-Feliks Łukasiewicz-
It was not the cries of man that awoke Feliks that cold next morning. For no man could scream so terribly. It was a sound he recognized instantly.
It was of the martyred creation. Wild, terrified, panicked, full of anguish and the instinctual fear of death. It was unendurable. Feliks sat up quietly from the cement of where he had fallen asleep the night before, curling his knees around his thighs. The sun was rising gradually, casting long cold shadows across the quiet smoke-streaked shells of the once white marble buildings, smoke still rising slowly on the horizon. The sidewalk was hard and he was cold, as he assumed the temperature hovered right around freezing. Unlike Gilbert and Ludwig, Elizabeta and himself did not have the thick military clothes they had to keep them warm. But Feliks could deal; it wasn't as cold here as it was in Poland this time of year. Feliks knew he wasn't always a lot, but enduring was one of those things.
Plus, he hadn't slept badly, all dystopian circumstances considered. Elizabeta had served an excellent pillow; but Feliks didn't tell Gilbert that. His Hungarian friend was still asleep, splayed out on the cement like the rest of their group and the other civilians –dead or alive- on the street, wrapped neatly in Gilbert's arms. The East-Prussian was snoring and any part of him that wasn't grasping onto Elizabeta was flopped all over the place. Gilbert's hat had fallen off. Feliks prodded it with his foot to push it closer to him, it wouldn't be good if someone stole it. Not that anyone sane would ever want the damn thing anyway; unless perhaps as a trophy. In stark contrast to his elder brother Ludwig slept only about a meter away from them too. But sleeping didn't seem the right word. He either seemed frozen in death, breathing too slow to notice. Or intensely awake, waiting for some fearsome battle to erupt from the silence around him, and was only resting his eyes to deceive the enemy.
No sense waking anyone up. Feliks set off into the blue dark in search of the noise he had heard earlier, pacing away on the white sidewalks after putting together a brief mental picture of their location. He passed a few amateur musicians that were beginning to set up on the corners as usual although none seemed to want to be the first to wake anyone sleeping on the streets up. He passed the burned out and bullet-ridden shell of a fallen B-29. Some funny English words were hand painted on the belly of the metal beast in yellow beneath the scorchmarks. As Feliks walked he coolly observed the damaged buildings around him. It wasn't anything he hadn't seen before back home.
"Ehi! Potato-eater. Up here."
Feliks looked up at the voice. He recognized the meaner Italian brother from yesterday. Feliks had forgotten his name. He was sitting on a broken marble block ledge, about two or three meters up in the air, both legs dangling comfortably in front of him. Seized in the custody of his right hand lay a bright red tomato which he bit artfully into as one would an apple.
"Hey." Feliks replied calmly, looking up into the air at his caller.
"Looks like someone is without a place to stay?" the Italian purred, a cruelly amused smile fissuring across his tanned cheeks. He bit into the tomato again with a loud crack. Feliks had never even seen someone eat a tomato like an apple.
"Seems so." Feliks noted, not sounding particularly upset. The Italian raised a single russet eyebrow at the Pole's blasé shrug. "Is Feliciano like, doing okay?" Feliks asked.
"Oh yeah. He'sa fine now. Will take more than a couple of German krautfaces like yourselves to hold that kid down. Even lead weights on his feet won't stop him –trust me I've'a tried when he gets too annoying. You can't break his spirit."
"Where is he?"
"Left him at the hideout. He will sleep for another five hours if he gets his way."
"You have a hideout? And you steal stuff? You must totally be like, Robin Hoods or something! Can I see your hideout?" Feliks asked excitedly.
"No Robin Hood. We steal from the 'moderately-better-off' and give to the 'me-and-Feli-only'. And no, you cannot see it. No crucchi allowed. Sorry." Although he did not seem particularly regretful.
"Oh. That's okay." Feliks blinked. But he hesitated for a moment. He doubted he would ever see this Italian again, but he did not like being called what he was not. Not to mention Feliks had probably saved this man's life from Gilbert and Ludwig yesterday. He could be a bit nicer. Most people could be a bit nicer. "But you should know, I'm not a German." Feliks said.
"Not German?" the Italian asked.
"Not German." Feliks confirmed.
