by Scott Blade
“Yes,” Heinrik nodded. Slowly, he sat up on the cot, careful not to trigger any sudden pain. He was particularly worried about his head. A severe and painful headache lingered on his temple.
“Heinrik, do you remember anything? Do you remember what happened?”
“I blacked out. But I remember some of it. I thought that I was going to die,” he answered.
“So it was self-defense?” the warden asked.
“Self-defense?” Heinrik said.
“Why did you kill all of those prisoners?”
“What? What are you talking about?” Heinrik asked, confused.
“Heinrik, we know what happened. You are not in any real trouble. We understand you were scared. Your emotions got the best of you. A deep rage overcame you when you saw what those men had done to the other guards,” the warden said. His fat belly lumped out and spilled over his belt.
“What?”
“Heinrik, it is fine. Those men killed your fellow guards and would have killed you. They were trying to escape. You did what anyone might have done.”
“I am still lost, sir,” Heinrik said, rubbing his forehead.
“Heinrik, you are not in any trouble, not by any means. So I don’t want you to think that you are. I just have to ask you something. Did you have to cut those men up into all of those pieces?”
“What? What are you talking about, warden?” Heinrik asked, still confused.
“Heinrik, we know what happened. One of the prisoners witnessed the whole thing from his cell,” the warden explained.
“What?” Heinrik asked, shaking his head. He looked up at the warden. His eyes had finally adjusted, helping him to focus on the absurdity in the warden’s questions. Heinrik felt colossally baffled.
“Yes, one of the inmates saw the whole thing. He told us that it was self-defense. He said they were going to kill you. You were only defending yourself. You were in a very dangerous situation,” the warden said.
He sipped more coffee out of the mug. He slurped it back, moving his eyes over Heinrik, scanning him for a reaction. The warden’s hand shook as the coffee slid down his throat. He wondered if Heinrik noticed the jittering. He was nervous after discovering a side of Heinrik that he would have never suspected, a dark, savage side.
“The thing is that there was so much blood, Heinrik,” the warden said, staring at Heinrik’s chest.
Heinrik’s eyes slowly moved down and focused on the shirt he wore. His clothes were soaked in blood. His shirt, the sleeves, his pants, and even his brown, leather belt were all covered in blood. The stains had already transformed into a darkish, brown color. The blots were obviously red, but somehow they appeared to have dried into a dark, claret blend, like a mixed painter’s palette.
The stains horrified Heinrik to his very core. He could not understand how all of their blood had gotten on him.
“Warden?” he asked.
“Yes, Heinrik?”
“Who was the prisoner who said he saw everything?”
“It was Adolf Hitler.”
Heinrik’s gut turned slightly. His breathing became heavier. Hitler had killed those men and then locked himself back into his cell.
“He said that he was in his cell sleeping when all of the commotion began. He said he woke up and saw you massacre those prisoners,” the warden said.
Hitler had told everyone he saw Heinrik kill those men, cutting them up into pieces. In the back of Heinrik’s mind, he knew the warden would not believe the truth especially that Adolf had locked himself back up.
Why would he have done that? What was the purpose in mutilating their bodies? Why didn’t he escape? Heinrik wondered.
After a few moments of contemplating this, he thought one thing. No matter how it was done, no matter how viciously it was done, Hitler had saved his life. Even though he had lied about how it had all happened, Heinrik still owed Hitler. Now, he was indebted to him. Everything had changed. Heinrik had a grave price to pay, far too grave for him to fathom.
36
After being questioned by government agents for at least three hours, Heinrik was allowed to return home. It was well after dark, close to midnight.
Gracy was worried sick. She sat on the front porch for most of the late afternoon just waiting for some sign of her husband. Heinrik walked up the pathway to their house. She came running out, jumped completely off the front porch, missing all of the steps. She landed a meter in front of him.
“Heinrik? Where have you been?” she asked. He could tell she was furious.
