Stile Maus

by Robert Wise

  ‘Calm down,’ Stefan said with a smile, ‘what’s wrong?’

  ‘We were playing... just outside Mr Rocha’s store, we weren’t making trouble for anyone I promise Stefan.’

  Resting his hand gently upon Henry’s quivering shoulder Stefan frowned and knelt down so that he could hear the boy’s stuttering speech more clearly.

  ‘What exactly is wrong Henry?’ he said reassuringly.

  ‘It’s your brother,’ he wept, ‘they hit him.’

  A cold surge fizzed though Stefan’s arms and legs.

  ‘Who hit him Henry?’

  ‘The German’s,’ the little boy cried, ‘it was the German’s.

  Joseph lay against the sofa, his head resting upon a tall heap of cushions. Stefan’s mother sat beside him, dabbing his dampened forehead with a warm rag. The room hummed with hushed conversation. Stefan set his hand down upon Joseph’s arm and glanced gingerly into the eyes of his distraught mother.

  ‘Where’s Father?’ Stefan muttered.

  ‘Upstairs,’ his mother sobbed, ‘talk to him, Stefan please.’ Joseph groaned, his lips barely parting to release each hint of discomfort. A thick purple bruise sat under his left eye, a stream of dried blood hung beneath his nose.

  ‘For goodness sake,’ his mother cried, wiping away the gathering of darkened crimson red. Stefan looked around. His brother, his two sisters, his aunt and uncle, they all stared at him with hopeful yet demanding eyes. He rose to his feet and edged past the tunnel of back-patting hands and took to the staircase, embarking upon each step until he reached the dimly lit landing. His fingers felt at the walls. Their whiteness had been lost in the darkness yet appeared fully restored by a peachy glow flickering out from an open doorway down the hall. Stefan pushed at the door leading into his father’s bedroom. A milky moonlight caught his eyes first, then he saw his father, sprawled against the windowsill, his face enthralled with pain and antipathy. His hair spilled over his ears and a thick moustache grew across his wrinkle creased face.

  ‘Father,’ Stefan grumbled nervously. The man, seemingly riddled with old age way before his time, stared at his son for a moment before returning his tear inflamed gaze out into the dark night.

  ‘You see what they did to the boy.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Struck him down, struck him down for...’ a splutter left his cracked lips and a cloud of hot spittle appeared against the glass.

  ‘F-for nothing, bastards...’ Stefan studied his crooked form. The buttons on his shirt hung by their short blue threads and his shoes were worn beyond a key cutters repair. A sharp pain would niggle at his insides when he looked deep into the sadness of his father’s face. He could never figure out what it was. Despair? Pity? He didn’t know.

  ‘Make this right,’ his father sniped, his frail hand reaching blindly for Stefan’s shoulder.

  ‘I will father,’ Stefan replied, ‘I promise.’ A tear began to rattle within the corner of one of Stefan’s eyes. His father continued to stare out into the darkness, his words extinguished, his face bearing the mark of a bottomless sadness.

  ‘Goodbye father.’

  The old man turned his teary gaze towards the empty doorway. A thousand words hung on the brink of his tongue.

  The rain pushed him back. Henry snapped at his heels, sobbing and sniffling and wiping his nose against the rain drenched cuffs of his jacket. Stefan knew where he was headed, though he didn’t know why. The reasons were there, hidden behind a bunch of raging thoughts. He came to the entrance of the lockup and fumbled the keys hurriedly into the padlock.

  ‘Wait here,’ he told Henry. With a push Stefan barged through the doorway into a crowded room. Four faces turned to him.

  ‘Ah, we were starting to think old Mr Morel had you working all through the night now.’

  Stefan wiped a band of wet hair away from his brow.

  ‘What’s going on?’ he said.

  Jacques stepped forwards, his eyes riddled with confusion.

  ‘Eight o’clock. We all agreed to meet here so we could decide the fate of the case, remember?’

  Gerard’s eyes rose. Michel noticed and slinked behind Patrice and out of view.

  ‘Right,’ Stefan said, his gaze wandering towards the chest of drawers across the room. The others watched as he staggered past them.

  ‘Stefan.’

  He ignored them and his shaking hands met the handle of the top drawer.

