The Devil's Blessing (19 page)

"Are you sure, because I can always--"

"No," came her voice, along with her face. She stuck her head between the nook of the wall and the crib so that her eyes could let him know how serious she was.

She took Richard back near the kitchen and began to breastfeed him. It felt strange for her, to be exposed in a room with a man that wasn't her husband.

She was a new bride; it had been just a little over a year since they'd gotten married. She was still getting accustomed to the act of making love and having someone else touch her naked body, and now, there was another man with her.

She realized that she was being silly. Technically, yes, there was another man in the room, but he couldn't see her.

She looked down at Richard. It was getting dark now, so she had one candle lit that made the shadows dance on the baby's face. He looked better, she thought.
Or maybe that's just what I want to think?
Ursula was a skeptical person, like anyone these days, but Richard did seem a little better after the injection. He was still nearly bones inside a sack of skin, but his color had seemed to improve. He was eating more eagerly than ever before; she was sure of that in that very moment.

Her entire world was right there, right with her. There was no closer feeling in the world than a mother feeding her child. When else in the human cycle of life did one human provide food for another from their own very body? There was none, and no man would ever know what that love felt like. That's why all wars were started by men, and not by women, she thought. Men would never feel this much love in their lives.

Just as Richard was finishing up, she heard a firm but steady knock on the door.

"Frau?" the voice of Tresler said. "May I come in?"

"No!"

"No?" At the instant he heard the denial he opened the door, a man not accustomed to not having his way. He only had the chance to crack the door as she stopped him.

"No!" she said showing her exposed shoulder to him and his blinding flashlight. In a hushed whisper of shame she said, "I'm
feeding
Richard!"

“Frau Ursula!" Tresler said, blushing away in embarrassment. "Forgive my intrusion! Yes, of course. Let me know when you're ready. We'll be outside."

"Yes," she said, through the ever closing door, "I'll let you know when we're ready." She looked at the curtain on the wall, hoping that they were, in fact, ready for what was about to happen.

Alfred Tresler let himself in when Ursula was finally ready. For her, that meant covering herself up, putting Richard in his crib, and checking and rechecking to see that Otto was well and truly hidden.

She let Tresler in. He was not alone. He had come in with another man. Not the same as earlier, but about the same age.

"Frau Wolter, this is Frank Langer. He will be staying here with you tonight."

"And?" she asked.

"And what?"

"And who else?"

"Just him. He has some sort of fever. We're not sure what it is, but I figured it might be the same thing your son has."

"And what if it's not?" she said, stepping almost a little too closely to Tresler. She realized her mistake and took a step back. She gathered herself and pulled on her dress, trying to calm herself. "And what if it's not?" she repeated, this time in a much more calm and relaxed manner. "What if it's something else? What if he gets us sick? We—my son—cannot afford to have any more ailments.”

Tresler shrugged as he put his hat back on, signaling that he was going to leave. "That is not my concern. My concern is with my men. They all need places to sleep. Most homes are filled with four to five men. If anything, you should be thanking me. The only reason he's here is because he's sick, and—" He paused for a moment, trying to find the right words. "Basically, he's the only that doesn't care that the air in here is dirty." His shrug came with a pout. "It's up to him. Goodnight, Frau.”

Before she could say another word, he was gone, and the door slammed with a thunderclap.

"My name is Frank,” the young man said, dropping his bag on the ground. He sat on the ground and looked up at Ursula. "Do you have anything to eat? I'm hungry." It was more of a command than a question.

She was taken aback. "Um, sure. Yes. Give me one moment."

"I'll take that bread for now. And some water,” he said, pointing to small loaf on the counter. She grabbed it and gave it to him. He began to eat at it like a dog gnawing on a bone.

She prepared dinner in a strange, awkward silence. The man said nothing, but just looked at her. When she would turn to look at him, he just smiled and lifted his cup, saluting her. But that's where all normalcy ended. Instead of breaking eye contact, he just stared, and continued looking at her. It made her uneasy, and she went back to cooking.

