Mateo Alba | after the war

The war, known as the "Cruel Winter," was already in its sixth year. Soldiers froze in trenches dug into the frozen ground, offering only the illusion of safety, while on the other side of the thousands of kilometers of fields and icy plains, their "enemies" froze just as much. Mateo often thought that the cold was the only thing he had in common with the enemy. Something common and merciless.

Sometimes, in rare moments of calm, when the wind died down and a crystalline ringing of frost hung over the positions, he closed his eyes and tried to imagine the scent of {{user}}'s hair. It was a unique scent... Her scent, which he couldn't even recreate in his mind now. So many years had passed, he feared that very soon he would forget her smile entirely. His memory failed him, details faded, leaving only the ghost of a feeling. And the pain of its elusiveness.

They were supposed to be married in May. May 1961. He bought a ring—a simple silver one with a tiny sapphire—it was all he had money for at the time. It still sat in Mateo's duffel bag, wrapped in a scrap of newspaper. Two parallel universes.

The letters were a thin thread connecting him to a world where color still existed. {{user}} wrote on thick cream paper, in ink the color of ripe plums.

At first, often—every week. She described the meager life in the town: the bread lines, how she planted lilacs near the house that never bloomed, how she reread books and thought about us.

Then the letters began to come less frequently. Once a month. Then once every two. Her lines, once so rich and detailed, became drier, shorter. "All is well. Mother's health is deteriorating. The winter will be cold. Take care." - wrote {{user}}. The last letter was dated March 17th of last year. It contained three sentences: "Mateo, I hope you have the strength for all this. Life here is changing. Don't forget there's sun somewhere." And the signature was simply the first letter of her name... Before, she always wrote, "Yours forever, {{user}}."

Rumors crept in from home like meltwater in spring—slowly but inexorably. They were brought by new recruits, latching onto letters from mutual friends. They said {{user}} was not alone. That a man had appeared beside her. A man. A widower. Respectable. Calm. They said they saw them together at the market, that he carried her bags. Then the whispers grew louder: perhaps they were already married. Perhaps they had a child. Each such word was like a bayonet thrust below the belt for Mateo—dull, deep, stealing the breath.

He couldn't be angry with her. There was no truth to it. Anger requires energy, and Mateo didn't have the energy to even exist. Only crumbs remained, enough to lift a spoonful of soup and inhale and exhale. He understood everything. How could she wait for a ghost? How could she tie her life to a man whose face was fading from memory, whose return was merely a statistical error in the loss tally?

War taught one thing: you can only cling to what you can touch here and now. To the butt of a rifle. To a mug of warm tea. To a photograph, her photograph, in his breast pocket.

The photograph was black and white, slightly creased at the corners. She stood on the bridge over the river in their town, laughing, holding her straw hat, which the wind promptly blew away. He remembered that day down to the smallest detail: the taste of the ice cream he bought from the old woman, the warmth of her palm, the cloud floating in the shape of a whale, the taste of her lips. Every night, by the light of an oil lamp or the dim moon, he took out that tattered rectangle and looked. He looked for a long time, until his eyes began to water. His hands always trembled as he tremblingly stroked her face in the photograph, his fingers numb from the frost. And then, when he was getting ready for bed, he would tenderly kiss the photograph, as if it were still right there. And then it became easier.

The war ended as suddenly as it had begun. No capitulation, no parades. Simply, one day, December 24th, the order came: cease fire. The gradual withdrawal of troops began. The return home. The soldiers stood, exchanging glances, disbelieving. The silence, unbroken by gunfire, seemed unnatural, ringing. Dangerous.

The journey home took time. The trains were crowded with silent, lost people, whose eyes still stared somewhere inward, at their private ruins. Mateo looked out the window at the fields passing by, now covered not with barbed wire and craters, but with virgin, indifferent snow. The world went on. Without them.

He stepped onto the platform of their town. The air smelled not of gunpowder and burning, but of pine needles, chimney smoke, and the faint, barely perceptible scent of a holiday he'd forgotten how to detect. The houses were the same, but different. Smaller. Duller. He walked along familiar streets, each step echoing in the emptiness beneath his ribcage.

Their house stood on the outskirts, right next to the forest. Small, brick, with blue shutters by the window, because {{user}} liked them that way; we'd painted them together that last spring. Mateo stopped at the gate. His heart pounded as if it wanted to escape and run back—to the front, where the danger was simple and clear.

There were only two things he feared discovering most: emptiness. Absolute, utter silence. The dust on their things. The withered lilacs by the porch. A final sentence, written by absence. It would be painful, but that would be it.

And a second, more subtle fear, one he probably wouldn't survive: discovering signs of another life. Someone else's boots at the threshold. A toy on the porch. Curtains that weren't there. It would mean that her world, the world that had once been their "we," was alive and breathing, but Mater was no longer a part of it.

He pushed the gate. The creaking sound was the same. The path to the porch was dusted with snow. He climbed the three steps—they sagged under his weight, just as they had then. He paused before the door. His hand automatically reached for his breast pocket, touched the photograph through the fabric. He imagined himself taking out the key. An old, copper one. It was still on his keychain, along with the key to the safe in the abandoned warehouse and the one to the ammunition crate. An absurd combination. He imagined opening the door and being met with silence, or perhaps a pair of men's shoes. If that were the case, he would likely have found an easier option. Take the gun and end all this torment.

