Made Men (14 page)

O
sgar reclined on the
small couch.

It could be said he lounged
.

An
activity they had never seen him do before. Stomach stuffed with canned food,
eyes open, his thin legs were crossed casually at the ankles and one hand
rested lazily behind his head. The delicate fingers on his other hand tickled
the air absently, as though still sifting through brain tissues. Focusing on a
spot above the couch, meditative and relaxed, his face looked serene by the
glow of the heat coil: the only light source in the room. Ryker watched,
uncertain.

He did not at all seem himself
.

The
soft, electric glow of red cast an eerie hue on the green walls.

Osgar
said the two names again, experimenting.

Perhaps he was onto something important.

If
true, the fallout would be terrible.

The name he had picked for himself was
an understatement.

Already,
the boy contained ways to destroy the world, if so inclined.

“Father
Reinhard Bardulf. Father Udo Lutz.”

Osgar
glanced his way. Always, he’d had a wolfish way to him, but the undertone had
before seemed desperate.
A starving, lone animal—an
outcast.
No longer perched at a void, neither bombarded by his ability
to incorporate new information nor weighed down by gene-based recall. He was
drunk on the recent, tactile glut of gray matter.

This was different. It was not just the
wine.

Osgar
took another sip from the bottle. “It is curious, Ryker, Rickard. Obviously
wine is a central nervous system depressant. It has provided the slightest
calm, yet its properties as a solvent and effects on my liver would not make
alcohol a logical long-term solution to my afflictions.”

Another
swig. “I recognize a slight blunting effect, however, and feel grateful for the
short-term respite.”

He
held the bottle up to the coil to see what was left. “Second, you were correct.
You did have something for me … the opportunity to study so much brain tissue.
Thanks to you…” he made the effort to turn his head more to lock eyes with
Rickard “…both of you. What a gift—one of magnitude. My curiosity
remains. What I’ve been working to identify … and in these quiet moments, I
feel beholden to explain. The roaring blast of sensory input I usually suffer
is on hold, but why? Is this psychosomatic momentum? Between brains, I was,
again, overwhelmed, but not miserably so … There was a secondary source of
relief.” Again he glanced at the wine,
then
passed the
bottle to Ryker. “I became aware of that source when I made a decision that
allowed me to focus.”

They
waited, clicking to each other, warnings. On the couch lay a fearful curiosity.
They felt connected to him—they always would—but no longer close to
him. He was at once fragile and mighty—transcendent.

He should never have lived
.
But for their ministrations, he would not
have.

A
monster had been dormant inside the brittle, porcelain boy. Without the barrier
of pain, he was capable of anything.

If they had not pulled him from the
womb, from the tunnel, he would have perished.

He
was of their tribe, but not of their ilk. All of them rode the grimy, green
room into the world, but in the dawn of his recent epiphanies, in the red glow,
they recognized Osgar as problematic.

“Since
I decided to hunt the others…” he stretched, sliding his other hand behind his
head “…the existing, known pedophiles that live in East Berlin—Bardulf
and Lutz—I’ve been pain free. Alone, that is no mystery. The timing, of
course, coincides exactly with my decision. Do you understand what I am
saying?”

The
poikilotherms did. This was not a light conversation. The significance was as
heavy as a graveyard of lead.

This was the moment a spider understood
why it had spun its web.

No,
worse … this was the flesh-sated beast that, though lying in the sun,
calculated the remaining tonnage of zebra flesh on Earth. The heroin addict
hooked
before
his first fix. They had
brought Osgar the men. Certainly, when he found Bardulf and Lutz, the world
would be a better place.
A safer place for children.

But then he would need more.

The
trunk of letters from Nazi war criminals, Ryker thought, in Wolfgang’s
apartment, would help, but the number of men to hunt was finite.

“Is
there a qualifier on the prey?” Rickard attempted.

An abbreviated
question
.

“Is
it that there are criminals to hunt?”

O
sgar considered the question
and the unspoken inference. He slid a hand from behind his head and studied his
nails then wiggled the tips of his fingers then stopped. “Does my subject have
to have committed offense?” Then tickled the air some more, toying with the
question he’d asked himself.

“I
don’t know.”

F
räulein Gitte
regarded the immense stacks of books wearily.

It was the strangest day.

At
5:00
PM
sharp, she’d chased out the stragglers. People seemed rude today. There was no way
to explain it or justify their actions. She felt ragged and on edge.

