Sirius (24 page)

Sirius senses what is required of him, and positions himself poignantly on the rubble and ashes. He doesn’t want to seem like a know-it-all, but wouldn’t it be even more moving if he were to whimper softly too?

“Fantastic!” calls Chester. “He’s whimpering softly. That really tugs at the heartstrings.”

Then, all of a sudden, he frowns. “Just a minute,” he murmurs. “Isn’t that Hercules?”

“No, it’s Sirius,” corrects Frau Zinke.

“Exactly,” replies Chester. “Hercules!”

The dog waves his tail cheerfully and barks in greeting. He nestles up against the man who discovered him. Twice, one should say now. First in Hollywood, and now in Berlin.

“Hercules!” rejoices Chester. “Welcome back to Hollywood!”

Frau Zinke doesn’t understand the world anymore. “So now he has another new name,” she grumbles. “Today he’s called this, and the next day something else.”

“Nobody’s perfect,” giggles Billy Wilder.

Frau Zinke has had enough of the disruption. She needs to carry on sweeping.

“What are you doing here anyway?” she asks.

“Colonel Wilder,” says her conversation partner by way of introduction. “Officer of the U.S. Army, film department. We’ve been on location in Auschwitz, Dachau, Bergen-Belsen, Buchenwald. Places that you probably don’t know anything about.”

“No,” Frau Zinke shakes her head.

“Then you are exactly our target group,” says Wilder. “The film is called
Death Mills
. In movie theatres from October. Definitely worth seeing.”

“I don’t have time,” says Frau Zinke, picking up her broom and disappearing down into her cellar.

Sirius shakes off the rubble and ash from his fur. Okay, so it was just a short scene, a minor role, but he did a great job. Not bad after his career setback. And now Hollywood is calling.

“Come with us!” calls Chester. “We’re flying back tonight. Jack Warner won’t believe his eyes: Hercules, the Return!”

Sirius hesitates. Here he stands, just a few steps away from the house where he lived before he had to take flight. How often has he longed to be back here? Wasn’t coming home the point of his long journey?

“Get in!” calls Billy Wilder. “What’s holding you back?”

He’s right, thinks Sirius. His home is now nothing but a pile of bricks. What’s left for him here?

“You’re unsure?” asks the tree.

“Yes,” admits Sirius.

“So I see,” says the tree. “You no longer know where home is.”

Sirius nods.

“I’m going to tell you something,” says the tree. “Home is the wherever your heart is.”

“My heart?” asks Sirius.

“Yes,” says the tree. “Where is your heart at home?”

“With the people I love,” says Sirius.

“So there you have it,” says the tree. “You have found your home, after all. Now your home just has to find you.”

“I don’t understand,” says Sirius.

“Just wait,” says the tree.

It’s strange how the tree always speaks in riddles, Sirius grumbles to himself. His head is spinning. But for some reason he feels cheerful, his gloomy mood has lifted. His heart suddenly leaps. And when your heart leaps, you have to follow it, he thinks, rushing off.

“Where are you going?” Billy Wilder calls after him. “Come with us!”

Sirius turns around briefly, shakes his head, wags his tail in farewell and barks his own version of
Auf Wiedersehen
.

Then he makes his way back to the patch of grass. The sun is no longer shining, but the grass is still warm. He stretches out and closes his eyes. Perhaps my home will find me here, he ponders.

Sirius decides to just wait.

*

Klamtstrasse is a desolate sight. The wind whistles through the hollow houses, sucking the ash from the ruins and spitting it out again in disgust, as though it were coughing.

The clouds of smoke gradually drift away to reveal some figures approaching in the distance. There are four… no, five of them. The smaller one seems to be a child.

Their footsteps are weary. They are lugging heavy suitcases. Every few metres they stop, look around them searchingly, point at this or that, and then venture forwards a little more. It is the Liliencron family.

They get closer and closer. The child runs ahead, stopping by each ruin and calling out: “Is this where we live?”

The Liliencrons are coming back. The sight of the devastated city brings tears to their eyes. Only now, seeing their once familiar street in ruins, do they sense that this is not a homecoming in the truest sense of the word. It is a return to a place where their home no longer stands.

“Look, a man!” calls the little boy.

A man steps onto the street. He looks like a ghost. He was actually on his way to the black market at the Brandenburg Gate, to turn his watch into a shaving kit. Then his gaze falls on the new arrivals. He freezes in shock.

