Stile Maus

by Robert Wise

‘They want to meet you and Hugo.’

  ‘What has Hugo got to do with this?’

  ‘Come on Felix. A war hero and a battle hardened field medic, the townsfolk would follow you to the worlds end.’

  ‘I’d need to discuss this with him, Luther. And you know what he can be like.’

  ‘Which is why I’ll leave it to you to convince him.’

  ‘When does he want to meet?’

  ‘Tomorrow. Twelve-thirty.’

  Luther handed over a small envelope and Felix unfolded it and read the letter inside.

  ‘You received this by mail? You know this can be traced?’

  ‘No, no,’ countered Luther, ‘this morning I met with my contact in Berlin. He assures me that the operation is held under the strictest of confidence.’

  ‘I’ll let you know by this evening.’

  Klaus pushed away from the crack of the door and tiptoed into the darkness of the corridor. He had to read that letter.

  The handles trundled under his palms. He flicked the ignition and rolled into the shadows. Elsie appeared on the veranda and gestured for him to go around the back of the house. She met him in the garden. An overgrown wave of shrubbery twanged under her stride and she handed him the rubber ball.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ she said. He could tell she was worried and spoke quickly, desperate not to keep her guessing.

  ‘Something’s happening,’ Klaus replied, ‘come on.’

  They climbed onto Harley and took off into the night.

  ‘Luther Eichel proposed some sort of deal to my Grandfather,’ Klaus whispered over the slow drill of tumbling wheels.

  ‘What kind of deal?’

  ‘I don’t know. They’ve been meeting and talking in Opa’s study.’

  Elsie remained silent and clung to his jacket as they turned a corner.

  ‘There’s something else.’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘Luther mentioned your Father. He said something about an operation and a contact he found in Berlin.’

  He felt Elsie’s fingers clench into his jacket.

  ‘We have to find out what’s going on Klaus.’

  Specks of rain began to fall.

  ‘Felix said he’s going to talk to your Father, though I don’t know when. Is there any way we can listen in?’

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘I don’t even know where they’d meet. Your house? Ours? The practice?’

  ‘The practice,’ Elsie yelled.

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘No,’ she retorted, ‘I’m helping my Father out at the practice, tomorrow. At around noon.’

  They came to the alleyway outside Elsie’s house and Klaus pulled onto the curb.

  ‘Perfect. You stay with your Father and I’ll follow Felix. Surely one of us will find out something.’

  ‘Meet here tomorrow night, nine o’clock?’

  Klaus nodded and kissed at her cheek. She kept her hand atop his shoulder and stared into his eyes. He could tell she was afraid.

  ‘Please,’ she said, ‘please, Klaus. Just find out what’s going on.’

  ‘I promise.’ He watched her lips settle against one another and he thought about leaning in and kissing her.

  ‘Klaus look!’

  From the murky confines of the alleyway they could see two figures speaking on veranda.

  ‘It’s your Grandfather,’ she said with a hushed whisper, ‘and that’s my Father.’

  Klaus dug his heel into the ground and pegged the motorcycle backwards.

  ‘I guess this is the part where Opa tells Doctor Brandt.’

  ‘About what though,’ Elsie said testily, ‘what could it be?’

  ‘That’s what we’re going to find out.’

  The two shadows seemed to shake hands and depart.

  ‘I promise you we’ll find out.’

  Klaus tussled against the warm shallows of his bed sheets. His mind hummed with the constant drill of a thousand thoughts. He could hear the raspy static of the radio downstairs. His Grandfather was yet to retire and Klaus presumed he sat in his study. The exact place he needed to be. He wanted to know what the letter in the envelope had said. He figured that would be the starting point. All he had to go on so far was the fact that Luther Eichel had set up some sort of meeting or operation that involved his Grandfather and Doctor Brandt. The landing light pinged on and he heard footsteps take to the stairs, a few minutes later the door to his Grandfather’s room opened and closed. Klaus was quick on his toes and crept into the hallway and down the staircase. The study sat to the left and he slipped through the half open door.

