Klaus took one last look up towards the jazz filled room and headed through the steel door, placing the watch into his pocket.
‘I’ve got to say,’ said Hugo, ‘you’ve an excellent place here. A lair fit for a king.’
Anaheim remained quiet.
‘And then there’s this, a hidden bunker, beneath your polished floors and priceless paintings. You know what I like about this room though, Heinrich. Soundproof.
Entirely soundproof. I could be standing on the other side of that door and you could scream until your heart gave out.’
He grinned.
‘I wouldn’t hear a thing.’
Schulze fumbled at the cloth around the Major’s face and tossed it into the corner of the compressed room. It was completely bare but for a table that lined the wall, windowless and lit only by a feeble light buzzing at the ceiling.
‘They’ll find me, eventually.’
‘I’m sure they will,’ Hugo agreed, ‘the American’s and British are sure to catch wind of this place soon enough, might be a few years after the war mind.’
‘What do you want?’ croaked the Major.
‘I want you do admit to what you did. I want to hear the words.’
Klaus emerged at the doorway, his hands trembling.
‘You want me to say I killed Felix
Kalb, German hero, idol to every enlisting soldier.’
Hugo snared.
‘Is that why you killed Haas?’ the Major snorted as if he had just lost a hand in a poker game.
‘Don’t forget Hermann,’ Schulze said.
‘Yes and Hermann,’ Hugo grinned.
‘You poisoned and blackmailed Luther
Eichel into helping you. And then you destroyed a young boy’s life.’
Hugo could feel the tears in his eyes and the sorrow creeping up through his throat.
‘And for what? Because you couldn’t accept that Felix Kalb was a better man than you, you were the one who tagged along, hoping for your chance of glory. You knew the risks.’
Anaheim shifted and shrugged at the chair.
‘You know what’s strange about the whole thing?’ Anaheim started, ‘I can’t even remember what he looked like.’
His laughter echoed throughout the room, a cruel laugh, spiced with evil and empty remorse.
‘Leave us.’
The others turned to see Klaus standing behind them, his balaclava flustered with cool but heavy breaths.
Hugo nodded and one by one, he, Carsten and Schulze filed out from the room, disappearing up the slender passageway and into the musk of loud, bellowing jazz. Klaus turned to the door and closed it. The music vanished. Not a note could be heard.
‘And who might
you
be?’ Anaheim said mockingly and then coughed, finishing his raspy splutters with a blood drooled smirk.
Klaus seeped at the fabric covering his mouth and began to walk over to the Major, his steps cautious and slow.
‘What did you say?’
His words were muffled.
Anaheim raised his hazy gawp up from his belt buckle and sniggered.
‘It’s the darnedest thing, I just can’t picture it. I can’t remember how he talks, or how his voice sounds.’
Klaus paced, holding at the golden cage of the bell hop frame and lowered his quivering chin.
‘You have to think of a time, a place where you were together.’
There was a wretched sorrow in his tone. His words were quaky and slurred.
‘Nothing,’ chuckled the Major, ‘you’d have to ask Milo Haas, he was the last one to see Mr.
Kalb alive I believe.’
Klaus slammed a fist against the frame, sending it crashing across the floor and ripped away the balaclava that clung to his face.
‘This is what he looked like! THIS is what he looked like!’
He crunched a fist into the Major’s chin and then another and another until blood spilled across the curve of his gloved knuckles. His yellow hair fell across his reddened face. The scars carved into his cheekbones were alight. And his eyes blazed with such an impossible hatred.
‘This is what he looked like,’ he whispered, lost for breath.
Anaheim’s head fell gently against his chest but rose sluggishly a moment later. Blood oozed away from his lips and nose. Klaus’ golden hair rocked as he clenched his fists at the Major’s jacket collar and readied himself for another punch. A pair of frail eyes met his. Heinrich Anaheim attempted another smile but a mouthful of scarlet fluid spilt down the front of his jacket. Klaus clacked over to the table and removed each bloodied glove. His bare hands felt into the inside of his coat and he yanked the silenced Luger away from its hide, setting it down against the steel worktop. Then he dug into his pocket, taking out the watch. It slapped against the surface with a resounding echo. Major Anaheim looked up. Though he couldn’t see, he knew what it was.
‘This was my Grandfather’s,’ Klaus began, watching the diamond blue hands tick, ‘but then you already knew that.’
Anaheim sniffled, shuffling the shackles around his wrists.
‘One day, when I was young, I found this watch in my Grandfather’s study. I was so impressed with its beauty that I took it with the intention to show my friends, hoping they would all be haunted with envy.’
Major Anaheim cocked back his head and watched Klaus mull over the clicking dials.
‘I met my friends at a corn field, on the hottest day of the year. We ran and played until the sun went down. On the way home I went to show the watch to my friends but it was gone. I was so scared, terrified in fact. I ran back to the corn field and searched all night, even after all of my friends had gone home.’
He gave out a soft laugh.
‘Finally I found it, glinting under the moonlight.’
‘There a point to that story?’
‘I heard my Grandfather tell a friend a story some years later. He said that the watch only brought people chaos and bad luck. It was only after you took him from me that I started regretting ever going back to that corn field.’
Anaheim leaned into the back of the chair and seemed to ponder the boy’s words.
‘If only we knew the answers to all the
Ifs
and the
Buts
, Major.’
‘They want you to kill me, don’t they?’
Klaus nodded.
‘Yes.’
‘Are you going to?’
‘I’m not sure,’ said Klaus, ‘maybe I’ll just tuck this watch into your jacket pocket and send you on your way, with hope that it does to you what it did to my Grandfather and the men before him.’
Anaheim twitched, clearly excited by the prospect that he might actually be let go.
‘Or perhaps I’ll take up this Luger and end it all now.’
