"Ivan, we talked about this. Make eye contact."
The man did not move, clenching his fists tighter around his scarf.
"Ivan," Gilbert repeated. "Look at me and tell me I can trust you out here while I go over some things with my brother."
"Sir, if you wouldn't mind, I'd like to go back to my barrack," Toris said, his voice almost inaudible. Gilbert glanced over at the man, surprised to find him trembling. Moments ago, he'd been perfectly fine.
"It'll take me a few minutes," Gilbert said. "And then I need to talk to you two about some legal things. Can you wait out here alone for a bit?"
A smile spread across Ivan's face, and he looked up. It wasn't one of his normal Ivan smiles, but a "everything is not fine" smile. "Go talk," he said. "We'll be fine out here. Besides, I have some things to talk out with Toris." Ivan turned to the shaking man. "If that is alright with him."
Toris opened his mouth to speak and quickly stopped. He nodded instead, clenching his shaking hands.
"See? We will be fine."
Gilbert, against his better judgement, trusted that fake smile. "I don't want any blood or broken bones." He tried to laugh; it came out nervous and scared. Ivan was acting borderline insane again, and Gilbert wondered if he should be filing for a transfer to a stalag or a mental hospital.
"I can't promise anything," Ivan said smoothly, putting his hand over Toris'. Toris gasped like Ivan's touch burned him, immediately pulling his hand away.
"You're worrying me, Braginsky." Gilbert turned on his heels, going over to his office door. "And I don't like to be worried."
"There is absolutely no reason to worry."
Toris' expression said otherwise.
Gilbert swallowed whatever doubts he had, stepping into the office. Ludwig didn't look up from the file cabinet, pulling another file from the drawer and placing it in a pile on the table beside him. That other Gestapo man flashed Gilbert a grin. There was something unsettling about him, something Gilbert couldn't put his finger on. He was a kriminalkomissionar, so shouldn't he be serious, possibly even more than Ludwig was? Gilbert always thought people got meaner the higher up in rank they were. And it wasn't right for a man to be so upbeat in the middle of a war.
"What are you two doing?" Gilbert asked slowly.
"I alphabetized every single one of these files when I was here in July and somehow, the S's are back with the F's," Ludwig answered. "Oh, and Hochstetter sort of does what he wants. He's got the mind of a perverted five-year-old."
"That's not completely true," Hochstetter said. He didn't seem to be denying the accusation or agreeing with it.
"This is my office, alright? I wouldn't go through your things, so don't go through mine," Gilbert said, going over to the file cabinet. He grabbed the stack of files, shoving them back in the drawer and slamming it closed. "Luddy, stop being such a neat freak. It's fine if things are out of order."
"No, it's really –" Ludwig started, going to pull the drawer open.
"Yes, it is," Gilbert interrupted before Ludwig could go on one of his obsessive-compulsive rants. "Now, about this arrest file. I want details."
Ludwig went over to the desk, grabbing his briefcase. He unlocked it, pulling a file from the inside. Taking the cream coloured folder from his brother's hands, Gilbert opened it to the first page. Gestapo Headquarters – Vienna was printed on the top in bold letters, an eagle holding a swastika stamped beneath them. The letters making up the name were perfectly straight, little soldiers marching across a field. The name.
There it was, typed neatly onto an arrest file: Von Wolffe, Gerhard E.
The room went still, Gilbert's heartbeat hammering in his one working ear. He was holding the arrest record for Roderich von Wolffe's father. The papers he'd dreamed of since he started seeing Elizabeta. After the file was accepted into the system, Elizabeta would have no one to go back to. Roderich would fall apart after his father was arrested, make a lethal mistake or disappear to Switzerland. There would only be one man in Elizabeta's life –
"Your eyes are red?" Hochstetter broke the silence and the dramatic mood of the office, his eyebrows knitted together. "I've never seen red eyes. Not that they're bad or anything. I think they're neat."
"My brother's a genetic failure," Ludwig replied for Gilbert. "It's called albinism. The red colour is because he doesn't have enough pigment in his irises."
"Can anyone get that?"
"Are you a complete idiot? No, you're born with it. He was born a failure."
"Will you stop referring to me as a failure?" Gilbert snapped, looking over at Ludwig. The kriminalinspektor was organizing Gilbert's desk, empty the drawers onto the mahogany surface. Gilbert watched as his collection of confiscated items was spilled out, pocketknives and lock picks mingling with the desk's usual piles of paper.
"You let your prisoners have knives?" Ludwig asked, holding up one of Sadik's first knives. "What's next, you'll give them wire cutters and German passports?"
"No. That's from our resident Turk, and I don't let him have them. He's a kleptomaniac, and all those things are from Wolfsburg. Usually he reassembles the knives and then sells them to the same people he stole them from," Gilbert said.
"You seem to be alright with him selling them."
"I'm getting 75 percent of the profits."
Ludwig put the knife down like it was toxic. "I'm going to pretend I didn't hear that. Can we go back to the arrest file?"
"Right, right. Who wrote this?" Gilbert asked. "It's genius."
