The Devil's Blessing (20 page)

These things and more he pondered as they continued their long walk towards the west. The world had become more flat, more dry. The cold air still surrounded them, but Germany was a country whose landscape was diverse. But it was hard for them to see. It was night, and all they could do was stay near the road and follow it. An armored vehicle interrupted the night's silence, but they moved over quickly enough not to be seen. But it was also promising. That meant that they were near the fight. And if they were near the fight, they were near the enemy that they wanted to be friends with.

What was strange to Otto, that night, was the people. They started passing old people first, and then families. But they were all going the same way. Like rats on a boat, this made him feel good, knowing that they were on the right path.

As far as Otto could see, most of the time Ursula was smiling. He didn't understand why, at first, but then he saw her looking at Richard. Otto still couldn't see him in his bundle, but he could hear the boy. He was laughing. There were coughs in there, and it did sound a little phlegmy, but it did sound as if the young boy was getting better.

No matter how dark the situation, a child would always bring his mother comfort.

Slowly, the sky became brighter, and yet still they walked. He looked around and saw that a few other refugees had joined them in their walk, all with an unsaid agreement.
Or did we join them?
Otto thought. He wasn't sure, but everyone was doing the same thing that early morning. Walking west.

He felt bad for Ursula. He had no choice but to run. Most Germans had the luxury of waiting for the British or French to come, hopefully bringing mercy along with them. But not Otto. Otto was a man of military age. One look at him was all you needed to know that he was to be lined up against the nearest wall or tree and shot on the spot.

But now Ursula had joined him in his despair. She had killed a soldier. It didn't matter the cause, self defense or not. She had been housing a German soldier and was supposed to have opened up her house to him, not killed him with a spoon.

Tresler and his men were probably after her, after them. She wasn't the main objective, of course; the incoming armies to the west were. But if Germany won the war, she would be hanged for her crime.

She was like him now, a traitor to her country. But was being a traitor to Nazi Germany really a bad thing? These questions he asked himself even though he knew it didn't matter. For all he knew, this would be the last sunset he or any other German ever saw.

❧

They sat down to take a break near an abandoned home. They rested up next to it and saw the people go by in the morning sky.

"No, it's okay!" Ursula said. Without saying anything, she had begun to breastfeed Richard. It was under a blanket, but it was still uncomfortable for Otto.

"Are you sure?" he said. "You know, you could've just gone back around the house or something."

"I know," she said, "but I don't feel I have to."

In a world filled with rhetoric, there was one thing that Otto was sure all sides could agree with: women were riddles on top of riddles.

She was a strong woman, he thought. Women were a lot stronger than men gave them credit for. They were the ones who had to bring children into the world, not men. And they were the ones that did all the heavy lifting when it came to raising children. He had been taught that women were weak, but he'd realized all those men who had taught him that were men without any women in their lives. He now saw why.

Soon, a more familiar sound filled their ears. The sound of gunfire. The hum of heavy machinery. And men marching in step. They were coming. The Nazis.

As Otto went to get up and hide, Ursula grabbed his arm, gently bringing him back down.

"No," she said. "Those aren't the same men that we ran from last night.”

He looked at her in disbelief. He was ready to run without her.

"What are you talking about? How do you know?"

"Because the men that came and took over my home didn’t have vehicles. These men do."

Otto had to admit that she was right, but he wasn't sure he was ready to gamble his life on it. But before he could get up and move to the back of the house, the men were within eyesight. Running now would only alert them to his guilt. So instead, he did as he was told, and sat back down next to Ursula and Richard.

The men and their armored trucks rolled by, giving everyone certain looks as they drove. They knew that they were off to fight a losing cause and to die for nothing, but yet there they were, moving in step. They knew that to run was death as well, something that Otto was all too comfortable with.

They looked on at the people they passed, going the same way. The refugees stopped walking and looked on and let the soldiers past. It was a strange exchange of stares—everyone knowing how fruitless everyone else's missions were.

Just a few years ago, Joseph Goebbels had said that there would be Total War in his Sportpalast speech. But what many people had forgotten was that he had also talked of a Quick War, too. That the only way to the Quick War was through Total War. And that's what everyone wanted. That's what the Führer had promised. A quick war to get back all that was wrongfully taken from Germany during the Treaty of Versailles. Where had that all gone wrong?

Several things were for sure. One, they were headed the right way. They were closing in on their objective: troops to the west. But that objective would be a battle line. One filled with death.

The second truth was that even though these men that passed them were not the ones they had escaped, those men were on their way. And because of that, they had to continue moving.

Move or die.

It had all come down to this.

The sky was clear, and with the cooler temperatures, this made the day oddly lovely, weather-wise. It would have been the most beautiful day that Otto could have remembered if it wasn’t for the fact that he was now in the thick of battle, and men were rushing towards each other to kill one another.

They had to walk one way: towards Nuremberg. It seemed perfect to Otto that his last day in Nazi Germany would end there in Nuremberg, the place where it had all started. That
it
was Nazi Germany, where Adolf Hitler had kicked it all off in his famous Nuremberg Rallies. The fact that it all ended today, for him, at least, was poetic.

That's what when it hit Otto. He was actually happy that Nazi Germany was coming to end. Did he hate his people? No, that wasn’t it. He just hated what they had become, and what they had unleashed on the world. The fact that the horror was coming back to them was what they deserved, he guessed.

The walk to their destination was a busy and hurried one. Thousands of people were making their way towards the city center, Adolf Hitler Platz, to try to reach the battle line. Most of them were refugees trying to cross to the other side. The rest were soldiers, on their way to try to hold the city and reclaim Nazi Germany. It was an uncomfortable feeling; young boys were passing by the populace that knew the war was over, and were desperate for supplies from the enemy. Food was the main thing. Meanwhile, the troops looked on at the refugees in anger or dejected sadness, knowing that the refugees were right; meanwhile, they were off to die in a war that would probably end soon.