Feliciano's brother snorted. He put the tomato down, pressing his palms against the horizontal surface of the ledge of which he sat as he looked Feliks in the eye. "A blond kid, speaking to me in fluent German, in the middle of the goddamn capital of Austrtia. If you are not German or Austrian, what the fuck are you then?"
"I am Polish." Feliks answered proudly.
The Italian broke out into guffaws of laughter. "Polish? Polish?! I can understand the Hungarian ragazza slumming with those monsters, her whole damn country has, but how the hell did you land yourself with a couple of bloodthirsty SS pigfuckers?"
"Long story." Feliks replied simply. The Italian was sensing a good anecdote, and seemed annoyed to be robbed of his story. He crossed his legs and huffed.
"What are you doing up this early anyway?" the brunette asked, staring down haughtily at Feliks from his position high on the wall.
"Not sure yet."
The Italian rolled his eyes. "Well, aren't you great for conversation." He took another noisy cracking bite of his tomato. It was crimson and fresh, Feliks had no idea how he had procured it in the starved city of wartime Vienna. In the onset of winter in the Austrian Alps, no less. All of the fruit he had seen when he passed by in the markets had been mushy and whitish.
"Hey. Can I like, have a bite of your tomato?"
The Italian looked at him as if he had just suggested that he do a backflip off of the ledge he sat on. His umber eyes widened with indignation. "Polack, do you have any idea how hard this was for me to stea- get?"
"Nope. And frankly sir I don't care much either. But it does look delicious."
"A Spaniard helped me get this." he said, tapping the fruit, as if that were an explanation.
"Is it warm in Spain now?" Feliks asked, curiously.
"The fuck should I know?"
"This is a no then. If you'll give me some of your tomato, I mean." Feliks said.
"Fuck yes it's a no!"
Confusing fellows these Italians were. Feliks shrugged. "I'm gonna go now."
"Don't have to get'a all worked up. But good luck with whatever." The Italian resumed snacking on his tomato, staring out at the city from his perch on the wall.
Feliks continued in search of the noise he had heard. It should be around here somewhere… he saw the condition of the city steadily deteriorate as he walked. Water flowed from a burst pipe like a geyser. That was stupid. Redundant. All of this clean water would be flooding the street, but he bet in a few days people would be fighting for it. A few smart women were collecting it in pots and jugs they had found.
Feliks turned another corner, sweeping for what he knew was the source of the noise that had awoken him. He found it. Four humans were talking above a crumpled lump on the ground. Three men and a girl. Two of the burly men stood farther back, each sporting coils of thick rope in their knobby hands. Looking somewhat out of place in the hands of the gentle-eyed first man, gleaming ominously in the pink dawn light, was a thick meat cleaver. The rubble of the city was piled around them.
"Papa, you can help Crescentia, can't you?"
"Sweetie, go inside. I'll help her, but you have to promise to go inside."
"But I don't want to leave her alone. She looks so cold, doesn't she Papa? What do you have that knife for?"
"We don't have any food." Another third, gruffer voice responded. One of the rope-holders.
"No food? What does that have to do with anything?" the girl asked.
Feliks approached the scene, the question already forming on his lips. "What happened here?"
The three men looked up at the young Pole. The two men with the ropes narrowed their eyes at his interruption, but the man with the knife nodded civilly in greeting at the younger Feliks. He seemed to be the leader. He was middle aged, had curly black hair, and a short scruffy black beard that he probably should shave. Tranquil royal blue eyes. He was lean, like most of the people Feliks saw in the city now. He let the knife hang lose in his hands.
"My –my daughter's- horse got hurt in the raids last night. We found her here this morning. Her legs were crushed by some masonry."
Feliks stared at the fallen creature at his feet. Yes, this was indeed the horse whose terrified scream had awoken him that morning. A proud, sturdy, working creature. A draft horse of a fine dappled gray. Her ivory crest held just the barest hints of gold threaded in with the coarse white hairs of her mane. She had wide fetlocks with more white feathering hairs covering her round hooves. This contrasted with her graphite gray cannons and ankles. As the man said, Feliks noticed a deep discoloration along where her femur would be. Pushed away from the mare were a few large pieces of broken white cinderblock, each the size of a suitcase. Her nostrils flared with each slow, laborious breath. Feliks studied the bruise assiduously from afar.