Soon, the food was done, and she had no choice but to sit down with the man and eat.

She served both of them as was the custom. He kept looking at her as she prepared the table. It was nothing more than a stew, but she still wanted to be as nice as possible to this man. She wanted him and his men gone as soon as possible, and putting up resistance wouldn't help anyone. She needed to be a gracious host.

As they sat and ate in the near-dark room, it was Langer who asked the first question. "Where will I sleep?" he asked, in his raspy voice. His hair was dark, much like the dirt under his nails. He had a scar on one side of his face that made his right eye seem clear.

"Here, I think."

"Here, where?" he asked.

"Here, on the ground. Right where we're eating."

He stopped eating and then looked around. After a few moments of taking in his surroundings, he gave an approving shrug. "Okay. Why not. And you? Where do you sleep?"

"Over there," she said, pointing over his shoulder, "by that curtain. That's where my Richard sleeps."

"Oh yeah," he said, with a small laugh. "You have a kid."

"Why, yes, I do," she said. "And why is that so funny?"

"I dunno," he said, finishing his second cup of water and placing it back down in front of her so that she could go get fetch him some more. "It just is," he said, and continued on sopping up his stew.

After dinner he took his shoes off, and the smell instantly filled the room. Not that he seemed to care. As she set up his bed, he walked outside in just his socks to use the restroom. He was back quick enough.

As he sat down on the makeshift bed on the floor, he looked up to Ursula and said, "He was right, you know."

"Who was right?"

"Von Essen. About how pretty you were.” Before she could say anything else, he had grabbed her by the hair and threw her to the ground.

❧

Otto could hear everything, of course. It was the only thing that he could do. Listening to them was that night's only entertainment, like a radio program—only now, that show had taken a very dark turn.

She had tried to scream, but he had put his hands over her mouth.

"Shut up, you bitch!" he said, almost spitting on her as he said it. "You will do your part in this war like we all have to. You may not like it, but none of us do."

Otto heard the rip of fabric and a muffled scream. He reached down and patted the ground a few times until he found them—the scissors. Did he have the courage to go in there and stop that man? He wasn't sure, but he saw that his body was moving.

He needed to hurry, but he still needed that element of surprise. He tried, as fast as he could, to move out from under the crib. Between that and the blanket, it felt as if he was covered in an unending set of binds and traps. He heard her muffled cries, and he wondered if that bastard had already violated her.

There was no time to think—just act. He grabbed the scissors in his right hand and held them pointing down, in a stabbing motion. He took one deep breath in, then two, then made the turn from the curtain.

What awaited him on the other side was something he didn't expect.

Ursula was on the ground, slowly sliding away from her assailant. As for Frank Langer, he, too, was on his back.

Otto noticed that what Ursula was really squirming away from was not the man so much as it was the growing pool of blood that was coming out from him.

He was shuffling his feet, as if he was climbing some invisible mountain as he strained on his neck.

He was gurgling and spitting blood—the handle of Ursula's spoon had not only pierced his artery, but seemed to have gotten his windpipe too. It seemed as if he didn't know what to do except move his legs, hold onto the instrument of his death, gargle on his blood. His eyes were wide open, and didn't seem a bit surprised to see Otto. Probably because all surprise had left him.

He just kept making those sick, disgusting sounds. But then Otto did notice something. He noticed his one good eye—or, more specifically, the direction of his eye.

Even with the new person in the room, Langer's eye was firmly on Ursula. Filled with rage, it was as if he was using his last words to curse her. Otto walked over to her, extending his hand.

"You okay?" he said to her, but he was unable to take his eyes off the dying man.

"Yes," she said, in a voice that was shaking tears.

"How did you--"

"Never mind that now!" she said, wiping her tears and her face. "We need to leave. Tonight. Now."

This time, there would be no objections. As Ursula prepared her things, Otto looked on in amazement as the cockroach's legs finally stopped moving, announcing his death.

