Deadfall in Berlin

by Robert Alexander

  A hand was over my mouth, that ball of fur over my body. Loremarie stifled me, and then Joe and she pinned me against the wall. I twisted and kicked, wanted to scream, to damn the world I'd been born into. But their grips were so tight. Didn't they understand? Didn't Joe and Tante Lore realize that in spite of everything Mother had done I'd gladly give my life for hers? In fact, that was what I wanted. Erich and bombs and Gestapo and firestorms. I was electrocuted with rage, and I just wanted peace. Permanent peace in the shape of a bullet in my head.

  Joe said: “She's all right, Willi! He's not going to hurt her!”

  At last still, I heard a quick high-pitched cackle roll from outside. The oddness of it all shot me with silence. Of course. That was all part of Heinrich's technique. The gun to her head was all part of the plan.

  Loremarie and Joe released me, and I peered out between several boards. Heinrich was caressing my mother like a lover, holding her, warming her.

  “That's right,” cooed Heinrich. “You just show me where to find Anton, and I won't hurt you.”

  Unmoving, my mother dangled in the hands of her executioner.

  “You don't want me to hurt you, do you? I could kill you, Eva, if that's what you'd like.”

  Slowly, her head moved from side to side.

  “Of course that's not what you want, Evchen,” Heinrich said like the most benevolent of grandfathers. “Now, is this the house? Is it? You just show me where I can find this Anton and I'll get you a nice warm bath and a nice clean bed.”

  What could she do? What? She was caught, trapped. She loved Anton, I knew that, finding him a gentle soul, something wonderful, like the last precious tin of food. That's how she really felt, and that's what Anton really was. Preserved goodness. But what way did she have out? What choice did she have? I closed my eyes. Oh, God, I wanted to turn and run as far away from here as I could get.

  “Stay with it, Willi. You'll be all right.”

  I spied out again. Mother had no choice, that is not if she didn't want to end up in her own puddle of death. Which, I suppose, was why she let Heinrich lift her to her feet. Then again, who knew. Her body was so sodden with brandy, toxic with confusion.

  “Oh, Gott” prayed Loremarie behind me, “please don't let him be there. Please!”

  Supported by Heinrich, Mother led him and his two young soldiers up and across Loremarie's front yard. As she stumbled along, I heard my drunk mother sobbing. Crying as she mounted the front steps, passed through the portico, and disappeared into the blackened house, leaving behind an eerie trail of quiet.

  In back of me, Loremarie muttered, “Oh, Gott, mein Gott, if Anton is home, oh, if anything happens, then I don't know what I'll do to that drunken bitch!”

  My confusion and anger turned to a rigid board inside me. I was paralyzed. My own Tante Lore talking so horribly about my own mother? But… but Mother didn't mean to be bad. I knew she didn't! Oh, God, I thought, my head spinning. I hated this. Hated living in a world where everything was pushed to the edge. Alive one moment, dead the next.

  They were gone so long, and Loremarie, Joe and I stood in concealed, chilled silence. If Mother had led them directly to the hidden room in the cellar, then they should have been there by now. Perhaps Mother had rallied, tricked them, led them into the dark, wet cellar and lost them. Or perhaps Mother had fled out the back, thinking that Heinrich wouldn't really kill her. My hopes buoyed. It was taking so long because Mother hadn't taken them to Anton's secret den. Or if she had, then Anton wasn't back yet. That would mean that we might be able to stop Anton before he returned. We could catch him as he sneaked back, then Loremarie and he could escape somehow. Perhaps, I thought, we could all disguise ourselves as battered refugees, I as their beleaguered son. Of course. And we could slip into the line of souls stumbling from the east, flowing through Berlin, and on to the west. That was good, that might—

  Several shots cracked the sunny day, and with them were shattered the last of any wishful thinking I would ever have. This was essentially an evil world. Evil prevailed now and forever.

  “I'm sorry,” whispered Joe, clutching Loremarie's hand.

  But the shots were only the beginning of a most gruesome end. From the depths of Loremarie's house came a long, pained howl.

  Quietly, Loremarie cried, “Anton!”

