Fire and Steel, Volume 2

by Gerald N. Lund

  Suddenly it felt as if he had just stepped on a land mine.

  ACHTUNG!

  As of January 1, 1919, the War Ministry of the State of Germany is disbanded and no longer exists. This is in accordance with the surrender terms set by the Allied Forces. There are no plans to reopen the Ministry in the foreseeable future. This building is now permanently closed.

  Due to extensive war reparations required by the Allied Forces, the German government will no longer be able to fund military pensions, provide discharge compensation, or pay outstanding bills or obligations. We regret this inconvenience.

  Hans swore softly, but bitterly. Inconvenience? The loss of three thousand marks was an inconvenience? Shaking his head, he kept on reading.

  SPECIAL NOTICE TO MINISTRY OF WAR EMPLOYEES

  We regret to inform all Ministry of War employees that with the closing of the Ministry, your services are no longer needed. Employment is terminated as of January 1, 1919. Your final paycheck will be mailed to your home. We regret this inconvenience.

  Hans read the whole notice again, his brain too stunned to accept what he was seeing. Could they do this? He had already been approved for discharge compensation. He read through it a third time, slowly, saying each word aloud, as if that might help. And finally he had to accept it. Not just the words, but the enormity of what they meant.

  Rage exploded inside him. He hit the glass of the entrance door with the heels of both of his hands. It was thick enough that it barely rattled.

  “YOU CAN’T DO THIS!” he shouted at the silent building. He grabbed the handles of both doors and shook them violently. They barely budged. Cursing, raging, blind with anger, he kicked at the glass with all his might. A six-inch crack blossomed in the glass. He kicked it again. But it held. He looked up to the second floor to see if there were any lights on. He considered circling the building to see if there might be an employee’s entrance.

  Then he remembered Katya’s words. Their supervisor had called them in and told them that they had the whole holiday period off. That a team of men were going to be working in the building during that time. That none of them would be allowed into the building for any reason during that period.

  It had nothing to do with an audit. The two weeks of time off was not a holiday bonus. It was termination. Only no one bothered to tell the employees.

  A sob of raw fury ripped from his throat. Three thousand marks! Four years of hell, and I get nothing?

  In a daze, he turned and started away, half stumbling. Just off to his right was a large, round, metal trash bin. It was about three feet high and made of heavy-gauge steel. With a cry, Hans bent down and picked it up. Paper and bottles rained down on him as he lifted it high above his head. With a roar, he lunged forward and hurled it at the glass doors. They shattered with a tremendous crash, sending shards of glass spraying into the lobby.

  “Halten Sie!

  The shout spun Hans around. About thirty yards away, a figure was emerging from the fog. The man broke into a trot. Though he could only see a silhouette, Hans could make out the conical shape of a policeman’s hat. He didn’t wait to see whether the man had a gun. He dropped the blanket, grabbed his rucksack, and, crouching low, zigzagged back and forth as if a French machine gunner had him in his sights.

  “Stoppen Sie! Polizei. Halten Sie! Halten Sie!”

  Hans lowered his head, increased his speed, and disappeared into the fog.

  10:35 a.m.—University of Berlin campus, Mitte District, Berlin

  “Excuse me?”

  The elderly man who looked like a professor pulled up and peered at Hans.

  “Could you tell me where I go to talk to someone about enrollment at the university?”

  “Ah, ja,” the man said with a smile. He turned half around and pointed to the southwest. “Just beyond that large red brick building you can see a smaller building made of white stone. That’s the registrar’s office. They can help you there.”

  Hans set off again, wending his way through the throngs of students that filled the quad. School was definitely back in session. He deliberately kept his eyes down so that he didn’t have to look into their faces and see the excitement there. But he still heard the laughter, the snatches of conversation, the couples murmuring to each other. His mood grew more and more bleak, and he increased his pace to move through them quickly.

  Hans tried to shake off the thoughts, but they were pummeling him now, and he was reeling.