  His Grandfather’s desk sat beneath the window and he searched there first, flicking open each draw with a gentle lift. A scatter of moonlight shone through the laddered blinds and he followed the pearly blue glow for a while before tugging at the desk lamp. A rush of warm amber bleached the room. Klaus frowned as he rooted through the bottom drawer. Nothing but newspaper clips and stacked heaps of browning paper. His fingers met something cold. Something hard and metallic, that clunked and rattled against the pit of the drawer. The curved handle of a Luger delved into his palm. It must have been from the war. There was something else. A watch face twinkled at the back of his searching stare, a pair of Prussian blue hands slinked slowly behind a perfect pearl casing. It was meticulously made, etched with beautiful detail. Klaus ran his thumb over the glass. He’d never seen his Grandfather wear it but he remembered it, he remembered it well. He tucked the Luger back into the drawer and the watch with it, shuffling a bunch of papers over each. An old bookcase lined the far wall and he checked there next. With quick snaps he peeled away each book by its bind, hastily shaking them and hoping for a note or letter to flutter away from the ripple of pages within. He made sure to keep his trail neat. As he came to the second from last shelf he noticed that a brown ridge had been wedged against the cover and opening page of a navy blue hardback.

  ‘Bingo.’

  The fold of the envelope came away and out slipped a thin crease of white paper. The page was entitled ‘For the attention of Mr Felix Kalb’ and a small paragraph lay beneath its bold print. There was an address and a time.

  ~ Hyman Avenue, Klatt’s Cafe, 11:00 ~

  It finished with yours sincerely. No name. Klaus read it again, paying superfluous attention to every detail. Klatt’s cafe was a small breakfast diner that sat at the brim of Stuttgart. It couldn’t be more than ten minutes away. He didn’t understand. The whole thing boggled his mind and disorientated his way of thinking. With one final look Klaus set the page back into the envelope and placed it back behind the book cover.

  ‘Klaus, I’m leaving now. I’ll be back soon. Take care.’

  ‘Okay Opa. See you soon.’

  His voice was muffled behind the scattered fall of the shower. But he wasn’t inside the tub. He was stood by the mirror, his reflection drizzled in misty beads. The steam had gathered so much that it had dampened his hair and caused long curls of his fringe to fall to his brow. With a quick swipe he smeared a clear spot on the mirror and stared at himself. He had no idea what to expect.

  It was a dark day. The clouds bullied together and travelled in giant black, smouldering puffs. Klaus felt the rain on the curve of his cheeks. He tugged at the silk neck scarf beneath the opening of his jacket and set it against his chin. Harley purred under his gloved clasp and he rattled away from the shed and onto the street. It had been a good seven minutes since his Grandfather had left. Klaus wasn’t sure how he would be getting to the cafe, perhaps a cab car. He kept to the back streets, passing washing lines and ghostly white faces who had began frantically un-pegging each hanging garment before rushing inside. A bump rocked the wheels and he swerved into Hyman Close. He could park the bike around the back and take to the Avenue by foot. Rain flicked at his lashes and he wiped them away with the back of his gloves. He came to a halt outside an old run down shop and dismounted, staring up at the pattern of shattered windows before tucking his ha
nds into his jacket pockets and nestling his cold chin into the silk bandana. He crept onto the pavement and hid behind a wall of crumbling brick. Klatt’s café sat at the far end of Hyman Avenue. It was unlike any other building on the road, mainly because its exterior sported a canopy of rich red and blue. A few of the surrounding establishments were old with age and had wooden boards strewn across the window frames. The road was unusually vacant. A murky morning mist loitered. Klaus edged forwards and attempted to better his view with a peering snare. Was his Grandfather already inside? He pulled his gloves away from the stick of the wall and headed for the next closure further on down the street. It was then he saw Felix turn the corner. With a sharp jolt Klaus leaped into a sheltered doorway and nursed his shoulder and the inevitable bruise that was surely soon to follow. He noticed his Grandfather had been alone. Where were Luther and Doctor Brandt? He assumed they were sitting inside and he poked his head around the cove, catching the simmering glare of Felix walking through the shop door. An arrangement of chairs and tables graced the forecourt, some hidden beneath the crooked shade of jagged umbrellas. He stuck close to the wall and kept his head low, moving off with quick footsteps. The rain soared now, soaking his hair through. He swept a hand across his tumbling fringe and crossed the road, approaching the large window at a careful angle. Klaus turned and looked behind his shoulder. There was an eerie feel to it all, an impending scent of looming doom. He pushed the thought to one side and crossed into the maze of tables, grabbing a newspaper off the surface of one and sitting at the next. There, he raised the paper over his face. He was practically facing the window though he didn’t dare peek past the lettered sheets. Not yet. His heart raced. This was it.

