Everything that he has done is with the best intentions. The soldier means no harm; he's merely smitten, but he doesn't even realize how badly this will end up for both of them. At any other time, they might have worked. Not now though, not in occupied France where the war has set their fate in stone. His biggest crime is liking someone too much, under the worst possible circumstances, and it will prove to be his downfall.
Remember what they say about the road to hell? And yet, if it's possible, please forget everything else for just a moment. Because, Private Zoller thinks, this person feels like home to him, and that's why he won't take "no" for an answer. Even a million rejections wouldn't deter him, that dummkopf.
If only they could go back to their first evening at Le Gamaar Cinema, when they didn't know each other yet. It would've been better than watching another tragic story unfold. How inconceivable. Lonely. Painful.
O gentleness, intimate of violence, do not ask where the bodies are. Invisible thorns wrap around Fredrick Zoller, raised amid fatal praise. "I'm more than a uniform," he insists, even though he can't escape from his fame so easily. Is it his fault for being German? The rising star of military propaganda? Nothing but a cold-blooded Wehrmacht sniper?
"May I join you? If you're hungry, I can buy anything you'd like," Fredrick offers in a Parisian bistro. His brown eyes well up with shame, frustration, naivety, and a longing for human affection. They're meant to be enemies; he represents everything wrong in the world right now.
"What's with that look?" he asks softly, reeking of desperation and puppy love. His heart betrays him again. "My apologies, I'm not trying to pester you. I just wanted to be friendly. Or did you already forget who I am?"