Corridor of Darkness

by Patrick W O'Bryon

  Late afternoon sun raked the crowded guild hall, the rays diffused by dust and haze. Smoke rose to dissipate in the mote-filled light. Silhouetted against the bank of paned windows, fraternity brothers from the two opposing camps gathered in separate groups, sharing jokes and cigarettes. Colored sashes and small-billed caps revealed their Corps affiliation.

  “And how long will it last?”

  “Can’t say. Could be fifty rounds, could be over in one.”

  A commotion at the entry drew Ryan’s attention. Flanked by admirers, Horst von Kredow entered the hall. Placing bets on the university’s most accomplished academic fencer had put many a Reichsmark in his comrades’ pockets, so he had many fans. The tall Nazi projected self-confidence as he shook hands with the well-wishers. Ryan turned back to René. “So, you fight until first blood?”

  “First to flinch, first to weaken, rarely first blood. The medical students call the match if it goes too far, but stamina usually wins out. Earning these handsome scars,” René traced a finger across the marks on his forehead, “can be exhausting.”

  The warm autumn day was giving way to evening, and a heavily-laden farm wagon rumbled past on the roadway, briefly casting a shadow across the tall windows. Local farmers busy with harvest took little notice of the students gathered within the hall. Though the contests were now officially outlawed by the National Socialist government, the local authorities turned a blind eye as long as the dueling fraternities remained discreet, and this tiny village of Marbach just outside Marburg had become their favored site.

  “He certainly seems to be enjoying himself,” Ryan focused once again on René’s opponent.

  “This von Kredow does thrive on adulation—that, and any opportunity to humiliate someone he considers his inferior.” René grinned at his friend and tapped the toe of his blade against the floor. “Which pretty much includes anyone other than von Kredow himself? But perhaps the stamina of a Rhine boatman will surprise him.”

  A sudden murmur moved through the crowd. “Ah, here’s our umpire now, so let the fun begin.” René nodded toward a slender student with a pencil-thin mustache working his way between the two waiting factions. The man carried a wooden chair in one hand and small writing block in the other. The crowd settled down. “He’ll note the rounds, hits and penalties on that pad,” René explained.

  Perspiration beaded on René’s forehead as heat built up beneath the body armor. A fraternity brother seated the leather-rimmed goggles which left René’s forehead and cheeks exposed. Round iron meshwork protected each eye, a metal guard the nose. Once again René flexed his arm. “It’s all in the wrist action, the parrying of the other blade. Watch for the blood, you’ll never see the actual strike.”

  The combatants assumed positions less than a stride apart, sabers in hand. Horst gestured to René’s damp brow and said with a sneer, “Is our big Frenchman here nervous facing a true German?” Before René could answer, Horst cast a contemptuous glance at Ryan and added, “What a pity your Jew-lover isn’t man enough to fight his own battles.” Ryan remained silent but wished he knew how to use the saber in his hand.

  “You know the American’s untrained, von Kredow,” René said. “So even were foreigners permitted to fight, it would be a rather pitiful victory for you, don’t you think? Now, shall the two of us settle this perceived ‘insult’ to your house colors?”

  Horst grinned but said nothing further as he loosened up his saber arm. His second adjusted the goggle strap across the combatant’s ears. The umpire stepped onto the chair to announce the rules of combat and number of blows allowed in each round: six. The fighters’ seconds now donned full-face masks of metal mesh, held their sabers off to the side and crouched low to the left of each combatant.

  The umpire’s call of “Silentium!” stilled the observers.

  “Mensur!” Distance was established, the fighters’ free arms held to their backs.

  “Hoch bitte!” Sabers rose.

  “Fertig!” All set, a second’s pause, then “Los!”

  As if self-willed, each blade broke loose, whipping toward the head of the opponent to meet with force. Sunlight flashed off the finely-honed edges. The blows repeated in blinding succession, each strike coming with the pivot of a wrist, saber clashing against saber, the metallic impact ringing across the hushed room.