  After his flight from the Ministry, he had wandered about the central part of Berlin aimlessly for almost two hours, trying to make some sense out of what had just happened. This whole day was turning out to be one long, maddening nightmare.

  Inside the white stone building, the first door he saw had Registrar painted on the glass windows. Taking off his hat and putting it in the pocket of his overcoat, Hans smoothed his hair down, took a deep breath, and entered.

  It was a pleasant office, with several leather chairs along the walls, warm walnut paneling, and a counter that filled one corner of the room. There was room for three or four clerks, but at the moment there was only one there. Hans looked around. He was the only visitor in the office. How refreshing is that? He liked the place already.

  “Guten Morgen,” the clerk said. “May I help you?”

  She was in her late thirties, he guessed. She had a round face and a pleasant smile. She wore her hair pulled back into a bun, and he saw a simple wedding band on her ring finger.

  Hans stepped up, giving her an answering smile. “Yes. I am Hans Otto Eckhardt.”

  “How do you do, Herr Eckhardt?”

  “As you might suppose, I am just out of the army, and. . . .”

  “It is so good to have you boys home again,” the clerk said, her eyes suddenly glistening. “My own Franz is home safely now too, and thanks be to God for that.”

  “I’m very glad to hear that,” Hans replied, and he meant every word of it. He continued, “I was accepted to the university in the spring of 1914 with a full-tuition scholarship and a modest stipend for living expenses.”

  She nodded, watching him closely.

  “Then—no surprise—I ended up in the army that summer.” He didn’t feel she needed to know that he had volunteered. He would have been conscripted anyway.

  “And you would like to reapply?”

  “I would like to do whatever it takes to start what I should have started four years ago.”

  “I understand. Uh . . .” She sighed but then seemed to change her mind about what she was going to say. She reached in a drawer and drew out a slip of blank paper. She took a pencil from a pewter cup and slid it and the paper across the counter to Hans. “Give me your full name, when you applied, what school you graduated from, and your home address.”

  He wrote quickly and slid the paper back to her.

  “Have a seat, Sergeant Eckhardt. This could take a while since you will no longer be in our active files.”

  “No problem,” he said. “I’m in no hurry.”

  Not exactly true, he thought as he sat down. “I’m not going anywhere” would have been a better way to put it.

  She was gone twenty minutes. By then, three other students had come in, two girls and a young man. Hans explained to them what was happening and they too settled in to wait. Gratefully, none of them felt compelled to start a conversation.

  When the clerk returned she had a file folder in her hand. Hans got up and went to the window. One look at her face told him it wasn’t going to be good news.

  She took a quick breath. “I took some time to speak with the dean of students, Sergeant. I wanted to confirm exactly what your options are.”

  “Go on,” he said slowly, feeling the familiar despair starting to knot his stomach.

  She managed a quick smile. “Your grades and your recommendations are excellent, and it is clear why you were accepted before.”

  “But?”

  “But university policy does not accept test scores more than two y
ears old. So I am afraid that before you can reapply, you will have to retake the entrance exams. The easiest way to do that would be to work with the Von Kruger Academy.”

  “But it’s been almost five years since I took the exams. It would take me months to prepare for them again.” He bit back the anger. “And what about the scholarship?”

  “The dean says you will have to reapply for that, too. But . . . with the government in a financial crisis . . . well, there’s virtually no money right now.” She let it trail off. “I’m so sorry.”

  Then she leaned in and lowered her voice. “I’m not supposed to tell you this, but the president of the university is trying to get an exception on retaking the exams for those who served in the war, but the soonest we will get a decision will be in the summer. You can check back with us then.”

  Hans wanted to look around and see if there was another trash bin nearby to throw. But he knew none of this was the woman’s fault. He could see the sorrow in her eyes.

  “Danke schön,” he said. He started to turn away but then turned back. “How is your son doing?”

  Tears instantly welled up in her eyes. “He’s like a lost little boy,” she whispered.

