"Francis?" Lilli whispered. "Can I ask you something?"
"Anything, ma bichette."
"Will we be home in time for Christmas?"
Francis glanced up from his latest set of papers. He couldn't see Lilli in the darkness – her bed was too far from the dim puddle of lamplight – but he knew she was curled up under the covers, waiting for his answer. Her naïve question almost made him smile, her childish hope bringing a bit of light back to the room. There they were, in a cheap inn on the Swiss border, hiding from the Gestapo, and her main concern was Christmas. It wasn't that her brother had been missing for two hours, that Francis hadn't heard a word from the escapees they'd sent across the border earlier, that they probably wouldn't have anything to eat for a good day or two.
She was concerned about Christmas.
"Of course we'll be back," Francis said without really knowing it. "We've got two days to get home, that's plenty of time. Why do you ask?"
"No reason." He saw a shape shift in the darkness as Lilli turned away from him.
"Come on, there must be something you're expecting back in Vienna."
"I wanted to know if we would be back, that's all."
"Are you hiding something from me?" Francis asked as he opened his agenda, taking a business card from the pages. Another name to erase from history and another headache. Everyone else at the office got Christmas break – and Francis got to question why he still forged handwriting and drew up swastika laden files.
"What's there to hide?" Lilli said. "You already know everything about me. You know everything about everyone. I couldn't hide something from you if I wanted to."
"…Is it a boyfriend?"
"What?" The springs of the mattress creaked as Lilli sat up. "I-I-I don't have a boyfriend!"
"So there's two, then?" Francis said with a grin. "Are you already playing with those boy's hearts? Oh, ma bichette, you're so bad." He clicked his tongue disapprovingly like a mother.
"I don't have a boyfriend," Lilli repeated rather sternly for her usual temperament. "And even if I wanted to date one of them, I can't. The boys at my school are loyal Hitlerjugend and don't want anything to do with a girl like me. They look at me like I'm about to start a riot. They think I'm like Basch, some rebel or something like that. And that doesn't go over very well with their Führer."
"Isn't there anyone who's caught your eye?"
"No. They hate me and I hate them. Simple as that."
"You've got to be more open than that," Francis said as he stamped a new name onto an empty form. "Hating everyone will get you nowhere other than alone."
"Basch hates everyone," Lilli said. "And he has me and you and Herr von Wolffe and Mathias."
"He doesn't hate everyone. Your brother is pretending to be so standoffish. Really, he's one of the most caring people in Vienna. He'd die for just about anyone."
"Except Hitler."
"I don't think any of us would die for Hitler. Maybe Roderich, but only because it would look good for him," Francis said. "Most of us would probably do something if it looked good for us."
Francis sighed, looking at his watch. Basch should've been back already – what could he possibly be doing out there? His mind jumped from one worst case scenario to the next, wishing Basch would've told them where he was going instead of his typical unintelligible grumble and a sloppy "tschüß". He didn't even know if Basch had a gun on him – what if he was out there in a strange town with just a knife? He could've been jumped or arrested or gotten caught in some black market trade the scrappy town outside the Swiss border was famous for.
"Basch is coming back, isn't he?" Lilli asked, her voice much weaker than it was moments ago.
"He'll be back any minute." Francis bit the inside of his cheek – his profession was lying and he couldn't muster something more believable than that? "He's out being Basch. You know him as well as I do, maybe better. Disappearing is something he does."
"He usually doesn't stay out this long, though."
"No, he usually doesn't," Francis said, pushing back the curtains to look out at the road before the inn. He searched the shadows for his cousin's thin silhouette, for some sign that Basch Zwingli was alive. Like the thousands of times he'd checked before, there was nothing.
"Did Basch tell you anything before he left?" Lilli said with a sliver of childish hopefulness.
"He told me to take good care of you, and that he'd be back soon." He didn't say that "soon" was supposed to be thirty minutes – some things were better not to mention.
"He didn't say what he was doing?"
"He never says what he's doing. Basch is a mystery to all of us. Always has been, always will be." Francis stamped a swastika in the corner of the new paper, pushing it aside. "You should've seen him when we were younger. The summer he stayed in Paris, he disappeared on Bastille Day and didn't come home for two days. He came back with a goat. Where do you find a goat in Paris? I still don't know."
The mattress groaned again as Lilli laid back down. She muttered something Francis took as a goodnight and the room went quiet again. Francis finished the last of his client's papers, putting them into a neat folder. He didn't dare to look back at his agenda; there were so many names waiting for him, and all he wanted to do was go to sleep.
"Francis? What's Paris like?" Lilli asked.
"Beautiful, ma bichette. Beautiful. Oh, I wish you could see it. The lights and the food and the people and everything, it's so amazing. There's so much to see, with the shops, cathedrals, the plazas, the Eiffel Tower. Of course, things always change," he added. "I haven't been there since I was seventeen. And with the war…" He shook his head, refusing to think of his Paris as another war-torn city. "Listen to me ramble. Never mind the war. I'll have to take you up there sometime so you can see for yourself."
"And can we take Basch?"
"I don't know, he might vanish again and find another –"
Francis was interrupted by frantic pounding on their door.
"Francis? Francis, you stupid bastard, I need in!" Basch shouted from the other side, beating on the door like a madman. "Get up right now!"
