The Secret of Lions

by Scott Blade

He did not want her to approach his prisoner. Adolf finally recovered all of his sketches and returned to his feet. Heinrik focused on Adolf’s features; he noticed that Adolf’s forehead bled.

  Concerned for his job, Heinrik took a closer look at Adolf’s head. He didn’t seem to need any medical attention.

  Abruptly, Adolf stood at attention like a soldier.

  “No! It is fine. I apologize to you, Heinrik. I did not mean to be so intrusive. I hope that you accept my apology,” Adolf said while gazing at Gracy. He reached his hand out to Heinrik as a gesture of good faith.

  Heinrik, reluctantly, shook his hand. He felt it best to accept the apology.

  A stream of blood ran down Adolf’s forehead. He did not react to it. He turned and walked toward the small, desolate trees that made up one corner of the yard.

  Heinrik sat back down with Gracy. He shook his head at her and they continued eating their lunch.

  He never let Adolf out of his sight.

  Adolf never let Gracy out of his mind.

  29

  The morning sun crept peacefully up over the trees outside of the Kessler home; its somber light scarcely shone in through the curtains. This was unlike the whirling mind of my father. His mind tried to fight off the potent image of Adolf staring at his wife. It was as if he hung off the edge of a cliff and no matter how much he tried to pull himself back up, he could not. Adolf pulled him over, clenching heavily at the bottom of his boots. Heinrik feared that Adolf was over the edge and he would take anyone with him.

  Heinrik’s eyes squinted under the morning’s presence in his bedroom. A glimpse of Gracy’s naked backside overtook him. She lay facing the window. He assumed that she was still asleep and dreaming of the life they wanted.

  Together, they had spent many afternoons planning for the future, and it was a beautiful future. It was a future without steel bars, cages, and guns. And there was no Adolf. Heinrik was a prison guard by trade, but he wanted to be a carpenter. Often, he wondered who was truly the prisoner inside Landsberg prison¬¬¬—the inmates or himself.

  He and Gracy saved every penny they could muster. She taught piano lessons to the children of her Jewish friends. She would have gladly taken on German pupils, but most German parents either couldn’t afford piano lessons or they didn’t want their children being taught by a Jewish woman. So she stuck to the children of her Jewish friends. She did not make an extraordinary amount of money teaching piano, but it was enough to help buy groceries for Heinrik and her.

  Heinrik quietly sat up, trying not to wake Gracy.

  The cold steel of a silver chain she’d given him for their anniversary last year fell across his chest. He had slept all through the night without realizing he’d left the necklace on.

  Heinrik got out of bed and made his way to the bathroom sink. He poured a glass of water and drank it. The hot water soothed his throat. He swished the final gulp around in his mouth. Then he spat it back into the sink. The water disappeared down the dark drain. He stared at the hole for a moment. His eyes and thoughts were sucked into it along with his spittle. Again he imagined back to that day when Adolf had confronted him and Gracy. He could not get it out of his head, even now. The way that Adolf had looked at his wife made him cringe.

  Something sinister and austere dwelled in Adolf’s eyes. Whatever it was, it invaded Heinrik’s thoughts. He thought of Gracy. He wondered if she still thought about it. She had not mentioned it, not once. Since that day, neither of them had talked about it. But it still lingered in both of their minds. No matter how Heinrik might pretend to ignore it, the image of Adolf speaking to his wife was more prevalent than anything else he tried to focus on.

  When Heinrik returned from the bathroom, he found Gracy wide awake and staring out the window.

  “What’s the matter?” he asked, curling up behind her.

  “Heinrik, I don’t want to go back to the prison,” she said.

  “Oh. All right,” he responded.

  “I mean it, Heinrik. I just don’t want to see that man again. There is something wrong with him,” she said.

  “Okay, darling. You don’t have to come up there again,” Heinrik said. He massaged her neck and shoulders.

  “You need to shave,” she said.

  He reached up and felt the rough underbelly of his chin. She was right. He would have to shave before work. He got up and returned to the bathroom.