“Uncle Benno!” cry the Liliencrons in chorus, rushing to embrace him. Uncle Benno buries his face in his hands. He doesn’t know whether to cry with joy or laugh with despair.

“Welcome to Berlin!” he sobs.

He can’t bear to watch the family standing in front of their house, which used to be an elegant townhouse but is now just ash and rubble.

“Is this our new home?” asks the little boy.

“Yes,” says Rahel. “But we have to build it up again first.”

“Come on, Johnny, let’s make a start right away,” calls Else, as if it were a child’s game.

She takes a stone from the huge mountain of rubble, eyes it carefully from all angles, then puts on an expression of wonder: “I wonder where
this one
belongs?”

Johnny thinks carefully. “Up there, on the roof!” he decides. “Put it on the roof, Papa!”

Andreas feigns outrage: “You two can’t just take a stone from Uncle Benno’s stone collection like that. He went to a great effort to gather them all together. You’ll have to ask for his permission first.”

Uncle Benno frowns dramatically, as though he is struggling with his emotions on the matter, but eventually gives his approval.

Then Carl takes charge, and solemnly lays the stone on the ground.

“This is the foundation stone,” he says. “It is the symbol of our homecoming. The foundation for our future.”

They all stare at the stone, mesmerized.

“Now all that’s missing is Sirius,” sighs Rahel.

“Sirius!” calls Johnny. He yells, screams even, at the very top of his lungs, so loud that the dog could even hear his name if he were on the other side of the city. “Sirius!”

Frau Zinke comes out of her cellar, looking perturbed.

“What’s all this noise?” she mutters.

At the sight of the Liliencrons, something resembling shock flashes in her eyes. Or maybe it is shame. Or just conjunctivitis from all the sweeping.

She thinks hard for a moment, and then she remembers: “Liliencron! Professor Liliencron.”

“We’re looking for our dog,” says Liliencron.

Frau Zinke looks around, puzzled. “Strange,” she says, “he was here just yesterday.”

Professor Liliencron can’t believe his ears. Is he mistaken, or can he hear barking in the distance? Barking aimed at him? A sound so familiar that his heart contracts. No, he’s not mistaken.

There’s only one dog who barks like that, and his name is Sirius.

Good old Sirius. He thought long and hard about what the tree must have meant. Now your home just has to find you. And he has been barking ever since, without pause. After all, what else can he do to make sure that his home finds him?

He barks to the point of exhaustion, certain that, at some point, his home will come back and find him.

Suddenly he hears a voice calling his name. He gives a start and runs off. He runs as quickly as he can. The street is long, four legs are too few, and he wishes he could run even faster. “I’m coming!” he barks.

He runs past his tree.

“Sorry, but I don’t have time to chat,” he wheezes. “They’re here!”

“I know,” smiles the tree. “They’re waiting for you.”

Sirius is happy. He runs and runs until he falls into the outstretched arms of his family, crumpling in exhaustion.

His home has found him at last.

~

We hope you enjoyed this book.

For more information, click one of the links below:

Jonathan Crown

An invitation from the publisher

The spectacular story of a little dog who almost changed history.

Every morning at ten o’clock on the dot, Sirius, a fox terrier, takes his owner for a morning constitutional through the streets of Berlin. The pair stroll along Kurfürstendamm, visit the duck pond in Tiergarten and never fail to stop by the same tall plane tree for… well… doggy business.

Sirius wishes he could comfort his master. Hitler’s storm clouds are gathering, and it isn’t a good time to be a Jew. Or a dog for that matter. But, luckily for Sirius, destiny calls. Now he can step out of his dog basket and into history on his journey from family pet, to Hollywood legend, and the Führer’s lapdog.

“Rarely a book is so intelligent, funny and cute at the same time.”
Kultur Spiegel

‘Successfully pulls off the high-wire act of giving the horror of the Nazi era a tragicomic turn.’
Kleine Zeitung

‘Perfect for those who like wit, heart and worldly wisdom.’
Bild

J
ONATHAN
C
ROWN
lives in Zurich and Berlin. He insists that his dog Alpha – Sirius’ grandson – told him this family history. All he had to do was write it down. He says: ‘This is the first novel by a dog, I hope it gives other pets the courage to raise their voices and rewrite world history.’

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