"Ludwig," Hochstetter answered, jerking his thumb towards the blond.
"You did this?" Gilbert glanced over at Ludwig. Ludwig gave him a weak "ja" and went back to sorting out the various pins and badges Gilbert amassed over the past two years.
"It's pretty impressive for a kid like him, isn't it?" Hochstetter added. "I didn't think he had it in him."
"You call him 'kid'?" Gilbert asked.
"Unfortunately," Ludwig said before Hochstetter could reply, examining one of the pins Alfred gave Gilbert. He snorted in disgust at the metal bald eagle, pushing it aside. "Hochstetter thinks he's as old as you are."
"Exactly how old are you, Hochstetter?" Gilbert asked, watching Ludwig shove British flag pin from Aruthur almost off the edge of the desk. Ludwig thought he was making Hitler proud, being so discriminatory, when really he looked like a fussy kindergartener.
"I'm twenty-one, almost twenty-two," Hochstetter replied, bringing Gilbert out of his thoughts.
"You're twenty-one?" the Prussian said – he'd expected Hochstetter to be somewhere near his age. "Are you sure?"
"Uh, ja? Am I not supposed to be?" Hochstetter said. "I was born in 1920. And it is 1941, right?"
"No, no, I just figured you were older than that," Gilbert said quickly, trying to hide his surprise. "I'm twenty-eight, and I thought you were around the same age. I mean, you sound like I do and certainly act a lot older than Ludwig."
"You look like you're eighty," Ludwig muttered, a hint of a smile tugging at the corners of his lips.
"I'd rather be an original than another cut-and-paste German soldier."
"You're a genetic failure."
"And a handsome failure at that," Gilbert said. "You wish you looked this good."
"Good?" Ludwig shook his head in disbelief. "Something must've gone wrong with the genetics in your brain, too."
"I can't fight you on that one." Gilbert turned to another page in the file, skimming through the list Ludwig typed up. Most of it was assumptions and lies, not the absolute facts that he was used to seeing out of his brother. It felt wrong – was the Gestapo so low that even Ludwig would be forced into lying?
"When did you get so devious, Luddy?" Gilbert closed the folder with "Von Wolffe" stamped on the front, handing it back to his brother. Ludwig tucked the folder into his briefcase, going right back to organizing. "I thought you were the good one in the family. But you're coming up with those lies about a stranger and calling me a genetic failure."
Ludwig put the last of the pins into the drawer, pushing it closed. "I'm not devious. I may have twisted the truth more than I should've. That doesn't make me a bad person. And please, don't call me Luddy," he added, going back to his usual taciturn manner.
"Who pissed you off?" Gilbert asked, giving Ludwig a playful shove. Ludwig didn't budge. He nodded towards Hochstetter.
"We're in a love-hate relationship," Hochstetter said after a pause, "sans love. He's already broken my nose once and I don't think he'll be so gentle next time."
"Seriously, Ludwig? Are you getting into fights in Vienna?"
"No. And stop acting like I'm seven again," Ludwig said in a stern voice, one Gilbert hadn't heard him use in a long time. Wasn't he joking and smiling a minute ago? "I am an adult, as are you. I treat you with respect, you treat me with that same respect."
"You're the one who came into my camp uninvited," Gilbert reminded him.
"I did it in a respectful way."
"The guard told me you pulled your gun on him and demanded that you be let in."
"He did it respectfully," Hochstetter said. "And why wouldn't the asshole let us in? Ludwig seemed to know the guy."
"Stalag XVIII-A happens to be under quarantine at the moment. There's a problem with typhus. Legally, you shouldn't be in here," Gilbert said, lowering his voice as if there was someone to hear him.
"We're breaking the law?"
"Yes. No one is supposed to come in or out of this camp without my written permission."
Hochstetter nodded, pretending to understand the severity of the situation. "You can still come to Salzburg with us, right?"
"About that," Gilbert said, folding his hands like he'd seen the generals do when they were about to tell someone they were being sent to Russia. "You see, quarantine means that everyone who's in this camp for longer than 24 hours must be examined before they can leave. Leaving would require me calling in the Wolfsburg doctor, getting examined, writing myself a pass, getting the pass approved by the man in charge of the stalags, and putting someone else in charge of the camp."
"So you're trying to say that you're willing to do all of that to come with us?" Ludwig asked.
Gilbert flashed him a weary smile. "You haven't grown up, Ludwig," he said. "You act like you did when you were four."
"Don't get so nostalgic, you old man," Ludwig said. Gilbert caught the shift in his voice, the little part of him that wanted to be sentimental with his brother. He missed that part.
"You were a cute kid, you know that? Look at you now, all grown up in your fancy Gestapo uniform. You've changed."
Gilbert knew he was lying. Ludwig hadn't changed since then. He had the same stern manner, the same blond hair and blue eyes, and the same Nazi glorified dreams.
Gilbert was the one that changed.
