Good Fellows: Debt & Dishonor

Prologue: Men of Courage

He stood at the bathroom sink, just having shaved. Looking still into the mirror, he stretched his cheek. It was tight, smooth, and almost sunken. His ice blue eyes stared into the glass. There stood a man: young, spry, and wiry. He contemplated the image. Somewhere across town, there was a boy who looked a lot like him...but not like him. He spotted a grey hair amidst the field of dark blonde. Alright, maybe not so young.

There was a creak and a clash of metal, the sound of the mail shoved through the slit in the door. Down it fell.

"Darling, can you get that?" he called out, disinterested.

"Oh, sure! Let the pregnant lady get it." The voice came like a breeze, a fragrant summer's breath. "Isn't that what I left my husband for, to fetch the mail?"

He smirked. "I thought you just preferred piano to violin."

"And you my dancing to your wife's duets," she answered tersely.

"You are my ballerina."

There was the sound of her grunting discomfort when she bent to pick up the small pile of letters. Then the sound of her light step brought with it the shuffling of paper as the envelopes passed through her slender fingers. "Oh! These ones are addressed to 'Daddy'. Do you want to bet that it's more of their pathetic pleading for you to come home?" She scoffed and slammed the letters down on the sink. "Your wife's a manipulative witch."

"She does not make life easy on her fellow man." He stretched his neck, turning this way and that until he was content with himself. Then he grabbed his white over shirt and began to button it. "We used to write beautiful melodies together. Now everything is written in the wrong key. She doesn't understand what your dancing does to my soul!"

"Why don't they give us our divorces? Why do they keep us captive like this? The covenant is null and void, just bury it! They can marry each other, if they're so interested; but why make us the laughingstock of the society press?"

"I've explained myself as best I can. I told them it was all for happiness." He picked up the letters and flipped through them. Two from the kids. One from his wife. "You missed this from your husband," he said, handing a letter back to her.

"Oh joy." Her voice dripped with sarcasm and she opened the letter by ripping it in half. "He wants us to get together. Says we should talk. No divorce, but I'm forgiven. He takes full responsibility for any failures. Promises to welcome me back with open arms and raise our child as his own." She let out an exasperated sigh and dropped the paper in the waste bin. "It's like he doesn't hear me! If they won't give us our divorces, then why the Hell do they have our address?"

He came to a government-marked envelope and his heart pounded as hastily he opened it. "Why don't we skip town?"

"And go where?"

"Back to Budapest. I have some friends there. Well, enemies mainly...and rivals. But they offered me a job once at the university there, and I'm sure they'd be just as glad to have me now. So, pack your things!"

"And why do you suddenly feel no responsibility for your poor, deposed wife?"

He turned the paper so she could see it. "Draft notice. You know, I married to avoid this the last time, but it seems that every government wants your blood."

She looked at him skeptically and cocked her head. "You're not serious."

"What is it to be a man? Everybody wants your blood, and every country thinks they're entitled to have you die for them," he grumbled, tearing the paper into bits. Then, with a glint in his eye and an arrogant grin, he let it fall from his hand like confetti into the waste bin. He took her small, delicate hands in his large, dexterous ones and kissed her cheek. "Fear not, dear lady! Pack your bags. I'll call a carriage. All we need now is courage."