Walking to their destination had become all the easier now. All they had to do was follow the sounds of battle.

The cackle of guns. The boom of explosions. All these things were their North Star towards freedom.

And maybe they would find freedom that day. It was ominous enough. It was a bright morning, a possible harbinger of bright news. Salvation. But Otto also realized that it could also be just another one of this world's cruel tricks, lulling him, Ursula, and the baby into a false sense of security, to be welcomed with pain. He hated being a pessimist, and, being so close to freedom, he knew he should have been filled with hope. But he thought it better to be pragmatic and surprised with good news than to be optimistic and let down. He had no other choice. He was tired of living a life of disappointment.

Soon the sounds of war were accompanied by the sight of it. Nuremberg, or what was left it, lay in ruins. Smoke and fires came from every corner. Nearly all the buildings were in rubble from Allied bombing. The once-glorious city was now mounds of concrete and towers of ruin, all the same bland gray color.

The backs of soldiers laying down in a prone positions could be seen, firing their weapons.

The artillery fire couldn't be seen flying in the air, but it was when it landed, and that was the most fearful. It seemed as if hidden bombs from under the earth suddenly made the ground explode. The dirt would fly up in the air, like hands throwing up confetti.

The battle line was set. The enemy—or, Otto had to correct himself, the men who would be their salvation—had the higher ground since the road and the town sloped up. The American troops were at the top of the sloping town, while the Germans fought at the bottom.

Everywhere one walked was at least a foot deep of what looked like rocks, but was nothing more than walls that had crumbled.

Otto, Ursula, and Richard had all long since left the main road. They went to their left, south, to get away from the main supply line, but the destruction didn't seem to end.

There were pockets of fire and soldiers here and there. They seemed to be everywhere at once, yet seemed to be nowhere at all at the same time. It was like a hodgepodge of fighting. Amongst them all were the refugees. Some running, some hiding. All waiting for their fighting countrymen to fail. The war was over. They just wanted to live.

"What are you doing?" she asked.

They were now hiding behind a mound of rubble. Otto was throwing away his sack.

"Don't need it," he said. "The most important thing is getting over that hill. After that, I can worry about clothes and spoons. For now, my plan is to just to get there as fast as possible. And get there alive."

She paused to take in what he was saying. In their short time of knowing each other, it had always been Ursula who was the one who was the voice of reason, the one with the good ideas. So now that Otto was the one with the ideas, it took her a second to digest what he was saying.

"You're right," she said, emptying her sack, "but I am taking some things with me."

"Oh? Like what?"

"Like this," she said, showing him the boxes of penicillin.

"I don't think Richard needs any more," Otto said. "Maybe take one more box, two at the most."

She shook her head. "No, you don't get it. I know little Richard doesn't need this any more. But what we have here is worth more than gold, bullets, and rifles combined."

Otto nodded. She had a point. What they were carrying was some of the most valuable currency around. It would get them far once they were gone from Nazi Germany.

But they didn't move. They couldn't move. The gunfire was near constant. Neither army was making a move for ground. It seemed as if they were just shooting at each other from their fixed positions. How that would change things for either side was unclear.

What was clear, to Otto, at least, was that he was near freedom, but he really wasn't. By the time the sun set he would probably be a prisoner of some American force, but that would be liberty. No, the lack of freedom that he imagined would be the one that would follow him for the rest of his life. He would always be a prisoner of regret and guilt. Maybe he would never stand in front of a judge and hear his crime listed. Maybe he would never hear a sentence for what he had done. That didn't matter. He was already in jail, sentenced to a life of memories.

Soon, others started to come as well, more refugees. They were also making headway slowly up the hill. Otto wasn't sure their reasons for running, but everyone had their own story of horror to tell.

To their right, near the road, a man carrying a suitcase was making his way up the mound. He was in the clear wide open, not trying to hide at all. It was clear that he was a civilian and had bet his life that no one would shoot him as he made his way through the crossfire.

It was an odd sight. A man in a brown tweed three-piece suit with a lovely hat on, making his way through a hill of rubble, slipping every few moments, always going back to grab his suitcase. His hat even had a bright green feather on it making him look all the more festive in a place of war.

He was going to make it. Even as he made his way up, it seemed that the soldiers on both sides saw him climbing in the open; the gunfire relaxed.

Otto looked up. He was going straight towards where one of the American forces had made their base. They were not firing upon him. And that's when it hit him. This was the first time he had ever seen an American. He couldn't make out the whites of their eyes from that distance, but there they were, along with his freedom. One of them was waving to the man to hurry to them.

And then the man fell.

Not from slipping, but from gunfire. He was shot in the back by a machine gun that was just to the left of them, inside the hollowed-out remains of a home. The man fell back and skidded down the hill. After a moment of shared disbelief between both sides, the exchange of bullets began again, and in earnest. The machine guns seemed not to stop from the American position. They seemed angry at the death of the innocent.

"I have an idea," Otto said, sliding back down to grab the sack that he had just sworn to toss away. He came back holding the would-be rapist’s gun. Showing it to her, he said, "I'm going to go into that home, where the gunfire came from," he said, motioning with a nod where the man in the feathered hat had been gunned down. "I'm going to go in there and kill the men. Then, I'll join you at the top."

She seemed bewildered. "Otto," she said, placing her hand gently on his face, "you can't kill them."

He wasn’t sure what she meant. Did she mean that she didn't want him to risk his life by going into the building firing a gun? Or was it worse? Did she not believe a person like him was capable of bravery? He feared it was the latter. He was both hurt that she would think him so much a coward, and aware that she was probably also right.