Rachel’s War by Robert L Hecker……

….Behind her he closed the door, and she had a tiny shock of fear when she heard its lock click. Now she was committed.

He moved to stand in front of her, and she fought a momentary panic about how to begin the conversation. She tried to put aside what he must be thinking about a girl he scarcely knew appearing unannounced at his door. He saved her embarrassment, at least momentarily, by saying, “Here. Let me take your coat.”  After slipping it from her shoulders, he held it a moment. “For this weather,” he said. “you need a heavier coat.”

“I’m used to the cold,” she said with a sense of relief that he had given her a place to start. “In my shtetl…”

Memories of how she had first met him flooded back and she stopped, confused about how to proceed.

He acted as though he had no memory of the terrible event, saying smoothly, “And I, too. My home is in the north, near the Baltic. In winter the wind comes straight from the North Pole.”

He draped her coat over the back of a chair. “Your hands must be frozen. Stand there, next to the fire a moment.”

She was suddenly aware that he was right; her hands were frozen. She moved to a place in front of the fire and bent to warm her hands, thinking how nice it was to have a warm fire.

“You need schnapps,” Karl said, moving to a cabinet. “It’ll warm you up.”

She turned her back to the fire to face him, “Thank you. But I don’t drink schnapps.”

“Some wine then.” He lifted an eyebrow, his eyes amused. “A glass of Chablis.”

She hesitated, then nodded. Perhaps a glass of wine would help relieve her tension.

Taking a bottle and two glasses from a beautiful walnut cabinet, he poured the wine and handed a glass to her. Before she could lift it to her lips he held out his glass, “To the future,” he said.

“A better future,” she said, and touched his glass with hers.

She sipped the wine uneasily, trying to decide how to proceed. She wanted desperately to postpone what she was sure was going to be a humiliating supplication. She especially tried to put out of her mind thoughts of the price he might demand. At the same time she was keenly aware of the passage of time. The train would not wait forever.

I like the mixture of photography and graphics, the colors are so vivid and yes some images are dark as they are beautiful but they draw you in.

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