"This isn't right. For something like this to happen to a horse…" Feliks trailed off, still staring. "It was fair back in the old days. With like, the mounted Hussars and things. When the horses had a chance in war, and were respected for that. Now they're just victims. Victims of man's own war against himself." Feliks's usually high voice was very solemn.
"Man is Earth's own worst enemy. Her own child has betrayed her." the man said.
The daughter was kneeling by her horse, delicately stroking her gray muzzle with her palm. Feliks looked up at the father with the cleaver. The beautiful mare had such a strong, thick muscular neck. It would take a very long time to saw through.
The little girl looked up, as if only just noticing the strange young Feliks that stood before her. She had been absorbed in stroking her friend. "Hi Mister!"
"Hi little girl."
She cocked her head. "You sound funny." the girl said. She stood up to look him in the eye, although the crown of her blonde head scarcely reached to Feliks's ribcage.
"Do I?" Feliks asked, surprised by the child's bluntness. But children were like that. "I come from somewhere far away. That's why I sound a little different."
She giggled sweetly. Her hands flitted together and she looked bashfully away from the Polish man, twisting her right foot nervously on the ground. Her cheeks tinged a slight pink. "I like it though."
Feliks smiled tenderly. He gently untwined her nervous fingers with his hand and knelt down on one knee. He held the Austrian girl's hand in his, hers on top, and softly brought her knuckles to his lips. He then released her hand from his kiss and stared up into her innocent blue eyes.
"Thank you very much, sweetie. You are very nice. I think you should do as your tatuś says and go inside and play now, yes? Maybe you can draw me a picture? Of your horse? I would like that very much."
Faced with Feliks's princely behavior, the flattered young girl could only comply. She giggled bashfully, and then skipped enthusiastically into her house. Out of the corner of his eye Feliks saw her cheeks were still pink.
"She's beautiful." Feliks said.
The man looked up. "I hope you are referring to the horse, rather than my eight-year-old daughter."
"Your daughter might be a little young for me. A French Percheron, is she? The mare?"
"That's correct. You like horses?
"Yeah. I worked in a stable. Good animals. Not too smart, but hardworking." Feliks said.
An awkward silence. Feliks shifted his feet nervously on the sidewalk. He looked at the creature breathing heavily, hurtfully on her side.
"I'm going to go get something. I'll be right back." Feliks said. He looked at the man with knife. The cold steel gleamed ominously in the light of the rising sun. "Don't like, do anything, until I get back, okay?"
The two large men with the ropes grunted impatiently. The knife-wielding father too grimaced uncomfortably. He pressed his lips together, looking for the best way to articulate what he thought, his eyes shifting from side to side.
"I really don't want to keep the poor girl in pain any longer. We tried to help her before you came as best as we could. I understand this hurts you, but please don't try to find a doctor or anything for her."
Feliks glared at him.
"I'm not getting a doctor. I'm getting a gun."
XXXX
Feliks returned to the scene with Ludwig's pistol heavy in his hands. Neither of the soldiers had been awake, and Feliks wasn't planning on waking him up to ask him if he could use a few of their precious bullets on his little excursion. A small crowd of onlookers had gathered. Feliks carried himself quietly. They parted as he approached.
Feliks knelt down behind the horse, his thighs parallel to her curving spine. A long, rectangular pupil slid towards him, although Feliks was confident that she couldn't see him. He stroked her flank with one hand, which heaved slowly, deeply, with pain.
"To jest w porządku. To nie boli." he whispered. A velvety ear flicked at his voice.
Feliks looked up once at the black-haired man. The Austrian closed his eyes and nodded slowly once. His consent.
Feliks pressed the barrel of the handgun behind the mare's ear. He inhaled sharply, held it, then pulled the trigger.
There was an explosion of noise. Feliks felt the pistol buck against his wrist, but despite the recoil he knew he did not miss. The mare's body seized, her muscles responding to one last synaptical spasm before falling still. The street was very quiet. Feliks looked up in time to see someone from the crowd reach his hand up to his head and press his hat against his chest. Everyone's eyes were downcast.