"I'm surprised there isn't a goat with him," Francis said as he got up, going over to the door. As soon as he unlocked it, Basch burst in, slamming the door behind him. He twisted the lock before Francis could say something, pushing past his cousin and throwing a bag on the bed.
"Basch?" Lilli said, sitting up. It wasn't a greeting or an "I'm so glad to see you alive" – she sounded terrified.
"Get up, Lilli," Basch ordered, turning back to Francis. "We've got about a minute to leave. I'll explain everything in the car. Just don't ask questions and move."
Francis nodded, grabbing his briefcase and shoving the fake papers in. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Basch unlocking the window and Lilli pulling her pink coat over her nightgown. The two of them looked so normal, as if they were going through a regular routine. How many times had they run from whoever was chasing Basch?
"Lilli, bring as many blankets as you can carry, we might be sleeping in the car tonight," Basch said, handing Francis the copy of Mein Kampf hotel rooms kept stowed away in a drawer.
"I know you said no questions, but…" Francis faltered, holding up the book to speak for him.
Basch smiled, rather odd for the situation they were in. "If they start shooting at us, we better hope Hitler's bullshit will save our lives. I've heard of books stopping bullets before. Plus, we could sell that if things get desperate. Hitler brats would pay good money for it. Hell, why don't you do your forgery magic and get us an autographed copy?"
Francis tucked the book into his briefcase, not quite sure what sort of ideas Basch had in mind that night; they weren't good ones.
"Are we ready to –"
There was a crisp knock on the door before Basch could continue.
"Don't answer that," he said in a low voice, throwing the bag over his shoulder and going to the window. He eased the pane out, motioning for Lilli to follow him. The person knocked again as Basch helped Lilli out the window, handing her the blankets she'd stripped from the bed. He whispered a goodbye, leaning down to kiss her forehead.
"This is the Gestapo; open up immediately!" the angry voice of a kriminalinspektor snarled. Basch locked eyes with Francis, shaking his head no.
Francis grabbed his keys from the table and walked as quietly as he could to the window, flinching as the man pounded on the door. Handing his briefcase to Basch, Francis got up on the windowsill. Basch pushed him outside a little too eagerly, throwing the briefcase down and waving him on with a flick of his wrist.
"Open up!" the Gestapo man repeated with a few more knocks on the door.
"Hold on, I'm not dressed yet!" Basch shouted back, taking a pistol from his pocket and aiming it at the door. "Start the car when you see me get out the window," he growled through clenched teeth, looking down at Francis. "When I get in there, you drive. And if I take longer than twenty seconds, get out of here without me. Take the backroads out. If we're separated, rendezvous in Oetz on Christmas. Got it?"
"Why don't you come with us?" Francis said, clutching his briefcase tight to his chest.
The Gestapo man started knocking and shouting again.
"I'm buying you time if you need it," Basch said, shifting awkwardly like a teenager trying to tell his date goodnight. "So, um, ja, goodbye. If I don't see you by Christmas, Roderich's got the keys to my house. Je t'aime."
"Je t'aime," Francis echoed, turning on his heels and running for his car. Lilli was already in the backseat, hidden underneath a pile of blankets. Her lips were moving; no sound was coming out. Silent prayers, Francis figured by her folded hands.
Francis slid the keys into the ignition and started counting.
Three seconds – a shadow appeared in the light from the window, bigger than Basch. Much bigger.
Seven seconds – Lilli's prayers got faster.
Sixteen seconds – the first gunshot tore through the night.
Nineteen seconds – the lights in the window went out.
Francis kept watching the yard until it blurred together, tears stinging at his eyes. He knew he should drive, for his sake and Lilli's. He knew he needed to get as far away from the town as he could. He knew he needed to be in Vienna to help plan the next attack of Operation Edelweiss.
But he couldn't move.
"Why isn't he coming?" Lilli whispered. "He always makes it out. Always. Francis, what did Basch tell you?"
Her words fell on deaf ears.
"Francis, what did he tell you?" Lilli leaned forward, trying to get the man to look at her. He shook his head, too shell-shocked to speak.
"Francis! Answer me!"
"We need to get out of here, alright?" Francis choked, looking over at the girl. "Why don't you try to go back to sleep?"
"No," Lilli said, her eyes going wide as she realized what was going on. She put a hand on Francis' forearm in an attempt at stopping him. "We can't leave without Basch. Just…just wait! He'll be coming soon."
"Lilli, he's not –" Francis started.
"Don't leave without him!" she screamed, clenching her hand around his wrist. "Don't you dare leave without him!"
"If we don't leave now, we're going to die!"
"What about Basch?! If we leave, he's going to die!"
"I have to take responsibility here, and I say we're leaving!" Francis took Lilli's hand from his wrist, pushing her back. "I can't let you die! You're all I have left!"
"Basch isn't dead!" Lilli snapped.
"Yes, he is! Didn't you hear the gunshots?!" Francis shot back. "Didn't you hear the gun –"
"Start the car!"
Francis looked back at the yard, his heart skipping a beat.
Running towards the car and clutching his arm was none other than Basch Zwingli. Blood ran down his arms, an uncomfortably large spot of red blooming under his ribs. His gun was shoved in his belt and his coat was gone, somehow his bag was slung over his shoulder.