He didn't carry himself the same way anymore. He walked with a bit of a limp and was deaf in his left ear. His eyesight was starting to fail, things going blurry that shouldn't be. That devil-may-care attitude from years ago was trying to hold on, some fragment of him trying to be careless. It urged him forward, pushing him towards Salzburg.
"I can't leave," Gilbert said quietly at first, not sure of his words. "I've…I've got things to do."
Ludwig's smile fell. "Gilbert?"
It wasn't Ludwig scolding his brother. It wasn't a groan or a plead. It was a question.
"I've got a wife now, Luddy. I can't leave her, not on Christmas."
"I understand," Ludwig said.
"No, you don't understand. I want to come with you, I really do," Gilbert said, his voice cracking. "I have responsibilities and I can't get out of here so easily. I wish I could come with you and –"
A loud thump interrupted him, followed by shouting.
"Hey, Gilbert?" The door to the front room cracked open, Elizabeta stepping into the office. "I just walked in, and Ivan has Toris pinned to the ground. You might want to come out here."
"…What?"
Gilbert was in the front room in an instant. And like Elizabeta said, Ivan was on top of Toris, holding him down and screaming things in a language that wasn't quite Russian. Tears rolled down Toris' face, the man helpless against Ivan. Gilbert – being the professional he was – stood in the doorway gawking at the two, trying to make sense of the scene.
"Are you going to stop them?" Elizabeta asked in a hushed voice. "I don't want to be cleaning blood out of the floor again."
"Talk about sexual tension," Gilbert heard Hochstetter mutter from somewhere behind him, Ludwig almost laughing.
"How did this start?" Gilbert said, ignoring whatever his brother and Hochstetter were going on about. Elizabeta shrugged – some help she was.
Gilbert sighed, pushing a hand through his white hair. "Elizabeta, I want you to find a psychiatrist that's willing to work with Russians," he said, going over to Ivan. Said Russian didn't stop or back away; he kept shouting.
Gilbert, knowing words were worthless in this situation, grabbed Ivan's shoulders. He pulled the man off of Toris without much of a struggle, easing him back. Ivan didn't say anything, hiding his face with his hands. Toris got up, backing away to the far corner of the room. He kept stuttering a word over and over, wiping away his tears with the back of his hand.
"Are you better now?" Gilbert asked like a mother would, putting one hand on his pistol. He wasn't used to running an insane asylum, and the sole way he had a chance of fighting off Ivan was with a gun.
Ivan nodded.
"Do you want to explain what happened?"
"No," Ivan whispered. "No, I don't."
"Alright. You're going to solitary until I come back. Toris," Gilbert said, looking over at the trembling man. "You're going to stay in my quarters tonight. Elizabeta, you're in charge until whenever I return. And Ludwig, I think I need a break from work."
Eduard ran for the first time since he'd been captured.
He remembered the day he became a prisoner of the Reich better than any other day in his life. Another bland, freezing November day on the outskirts of Krakow. Freezing rain poured down on the group of men huddled in the forest, protecting an ever shifting border. Eduard was trying to convince a new recruit that "arschloch" was German for friend and he should use it if he ever found himself face to face with one.
Eduard had seen plenty of things in his short life. He'd watched people die from just about everything, as his father was a doctor and Eduard was often dragged along to house calls. Because he knew basic first aid and didn't pass out at the sight of blood, they slapped a red cross on his helmet and told him to be a medic. In his military medic stint, he'd treated everything from a gash no bigger than a papercut to a man who'd got his leg blown off by a grenade. Nothing could surprise him.
When Eduard saw the panzer brigade nearing the first row of dragon's teeth, he'd smiled and slapped the private on the back. He said a few words about learning German fast and got ready to drag mortally wounded men away.
Hours later, he found himself comforting a man he didn't know, trying to lull him into death. Rarely was Eduard a medic during a battle – he was an undertaker. The man, barely conscious, whispered a few words and pointed to something behind Eduard.
Eduard turned to find a German soldier with a bloodied rifle.
That same rush of adrenaline he'd felt when the German was chasing him through the forest was with him now. Only, this time, there wasn't a gun aimed at his back. The full weight of a soldier wasn't going to slam into him and knock him to the ground and give him a concussion and a few broken ribs. Nothing was chasing him.
He was running towards a miracle.
The house rose out of the snow like a tombstone, grey and incredibly sad looking. It was the first sign of humanity Eduard found since he started out on his journey. And while it wasn't welcoming in the slightest, it was more than enough for Eduard. It had walls and a roof, a luxury he didn't have for the past three days. Windows were merely an added bonus.
Best of all, the house wasn't abandoned. There were clothes and sheets hanging on the clothesline in the yard, a beat up farm truck was hidden in a snow covered shed, and there were footprints leading up to the front steps. Someone had to live there.
Eduard came to a stop at the rickety fence that surrounded the yard, leaning against a pole. His breath formed wispy clouds in the winter air, the numbness returning to his face and fingers. He'd been so excited to see a house that he'd forgot how cold he was. December wasn't as merciful here as it was in Stalag XVIII-A.
Eduard glanced up at the grey house, a stupid grin spreading across his face. He'd never thought salvation would come in the form of a dingy home in the middle of a field.