After a small moment of silence the two men with the ropes strode forward. They knelt down and tied a few simple knotworks around the horse's hind hooves. One tugged it tight and the other added a few other evenly spaced pretzel knots to the rope to hold on to. They tipped their hats at the man Feliks stood next to. One of them slipped a piece of paper into the Austrian man's breast-pocket. They pulled heartily on the rope, digging their toes into the cement and angling their shoulders, but their straining was futile. The mare's body must have weighed 400 kilos. A few volunteers from the onlookers stepped forward. A silent crowd of five or six young Viennese men started pulling her body down the white sidewalk by the rope tied to her hind hooves.
"Do you know where they are taking her?" Feliks asked the father.
"To the Metzger." he replied. Feliks was not sure what the German word Metzger translated to. The Viennan examined the paper one of the rope holders had given him with a frown before refolding it and stowing it back in his pocket.
The horse's soft white belly looked bloated and vulnerable to Feliks as the men started yanking her away. A yielding round expansive ivory plain, dotted with black-skinned genitalia. Her lifeless head nodded in solemn agreement with every yank of the thick rope.
"This the first time you ever put down a horse, sir?"
The Austrian man had caught him staring. He was trying to comfort him. "No." Feliks answered. "But it still hurts."
"Aye, it will always hurt. It means you've got a heart still. Not too many young people have those nowadays." the man said.
The crowd slowly dispersed. The gun dangled heavily, awkwardly at Feliks's side. He did not like the feeling of holding it. It was empowering, but he didn't know how Ludwig and Gilbert were desensitized to it. He tried not to think of how many innocent people Ludwig had shot with this gun. The cold steel suddenly felt filthy. He felt his fingers curling away from the metal, so the smallest surface would be in direct contact with his skin.
"May I see your pistol?" the father asked.
Feliks handed the man the gun.
"This is military issue. Where did you get it?"
"Huh?"
"My son. He showed me once, he had a pistol just like this."
Feliks blinked confusedly. All German pistols looked near the same to him. That, and the man that was speaking to him couldn't be over fourty. Rather young to have a child in the military. "How old is your son?" Feliks asked.
"He had just turned fifteen the other month."
"Fif?- Ah. Fifteen. Yes, of course." Feliks recovered hastily.
The man cocked a curious eyebrow. "Forgive me for asking, sir, but how old are you?"
"Nineteen." Feliks answered candidly. It would only be a few months until he was twenty.
"You didn't volunteer? Or the draft, even….?" he trailed off.
"Uhm, no. They wouldn't let me. I couldn't pass the physicals. I like, have an injury." Feliks lied. He thanked God his shitty German didn't give his country of origin away, but Austrians spoke shitty German anyway. No sense telling this Austrian that Feliks would sooner poison someone of the Wehrmacht than join its ranks. That he was exactly the type of person the German army would be out to kill. But this poor man's son was hardly out of his childhood.
"I hope you heal well then. But hopefully not too soon." He placed a heavy hand on Feliks's narrow shoulder. He lowered his voice a bit. "You don't want to get caught up in this mess anymore. I tell you, Hitler's going to drive us all into ash."
"He already has." Feliks said with a sad smile.
The Austrian puffed out an equally melancholy laugh and handed him back the pistol, which Feliks took.
The Father's head flipped up at a slight clicking. He looked at the door on the long cement apartment building on their side of the street. Someone was fiddling with the knob from inside.
"Eloisa is coming back now. I bet she drew you masterpiece." he said more cheerily.
"Tell her I said thank you very much. But please tell her to stay inside. I must go now. Not far from here I saw a broken pipe with plenty of water." Feliks said.
"Huh? I'm sure she wants to give it to you. I've never seen her blush that brightly because of a young man before."
"Pour the water on the street. She shouldn't see the blood." Feliks explained. He shook the man's hand, and left in the direction of which he came.
-Gilbert Beilschmidt-
Gilbert had risen with the sun, minus the cheerful shine. Elizabeta followed. And of course, Ludwig was up before all of them. Although Gilbert had spent the first ten minutes of his morning gawking amusedly at their melted car. Gilbert didn't know where Feliks had gone, probably having a grand old time pissing somewhere. Or perhaps he saw something shiny.
"You're always hungry. We all eat the same amount." Ludwig said, after Gilbert had approached them on the matter of what to eat for breakfast. The three were all sitting on the sidewalk in a little triangle.
