Fear Mountain

by Mike Dellosso

  “Henry,” I said, trying to keep my brother in the here and now.

  His eye was closed again, and he made no movement, no chin-dip, no parting of distended lips. I was losing him.

  “Henry.” I said it a little louder but not loud enough for my voice to carry down the steps. My conversation with my brother was none of the Germans’ business.

  Henry’s left eye fluttered open. “I’m here, Billy. I’m listening.” His pulse thumped through his carotid, faster than it should have been. Looking him over, tears sprung to my eyes, and a sob threatened to jump out of my throat. I wondered why the Germans hadn’t beaten me like they did Henry. Was it because he’d put up a fight, like any proud American should, and I rolled over like a dog assuming the submissive posture? Or was it because they just hadn’t gotten around to me yet and my quality time with my new friends was still on the horizon? Maybe tonight. Maybe tomorrow. I could hear their muffled voices on the first floor. Loud talking, then laughter, then hushed tones, then more laughter. On and on it went.

  Henry’s eye closed again and he took a deep, ragged breath that shuddered in his chest.

  “Henry,” I said. “Come on brother, hang on, okay? Just hang on. I’m gonna get us out of here.”

  Even as I spoke the last word, the sound of heavy boots ascending the stairs made my heart shiver behind its bony bars.

  19

  As the footsteps grew closer, ascending the flight of stairs like ancient drumbeats pounded out by some vengeance-poisoned savage in the heart of Africa, my heartbeat increased to keep time. And when the leader of the Nazis, that mountain of Aryan superiority, rounded the corner, I thought my heart would jackhammer its way right out of my chest and bounce across the wooden floor. He stood in the doorway, filling it jamb-to-jamb, and glared at me with eyes that seemed to be laughing.

  “Hattest du ein nettes Gespräch?” he said. Did you have a nice talk?

  He stomped toward me, talking as he walked. “Ich habe eine Überraschung für dich.” I have a little surprise for you.

  Great, just what I needed, a surprise. I didn’t want to tell him because he didn’t seem like the kind of Nazi that handled disappointment well, but I was in no mood for surprises.

  He stopped in front of me, feet parted more than shoulder-width, fists on hips, eyes looking down his ample nose, lips parted in a wicked grin. “Mögen Sie Überraschungen kleine amerikanische?” Do you like surprises little American?

  He was mocking me. I met his glare, momentarily surprised at my own boldness, then looked away and nodded. The only surprise I could think of was a healthy beating much like Henry had received. Some surprise. Why couldn’t I be the happy winner of an all-expenses paid trip to civilization where no Nazis had ever set foot and never would? I wanted to get my legs under me, stand up, push out my chest, and go nose to chin with the bully. I wanted to look the beast right in his empty eyes and tell him to take his best shot because he’d never break me. I wanted to. What I actually did was hide my eyes, fight back the tears, and wish I could escape to some other reality. But my reality was here, with the Nazi bear and his three fruende. I’d take what was coming to me, not because I wanted to, not because I feared nothing, but because I had no other course of action. At least none that ended in me walking away unscathed and with all my fingers.

  The big German turned his head toward the door and barked out an order I couldn’t understand. Moments later the sound of boots filled the hallway and the other three appeared. One of the bear brothers was holding a leather strap, like a belt but thicker and more rigid. I tried to swallow the lump in my throat or at least swallow past the lump in my throat but neither was going to happen. My Adam’s apple wasn’t in a cooperative mood.

  The leader bent at the waist, dug his meat hooks into my jacket, and, with a grunt and heavy expiration, lifted me to my feet. He stood me before him and slapped me on the shoulder like you would a friend. “Wie geht es Deiner Familie?” How is your family? He said it with a smile like we’d been old friends just reunited after twenty long years. “Sind sie gut?” Are they well?

  That brought a round of laughter from the titan twins by the doorway. Coyote remained silent, watching with an almost excited interest, hands in the pockets of his trousers.