  “Heinrik?” Gracy called from the bedroom.

  “Yes?” he answered.

  “I don’t want you to go back there either,” she said.

  Heinrik stopped in front of the sink. He didn’t realize how much Adolf had affected her. He stared at himself for a moment in the mirror and then returned to the bedroom.

  “Darling, I have to go back. It’s my job. Besides, we have all kinds of bills to pay and there is our savings account. You know that we almost have enough money to make a down payment on that lake house we want. I can’t quit now,” he said.

  “Heinrik, I don’t want you to be around that man. Please don’t go back there,” she begged.

  “Gracy, I have to return to work,” he said.

  She looked down in disappointment and sighed.

  “Look,” he began, “I will put in for a transfer request. Okay? I will go back to walking the halls at night or working watchtower duty. Anything other than tending to that maniac, all right?”

  “Okay,” she said.

  30

  Archaic plaster and rock lined the walls of the corridor that led to the warden’s office. Heinrik walked down the hallway. Crumbling tiles littered the floor. Heinrik couldn’t help but take note of this.

  His shirt collar was perfectly starched and straight. He wanted to look presentable for his boss. As with most Germans, Heinrik was proud of his heritage and heartbroken by the losses they’d sustained in the Great War.

  Many German families raised their children to have a strong work ethic. And even though much of Germany was ashamed for losing the war, still they gave all of themselves to their jobs. This was especially the case when there wasn’t a lot of money to go around. It helped to distract them from being underpaid and out of money. Most Germans, Heinrik included, sank themselves into their work.

  The Treaty of Versailles required that Germany pay twenty million dollars to the countries of Europe after they were defeated in the Great War. This was an enormous amount of money, not to mention, it was tremendously embarrassing for Germany. They lost the war, plus they had to pay the cost of it.

  In fighting the war, Germany had also racked up debt. They did not have money to spare to pay for these debts. They were conquered, defeated, and given the bill as further punishment.

  Heinrik actually agreed that Germany owed Europe reparation money; however, he kept this thought to himself. He accepted the price they had to pay because that is the price of peace. He also realized just how precious a good job with a good wage was. He didn’t want to lose face in front of his boss, but he would do anything Gracy asked.

  She wanted him to get away from Adolf. It didn’t matter whether he quit or not. Being honest with himself, Heinrik wanted to be away from Adolf as well. He knew the hatred for Jews that Adolf expressed. He experienced it secondhand because of his wife. Even before the war, a seed of hatred had long since sprouted in the hearts of many Germans, Austrians, and other Europeans.

  This was especially true among returning soldiers. Many soldiers were bitter about their defeat. They peddled Jew-hating propaganda as much as anyone else. Heinrik was a German and married to a Jewish woman. He experienced persecution for his feelings for Gracy. It used to be a little safer for Germans and Jews to date or marry, but the war changed all of that.

  Upon their homecoming with a defeated spirit and a sense of lost pride, the German soldiers had no work to return to. Jews owned much of the land and businesses, so naturally they became the focus of bitter hatred and animosity.

  Normally, Heinrik’s friends and coworkers said nothing about
it. Even the true anti-Semites kept their mouths shut. Whether it was out of respect or the fact that Gracy was barely distinguishable as an Austrian Jew, neither answer made any difference to Heinrik.

  But Adolf had a way about him. Heinrik could not tell what it was, but something drew him near the man and something else made him want to escape Adolf’s presence. So today he would abide by the wishes of his wife, as well as his own. He would request a transfer away from Adolf.

  “Heinrik Kessler? You can go in now,” a young woman said from behind a small desk.

  “Thank you,” Heinrik said. He drifted into the warden’s office.

  Inside, a husky man sat behind a large, metal desk. A typewriter and a metallic, black telephone rested on the surface. A ceiling fan twirled. Heinrik could make out particles of dust swirling through the air as he looked over the desk at the warden.

  “Good morning, Kessler. What can I do for you?” the warden asked. He didn’t bother standing to shake Heinrik’s hand.