Gilbert huffed and crossed his arms, but he was grinning. He felt Elizabeta sitting next to him.
"If I don't eat something soon..." Gilbert hastily scanned the area around him for closest edible object that did not classify as cannibalism. It was just what people did, he supposed, when they got really hungry. Think about all the weird things they would eat. Or perhaps it was because he knew he would soon be thirsty, which was a far crueler and more relentless imperative than hunger. The object of his newfound attention was waddling just a few meters away. "I'm going to eat that pigeon over there." he declared, thrusting his chin at the unsuspecting creature.
Ludwig rolled his eyes at his brother's outburst. "How? Cook it over a cigarette?"
"Of course not! What a frivolous waste of a good smoke!" Gilbert exclaimed. At that wonderful thought he dug the partly empty packet of cigarettes out from his coat along with his lighter. It took the edge off of the hunger. He hadn't eaten in a day. He had dealt with far worse when serving in the Waffen with Ludwig before, but it was still uncomfortable. A slow type of uncomfortableness that was not starving, but a peculiarity wrought by not feeling full in a long time. He clamped the cigarette firmly between his lips and lit the end. He took a calming breath.
"Then what?" Ludwig asked. "You don't think things through."
"I'd just cook it over something else, you know? There's plenty of old wood lying around in the rubble. It would be a fun waste of a day, wouldn't it? Some other time? Just us four, sitting around a fire, roasting things on a spit, telling stories?" Plenty of good German booze to drink too, he added.
"You'd roast vermin in the middle of the streets of Vienna." Ludwig stated flatly. It was a question, but his voice didn't go up at the end.
Gilbert playfully puffed a ring of smoke into Ludwig's face in response.
"Gotta do what you've gotta do." Gilbert said in a singsongy voice. "Plus, you would shoot Gypsies in the middle of the streets of Vienna. Tell me now, which of us is the barbarian?"
"Both of these scenarios are entirely hypothetical. I find it likely to believe that under certain circumstances we would both do either. No one is accusing anyone of being a barbarian. Elizabeta, I hope you cook. Apparently the quickest way to Gilbert's heart is through his stomach."
"Give me a half kilo of beef and a wreath of paprika, and I'll make you the best goulash you've ever had. I can show you both when we're out of this." Elizabeta added hopefully.
"Hey!" Gilbert cried indignantly, when realizing Ludwig's jab. "I ain't that shallow!"
"No. Of course not, brother." Ludwig said.
"It's like what that one writer said. What was his name? You would like him Ludwig, he wrote about dogs and wolves and things. It was all about survival of the fittest out in the Yukon and Alaska. He said once, 'A southland dog starves on the ration of a husky.'" Gilbert said.
"I do not understand your analogy. I am confident that as elite soldiers you and myself would be the huskies. And Feliks and Elizabeta would be the southland dogs."
"Gil, if I were to stand between you and Ludwig, I'd be the chihuahua."
"No, it's backwards. At first glance, maybe, but Liz and Feel are much more used to not eating than us because they were in Auschwitz. So that would make them the huskies in the Yukon, and we would be the furry dogs in California."
"I still think we would be the huskies." Ludwig said. "Or rather, German shepherds. Fine dogs, they are. Better than huskies. Gilbert, despite my initial surprise at you actually having read a novel, do you even know where California or the Yukon are?
"On the wrong side of the ocean somewhere." Gilbert said, taking another nonchalant puff.
"California is on the western coast of the United States. The Yukon is..." Ludwig's gaze lifted upwards in thought. But unless the answer was written in the gray clouds it wouldn't help him much. Ludwig was as clueless as he was.
"Face it Lud. You don't know something. The Yukon can be in Russia for all I care."
"No, I think it's in..." Ludwig trailed off. "Somewhere in the New World." he concluded dissatisfactorily.
"Oh, what was that writer's name? Stupid English names are too basic to be very unique. I wish I could remember. He died before you were born." The Prussian groaned. "Now I'm going to be thinking about this idiotic thing for the rest of the day."
"Jack London." A Polish-accented voice said, approaching the four.
"Feliks! That's it!" Gilbert exclaimed. He pulled the cigarette from his lips, balancing it between two fingers. "That's him! How did you know? And where were you, you get lost or somethin'?"