  I said nothing. Bowing my head, I studied my boots in silence. I didn’t want to make eye contact. This brute was more animal than human, and I knew animals viewed eye contact as a threat. And with my past experience with his dagger and Luger and the image of that leather strap tanning my hide, I didn’t want to be threatening.

  The beast placed a thick forefinger under my chin and lifted my face to meet his. He lost his pleasant smile and affable demeanor, and his eyes darkened with hatred. Open-palmed and with another grunt, he smacked me hard on the right cheek. The blow sent a shock of pain through my face and neck and almost knocked me over. I stumbled to my right but was able to steady myself before I went down.

  Turning to his companions, the leader said something and motioned for the strap. When he faced me again I could see the hunger in his eyes. I was the embodiment of his enemy, his most hated adversary—America. And if he couldn’t defeat America, he could at least defeat me.

  When he spoke again, it was so fast I couldn’t translate all the words but caught something about him wanting to fight a man but I was only a child.

  A heavy silence fell over the room for no more than three seconds before the two stooges burst into laughter again. It was then I realized what he had said. Since I was a child, he was going to beat me like a child. I eyed the leather strap dangling from his hand. Dad used to spank us with a belt. I’ll never forget the dread that crept into my gut and the fear that paralyzed me when Dad stood over me and slowly drew his belt from its loops, fold it in half, and order me to bend over. The sound of snapping leather and my high-pitched wails echoed through the house and across the fields.

  I knew even then that when Dad gave us a “whippin’” it was for our own good. He did it because the Good Book said it was an important part of child rearing. In Dad’s mind, the “rod of correction” could easily be substituted with the “belt of chastisement.” But the chastisement was done in love, painful love that left my hind end red and tender as a deep sunburn, but love nonetheless. The beating this Nazi had in mind was going to be anything but loving.

  He put his hand square in the middle of my back and shoved me toward the doorway. “Bewegen sich!” he growled. Move!

  I stumbled forward and, as I did, felt the sting of the leather strap against my buttocks. Three of the four Germans erupted in open-mouthed, head-thrown-back laughter. Still laughing and joking in German I didn’t understand, the bear brothers each took hold of my jacket and led me toward the stairs. Coyote briefly rested a hand on my shoulder, gave a gentle squeeze, then fell in behind me.

  From behind, I heard the leader say, “Nehmen Sie ihn in der Keller.” Take him to the cellar.

  At the top of the steps, they stopped me and one of the brutes pressed his face against my ear. “Ich werde Ihnen die Stufen hinunter zu werfen.” He wanted to throw me down the stairs. I imagined myself tumbling, tumbling headlong and landing in a broken heap at the bottom. My stomach seized in my abdomen and I thought I was going to vomit.

  The smaller of the three brushed him aside. “Nein! Der Keller!” I was standing on the edge of life and death, a very painful, brutal, death, and they were arguing about whether to toss me down a flight of stairs or banish me to the cellar. Given the option, I’d have chosen the cellar, but that courtesy was not extended to me.

  “Bewegen sich!” the larger Nazi said. He gripped my right arm and forced me to descend the stairs.

  When my foot hit the flooring at the base of the staircase I exhaled the air that had been shut up in my lungs. We then rounded the corner and Coyote opened the door leading to the cellar. The smell of mold and dust blew up the wooden stairs in a rush of cool air.

  Heavy boots clomped down the stairs from the second fl
oor. “Warten!” Wait! It was the leader. He arrived and stood before me, face as red as a beet. Glaring at me with that evil smile bending his mouth again, he said, “Drehen Sie sich um und bücken.” Turn around and bend over.

  20

  When Dad spanked me it was always humbling, never humiliating.

  What I endured at the top of the cellar stairs was anything but humbling and everything humiliating. At first I resisted, or at least tried to resist. I firmed my jaw and straightened my back, meeting the leader’s glower with a glare of my own. But my resistance, my widerstand, didn’t last long. The two larger Germans, with hands like bulldog jaws, forced me into an inverted V, head down, buttocks up.