Ursula was pretty quick in grabbing the things she needed. Maybe it was because she had already prepared in her mind what she needed to leave. Or perhaps, and more likely, there wasn't that much to take.

Leaving the small town was another thing. Since it was so small and the homes so close to one another, it would make navigating through the night that much harder. And Otto knew there would be someone out on watch. There always was.

The plan to escape was easy enough. Go towards the road in the west and meet there. It was decided that she would go first. That way, if only the first party to leave was not caught, it would be the woman and child who would be free.

Ursula carried the boy in her arms, wrapped over and again in what had been Otto's blanket. She left what she believed to be enough room for Richard to breathe. Once they were outside, the steam from the bundle in her arms confirmed that he could.

After she was gone, it was Otto's turn. He had to wait. If he went right after her, it would be as good as going together, and that was something that no one wanted. They needed to keep their visual footprint as small as possible, and if Ursula was caught, she had a better chance of explaining herself alone than with an obvious defector.

Otto did what he had done earlier: he stared at the dead man on the ground. He was now most certainly dead, with his eyes staring directly up towards the ceiling. His hands were at his sides and his legs were straight. It looked as if he was a stubborn child who had been told to go to sleep. He was laid out, but even in death he was a ball of angry tension.

He could now see Ursula's handiwork. She had stabbed him with the handle of a metal spoon. How she had gotten an object so blunt through his neck, he wasn't sure, but then it dawned on him. Just a few days ago she had done the same procedure to her son. She had already practiced the act and had the mental strength to thrust something into someone's neck. The more that Otto thought about it, it must have been relatively easy for her. Stabbing someone you loved in the neck was the hard part. Doing that to someone you hated? It must have been as easy as standing up.

It was now his turn to leave. He wasn't as aware of the town's makeup as Ursula obviously, but he still had to give it a go.

Just as he was getting ready to leave, he stopped and went over to the dead man's sack and found what he was looking for. A gun. He put that in his sack and was ready to leave.

The only thing that bothered him was the watchman. He was out there. He
had
to be out there. The good news was, he hadn't heard any screams or muffled struggles in the distance. Ursula had made it past. Good. Maybe just past earshot, but that was better than nothing.

The door made an awfully loud noise when it was opened and closed, but there was no way around it. For a moment, Otto considered leaving the door open so as to not to make too much noise. As soon as he thought it, he realized how stupid he was being. The visual announcement of the Germans' dead comrade laying on the floor would be the worst possible calling card. He closed the door behind him and made his way through the small maze, waiting to meet his Minotaur and his death.

But as he made it down the winding paths, he never came across the night watchman. Maybe they didn't have one. Maybe he was asleep. Maybe they had become lucky. Whatever it was, he was soon free from the bundle of homes, and was running, full sprint, towards the west.

His world became a loud, busy one. His ears were filled the sound of his breathing; the road ahead, already near impossible to see in the night, had become a shaky, blurry mess. His eyes were a bit teary from the cold and running with his sack made the world a bumpy one, like riding on horseback without all the freedom.

Finally he saw her. They had waited for him. He stopped to turn to look at the town. He was surprised how far they had actually come. The light from one window was all that he could make out, but it was assurance enough that they were gone.

He looked back at Ursula.

"Ready?" she asked.

"Ready."

❧

How had it come to this?
Otto wondered.

He understood taking back the land that Poland had taken, and even that in Yugoslavia. Austria knew her place, and made sure to come rightfully back to her German home. But why France? Why Russia? Yes, of course, the French had declared war on Germany.
We were forced to fight them and the British!
Otto thought. It was them, and not Germany, who had declared war. Germany just wanted to secure her land back. That was right, wasn't it?

Now, Otto wasn't sure anymore. He knew that the Bolsheviks were just like the Jews—
Untermensch
, sub-human. He knew that they would attack eventually, right? But why go after them now, with so much pressure coming to them from the west? None of it made sense. None of this war did. The German cause was right, wasn't it? Or were they really the monsters in all this?