"Start the car, you idiot!" Basch shouted, looking behind him. Francis fumbled with the keys, the engine roaring to life as Basch threw the door open, sliding in the seat next to him. Basch shut the door and Francis slammed the gas pedal to the floor.
"Lilli, do me a huge favour and lie down," Basch said as they tore down the road, turning around to look at the girl.
"You're bleeding!" she gasped.
"Ja, ja, I know. Lie down and cover yourself up with the blankets," Basch repeated too calmly for a man who'd been shot. "I don't want you getting shot, too. So try to go back to sleep."
Lilli must've done as she was told, as Basch turned back around. Francis glanced over at him and immediately looked away.
"Oh, God, I must look awful for you to give me that face," Basch said with a bit of a laugh. "Sorry, I'm getting blood all over your car."
"It's not that," Francis said, daring another look at Basch. His whole arm was red, the spot on his shirt growing larger and larger.
Basch rolled his eyes, opening his bag. He pulled a roll of bandages from inside, starting to wrap them around his arm. "You don't need to lie to me. When we get to Innsbruck, we'll stop and get this cleaned up. I think I can handle it for the time being. You've got a good minute until the Gestapo starts trailing us. Get to the main road as fast as you can."
"Innsbruck is at least two hours away. We need to stop before you get an infection."
"No, I'll be fine. Oh, hey, I got you some black-market chocolate," Basch said nonchalantly, putting a bar wrapped in golden paper in Francis' lap. "Thought you'd like that."
"You risked your life for chocolate?" Francis asked in a weak voice, turning the car onto the road out of the town.
"Well, not that. I have food and money and I…I...oh, shit," he mumbled. "I can't think too well right now. I think I lost a lot of blood. I got enough to get us to…Vienna! Ja, Vienna."
"Basch," Francis said, "are you alright?"
"I think I'm going to pass out."
"Basch?" Francis looked over at the passenger seat to find the Swiss slumped against the window, hand held over the wound on his chest.
There were plenty of things Roderich didn't want to do. Shoot a man, admit to his religion, die; the list could go on and on. However, he'd never thought sharing a luxurious hotel suite with a rich woman would be one of them. It was every divorced man's fantasy. Even he'd shamefully thought of it a few times when he was feeling lonelier than usual. A pretty woman, a private room, and plenty of champagne, it was the perfect dream of a man like him.
If only the woman wasn't Natalya Arlovskya and Roderich was allowed to drink the champagne.
"I could've killed him right there," Natalya said to herself, pacing back and forth in front of Roderich. He tried not to roll his eyes, going back to his experimental opera. Roderich had heard no less than twenty gory descriptions of one man's death, Natalya leaving no detail out. Ever since he'd dragged her away from the party, she hadn't stopped talking. How long had she been going off about how she could have killed Goebbels and the various methods with which she could do away with him?
"I should've put a knife in his stomach," she continued, making a slight thrust with her hand. "No, no, I should've poisoned him. I was close enough to do almost anything. We were so close, Roderich. So close. Do you have any idea how big of a revolt we could start if we killed Goebbels? We could have been revolutionaries, but you wanted to follow the rules."
"That's lovely. Why don't you shut up and get ready to go?" Roderich said as he wrote in a lazy eighteenth. "Let's think about murdering the minister of propaganda after we start a few fires at the Reichstag."
Natalya stopped her pacing, coming over to the couch. She plucked Roderich's pencil from his hand, demanding his attention. "I want to kill him," she snapped. "I don't want to play Basch's games. He's not thinking big enough with this fire. I want vengeance."
"Vengeance for what?"
"For everything that disgusting man has done."
Roderich sighed – he wasn't going to get any more work done on his opera. At least not with Natalya out for Josef Goebbels. "If I can't drink, you have to follow orders. We're not here to kill anyone."
"Can't we make an exception this one time?" Natalya asked, handing the pencil back. "Basch wouldn't even know it was me. There's plenty of other suspects down there. I could set something up with one of the servers –"
"Why don't you listen to me? At some point, Basch will probably send us on a mission like that. For now, we're staying small. Arson is already too much for me to handle."
Natalya crossed her arms, slipping into an almost-frown. She stood there for a second, trying to come up with something to use against him. Roderich smiled, getting up from the couch. He pushed her aside, going back to the lavish bedroom. Tossing his composition book onto the sheets made of the finest Egyptian cotton, Roderich grabbed the magnesium pencils from the nightstand.
The sparks for the burning of the Reichstag.
The cyanide capsule in his pocket got a little heavier at the sight of the two rods.
"I've got it!" Natalya ran into the room before Roderich could start getting prepared for his first arson, getting between him and his suitcase. "You're scared to kill someone because you want a second chance at your ex-wife! She won't love you if you're a criminal."
"You must've hit your head, because I'd never go to the level of crawling back to Elizabeta. I haven't mentioned her name once this trip, so please don't bring her up again," Roderich said flatly, grabbing his coat from where it rested with the pile of hidden microphones. Natalya made herself useful for once, hunting down every Gestapo device and ripping them out. Roderich had to hand it to her – he never would've figured out something like that on his own.