Something moved in the window. A shadowy figure slipped out of view, the curtains fluttering back into place.
Someone was home.
Eduard shoved any doubt he had aside, pushing open the front gate. Without a care in the world, he walked right up to the door.
"Hello?" he called out. "I need help."
He was met with not-quite-silence; a floorboard groaned. There were footsteps, delicate and soft. A whisper or two. And a soft squeak, like that of rusty hinges.
A thought occurred to Eduard, one he hadn't come up with before he went up to the door like an idiot. What if the people were scared of him? He was a blond haired, blue eyed soldier in uniform – the wrong uniform, but a uniform nonetheless. He spoke perfect German and ran to the house. Anyone would think he was coming for their family, money, and possessions.
"I'm not a German, if that's what you're thinking," Eduard said, trying to fix his mistakes. "I know I speak German. I can speak Russian, too, if you're comfortable talking to me that way." Eduard bit his tongue – Russia wasn't exactly a friendly country in this war, either. If anything, he'd made the person inside grab a gun.
"Can I please talk to you? I know you're in there, I heard you earlier," Eduard continued, putting a hand up to the door. "I just want to –"
He pushed a little too hard on the door, and it swung open. A man with bright blond hair was standing in the middle of the room, clutching an overfilled bag.
"I'm so sorry, I didn't know your door was unlocked," Eduard said, taking a few steps inside. The man with the bag started trembling, reminding Eduard of Toris. The two even had the same green eyes, full of fear and worry.
"I didn't do anything," the man said in rough Russian, backing away towards an open window. "I am innocent. I would never kill."
"What was that about killing?"
The man swung his leg out of the window, holding the bag tighter to his chest. He jumped down, landing in the snowdrifts with a crunch. Eduard barely got to the window in time to see the man disappear into the field, sprinting for a nearby cluster of trees.
And only then did Eduard realize he'd caught a thief in the act.
There was no use shouting after him – the man was long gone. And pursuit was a terrible idea, especially after running from the train tracks to the house. Instead, he shut the door behind him and closed the window. Eduard would wait for the family to come home, and then he'd explain everything and hopefully get pointed towards the nearest town.
Or arrested. Whatever one worked.
"Oh, God," Eduard muttered, looking around the front room. Everything was emptied onto the floor, papers covering the boards and broken glass mixed in like confetti. The thief wasn't going for a clean getaway.
He moved to the next room, the kitchen. Again, all the cabinets were thrown open and things were smashed on the floor. Preserved fruit was scattered with the remains of its jars, the syrup staining the wood and making the room smell sickly sweet. Eduard quickly went to the next room, his stomach churning.
The last room in the tiny house was a bedroom. The sick smell from the kitchen had carried over into the room, and it was somehow thicker. There was a dresser against the wall with its drawers ripped from it and clothes scattered about the floor. A large bed was pushed up against the wall, the sheets in a pile. Eduard wasn't sure if the blankets were patterned with red dots or if that was blood – he prayed it was the former.
And in the far corner, there was another bed. A smaller one, piled with warm blankets. Drawings were tacked up on the walls by the bed, a child's crayon drawings. Eduard could make out a horse, a car, a plane, and a family. It almost made him smile; he remembered what it was like to be young and innocent. He wanted to go back to that.
As he looked back down at the bed, he noticed something sticking out from under the blankets. It appeared to be a tiny black rake, the spines curled slightly up. A stripe of ivory white ran down the side of one of the spines.
What the thief said earlier abruptly made sense. It was not a rake.
It was a hand.
Eduard stumbled backwards, unable to look away from the small hand. Underneath the blankets, there was a body. A child's body. Someone killed a child and hid the body under too many blankets and thought no one would ever find it. Someone's son or daughter was dead.
For the second time since being captured, Eduard ran.
He made it outside before sinking to his knees, his tired body trying to force something up. There was nothing left in him except the thought of the shriveled up hand. His stomach heaved again and tears stung at his eyes. It felt like he stayed there for hours, nothing but bile, flecks of blood, and the fear that he'd built up over the years coming up.
"Is it, like, your first time seeing a dead body?"
The voice caught Eduard off guard; already he was at his weakest. A hand came to rest on his shoulder and Eduard waited for the bullet. At least it would take him away from whatever hell he'd wandered into.
"It's alright," the voice said, "I understand how these things can be upsetting. I tried to hide the body, and I didn't think you'd go looking for it. You Germans don't, like, come back for a Jewish kid's remains."
"I'm...I'm not a German," Eduard whispered, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.
"That's what everybody says, silly. I'm not a complete idiot."
"No, I'm not a German. I come from Estonia."
The voice laughed. "Estonia? I haven't heard that name in years. I'm a Pole, one of those other forgotten countries. And you can look at me."
Eduard shook his head.
"What, you think I'll, like, turn you to stone or something?"
"Just kill me," Eduard said. "I don't want any dramatics. You've got a gun, so do it already."
"I don't have a gun, stupid. I've got a letter opener though. It won't do much damage."