  Looking through my legs, I could see the leader’s gray pants and black boots. The leather strap dangled at his side like a viper ready to strike. “Ich werde Ihnen zeigen, was ich denke, von Amerika,” he said, and I could tell his jaw was clenched, teeth pressed together. He was going to show me, and his three friends, what he thought of America.

  There was a long pause while I braced myself and gritted my molars. My first impulse was to further resist, but the grip the two bulldogs had on me made my impulse as impotent as a castrated bull. Finally, after several seconds, the leader said, “Ziehen Sie seine Hosen runter.”

  Blood rushed to my face and my carotids felt on the verge of bursting. My humiliation was about to deepen. One of the bulldogs grabbed my trousers at the back and yanked them down just below my buttocks. Fortunately, my drawers did not go along for the ride. Nonetheless, there was a round of hearty laughter mixed with words I couldn’t understand.

  “Nun, kleine amerikanische,” the leader said, teeth still clenched tight, “Ich werde dich lehren, für Deutschland zu respektieren.” I will teach you respect for Germany.

  It takes a special kind of soulless, heartless, conscienceless beast to inflict pain on another human being for the sole purpose of entertainment. I’d read about it, heard about it, but never thought I’d experience it. The Nazi machine must have been so complete in its brainwashing of new recruits that soldiers no longer saw anyone who was not Germanic in ancestry as being human. They were beasts of burden, and beasts could be tamed by force alone. Unfortunately for me, I was one of those burdensome beasts, and my soulless captors were about to tame me.

  In the three or four seconds spanning the time when the leader said Deutschland and the strap made contact with my seat, I promised myself I wouldn’t cry. I would never let these Nazi animals know how completely they’d broken me. But the thin cotton fabric of my drawers did nothing to dampen the sting of the belt and by the third impact I broke my promise and the tears began to flow, dropping out of my eyes and leaving dark round circles on the wood flooring. Each lash stung like a hundred angry bees, not that I knew what a hundred bee stings felt like but I once stumbled into a yellow jacket nest and fell victim to six stings. That was bad, my face swelled beyond recognition for three days, but this was much worse. My hind end began to feel like raw meat, two ham hocks ready for the oven.

  The leader grunted with each snap of the leather and after each impact new tears sprung from my eyes. I stopped counting after six, and he probably stopped around ten. When he finished, the laughter dwindled to an odd silence. I guess the sight of me bent at the waist bawling like a toddler wasn’t as funny as they thought it would be.

  “Setzen Sie ihn in den Keller,” the leader said between breaths. Put him in the cellar.

  The bulldogs righted me and pulled my trousers up to cover my tenderized seat. Their faces were grim and tight, eyes narrow, mouths thin lines. Coyote handed one of the others a length of rope. “Seine Hände binden.” Tie his hands. Then he looked at me and for a moment I thought I saw compassion in his eyes, but whatever was there quickly faded, replaced by that look of fascinated anticipation.

  One of the bulldogs took the rope and shoved Coyote in the chest, saying something I didn’t understand, then, “Mir ein Licht.” Get me a light.

  Coyote disappeared around the corner and returned a moment later with a lantern flashlight. Grabbing it from him, scowling like a man in pain, the largest of the bulldogs motioned for me to descend the steps into the lightless bowels of the house.

  Carefully, delicately, so as not to provoke my irritated gluteals, I took the stairs one step at a time, down, down into the gaping jaws of darkness and the unknown. If the house were alive, a beast from Hell, then I was descending into its belly where a fate worse than whatever that Nazi leader could conjure awaited me. It was my understanding that digestion was a long process and I would be fully aware right up until the end when the gastric juices finally devoured my flesh. Behind me, my three captors followed, single-file, landing heavily on each step.

  When I reached the bottom, I half expected my foot to settle on something spongy and sodden and the smell of bile to burn my nose and lungs. But the floor was dirt and solid, it was just the cellar.