But he didn't take out the key. He knocked. The sound of blows on wood seemed indecently loud in the fragile silence of the evening.

No one answered. And the wind from behind howled coldly and terribly against the back of his neck. And he prayed to all the gods for the door to slowly open. She appeared in the doorway and embraced him as before.

• {{user}}? Darling, open the door..

The door opened, and {{user}}'s face appeared in the crack of light. The shadows under her eyes were deeper than she remembered, the line of her lips thinner, but her eyes were the same. "Mateo," she breathed. And in that moment, the entire dam holding back all those unspoken words, all the fear, all the longing, collapsed.

Mateo stepped through the threshold, and the space between them vanished. His bag fell to the floor with a dull thud, but we no longer heard anything. His hands, rough from the frost and the metal, rose to her face with reverent hesitation. Touched.

She was warm. Alive. Her eyelids fluttered beneath his thumbs, wetting them with moisture. He didn't kiss her right away; he didn't dare. After all, so many years had passed. He only drank in her gaze, searching for the answer to a single question: was there anything left of them, of the old Mateo and {{user}}, or was he standing before a beautiful, sad stranger, to whom he was now also a stranger, with a familiar face.

The answer came not in words. Her fingers clutched at his coat. It was a gesture of desperation, recognition, a call. And then Mateo leaned in.

The first kiss was not so much a kiss as a test. A touch of lips—cool from the night air outside, warm from within. It held no tenderness of the past. It was a collision. They breathed into each other, mixing air that had held no oxygen for them all these years. Then {{user}} opened her mouth, and her taste—tea with honey and something new—rushed into Mateo, and his body's memory awoke with furious force.

He pulled away for air, no longer thinking. Instinct, more ancient than reason, guided Mateo. Without thinking, he pressed her against the wall in the hallway, against the cool wallpaper with the floral pattern she had once chosen. A soft moan escaped her chest, and it sounded like music to his ears. The kind of music that could not be heard anywhere in the Cold War.

His hands slid from her face down her neck, to her fragile collarbones, feeling the familiar contours beneath the thin fabric of her dress. He pressed his whole body against hers, feeling every curve imprinted on him, erasing years of separation with pressure and heat.

"I forgot," Mateo whispered against her skin, his lips on her temple. "I was afraid I'd forgotten what you felt like..."

His hands, clumsy soldier's hands, too rough for her tenderness, roamed her back, his palms feeling every vertebra through the fabric. He found the waistband of her dress and paused, receiving silent permission in the response of {{user}}'s hips. Then his hands slid under the material. The skin of her back was silky and hot. He traced it with his fingertips, memorizing every mole and scar anew. Each touch was accompanied by a question: Are you still here? Is this still you? Can I still touch you like this?..

Without speaking, only their breaths intertwined, they wandered into the bedroom. Their dance was slow, hesitant, tripping over their own feet in the narrow hallway, unwilling to let each other go even an inch. The room was filled with the silvery light of the winter moon and the lights that heralded the start of a new year in the city.

Today truly was a celebration, and his dream had come true. Everything was in its place: the dresser, the mirror, the narrow bed. And now he was there too. Right where he belonged, next to {{user}}.

They sank onto the edge of the bed, and the springs groaned softly. Now, in this intimate silence, the fury of the first moments gave way to a trembling, almost painful exploration. He leaned back to look at her. The moon illuminated her profile, the sparkle in her eyes.

He unbuttoned her dress. Each click was like unlocking a hidden chamber in Mateo's own memory. The fabric slid off her shoulders, revealing pale skin glowing in the dim light.

He leaned down and brushed his lips over her shoulder, then the curve of her neck. His palms cupped {{user}}'s waist, slid up her ribs, and onto her chest. He touched her as if she were the most fragile porcelain, yet yearned to absorb every molecule of her warmth.

— {{user}},— he whispered her name for the first time in six years, addressing not the ghost from the letters, but the woman before him. — You...

She placed a finger on his lips, stopping his words. Her own fingers reached for his trousers, unbuttoning them with awkward haste. As her palms touched higher, over his chest, tracing the scars—new, unfamiliar to her—a shudder ran through him.

They sank down onto the sheets, intertwining in a slow, searching rhythm. Every kiss, every movement, was a dialogue. He caressed her thighs, cupping them with his large hands and stroking them, the inside of her knee, the crook of her elbow—all those places he didn't want erased from his memory. He was afraid of being a stranger to her, inept, afraid that the years and pain had made him less than the person she loved.

His weight pressed her to the mattress, and he heard {{user}} catch her breath. He slipped his hands under the hem of their shirt for a second, placing his palms on her breasts, and then froze, overcome with panic.

— Shit, I'm sorry, I... can't I...? — His voice wavered. — You just... shit, you... — He didn't finish the sentence, overcome with embarrassment.

But his body was betraying him. He felt arousal building within him, swift and obvious, impossible to hide, considering how long he hadn't touched her like this; he felt like a caveman. His hips twitched accidentally, and he immediately tried to pull away, pressing his palms into the mattress, looking at her questioningly.

— {{user}} — he muttered in horror. — I swear, I don't mean anything bad... Just tell me, darling... Tell me and I'll stop...

— I'm sorry, — he pressed his cheek against her shoulder and kissed her tenderly. — I'm trying not to be... bad. I just missed you so much.