  “Yes, sir,” Heinrik said.

  “Damn, Kessler, have a seat,” the warden said.

  “Thank you, sir,” he said.

  “What can I do for you?” the warden asked again.

  “Well, sir, I was wondering if I might request a transfer to another section of the prison or maybe a different detail.”

  “Why, Kessler? You have a good thing going right now. You’re one of my supervisors. Why leave such a desirable detail?”

  “I just want to go back to walking the halls or watchtower or something else,” Heinrik said.

  “Why would you want to do that?” the warden asked. His hand finally appeared from under the desk. He pinched the bottom tip of his chin.

  “Well, it’s my wife. She doesn’t want me watching Adolf. He frightens her as well as me,” Heinrik said, impulsively. He felt more relaxed than before.

  “Heinrik, this is a prison. All of the men in here are prisoners. They scare a lot of good people. That’s why Mother Germany wants them locked away,” the warden said.

  “Yes, sir,” Heinrik responded.

  “Besides, Kessler, wouldn’t she rather that you are on special prisoner assignment instead of being back guarding the general population? The general population is much more dangerous. Tell her about that fight that broke out last week. Remember some prick stabbed Stockhelm? Shit, Kessler. The man died in the infirmary. His wife and kids were in my office, crying. Crying, Kessler,” the warden said.

  “I know what you are saying, sir,” Heinrik turned to walk out of the office.

  “Wait, Kessler.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Your wife is part Jewish, right?”

  “Yes, sir. Why?” Heinrik asked.

  “Come back in, Kessler,” the warden said. “Look, Heinrik, I’m not sure why a man of German descent would want to get mixed up with a Jew anyway, but you can do as you please.

  “I don’t know much about Adolf’s background, and I can’t predict where he is headed, but I can tell you something. He is a dangerous enemy to have. And worse yet, he has dangerous friends. He is important in the Nazi party.

  “Look, I don’t have anything against you, but you married a Jew, which makes you a Jew. I am going to give you this transfer. We will find something else for you. In the meantime, you will have to stay with the Nazi. All right?”

  “Yes, sir,” Heinrik said, nervously picking at the seams near the bottom of each front pocket of his trousers. He felt his nails digging into his legs. It greatly upset him that he had to endure racial slurs from his boss. Yet, he didn’t want his boss to see his rage, but somehow he sensed that the warden knew anyway.

  “Heinrik, I don’t mean any disrespect, but these are scary times we live in.

  “I heard that you have already experienced Adolf’s hostility when you and your wife ate lunch out there in the yard. And maybe it’s my fault for not taking that privilege away from you. But it’s too late for that now. So just tell her to stay at home for now and we will move you when we have a slot open,” the warden said.

  Heinrik waited until the warden had finished his last words and then thanked him for his time. He walked out of the office and made his way down the corridor. He stopped dead in front of the stairwell. Heinrik shut his eyes tight and leaned against the bottom rail of the stairs.

  Musty air filled his nostrils. He forced his eyes open; they were red. He looked around. The hall was empty, so he let out his anger.

  “The hell with you!” he shouted, aiming his voice back down the hall to the warden’s office. “She is my wife!”

  Heinrik’s eyebrows furrowed with anger. He and Gracy had lived pretending that anti-Semitism wasn’t real. They thought that it was a phase that the entire country was going through. They thought that it would pass. But it hadn’t. They tried to fit in. Most of the time, they ignored everyone else around them. Their biggest problems occurred whenever they went out together. Eating meals, grocery shopping, going to the park, and even going to Heinrik’s church on Sundays meant that they would be confronted with gawking looks, judgmental smirks, and severe mistreatment.

  Sometimes the smirks and mistreatment got to be so unbearable that they had to relocate to a new church. Heinrik was Catholic, but they had already gone through every Catholic and Protestant church they could find. So they were forced to join a nondenominational church in order to have a church to attend.

  Heinrik felt a blistering sting in the back of his throat. He swallowed, but the sting was still there. He’d worked in this prison for a long time. He did want to leave, but at the same time it was the only work he had known since the war.