"No, you must be hoping for some sort of chance that you'll never have. No one would be stupid enough to come back to you." She almost-smiled, going over to the bed she'd claimed and snatching up a simpler dress than the evening gown she'd worn to the party. "No one in their right mind would even think of loving you," she added as she went off to the bathroom, making sure to lock the door behind her.
"I'm relatively sure Elizabeta wasn't insane!" he called after her.
"Believe what you want! I know a hopeless romantic when I see one!"
Roderich started to shout an insult back, catching himself before it slipped out. Arguing with Natalya was useless; she always won, no matter what her opponent said. He'd be better off making his case to a lamp than even mentioning one of Natalya's many flaws.
"Oh, God, what am I doing?" Roderich said, holding out the two magnesium pencils in front of him. "Look at me, going to set the government on fire. Is that some sort of sin?"
He paused to think.
"I guess so," Roderich replied to himself, slipping two of the pencils into Natalya's purse and two into his pocket. A tag-team arson. Who would've thought it would be a rich demon of a woman and the Führer's composer?
The quiet trill of the phone ringing snapped him out of his thoughts; odd, he wasn't expecting a phone call. The bathroom door's lock popped, Natalya stepping out in a dress that wasn't quite long enough. Hitler certainly wouldn't approve of it. She looked over at Roderich, nearly showing a bit of confusion.
"Aren't you going to answer that?" she asked, indigo eyes flicking towards the phone.
"What if it's someone we don't want to speak with?" Roderich said. "We could be on a train to Auschwitz together. Which would be the perfect way to go. I'm sure by some mistake, we'd end up in Hell together."
"You'll never know if you don't answer it."
"And I'll have a better chance of living and not spending eternal damnation with you."
"Answer it, you baby. I'll get ready to run if you screw something up again."
"Like I make so many mistakes." Roderich reached over and grabbed the receiver. Slowly, he held it up to his ear, not quite sure what to prepare for. An official? A Gestapo man? Basch? "Hello? This Roderich von Wolffe."
"Roderich? Where the hell are you?" Heydrich slurred, sounding about as intoxicated as Roderich wished he was.
"In my room. What do you want?" He knew it was rude and quite dangerous to talk to a Nazi official like that, except Heydrich wouldn't remember it in the morning. Roderich could tell the man he was a Jew and he would laugh it off and forget about it.
"These people are boring," Heydrich said, sounding more like a small child than a grown man. "A bunch of damn rich people. I need someone who can drink like you do."
"Well, uh, I happen to be preoccupied with other matters at the moment," Roderich said, looking over at Natalya for help. She shrugged, pulling on a fur coat. Couldn't she see that their lives were in danger and she should really be trying everything she could to help him?
"Can you say that in German?" Heydrich asked with a thunderous laugh, one Roderich hoped he wouldn't ever hear again.
"I'm busy with other things. You should probably go home."
"What do you mean?"
"Remember the little French girl I brought with me?" Roderich said. "She's waiting on me. I can't keep talking, sir, so you'll have to excuse me. Go get your driver or something to take you home, you sound wasted enough."
"Did you hear that?" Heydrich shouted at the top of his drunken voice. "Roderich's in bed with the French girl up in his room! He's too busy with a new damn girl to remember us!"
"That's not what I meant," Roderich groaned, knowing there was no way to talk himself out of a drunk man's assumptions. "I merely said –"
"Is she any good? I'd heard things about those French ones," Heydrich interrupted, Roderich clenching the phone tight in his hand to prevent himself from screaming.
"Goodnight, sir."
"C'mon, Roderich, you can tell me."
Roderich started to say something before Natalya came and took the phone from his hand, muttering something in Russian. "Bonjour," she said in her fake Parisian accent, twisting the cord around her finger. "Would you be a dear and leave the two of us alone?"
There was a long pause, Heydrich shouting something else at Natalya. Her face got redder and redder as the man continued on; Roderich held back a smile.
"Oui, sir," she stammered. "Gute Nacht." And without waiting for a reply, she slammed the phone back down. Hiding her embarrassment from Roderich, she grabbed her purse and went over to the big window overlooking Berlin.
"I presume you're not fond of Heydrich," Roderich said. "I promise you, I didn't insinuate anything like what he was talking about."
"I don't want to be Adeline anymore." Natalya didn't look up at him when she spoke, keeping her eyes locked on the city.
"One mission in and you're already done with your fake identity? I've been doing this for almost nine years. Get over yourself."
"He spoke to me like I was an object."
"That's who Heydrich is," Roderich said.
"They have the nerve to think I would sleep with anyone," Natalya snapped, putting a hand up to the glass.
"We are supposed to be romantically involved. And it did get him to shut up."
Natalya looked back at Roderich, red lips drawn into a tight line. "You don't get it, do you?"
"Should I be getting something more than you've never been insulted by an official?" Roderich asked.
"I don't want to be just a sex object," she said. "I don't want to be thought of as some Parisian whore you picked up. Can't Francis make me more respectable than that? He made you a Nazi composer, for God's sake. A Jewish man making music for the Reich."
"Can't you play your part and stop complaining about how you want to be someone else?"
"You're not the one being made into a harlot."
"And that means I have it so much easier than you do?" Roderich said. "Please, grow up already. You've been Adeline for no more than a month. I've been von Wolffe for eight years. I've hid my religion, my family, my past, my brother, every damn thing about me for eight years. What struggles do you have? You get accused of being a whore once by a drunk man."