"Then get it over with!"
"I've got no intentions of killing you. And that's pretty cheap, to kill a man when he's down. I'd rather wait until they can put up a fair fight," the voice said. Two worn boots appeared in front of Eduard, and the man kneeled down beside him. Upon closer inspection, the thief couldn't be older than eighteen. He held out his hand and flashed Eduard a smile.
"Name's Feliks. I'm not usually a thief, and definitely not on Christmas."
Eduard took the man's hand. "I'm Eduard von Bock."
"Pleasure to meet you, Eduard von Bock," Feliks said. "What're you doing out here in rural Yugoslavia on Christmas morning? Besides throwing up, I mean."
"I'm in Yugoslavia?" Eduard asked. He knew next to nothing about Yugoslavia; it was another name in his history textbook that he didn't bother to study.
"Uh, yeah. Seriously, what're you doing?"
"I was on one of those cattle trains going out to a death camp," Eduard said. "And I escaped. I'm trying to get back to Austria."
Feliks didn't say anything for a long time. "I don't understand. You're an Estonian, which the Germans hate, and you want to go back to Hitlerville?"
"My family is there."
"Oh, I got you." Feliks smiled again. "Let's go, then. The next train for Vienna leaves at twelve. And that's if there isn't, like, a Jew train coming through." He pulled Eduard to his feet, shoving him towards the shed where the truck was. "Come on, we can borrow their truck. They won't be needing it anytime soon."
"What?" Eduard said, completely confused as to what this stranger was doing.
"Sorry, that was a bad joke. I'm really awful with my humour. My thing's kind of bad puns, which my friends hate. Anyway, I've got some clothes I took from the house, we can get you looking nice and presentable." Feliks grabbed his wrist, dragging him through the yard.
Eduard went with it. He hardly knew Feliks, and he went along with him like they'd known each other forever. He was almost positive the bubbly blond was making plans to kill him or take him straight to the Gestapo for some easy cash. Not that Eduard cared.
The farther he got away from the memory of the hand, the better.
"Did you hear about the fire in the Reichstag?" Goebbels spoke like the burning of his own government was a trivial matter, no more important than the weather. "They're saying it was arson."
"Arson?" Roderich repeated, forcing back his fear. He couldn't let his voice give him away.
"Yes, arson. What sort of person would be so stupid as to set a fire in the Reichstag? It's like asking for a firing squad or a hanging."
"I have no doubts they'll be found in a week, if not less," Roderich said – and he honestly meant it. Arson was so much worse than killing seven generals, or at least in his mind.
He knew Goebbels was smiling. "Oh, yes. I can't wait to see what Himmler puts together for the criminal. That man gets on my nerves, but God, does he know how to torture a man. It'll be interesting to see how fast they'll give in."
"Very," Roderich said before he could stop himself. He hated agreeing with that man. "I imagine it'll take around a minute or two."
"You want to put money on that?"
"No, sir. I'm already a bad gambler."
"It's your loss, von Wolffe. Anyway, what did you call me for?" Goebbels asked. Roderich knew that wasn't a coincidental thing; Goebbels waited until he'd warmed Roderich up.
Natalya tapped her wrist, reminding Roderich of the time. The train home pulled in a while ago, and there was no guarantee it would wait for them. Roderich nodded, brushing the woman away.
"That recording that I made for you a few days ago. You're planning on using it today, ja?"
"And what's gotten you so concerned? I paid you damn well for it." Goebbels voice took a darker turn. "If you're trying to back out of our contract, I have men who know where you live. And I can track you down easier than you think."
That only made Roderich more nervous about his brush with arson. "No, no, no, it's not that. I was just making sure of things. I get worried about foolish things like that."
"Good. And yes, we are using that recording today, at seven. I doubt you'll be home by then."
"Danke, sir. It's been a pleasure" – more like displeasure – "talking to you, but I have a train to catch."
"Heil Hitler," Goebbels said in his devilishly smooth voice. God, how Roderich detested that voice.
"Heil Hitler."
Roderich hung the phone back on the wall, taking Marlene back from Natalya. He didn't trust the woman with anything valuable for more than two seconds, and his phone call was at least five stressful minutes. Natalya shot him a glare, grabbing her own bag and marching off for the train.
Once the two were hidden in a first class compartment and Natalya had pulled the two microphones from under the seats, Roderich's heart started beating normally. They'd made it out of Berlin alive. Most people who did what they did would've been dead already.
A whistle cut through the stillness of the compartment, and the train lurched forward. Berliners on the platform waved goodbyes and shouted things to their loved ones in the cliché scene Roderich saw every departure. The city came into view, old brick buildings clashing with the new architecture. Roderich caught sight of the Reichstag, a blood red swastika flag flying proudly above it. Ten million marks of paperwork were lost in the fire, ten million. He couldn't even imagine what ten million marks of paperwork must look like.
Roderich figured it better not think about it. He'd hate to jinx things for himself and wind up in a jail cell at the mercy of someone like Ludwig or Hochstetter.
