Stile Maus (4 page)

‘You know,
’ Haas said with bated breath, ‘y-you know, you look just like him.’  The trigger melted beneath the stranger’s sudden pull sending two silenced blasts into the chest of Milo Haas.  His uniform clattered to the ground lifelessly.  Dropping his aim and inhaling the sizzle of smoke that the gunshot had spewed out into the musky bathroom air the gunman edged towards the fallen official.  He bent down and collected the broken mask, latching its damaged remains across his beaten face.  His hands met the door handle and he left.  There was no need to look back. 

He found himself within the golden darkness of the dimly lit hallway once more.  An orchestra of voices echoed from behind a set of doors at the far end of the corridor.  The party was still ongoing.  A window sat at the opposite end of the hall, its panes mirrored in moonlight.  The latch twanged under his thumb and he levered the frame up towards the ceiling, hopping onto the sill and taking in the cold night air.  Wind oozed through the velvet stitches of his shattered mask.  A great moon leaked across the evening sky.  He sneaked the pistol into his jacket pocket and leapt down onto the balcony below.  With his shoes clacking against the stone platform he took a few striding steps before hurling himself over the railings and grasping onto a ladder of wood that had been knotted in twisting vines.  His shoes hit the grass and he travelled across the lawn, leaving the mansion behind in the dying moonlight.

THE EAGLE’S YARD

For early morning, the sky appeared almost black.  Snow fell, more so over the headquarters than anywhere else, it seemed.  Gestapo Major Heinrich Anaheim watched from a window above the yard and stirred a cigarette nervously between his fingers.  A frown creased his face.  The haze of the snow had stolen his gaze and he thought back to the telephone call he had received
some
three hours ago.  That shrill metallic ring. 

‘Yes?’
he had answered.

‘
Yes, Sir, please excuse the disturbance but I have Colonel Ender for you, he says it’s urgent.’

A
young private spoke amidst the rustle of static, his voice thin and urgent.  

‘Very well,’ the Major said tiredly.

The static fizzed louder.  And then, following a sharp drop in tone, another voice filled the Major’s ears. 

‘Heinri
ch, there has been an incident,’ Colonel Ender warned, ‘I think it best if we speak in person, right away.’

The Major didn’t reply but set the phon
e down gently, allowing his wide eyed stare to be taken in by the swallowing darkness of his bed chamber.  Sweat covered his legs and the bed sheets felt heavy over the arc of his knees.  His mind became busy in an instant and he padded tiredly to the bathroom and showered with his thoughts, hoping they might soon wash away.  With his face still damp he swathed his chin in foam and ran a razor through the rising lather.  He frowned at the reflection in the mirror. 

The drive to Berlin grew long and the soundless night offered little distraction.  Looking from his cabin window, the Major retraced his conversation with Colonel Ender.  But, inevitably he failed to ease his building apprehension.  The tall flag poles of the headquarters came into view and blazed before the pearlescent moon.  Each flag danced during its wilting sorrow, enjoying a brisk but silent wind ahead of the storm.  Colonel Ender greeted him in the lobby and they exchanged two, tired salutes before heading toward the Colonel’s chamber.  Two purple sacks hung beneath the Colonel’s red eyes, the only prize he would receive for a night of worry and drink.  Major Anaheim took a seat by the fire and struck open a pack of cigarettes, pulling two from the box but sliding one back in as soon as Colonel Ender politely declined.       

‘
I’ll get right to it,’ Colonel Ender promised.  He combed a hand through the centre of his tunic and sat.  His office was warm and spacious, much like the Major’s and the walls could barely be seen beneath the masses of black rimmed frames that carried the greyish still shots of his past endeavours.  Only one depiction sported a dash of colour, a painting, and it hung way above the grey stone mantle of the fireplace.  A man with black, beady eyes watched over them.  

‘Milo Haas is dead, ‘Colonel Ender said sternly, ‘w
e suspect treason.’