  Joe held her. He clutched her as much in sympathy as to keep her from exposing herself in the window. Anton was killed or would be momentarily. For having hid him, Loremarie would be next on the list. And then Mother and me. Dieter, perhaps. Joe, of course.

  We heard more shouting. Heinrich's voice trumpeted and blared with victory. I peered out, saw Mother kicked out of the house, shoved off the front of the portico. She toppled onto a pile of wood, raised her head, her face a twisted mask of horror and pain. Cheeks lined with watery streaks. Mouth open in one long, huge scream all of it silent. Next came Heinrich. Behind him, hanging from one of the soldiers like a butchered scarecrow, was Anton, blood pouring from each of his legs. So he was alive, but hobbled. My stomach turned. Shot in both of the knees so he couldn't escape.

  Heinrich shrieked Jew this, Jew that, filthmonger, traitor and spy. It was as if a dial on the back of him was being slowly turned up, cranked to full hysteria. He waved his gun around, set off a shot. Crazed. Absolutely. Anton was the reason Germany was losing the war. No great army could defeat the Bolsheviks with the likes of Anton the Jew doing evil in the home camp. Therefore the Jew had to be exterminated. Here. Now. On the spot.

  Heinrich marched down to the street, ordered Anton and my mother dragged front and center. Heinrich jerked her head up, aiming her face at Anton, who hung so limply.

  “We don't need this kind of rat in the Vaterland!” he screamed. “You're going to see every bit of this!”

  Mother sobbed, begged for mercy, cried for forgiveness. I should have turned away. Or closed my eyes at least. But I couldn't. I stood hidden with Joe and Loremarie in the house across the street, and I stared.

  Behind me, locked in Joe's protective arms, Loremarie chanted, “Be quick, be quick!”

  Heinrich screamed, his voice rising and crashing, as if he were the one on the edge of death. And as he raved like a bedeviled preacher, he took Anton's right hand and wrapped it around the end of his pistol.

  “See what we do with his kind?”

  He squeezed the trigger, and the palm-piercing bullet left a spray of blood as it rocketed into the sky. Anton moaned, but only slightly, stoic in his sacrifice. Then Heinrich snatched Anton's left hand and blasted that, too.

  Loremarie was on her knees, eyes closed, hands clasped in prayer. From her lips poured a stream of mumbled words, pleas and hopes for Anton's hereafter.

  Legs pierced, hands drippy red, Anton swooned. Finally a cry erupted, long and high, operatic in its clarity. But he still stood, propped up by a soldier. He had, I thought, staring at him from my hiding spot, expected this all along, waited for this moment. That was why he looked so unsurprised, so calm. He'd already left Berlin, flown out of here, abandoning this mutilation.

  “Chain his feet!” ordered Heinrich.

  My eyes and my heart glazed over as I watched one of the soldiers wrap a chain around Anton's feet, then attach the other end to the back of the small truck. They couldn't, they wouldn't, I thought. But this is war and the world is crazy, and that man is among the craziest. And indeed this mad dog of humanity ordered Anton dropped, allowed this stick man to tumble to the ground. Next he commanded his men to board the truck. To start the engine. To prepare to drag this scum to his filthy end. Then they would return and pull the Jew-hiding owner of this house to a similar fate.

  ‘“And you!” he shouted at Eva. “I'll deal with you later!”

  As the engine coughed, then roared, Loremarie twisted on her knees, pushed herself upward, and raced to the window. Joe and I held her again, though, keeping her hidden and tackling her desires: Take me now! Kill me too! Let us die together!

  We grappled with her, an
d then she was still, lost in the hopelessness of it all. Veiled by the ruins, she spied her Anton, a mere bloody rag on the street, and her body shook with swells of sobs. It was over… or would be within moments.

  No sooner had Heinrich taken the front seat, then Mother cried out: “Anton!”

  She hurled herself toward him, touched his black hair, sought to pull him into the warmth of her lap. The calmest of all, he gazed at her, my mother the betrayer, and offered a smile. A gentle smile, lips thin and relieved, as if he were pulling into a station after a very, very long ride.

  “Du sollst leben!” Live on, he called to my mother.