  It was not the right time to be out of a job. The streets were flooded with men starving, trying to find work to feed their families. Germany was in an economic depression. Heinrik's dream for him and Gracy would not die just because she didn't like his job.

  31

  Lanterns hung from the ceilings. They populated Landsberg prison’s numerous gothic corridors. The lamps faintly lit the long and short corridors that snaked through the entire complex. Even with the artificial light emitting from the lamps, darkness consumed nearly everything. It was hard for Heinrik to see more than fifteen meters in front of him.

  He walked the halls every night until the end of his rounds.

  Heinrik spent most of his time walking the blood mile, a long stretch of dark corridors that housed the prison’s most horrendous and terrifying killers.

  The cells located on the blood mile were solitary confinement only. Each prisoner had his own space and his own world in which he presided. No two convicts were the same. They rarely spoke among themselves. That made them even more frightening. They were like animals.

  Heinrik feared that each of them plotted against him. He feared that one might be waiting for the perfect moment to strike out against him as he passed. He feared that a prisoner might be waiting in his cell just behind the door, lying silently in the shadows, waiting for him to follow the commonly traveled footpath in front of the cell. The doors were old, some even frail. Heinrik feared that a prisoner might have successfully busted one out. He might be waiting for him in the darkness, coiled in the corner behind the cell door with a shiv clenched tightly in his hand, ready to spring out.

  The prison was old and had limited funds for new guards, much less to replace these doors with new ones. So instead the repairmen would come and take down the old, brittle doors and replace them with sturdier ones from other rooms in the prison. That was the reason why so many faculty rooms and offices were missing doors. Sometimes the warden would even recommend doors be replaced with the broken ones. As a result, many of the guard towers had old, broken cell doors serving as their entrance portals.

  The sound of dripping water echoed somewhere in the darkness, penetrating the deepest regions of the halls, as well as the deep crevices of Heinrik’s ears. Attempting to ignore the sound, he tried to think about Gracy. Instead his thoughts were flooded with images of Adolf. In parti
cular, he thought about that night when he had first seen Adolf in his cell. He’d masturbated to a picture of someone.

  Who was Adolf looking at? Who was he masturbating over? Heinrik asked himself on more than one occasion. The very thought of what he had seen disgusted him to his very core. Adolf was by far the strangest prisoner, if not person, he’d ever met.

  Some days Adolf spent talking to himself in the yard. It was a peculiar sight to see. His behavior wasn’t like a man in self-reflection. He wasn’t just talking to himself.

  Adolf was giving speeches to invisible audiences. He was scheming. It was as if he were practicing for some unforeseen time when he would be speaking in front of enormous crowds of listeners. Adolf rehearsed for something.

  Heinrik was afraid of what he planned.

  The warden confided in Heinrik that Adolf was a political prisoner and prominent member of the Nazi party. Heinrik did not follow politics fanatically like others did, but he knew the Nazi party was steadily gaining momentum in Germany.

  They gave suggestions and answers to many of Germany’s economic problems. Of course, many of their solutions referred to the Jewish problem. They intended to unite Germany in this racial, hate-motivated belief that the Jews were solely responsible for the misery and poverty that stretched from one end of Germany to the other.

  Adolf was a Nazi—a very, powerful Nazi. Gracy was scared of him and she was scared of Heinrik being around him.

  What if Adolf’s views of Jewish people become Germany’s views of Jewish people? What if Adolf’s views of Jewish people become Heinrik’s? she thought.

  Evan broke away from reading the journal for a moment. He was quiet. He just stared at the pages. Then he continued.

  My father loved her. She told me he loved her more than she dared imagine. He would have never betrayed her. But it was a time of deep depression, and for most people the Nazis were an attractive alternative. She was right to fear Adolf. I wish my father had trusted her instinct. I wish he had listened to her.

  Suddenly, a shadow moved down the hall from Heinrik. He looked up. He could not make out what had moved, but it was definitely something.