The fire spat and cracked and Major Anaheim glanced up at the portrait, thinking.

And now he sat, and smoked, l
istening for the snowfall to make a sound as it fell into the vacant clearing that was the courtyard.  As a security precaution, Colonel Ender had finished by suggesting that the Major take house within an office on the third floor, just one floor above his regular office.  He had agreed, but didn’t much like his new office.  There was no fireplace, no colour or light.  He had sat, perched on the edge of an ageing desk as four privates carried his belongings inside, stacking box upon box.  It had taken two of the four privates to carry in the Major’s portrait of the Fuhrer, a towering spectacle that received the highest of compliments.  But, setting aside its adorning prowess, it was not meant to be hung in such an office.  A hammer and a handful of nails were fetched nonetheless and the bronzing frame was held to one side as a private swiped the dust from the walls and another sent a shallow nail into the brick.  The dust settled.  And the Major had been watching the snow ever since.  There was a bottle of Old Fitzgerald Bourbon on the desk, untouched.  A welcome pleasantry, Major Anaheim suspected.  A grand armchair cloaked him from the office doorway, and it was not until the red faced private spoke, that Major Anaheim became aware of his presence. 

‘Good Morning, Major,’ the private said.  His breath was quick and heavy.  Major Anaheim rose from the chair and studied the young man before replying.
  His hair was yellow and his unsure eyes a pale green.     

‘And you are?’ 

For a moment the private looked confused, but managed to find his words soon enough.

‘Private Schulze, Sir.  I was instructed by Colonel
Ender to assist you, given that Neumann has taken ill.’

Major Anaheim turned down his mouth and huffed.
  He’d had his regular assistant, Neumann polish a pair of his dress shoes and wondered where they might have been. 

‘Very well,’ he went on
eventually, ‘I trust the good Colonel has informed you of last night’s events?’

‘Yes, major,’ Private Schulze nodded his head.

The Major snatched at the bottle of bourbon.  A cabinet stood against the far wall and he checked there for a glass but found nothing but bare shelves and dust and cobwebs.  He then returned to the desk where he began pulling open each drawer, scratching around with a tired mitt and huffing restlessly when his fingertips returned to his belt, holding nothing but dirt and dust.

‘May I offer
my assistance, major?’  Private Schulze said at last, eager to avow his commitment as the Major’s temporary understudy.  Without speaking a word in reply, Major Anaheim abandoned his search and sauntered back towards the rise of his armchair.  His fingers curled at the headrest. 

‘Look around
, private,’ the Major said finally, his eyes in the courtyard, ‘tell me what you see.’

Schulze, somewhat surprised, stood to attention and let his gaze dart hastily across the room. 

‘Forgive me, major...’

‘I’ll tell you what
I
see,’ the Major interrupted with a whisper. 

‘
I see the empty hallways of Auschwitz.  I see the ghosts of Krakow.  And I feel the silent whispers on my neck.’

His eyes were wide in the m
isty reflection of the window.  Private Schulze had no urge to speak. 

‘
You see,’ continued the major, ‘the German people are afraid.  They hear of the betrayals.  They talk amongst the dark, passing around words and tales that speak of retribution and sudden twists of fate.  Our enemies hand them a gun, and the steel grows hot against their fingertips.’

A scuffle sounded from across the room but the Major didn’t seem to notice, nor did he see the young private turn
away, distracted.

‘
Then, when their fingers are bloody and burnt, they pull at the trigger, unleashing a shot into the crowded dark, wounding their own, only their own.’

