The Chaos Loop

by Peter Lerangis

  The last thing he saw before blacking out was his own back, dressed in pajamas, leaning over his sister.

  And when his eyes opened again, he saw exactly what he’d seen the moment before he left Munich.

  A toilet.

  16

  Leila thought it was nice of Clara to pay for two rooms for her and Corey. It was not nice that the rooms shared a bathroom.

  “What are you doing in there, Corey?” Leila yelled, pounding on the door. “The Sunday crossword puzzle in German?”

  “Nein,” Corey called back. “I have a . . . a really bad stomachache.”

  “You sound terrible. Is there anything I can do?” she asked.

  “Go downstairs,” he replied through the door. “There are bathrooms there. I’ll meet you . . . in a minute.”

  Groaning with frustration, Leila ran out the apartment door and downstairs. Her stomach wasn’t feeling so great either. Most of the food at the Bürgerbräukeller was grilled, fat-soaked meat, smothered in thick, gluey sauces.

  By the time she went to the other bathroom and then got to Georg, it was 3:04 a.m. His hands were inside the hole he’d carved into the pillar. The wooden housing from Brög’s shop sat on the floor next to him, along with a Medusa’s head of tangled wires, pliers, screwdrivers, sandpaper, and a thick piece of sheepskin.

  Maria and Clara were pacing next to him, looking nervously toward the door.

  As Leila approached, Georg lifted the bomb, which was tucked inside its wooden housing. But as he inserted it into the pillar, it jammed.

  “Brög made this housing too big,” Maria explained.

  Georg put his finger to his mouth to shush them both. With a worried look toward the kitchen, he wrapped a sheet of sandpaper around a wooden block the size of a large bar of soap. Holding that in one hand, he draped the sheepskin over the top and began sanding down the housing.

  “Why the sheepskin?” Leila whispered.

  “To make the noise not so much,” Georg whispered back.

  “Like a muffler,” Clara explained.

  “Wow,” Leila said. “You really think of everything.”

  “I am scared,” Georg said softly. “For this long time, many Monate . . . months? . . . no one sees me, until Corey and you. I am lucky. I like to stay lucky. Maria helps me. Clara, too. But upstairs . . .”

  He pointed upward with a shudder.

  Leila knew what he meant. Maria was his friend, yes. But there were many other tenants in the rooms of the Bürgerbräukeller. They were locals. In Munich, in 1939, many of them would be Nazis.

  If not all.

  Click.

  When the door opened, Georg jolted with surprise.

  “It’s just Corey,” Leila said.

  “Sorrrrryyy,” Corey whispered, tiptoeing in.

  Georg pulled out his fingers, which were bloody. “Ach. You scare me. I sand myself.”

  “He’s nervous,” Leila explained. “And how about you? You seem to have recovered.”

  Corey walked straight to Georg, ignoring the question. “Can I . . . can I look at the timing mechanism?”

  “Warum?” Georg asked. “Why?”

  Corey took a deep breath. “Because Hitler is going to leave early.”

  “How do you know this?” Leila asked.

  “I went back. I snuck back home, Leila. Just like you suggested. I did research. I had to find out.”

  “You did this without me?” Leila’s eyes went wide. “Wait. Was that what you were doing in the bathroom, time-hopping on the toilet? You took the artifact and left me here? What if something happened and I’d be stuck here without any way to get back—”

  “You have coins, right?”

  “Now you ask me?”

  “Ssssssh,” said Georg.

  Corey nodded. “He’s right. The walls have ears.”

  Leila crossed her arms and scowled silently. We’re a team, Corey had said. Some team. She wanted to scream at him. Time travel wasn’t just about doing things on impulse. Corey may have a superpower. But he was still human. And superpowers were only as useful as the person who had them.

  Corey needed Leila. He needed her planning. Her big picture way of looking at things. In the end, she hoped this scheme worked. She hoped they could go home to a better world. But no matter what happened, when this was over she would have a long talk with him.

  “Georg,” Corey said under his breath, kneeling next to the bomber, “you need to change the timer. That’s the bottom line. Hitler is going to push everything up a half hour early. He has to get back to Berlin tomorrow. Which means he’ll be taking his train at nine thirty. So he’ll start at eight and cut his speech short. He’s out of there at seven past nine with his Nazi posse.”

