Elsa crushed her cigarette butt into a saucer blackened with circles of ash. “You know I have no idea what you’re talking about. Just keep bringing food until I can get a better job.”
“I’m talking about the fighters that will be freeing you from this . . .” he made a wide, sweeping gesture around the flat, “. . . poverty. This slavery.”
“They will, huh ? With all that shooting ? And the poor man I just saw . . . trampled ? That was necessary ?”
Sepp stopped next to her. “The tree of liberty must be watered with—”
Elsa shot up from the chair. “That’s an American slave owner you’re quoting !” She took a deep breath and let her irritation abate. “Sepp, do what you came here for and go play freedom fighter elsewhere.”
They both looked at Alex. He sat on the torn, threadbare couch, watching.
Sepp gave the boy a sad smile, and turned back to Elsa. “I won’t waste any more of your time. We are attacking the police station. Precinct 31. I need to send a message on the radio to coordinate my group.”
Elsa grabbed his arms and shook him. “The police station ? Are you mad ? You’ll be killed.”
“Just as our imprisoned brothers of the Red Army Faction will be if we don’t help. Those are three of our brothers that they have in their cells. The rest of the city is in chaos. The police are spread thin. We’ll be fine. We have a plan.” He tapped his temple and narrowed his eyes, the same look she’d always known meant he’d made up his mind. That nothing could beat him.
Sepp walked over the Alex and dropped to his knee. “Can you go open up the closet and turn on the radio for me ?”
“It’s dangerous out there,” said Alex. “Can’t you just stay here, this once ?”
His uncle patted him on the knee. “Go on, be a good boy.”
Alex stood and sighed, with a glance to his mother.
Elsa shrugged, and the boy walked away. An immediate pang of regret coursed through her. She didn’t have to shrug. She could put her foot down, make Sepp choose between his blood family and his street family.
But the thought of what his answer might be made her feel like a balloon with a slow leak. After riding along for months—years—on Sepp’s express ride to self-destruction, she was ready to get off.
She dropped down into the plastic chair and lit another cigarette. “What will I tell Alex ? He’s had enough people disappear from his life.”
Sepp knelt next to her and covered her hand with his. “You tell him I fought to rid our country of the Nazi pigs still in positions of power. Doesn’t it infuriate you to see Hitler’s cronies in such lofty heights ? Chiefs of police. Minister of Finance. Minister of the Interior.” He raised his hands in exasperation. “It would take me all night to list them.” He stood and turned to Alex’s room. “But I’ll get out of your hair as soon as I can.”
He stood and walked to Alex’s bedroom.
Elsa pushed the ashes around in the cracked saucer with the butt of her last smoke.
Radio static purred from the back room, followed by Sepp’s voice as he spoke his codes in a slow monotone.
She’d let Sepp finish his nonsense and leave. To further question and debate his beliefs, to offer his cause any more attention, would only result in more inflamed oratory. She couldn’t help but think back to the teenage Sepp she remembered, the wise, protective, older brother and de facto father. Where did he go ?
The same place the other boys went, like Alex’s friend Willi—into the fires of revolution. Pawns pushed across the chessboard to die.
She’d rather die than watch Alex take to the streets, too.
Oiled clicks and snicks—metal on metal— came from Alex’s room.
Elsa’s heart dropped. She jumped up and burst into the bedroom, hoping to be mistaken.
Sepp lifted a battered sub-machine gun out of a hole in the closet floor under the radio. A small arsenal lay on Alex’s mattress : an automatic pistol, a pile of bullets, and a few pineapple-type grenades. The bullets were pitted and corroded, the guns grimy and dusty.
“Sepp ?” Elsa stood behind her brother, peering down at him as he closed up the hole. “I said I’d hold your radio. But I said no guns.”
Alex cast worried glances at them, but then sat down at the radio and fiddled with the dials.
Sepp replaced the block of concrete in the hole and pushed past Elsa. “I’ve got to be there in fifteen minutes.”
“Don’t fucking ignore me !” Elsa grabbed his arm and turned him around.