  No sooner had he spoken than the truck lurched forward with an awful, bone-wrenching jerk. And then off went the tattered and fading body of Anton, bouncing amid the rubble, mopping the streets of Berlin with his death.

  Chapter 22

  Live on, I thought. It sounded like a curse. Live on and suffer through all of which is to come. Suffer for the rest of your life. Was that what Anton meant?

  I pushed myself up and off the furry-coated ball of my Tante Lore, and stood in the window. In the street my mother had collapsed, shaking quakelike, clutching her body, clinging to herself because there was no one else. Her mouth opened and that golden voice of hers let out a perfectly pitched shriek that pierced the neighborhood. Then her head toppled forward as if it were barely attached and she screamed into her lap.

  “And what about you, Willi?”

  I stared out at her, my face streaked with slow warm tears. Erich fried. Anton dragged to pieces. Horror had shackled my imagination, made me witness to things worse than I could ever have dreamed.

  My fingers started moving first, clutching at lumps of plaster and pieces of wood, then pulling me up and out the window. I jumped, tumbled forward, landed on my hands and knees, and was up and running over bricks and headless cherubs. I ran into the street, looked to my right. Heinrich and the truck were gone, but the road was swabbed and dotted with blood and flecks of Anton. Down the way I saw a big block of bricks, a clump of a dozen or so blasted into the street, now all warmly covered by a shimmering shawl of blood. I wanted to cry, to vomit. I wanted the shock to rush from my sickened body and dirty this place and time. But I couldn't. I was too numb.

  “Willi!” cried Mother upon seeing me.

  She reached out to me like a crazed beggar, arms and hands outstretched, face pleading. I ran to her, wanting nothing but her warm embrace and shelter and denial. She threw herself at my legs, clung to me, sobbed her stinky, drunken breath. I stared in disbelief at her pathetic face, grotesquely twisted beyond recognition. This was my mother? This weak, needy thing? No, I thought, my entire being recoiling. She had to be there for me, to love and comfort me, me, me!

  I heard someone charging, heavy feet pounding over rubble. I flinched and turned. Joe was running toward us.

  “We've got to get out of here!” he ordered.

  He was right, of course. For all we knew, Heinrich might only be out for a quick death spin. He could just be circling a block or two, and return any moment. And then what would it be? What lengths would he go to for details of Anton's forgery operation? I looked at the blood splashed down the street. We had to disappear, this second. That is, if we wanted to stay alive.

  As Joe neared, Mother lunged toward him, crawling across the sidewalk, grabbing him, clutching his legs as desperate as if she were drowning.

  He asked, “Are you all right?”

  She flailed one hand in the direction Anton had disappeared and a garbled wail erupted from her wide mouth.

  “I...I!”

  Just then I heard the distant grumbling of a truck. Joe was right. There wasn't any time for this. Then came another huge scream, and I saw Loremarie charging us, her face red and wet, hands outstretched, ready to rip apart, kill. A buzz saw of anger, she cut a direct path of fury toward my mother.

  “Bitch!”

  I understood that she really did mean death, and that right here and now she would shed blood. Mother's. That was who the countess wanted to rip apart.

  “You drunken whore!”

  Joe jumped up, caught her and the brunt of her attack. Loremarie tried to push around him, but he caught her and her flailing fists. I backed away. Loremarie's force was as large as her anger, and she twisted and kicked, desperately struggled to reach the object of her venomous hatred.

  “It's all because of her! Because of her!” she shrieked. “She killed him!”

  I couldn't move. A horrible realization crept into my mind. Would any of this have happened had I not followed Mother, then stopped her in that burned-out bakery? Wasn't this all my fault? Wasn't I the one who should be dead?

  “Stop it, Loremarie!” shouted Joe.

  “No!”

  All her rage came beating out on Joe, fist after fist, scream after scream. He shouted at her, shook her, finally hurled her back and to the ground. Joe then grabbed my mother and pulled her to her wobbly feet.

  Turning to me, Joe said, “Take Loremarie and get out of here. I've got your mother.”

  I froze. “But—”

  “We can't all go together!”