  “Seven minutes after nine?” Georg said. “But this is not possible. . . .”

  “It happened!” Corey said. “I googled it.”

  He pulled out his phone, with the white charger cord still attached. Leila ran to him, putting her body between him and everyone else. “Put that thing away,” she whispered through gritted teeth. “They’re not ready to see something like that.”

  Their three older friends were staring in bafflement. “What is that in your pocket?” Clara asked.

  “And what is boogled?” Maria added.

  Corey held up his phone and said, “You guys took our word that we traveled in time, right? This just proves it. We call this a smartphone. Your telephones and cameras—this is where that kind of thing is going.”

  As they clustered around him, Corey quickly fetched his photos. He flipped through the archival images of the Bürgerbräukeller, the bomb, and the aftermath. “Just today I hopped. I traveled back to our time. From the future, I was able to look back at what happened now. I did it because Georg asked a question I couldn’t answer. If we were going to change the past—meaning, what happens tomorrow, November eighth—what was our plan? How would we know what to do if we didn’t know what went wrong? I couldn’t answer him then. Now I can.”

  Georg’s eyes were wide and bloodshot. “Das ist Zauberkunst . . .” he murmured.

  “He’s saying it’s magic,” Leila said.

  “It’s technology,” Corey replied. He pocketed his phone, tucking in the loop of his charger cord.

  Leila watched him carefully. He didn’t look good. His skin even seemed a different color, greener somehow. She thought about how little they’d slept. Maybe she didn’t look so great either. Maybe this was why he was acting so weird.

  Now Corey was hunkered over the bomb mechanism with Georg, Clara, and Maria. The old guy was holding it in one hand as if it were a toy.

  Leila moved in for a closer look. The bomb was a collection of four metallic cylinders, wrapped tightly together with leather bands. Attached to the apparatus by a coil was a round analog clock. All of it was arranged in what looked like a homemade steel frame.

  Georg twisted a knob behind the clock, making its minute and hour hands move. Sweat poured down the sides of his face, pooling on the floor. When he was done, he turned the clock face toward them. The detonation time was now set for 8:25. “Now it goes off while Hitler is giving speech,” he whispered. “Danke, Corey. Thank you.”

  They all nodded silently.

  Georg carefully placed the bomb back in the wooden housing. After about ten more minutes of sanding, he was finally able to push the contraption through the rectangular opening. It slid in with a scraping noise and a soft thud. “Hallelujah,” Clara whispered.

  Leila could hear the tick-tick-tick of the clock mechanism. It couldn’t have been very loud, but it echoed insanely in the empty restaurant. As Georg shut the door of the housing, all four of them stared, intently listening.

  The ticking was soft but still audible.

  Georg lifted the cut-out piece of the pillar off the floor and pushed it into place, tightening it with tiny screws at the four corners. It was such a perfect, tight fit, you’d have to be right on top of it to know anything was wrong.

  �
��Do you hear anything now?” Corey whispered.

  One by one, they shook their heads no. Not even the slightest sound.

  For the first time since they’d arrived, Leila saw Georg smile. He meticulously swept up the sawdust, wiped up grease stains with rags, and placed it all in his sack. When he was done, his eyes were brimming with tears. “Viel Glück, Kinder,” he said.

  “Why,” Leila said, “are you wishing us good luck? Won’t you be here?”

  “No, this has been Georg’s plan all along,” said Clara. “To set the bomb and then go into hiding. If they trace the bomb to him, it will be certain death, of course. I shall go, also. As a head of the Resistance, I will immediately be suspect. I recommend that the rest of you go, too. Corey and Leila, you may think of returning to your . . . time. The Nazis will not take kindly to the assassination of their leader.”

  “What?” Corey said. “No! We can’t just abandon the place. What if something goes wrong?”

  Clara shrugged. “It will be in God’s hands. Our work, my children, is finished.”

  She kissed them, one by one, on both cheeks. Then, linking arms with Georg, she began walking through the doorway that led to the kitchen. “Maria? Leila? Corey? You will join us?”