Heinrik grabbed her, pulled her to him, and held her close for a moment. Her head rested tightly against his chest. He told her about the prison break. He thought it best to exclude the parts about Hitler’s involvement, especially the post-death mutilations; he knew better than to tell her about that. He had decided that he would just keep it to himself.
The next morning, against Gracy’s wishes, Heinrik returned to the prison. He checked in with the warden and proceeded directly to Hitler’s cell. He made no stops along the way. He wanted to get there while the gall still existed inside of him.
The lights around the cell were working properly again. Almost everything was perfectly illuminated, every nook and crack, everything. Heinrik could see in all directions. Even the cracks in the floor were visible and ready for inspection.
After the attempted prison break from the day before, the warden had ordered that all of the lights in the prison be inspected and fixed if they were not emitting enough light for patrolling guards to see everything clearly. He demanded that no corners remain unlit.
The maintenance teams had replaced over half of the lights in the entire prison. They spent most of the night in this part of the prison. They even put in work orders for a new lighting system that was to cover the extra spaces between each of the current light fixtures. Of course, the prison did not have the funds for a new system. Nevertheless, the work order was placed.
Heinrik stopped only a couple of meters outside of Hitler’s cell. He took a deep breath and stepped in front of it. He knocked on the cell door. Inside, he heard rustling. It was the sound of shuffling books and papers. After a moment, Hitler’s eyes appeared through the portal.
“Yes? What is it?” he asked. Hitler’s eyes refocused; his pupils dilated as if Heinrik had woken him up on his approach.
“I just wanted to come by and thank you for what you did for me,” Heinrik said.
He clenched his fists tightly. He did not want to thank Hitler for anything that he had done, not even for saving his life. But Hitler had been solely responsible for Heinrik’s safe return to his wife. Otherwise, he would most certainly have been dead like the other guards.
In a peculiar moment, Heinrik’s thoughts turned to the young guard that he’d met briefly. It was the first time since Heinrik had regained consciousness that he had thought about the young guard. Now he wondered if that guard had a family. All Heinrik could do was speculate about him. He imagined that the guard had a wife and a newborn baby, maybe a son.
What if he was a father? Or expecting a son? Gracy is pregnant. It is very likely that he took this job so that he could provide for his expecting family, Heinrik thought.
This thought plagued Heinrik. He couldn't help but think about his own unborn child.
“Did you tell anyone else? Your wife? Anyone?” Hitler interrupted Heinrik’s looming thoughts.
“No, we are the only ones who know the truth about what happened,” Heinrik replied.
Hitler nodded, contemplating what would be the best course of action. He looked down for a moment to the floor of his cell. Then back up to Heinrik.
Of course, my father didn’t know that Hitler would tell the story to my mother years later. He told it to her only once, but she never forgot it.
“Would you like to see a painting that I have been working on?” he asked.
Heinrik hesitated for a moment. Something deep inside warned him not to let Hitler into his life. But he disregarde
d it, figuring that the man might have some good in him.
Maybe he’d misjudged him.
“Yes,” he said. He recalled seeing a painting in one of his early encounters with Hitler. It was a small town near Vienna. People walked everywhere as if in a hurry to contribute to society, to get on with their busy lives. However, he also remembered seeing Hitler masturbating to a sketch of some woman.
The new painting Hitler pulled out to show him portrayed a busy street in a snowy town. A trolley car was stopped in the middle of the icy street, exchanging passengers.
“That’s good,” Heinrik said, even though he really was not impressed.
37
Soon after that, Heinrik requested to be reinstated to his old post as a personal guard, following Hitler around. And the warden granted it to him. Every day, Heinrik went to work, and every day he spoke with Hitler. Every day he returned home and said nothing to his wife.
Weeks went by until the day came when Hitler was released. It came as a shock to Heinrik because Hitler was sentenced to five years for a political crime, but he never saw that term through to the end. One day a mysterious entourage, a group of black cars with men dressed all in black suits, arrived with official orders to release him out of Landsberg prison after less than one year.