Ludwig looked up from where he sat, his gaze alone cutting off how Feliks was about to respond.
"Feliks. Something of mine is missing." Ludwig said flatly, eying the Pole.
Feliks stopped apruptly at this. His right hand was hidden behind his back. His left reached up to scratch his long blonde hair guiltily. "Uh…"
"I will be taking it back now." the German said.
Slowly, Feliks revealed his hand from his back. In his hand, gleaming, lay Ludwig's 39 caliber pistol. He stepped closer to Ludwig and handed the German back his gun obediently.
"Jesus Christus. Feliks, what the hell kind of piss were you taking?!" Gilbert gasped, gawking at the firearm in his thin hands.
Ludwig opened up the gun from where he sat cross-legged on the ground and slid the chamber out. He counted twice.
"Feliks?"
"Yes Ludwig?"
"There were five before. There is a bullet missing here." Ludwig noted, tone somewhere between an observation and an accusation.
"Yes, there is indeed." Feliks replied measuredly. Obviously he was making Ludwig fight for whatever information he possessed. Gilbert was still reeling along with Elizabeta over what on earth someone like Feliks would possibly want with Ludwig's gun.
"Do you have an explanation for this?" Ludwig asked, narrowing his eyes.
"Nope."
"No explanation whatsoever?"
"Just needed it."
"I was hoping for more than that, Feliks." Ludwig said slowly. His irritation was apparent. He loudly reassembled the gun. But Gilbert figured Ludwig would be finding out exactly what happened to that missing bullet whether Feliks helped willingly or not. Little did Feliks know that telling Ludwig now was probably better than letting the German mull over a punishment for the next several hours. Ludwig was good with that whole discipline thing.
Gilbert remembered one winter about twelve years ago he thought it would be fun to spray one of Ludwig's dogs with ice water. Upon finding out, Ludwig had come diplomatically to Gilbert with a written list of complaints, like a modest little Martin Luther, explaining exactly why harassing his dog was wrong, and why and how Gilbert should be reprimanded.
And for his troubles, well, Gilbert had not-so-diplomatically reminded his smaller brother who was in charge.
Yet today Gilbert glanced at Feliks warningly. The Pole still seemed intent to keep them guessing as to whatever he so desperately needed that bullet for. Gilbert shrugged. "Let's just go."
"Where?" Elizabeta asked.
"We should find somewhere to stay. SS should not be sleeping on the street. It's suspicious, we have places to be. It was alright last night, because the bombs fell. But there will be no more sleeping on the street for us. We need to buy food too." Ludwig said.
"That won't be too hard," Gilbert added, rolling up from the cement and clapping his gloved hands together. "We'll just move to a part of the city that isn't bombed. There'll be places to stay there." Of course by this, Gilbert meant people to bully into letting them stay on their property. Or houses that recently found themselves without occupants.
"And we will head west. No more Vienna. I want to be passing the border into Liechtenstein in two days." Ludwig said. He too stood up and adjusted his cap.
Gilbert didn't respond, a mix of conflicting emotions were swirling in his chest at the mention of Switzerland. The end of their journey. Gilbert had to get them there, of course, to this strange new Ithaca of his. But more notably, it was Ludwig's Ithaca. The German had made it clear what his intentions were once they arrived there. And Gilbert feared his brother would be dead within days of doing so.
Elizabeta started getting up with Feliks. Gilbert offered her his hand, which she took as he led her up. Her touch comforted him slightly.
The four began walking down the dirty gray Viennese sidewalks. Not sure where they were headed, but seemingly away from where the worst of the bombs had fallen. The rising sun was at their backs as they traveled marginally west. Gilbert noticed where a pipe had been burst from the night before, as the ground beneath it still appeared damp, but there didn't seem to be any water coming out anymore.
"Can we buy food now?" Elizabeta asked, pacing up beside Gilbert.
"If Elizabeta was not half-starved already, I would not let her eat." Ludwig said, glancing at the Hungarian.
Gilbert cocked his head. "Why would you say that?"
"She rewarded the thieves for stealing from us yesterday. She gave them five marks. That would be the price of her breakfast."