  ‘Is everything alright Stefan?’ Patrice enquired.

  ‘Fine.’

  ‘Hey,’ Patrice persisted, grabbing his friend by the arm. Stefan stopped sieving through the drawer and turned to him, his eyes glazed in a transparent blaze of heartache.

  ‘It’s Joseph,’ he said through a bridge of gritted teeth,

  ‘They hit him... those bastards hit him.’

  Patrice moved his hand up to Stefan’s shoulder,

  ‘Who, who hit him?’

  Stefan’s response was held up for a few moments, hidden behind a series of sniffles,

  ‘The Germans.’

  Michel edged closer, his attention momentarily diverted towards Stefan’s tear drenched words.

  ‘Where are these German’s now?’ said Gerard.

  ‘A tavern not far from here,’ replied Stefan, his frown bruised face retuning back to the confines of the drawer.

  ‘So, what’s the plan?’ muttered Gerard.

  ‘The plan,’ boomed Stefan, finally fetching a pistol from the drawer, ‘is to go out into the night and find these bastards.’ The others looked at one another, a hidden agreement swapped from face to face.

  ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘you might want to bring that bomb too.’

  THE ARYAN QUATTRO

  ‘That’s it,’ Henry said, pointing towards the tavern, ‘that’s where they went.’

  ‘Good job, Henry,’ Stefan said, ‘Get yourself home.’

  With a sheepish nod Henry scuttled past the others and disappeared into the night.

  ‘So, what do we do?’

  ‘Well we can’t just go in there all guns blazing.’

  ‘Too right, for all we know there’s an entire panzer division in there.’

  The tavern sat above the rain soaked curb across the street.

  La Maison Noire. It’s dimly lit facing held an arrangement of colourful flower baskets and the terrace sitting to one side of the entrance was entirely empty but for a few enclosed umbrellas. Stefan blinked, sending the tiny droplets of rain that had gathered upon his eyelashes down on the cobbled street below. Jacques ventured a sideways stare from the darkness of the alleyway.

  ‘Pretty quiet for this time of night,’ he said.

  ‘Is it any wonder?’ Stefan replied, his point gesturing towards a car parked up against the curb beside the entrance.

  ‘Huh,’ Michel snorted, looking upon the fluster of pinned flags flittering above the pitch black bonnet.

  Stefan looked at the brightly lit doorway and then back at the car.

  ‘Hand me the case.’

  The others did their best to look at each other through the darkness.

  ‘Michel.’

  Reluctantly Michel let the handle of the briefcase slip away from his fingers.

  ‘Help me with this,’ Stefan said as he placed the case upon a twosome of tall barrels. It clicked open, revealing a heap of clutter. He pushed the papers aside.

  ‘Wait,’ Michel protested, ‘what are you going to do?’

  ‘Like you said, we can’t go in there.’

  A lighter snapped into the night air. The wiry mechanism flickered to life. It was like nothing any of them had ever seen before. Stefan took the fluttering papers into his hands as their wind rattled pages were distracting him from planning his next move. Something caught his eye.

  ‘Let’s not be hasty,’ Michel continued to protest, ‘this thing could...’

  ‘How many times did you try the latches?’ Stefan interrupted.

  ‘About twice, why?’

  ‘Stay here,
’ Stefan said, poking his head out into the glare of the street. Once he saw that no one was around he crept across the road. Puddles clapped under his shoes. He came to the black car and ignored his wide-eyed reflection in the mirror.

  ‘Take this you bastards,’ he muttered, thrusting the case beneath the body of the vehicle. He was back across the road in seconds, his heart racing and his breath rushed. Patrice, Michel, Jacques and Gerard watched, extraordinarily curious, painfully fearful. The downpour grew, tumbling down at a higher, more aggressive rate. Stefan didn’t take his eyes away, he couldn’t. He needed to see it.

  ‘What did you do?’ hissed Patrice.

  An orange flare rose before them, spreading quickly across the puddle splashed roads. A crash of shattering glass sounded beneath the tornado of rising flames and smoke. The group of huddled shadows retreated within the grotty confines of the alleyway, their eyes fixed to the smoky mass that was beginning to swell above the tavern.

  ‘Let’s go,’ Gerard whispered, ‘come on.’