With his ears now pricked, Private Schulze retained his in
terest in the major, who it seemed, had forgotten entirely about his audience.  Schulze turned to the right.  There it was again, a delicate scratch plucking sneakily at the wooden floor, this time closer to the Major, somewhere beneath the tassels of his armchair perhaps.  Something, somewhere was eavesdropping.  And it now had the Private’s undivided attention.  Schulze began to squint.  Then he saw it.  At first, it came as a blur, tiny and quick, nicking at the floor with miniature feet and then disappearing behind a set of thin, tattered drapes.  Schulze was amazed that the Major hadn’t noticed.  Or perhaps he had and just didn’t care.  Nevertheless he remained blank and distant and Schulze continued to seek out the hidden visitor with careful eyes.     

‘Now look at us.’  The Major reduce
d his words to a simple whisper.  ‘Hiding like dogs, surrounded by the eerie darkness we now call comfort.’

‘Something has to be done.’

The Major’s frame rocked as he struggled to keep down a cough.

‘Something
has
to be done...’

He was a frail man, the major.  Schulze thought so anyway
.  His hair was flat and brown, his face sodden with age, and he was between tall and short.  But still, the stories of Gestapo Major Heinrich Anaheim went on inside the private’s head.  It could have all been barrack talk, Schulze reasoned with himself, but to him, there was nothing sinister or menacing about the man who stooped before him.  For now, his legend remained timid.  With a short sigh the Major turned towards the portrait on the far wall and was about to speak when his eyes fell over something odd and unexpected.  Private Schulze followed the Major’s frown.  A smile could have left his lips but he held his jaw and pretended not to see it.  Partly covered with morning light, pawing and flicking at two oversized ears, sat a small grey mouse.  It sat upon a tall tower of filing boxes, content with its own company and unaware of its watchers.  The Major strolled forwards and held out a band of fingers, tempting the tiny rodent to flutter its long whiskers and twitch its tiny nose as it investigated the intrusion. 

‘Major, I apologise.
  Before this morning the office had been empty for some time...’

With a flailing hand the Major gestured for Schulze to be silent.

‘No,’ he hissed, ‘we are the ones who are intruding.  He was here long before us.’

Schulze watched intently.  The mouse, now familiar with the Major’s scent risked a paw onto his offered hand and began to explore the base of the Major’s palm. 

‘You know,’ the Major said softly, as to not scare the tiny creature, ‘my Mother was terribly afraid of mice.  Every time one would scamper into the room she would climb upon the nearest table or chair, shaking with fear.’  He ran a thumb gently across its silky snout. 

‘My Father would always say that it was the surprise
that frightened her the most.  You see, she couldn’t possibly know of every mouse living inside our walls, she only became aware of them as and when they chose to venture out from their havens.’  This made the Major think out loud. 

‘They scurry through the walls and dash beneath the floorboards, cloaked in darkness, doing as they please, listening in on the world around them.’

‘And even here, they are among us.’

The Major nodded gently at the mouse and smiled.  The first smile Schulze had seen him surrender.

‘One night, after a mouse had crept out from the pantry, my father grew sick of my mother’s weeping and he had me fetch a tin, full with needles and thread.’

‘Using brown
string, he fashioned the small body of a mouse.  And then, using strands of grey and black, he shaped the feet and ears and tail.’  The mouse hopped quietly around the Major’s hand and he turned his palm slightly, allowing the rodent to scamper over the crooked arc of his knuckles. 

‘When he
was done he took a knife to the underbelly and loaded it with cheese, bloating the empty casing into a plump, content swell.  Then he set a corner of cheese by the pantry door and lay his mouse beside it.’   

Schulze dared
not swallow the lump in his throat, fearing its descent may make a sound.

‘My father waited outside the pantry door for what seemed like an age,’ continued the major, ‘and then, finally, much to my mother’s displeasure, a mouse came sniffing.’

‘First it tinkered around what it thought was its fellow mouse.  Then, when it finally went for the cheese, my father brought down his heel, crushing all but the rodent’s tail.’

‘
My mother saw it as inane.  But it worked.  I remember the look on my father’s face.  He turned to me and said that it was the illusion of safety that had lured the mouse out from its hideaway.’

Major Anaheim looked up and grinned for a second time.