  “No,” Corey said. “I’m staying.”

  “Me, too,” Leila chimed in.

  “I understand,” Clara said with a sigh. “Come, Maria.”

  Maria gave Corey and Leila an uncomfortable glance. Then she pulled a key ring from her pocket and followed Clara.

  “I will let you two out,” she said.

  Clara blinked. “Surely you’re not staying, Maria?”

  “These people are working on the side of the angels,” Maria replied. “I will remain with them.”

  17

  Corey had experienced Central Park concerts where you couldn’t see the grass beneath your feet. He’d been on the 42nd Street subway platform during a rush-hour train delay. He’d even managed to endure a New Year’s Eve at Times Square.

  But he had never seen a crowd like the one at the Bürgerbräukeller on November 8, 1939. Outside the archway, people had camped overnight to view Hitler’s entrance. They were lined up Rosenheimer Street and into the center of town. All day long, people had tried to sneak onto the grounds of the restaurant. Now, close to opening time, the bridges were closed, traffic had been halted on Rosenheimer and Wiener Streets, and the din of the city had given way to a dull roar of voices, shouting, laughter, and even occasional fighting. Customers lucky enough to have gotten reservations were already inside the restaurant, drinking beer and feasting.

  Corey and Leila stood at the front entrance with a bouncer named Gustav. He had a walrus-like mustache and held a thick wooden truncheon. That would have been scary enough for Corey, but it didn’t seem to faze the citizens of Munich. Out of the corner of Corey’s eye, he spotted three silhouettes scaling the eight-foot-high stone-and-steel fence that surrounded the restaurant grounds. As they hid behind a thicket of rosebushes that lined the restaurant, Gustav let out a soft, exasperated groan.

  He muttered a stream of German to Leila, as they all headed toward the bush. “He is saying it’s always the same, every year,” Leila translated. “They come from all over. They drink beer like it’s water. They eat like pigs. They listen to Hitler and he makes them feel good. Powerful. Then they don’t pay their bills.”

  With a sharp swing of his truncheon, Gustav whacked the rosebush. On the other side, two teenage boys and a girl screamed and jumped out from behind. “Grrrr . . .” the guard growled, holding the wooden cylinder aloft.

  As they ran off, squealing, Corey could hear the distant sound of music. It was tinny and muffled, like a brass band underwater. The din of voices from the streets grew louder. “Herr Schmuckler!” Gustav shouted into the restaurant. “Sie kommen!”

  “Raus! Raus!” barked Herr Schmuckler’s voice from inside. Right away, a team of waiters poured out of the restaurant, forming lines on either side of the door. Each held out an arm at ninety degrees, with a white napkin folded over the forearm. They stood with backs straight, looking out toward the archway.

  Maria nodded hello to Corey and Leila as she took her place. “The insanity begins,” she murmured under her breath.

  As the music got louder, the crowd outside immediately quieted. Herr Schmuckler stood by the closed archway gate, waiting. In a moment the crowd began to part, clearing the road and squeezing onto the sidewalks. They fell silent, their faces growing grim.

  Down the center of the street walked a small squadron of brown-suited soldiers, marching in a stiff goose step. Their boots struck the pavement together in a rhythm that didn’t quite match the music. They raised their arms in an equally stiff Nazi salute, which the entire crowd returned.

  Except for one man.

  He was thin and middle-aged, wearing delicate wire-rim glasses and a gray tweed overcoat, standing at the curb with his chin held high. One of the soldiers noticed him immediately and barked a command in German. The man answered quietly, his arms remaining at his side.

  In response the soldier removed a small wooden club from the side of his belt. But he didn’t need to. Before he could raise it, the crowd fell upon the guy, fists flying and legs kicking. His glasses flew out onto the street, where they were crushed beneath the wheels of a slow-moving vehicle.

  “I can’t watch this,” Leila said.

  The resister disappeared from view as a caravan of shiny cars made its way slowly up Rosenheimer Street. Corey could hear the loud rumble of their engines over the blare of music, which blasted from loudspeakers atop one of the vehicles.

  Most of the cars were roofed, but a few were convertibles, their tops down. Nazi officers, mostly older and fatter than the soldiers, saluted the crowd from their seats.