Hitler stood near the exit of the prison. A muscular, terrifying-looking man from his entourage walked over and picked up Hitler’s belongings. One piece remained in Hitler's possession. Close to his chest, he cradled a rolled-up painting. Heinrik felt a little sad that Hitler had saved his life and was now leaving for good.
“Heinrik,” Hitler said. Heinrik noticed how unrecognizable Hitler had become in the last ten months. Now he was very thin. It was especially apparent in the elegant suit that his friends had brought for him to wear. The first chance that he had gotten, he had changed out of his prison scrubs and into the suit. He looked far more distinguished now.
“Yes, Adolf,” Heinrik said. Strangely, he felt honored that Hitler spoke to him.
“I want you to know that no matter what happens in the future, I value your friendship. I appreciate you talking to me over the last several weeks. This has been a desperate time for me, and I will never forget your friendship,” Hitler said. He offered his hand for a shake from Heinrik.
Reluctantly, Heinrik shook his hand. As their hands connected, he felt an unsettling feeling in the pit of his stomach like he was shaking the hand of the man who would seal his fate. It was a handshake that he would not soon forget.
Chapter Four
Mother is the
Name for God
38
The skyline appeared gloomy and tempestuous from Heinrik’s post on the top of the eastern wall of the prison. The warden had assigned him to night duty on the wall every day for the last month since Hitler had left. The warden had doubled the guard on the walls, particularly during the night.
The last escape attempt by the prisoners had gone public. The newspapers wrote about it and the government took immediate action. Bureaucratic officials visited the warden. With so much government influence leaning on him, he was forced to tighten security, which was increasingly difficult since the budget was stretched.
And now there was a new rumor floating around like a feather drifting in and out of the ears of every person in the prison. The rumor suggested that a group of the prisoners were planning an escape near the east wall. Although this rumor had stretched on for weeks, the warden still considered it a viable threat.
He considered Heinrik to be the right man for the job. The warden believed Heinrik was a secret weapon now. After what had happened, the prisoners were terrified of Heinrik, as was everyone else. They believed that he’d killed those prisoners. He was a powerful deterrent to the prisoners. They feared him. The fear of him helped to stop them from trying anything.
So the warden posted Heinrik in the areas of the prison that were more vulnerable to prison escapes. Heinrik understood the warden’s logic, and since he’d never told anyone that it was Hitler who had committed those unspeakable acts of violence, he was stuck living with everyone’s false notions about him. But being feared was better than fearing others, or so Heinrik thought.
At first, he feared telling Gracy about his assignment on the east wall, but actually telling Gracy was easy. She approved of this job detail more than other ones he’d had in the past, especially watching Hitler. The way she figured it, he was safer because this time he was high above the prisoners and far enough away from them. He was armed with a sniper rifle. “That sounds safer than walking the halls, Heinrik,” she said.
Heinrik sat contently next to the spotlight. The light was off. The machine hibernated. His job was to sweep the powerful beam across the yard every twenty minutes or so. Heinrik was stationed with a partner, Alexander, a twitchy guard who’d recently transferred from another prison.
Alexander was a lot younger than Heinrik. He had been in the profession for only a year, yet he was a lot more stable than some of the other guards. In many ways, Alexander reminded Heinrik of the young guard who’d died that night Hitler had saved his life.
Heinrik suspected that Alexander had been in his teens during the Great War. He had never been assigned to a post with Alexander before. He knew little about him. He tried small talk, but Alexander was not very forthcoming about himself. He learned nothing of Alexander. All he knew was that Alexander seemed tough and capable of doing his job.
Heinrik looked over at Alexander, who was nestled quietly in the shadows. He appeared to be waiting for something.
“Alexander,” Heinrik said. “Would you like to see a photograph of my wife?”
Alexander said nothing at first, and then he nodded. As he neared Heinrik, he noticed Alexander's old, worn face. He looked worried, strained. Alexander was too young to look this way.