"You don't know half the shit I've been through," Natalya snarled, turning away from Roderich again. "I saw my own sister get arrested and sent to Auschwitz. I saw my brother be taken away. I saw what your people are doing to Soviet prisoners and what mine are doing to German prisoners. I stood in an NKVD office and got told my life was worthless," she said, her voice cracking. "You stayed in your little life and got divorced. You got to live the life you wanted to live, not the life other people wanted you to live."
"You think I had a choice whether I wanted to write music for Hitler?"
"You think I had a choice whether I wanted to be sent out here on an assassination mission to kill you?"
"…What?" Roderich's voice was barely audible. "You…You're going to do what?"
"You heard me right, von Wolffe. I was supposed to put a bullet in your head and go back to Russia!" Natalya shouted, refusing to look Roderich in the eye. "The NKVD sent me out here to end you. I tried to kill you nine damn times and failed! Someone always got in the way, be it Basch or Ludwig. And then I ran into Francis, made up some bullshit lie about being a fugitive working with the Underground, and now I'm standing here in Berlin with the man I was out to kill."
Roderich slowly reached for his gun.
"I'm not planning on killing you anymore," she said, returning back to her cold manner. "If you want to shoot me in the back, fine. I don't care. I won't try to fight it, either. I have no intentions of ever hurting you."
"You're not making sense anymore," Roderich said, keeping his hand on the pistol in his pocket.
"I can't kill you now. See, I wasn't planning on you having a good heart. I thought you were going to be horrible like the rest of them. But you're so damn good." She sighed, turning to face Roderich. For the first time since Roderich met her, there was a real emotion on her face – sadness. "I can't kill a good man."
"Natalya, I…" Roderich faltered, not knowing what he meant to say. What was there even to say? Natalya was acting like a human for once, not some cold military machine. "Thank you," he said after a long pause. "Thank you for not killing me when you had the chance. I'm sorry I said those things to you, and I hope you won't reconsider my death."
"Forget I said anything. As far as you know, I'm your standard Russian." Natalya pulled on the sleeves of her coat, looking down at the floor. "I can understand if you want to stop the mission, too. I'll let you go home."
"No, no, I can't do that yet. We've still got to burn down the Reichstag."
Natalya almost-smiled. "Right. We've got to set the government on fire."
"Good morning," Francis said softly, the dark lines under his eyes telling the story of the night before. Basch groaned, turning away from his cousin. His side and arm screamed in agony, his head pounded, and he didn't want a Francis lecture. There was no worse way to wake up.
"Don't be so rude." Francis sat down on the edge of the bed, the springs in the mattress creaking. "I'm not going to nag you, so you can look at me again. I'll save the sermons for when you're fully conscious."
"Meaning?" Basch asked, looking over his shoulder at Francis. He gave Basch a weary smile, running a hand through his blond curls.
"You've been sort of in and out of it," Francis said. "It's too early to lecture you. So, how are you feeling?"
"Amazing. I forgot how much fun it is to be shot. Especially by a Gestapo man."
"Stop being sarcastic."
"Do you want me to lie to you?" Basch asked, wondering who'd patched him up. They'd pulled the bandages on his chest too tight, making things hurt worse than they should've. He couldn't remember a lot after getting into Francis' car back at the inn; everything after that was brief and delirious.
"No, I just want honest and useful answers. I need you to tell me if something's not right. You know about this better than I do," Francis said. "I've never been shot before."
"It's your typical pain that occurs when a Gestapo man puts a bullet in your chest for no reason," Basch said. Francis' weary smile faded, his thick patience seeming surprisingly thin. Something or someone must've really rubbed him the wrong way.
"Basch, please. You almost died last night. That's nothing to joke about." Francis paused for a moment, studying Basch. His eyes strayed down to the bandages peeking out from under the sheets, lingering on the rusty stains. "Can you please be serious about this? Are you alright?"
"If I wasn't alright, you'd hear about it. I'm positive I'm fine," Basch assured him. "Can you tell me what happened while I was out?"
"I'd prefer not to. It all happened rather fast and I was driving. You can ask Lilli, though. I don't know how much she'll tell you."
"Where is she?" Basch said, looking around the room. It didn't look like a hospital room or even an inn room. More like an empty bedroom that hadn't been used for several years. "And where exactly are we?"
"I'd also prefer not to answer that," Francis said. "Why don't you try to go back to sleep and I'll explain this in the morning."
"Francis. Where are we?" Basch snapped. "Stop trying to hide things from me. If you're not going to tell me, I'm going to find out myself. You won't like it when I find out things myself."
"We're in Salzburg. I tried to stop in Innsbruck. We had a Gestapo man following us. I took us up through Germany." Francis held his head, preparing to be screamed at.
Basch, on the other hand, didn't know where to start with his questions. There were so many open ends and things to be answered – they could be there for hours. "We're not being followed anymore, right?" he said, picking an easy place to start.
"No, I lost them when we crossed the border into Germany. Illegally."
"There's nothing wrong with a little illegal activity."
"For you, there's no problem," Francis said. "For me…oh, never mind. Anyway, after you passed out, Lilli and I had a panic attack and she got you to stop bleeding. That girl knows what she's doing, Basch. She's probably better than some of those nurses they've got on the front."
