At the very same Wirtshaus, but under a different name and host, Alain Fournier had used to go often. He'd nearly always sat at the corner table, which was only two tables down from where Schneider and SS-Obersturmführer Weiher sat that night.
Fournier usually had a flirty smile on his face. He liked French and German girls, and the Elsass was the perfect place for a mix. He'd slept with over half of the waitresses, but he'd never committed to a single one of them. He was passionate but only for short periods, making him the greatest one-night lover in all of Strassburg. His longest relationship had been with a girl he'd loved as an adolescent. They'd been together for three months, then she'd disappeared, and only two years after she'd married a rich Jewish banker. Anytime anyone asked Fournier if he'd ever been in love he always responded with: only with the girls in my books. But it wasn't true – or much rather - all the girls in his books were based on her.
It had been a dark and windy night sometime in the early 1930s when Alain Fournier had seduced a girl to end her shift early and follow him to the small apartment where he was staying. She'd been quite pretty, and her dark brown curls had reminded him of his first lover.
"I've never been with an author before." She said in French. "I've never been with anyone before actually."
"Don't be nervous," Fournier had said, "the French know how to love. It's natural for us. You will never find a man who knows how to desire a woman more than a French man can. Especially if he's an author and poet." He'd kissed her cheek and linked his arm to hers.
Fournier was a master at building sexual tension. He made sure to drop enough jokes to keep her laughter alive and the nervosity away for the whole time back to his hotel, but he made sure to steal obvious glances at her to show her how enchanted he was by her creature.
He opened the door for her and led her up the stairs to his dingy apartment. The only things worth anything in the cramped room were his manuscripts and a few maps on the wall – heirlooms from distant family. "Welcome to my home."
"It's…nice." She'd said slowly.
"I know it's not the best place, but look at the view!" And he'd swung open the curtains to reveal the moon-clad rooftops of Strassburg. Laura had taken a sharp breath in.
"Alain! C'est – c'est incredible!" Her hand rose to her mouth in shock of beauty as she stared at the little houses. "I have never seen anything like it."
"I think," Fournier had started slowly, "a beautiful girl like you should see these things more often." He'd slid behind her and hugged her from behind. The breath-taking view had melted all hesitance and fear and although she'd never been embraced so intimately before she didn't shy away.
In this way, he had brought many girls to his apartment, and every single one had been delighted by his view. Alain had had more luck with girls than publishers – with Estelle, his first love and the one who'd married the rich Jew, he often joked: if only the publishers were girls! Until the mid-1930s he'd stayed in close contact with her. Her husband had been quite jealous of them, but Fournier never touched married women, not even ones he'd been so madly in love with.
Laura still worked at the Wirtshaus, but she'd never gone upstairs with another man. Not because she'd had a bad experience with Alain Fournier – much the opposite – she was afraid she'd never find another man who could love so well.
"What a night!" Franz slurred as he and Rolf stumbled out of the Wirtshaus. "I can't believe it, Rolf. I…I don't think I've drunk this much in a while."
"Me neither. Not since before the war." Rolf hiccupped. The two men leaned against each other heavily.
"Oh, how I'm glad I'm not going home tonight. Marlene would kill me if she saw me like this." Franz said with a loud laugh that rang all the doorbells of the empty street. Somebody poked their head out of a window and shouted at them to be silent. Franz responded by straightening his coat and raising his right arm. "Heil Hitler!"
"Heil Hitler!" Rolf joined in. The man on the balcony reluctantly raised his arm and saluted their Führer as win turn, and then he disappeared back into his house, muttering curses under his breath.
The two men hobbled to their home. Franz brought Rolf to his hotel, insisting that Rolf wouldn't know his way around at night. But drunk as a bald beaver, it took Franz several times to find his way home.