"You could've blown everything for us with that call," Natalya said out of nowhere, glancing over at Roderich. "Thanks, asshole. I could've died today because you can't handle talking to Goebbels."
"For your information, Basch wanted me to call," Roderich shot back.
"Basch isn't exactly the smartest man in Austria."
"He's been doing this for longer than you."
"So?" Natalya said. "That doesn't make him better than me. Unlike your dear Basch, I know how to read people and manipulate them. Basch knows how to blow things up, fix guns, and cry to Francis and Matthias for help. He's pretty good at the last one. I think I saw tears last time."
"You're incredibly obnoxious today," Roderich said, taking his composition book from his briefcase. He thought Natalya would offer at least a sliver of sympathy – she'd gotten oddly nicer since their fight. But all good things must come to an end, and the end was drawing closer and closer.
"Are you seriously going to work on music?" Natalya asked. "I thought we got done with music time."
"You can never be done with music. And it's better than talking to you for ten hours," he snapped, opening the book to his opera.
"You think everything's better than talking to me for ten hours."
"It's true, isn't it?"
Natalya shrugged, her indigo eyes going to the city outside the window. Roderich stared at her for a second – he knew those eyes. He'd seen them before, much brighter and not so angry. They reminded him of someone, someone he couldn't quite remember.
Brushing the thought aside as a case of déjà vu, Roderich went back to his notebook. He'd been too stressed out about being arrested to do any work on the piece the night before, and now that he had time, he couldn't find a melody to follow. Typically, when he opened his composition book, he could pick right up from where he left off. Unless, of course, something was bothering him.
He sat there for a long time, staring at the blank page. How many times had he looked at the book and felt emptier than the page itself? Natalya was right; music took a lot out of him.
Out of ideas, Roderich put his book back in his briefcase. Something would have to come to him at some point, and then he would write it down. For the time being, he'd wait for that mythical something.
"Gave up?" Natalya asked without looking away from the window.
"It's not necessarily 'giving up'," Roderich said. "I don't have anything to put down at the moment. I'll think of something eventually."
"Or you'll never write music again," Natalya added not-so-comfortingly.
"That's always a possibility."
"What would you do if you couldn't write music anymore?"
Roderich hadn't ever thought of that. Music was such a natural thing for him; he took it for granted. It never occurred to him that some people couldn't read music, let alone write it. What would he have done if he was one of those unlucky people? Stayed working with his demon of a father? Joined the army and already be dead? Ran away to Russia to become a criminal with Ivan?
"I…I don't know," he said. "I think I would be either extremely unhappy, in prison, or dead."
"You, in prison?" Natalya almost-smiled. "What's the worst thing you've done? Forgotten the words to the national anthem? Skipped Jew Mass?"
"I shot my cat when I was six."
Natalya actually smiled for a rare instant, looking over at Roderich. "I didn't think you were such a rebel, fraulein. Killing an innocent cat?"
"My brother made a bet that I couldn't load the gun and hit a swing outside our bedroom window. I shot the swing, so then he doubled the bet and said I couldn't hit our cat. I thought my father was going to kill both me and my brother when he found the dead cat," Roderich said, holding his head. "Ivan put the blame on himself. My father took him away, and he came back with a burn on his neck."
"You had a brother named Ivan?" Natalya asked. "I thought you were an only child."
"He wasn't truly my brother, but an orphan my family happened to pick up. He's from Russia," Roderich said. "He's sort of a wanted criminal."
"There were a lot those in my family. Drug traders, mostly. My uncle said he sold something or the other to Nicholas II. My uncle was also a drunk and overdosed on morphine," she said calmly. Did anything other than Heydrich rattle her? Roderich could've told the woman the war was about to end and she wouldn't care.
"I didn't need to know that."
"Now you do. You've got some criminal evidence to use against me, like how I know you're a Jew. I guess we're even."
"I can't prove you were ever a drug dealer," Roderich said. "The Gestapo wouldn't care about proof of my religion. They'd arrest me if I looked at them the wrong way."
"I'm a Russian, dear. They'll take me just as fast as they'll take you. They'll take anyone, including their own damn people. In Germany's eyes, most of us are equal. Some people are more equal than others."
"For a second there, you almost sounded intelligent. I must've fallen asleep."
Natalya snorted. "Keep dreaming, fraulein. We have ten more hours back to Vienna, and it'd be better with you asleep."
"Same to you, mein Herr," Roderich replied.
"Thank you, for acknowledging that I am the man in this relationship. I'm wearing the suit at the wedding. You can pick yourself out a pretty white dress."
"You're up early." Roderich's father didn't bother looking up from the dismantled gun in his lap when Basch entered the room. Not that Basch was expecting more of a welcome than what he got. He'd learned that Herr Edelstein was a man of few words, unless he was giving orders or talking about Roderich.
"I couldn't sleep," Basch mumbled. He'd come downstairs the minute he heard the radio turn on, hoping it was Francis. Of course, Francis was still asleep upstairs. And the radio wasn't even turned to a German station; it sounded like English.
"Something bothering you?"
