Party propagandized against the Jews as things were getting worse and worse with the ghettos, they hid us. People were getting “rounded up,” to be shot, separated, taken to the ghettos, and starved or beaten to death.

Manny and I had planned our first date to go to dinner and dance at a local club. That was, until this horrible and devastating invasion. We had a newspaper, it was a little old. It was ripped and and I saw a little of the front page.

Manny had asked me a question but I didn’t hear him.

My thoughts were too loud.

I asked him what he said, apologizing. He looked at me empathically.

“Never mind. I want to hear your rambunctious laughter again, Luc. And I want you to hear the birds again,” Manny said. I loved birds. I studied them as a hobby, and loved to identify them and sort them out by their calls and sounds. I had hoped to go into college one day to study Ornithology, and Manny had even bought me replica bird whistles that resembled the shape of specific bird’s beaks and bone structures. I had loved his thoughtfulness.

“One sound I want to never hear again is artillery fire,” I said, looking down.

“One day, that will be true,” He said with a surety that made me feel better, and we both took a sip of the wine, finally. “One day, we’ll be able to be outside and we will be back at my parents house with the pear tree, drinking our tea or coffee or wine, laugh until our stomachs hurt, and ever-” He started, and I cut him off.

“No!” I whispered loudly. “Manny! No. That house is gone. So is that tree. We can’t keep doing this. We can’t keep living in a fantasy world. Look at our reality. We are hunted.” I said with a tremble. “We will likely die in a ghetto.”

Manny frowned.

“This wine tastes like ash!” I said, tears rolling down my cheeks.

Suddenly, I felt arms wrap around me, and gently, he kissed the top of my head.

“This is the best, most dreamiest first date I’ve ever been on,” Manny said. I chuckled with a sniffle, my face wet with tears. “I always liked you. You always told the truth. And you never minced words. I admire it. And I think I’ve always been in love with you, Lucy.”

I looked into his sharp and tactful green eyes. Usually I saw a playful light in them, but now there was sadness. His dark brown hair was growing out a bit, but I didn’t mind. He was perfect.

“Manny, do you know something? I love your intelligent green eyes. And your silly disposition to always be cheerful, even as I have laughed at it at times—-I have always loved that,” I said with a grin. He smiled back, and I hugged him back. “And... Manny,” I said, leaning in toward his face. “I’m in love with you, too.”

We kissed softly, and then, with more passion, his hands caressing my face and light blonde hair.

After we kissed I picked up his marble and gave it to him from the cushion. “Hey, kid, catch!” I threw it at him. He caught it.

He laughed, shaking his head. “You’re almost from a different time, Luc.”

“One day, we will be in a different time. And it’ll be better,” I said, and he looked a bit surprised at my statement, but then nodded and agreed. “Now, pass me more of that wine,” I said. I sat up straighter. “It actually tasted delicious.”