Outside, the pistol shots—no longer distant—popped in the street right outside the flat’s window. Converging sirens blared over the angry rally’s shouts and cheers. Farther down the street, someone shouted commands in a bullhorn.
She pushed Sepp in the back. “Damn you.”
“Fine, I’m leaving.” Sepp slammed a magazine into the submachine gun. “I’m leaving.”
Elsa sat down on the bed, her back to him, and buried her face in her hands. Sepp filled his pockets with clips and grenades. He shoved the pistol into his waistband and looped the machine gun sling around his shoulder and under his jacket.
In the closet, Alex turned the radio back. He adjusted the dials to cycle through the squawks and buzzes of dead air.
And then the strange rhapsody played.
Each metallic note rubbed like sandpaper over the lobes of her brain.
“Alex, not now.” Elsa looked up at him. “Please, turn it off.”
He sat over a notebook, hunched down with his pen, waiting for the music to end.
In the hallway outside the flat’s front door, screams broke out. Authoritative shouts commanded people to get out of the way. A stampede of footsteps shook the floor.
Achtung !
“Alex, go in my room and get back in bed.”
He set the tip of the pen to the paper.
Eins, Zwei, Nuen, Sieben, Sieben, Zwei, Acht, Sechs, Sieben, Sieben, Zwei, Eins, Zwei, Nuen, Nuen, Neun, Zwei, Acht, Sechs, Acht
Instead of writing the numbers, he sat up, rigid, eyes wide. He dropped the pen. It rolled over the pages and onto the floor.
“Alex ?”
The footsteps and shouts grew louder in the hall.
“What’s wrong ?”
Alex stood and the stool plunked backward. His skin drained into the pale-yellow of cheesecloth.
“Police, open up !” A heavy fist pounded on the flat’s front door.
“Fuck.” Sepp racked the bolt to the rear on the submachine gun. “What the fuck ?”
Alex walked to the bedroom window. His gait was automated, a robot dressed as her son.
The doorway crashed open with a solid kick that snapped the chain and tore the deadbolts from the frame. The door flopped onto the couch, completely separated from the jamb. “Hands up ! Police !”
“Fuck you, pig motherfuckers !” Sepp yelled.
“No !” Elsa reached toward him, but it was too late.
He leaned into the hall and sprayed several rounds into the living room.
The firing pounded Elsa’s eardrums, so loud she was sure her skull was splitting up the sides. She crouched with her hands over her ears. Too late, a distant ringing filled her head in stereo.
“Alex ! Get down !” Her voice was distant and muffled, like she was screaming inside a box.
The boy didn’t look back at her. He fiddled with the corroded window latch.
Elsa lunged toward him.
Drywall exploded along the bedroom wall over her head. She dropped to the floor and was showered with white powder. The room looked like a bag of flour had exploded. A ragged line of holes peppered the wall where she stood seconds earlier, each the size of American silver dollars.
Sepp fired the machine pistol around the corner and into the living room. A brass plume of spent casings bouncedoff the wall and tinked to the floor like a handful of coins.
Alex lifted the window and ducked through the opening and onto
the fire escape beyond. Elsa, frantic, almost forgot about the gunfire.
Sepp let the weapon drop to his waist, suspended by the sling, and pulled a grenade from his jacket pocket.
“What are you doing, Sepp ? Stop !”
He looked back at her, grenade clutched tight and a finger through the ring. “Just go ! Get Alex and get out of here !” He flinched from another burst of gunfire that strafed the bedroom wall.
Elsa crawled toward the open window on hands and knees and peeked out.
Through the fire escape grating she could see Alex descending the ladder.
“Alex !”
Alex dropped the last few feet to the sidewalk without looking up at her. He pushed through the crowded street with a purpose, blending in with the writhing mass of protesters.
Fires, beatings, screams—the street and sidewalks were packed. The police stood outnumbered, unable to push forward through the angry throng.
“Go !” Sepp pulled the pistol from his waistband and tossed it to her across the mattress.