  With the sixth strike and the umpire’s call, Horst’s second sprang from his crouch, using his blade to halt the competing sabers. The crowd exhaled as one, the duelers caught their breath and took a moment to resume positions. The umpire made a note on his pad. No blood drawn.

  “Up, please! Ready! Go!”

  The sabers renewed their spirited dance. Nine more rounds came and passed without a meaningful hit. A pause was called to give the combatants a brief rest, both now drenched in sweat and beginning to show the strain of extended combat.

  The change came abruptly. In the tenth round René’s weapon deflected his opponent’s blade and continued its unerring path. Crimson gushed from the severed tip of Horst’s ear, and in that same instant the edge bit cleanly into bone, cutting a deep furrow through the flesh of cheek, grazing teeth and gums. Horst barely flinched, and both sabers finished the round before the extent of injury was known.

  Two medical students leapt forward to halt the blood coursing down Horst’s face, but the damage was too severe for novice medical skills. Unable to stanch the bleeding, the medics compressed his wounds and two fraternity brothers carried the stricken fighter out to a waiting car. The excitement over, the students moved toward the exit, some in jubilant mood, others cursing their lost bets.

  “Well done, René!” Ryan set aside his untested mask and saber and a fellow student untied the American’s protective vest. “I believe you made your point.” He chuckled at his own joke.

  “Our Nazi friend will think of me every time he sees his reflection, but don’t expect any sign of respect from that one.” René wiped clean his bloodied blade and handed it to the American. “Here, keep a souvenir of your first—and hopefully last—Mensur. Now, how about some beer to celebrate? I have a murderous thirst!”

  The boisterous remaining students crossed the darkening street to the Gasthaus zur Post. At their approach, the inn’s proprietor rose slowly from a bench behind the bar, having taken a moment to massage the dull ache in his knee, reminder of youthful enthusiasm for battle in the Kaiser’s army. A well-smoked Meerschaum drooped beneath a graying brush mustache. Tonight he hoped for an unusually large crowd. These honor challenges were rare these days, and foretold a steady flow of beer and schnapps and a full till when the last drunken student headed home.

  The innkeeper stood the celebrants a round for their success. Later his young niece placed fresh mugs of beer before the students and took to the lap of the victorious “Frenchman,” rewarding him for a duel well fought with an enthusiastic kiss and a glimpse of her full breasts. René nestled his face in her cleavage to the applause of his comrades, then raised his stein to toast her personal contribution to their celebration.

  Back at the university clinic, Horst awaited relief as the morphine entered his vein and the physician prepared to suture. His damaged face shuddered in agonizing spasms, and blood gathered relentlessly in his throat. The razor edge of the blade had severed the fifth facial nerve, the trigeminal. Horst had yet to learn the magnitude of his wound, but rage at his own failure burned in him, and an ominous plan for vengeance began to take form.

  Humiliation and public ridicule of the American had seemed a punishment worthy of the insult to Horst’s supremacy, and he had been certain of satisfaction. But somehow the duel had gone awry, and he had allowed himself to be bested by a racial inferior. Horst knew he controlled his own destiny, yet he had permitted others to intervene, and now his face bore a lifetime reminder never again to relax his guard.

  For Horst, retribution was now very personal. He had lain in bed for three long weeks after the duel, waiting for the crust on his inflamed cheek to turn to sc
ar, his newest badge of honor. The severe damage to his facial nerve would warrant a lifetime of caution, where searing pain could be triggered by the gentlest touch. He was learning to get by with ever smaller doses of morphine, but the agony could surface at any time with burning intensity, announced only by a tentative prickling near the wound, and—truth be told—he did enjoy the drug, even without immediate need for it.

  During his recuperation, first in the clinic and later in his room, the wounds slowly knitting, he welcomed Erika’s daily visits to encourage his recovery. But all the while he silently plotted his path of revenge. The meddling Alsatian who foiled Horst’s plan for the duel and tarnished his reputation in the process was to be put in his deserved place. And then Horst would crush the American. This time for good. He would take personal pleasure in that final fatal blow.

