Made Men (15 page)

W
alking three abreast,
they got smiles from young women and couples. Gitte held Ryker’s cool right
hand, Rickard’s left. She must appear a young mother leading her babies out for
one last stroll, perhaps headed home for a late supper. Out to breathe some fresh
air before books and baths and bed.

Their hands felt dry.

Polished,
almost. Their skin felt like
a sheen
of thin hard wax
over tiny glass beads. As they neared the theater, the graceful children
steered her east, each step landing perfectly in tune with her longer strides,
away from the movie house she knew.

“We
have passed it.” On, they marched, so she tried again. “This isn’t the way to
the theater.”

The
boys free arms swung in sweeping crescents to accommodate her gait.

It looked funny.

As
though she were forcing them to walk too fast, but in truth, they were pulling
her—propelling HER along. They had more strength than seemed to fit their
lissome, feral frames.

“The
theater we wish to visit is in East Berlin,” Ryker offered cheerily.

Gitte
balked, leaning back, reeling in her unlikely troupe. “Why in the WORLD would
we go to East Berlin?”

“That…”
matter-of-factly, his face pragmatic “…is where
Rotkäppchen
is playing.”

She
felt incredulous and tricked. “No. We are not going to East Germany to see a
movie.”

Momentarily
appearing perplexed, Ryker’s look morphed with speed to amusement. “Why not?”

“It
is not a free area! We would be in danger! I would, you both would … you don’t
cross the wall often do you? The idea is insane!” Immediately, she regretted
what she’d said. After all, the boys had smuggled her only living relative to
freedom. And she had a hunch that her uncle and herself were not the only
recipients of their good deeds. She’d once read that since children had not yet
learned what adults deemed ‘possible,’ they were capable of incredible and
unlikely feats.

With no parents, who knows what they’d
done together without adult limitations.

Ryker
shook his head. “There exists a fault in your perception.” He clasped his hands
as he spoke, square to her, beaming up.
A stunted professor
of psychology.
“Both freedom and danger are misunderstood. We are free
to go where we like. You are too.”

Gitte’s
stomach dropped.

She had a terrible feeling about this.

Rickard
added, his eyes on the street, watching people.

“It
is true.” Rickard nodded as though prompted, a tiny television personality who
only needed to read the script once, then could improvise, showcasing his
matchless verbal skill, yet all a sham because he had help from a room full of
people and a microphone in his ear. “Perceptions can limit one to the point of
hiding.” It appeared as though Ryker were signaling his brother the speech.

“If
you allow the feelings associated with them the power to do so, that is.
Agoraphobia…” Rickard held a sharp-looking finger aloft “…an extreme example.
If we limit ourselves to West Berlin, then we will never truly understand East
Berlin.”
A second finger kept tally of his talking points.
“Conversely, if we never visit East Berlin, we may never fully appreciate our
access to the free world. West Berlin comprises such a small part of that
greater population of free people, as to only be globally interesting because
of the wall. Limits—” His brother pushed his arm down just as a third
finger shot aloft, but Rickard’s speech picked up speed. The small figure
paused to look east. “Why observe them at all? If you don’t impose on anyone,
the limits you place on yourself remain an imposition—an
oppression—whereas if you act upon a desire despite perceived limitations,
all of which are devised by others, most of whom know nothing about your
potential—and certainly no one who knows you better than
yourself—those limits are designed only to benefit their inventors in
some way.” Rickard’s speech was incredible, yet the other boy, Ryker, laid his
ears back like a menacing dog. Rickard shot a glance at his brother, then spoke
faster, edging sideways toward her as though for protection. “If you do no harm
to others in your actions, whether whimsical or thoughtfully planned, then you
are entirely free of imposition, moral or logistical. Truly free.”

Decisively,
as though he had flawlessly explained their position, they clapped their tiny
hands back into hers and marched toward the tunnel. The things they had said
were true
.

Yet entirely
imprudent.

By
the time they had reached the tunnel below the Nazi’s apartment, the mobile
debate had cut Gitte to the bone. “But what of fear—”

It was as though logical oracles had
visited, and she hurried for answers.

“How
to discount it?” They opened a door beneath some stairs, pulled her inside, and
shut it quickly behind them. They moved a rug revealing a trapdoor and swung it
open. Ryker started down, disappearing. Gitte strained to see into the
dimly-lit
hole and jumped when his shiny little face
re-appeared. Rickard followed. They beckoned from the carved path that lead to
East Berlin—

To Rotkäppchen.

I
t was an important
moment for all of them. They ran on instinct, not fear, and saw how their
(possible) mother struggled. It would be decades before the twins met someone
like them, who solely used instincts: another odd biped in upstate New York.

Fräulein
Gitte dripped terror, her glands hummed. For her, it seemed thick, tangible,
and real. To them, her chemicals and hormones hung like an expression. Ryker
didn’t need to see her face to know that she was not managing well.

If she was to be their mother, they must
help.

“Never
discount your fear—” Ryker searched for the correct words.

It was a critical moment
.

“Instead,
dissect the emotion for its most useful components. Discard the rest, allowing
yourself rational discoveries based on the only components useful within the
makeup of fear, and, Fräulein Gitte?”

He’d lost her
.
Get her back. What does she need?

“Fräulein
Gitte, here are your strengths.”

There you are.

It
was easy to list them. It was
all true
.

“Intuition,
vigilance, instinct, intelligence—”

She listened.