  ‘Wait,’ said Stefan, barely able to fight the urge to run.

  A small crowd began to form around the smouldering chassis, shouting and muttering and pointing. A few moments later they appeared, their faces drenched in confusion and anger. Their uniforms were loose and shabby from an evening of carefree drinking. The Aryan Quattro stood with their hands in their pockets, glaring at the burning upholstery of their ride home. A band of smiles lingered within the alleyway. The newly established saboteurs were gone.

  Over the next few weeks the five Frenchmen would find a vague, black and white description of themselves and their escapades on the front page of every newspaper in Paris. The papers called them;

  Le Stallers (the stallers)

  What did it mean? That the people of France resented them for taking so long to fight back? A reference to their acts of demolition perhaps, acts that held up convoy movements and caused officers to arrive late to lunches? The column predicted those involved doomed, more or less stating that unless the stallers had a small army, they wouldn’t compete with the Nazi’s surrounding Paris. They weren’t murderers despite what they were up against. They would move mainly at night, targeting trucks and town cars that were left unattended outside back street taverns and bars. If the first act of destruction had taken place somewhat hastily the second had been planned to a tee. One burnt out cab wasn’t enough for Stefan, he wanted to cause as much inconvenience to the Nazi’s as possible. The papers were half right, they were stalling. Stalling for someone else to come along and take control of their city, for they knew they couldn’t become the saviours’ of Paris. They would do their best but in the end, it wouldn’t be enough.

  TAKING IN STRAYS

  Part III

  Emile held her breath.

  What was that? She thought. A roll of passing thunder perhaps? The ear-splitting grunt of a landing Beaujolais? She shook away the figments of dreamy imagination and sat up, kicking away her bed covers and hopping down onto the floor. The cold nipped at her feet. Her blindly guided fingertips met the frosty glass of her window. The darkness offered nothing. The sharp, sudden sound was lost within the sweep of flustering trees and swirling winds. She tried to replay it in her mind. It wasn’t the same. She turned away from her reflection and headed back to bed, mumbling hushed words of disappointment.

  Pierre remained crouched against the grass, his palms fixed to the damp knolls leading down to the riverbank. Francis lingered within a swarm of bustling swamp flies, too engrossed by the rattle of noise emerging from over the distant treetops to set down the string of rope resting against his mud smothered fingers. Then it was gone, the echo feeble. Francis squinted into the mass of blackness that engulfed the river, his eyes finding it hard to focus on the silvery silhouette bobbing lazily downstream.

  ‘Bring in the rope,’ hissed Pierre, his ears still listening out for the noise to return.

  ‘What?’ Francis replied, his gaze still fixed upon the quivering darkness.

  ‘The rope, ravel it up.’ Raindrops had started to fall.

  The damp seeped across his knuckles and wrists as Francis gathered up the rope. His gaze hit the tree pointed border of the forest.

  ‘What do you think that was?’ he said, making his way up the grassy bank.

  ‘Gun shots,’ Patrice replied, ‘what else?’

  Silence hovered beside them as they headed towards the dimly lit veranda of the cottage.

  ‘Go inside, check that everyone’s alright. Hopefully they didn’t hear anything.’

  ‘Where are you going?’

  ‘We’re running low on firewood.’

  Francis’ response was only half true. Even though his body shook with fear, curiosity pushed him towards the murky tree line. Rain crept onto the porch.

  ‘Pass me that jacket,’ he requested as Pierre stepped through the doorway.

  ‘Don’t be long,’ Pierre whispered, ‘the sooner this night’s over the better.’

  Shrugging into his jacket Francis braced the downpour and headed out towards the pyramid of lumber. He heard the door click behind him and Pierre was gone, leaving the veranda empty and rain swept. Francis scooped down to collect a stray log, his blind glare aimed into the darkness. Bark met his palms and he cradled it within the crease of his sleeves. There was a crackle. Francis glared into the swallowing blackness of the forest. There it was again, the gentle snap of a twig, as though something was creeping across the bed of fallen leaves. It began to get louder, the careful steps growing nearer and nearer. An axe sat embedded within a shallow tree stump not an arm’s length away and Francis didn’t need a second glance before settling down the collection of stray wood and yanking the curved handle away from its swollen birth. The axe swung at his knee and he crouched against the grass as the rustling continued. A shadowy outline formed behind the first fortification of tall trees and a cold gasp of air slipped through Francis’ frozen lips.

