Page 71 of Besieger
“Shrapnel does not do that.” Tobias shook his head. He kept his back to Victor, talking as if to the night itself. “I have seen men have their limbs torn and blown apart by shrapnel. Stepping on grenades. It goes everywhere—the human body.”
Click.
“Me? We were short on bullets and I fired all of mine into my own hip. I emptied the whole cylinder. Kept pulling the trigger, and beating at my leg with my fists, with the empty revolver, hacking with the knife. Anything… anything that would get me out of there. By then I thought…”
Click.
“I thought I had seen the worst of it, what men do to other men.”
With his back turned, Tobias raised his hand and for one dreadful second Victor saw the outline of a revolver. The same kind of revolver he carried on him now, always strapped to his holster. The clicking came again from somewhere deep within the metal cylinder of the thing, the bolts and pins rattled. The long barrel pressing against his brother’s temple.
There would be no letters glorifying the death of Tobias Schwarzschild. There would be no heroic end in the name of the Führer, the German Nation, and the Fatherland. Wolfgang Schwarzschild knew that the moment his eyes lifted from the cold, broken body of his child, and fell upon the bloodied hands and uniform of Victor—his now only living son and successor.
Victor’s dry eyes stared, unblinking, at the coffin as it was lowered into the ground. The same unnameable darkness that had claimed his brother’s mind, now engulfed his body. The undertakers had done the best they could to fit all the pieces together, binding the head and chin with cloth, sewing him uplike a construct. The body washed and dressed in the ceremonial garb of the SS. A swastika carved into the lid of the coffin and another engraved upon the tombstone.
Tobias had died wearing civilian clothes, but they were burying him in uniform, leaving no room for doubt where his allegiances lay, or how well he had performed his duty.
Victor’s jaw hurt where his father had hit him, repeatedly ramming his fist into the cheekbone and the bridge of his nose. The blood mingled with the spittle as his father yelled and cursed. The echo of the memory made Victor’s temple throb.
That night, after the sirens stopped, Victor gathered his brother’s lifeless body and carried him home. Placed him upon the dining table, the blood trailed behind them like a bride’s veil. He did not know how much time had passed before his parents returned from the bunker. He might have stood there for hours, staring at the body.
“Coward!” Wolfgang spat and shoved a chair aside before turning back to his son, hands raised. “Traitor! You have ruined us all!”
With each hit, the image of a telegram flashed in Victor’s mind. The paper pierced with punch holes carrying a message about a breach in their ranks at the front. Someone had stolen from the archives and passed the documents to the resistance. Victor had torn the sheet and left the office before the whole message had come through. Whether his brother had been involved in the leak, he would never find out. Whatever dealings Tobias had had, the Schwarzschild name was not going to be dragged in the mud, but Victor could not erase what his brother had done with his own hand, how Tobias had taken his own life.
“We tell them it was the resistance—the communists—the Americans, whoever…” Dietmar was talking. He had taken his seat at the head of the table, undisturbed by the corpse. “And that he—no, you two—fought them and they shot Tobias.”
Victor looked at the blood on his hands and the gore smeared over his uniform. He moved his fingers and turned them. His facewas already going numb, the blood dripped down his mouth and chin. His blood mixed with his brother’s.
“He failed to uphold his national duty!” Wolfgang hissed.
“No, Tobias fought and died for his country. This is what we tell them,” his grandfather’s voice was firm and calm.
Wolfgang’s knuckles were raw, he stood trembling at Victor’s side. And his mother? Where was she in all this? Out of the corner of his eye, flinching as he turned to see her better, Victor saw Elke. She had slipped quietly into the room and walked towards them, undoing her scarf. Slowly, gently as if not to wake him, she began to dab Tobias’ temple with her scarf. With her other hand she patted and smoothed his hair back. Her hands and clothes were instantly ruined by the blood and brain matter.
The absurdity of it struck him, but Victor could not even laugh. If he opened his mouth as much as to sigh, he would break down. A chill ran up his spine at the sudden realization that he was armed: his own revolver, loaded and ready to serve, was in its holster. He had enough rounds. He could shoot all of them and end this.
Even so—breathing in this nightmare—he still wanted to live.
He was not going to bleed for Germany. With his brother gone there was nothing rooting him to this place. He was not going to stay to rewrite his brother’s wrongs—as they now chose to call them. Victor was not going to climb the ranks in his brother’s stead.
“And this one here,” Dietmar lifted a trembling finger and pointed at his only remaining grandson. “TheGauleiter[24] owes me a favour. Even if he didn’t, your son has a good record from theHitlerjugend. He was never meant for the offices. The regional leader will recruit him to theWerwolf. They will train and use him to the best of his abilities. Get him on the front line and away from any investigation. If there is one.”
Victor had never heard of theWerwolf, the guerrilla elite team his grandfather planned to send him to. Nor did he wait for theGauleiter’s letter of recommendation. If one was on its way, he would never know. The post had long since ceased civilian deliveries.
The next time he heard the air-raid warning, Victor ran.
The bombs and sirens were relentless. Like the beating of a heart, they punched holes into the very foundation of Berlin, plunging the city into chaos. Residential areas in the western parts of the city were obliterated, leaving nowhere to hide.
Victor ran, his breath pluming before his broken face in the cold. He started to take off his clothes—he flung his cap, letting the wind whip at his hair and burn his ears. He tore his gloves and dropped them on the ground, his knuckles split and bleeding where he had rammed them into the earth. At his brother’s funeral he acted and behaved with honour. Greeting and saluting the other officers, accepting the medals his brother had been awarded in death. They were going to bury Tobias as a hero, a soldier who fought and died defending his country. Just as Dietmar had promised.
Honour, Victor thought.Honour is a dog. A mad, slavering dog, beaten time and time again. I will not die for honour.
He ripped at the lapels of his greatcoat and wrenched off the buttons, yanked the heavy garment off his shoulders. It almost tripped him as it fell and pooled around his ankles. It dragged through the mud and followed him like a shadow.
I will not die with honour.
He hoped to find the checkpoints empty, the police scattered or hiding. Performing their duty elsewhere. He ran, like a mad beast. Makeshift barriers and rubble barred his way; he turned corners he would normally avoid, farther and farther out. A bomb fell on his left and the street erupted, lifting him off his feet; a window shattered, glass and grit raining down on him. Hysteria bubbled up Victor’s throat and he barked, his boots crunching through the snow, and through a nation’s madness. A nearbypile—more debris, newspapers and belongings—quivered; something inside pushed through it. Victor stopped trying to climb over and looked at the rubble, worried that someone might be trapped under it. He was a coward and a deserter, but he was not unkind.
