‘How old are you, son?’
Opening his blurry gaze the boy steadied his sobs and fumbled at the tears that he had missed first time around. He held something, something silver, hidden against his lap.
‘Fourteen, Sir.’
Felix shook his head.
‘What’s that you’ve got there?’
The boy raised a small watch from his lap and watched its slow tick with an anger Felix could not quite comprehend.
‘This belonged to my Great Grandfather. He won it in a cards game up in Hamburg.’
Felix watched the boy’s face crinkle as he threatened to sob once more.
‘A few years later he was shot dead outside a tavern, a mix-up, a cruel twist of fate. My Grandfather was given the watch at his Father’s funeral and he too carried it on him at all times, admiring its cunning beauty for many years.’
Felix couldn’t help but stretch his gaze over toward the tiny white face of the watch.
‘My Grandfather was killed just before I was born, a train crash that took the lives of many. From the wreckage they retrieved the watch and a man named
Jaschna kept hold of it, seeking out the next of kin until one day he knocked against the porch door of a small cottage in Berlin, a stern and sorrowful gaze set across his face.’
The boy lowered his head.
‘I remember standing in the hallway, listening to my Father shout and cry. He said to the man that he didn’t want the watch. He said it was a curse. Jaschna apologised and left, but not before setting the watch down on an old table that filled the corridor.’
His fingers curled at the glimmer of sharp grey.
‘Seven years that watch stayed in my Father’s bedside table. Then they called for him, they called for everyone. The war found him, pulling him away from his armchair while he mulled over drunken thoughts and unforgettable memories. For whatever reason he took that watch with him, right here,’
His eyes wondered away from the watch and toward the melting sky that poured beneath the cabin’s arch,
‘Right here, the place where he would die.’
Felix stared at him.
‘Your Father was killed here?’
‘Three months ago,’ the boy murmured. Felix mulled the question over before finally setting it free from his dry tongue.
‘You said that your Father had taken the watch, how is it that you have it in your hands?’
The boy smiled, his lips parting into a sinister smirk.
‘Exactly,’ he said, ‘how has this watch found its way back to me? When months ago it sunk beneath that mud along with my Father and his friends?’
He began to cry, his head rocking against the cabin wall.
‘My Father is gone and all I have to remind me of him is this, this cursed thing!’
Felix snapped a hand over the boy’s wrist and held out his bandage swathed fingers.
‘That is no way to remember your Father.’
The boy’s watery eyes filled with a strange light, a release of pain. With trembling hands he raised the watch to his lips and kissed at its face, encouraging every tear he had kept in to fall across his pink cheeks and down to his mud prickled chin. The silver band slinked into Felix’s palm and he tucked it into his pocket. He watched the boy ease back onto the bench and close his eyes. Sleep came unusually quickly.
His eyes opened and he welcomed the breeze with a squint. The watch fumbled between his fingers. The boy’s name was lost in the back of his crowded mind. His thumb ran over the pearl facing. He thought about throwing it into the glimmering stream below but decided against it and set it back into the confines of his pocket. Felix sighed and pushed away from the railings. He had had enough with memories for one night.
When Max came into work the next morning he found Felix peeling away the chassis of the tilted motorcycle. The under belly lay bare and without shame, displayed a collection of rusting coils and springs. Max brought in a mug of tea and set it down on the worktop.
‘How’s it going?’
‘It’s coming along,’ Felix huffed as yanked away a tilted spindle.
‘Just ran into Luther, he’s looking well.’
Felix nodded and got to his feet, wiping his oil stained hands on a rag of cloth before sipping at his hot cup of tea.
‘Once we get these pipes and springs all cleaned up we can start reconnecting the chassis. We’ll get her looking as good as new by next week.’
Felix watched Karolin from the corner of his eyes. It had been the first time she had joined the rest of the family for dinner since his return and she played with her soup, barely touching the plate of bread sat in the centre of the table. Klaus wriggled in his high chair, gnawing at the curved end of a loaf with a smile upon his chubby face. Felix cleared his throat and Lena shot him a look as if to say, don’t mention it, don’t bring back her tears. The small, jagged piece of bread fell from Klaus’s fingers and Felix nudged it back towards him and smiled. He saw so much of Sebastian in the toddler, his big blue eyes, his curvy white hair. The chief came to his mind and he remembered that Sebastian had been fond of them though never actually owned one. Karolin sipped at her drink, a feeble sip barely enough to wet her tongue. Her pale face was covered by a fall of wavy brown, her big green eyes hidden beneath a frown of constant sorrow. The war was far from over.
Lena woke him with a nudge.
‘Felix,’ she whispered, ‘Felix.’
As his tired eyes opened and focused on his wife’s face Felix sighed away the flashing ghosts of his nightmares and forced a smile.
‘What is it, my dear?’ he said sleepily.
A tear hit his chin.
‘It’s Karolin,’ she sobbed, ‘she’s gone.’
There was a note, lodged beneath the edge of her pillow. Her words were short, apologetic,
heartbroken. An empty picture frame sat on her bedside table. Felix padded over to the cot sitting across the room and ran his hand over his eyes. Klaus squirmed and twisted within the spread of a cotton shawl, his eyes swollen with drying tears. Lena came to Felix’s shoulder.
‘She’ll come back won’t she?’
‘Yes,’ Felix lied, ‘of course she will.’
THE LONGEST WINTER
Years passed. The winter had stayed, despite being unwelcome, and the roads and fields of Stuttgart were hidden amongst a coverlet of snowy mounds. Felix raised the kettle away from a circle of spitting flames and tilted it gently, filling five cups. A chant of warm greetings spilled into the kitchen and
Hugo emerged through the doorway, his coat sprinkled in a shower of fizzling snow.
