"I'm going to Germany," she told him, straight-faced, as if such a thing wouldn't shatter his heart, "I'm going to work for the National Socialist Germans Workers Party."

 "You're WHAT?" he stammered, more to buy time, more to make it an accusation.

 "Well, you know my parents have always wanted to go back home, " she rushed, her words coming fast together now, "And Hitler is doing such wonderful things in Germany, and I have an opportunity to do great work with the Party. And, I…"

 "Wait," he said, "Just **** wait a minute."

   He could see the vehemence in his words cut her.  She looked away from him, the corner of her eye bunched, crinkled like wax paper, they always did that when she was angry.  But he felt like his world was ending, crashing down in a cascade of fear, longing, and in many ways it had - irrevocably.

  It was 1938, he still had the optimism of youth, and although he had had a tough time at it - hell, they all had - the great depression that had been such a part of their lives was fading based on Roosevelt's "New Deal".  She was so beautiful, he could remember, so beautiful.  His greatest fear had always been that she would come to her senses and leave him, but he never for a second thought it'd be for some philosophical goal - that some orator thousands of miles away would draw her away, like some pied piper. Her hair was that golden hue, angelic, the soft light of autumn.  Her eyes were so blue, that blue that doesn't even seem real, the color of sapphire, changing with the ambient light.  In short, she was the perfect Aryan girl, perfectly proportioned, lily skin, perky breasts, nineteen, intelligent like you wouldn't believe - a job was waiting alright.

    The memory faded, like a wisp of smoke drifting languidly in a shadowed room illuminated for moment by the sun sneaking through a crack in the window shade. There, backlit and magnificent, then just as quickly fading once more into oblivion, almost as if it never existed at all. Almost if she never existed, but he could never deny that, it just wasn't possible, that would be like saying the sun wasn't real, that sure as hell it didn't set in the west. Now, sitting in the sunset of life, he could deny many things, remember fewer, but he could never deny that - not that.

   It wasn't as if his entire adult life was guided by that singular moment, was it? That in the years to come - the shattered years - it would be her smile that kept him moving inexorably forward.  The wind blew through the tree's, pushing through branches and leaves, gathering, spinning, like a spirit wind, carrying on their backs memories that were best left faded, left torn and dirty in some corner of his mind.  It was the smell that always caught up with him, the smell of autumn leaves, crisp and cool.  Like the day she left, the first day of the rest of his life.