  A bell jingled above and Felix was introduced by a soft smile. The waitress left his gaze and continued scrubbing at the tabletop below. Klatt’s was different to what he remembered. The paint across the walls had started to soften and there had even been an attempt to redecorate but it seemed as though that idea had been abandoned quickly. The seats were bare, all except for one.

  ‘Mr Kalb?’

  Felix met the outstretched hand of a middle aged man who rose as he approached and gestured for the waiter.

  ‘Pleasure to meet you, here let me get you a drink.’ His hair was thin and receded sharply. His stare was as grey as the pairs of cutlery before them. The waiter scuttled over and quickly poured a simmer of milk into Felix’s empty mug before raising a silver tea pot and adding a flourish of hot water.

  ‘Refill, Sir?’

  ‘Yes, thank you.’

  The water rose to the brim and the waiter nodded and walked away. Felix watched him.

  ‘So I take it Luther has explained the situation to you.’

  ‘In parts, apologies I thought he would be joining us?’

  ‘If I know Luther he’s probably running late.’

  The two men shared a smile and Felix sipped at the tea before taking another look around.

  ‘And what about your other friend, Doctor Brandt was it?’

  ‘Caught up at the practice perhaps?’ Sneaking the watch out of his pocket, Felix frowned at the ticking dials and then set it on the table. Where were they?

  ‘Nevertheless, shall we go on?’

  ‘Please.’

  The man clapped his hands together and rubbed his palms against one another.

  ‘So, do you understand what we do?’

  ‘Like I said, Luther informed me of very little. I wouldn’t want to assume.’

  ‘To put it in simple terms, we prevent. Or at least we aim to.’

  ‘Luther told me,’ Felix lowered his voice, ‘he told me you ran a rebellion group in the heart of Berlin.’

  The man nodded, almost proudly.

  ‘That’s correct. The country is at its worst. Inflation, the loss of jobs, the poverty, the German people are looking for a way out of this hole and they are willing to cling onto anything they can reach.’

  ‘I can’t disagree.’

  ‘So now I ask you this Mr Kalb. What lengths would you go to, what would you do to stop Hitler from gaining complete control?’

  Felix glanced cautiously towards the back room.

  ‘Anything within my power.’

  For some reason, he found himself regretting the words he spoke. Not because he didn’t mean it but because he feared the words would be heard by an eavesdropper.

  ‘Excellent.’

  There was a quiet hiss of conversation in the back and a waiter soon came rushing past, notepad in hand. Felix caught the breeze of his passing and followed him to the door. Someone had taken a seat outside.

  ‘I guess the weather doesn’t bother some!’

  ‘Right,’ Felix said with a gentle smile, his eyes fixed to the window.

  ‘Before we continue, maybe we should wait for the others to arrive,’ the man said, unfastening the top few buttons of his leather jacket.

  ‘Would you excuse me,’ he said, ‘I must use the restroom, too much tea perhaps.’ Felix pushed away the chair and nodded politely before reseating. The stranger slid away from the booth and vanished behind a sweep of louver doors. The bell above the door tinkled and the waiter stepped inside, hurriedly wiping away the specks of rain on his forehead.

  ‘You should tell him to come inside,’ Felix said as the waiter passed.

  ‘Sorry Sir?’

  ‘The customer,’ he pointed, ‘outside.’ The waiter smiled nervously and looked at the window before moving on swiftly. Felix sighed and raised the mug to his lips. The breeze had slipped in through the doorway and Felix was reminded of its icy snare. It lingered around his ankles and neck. He noticed that a briefcase sat in the corner of the booth. A fly hummed around a bowl of sugar, testing how near it could get before Felix took a swipe.

  He snatched up the menu and glanced it over carelessly. He wasn’t hungry. If anything he felt uneasy. A note sat at the bottom of each laminated page, a message of thanks from the owner. Jochem Feld. He lived in Stuttgart and Felix recalled him serving in here before the war. His pupils widened. He hadn’t said his name. Felix glared towards the restroom doors. The man that had been sitting opposite him hadn’t told him his name. The watch was gone too. It had been sitting right before him, just next to his mug. With a fleeting look his stare arrived at the kitchen. It was empty. The hiss of the stove, the smell of burning bacon, the awkward bustle that had watched his conversation so intently. His fingers curled beneath the table and a soft chuckle left his pursed lips.