Sighing,
she filled the cart, having presorted the ridiculous piles throughout the day,
replacing those volumes she could between
check-outs
.
Then leaned heavily, pushing the overloaded tool down the aisles. Overloaded,
the cart might hold 200 books, but it seemed there were thousands more to go.

Many thousands.

Resigned
to the task, she forced her mind to less tedious thoughts, soon managing to hum
lightly, a tune she had heard on one of her mother’s records. A brass band, the
razzle of horns had made her mother clap. By her third trip, the piles seemed
markedly smaller already.

T
oo
few.
Was the ghost back?

She’d
been moving at a snail’s pace. The young woman shook her head. It wasn’t worth
considering. She missed the ghost—absent now for days
.

Had the being lost faith in her?

She
thought everyone liked brownies. They hadn’t touched them,
nor
her offerings earlier in the week, so Gitte hadn’t brought anything that
morning. An odd, involuntary shiver trembled from the backs of her legs, on up
…

“Hello?”
She leaned against a row. “Are you here?” Her hands began to sweat. A sound, a
definite
thunk
came from aisles away.

The desk!

Gitte
kicked off her shoes. Abandoning the cart, she loped as quickly as possible
without slipping. Slowing at the end of an aisle, she felt self-conscious and
guilty. Peering shyly around the corner, she saw nothing.

No
one was there.

Wait—where were the books?

A
rollicking prickle ran up her spine and Gitte’s eyes teared.

It had to be.

“Why
did you do that,” Gitte called. “Why are you helping me?”

As
her legs buckled, she caught herself on a shelf as she loosed a startled
shrieked. Two little faces had popped up behind the desk. They looked
like—no, they were
definitely
the boys with the art books. One said something. She couldn’t hear past the
roar of blood in her ears that yelled run. So surprised that she sobbed,
Gitte’s nose dripped onto her lips, and she felt unable to flee. The boys
approached as though she were normal.

As though grown women regularly became
so frightened that they fell down.

Searching
for their mother, she caught a viable breath then stood to collect herself.

“I’m
sorry! I didn’t know anyone was still here. Where is your mother? You are as
quiet as mice!”

Ignoring
her question, one handed her a small paper bag. Inside, the lovely baker,
clearly a fan of sweets, saw nearly a pound of gumdrops.

“It
seemed like too many,” said the other. She stared dumbly back.

“The
books,” he added. “We hoped you could leave early enough to visit the
cinema—” the other boy interrupted. “With us. We hoped you’d go with us
to a movie, but it was a big batch.”

“With
us,” the first agreed. “We want to take you to a show.”

Stupefied,
Gitte clenched the bag of candy in her fist as though the pair might try to
take it back. Forcing deep breaths, she relaxed her hand, then her jaw and
shoulders.

Neither little fellow came to her waist
.

Afraid to scare them, she bent down, a hand on
her knee.
“But why would you want that? Where is your mother? Has she left
without you?” With a jolt, she stood, alarmed. “I should call her, or someone.”

The
boys exchanged glances.
A silent debate.

Were they twins?

Then
seemed to reach an understanding. One held his hand out for her as if she were
an aunt or trusted nanny.

“If
we leave now, we can eat first.” He wiggled his fingers, the offer of contact
renewed. “The movie begins at 8:00
PM
.”

“I
don’t understand.” Gitte shook her head, befuddled, still spooked and jumpy.
“Why do you want me to take you two to a movie?”

They took turns answering.

“We
have never been to one,” the first explained.

Then,
mirroring their librarian not-mother’s body language, Ryker stepped closer,
offering his hand once more.

“We
are your ghosts.”

N
o one spoke. The
genetic aberrations sat on a steamer chest in Fräulein Gitte’s apartment,
waiting for her uncle. Gitte watched the strange little boys. Their feet didn’t
touch the floor.

Seeming to censor their movements, they neither
swung their feet, fidgeted, nor fought to pass the time like normal boys would.
They didn’t peer
around her apartment to occupy their time either. Perhaps, Gitte thought, they
didn’t need to.

They had been in her apartment already.