Basch couldn't answer that. Something implied one nuisance. Somethings were bothering him. They hadn't heard from the family they sent over the border, Francis was strangely quiet and withdrawn, Lilli went into Salzburg alone the day before and refused to tell Basch what she'd done, Basch's stitches had fallen apart once when he mistakenly tried to be helpful and chop wood, and he wanted to go back to Vienna without another incident.
"I got to thinking about too many things at once," Basch said, which wasn't a lie. "And then I couldn't get myself to fall asleep because I was so worried."
"It's always better not to think." Herr Edelstein put a piece back into the pistol, wiping off another one with a dirtied rag.
"My father told me the same thing. Said I think too much about too little, whatever that means." Basch sat down on the couch opposite Roderich's father, running a hand through his hair. He couldn't help but look at the pistol – he truly was a gunsmith at heart, not a saboteur. It was an older model, a prewar gun from a time where guns were still an art. Now everything was one and the same.
"I can see why you're friends with Roderich," he said. "He worries about everything."
"I never said we were friends."
Herr Edelstein looked up. "Then what exactly are you? Lovers?"
"God, no," Basch said, his face growing red at the thought of it. "I work with him, that's it. And even if I was like…like that, Roderich's a hard person to love. You've got to look past a lot of flaws."
"That goes for everyone, doesn't it?"
"Well, ja. I mean, I've got a lot a flaws myself, which is probably why I've never found a girlfriend or anything. And Francis, he's a different story," Basch added, not quite sure why he was telling Roderich's father so much about his life. "Francis is one of those French men you see in the movies. He's on his sixth or seventh divorce. Can't keep a wife for more than three months. He either gets bored with the one he has or the wife finds out that her husband isn't really an accountant."
"Poor man," Herr Edelstein muttered, pushing the last of the pistol together with a click. "Life's hell without a woman."
"If you don't mind me asking, where is Frau Edelstein?"
Herr Edelstein tensed up and Basch knew he'd asked the wrong question.
"She died in 1932. The last time I saw Roderich was at the funeral, and after that, he got out of here. I think he was scared and couldn't handle his mother's death," Herr Edelstein said with a tired smile. "He loved Augusta more than I did. Roderich blamed me for her death. Right after the funeral, he told me he was never going to speak to me again. He hasn't said a word to me since then."
"I'm sorry," Basch said so softly he wasn't sure he'd spoke.
"About what? You asked a question, and I answered. Roderich will be Roderich, no matter what." Herr Edelstein said. "That's how people are. Some of us can't handle it when things go wrong and run away from our problems."
Basch didn't say anything in reply – what was there to say? The room returned back to the gentle quiet, Winston Churchill's drawly voice drowning out Basch's thoughts. He wondered what the Prime Minister was saying on Christmas morning. How many people were listening to his speech, hoping for an end to war? The British people were so foolishly optimistic. While German people didn't have a lot going for them in the war, they were at least realists and didn't think every other win was the end.
"Basch?" Lilli said, poking her head into the room. Her hair wasn't braided yet, falling down around her shoulders in golden waves. "Can I talk to you alone?"
"Is everything alright?" Basch asked as he got up, going over to the girl. She nodded, leading Basch back upstairs to the bedrooms. Lilli pushed open the door to the one she was sleeping in, closing it behind her.
"What's up?" Basch said, his voice shaky with worry. He'd thought up a thousand scenarios that could've happened already, ranging from nightmares to the Gestapo holding Francis hostage.
"Merry Christmas," she said, grabbing a box from the bed and handing it to Basch. "It's not much, but I hope you'll like it."
For a minute, he was too dumbfounded to do anything. Then Basch took the box from her hands, pulling at the ribbon she'd tied around it. He took the lid off, revealing two chocolate bars. Wrapped in shiny blue and yellow paper, the bars were no bigger than Basch's hand, no thanks to war rationing. It was real chocolate, not the black market kind. Basch couldn't even remember the last time he'd had real chocolate.
"Where did you get this?" Basch said, looking back up at the girl. "You can't buy chocolate anymore."
Lilli smiled, green eyes twinkling. "It's a secret."
"You can't tell your brother a secret?"
"Oh, alright," Lilli said in defeat. "Herr Edelstein knows the man who runs the candy store in Salzburg."
"Where'd you get the money for it?" Basch asked.
"I can't tell you that secret."
Basch didn't care where she found the money; not even if she took it from Hitler. He pulled the girl close, holding her in a tight hug. She put her arms around his waist, holding onto him like he was the last thing she had in the world.
In a sad way, he was.
"Thank you so much," Basch whispered, kissing the girl's forehead. "You didn't have to do that."
"I felt bad that you got shot. It was the least I could do for you after what you did for me," Lilli said, twisting a strand of hair around her finger.
"Here, why don't you have one?" Bash said. He took one of the bars from the box, holding it out towards her.
"I couldn't. They're yours."
"Lilli, please. I don't need two."
"Yes, you do. You like chocolate almost as much as Herr von Wolffe likes drinking."
Basch didn't try to resist a grin. "That's not very nice, coming from you."