  ‘Can I offer you a table inside, Sir?’ Klaus shook his head once more, tired of the waiter’s repetition. Equally annoyed, the waiter huffed and grabbed at the door handle, his curses muffled by the cling of the bell that was disrupted by the forced opening. Klaus creased the top of the newspaper and peered into the murky dimness of the cafe.

  His grandfather sat in a booth nearing the middle of the room. The man sitting opposite him had excused himself from his seat and strode across the floor until he became out of sight. Klaus tried to imagine the conversation they shared. At first it was easy. An exchange of hello’s and names then a request or offer of a particular beverage, probably coffee. A joke must have crossed the table as both men rocked with a slight chortle. Then came the departure of the leather jacket, swift and out of sight in seconds. His Grandfather sat alone. Rain hammered against the canopy above. The cold slithered in between the soaked grooves of Klaus’ jacket. Each water filled seam rubbed at his irritated skin. What was going on in there? Where were Hugo and Luther Eichel? What did they have to do with all this? He tried not to get too distracted, fearing that the slightest amount of complacency could cause him to miss something important. Again he tilted the paper to assist his gaze. The outline of his Grandfather still glowed in the middle of the room. The leather jacket hadn’t yet returned. There were no other customers, no sign of the waiter. Klaus stirred, a cold shiver tickled his spine. Silver beads of rain tumbled across the glass, passing over a collection of golden lettering before dissolving a
s they hit the pane below, one after the other. Klaus focused on the other side of the window, observing the dim gloom inside. The table closest to the glass was covered in a film of heavy dust. There was no menu, no cutlery. It may have been that that particular table was reserved for a special person who only came to town once in a blue moon or that the table was rarely occupied due to the fact that it was nearest the door and generally attracted an inhospitable draft. Those were Klaus’ first thoughts. Then he looked at the table beside that one and then the table beside that one. No menus, no cutlery, nothing but a layer of dust. He pushed his back against the chair, scraping the legs against the wet street. His fingers crunched at the newspaper and his legs began to rise from the wicker furrow. A spark ignited. The windows shattered with an almighty clap and a swirl of black smoke engulfed Hyman Street.

  THE BEGINNING OF THE END

  Klaus woke to the taste of blood and soot. For a moment he felt as though he was part of a dream, trapped in a bubble that rendered the outside world muffled and hushed. His ears bled with the torture of silence. A bile of black smoke swirled up into the skies. He raised his palms from a carpet of crackling glass and grappled to his feet. The cafe stood before him. Keys of brick broke away from the crumbling foundation and plummeted into the fiery pools of ochre flame that writhed and screeched within. The aftermath had created a wave of settling mist and ash and it fell in delicate snow like clumps. The street was lost. Glass clinked under his back peddling footsteps. There were voices, all sounding like chants of approaching worry. He didn’t hesitate.

  His blind wander came to a clearing about twenty yards down from the smoking wreckage of Klatt’s Cafe. He knew that his face was laced in blood but dabbed a fingertip at his cheeks anyway, only to see the black smudges engulfing them soon swell with the darkest tint of crimson. He pulled the neck scarf up onto the bridge of his nose, wincing as the fabric scratched at his scrawl of open wounds. Klaus fought the urge to think about what had just taken place and ducked into the second street. Rows of small stacked houses stood before his cloudy gaze. He didn’t recognize the road. He needed to get back to the Harley but he couldn’t walk through the streets, not after what had just happened. With weak and slow footsteps Klaus shambled over a thick hedge of shrubbery and fell into one of the first gardens. His face sank into the damp grass and he found it hard to get back onto his feet. A washing line sat at the far end of the lawn, lined with flimsy white sheets and socks and other garments that were soaked through to the seam. He clenched at a pillow case and tore it from the line before wrapping it around his face in a tight knot. The pain burned. He noticed that the next garden down had a small shed with the windows knocked through. He figured he could hide there, just until it was dark. Sure enough, with a slight nudge of his elbow he was in. The door knocked nosily against the feeble wall, shaking a few of the ageing cobwebs that lay within. Klaus slumped against the floor and let his head fall into the crease of his knees. He began to sob uncontrollably, rocking backwards and forwards, gritting his teeth as each stream of hot tears delved into his bubbling scars. He cried and cried and would continue to do so until the sun went down.