He ran his fingers over the snout of the pistol. Then he looked at the watch. The slow, lethargic tick of each blue hand rattled beneath its perfect facing. The Major’s short, raspy breaths rang in his ears. With each glug of stifling air Klaus could hear the smile etched upon his face. The chains that were latched to the Major’s wrists trembled and clinked against the armrests. His smirk was fake, pretence. Klaus turned to him.
EPILOGUE
Hansel set down his pen. He flexed his fingers and shook off an ache that he had been concealing for a while. The old man had finished the last sentence off with a loud chorus of raspy coughs and now began palming at an empty glass with a frail, mole speckled hand. His eyes were wide and full with memory.
‘So what happens next? What happens to the Major? Or Emile and Stefan, and the wounded movie star?’
The old man grinned, spreading a web of wrinkles across his face.
‘Oh now come on,’ Hansel said, ‘you can’t possibly tell me such a story and then not tell me what happened at the end.’
Again the old man spread a dash of deep grooves away from his cheeks and revealed the top row of his teeth.
‘I’ll tell you what,’ he spluttered, staring down into the frothy basin of his most recently swamped glass, ‘fill her up and I’ll see if I can remember.’
Hansel smirked and set his pen into the bind of his notepad, rising from his seat almost reluctantly. The bar was now full, crammed with purple shirts, their eyes stuck to a television that hung in the far corner, just above the entrance. Hansel had been so engrossed by the old man’s story that he had completely forgotten about the game. A circle of commentators in grey suits talked at the screen, giving a mute analysis of both teams and their predictions to follow. There was still a little while to go until kick-off and the Parc De Princes sat a mere five minutes away. He had time to catch the end of the story, and if he didn’t, so be it, he would drink even more, spend the night in the bar and report back to Weber with a notebook ripe with ancient words about a story no one had ever heard. He would probably lose his job. The thought tickled him and he found himself quietly smiling. He imagined Weber’s face, red with rage and veins pulsating away from his sweat drenched brow whilst he clenched at tomorrow morning’s paper, which instead of displaying the powerful form of a victorious Bayern player who had just started to wheel away from the goal in celebration, showed nothing but the horde of French pigeons Hansel had snapped as one of his first pictures. A young girl leant over the bar and tapped her finely polished, blue nails against his hand.
‘I said what will it be?’
Apologising with a bashful smile Hansel ordered a beer and an orange juice, enough alcohol for tonight. Well maybe until he got on the plane anyway. The tender clunked the glasses down against the bar and held out her palm, a smile pointing at her rose red cheeks. Hansel fumbled at his pockets and frowned. Then he remembered. His wallet was on the table, beside his camera. After countless trips to the bar he had decided to just leave it out. The storyteller could really drink.
‘Sorry, give me a minute,’ he said to the tender and she wrapped her palms around the cold birth of each glass, still offering a pleasant smile nonetheless. Hansel pushed and edged past a mob of purple jerseys until he arrived at an empty table. The old man was nowhere to be seen. He scratched at his chin and ruffled his hair, staring through the crowds surrounding him. He reached for his wallet and found everything else in place; the camera, his half open notepad, his bag. With a shrug Hansel nestled back into the booth and searched the rowdy crowds. After flicking through the notepad and checking the dull gloom of his mobile phone a few times, Hansel’s
he’s probably in the restroom
theory ran short and he went back over to the bar, paid for the drinks and took a sip of strong orange juice before collecting his jacket and his bag. A dark sky welcomed him into the streets and Paris was alive with the sound of excited cheers and whistles. A parade of jaunty fans marched towards the pale glow of the stadium and Hansel joined them, taking out his camera and clicking at the cold but jubilant faces of each scarf snuggled supporter. He flashed his press pass at the turnstiles and joined a band of journalists as they leaked through a side entrance and onto the roaring pitch side track. The stands echoed with a hum of proud expectation and confident but welcoming chants rang through Hansel’s ears as he made his way towards the away goal. A cluster of red could be seen amidst a sea of jolting violet. They too were loud and banners and flags flicked over their heads. Hansel knelt and clapped a few shots of the away support. A thunderous bellow sounded and the huge floodlights seemed to magnify, focusing on the two lines spilling away from the midway tunnel. The two teams, led by their stern faced captains, jogged out onto the immaculate stretch of green grass and began to combat the icy chill with short sprints and primed one another with rants of frosty encouragement. Hansel turned to the stands and took in the noise. The words of the old man still flooded his mind. He wondered where he had vanished to; after all, he had a lot to thank him for. His tiny black notepad had never been exposed to so much ink. It
was
a great story. But that being said it was a story without an ending. What
had
happened to Klaus and his band of loyal accomplices? Had he set the Major free or did he finally get revenge for his Grandfather, Felix? And what became of Stefan and Emile the little explorer or Francis or Toby? Another roar rocked the stands as the two teams kicked off and Hansel shook away from the chambers of his baffled mind to focus in on a Bayern attack. The cold nipped at his fingers and he plunged his free hand into the depths of his jacket pocket, rustling against the cosy fabric in an attempt to steal as much warmth as possible. Just then his fingertips grazed along something cold and metallic. A frown pinched at his brow and he caressed it further, trying to judge whether it was the jagged form of his car keys or the lanyard attached to his press pass. It felt like neither and he shifted it into his palm and raised it into the blazing stadium light. Still wearing a frown, Hansel brushed a thumb over its immaculate facing. A dial of perfect white sat inside a compass of elegant silver, the spherical glass so clear that he could make out the swell of his red nose in the reflection. There was a band that matched it in colour, its clasp sat open, ready to be latched onto a fitting wrist. The numerals were of black print and cowered, beautiful and still, beneath the slow chant of two crystal blue hands. A smile pursed his lips.