  René Gesslinger felt as if he had fallen beneath a streetcar. Weeks after his return to Kehl he regained full consciousness, but he still had no memory of the attack. By now he had been told many times of the vicious beating that had left him near death, and just as he knew that no streetcars plied the Altstadt of Marburg, he was equally sure Horst von Kredow had crippled him.

  He lay propped against pillows in his room overlooking the Rhine, the drapes open to welcome a sunlit fall morning. Traces of morning frost sparkled from the few remaining leaves of the plane tree beyond his window. At his bedside gathered unread newspapers and books, gifts of well-meaning family and friends. His pipe and tobacco were close at hand, but smoking now nauseated him.

  Again and again he demanded to know what happened, but the reawakened memory was ephemeral, momentarily clear, then slipping into a confusing mist of recollections. Repeatedly they told him of the policeman who found him bleeding and unconscious below the university church. He had lain comatose in the hospital for days before finally coming home, and there were serious doubts regarding a recovery. The frustration in the family’s responses finally silenced him.

  The family doctor suggested René would need many months to regain both health and mobility. At first he could barely move, his right side numb, his right hand failing to respond to his commands. Now he could walk short distances around the house with a cane, but his right leg lagged behind, and he did not tackle the staircase. He wondered if he would ever lose the limp, and regretted the loss of his recently-mastered “American” gait. His chest ached with the gnawing pain of broken ribs trying to knit, so getting up from bed proceeded with agonizing slowness. But each day brought progress, and the earlier vertigo had given way to an old man's unsteadiness.

  His mind was inexplicably altered. He waited for the accustomed precision, the ready access to words and concepts he could share with others. His sense of self also seemed off-kilter. Others recognized him as the same person, but he knew he had changed, and deep anger had replaced the measured self-restraint which had been his guide before the assault. But for now, still hampered mentally as well as physically, René knew things would never be quite the same. The more he regained his powers of analysis, the more he reached several convictions.

  He knew he would never write Ph.D. after his name. The studies in economics were not a great loss to him. He doubted his professors would ever condone his liberal ideas in light of contemporary Nazi economic theory, and he rebelled at the Gleichschaltung within the Reich, as public thought and spirit were “coordinated” with the Nazi creed. He rebelled at surrendering creative thought to blind acceptance and rabid enthusiasm. One saw it in a suspicious glance, a hesitation to speak openly, a near autonomic concession to the propaganda, and everywhere the unquestioning submission to the will of the state.

  Gone, too, was the prospect of forging his way through international waters at the helm of a great ocean-going vessel. Instead, he would now apply his talents, such as they might be when he recovered, to the family business of river transport.

  And finally, with a conviction as clear as the sky on that crisp fall day, he knew that he had lost the physical strength to avenge von Kredow’s insult, and would never again fight a duel of honor. He could however use his family's money and influence to counter the escalating brutality preached by Horst's brethren-in-arms. René’s hatred of bullies had survived intact, and he would find a way to take personal revenge on this whole class of cowards, but on his own terms. He would draw together a trusted band of workers and comrades, Rhine men who valued independence, rebelled at central authority, and scorned bureaucratic niceties. Together they would fight a good fight.

  One long day of recovery rolled into the next, mirroring the unending stream of river traffic below his window. From time to time he would spot the orange and black banner of Gesslinger Shipping, transporting fine Alsatian wines from the slopes of the Vosges to Rotterdam, returning with cargoes destined for the ports of the Upper Rhine. With every passing day he grew stronger and more determined to put Nazi “coordination” to the test.

  In the genteel atmosphere of one of Marburg’s most pleasant cafés, the three Nazi comrades planned their next attack. “Our brave cops have finally called off the extra night patrols.” Klaus Pabst grinned at the memory of their assault in the Old Town a few weeks before. “I guess it’s safe for us to go out after dark once again.”