"Lilli bandaged me up?" Basch asked. She wouldn't have pulled the bandages so tight.
Francis shook his head. "It was temporary. So when we went through Germany –"
"Illegally. You crossed the border illegally."
"Will you shut up and let me tell you the story?" Francis growled, Basch instantly stopping. "I lost the Gestapo man and got back to Austria before the Germans even knew we were there. I got back over the border legally, although the guard wasn't very fond of you being passed out. And once we got that matter sorted out, I got us to Salzburg in one piece," he said. "Then we got you stitched up and now we're here."
"Where exactly is here?" Basch said. "It doesn't look like an inn. And where's Lilli?"
Francis bit his lip, choosing his words carefully. "She's downstairs. And I don't know if you're ready to find out where we are."
"As long as we're not in a Gestapo holding cell, I think I can handle it."
"You have to promise not to shout at me, because it isn't a place you probably want to be."
"Will you save the dramatics and tell me already?" Basch growled – what could be so bad about the place? It looked nice enough, nicer than some places Basch was used to hiding in. Why was Francis so concerned about how Basch was going to react to it?
Francis got up, taking a few steps back from Basch. "So…do you know anyone from Salzburg? Someone kind of important?"
"Uh, no?" Basch said, hoping he wasn't supposed to know an important someone. "What are you trying to say?"
"Do you know any divorced ex-Jews from Salzburg?"
"You're joking."
Francis gave him an uncomfortable grin. "We might be staying with Roderich's father and he might be the one who patched you up and Lilli might be downstairs with him as we speak."
"Stop bullshitting me, Francis. You really expect me to believe you'd leave Lilli with Roderich's asshole of a father?"
"Have I ever been a responsible parent?"
Basch thought about that for a second. "…You bastard," he growled, pushing the sheets aside. "How could you leave Lilli with a madman?!"
"He doesn't seem quite as insane as Roderich's described him being," Francis said in a sad attempt at saving himself.
"And Hitler looks like a nice man!" Basch got up, grabbing his shirt from where Francis had left it neatly folded on the bed. Without waiting for his cousin, Basch stormed out of the room and down the hall. Francis shouted something after him but didn't bother to chase him, probably too tired to get up.
Basch went down a staircase, stepping into the main room. He could hear a radio playing somewhere, a smooth voice talking underneath the harsh German reporter's. And then Lilli chimed in, sounding almost happy. Surely that was some sort of mistake – from the way Roderich spoke of his father, Basch thought the man was the pure essence of evil.
He followed Lilli's voice, coming to a partially open door. From inside he could hear Lilli talking with the man, mentioning Basch's name a few times. Basch pushed open the door enough that he could see in, startled to find Lilli standing at a counter with a blonde woman, the two peeling potatoes together. The two of them almost looked related, both having long blonde hair with braids.
Lilli glanced up.
"Basch?"
Suddenly, Basch found himself with a fourteen-year-old girl wrapped around his waist, rambling on about things Basch couldn't understand. The blonde woman looked over at Basch, and he realized that she was very much not a she.
"I see you're awake," the man said, putting down his knife. "You shouldn't be walking quite yet. I have tried to do stitches for years and they may not hold."
"You wouldn't happen to be Herr Edelstein, would you?" Basch asked.
The man smiled. "Yes, I am Herr Edelstein. I assume my son's already told you what a monster I am."
"You don't even look like him," Basch said. "You look more like my father than you do his."
"Roderich is a freak of nature. He doesn't look like me or his mother. And he may have changed even more, I haven't seen him in ten years. Is he still wearing those fake glasses?"
"They're fake?" This time it was Lilli that spoke, turning back to the man.
"He thinks they make him look smarter or more aristocratic. He's got perfectly fine eyesight," Herr Edelstein said. "And I'd prefer if you'd wear a shirt in my house, Basch."
"Oh, ja, sorry." Basch pulled the bloodstained t-shirt over his head, going over to the kitchen table and sitting down. Lilli followed close behind, claiming the chair next to him.
"Did Francis tell you that a fourth of the Reichstag was destroyed last night?" Herr Edelstein asked. "They've lost a good ten million marks of paperwork alone."
"I'm surprised the two went through with it," Basch said. "I was expecting Natalya to make some sort of attempt on Goebbels' life and ruin the whole mission."
"I'm surprised my son's doing something worthwhile with his life. All I'd heard about him was that he was writing music for Hitler and he got divorced. Which wasn't much of a surprise."
"Do you know that he's an alcoholic?"
"Again, not a surprise," Herr Edelstein said. "That boy is constantly having some sort of crisis. It's only a matter of time until I get caught in another one. He's managed to keep me out of them for ten years. He'll be back at some point. I'll fight the fight he wants to have, win the war, and send him back to Vienna where he belongs."
"And do you know that he's been visiting a prison camp to talk with his ex-wife and Ivan?" Francis said, coming into the kitchen. He sat down at the table beside Basch, putting his head down and closing his eyes. Basch almost felt a twinge of sympathy.
Herr Edelstein stopped, looking over his shoulder at Francis. "Ivan wouldn't happen to be Ivan Braginsky, would he?"
"Oui. He's a big brute with a pink scarf."