‘Nice of you to join us,’ Felix said, tipping a small amount of milk into each hazing mug.
‘Apologies brother,’ hushed Hugo as he unfolded a scarf from around his reddened neck, ‘the practice is getting busier by the day, it’s this winter I’m telling you.’
Hugo set his coat down over a chair and warmed his pink hands against one of the mugs.
‘You know you’ve got a congregation of old men out there don’t you?’
Felix smiled.
‘They’re no older than our own reflections.’
‘Speak for
yourself,’ Hugo said as she snapped away the nib of a breadstick and dipped it gently into his coffee before cramming it into his mouth.
‘Must you?’ Felix chuckled, shaking his head.
‘I hear young Klaus is top of his class.’
‘He’s doing well.’
‘Does he ask, about her?’
Felix ran a hand over his face, his gruff beard pricking against his fingertips.
‘Not yet.’
‘I’m sure he and Elsie will grow to be inseparable. They’re in the same class you for most subjects you know.’
‘If you think I’m going to let my Grandson associate with a Brandt, you’ve got another thing coming.’
They shared a laugh yet Felix’s vanished much sooner than his friends.
‘Something’s troubling you. What is it?’
Felix peered into the flashing glow that flittered in from the living room.
‘It’s Lena,’ he said with a cold decorum, ‘well, you know.’
Hugo tongued his cheek and ran a hand over the gruff bristle of his beard.
‘She’ll be fine, you don’t need to worry. Listen, note down her symptoms and give me the list by the end of tonight. I’ll see if we have anything at the practice.’
Felix nodded appreciatively.
‘Come on,’ said Hugo, patting at Felix’s shoulder, ‘the others are getting restless.’
They sat around a fire, their bellies warm from coffee and laughter. There was Howard, a man of bold structure, his face permanently heated with a cherry red glaze. Max, Hugo, and then there was Luther, a jeweller by trade. A dear old friend who’s every word was muffled by the enormous curl of a moustache.
‘So Howard, I hear you’re going to be the next big thing on the silver screen.’
‘Behind the screen hopefully,’ Howard chuckled, ‘yes, the screenplay is being looked over by producers as we speak, I hope to hear from them soon.’
‘What’s it called?’
‘A fool’s fortune, a simple tale of a man who has everything and then loses it, chasing an impossible dream.’
‘I’m intrigued already,’ Max asserted, ‘I’d like to make a toast.’
The circle of men raised their glasses of coffee and bourbon and watered down whiskey.
‘Here’s to the rare occasion where we all may sit, under a roof, where our family and friends sleep, far away from the evil of war.’
The room fell silent, as though each man was revisiting their own trauma of battle.
‘Here’s to friends,’ Max said, raising his half empty coffee mug.
‘To friends,’ muttered the rest, all but one.
‘Something the matter Luther?’
Hugo enquired.
‘No, no, ‘he countered, ‘I won’t dampen the reunion with politics, not tonight anyway.’ His moustache softened his curt tone.
‘We’re all friends here Luther,’ said Max, ‘say what you want to say.’
‘Am I the only one who wishes to talk about Munich?’
‘Munich is far away from here,’ Max sighed.
‘That doesn’t change the fact that Germany is changing. Over two thousand men marched upon that hall, two thousand followers. Who’s to say it won’t be more next time around.’
‘A radical group is nothing new, nothing out of the ordinary,’ Felix mumbled.
‘With the leadership of
Mayr, this radical group could eventually stomp the republic into submission.’
‘The economy is
broken
,’ Howard said, ‘the people will cling onto anyone who promises to take them to higher ground, the depression has set in. People are desperate.’
‘And the culprits are now under the supervision of those at
Landsberg, so what does it matter?’
‘I get the feeling that our good friend Luther is asking us, in a very subtle way, that we must chose sides.’
Hugo said as he slurped into his coffee.
‘Thank you Hugo,’ Luther scoffed, ‘however the NSDAP cannot be ignored, like I said, Germany is changing.’
‘And a failed coup on the government is an incentive to join these so called Nazi’s?’
‘It’s the beginning of something big,’ countered Luther, ‘and I know where I’ll be when it hits.’
‘Standing atop a mass of fallen bodies, bearing a pearly grin and a Nazi flag?’ Hugo’s response was cold. The room fell silent. Felix could tell that Luther’s mind had already been made.
‘Whatever happens,’ Luther concluded, ‘just pray you end up on the right side. The world is no longer a forgiving place.’
Hugo sneered, ‘it never was.’
After the reunion disbanded, Felix sat by the fire, stoking and prodding at the mound of melting logs. He thought about sleep. Coffee occupied his mind. The others had left within a slur of tired goodbyes and the house was now silent, nothing but a few crackles of burning wood and dying flames. Felix eased into his armchair and momentarily substituted the aroma of hot cedar with an intoxicating bourbon straight. He didn’t bother with a glass and tucked the bottle in the grove between his thigh and armrest. He felt the cold swell of tears. The eyes of his mind flickered with the scenes of war. There was a creak in the hallway and he watched as a tiny figure emerged from behind the door.
‘
Opa,’ muttered Klaus as he brushed a cuff over his eyes, ‘Opa I can’t sleep.’
Felix smiled and Klaus padded across the wooden flooring and rubbed at his cheeks with the dotted cuff of his pyjama sleeve.
‘And why is that?’ he said, quickly tucking the bottle of bourbon behind the chair.