  1:15 p.m.—Tiergarten District, Berlin

  When Katya came down the stairs and opened the door, her pupils were bloodshot and the skin around her eyes was puffy and red. She sniffed back tears and wiped at her runny nose with a crumpled, damp handkerchief.

  She didn’t seem surprised to see Hans. He thought he had seen her at the window when he was still coming up the street.

  She sniffed again. “You went to the War Ministry this morning?”

  Hans scoffed bitterly. “What War Ministry?” Studying her face, he asked, “And when did they let you know you no longer had a job?”

  “When I read the sign in the window.”

  The anger rose up again. “So no warning whatsoever?”

  “None. A guard was there to make sure none of us went in. Someone had smashed out the front entrance. They were sweeping up the glass.”

  He grinned. “That was me.”

  “Good for you,” she said fiercely. “I wish you had set it afire, too.”

  “Any severance pay?”

  “None.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  Her face crumpled. “I don’t know, Hans. I don’t know.”

  He reached out and took both of her hands. “Run upstairs. Fix yourself up as best you can. I saw that your landlady’s home, so I’ll wait here.”

  “But. . . .”

  He reached up and wiped at her wet cheek with his thumb. “Katya, if you look in the mirror you’ll see what I mean. Trust me. You’ll feel better if you wash your face before we go.”

  “Go where? What are we going to do?”

  “We are going to get very, very drunk. Smashed. Blotto. Blitzed. Crocked. Hosed. Plastered. And that’s just a start.”

  She was laughing through her tears. “Give me one minute.”

  “It’ll take more than that,” he teased.

  She slapped him on the shoulder. “Two minutes, then.”

  Chapter Notes

  As part of the Armistice agreement, the German Ministry of War officially ceased to exist on January 1, 1919. When the Weimar Republic was formed as part of the Treaty of Versailles later that year, the War Ministry was incorporated into the German Ministry of the Reichswehr (from Reich, “empire” and wehren, “to defend”), a much weaker and diluted organization.

  No details are given on how exactly that closure was carried out. The cessation of payments, the termination of employees, and the closing of the building are my inventions, though they seem to be logical given the chaos in the German government at that time.

  January 7, 1919, 2:10 a.m.—Tiergarten District, Berlin

  Hans groaned as pain stabbed at his head. He lay perfectly motionless, hoping that might help a little. It did not. Wincing and biting his lip to keep from crying out, he pulled himself up into a sitting position. Instantly the stabbing sensation gave way to waves of pain that left him nauseous and dizzy. He leaned forward, elbows on his knees, eyes closed, and pressed his fingertips against his temples. It helped a little, so he began to slowly massage the flesh, pressing hard against the bone as his fingers made circular motions.

  The pain didn’t go away, but it subsided somewhat, and his stomach began to settle a little. Finally, he opened his eyes and looked around.

  Where am I?

  The room was mostly dark, but he could make out the couch he was on, a table and two wooden chairs across the room, and a lamp on a small round table.

  Ah, yes.

  It was the lamp that did it. He recognized it from when he had been here before, when he had slept on this same couch. He was at Katya’s apartment. That brought his head up with a snap. He gave a low cry as the pain exploded in his head again. He ignored it.

  I’m in Katya’s flat. But . . .

  He closed his eyes again and started massaging his head. He remembered coming here from the university, looking for company, looking for a drinking partner. They had walked across the Tiergarten, hand in hand, feeling a little like two naughty children. She had led them to another street lined with Bier Hallen, taverns, ale houses, brasseries, and bistros. There were several restaurants—a couple of them shuttered—but it was obvious that food was not the primary reason people came here. Hans and Katya had chosen a brasserie with a French name where they served a limited menu of light foods—sandwiches, hard Kaiser rolls, various cheeses, and lots of beer and ale and other liqueurs to wash them down. Before they left the place, Hans’s brooding bitterness had begun to lift. After that . . .