“You
can have a life without limits.” Her eyes leaked on them, but her glands
purred.

 
“Start now. Come with us. We can’t free
you, but you can free yourself.”

Gitte
swallowed hard. Turning, backing down the ladder, she followed them into the
deep, dirt-scented place, past the room where Osgar slept and horrors she never
needed to see. When the tunnel turned sticky, he reached back for her hand.

Up
the ladder, he led her to freedom.

Via East Berlin.

G
itte’s extraordinary
East Berlin tour guides weren’t watching the movie.

They watched her.

She
opened the small paper bag, offering gumdrops to the boys who spoke like
professors. Each took one. Both, she noticed, chose green. Gitte plucked a
purple confection from the bag and sank her teeth past the sugary grit into the
gel. The granular, sweet burst melted smoothly and reminded her of childhood.

She could taste it in her nose.

The
girl on the big screen wore a crimson cloak and was in dire peril. Gitte stole
a sideways glance at the boys, who pretended to be riveted by the story for a moment.
She still chewed, but their candy was gone.

Did they gulp down their drops?

Ryker,
in the middle, leaned his head over to whisper something to her, and Gitte
swore she saw his brother’s ear swivel to listen in. “If you could see any
painting in the world tomorrow, which one would you choose?”

Despite
her unease, Gitte was having fun.

These were, indeed, her ghosts!

She’d
noticed how peculiar they were when she first saw them, with the art books, in
the library. Hunkering down, she chose an orange candy from the bag and leaned
her cheek closer to the glossy little boy. She decided to play along. Things
had happened in the camps that taught her how to suspend disbelief. Within
days, when a prisoner lost their belief in hope, they died … whether they were
sick or not. She’d HAD to believe, or rather, not believe in the surety of her
death.

And
now here she was—alive—eating gumdrops with tiny human-like
lizards.

“What
are my choices?”

Ryker
shook his head, glancing at the screen, perhaps considering how to format the
game. Once ready, she mirrored his posture. Dipping her head, Gitte tucked her
hair behind her ear, trying not to drown the youngster in her mane.

Instead
of explaining the game’s rules, he asked her a different question. “Do you
think some parts of this movie are gruesome?”

“Yes,
quite!” Gitte bit into a yellow drop. “It is, at baseline, a horrible story …”
Frowning thoughtfully, he took the bag when she offered, but instead of
choosing a sweet, sugary dome, the straight-backed child passed it politely to
Rickard, who glanced inside then passed it back again.

Either the green ones were gone, or they
were saving them for her.

The
librarian darted her eyes back into the bag before dipping in her hand.

There were plenty of green drops left.

“A
new question,” Ryker whispered. Gitte stole a glance at his brother’s head.
Sure enough, his ear wiggled like a cat’s against his skull, listening
intently. His other movements seemed to have been put on hold.

“If
you knew that monsters were real…” Ryker spoke with his hands, like an
adult—and splayed his fingers haltingly at the word
real.
“…
would
you want to see one?”
Rickard leaned into his brother’s space, eyes welded politely to the screen.

“From
a
safe
place,” he added. “Would you want
to see a monster, if it couldn’t hurt you?” Riveted to her,
Little Red Riding Hood
forgotten, their
faces shined. Gitte felt as though the entire theater of people listened in.

Such an ominous question … and asked
earnestly.

“What
are you really asking?” she said, barely hearing her own voice.

Ryker’s
hands moved as though he were solving an equation on an abacus. “Here it is in
non-hypothetical terms: you have a choice, although not choosing either option
is just as fair…” the boy’s sharp words scratched at the air “…first, you could
come with us to see a monster and understand who we are better than we can
describe ourselves—become, perhaps, overwhelmed and horrified—or
second, you could travel anywhere in the world with us, starting tomorrow, to
see any paintings you would like along the way, learning who we are from us
directly.” He made a long gesture, as though pulling the skin from a snake.
“That would take a long time. Years perhaps. Which, if either, do you choose?”

Their expressions were so hopeful and
serious.

“We’ve
chosen you, but you may not choose us.”

Onscreen,
the wolf slipped into the grandmother’s bed. Gitte took shallow breaths. She
thought of her small apartment. Next: her sweaty, creepy landlord. Then about
the limits she’d set for herself in life … and last, about fear. She rustled a
hand into the bag, choosing a confection at random, and sunk her teeth into the
sweet, black, licorice-flavored gumdrop without first knowing its color.

She’d been saving them. They were her
favorite.

“I
want to start with Botticelli.
The Birth
of Venus;
it’s
in Florence—at the Uffizi.”

R
yker nodded.

Not just possible: feasible
.

Florence
was less than a day’s travel by train. They needed to get Gitte away from
Osgar. Though they had cared for him for years, he wouldn’t hesitate to
dispatch Gitte. Osgar was a true sociopath: his criteria for obtaining relief
would swallow anyone as he gained strength, whether they mattered to his
brothers or not.
 

Far, as fast as they could, they would
keep her safe from him.

Clicking
to his brother, Ryker turned back to the screen, but Gitte hadn’t finished. “We
leave tomorrow?”

Ryker
nodded. Their mother’s jaw worked the chewy, oversweet blackness around in her
mouth.

Was her sense of taste like theirs?

As
though preparing a kiss, she poked out her lips, and held her hair against her
ear with a palm, leaning down.

“Then
show me the monster tonight.”