  My three captors landed on solid ground as well and one of them switched on the flashlight and swept the beam across the underground cavern. The cellar was mostly empty save for a large coal furnace with octopus arms extending from the top and disappearing into the flooring above, a workbench in the far corner spotted with a few hand tools, a large barrel next to the workbench, and three shelves lined with 18 ounce jars, the kind Mom used to can everything from tomatoes to turnips. The ceiling was lined with thick floor joists connected by an intricate network of cobwebs. The sound of soft feet scuttling against dirt caught our attention and the German threw the beam against the far wall. A rat the size of a small cat scurried along where wall met floor and ducked under the workbench.

  “Kleiner Teufel,” the German said. Kleiner is little and, though we hadn’t learned the word yet in Mrs. Lauer’s German class, I was almost certain Teufel meant devil. Then motioning to the workbench with the light, he said, “Binden ihn auf die Bank.” They were going to tie me to the workbench.

  With a shove in the back I started forward toward the table. The walk was no more than ten feet but felt like a mile. Thoughts of doom curled through my mind like thick black smoke. Were they going to leave me down here to die and rot? How long would I last without water? Or would I be slowly eaten to death by hungry rats before dehydration had a chance to kill me? All these thoughts strummed chords of panic within me. Pressure built in my chest like a steam-driven engine. And with each step I took, the table looming closer, growing larger and more ominous, the pressure grew until I had to open a valve and release it.

  With a primal growl that quickly grew into a scream, I rammed my shoulder against the German to my left and felt his weight give. I pivoted on my foot and made a move toward the steps when two large hands grabbed my shoulders. I thrashed and ducked and flayed like an enraged alligator while the Germans hollered at each other in unintelligible one-syllable words. The hands on my shoulders loosened but another pair landed on my thighs, slid down my legs and found my ankles where they clamped down. Someone was on the floor. I tripped and hit the dirt hard with my knees, then fell face-down.

  Before I had time to roll over or push myself up, something heavy landed in the middle of my back—a knee. I continued to writhe and thrash about, but my strength waned quickly, my energy depleted. With one last burst, I kicked my feet and felt them hit something soft followed by a grunt and some loud expletive in German.

  Then something hit the back of my head and slammed my face into the dirt. It felt like a gunshot but I hadn’t heard the crack of gunpowder. My eyes blanked for a second, and when my sight returned I rotated my head to the right and noticed I was at the bottom of the steps. I also noticed that a heavy numbness crept over my body. I groaned and tried to lift myself but another crack of thunder erupted in my head, this time along the side.

  When I peeled my eyes open again, I was still in the basement, sidelying on the cool dirt floor. My head felt like there was a team of demolition workers on the inside trying to blow their way out. The cellar was dark, like someone had
colored the air black. Not even a hint of light pierced the gloom.

  It was quiet; I was alone.

  Trying to move, I quickly learned that I had been subdued by my three inhospitable hosts and tied to the workbench. My arms, tied behind my back, encircled one of the legs of the table. I thought of Dad and Pop and Henry on the second floor; I thought of Mom back home; I thought of the Goliath-sized rat that shared my accommodations.

  Oppressive heaviness overtook my eyelids and a thick fog clouded my mind. Slowly, slowly I drifted off to a better place, where no Germans loomed, no hungry rats hid in the shadows, and my family was safe, living out their lives in peaceful bliss, working the farm.

  Sleep came in fits and bursts, as did images and dreamscapes and voices. I had no idea what was real and what was conjured in my sub-conscious mind, and frankly, I didn’t care. I do know at one time I was visited again by my odd friend, Coyote. He placed a clammy hand on my cheek and tilted my head up.

  “Soon you vill be free,” he said with a peculiar hint of excitement to his voice. “Free. Imagine it.”

  The ironic thing was that he was absolutely right. Soon I would be free, free from hate and pain and heartache, free from loss and greed and war. I would be free from sorrow, free from worry, and free from Mrs. Lauer’s German class. Death does bring freedom. For me, freedom from the binding cords of this world, freedom from the flesh, freedom from the curse of sin.

  I did imagine it. And if not for Coyote’s hot breath on my cheek, I would have surrendered to death’s pull, freedom’s call, and resigned myself to a slow death by way of dehydration. But as it turned out, there were other plans for me.