  Horst responded with only the hint of a smile. Anything more expressive might trigger that ugly spasmodic tic, even under the comforting effects of the morphine. But too much of the drug dulled his mind, so he was learning to avoid laughter as well as overt anger. From the enclosed terrace of Kaffee Vetter a panoramic view of the river valley spread out below them. The cake sat untouched on his plate, but he did take a small sip of coffee. He now avoided eating in public, for careless chewing could easily bring the agonizing pain to his healing face.

  His eyes scanned the clientele and staff for a female worthy of his time. The young waitress was obviously interested, a robust girl in a less than appealing white uniform, small black apron cinched at the waist. Too easy, no challenge there. The two fashionably-dressed women, interrupting shopping to enjoy some Vetter specialties, stole occasional glances in his direction. Horst was well aware of his classic Aryan looks and self-assured air. His face would be an even greater asset once the scar was no longer inflamed. Today however he found no worthy feminine challenge and returned attention to his comrades and the task at hand.

  “Tonight we finish off the Jew-lover,” Horst said. “I'd prefer grabbing him at his room over by Spiegelslust—we could handle it quietly in the woods—but unfortunately he’s now lodging beneath the police chief’s house. Too close for comfort, despite my understanding with the old man.”

  “Finish off?” Klaus raised an eyebrow.

  “This one goes down for good.”

  Klaus Pabst’s eyes were lifeless, his face and head remarkably slender. The receding hair was slickly pomaded and combed straight back. As Horst’s first lieutenant, Klaus evoked fear, but never respect or admiration. Horst relied on his “dagger” to solve those problems where he himself preferred to keep some distance.

  His second lieutenant, Peter Brenner, was a different story. Peter lived to fight, a solid man and valuable addition to the team. His was a martial family for generations back. But now Peter’s father relived the terrors of trench warfare in drunken stupors and horrifying nightmares, and Peter despised the old man’s weakness. Peter’s mother, three years gone and only a memory, had died of spousal abuse and a broken heart for all she had lost in her husband. Peter’s own beatings at the drunken hands of his father had only made him stronger, and he never let Horst down.

  “So what’s your deal with the chief of police?” Peter asked, sitting as always with his back ramrod straight.

  “He’s giving us full encouragement—off the record, certainly—to help clean up the streets,” Horst said. “As long as we don't draw public attention to ourselves, there’ll be no official interference. So we’ll handle the American here in town, and this time the body disappears.”

  “How do we pul
l that off?” Getting rid of a corpse in a town the size of Marburg was problematic for Klaus.

  “The Abdeckerei.” Horst gestured toward the heavily-forested hills of the Lahnberge on the far side of the valley. “I already have a key to the gate, and there’s an incinerator at our disposal. Our American should fit right in with the ashes of diseased animals and road kill.”

  He reached to still the incessant itch beneath the facial bandage, withdrawing his hand quickly as he remembered the agonizing pain that would cause.

  chapter TEN

  The river Lahn lay shrouded in dense fog, its luminous tendrils winding up through the town’s narrow streets toward the castle. A crescent moon hung close to the horizon. Across the valley two figures stood on the open platform of the Kaiser Wilhelm Tower as Marburg slowly disappeared into the mist.

  Ryan wrapped Erika in the folds of his topcoat, her back pressed against him. Warmed by her closeness, his thoughts drifted to the more intimate pleasures soon to come in the comfort of his featherbed. He slipped his hand beneath the cashmere and smooth silk, feeling her nipple rise against his fingers. She moved more purposefully against him.

  Her gaze lay on the distant town. “It's really quite beautiful, don't you think?”

  “They both are,” Ryan teased, moving his hand to caress her other breast and pulling her closer still. They spoke softly, wary of disturbing the fragile stillness. “But it's also getting late. Your parents expect me to play the perfect gentleman and have you home by midnight, and I’ll have to beat the one o’clock curfew or the SA patrols will pick me up.” He nuzzled her neck.

  She turned and brought her lips to his, a lingering kiss.

  “I wish we could stay longer,” his lie without conviction, “but I can imagine a far warmer place I'd rather be right now.”

  She laughed and broke free, grabbing his hand to pull him toward the staircase. “Then let’s go find that place for you.”