"It's true, isn't it?" Lilli pushed the chocolate back towards him. "You keep –"
"Basch?! Basch, we have a big problem!"
Basch groaned quietly – Francis was overreacting again. Who knew what emergency he'd come up with? Basch opened the door and made it one step into the hallway before Francis found him, grabbing the man by the shoulders.
"What?" Basch snapped, the words coming out meaner than he intended.
"A Gestapo car pulled up. A Gestapo car," Francis repeated, his wild blue eyes flicking over to Lilli. "We're leaving," he said to the girl. "Hurry up and get dressed."
"Calm down, Francis," Basch said although he was already beginning to panic. "Are you sure it's Gestapo and not a nice old lady?"
"Do nice old ladies drive black Mercedes with swastikas on them and have big German shepherds in the back seat?"
Basch's heart sank. His old lady theory wasn't going to work.
Without an explanation, Francis took Basch into the adjoining bedroom. He went to the window, pulling back the curtains just enough that Basch could see the black Mercedes with swastika flags parked by the road, a huge white German shepherd halfway out of the back window. A blond man in SS uniform got out of the car, scratching the dog behind the ears.
"Jesus, Francis, that's Ludwig," Basch gasped, backing away from the window. He'd recognize that blond anywhere. "We've got to get out of here."
Basch didn't bother to grab anything other than his shoes and the bag full of food. He left the room while Francis was shoving paperwork and Reispasses into a briefcase, counting over and over to ten in French. It was an old trick Francis' mother taught the two of them, one that calmed Francis down. It could never tame Basch. Nevertheless, he found himself counting to ten.
Un, deux, trois –
"Herr Edelstein," Basch said when he got downstairs, grabbing the man's arm. "The Gestapo is out there. We need to leave, right now."
Quatre, cinq, six –
The man held up the pistol he'd been cleaning earlier. "They have nothing against me. From what I've heard, you're quite the criminal up in Vienna."
Sept, huit, neuf –
"I can't leave you here with the Gestapo! I know those men, and they want you and your son dead! Come with us," Basch begged. "Francis will take us up to Vienna, and he can get you a pass to Switzerland. Maybe Roderich will talk to you again."
Dix.
"This is my home," Herr Edelstein said. "I cannot leave it. You get yourself and the other two out of here in one piece. I may be older than I was in the war, but I can hold my own. You're injured, and Francis doesn't look like he could hurt anyone. Go on."
"You have the chance to escape!" Basch snarled. "If you don't come, you are going to be dead!"
"No one gets out of Salzburg, Basch. There's only been one successful escape. I am not Georg von Trapp. I am not some rich navy man. I do not have the money to escape to America and live out the rest of my days with my family. You make death out to be a horrible fate for me. Maybe it'll be for the best."
Basch stood there, wordless.
Then he nodded. He understood.
"Danke, Herr Edelstein," he said. "I won't forget this."
"Say hello to Roderich for me. And tell him I love him and I don't blame him for running away from an angry old man like me," Herr Edelstein said, giving Basch a nudge towards the back door where Francis and Lilli were waiting. They'd seen everything.
Basch held back the hundreds of protests he'd always made, going over to the door. Francis gave him a look before opening the door, stepping out onto the back porch. Basch took Lilli's hand in his own, taking a deep breath.
Un, deux, trois –
The three of them ran towards the side of the house where the car was parked.
Quatre, cinq, six –
Francis pulled the keys from his pocket as he rounded the corner.
Sept, huit, neuf –
A man with devilish red eyes was sitting on the hood of the car, aiming a pistol right at Francis.
Dix.
"Well, hello," the man said in mock friendliness. "I wasn't expecting to see Christian Kleiner and Basch Zwingli at the house of a Jew. Oh, wait." He smiled a wolfish smile. "I was."
History notes:
Genetic failure – Nazi Germany was a little too interested in genetics. They studied genetics and races to try and come up with the formula for "the master race" – blond haired, blue eyed, square jaw, and small nosed soldiers. And while albinism is caused by genetics, it is by no means a terrible failure. Ludwig would only think of it this way because of the way he was taught.
Winston Churchill's Christmas address – This was a real thing Churchill did in 1941, but broadcast on Christmas Eve instead. I moved it around for the sake of the story, so sue me. You should go look it up and read it/listen to it, because it's very moving. He spoke at the White House just weeks after Pearl Harbor, at the lighting of the community Christmas tree. And God, was he a cool man.
Von Trapps – Popularized by The Sound of Music, the von Trapps were real people with a much more exciting story than the movie made it. They did escape, but not to Switzerland carrying instruments and singing. They instead went to Italy, where the von Trapps then immigrated to America and had their last child, Johannes. Johannes is still alive, and runs the von Trapp cabin up in Vermont. Go see it if you get the chance, you won't regret it.
Thank you's go out to ABCSKW123-IX, Lunar Loon, Isaak-Faust, EllaAwkward, and Comix and Co! You guys are cooler than Winston Churchill and the whole von Trapp family combined!
See you all next chapter!