"I swear to God," Herr Edelstein muttered, clutching the knife tighter. "I hate that Braginsky man, and Roderich knows it. Ivan is nothing but bad, and I shouldn't have kept him here for five years. He's got something planned, I can promise you that. He might be pretending to be loyal to Roderich. Roderich's too dense to see Ivan has one person in mind. Himself."
"Don't make me."
"Toris," Ivan said in his I'm-the-authority tone. "I don't want this to get worse."
"I know, I know. I'm a bit sensitive about the matter. It wasn't that hard to talk about when I thought I was going to die," Toris said. "So can we please forget about this until later?"
"You're either going to take your shirt off or I'm going to do it for you."
Toris hung his head in defeat, grabbed the end of his army green sweater and pulled it over his head. Immediately his face grew hot, his gaze going down to the floor to avoid Ivan's. Thankfully, Ivan didn't say anything as he pulled the dirty bandages from Toris' chest. He could see the scars; he knew why they were there as well as Toris did. So why didn't he say anything?
"You seem better today," Ivan said as he wiped a rag over Toris' stitches. The same hand that had caused those scars was trying to fix them. Toris almost smiled at the irony of it. "Are you feeling better?"
"I think so. I might want to try make it to roll call today, if that's alright with you."
"I don't mind." Ivan ran his finger down an older scar, Toris desperately trying not to wince or scream. "Your scars are looking better, too."
"Oh," was the only thing Toris could say. He wanted to say so many more things and couldn't.
"I remember this one," Ivan said, his words darker than before. "December 30th. My birthday."
"Can we please talk about something else?" Toris choked, wishing he didn't sound so desperate. He wanted to be stronger than he was, strong enough to stand up to Ivan's wrongs and bring out his rights.
"You don't deserve these, malyutka."
"Sir, I don't want to talk –"
"We need to talk about this," Ivan insisted, taking a roll of bandages from a shelf by his bed. "We can't keep ignoring our past. Acting like it didn't happen will make it happen again. We tried to forget about it the first time, and look what's happened."
"Why do you say we?" Toris asked before he could stop himself.
The room went quiet.
"You think this is all my fault?" Ivan said in a not-quite whisper. "I caused everything?"
"No, sir, it's just that you forgot about it and I didn't. I forgive. I never forget."
"Are you blaming me?"
Toris took a deep breath, clenching his hands into fists. "Yes. I am blaming you. The reason we have to talk about things like this is because you get yourself drunk and don't remember what you've done."
"You don't think you're a part of the problem?" Ivan asked. He was wiping at Toris' stitches rougher now, going right back to violence. Violence was always the answer.
"The better question is you don't think you're a part of the problem?"
Ivan dug his fingers into Toris' shoulder. "I am your saviour. And sometimes I can get rough, but it's never been intentional. I do not see myself as part of this problem. You're the one who brings this on yourself," he continued. "You're the one who makes me angry and defies me and crushes whatever I have left inside of me."
"I do no such thing," Toris snapped. "You hurt me for no damn reason!"
"You push me to my breaking point every day!" Ivan shot back, his hand moving from Toris' shoulder to his throat.
"You make me into nothing! You take everything from me and throw it away! You were the one who sent Raivis out of here!"
"To try and save his worthless life!"
"Worthless?!" Toris pulled Ivan's hand off of his neck, backing away from the man. Ivan gave him a childish grin, getting up from the bed. He traded the bandages for the wolf carving, making sure Toris saw it.
"He is a boy. A useless, clumsy boy. Like you once were," Ivan said, running his thumb over the delicate wolf. "And may I remind you that the only reason you're still alive is because I almost gave up everything for you?"
"You sent me to hell, Ivan. The right thing would've been to let me die. Then you had to go play hero, and look at me now! They've ripped me apart and taken everything while you sat here crying about how you're so miserable." Toris pulled his sweater back on, hiding the scars and stitches. "You didn't care what was happening to me or Raivis or Eduard. You're just so damn selfish that you can't look past your own worries!"
"Who is the one that cleaned you up? Who is the one that invited you into their office so you would be separated from the sickness? Who is the one who fed you and stayed up with you and listened?" Ivan paused for a moment, putting the wolf figure back on his desk. "Would that be me?"
"You're setting me up for something," Toris snapped. "You're always setting me up for something. It started the first day you met me."
"I saved your life and this is how you treat me?" Ivan laughed to himself, pulling a knife and a lighter from his pocket.
Toris suddenly felt a little less rebellious.
"I suppose you think you're doing the right thing," Ivan carried on. He stabbed the knife into the wolf figure, holding the lighter up to one of its legs. Toris watched a gentle flame crawl up the wolf, enveloping it in oranges and yellows. "And you are assuming I will get scared and bow down to you. I have news for you, Toris. I am not afraid of you."
The whole wolf was on fire, burning up into smoke.
"I am so much stronger than you'll ever be," Ivan said with a smile, grinding the burning figure into an ashtray on his desk. "Before you can get to me, I will crush you. So I'd rethink your revolution. Because I am the one thing between you and Mauthausen."
The three knocks for roll call broke the tension of the office, and Ivan left without another word to Toris.
"Oh, my God," Toris said to himself as he got to his feet. He hadn't ever dreamed of standing up to Ivan, and now, there was seasoned criminal up against him. It was stupid, oh-so painfully stupid.