Elsa picked it up and pulled the slide back to chamber the first round before she climbed onto the fire escape. As she flew down the ladder, hand-over-hand on rusty rungs, she lost sight of Alex as he walked toward the alley across the street. He moved in a rigid, deliberate manner—a dowsing rod pulled firmly toward water.
She dropped to the sidewalk and pushed through the protestors toward the alley. People yelled, fists raised. Rocks and bottles arced over the crowd. None took notice of the armed woman who pushed through them.
Elsa elbowed and shouldered her way onto the opposite side of the road.
Halfway across the street, she looked at her flat one last time, hoping to see Sepp follow her down the ladder. But, the rapid gunfire continued—a staccato chatter that strobed in the window like a flickering flashlight. A deafening blast blew shards of Alex’s bedroom window out onto the crowd. Dust and loose sheets of paper followed the glass into the street like leaves dropping in autumn.
Her heart dropped in her chest. The gun almost slipped from her grasp as she stared at the ravaged flat.
Sepp.
He couldn’t have survived that.
An errant elbow thrown by a protester knocked hard into her kidney and jostled her.
Get Alex. She could hear his voice in her head despite the chaos.
Elsa turned and continued through the packed crowd.
An armored car followed the ranks of police. The steel vehicle was topped with a water cannon. A helmeted police officer blasted a group of protestors that slipped through the cordon with high-powered bursts of water.
The alleyway stood cloaked in darkness. Steam hissed from a distant pipe, which added a dream-like haze farther down the path where her son disappeared. Deep in the gloom, thuds and grunts echoed from behind a dumpster.
Elsa’s palm was sweaty against the pistol grip, and the waffled handgrip dug into her skin. The alley, a path she had walked down countless times in daylight, stood unrecognizable in the darkness.
A stygian portal into nothingness.
Alex was only getting farther away, so she bit back her fear and jogged into the alleyway.
The hot steam burned her nostrils and sweat poured down her face, but she passed through the cloud in a few strides. Behind the dumpster, a group of boys surrounded a homeless man lying on the ground.
The boys, all Alex’s age, took turns kicking the vagrant. Each one delivered a swift kick to the man’s head or ribs. He lay on the wet concrete, sprawled like a discarded rag doll—oblivious, by then, to the onslaught.
Elsa paused, wanting to pull the boys away from them.
A gust of hot wind blew past carrying rubbish deeper into the alley, as well as one of Alex’s numbered sheets that had blown out the flat window in the explosion. She picked back up to a jog around the boys, who were oblivious to everything but the infliction of pain.
As she passed them, she did a double take and then a quick halt. One of the boys, a skinny kid with a head full of curly, blond hair, stood with his back to Elsa.
“Willi ?”
The boy turned to her. His freckled face was slack, and his narrowed eyes were like tiny, burning coals. Willi was no longer the smiling boy who offered a “Tag, Frau Dietrich,” whenever he saw her.
Elsa backed away, deeper into the alley, as the other boys turned to face her.
They advanced in slow, automated steps.
She turned and ran into the shadows.
The boys stood shoulder-to-shoulder and watched her, then turned back to the unconscious man. Beyond the steamy backdrop near the head of the alley, the gunshots and yells of the protest had faded.
Pale orange lights high up on both sides of the alley lit Elsa’s way. She ran around the garbage and potholes that littered the asphalt. Political posters lined the chipped brick walls—Communists, Fascists, Nazis, all represented on curled broadsides that featured rifles, sickles, swastikas, and promises of better futures.
The main alley ended at a fenced-off loading dock. Two smaller spurs continued left and right—too narrow for vehicles and almost completely devoid of light. Cardboard boxes, trashcans, and other nebulous shapes lined both sides.
“Alex !” Her cry echoed.
A clang of steel and the harsh meow of a street cat. The mangy animal scurried into the light of the main alley as it tore past Elsa.
“Alex !”
A burnt-orange halogen lamp ticked overhead.
“No,” she whispered. The crushing loneliness was something she’d dreaded for years. “Alex !”