Why was Ludwig opening up old wounds at a time like this? Gilbert did not agree with what Elizabeta had done, but there wasn't anything they could do about that now.
"She's the thinnest of all of us. Who are you to decide who eats and who doesn't?" Gilbert started.
"Let the woman defend her reasons herself. You keep quiet, Gilbert." Ludwig said.
Elizabeta's frown deepened at Ludwig for cutting Gilbert off. But her composure recovered. "Five marks?" she responded. "That's nothing. What we should have done was taken our stuff back and given Feliciano a few slaps on the wrist. Not beaten him within a centimeter of paralysis. I doubt that kid was over twenty years old. He was stealing because he had little other choice to survive, and I don't see how that is different from the questionable actions we ourselves have committed. I do agree he should have been punished, but he might die. I had to compensate him."
"Elizabeta, in case you didn't know, I myself am only slightly over twenty. It is different because we had the means to defend ourselves and our property, and thus nature's inexorable right to do so. We should have at least killed his brother. I'm not saying that there's anything we can do about it now. But unless your name is Heinrich Himmler no one should ever speak to a German SS like that and live."
"And draw attention to ourselves? You said yourself upon entering the city we should try and keep quiet." She left out the part that Ludwig was only marginally a German officer now. No sense fanning the flames of Ludwig's anger.
"We were SS administering discipline. No one would have asked questions because of a few more bodies found on the street the next day." Ludwig said calmly.
Feliks quietly stepped forward. He looked down at the ground and mumbled something. "It's not good when things have to die when they don't have to..."
"Polack, what on Earth did I do without you around to point out the damned obvious all of the time?" Ludwig snapped.
"Enough of this! God knows when I'd be the one who had to play peacemaker." Gilbert growled. Usually Gilbert was the one that started the fights. It was his job to be immature, and it was one he proudly excelled at. He then saw something that made his heart thrum excitedly. He jabbed a finger at the building where the mouthwatering scent of roasting meats emanated from. More importantly, the hand painted sign placed in the shop window.
"Look! They're selling wursts! And they're cheap, too!" Gilbert exclaimed. He didn't know that butchers here had any meat to sell anymore. Probably some pack animal had died.
"I was here this morning. Where?" Feliks asked excitedly, swinging his head from side to side. His eyes locked on the title carved on the cement storefront of the building to their right. He turned very pale upon reading the German word there.
"Yes, we can do that." Ludwig said. He started fiddling with his wallet. The moment he slid a few grayish bills out of it Gilbert had already snatched them away and was dancing off towards the butchershop. As quickly as he had disappeared Gilbert was back, grinning, his arms laden with a chain of wursts in a paper bag. It was only afterward that Gilbert was wondering if there weren't so many damn other people around perhaps he could have just intimidated the butcher into giving him some for a discount, but his recent purchase left him in far too fine a mood to care.
Gilbert handed Ludwig back a single, two-mark coin as change. It was one of the older ones, with Paul von Hindenburg's copiously mustached face embossed on it rather than Hitler's. Gilbert then started fiddling with the packaging as he walked. "Liz, you want one?" he asked, pulling out a section of the chain and already halfway handing it to her.
"Yes, I would like some." Elizabeta said, accepting. Then she glanced at Ludwig. "If that's okay with der Führer."
"Eat." Ludwig said curtly. Although coming from him it sounded more like a command. At that, Gilbert handed him some of the wursts too. He then looked over to Feliks pacing next to him. He noticed the Pole seemed a bit pale.
"Feel, want some?" Gil offered. He snatched a bite of one of his, the first taste of meat opening a yawning chasm in his abdomen. A bit gamier than he would have expected, but not at all bad. Delicious, in fact! He swallowed and swiftly sunk his teeth in to seize another soft mouthful. His warm stomach swam happily with this new offering. He felt hot strength surge back into his veins with every throb of his heart.
"Uhm. Like, no thanks."
"You vegetarian or something?" Gilbert asked, dumbstruck. "You're Polish! Last time I checked Poles are famous for making sausages too. I'll admit they're even pretty good!"
"I'm not! I love sausages, I just like, don't want any of these ones. And uh, you guys might not want to eat any either, maybe."