  He was thinking hard now. He remembered an alehouse and downing two large steins of lager. Then there was a large and very noisy Bier Halle with a live band. Katya had asked him to dance, but he’d refused. She took him by the hand and dragged him out on the floor. Something about dancing with her made her suddenly seem incredibly attractive, and they had stopped to passionately kiss. The dance floor was crowded and another couple crashed into them. They went down in a tumble. He remembered laughing uproariously.

  But from there on, things were a blur. There was another smaller place. More beer. More kissing. And . . .

  His head came up. Was he dressed? He felt quickly in the darkness. Yes. He still had on his uniform. Good. And where was Katya? Suddenly, unbidden, the image of Emilee’s face floated into his consciousness. He almost heard her voice saying, “Yes, Hans. Where is Katya?”

  With a low moan he hauled himself up. The room began to spin again, but he grabbed for the lamp table. He closed his eyes, and after a moment it passed. Moving cautiously now, making sure his stocking feet made no sound, he crossed the room. He noticed a blur of white on the kitchen table. It looked like a piece of paper, but it was too dark to tell for sure. Moving past the table, he entered the hallway and then stopped, trying to remember which side of the hall the bathroom was on. He had only been in it once. He could make out a door on the right, which seemed familiar, and he assumed that was it. But he moved past it to the door across the hall. It was slightly ajar. He pushed it open very slowly.

  Curtains covered a small window, but they were thin and let in enough light from the street that he saw that Katya was in bed, lying on her side, her face away from the door. A movement made him jump, and then he saw that it was the cat with the ridiculous name. The cat stared at him steadily, eyes glowing in the partial light, unblinking and aloof. Hans stepped closer. He could make out Katya’s blonde hair splayed across her pillow and saw the gentle rise and fall of her shoulder. She had a blanket over her, but it didn’t come all the way over her shoulder, and he saw that she still wore her coat.

  “Gut,” he murmured to himself. “Das ist gut.”

  Hans couldn’t shake the feeling that Emilee was following right behind him, looking over his shoulder, seeing everything he was seeing. He backed out of the bedroom and pulled the door shut beh
ind him, turning the knob carefully until it clicked. With that, he made a quick stop at the bathroom and then went back into the main living area and turned on the lamp. He looked around. His overcoat was on the floor beside the couch. One boot was nearby, but he couldn’t see the other one. He vaguely remembered kicking them off in the night. The clock above the electric fireplace showed it was 2:16 a.m.

  The light was causing jabs of pain somewhere behind his eyes, so he tiptoed back to the bathroom and pulled the chain to turn on the light. In a small medicine cabinet above the sink he found some aspirin, tossed four pills in his mouth, and chewed them quickly, nearly gagging on the bitterness.

  Leaving the bathroom light on and the hallway door open, he came back into the kitchen. His eyes turned to the paper on the table. He could see now that it was a note with a pencil beside it. Careful not to make a noise, he went over and saw several lines of Katya’s handwriting on it. He picked it up.

  Dearest Hans,

  Thank you for a most wonderful evening. I can’t tell you how much I needed that. You were my life saver. I was about to drown in self-pity, and you found the perfect cure.

  Never thought I could out-drink a soldier, but what can I say? You passed out before I did, so I think I win the prize.

  I took three marks from your wallet to pay for a taxi and to tip the driver for helping me get you upstairs without waking the landlady.

  If you wake up before I do, I’m in the bedroom. I’m always cold at night. Come in and warm me up.

  K.

  Hans read it again and then sat back, staring at the wall, his thoughts far away, a frown furrowing his brow. He was thinking about that first night when he had asked Emilee if she could read to him.

  After almost a full minute, he picked up the pencil, turned the paper over, and started writing.

  Katya,

  I can’t believe that you’ve had to deal with this drunken bum twice now. I’ve always prided myself on being able to hold my liquor. If there are thanks in order, they should be coming from me to you, not the other way round. Thanks for holding my hand when I was too sotted to keep going. You are wonderful.