  But just about everyone’s eye was on a car at the rear of the procession, bigger and grander than the others. Its top was open, too, but of all the cars, it was the only one that held a man standing up.

  Corey felt his mouth dry and his skin prickle. He’d seen photos of Adolf Hitler but they didn’t prepare him for the flesh-and-blood version. Even blocks away, the Führer’s eyes pierced the growing dusk, as if they contained a light source of their own. He was short, and much slighter than Corey had expected. His own salute seemed almost lazy, like a wave. Like he knew it really wasn’t necessary to put out all the effort. And that drew all the more effort from the crowd. People seemed to be trying to touch him, their faces strained and tear streaked.

  The cars puttered through the archway, and then they parked along the inner drive. Outside the restaurant, Herr Schmuckler, Gustav, Maria, and all the staff returned the Nazi salute. Corey stared in disbelief.

  He felt a jab in his rib cage. “Salute!” Leila hissed. “You saw what they did to that guy!”

  She was raising her hand, too. Corey felt sick to his stomach even thinking about it. But he knew she was right, and he forced his arm upward.

  Herr Schmuckler greeted Hitler and an entourage of about ten other Nazi officers. Corey recognized some of them from his research—Himmler, Göring, some of the most barbaric murderers in history. None of them seemed to want to chitchat with Schmuckler, who was jabbering away about the menu.

  As Hitler passed, he stopped and turned. Corey expected him to look back and wave to his fans. But his eyes caught Corey’s, and his expression twisted into a bizarre, almost clownish smile. Up close, the bags under his eyes were like elephant skin, his cheeks hollow and sad. The intensity of his gaze seemed to slice Corey’s face in half, and he couldn’t help but flinch. “Wie geht’s, mein Junge?” Hitler said in a voice that was shockingly high-pitched and soft. “Haben wir uns schon kennengelernt?”

  Corey kept an ear open for Leila to translate. She had to swallow several times before saying, “He wants to know if you’ve met before.”

  “No!” Corey blurted.

  “Ah, Amerikanisch!” Hitler said.

  Behind Hitler, journalists we
re taking photos with cameras the size of small SUVs. Each photo came with a blinding light and a sound like a muffled explosion. Corey realized he’d put his saluting arm down, so he raised it again. At the same moment Hitler shifted his weight, and Corey’s hand nearly hit him in the face. The Führer had to move aside, and a gasp went through the gathering.

  One of Hitler’s henchmen rushed toward Corey. He was skinny and blond, with a moonscape of pimples on either side of a sharp nose. He grabbed Corey’s other arm and began to pull him forward. “Was machst du, junge Straftäter?”

  “He’s not a delinquent!” Leila blurted. “It was a mistake! Zufällig!”

  Behind the soldier, Hitler let out a sharp, barking laugh. He shook his head with merriment and stomped a foot on the floor. “Haaaaa hahaha! Ja, ja, lass ihn los, Bruno! Er hat mich mit seiner enthusiastischen Loyalität fast getötet!”

  Hitler’s people were chuckling now, and the Führer turned to wink at them. And Leila leaned toward Corey, quickly whispering, “He said, ‘Yes, yes, leave him, Bruno. He almost killed me with his enthusiastic loyalty!’”

  Now all the other, sober-faced older officers echoed Hitler’s laughter. Obediently, the Bürgerbräukeller staff joined in, too. Bruno the sharp-nosed soldier, whose face was already a deep shade of pink, reddened with anger. Corey could tell he did not enjoy the mockery. “They’re laughing with you, not at you,” Corey said.

  Bruno stepped aside obediently as Hitler reached toward Corey. The Führer clapped his hand fondly around the back of Corey’s neck, smiling for the cameras. Then, letting go, he turned and headed into the restaurant.

  When Hitler’s back was turned, Bruno pulled Corey close so they were nose to nose. Corey could feel the heat from the guy’s face and smell cigarettes and salami on his breath. “Vorsichtig, Schweinchen. Ich passe auf dich auf,” he hissed. “Wir treffen uns wieder drin.”

  He shoved Corey away so hard he nearly fell over, then marched back into the entourage.