Work Text:
Hat dein Herz sein Glück gefunden?
Last autumn’s leaves spun brown and grey against the glistening surface of the water, pulled by the current and the breeze that yet stirred before the fresh spring growth of the forest. They seemed to regain some of their former life as they moved across the river; their flight had passed from the trees, through the glade, and their memories faded as they decided upon destinations through the passage of time.
Hans Giebenrath stared through the budding sweep of boughs above, straining his eyes against the brightly dappled glow of the sun as it fell across his cheeks and warmed him through the dark, woolen folds of his jacket. There was a song that accompanied his pulse and the sudden lightness of his brain, carried by the wind and the recent condemnations of the headmaster, now drawing a curtain across the burden of his studies. Latin and Greek verbs, forms of folly, German grammar, and the urbane symmetry of his algebra texts were hushed within his thoughts as he listened to the world as it began to thaw with the coming days of March.
Shifting against the coarsely knotted tree roots and the new grasses that surrounded him, Hans lay back, cradling his laden head with his palms and gently entwined fingers. A sparrowhawk called from atop a nearby pine, presently swooping low across the river’s breadth and onward before the billowing clouds. Hans watched as the reeds, rhyming with the wind, bent toward the ripples at the water’s edge.
The boy closed his eyes, smiling as he imagined Hermann Heilner’s touch and the tentative kisses that had passed between them with the fading light of evenings past. His friend’s lips had been soft and warm, though melancholy as well, eager to taste the sympathy that Hans so willingly supplied. The grasses that were pressed below his shoulders faded from his senses, now giving shape to the cold stones of the dormitory halls as his memory grew. His cheeks blushed with the phantom pull of the cold and the forgone hours of his academics, only warming as he dreamed of the softly urgent pull of Heilner’s fingers. Hans’ tongue darted across his lips, tracing across the ghostly flavor of his friend’s mouth as it had met with his own.
“Wake up, Giebenrath,” a voice suddenly cried.
Hans opened his eyes, smiling as he saw Heilner’s face looming closely above him. His friend’s green eyes gleamed against a shadowed curve of lashes, creasing with his laughter as he reached forward to fondly brush the hair back from Hans’ forehead. Blinking against Heilner’s palm, Hans shook away the fading threads of his daydreams, relishing in the other’s closeness.
“Hello Heilner,” Hans said at last, raising himself and leaning against his elbows as he leveled his sight. “How did you know to find me here?”
“Oh.” Heilner’s smile broadened as he tilted his head, resting his chin against his palm and pressing his heels into the softened ground. “I followed you.” Standing, he briskly wiped the dust from his trousers and extended a hand to Hans.
Hans nodded as he accepted his friend’s upturned palm, standing and steadying himself with a light grip on Heilner’s shoulder. As they began to walk, Hans noticed the sound Heilner’s breath, hushed against the din of the river.
His voice at once earnest and urgent, strained and subdued, Heilner spoke of poetry and philosophy, academia and the bourgeois, moving from one topic to the next and back again with seamless ease. The former rhythm that Hans had sensed within himself was now mirrored in his friend, airily picking up where his own pulse had failed to reach. Hans nodded, offering words of encouragement where the other provided silence, and allowed the speech to enter as a draught of ambrosia through his pores.
“Oh, but can it really be as bad as you say?” Hans asked at last, making a wide gesture toward the surrounding blossoms of the glade.
“You’ll remember this, Giebenrath. Just as I’ve said,” Heilner sighed as he flipped through the pages of his book of poetry, pausing to read through marked passages. They then walked in silence, their footsteps matched, and Hans watched as Heilner’s lips moved to form words and the specters of rhyme. At length Heilner turned to him, his brow knitting as his gaze smoothly grazed over Hans. “‘Has your heart yet found its joy?’” he quoted, grazing the tips of his fingers across the mottled folds of the pages.
“What?” Hans’ voice trembled, though his eyes remained steady on Heilner’s. “What do you mean?”
“Come on,” Heilner said, shaking his head and looking toward the horizon. He stepped forward, glancing at the book one last time before tucking it into his belt.
“Where are we going?”
“I’d like to show you something.”
As he ran, Hans considered Heilner’s question, his mind tugging at the hem of its plea. The boy now knew no joy other than this moment, the ground secure beneath his soles as he kept pace with Heilner, the wind catching against his cheeks, the scent of budding lavender warmly flowing across his tongue. Hans’ chest heaved with each breath and the heated movement of blood through his brain. There was nowhere but the present, brilliant in the curtained expanse of possibilities that it held.
Heilner seemed to fly through the forest, his arms swinging by his sides as he hopped over the jutting forms of upturned rocks and small, murky pools that had formed with the snowmelt. As Hans watched Heilner’s freedom of movement, he imagined his friend to have the winged sandals and sprightly step of a Grecian messenger. Heilner was gifted with light, his heart a collection of breeze and shadow.
At last Heilner stopped, glancing toward Hans and resting his back steadily against the trunk of a sprawling ash. Light, tinted with greens and reds, met Hans’ sight as he traced his gaze through the glade and he joined his friend against the tree. The first blooms of spring traced the edge of the river as it bent into a narrow waterfall, moving onward with the changing of the season and the remaining hints of frost.
Sliding down the tree to sit against its roots, Heilner reached forward, tugging a small tangle of nettle from the ground. He grimaced as the flower’s tiny spines caught against the tips of his fingers, pulling a bright bloom from the stalk and setting it to his buttonhole.
“Well?” Heilner arched a brow, his mouth curling with an apparent mixture of scorn and mirth as his eyes languidly traced over their surroundings.
Swallowing roughly, Hans set a trembling hand against the rough bark of the ash; he braced himself, leaning forward and brushing his lips against Heilner’s.
Their kiss did not startle him as the first had, nor did it fog his mind as the second. It was as fresh and ardent as the growth that hung around them, flourishing with the dawn and spring rains. Hans’ weary years, the zenith of his adolescence that had been spent in academic drudgery, seemed to pass away as Heilner now held him.
Hans knew that there was no joy other than this moment, quieted by the breath that had passed between them. There was no one but Heilner, cheeks ruddy in the afternoon sunlight, flushed lips gently parted as though he intended to deliver some monologue, hands dancing through the air as his tongue rolled over the verses of Shakespeare or Goethe in the encroaching shadows of the forest, a stage at his command. Hans rested his head against Heilner’s shoulder, listening to his friend’s breath twining with the whisper of the surrounding trees. Reaching forward, he took Heilner’s hand and pressed it softly as the other retrieved his book of poetry from his belt.
“Yes,” Hans said softly, smiling as the pressure upon his hand was returned. He felt Heilner’s gaze meet his own as their lips met once more. There, in the evening light as they lay beside the river, Hans felt as though he could fly.