Certain Demolitions

Chapter 26: In the Shadow of Your Heart

Fall, 1942

America

The front door of the house slammed shut and Apollo wandered in and took a seat at the kitchen table. From the seat at the far side of the table, he can just see into the kitchen, and Klavier is cutting up cabbage.

"I'm afraid to know, but what are you making?"

"Sauerkraut!" Klavier replies cheerfully, dumping the pile of sliced cabbage on the wooden cutting board into a wide ceramic crock sitting on the floor.

"I knew it." Apollo said with resignation.

"I think you will find my recipe more enjoyable then whatever you have eaten before, Herr Forehead."

"I guess I'm going to find out." And even if he doesn't like it, the time for complaining is over. It might be a long war, and if there's one thing Apollo has learned growing up in an orphanage during the Great Depression, it's to not complain about the food. The nuns always tried their best to feed all of the children in their care, but sometimes it was hard.

"You are out of work early." Klavier noted.

"Yeah, they're upgrading the machines. Something new that the War Department wants us to make. I'll know more tomorrow." Apollo said.

The door opened and closed in rapid succession and Trucy came bounding into the room. School had started a month ago, when the garden was all over but the harvest. "Polly, you're home early! Klavier, what are you working on?"

"I am putting the cabbage up for the winter, Trucy." Klavier said.

"Yes, but how?" Trucy asked, setting her schoolbooks on the table and wandering into the kitchen to see what was going on.

Klavier stared at the heap of cabbage on the board in front of him.

'Kristoph, what are you doing?'

'Making sauerkraut.'

"I'm making sauerkraut." Klavier said.

"Can I help?" Trucy asked.

'Can I help?'

Klavier's knife landed on the board and stayed there for a long moment. Then he released the implement. "I am going to take a break for the moment, but when I am ready to start again you can help, yes?"

"Yes!" Trucy said excitedly.

Klavier looked up and noticed something. "Herr Forehead, what are you doing?"

Apollo straightened up. "What do you mean?"

"You were staring at me."

"Yeah, you were staring so hard your eyes were bugging out of your head, Polly!" Trucy added.

"Nothing, sorry, it was nothing." Apollo said, rubbing at his bracelet.

Klavier picked up the knife again. "Get the canning salt, Trucy, and I will tell you what to do."

Trucy layered the shredded cabbage with salt per Klavier's instructions, and they layered the shredded cabbage and salt until the crock was full.

By this time, Apollo was in the kitchen, reheating leftovers to have for dinner.

Klavier set a plate upside down on top of the cabbage, then set a brick on top of the plate.

"Are you sure you know what you're doing?" Apollo asked, having paused his work to watch.

"Have a little faith Herr Forehead. According to Kristoph this has recipe has been in my family for generations, once the family servants started using it."

"So how did he learn?" Apollo wanted to know.

"I have no idea." Klavier replied. "But he used to do it every fall when he was home."

"You had servants?" Trucy asked, looking very interested in this revelation.

"My family used too. But that was a long time ago. We never had any servants while I was growing up. It was just Kristoph and I." Klavier told her.

"Didn't your mother ever make sauerkraut?" Was Trucy's next question.

"I suppose she must have, when I was younger, but I don't remember it." Klavier said with a frown. "I only ever remember Kristoph doing it."

Apollo was starting to stare again. Klavier turned away and unfolded a clean dish towel which he set across the top of the crock. A piece of board followed over the dishcloth, and then another brick.

"Now what?" Trucy asked, looking at the crock.

"Now we wait while the cabbage ferments." Klavier said, dragging it out of the kitchen and into a corner of the dining room. It wouldn't be in the way over there.

"I'm putting a lot of faith in the idea that your recipe is going to be better then what I used to eat." Apollo said as he turned his attention back to the food eating on the stove. He'd been trying to find a tell again but had had no luck.

"It will be much better." Klavier said with confidence as he walked back into the kitchen. "Now, Herr Forehead, what else needs to be done for dinner?"

Munich, Germany

Kristoph was walking home from the communications office at the end of the day when he first saw her. There was an old lady on the street corner, with a tin cup, begging for alms. Something about the way a smirk seemed to play on her lips seemed familiar.

Kristoph frowned, considered the situation, frowned again, and then walked over to her. He took a bank note of a small denomination out of his pocket and dropped it in her cup.

She reached out with the speed of a leopard and grabbed his hand. "Bless you sir," She said in a wizened voice, but she looked up at him, and the gleam in her eye let Kristoph know her identity immediately. A small piece of paper was pressed into his hand.

"A mutual friend said you wanted to see that." Calisto whispered, "Before they poison the water tanks outside the war office."

Kristoph pulled his hand free nonchalantly, as if being grabbed by old begging hags happened to him every day, and shoved his hand back into his pocket, the note still clutched in it.

"I'll be back in a couple of days." Callisto whispered.

Kristoph nodded and moved on, heading in the direction of home.

I had better check and make sure that Fraulein von Karma doesn't get us all killed…

~xXx~

Kiel, Germany

Summer 1941

It's been five days since the Gavin brothers arrived in Kiel.

Today is day number 6, and today, again, they are sightseeing. Klavier has stayed busy exploring the city while his brother meets with lawyers and businessmen and discusses family business arrangements. Klavier has used this time to pinpoint things in the city that he wants his brother to see. It's nearly noon when they stop in by a statue of Klaus Groth.

Kristoph is using his cane again; the morning's walk having taken its toll on him. Klavier climbs the pedestal the statue sits on and looks at the statue itself as he contemplates climbing it too.

Kristoph recognizes the look on Klavier's face and sighs. Fortunately, there's no one around, at least at the moment. "If anyone asks, I'm not related to you." Kristoph warns him.

Klavier flashed a grin at his big brother and instead sat down on the pedestal, making him look like he was sitting at the feet of the poet.

Typical, Kristoph thinks, and then frowns. He ties to imagine Klavier crippled like he is, no longer able to climb statues and dependent on a cane, like Kristoph is already. Or Klavier missing an arm, no longer able to play the instrument he loves. They are not thoughts that Kristoph likes, and though they are only possibilities, they are still very real possibilities if Klavier ends up going to war.

And these thoughts are what Kristoph uses to steel himself for the last, final step.

"Let's go, Klavier. There's a stop I've been asked to make while we're out today."

[A/N:] There is a statue of poet Klaus Groth in Kiel, Germany. I was looking for a statue that was set on a pedestal so it would match the scene in my head of Klavier walking around the statue after he'd climbed the pedestal. This didn't quite match, but that's okay. I can't figure out via Google search when that statute actually was put up, so for the sake of this story, we'll pretend it was in Kiel in 1941.

And what Klavier is up to as far as making sauerkraut is, in fact, a traditional way to make sauerkraut. Yeah, I looked that up too. He's going to have to keep an eye on it, make the cabbage is weighed down enough, and skim off any scum that forms on top, but that's how it's done.

This will be the last flashback until chapter 34, which contains the actual, final flashback. I'm not denying that there won't be smaller ones, like the ones in the first section of this chapter, but the larger ones are slated to end for the time being and reappear for the last time in 34. At least, that's the plan anyway.

Chapter title comes from the song Cosmic Love by Florence and the Machine, because of that whole sun/moon them going on for the Gavin brothers here.

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