Nearly
inanimate between their infrequent breaths, the children were capable of
inhuman stillness. Her continued attempts to engage them in informational small
talk, an activity that she thought would certainly make herself more
comfortable, had failed. The awkward experiment only increased her tension. The
boys answered with an economy of words offered in clipped monosyllables. The
beings on her steamer chest seemed somehow immune to discomfort, oblivious to
social convention, and additionally odd because Gitte knew they were capable of
the most erudite speech.

She had heard it.

However
slowly, some recent mysteries had been explained: her uncle’s escape, the
painting, the books and cheese and missing bite from her soap, the chocolate
and lozenges and treat left for her in the glasses lens. She had many more
inquiries, but no idea how to ask them. The boys were elusive.
Wary, but not fearful.
They were discreet.

Extraordinarily
intelligent.
Truly, she still had
no idea who they were.

One
of them moved his eyes. His head jerked to track a spider high on one wall. The
other flicked his head the same direction a moment later. Unblinking, they
tracked its progress. Each tiny tap of the arachnid’s legs seemed an individual
fascination.

“He
should be here shortly.” Gitte felt rude staring, but the kids didn’t seem to
mind.

She
stood, brushing her nervous palms on her skirt, a transitional movement to give
her time to strategize, then went to the sink to splash cold water on her face.
Returning, Gitte put glasses of water on a table for the boys, and their gaze
shifted from the spider to the drinks. One of them licked his lips thirstily.
“Those are for you.” Still, he seemed unsure. “The water. I brought it for you
to drink if you are thirsty.” In unison, the boys jumped from the chest and
gulped down the water, quickly springing to reassume their perch on the steamer
trunk, their eyes locked in on the eight-legged visitor.

“Ok.”
Gitte nodded. “I’m going to try again.” Determined, Gitte sat close, just in
front the boys on the floor, and smiled—not because they seemed afraid,
but because
she
was. The smiling
helped, and that near she would surely see that they were just kids. “You are
Ryker…” Gitte nodded her head gracefully “…and YOU are Rickard.” The boys
nodded, ignoring the spider’s saga for a moment, tilting their heads to study
her face.
Macabre ornamental boys with spectral expressions.
Fairytale creatures that seemed, somehow, appropriately naïve
yet entirely capable of attack.
Able to defend
themselves.

Or even her.

Self-assured,
balanced, the odd pair’s presence made Gitte feel as though she were the child
in the room. She thought of the elderly woman she had met on the fire escape,
who’d spoken like an oracle, then fought the urge to reach out and pose each
boy’s arms like dolls. She imagined they would hold any position she put them
in.

Something had to break the tension.

“OK.
I’m in a weird position here. I’m not certain you boys can see that—”

Did they never need to blink?
Before she could
consider it further, she saw a membrane slide sideways in each eye of one boy.

“I’m
going to ask you more questions. Please be honest and quick and candid with me.
First off, who are you?”

And what?

“I
am Ryker, and this is—”

“Your
LAST names.” Gitte felt rude, but desperate for answers. The boys didn’t even
seem human, and she felt so full of questions that she choked on them. “Are you
brothers?”

“We
don’t have …” Rickard began.

“We
weren’t given them,” Ryker interrupted.

Gitte
narrowed her eyes. “WHO didn’t give you last names?”

“The
man,” Rickard explained,
then
looked to his twin with
a shrug.

Obviously twins.
Near
mirror images, but for the missing teeth of one.

Gitte
rubbed at the bumps on her arms.

“OK.”
It made her shiver more. “A man?
At an orphanage?
Have
you run away?”

“No,”
Ryker offered, not looking at her but his twin, whose eyes had returned to the
spider.

“Well,
maybe. Maybe we have.” Now Ryker shrugged. “It would be easiest to show you.”

“Good.
OK! Yes. Take me to this…” she fidgeted with her hair, relieved at the
progress, nervous at the direction it went “…this man, when my uncle returns.
Just to ease my mind.” She looked in her palm. She’d pulled at her scalp so
hard some hair had come loose. “You are a mysterious pair, aren’t you?”

The
spider had dropped from the ceiling, dangling, inching down on its clear, silk
thread.

“We
will,” Ryker offered, eyes locked on the tiny, suspended creature. “After the
film.”

Gitte
shook her head, frustrated.

Should be home by now.

Her
uncle had met someone. They were in love and shared the immediacy and blinders
of new lovers. Some evenings he didn’t come home at all … He stayed at the
woman’s house instead.

“OK.”
Gitte relented with an exasperated sigh. “Let’s go see this movie.”