And he'd loved it.
Toris felt like he had power again, something he could rarely call his own. He'd stood up to the most powerful man in the stalag, and clearly won. Ivan never left a fight unless the other person was crying and pleading for mercy. When he walked out, Toris knew that he'd won. Ivan couldn't drag up anything to use against an innocent man.
His head held high, Toris went out to roll call for the first time in days and took his place. Ivan wouldn't look at him. A few whispers rose up, summaries of the fight and bets being placed on when Toris would be dead.
"Report!" Gilbert shouted, coming over to their group. Strange, he hadn't been coming into the Soviet compound since the quarantine.
"Herr Commandant?" the guard in charge said, obviously unprepared to see Gilbert. The Prussian rolled his eyes, daring to glance over at Toris. He gave the man a subtle nod of respect, blatantly ignoring Ivan.
"I want a report," Gilbert said. "And you are expected to answer."
"Oh, right! All present and accounted for."
"Danke," Gilbert said. "Laurinaitis, Braginsky, come with me. I have some matters to go over with you."
Ivan went over to the man, refusing to acknowledge Toris' existence. Toris, knowing he was dead, followed close behind, staying near the commandant. If worst came to worst, he figured he could get at least some help from Gilbert.
"Are you two alright?" Gilbert asked as he led them out of the compound, the gates closing behind them. "You're not very talkative today."
"We're just fine, sir," Ivan answered sharply, making Toris feel shorter than he was.
"That's not a 'just fine' Ivan voice," Gilbert teased, oblivious to their situation. "You should've threatened to kill me or something."
"I've wasted my murder threats already." Ivan's indigo eyes went to Toris for an instant. "When I think of some more, I'll tell you."
"That's the spirit." Gilbert stepped up onto the porch of the office and immediately stopped, looking out at the gate. A black Gestapo car was right outside, one of the guards speaking with the driver. A white dog's head poked out of the back window, barking at the guard.
The car was let in – despite quarantine rules – and came to a stop in front of the office. The dog in the back started barking again when he saw Gilbert, itching to be let out. A door was thrown open and a kriminalinspektor stepped out. Toris knew he'd seen him in the camp before, he'd come in over the summer to talk with Gilbert. Was he from Graz?
"Guten Tag, Ivan. It's a pleasure to see you again," the man said with a smile. "I see you've got your friend with you."
"Drop dead," Ivan growled through clenched teeth. The man must've been from Graz – they were so familiar with Ivan there that he had no problem making threats to them.
"Uh, what do you think you're doing?" Gilbert said, stepping down from the porch. The Gestapo man was noticeably taller than the colonel, and the two bore a striking resemblance to each other. "I'm trying to work here."
"We're on a road trip!" a new voice shouted, another Gestapo man getting out of the car. "Hello, I'm Hochstetter, pleased to meet you. We're heading out to Salzburg to arrest a von Wolffe."
"To arrest who?" Ivan said. Hochstetter looked over at Ivan, his smile somehow getting bigger.
"Hey, haven't seen you in a while," Hochstetter said. "And look who you've got with you. I'm not going to say I was right, but I was right. And it's a von Wolffe. We've got inside information, from a special Russian source."
Ivan's face went pale.
"What he's trying to say is that we're going to arrest Roderich von Wolffe's father and figured you'd want to come along," the still unnamed Gestapo man explained. "Please save me from this. I've been in a car with him for three hours."
"Ludwig, I've got better things to spend my Christmas doing," Gilbert said. So the Gestapo man was his brother? Toris had imagined him looking more like Gilbert, not like a perfect Nazi man.
"What could you possibly be doing that's so much more important than saving your little brother?"
"Elizabeta."
It took Ludwig a moment to register what Gilbert said, his face going red. Hochstetter smiled again – did he ever stop?
"I already like you," he said. "Get in the car, we'll have you back in time for Christmas."
History notes:
Magnesium pencils: I have no clue if these things are real or not. I saw them on Hogan's Heroes once, which isn't a very trustworthy show. Basically, you pushed the two ends together and they set off a mini-explosion, which caught stuff on fire. I've also heard that if you have a magnesium pencil sharpener, you can catch those on fire and they burn brighter than flares. Pretty cool stuff.
The Reichstag: Nazi Germany's government building. It started out as a regular congress until the Nazis slowly started taking over and removed or even killed all of the communists and socialists. It only met 20 times over the course of 1933 to 1945, but created the laws that set the stage for WWII. The biggest of these were the Nuremberg Laws, which decided what races were "honourable" and who could be Reich citizens. They also held a referendum for the Austrian Anschluss, in which 99.7% voted in favour of the annexation.
And, yes, the Reichstag was set on fire once in 1933 by a Dutch communist named Marinus van der Lubbe. He was arrested and tried along with three Bulgarians. Van der Lubbe was executed and Nazi Germany had it out for the communists.
In case any of you were wondering, Roderich's father is supposed to be Germania. I know he's technically Ludwig and Gilbert's, but I didn't have it in me to write up a whole new character. I do hope you understand.
Thank you's go out to Lunar Loon, GWildt, EllaAwkward, Comix and Co, and Swing-Stole-My-Heart for saving my ass so many times! You guys are the best a writer could ask for!
See you all next chapter!