"Feliks," Gilbert warned lowly. "If we've been harboring some filthy pansy animal-rights activist among us while a third of Europe's population can't even feed themselves…"
"I'm really not! I'm just saying, since like, we're in a war it might not be made out of all that normal stuff..." Feliks responded lamely. His green eyes flickered nervously at some thought Gilbert didn't know.
"It's sausage and I'm hungry. It could be made out of drowned puppies for all I care." Gilbert said, tearing off a ravenous bite with his incisors. He felt the meat fall apart and dissolve in his mouth. He swallowed heartily. It really was good.
Poor Feliks looked like he was about to retch.
"Hey, you alright, kid?" Gilbert asked, concerned by his expression, taking another bite.
"I'm fine." Feliks said weakly. His face was very pallid.
"You should eat, Feliks." Ludwig advised. "We probably won't again until tonight or tomorrow. It will keep your strength up."
"I'm really not hungry. Don't like, worry about me." his voice was very defeated.
A shrug. Ludwig took another bite of his. "Suit yourself." Ludwig said.
The sausages were quickly disappearing as the four walked along. Gilbert was kind of relieved that Feliks didn't have any, it left many more for him and Ludwig who was also consuming a large portion of them. Selfish -he knew- but he wouldn't let them go to waste. He glanced over to Elizabeta. She had just finished the few he had given her. Gilbert handed her another. The last one, coincidentally. She took it. "Thanks, Gil."
"You are quite welcome my dear. Elizabeta likes German sausages, doesn't she?" Gilbert cooed.
"Technically they would be Austrian Wurstl, would they not?" Ludwig said from beside them, apparently not picking up on Gilbert's euphemism. While Ludwig was distracted by this Gilbert tossed the empty bag on the ground before the younger could complain about littering.
"Oh shush. I know a total of one Austrian, and I'm sure his sausages are much smaller than this. Elizabeta likes the big German ones. Prussian ones."
"Knock it off Gil." Elizabeta warned.
Gilbert snickered. He had an obnoxious laugh, he knew. A rapid and grinding sort of 'keeheeheehee' wheezing that would quickly annoy even the hardiest of cicadas. He didn't mind it, although he was aware it probably drove anyone on the receiving end up a wall. But his merriment cut abruptly short.
Gilbert, right then, knew he saw someone familiar in front of him. He squinted to make sure he was correct in his assumption.
How? Is that even possible? Why is he dressed like that?
"Hey, you!" Gilbert called.
The man kept walking along, although his head might have turned a bit. The man's hair dripped down. He wore a simply collared, light blue button-up shirt. A vicious hunting knife glinted in a simple leather-strap sheath on his hip. The tip was thick and curved. Flesh cutting, serrated teeth sawed across the flat edge of the silvery blade. The blade was inset in what appeared to be part of the antler of some once mighty ungulate. Some sorts of North-Pacific tribal designs were meticulously carved into the exposed brown keratin hilt. Gilbert wasn't so sure why he was paying so much attention to the man's knife. Austrians had similar knives, but moose did not live in Austria.
Gilbert ran forward towards the familiar form.
"Where are you going?" Ludwig called. He sprinted after his brother. Confused, Elizabeta and Feliks quickly followed after the running Prussian.
The person was right in front of him now. Just walking along as if he didn't have a damn care in the world. What was he doing here in the city?
"Oi! Alfred!"
As Gilbert's outstretched hand clasped on his shoulder Alfred whirled finally around. It was only then that Gilbert realized he didn't look quite exactly like Alfred.
The confused young man looked Gilbert up and down in his black SS uniform. Horrified eyes locked on the Iron Cross on his throat. The metal eagle and swastika on his cap. The crossbones and the grinning human skull. The man pulled the hunting saber from its sheath. The wicked, flesh slicing teeth on the side caught hungrily in the light as he raised it to Gilbert's abdomen. The eyes hardened with courage. The voice that met him was filled with rage and pain at the mention of that name.
"Qu'as tu dit a propos de mon frère?!"
The moment this stranger raised the knife, Ludwig sent a friendly hello in the form of a gunshot whizzing past his ear.
Gilbert did not speak French, and in his twenty-six years living in Europe not once had he heard a medieval dialect like this. But when someone spent much of his time living in the nation next to France, he was able to pick up a few basic nouns. One of these such nouns: 'frère.'
Brother.