  He didn’t move. The shadow had now stumbled away from the tree line and was slowly limping towards the cottage. Francis arched his back, slowly edging forwards, desperate to get a closer look.

  What was that, a mask?

  He found himself slinking forwards again, his eyes battling the darkness. The axe rose above his shoulders. It was a man, or so Francis assumed, his form crippled by pain, the clothes on his back ragged and worn. The masked man’s arms were stretched out before him and appeared to be bound together by a set of jangling cuffs. A firearm rattled loosely within his welded hands. Moonlight was the only thing that separated them, the milky channel tempted the stranger to wonder into its midst so that Francis could decide on his move whilst aided by a scarce blaze of silver light. Clouds of pallid breath leaked from underneath the scantily stitched disguise. His visitor was blind, wandering in complete darkness.

  What should he do?

  Who was this stranger?

  Questions such as this flooded his mind. The intruder stumbled and fell to his knees. Francis circled him. Using the nose of the pistol the stranger regained his footing.

  ‘Stop,’ Francis ordered, the tip of the axe held against his guests shoulder.

  ‘Who are you?’

  The rain drenched mask offered nothing but a deep breath of stale air.

  ‘Are you German?’ Francis asked.

  ‘No,’ the mask replied, ‘and neither are you.’

  ‘Correct.’

  Francis detected a great amount of pain in the man’s voice.

  ‘Drop your weapon.’

  The pistol slipped away from the intruder’s fingers and hit the grass. Francis glanced down. Luger.

  ‘W-why, what are you doing here?’

  ‘Please,’ hissed the mask, ‘m-my stomach.’ Francis kept his eyes on the rising fluster of the mask as he moved to one side. The stranger raised his arms slightly, his agony glaringly evident. A jagged hole had ripped into his shirt. Francis noticed that the mark at the front didn’t surface at the back. More shreds on the shoulder an
d left arm.

  ‘Please,’ repeated the wilting figure.

  Francis lowered the axe. His fingers met the creased edges of the sodden fabric covering his guest’s face. He didn’t flinch. With a careful peel Francis took away the mask. A thick mop of dark hair fell over a young, blood stained face.

  ‘What’s your name, boy?’

  ‘Stefan,’ wheezed the unmasked stranger, ‘Stefan De Lorme.’

  Francis watched on as the boy shuffled uncomfortably. He cradled against the makeshift bed, his legs straight, his arms clasped tightly against his shivering chest. Spurts of agonizing gibberish dribbled from his mouth. Upon assisting the wounded stranger into the barn Francis had skipped back down to the cottage and fetched Pierre, who had been perched on the edge of his bed, his head in his hands.

  ‘Don’t tell me there’s another unconscious German pilot sitting in there,’ Pierre huffed, bracing the cold as they trudged up towards the barn.

  ‘Not quite,’ Francis replied with a concerned smile. They closed the doors behind them. A dim light flickered at the rafters.

  ‘We’ll need that,’ Francis said, pointing at his old toolbox.

  Pierre placed the hack saw back into the tool box and took the crumbling cuffs away from Stefan’s wrists. The young boy groaned as he flexed and turned his wrists, scratching and itching at the bracelets of red travelling up his arm. The top floor of the barn basked in the warm glow of lamp light.

  ‘Is there anything we can do for him?’

  ‘It depends,’ Pierre said, rubbing a band of fingers against the rough stubble laced over his chin, ‘with the proper tools, maybe.’

  Pierre observed their guest.

  ‘Jesus, Franc. First the German... now this.’ He swiped at a tumbling drop of rain that threatened to fall from his brow.

  ‘We’ll need a few things; warm water, a needle and thread, a hot bowl of soup.’ Francis turned to the ladder.

  ‘No, I’ll go,’ Pierre whispered. His shadow grew as he neared the ladder and he stepped down each rung until his boots reached the hay swamped ground floor. The doors closed. Francis let out a sigh and turned to the boy sprawled out across the cot, his face creased in agony. Tears streamed across his red cheeks, his dark hair clung to his brow. Francis set his hand upon Stefan’s frayed sleeve.