She waited, listening to only her frantic heart beating a tattoo in her ears.
To the left spur, footsteps crunched over gravel and glass.
“Alex ?”
A black form appeared in the gloom, the same height and thin build of her son. She took a few tentative steps toward the approaching figure. Her heart sped up, hope hammering at her sternum.
Her shoulders slumped when the outline coalesced into that of a girl. A ponytail swung behind her as she walked purposely down the alley toward Elsa.
Elsa moved toward her. “Did you pass a boy back there ?”
The girl slowed. She looked at Elsa as if the question were a challenge. Her eyes held the same robotic contempt as Willi’s.
Elsa backed away. “Hello ? Did you see anyone else ?”
Behind her, gunshots echoed down the steamy path. The fighting had carried into the alleyways.
The girl’s head jerked in the direction of the battle, a predator who sniffed more worthy prey. She trotted down the main street, leaving Elsa forgotten and alone at the T-intersection.
Elsa headed in the direction where the girl emerged.
Graffiti decorated the dank, dripping walls. A swastika headlined with TOTET DIE JUDEN, the rushed spray-painted text dried in mid-drip. A Kilroy nose over a fence. Farther on, a skull and crossbones with the caption FM’LATGH GOF’NN—only the skull was bulbous and alien.
The strange block letters of the last display caused her to slow as she examined them. She had a working knowledge of most languages spoken in West Berlin, but those words were unlike any she’d ever seen.
She felt countless unseen eyes probing and observing as if she were laid out on a morgue slab for all the universe to flay and dissect. Her flesh raised in pale bumps up her arms and shoulders.
She spun in a circle, gun raised, but was alone in the steamy alley.
Farther down, a gravelly voice punctuated the night.
Elsa lowered her gun and continued.
The access road led to another intersecting alley—a right turn to another major road, and a straight shot deeper into the darkness. A sign was posted on the corner over a few overflowing dumpsters and garbage cans.
POLIZEI
It was the service entrance and back doors of the police station Sepp and his friends had planned to attack.
A homeless man stood in the shadows, hunched over a larg
e section of grating at the base of the building, some kind of basement or maintenance hatch. The man held the grating open—swung up against the building—while someone climbed out of the opening.
One child, a boy. Followed by another.
The two children walked down the alley toward her.
Elsa gave them a wide berth. Their empty eyes and slack faces gave her the same creeping dread she’d felt while reading the strange language. They walked by with barely a glance.
She ran up to the homeless man, gun aimed at him.
The old man—in baggy, dirty clothes and bare feet—watched her approach with no alarm at the brandished firearm. He still held the grating up against the building. A stone stairwell faded into the darkness after three steps.
“What are they doing down there ?” Elsa motioned with the gun at the stairs. “Did a boy come through here a few minutes ago ?”
The vagrant’s hollow eyes looked as if they’d been pushed deep into black clay. Sun-worn crevasses lined his jowls, the corner of his mouth, and his dirty forehead. “Many boys and girls pass through here.” He smiled, dried lips like slugs pulled across his face.
A roach crawled over the threadbare shoulder of his jacket and up his neck to his thin-lipped mouth. A thin, ribbon-like tongue pulled the armored pest into his mouth. The bug crunched as his jaw worked it around.
Elsa’s stomach turned and the gun wavered.
The bum lunged forward and the grating crashed down. He grabbed at the gun, but she fired off an errant shot into his thigh. The gunshot hammered through the narrow alley like the opening salvo of Armageddon.
Without a cry or grunt, the man dropped to the ground.
The ragged bullet hole in the thigh of the man’s trousers did not bleed. A gurgling chuckle escape from his throat, as if forcing its way out of a backed-up commode.
Through his growling laugh, he continued. “Go home and go to sleep. Azathoth, on his black throne, will—”
“Where’s my fucking son !” Elsa cut him off with a second shot between his muddy, sunken eyes.
His head snapped back and bounced off the concrete with a hollow thump. His lips parted, drooling black ropes from the corner of his mouth.
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