  He was right, of course. We had to disappear as quickly as possible, and we wouldn't make it ten meters with both Mother and Tante Lore. So we had to split up, then meet later and formulate the next step. Burrow in Berlin? Attempt escape to the countryside? It seemed hopeless, all of it.

  “Willi,” began Joe, trying to move Mother along, “we can't go back to the bar. We'll… we'll meet you back by the Schulenberg's, okay?”

  My voice pecked: “Ja”

  I envisioned the ruins of the apartment building from which Joe and I had barely escaped. And the piano. Frau Schulenberg's piano clinging to that ledge. That was a good place to meet. Easy to find. Only steps from our little hidden room with the metal door.

  As Joe led her away, Mother cried, “Willi!”

  I stared after her but didn't know what to say. I love you, I hate you, I'm sorry? Overwhelmed with confusion, I turned away, went to my Nenntante and helped her to her feet.

  “Hurry!” shouted Joe as he dragged my mother off.

  We had to be quick, all of us. And invisible. When Heinrich returned we all had to be long gone, melted into the ruins. Especially Loremarie. If she were caught, she would be shot at once. No. Tortured and questioned for having hid Anton, for her knowledge of the submarine Jews lurking beneath Berlin.

  Taking aim at my mother, Loremarie screamed, “You're nothing but a drunk whoring bitch!”

  I bit my lip, tugged on Loremarie's arm. “Please!”

  She turned on me, the evil side of her charging forward. “Your mother was always right on the edge, flirting, you know, doing awful things! Stealing and more! She's a real whore, you know, and—”

  I was crying but I didn't let go of Loremarie. Mother was all of that and more. I knew it, yet each of Loremarie's words pierced my heart. Stabbed me with pain.

  “We have to hurry!” I pleaded.

  I dragged her along, finally making it across the street. I glanced back, saw the last of Joe, my mother's sober crutch, leading her behind a house.

  Loremarie said, “Your mother will pay for this, you can be damned—”

  I froze, as did Loremarie. An engine was grumbling, biting its way toward us. Mein Gott. A large engine, that of a truck. I spun from side to side, saw nothing, but knew that Heinrich would reappear any second.

  “Come on!”

  Grasping Loremarie's hand, I tried to rush off. But in that same instant all the fight and anger fled from Loremarie, leaving her lost and vacant. I tugged on her, but she barely moved.

  “Anton…”

  Whatever was left of him was probably still chained to the truck. And it was obvious that all Loremarie wanted was to wait here so that she could gather up his remains and weep.

  “Anton's dead, Tante Lore!”

  She gasped, and I pulled harder, leading her around the corner, past the burned-out
house where we'd hid. To another street, and into the ruins of an apothecary. Parking her in a corner behind some boards, I went back and checked the road. Animallike truck noises filled the neighborhood. Brakes squealing. A short trumpet of a claxon. Then equally gruff voices. Peering carefully out, I saw no one, but knew Heinrich was out there somewhere having a tantrum of a fit. He'd come back and Mother was gone. I only hoped Joe and she had made a clean escape.

  Loremarie was pale and quiet, eyes glassy, breathing short and quick. As if it were deathly gas, I could practically see the shock seeping over her. She looked like any of the bomb victims I'd seen wandering the streets after a raid, and I knew now there would be no more resistance.

  “Come on,” I whispered, taking her hand again. “We'll go out the back.”

  “Dieter.”

  “What?”

  “Dieter was always nice to Anton.” She looked at me, blinked once. “We have to go back.”

  “But Joe said—”

  “We have to get Dieter.”

  She was right. In spite of Joe's instructions, we at least needed to warn Dieter that Heinrich was on the rampage. At the same time, we could take what we could—some food, clothes, and, hopefully, Mother's American dollars.

  “Okay,” I said, “we'll go by the bar and then to the Schulenberg's.”

  “Ja.”

  We made our way around some smashed counters, through a little back hall, and into an interior courtyard. I looked up, saw blue sky hovering over us, a partly smashed building. Then we squeezed through a wrecked door, down a little hall with dingy yellow paint and a lamp with a fringe shade. Soon we emerged on another street, found it empty, and then passed ghostlike right through the center of that block and yet another one, too. As we moved along, a steady stream of tears began to drip from Loremarie's wide face.