“Good,” Heinrik said. He took out a small, well-worn picture of his wife. It was obvious to Alexander from the picture that Gracy was ethnic of some sort. Heinrik was positive Alexander had noticed this, but surprisingly, he did not ask about her heritage. He looked at the picture for a moment and then nodded in approval.
Accidentally, Heinrik dropped the picture but quickly recovered it. He stared at her one last time before sticking it back into his wallet.
Heinrik took a deep breath and looked at his watch. It was time to sweep the spotlight. He stood up and peered over the edge of the wall. The spotlight was still dark. Heinrik heard a faint sound coming from below him. He focused his eyes and noticed a couple of dark shadows scurrying along the wall below. Again he tried to refocus his eyes and he saw two prisoners sneaking around.
“Son of a bitch,” Heinrik said.
Alexander stood up behind Heinrik. He was looking across the yard. “Look, the guard across from us is waving at us,” he said.
Heinrik looked across the yard and saw one of the other guards pointing at him from the opposite wall. He was signaling over to Heinrik who had a much clearer shot of the escaping inmates.
“Alexander, switch on the spotlight. We have two runaways down in the yard,” Heinrik said.
“Yes, sir,” Alexander said and then moved behind the light and grabbed the handles around it. On one of the handles there was a red switch. Alexander flipped it. The motor in the spotlight jumped to life and began humming. He adjusted the spotlight to sweep over the yard. He’d completely missed the spot where the inmates were crouching.
“Alexander, slow the light down and move it back toward us.”
“Yes, sir,” he replied.
Again the light completely missed the inmates. Heinrik squeezed the butt of his rifle in frustration. He felt as though Alexander was deliberately missing the prisoners.
“Alexander, what are you doing?” Heinrik asked, still facing the spot in the yard where the prisoners were standing.
“Alexander?” Heinrik asked again. There was no answer. The beam of light had completely stopped moving.
Heinrik turned around to se
e Alexander pointing a pistol at him. The gun trembled in his hand.
“Alexander, what are you doing?”
“Sorry, Heinrik, but they were not supposed to come by this way for another forty minutes. They were supposed to come by after I had sabotaged the spotlight. I’m sorry to have to do this to you,” Alexander said, raising his pistol so that Heinrik’s face was directly in its line of sight. “Now lower your rifle.”
Heinrik feared lowering his gun, but he could not see any other choice. He lowered the rifle slowly and let it slip to the ground. He began to raise his hands into the air. He did not know what to do now. Alexander’s nerves caused him to tremble. He looked completely on edge. Heinrik suspected Alexander had never shot anyone before, at least not a comrade.
“I’m going to have to shoot you, Heinrik,” Alexander said.
“No! Wait!” Heinrik shouted.
A gunshot rang in their ears. It echoed with a loud, cracking noise. It sounded distant, farther away than it should have if it were fired from Alexander’s gun.
In the heat of panic, Heinrik squeezed his eyes tightly shut. As he opened them he slowly realized he was not shot. He looked up in relief. Looking at Alexander, he saw blood gushing from his chest. Alexander’s body swayed forward, backward, and then forward again.
Finally, he lowered his gun and stumbled forward, close to going over the ledge. Abruptly, he grabbed onto Heinrik with both hands, grasping his shoulders. The two of them stumbled toward the edge together, and Alexander forced Heinrik to fall over with him.
Together, they went over the side of the wall into the depths of the prison’s yard. Heinrik saw the guard from the opposite wall in a flash. The guard looked through a scope at Heinrik and Alexander. He had seen Alexander pull a gun on Heinrik. He had fired at the traitor. Now, he watched in shock as Alexander fell to the prison yard below and took Heinrik with him. They fumbled through the air and finally crashed onto the ground together.
Heinrik heard the bones in his right leg snap before he felt them shatter. He lay on top of Alexander’s body, dazed and paralyzed. The moon appeared from behind the clouds. It shone down on the yard. Heinrik watched it from where he lay. A searing pain torpedoed through his body toward his feet.
