The Secret of Lions (12 page)

The stains horrified Heinrik to his very
core. He could not understand how all of their blood had gotten on
him.

“Warden?” he asked.

“Yes, Heinrik?”

“Who was the prisoner who said he saw
everything?”

“It was Adolf Hitler.”

Heinrik’s gut turned slightly. His breathing
became heavier. Hitler had killed those men and then locked himself
back into his cell.

“He said that he was in his cell sleeping
when all of the commotion began. He said he woke up and saw you
massacre those prisoners,” the warden said.

Hitler had told everyone he saw Heinrik kill
those men, cutting them up into pieces. In the back of Heinrik’s
mind, he knew the warden would not believe the truth especially
that Adolf had locked himself back up.

Why would he have done that? What was the
purpose in mutilating their bodies? Why didn’t he escape?
Heinrik wondered.

After a few moments of contemplating this,
he thought one thing. No matter how it was done, no matter how
viciously it was done, Hitler had saved his life. Even though he
had lied about how it had all happened, Heinrik still owed Hitler.
Now, he was indebted to him. Everything had changed. Heinrik had a
grave price to pay, far too grave for him to fathom.

36

After being questioned by government agents
for at least three hours, Heinrik was allowed to return home. It
was well after dark, close to midnight.

Gracy was worried sick. She sat on the front
porch for most of the late afternoon just waiting for some sign of
her husband. Heinrik walked up the pathway to their house. She came
running out, jumped completely off the front porch, missing all of
the steps. She landed a meter in front of him.

“Heinrik? Where have you been?” she asked.
He could tell she was furious.

Heinrik grabbed her, pulled her to him, and
held her close for a moment. Her head rested tightly against his
chest. He told her about the prison break. He thought it best to
exclude the parts about Hitler’s involvement, especially the
post-death mutilations; he knew better than to tell her about that.
He had decided that he would just keep it to himself.

The next morning, against Gracy’s wishes,
Heinrik returned to the prison. He checked in with the warden and
proceeded directly to Hitler’s cell. He made no stops along the
way. He wanted to get there while the gall still existed inside of
him.

The lights around the cell were working
properly again. Almost everything was perfectly illuminated, every
nook and crack, everything. Heinrik could see in all directions.
Even the cracks in the floor were visible and ready for
inspection.

After the attempted prison break from the
day before, the warden had ordered that all of the lights in the
prison be inspected and fixed if they were not emitting enough
light for patrolling guards to see everything clearly. He demanded
that no corners remain unlit.

The maintenance teams had replaced over half
of the lights in the entire prison. They spent most of the night in
this part of the prison. They even put in work orders for a new
lighting system that was to cover the extra spaces between each of
the current light fixtures. Of course, the prison did not have the
funds for a new system. Nevertheless, the work order was
placed.

Heinrik stopped only a couple of meters
outside of Hitler’s cell. He took a deep breath and stepped in
front of it. He knocked on the cell door. Inside, he heard
rustling. It was the sound of shuffling books and papers. After a
moment, Hitler’s eyes appeared through the portal.

“Yes? What is it?” he asked. Hitler’s eyes
refocused; his pupils dilated as if Heinrik had woken him up on his
approach.

“I just wanted to come by and thank you for
what you did for me,” Heinrik said.

He clenched his fists tightly. He did not
want to thank Hitler for anything that he had done, not even for
saving his life. But Hitler had been solely responsible for
Heinrik’s safe return to his wife. Otherwise, he would most
certainly have been dead like the other guards.

In a peculiar moment, Heinrik’s thoughts
turned to the young guard that he’d met briefly. It was the first
time since Heinrik had regained consciousness that he had thought
about the young guard. Now he wondered if that guard had a family.
All Heinrik could do was speculate about him. He imagined that the
guard had a wife and a newborn baby, maybe a son.

What if he was a father? Or expecting a
son? Gracy is pregnant. It is very likely that he took this job so
that he could provide for his expecting family,
Heinrik
thought.

This thought plagued Heinrik. He couldn't
help but think about his own unborn child.

“Did you tell anyone else? Your wife?
Anyone?” Hitler interrupted Heinrik’s looming thoughts.

“No, we are the only ones who know the truth
about what happened,” Heinrik replied.

Hitler nodded, contemplating what would be
the best course of action. He looked down for a moment to the floor
of his cell. Then back up to Heinrik.

Of course, my father didn’t know that Hitler
would tell the story to my mother years later. He told it to her
only once, but she never forgot it.

“Would you like to see a painting that I
have been working on?” he asked.

Heinrik hesitated for a moment. Something
deep inside warned him not to let Hitler into his life. But he
disregarded it, figuring that the man might have some good in
him.

Maybe he’d misjudged him.

“Yes,” he said. He recalled seeing a
painting in one of his early encounters with Hitler. It was a small
town near Vienna. People walked everywhere as if in a hurry to
contribute to society, to get on with their busy lives. However, he
also remembered seeing Hitler masturbating to a sketch of some
woman.

The new painting Hitler pulled out to show
him portrayed a busy street in a snowy town. A trolley car was
stopped in the middle of the icy street, exchanging passengers.

“That’s good,” Heinrik said, even though he
really was not impressed.

37

Soon after that, Heinrik requested to be
reinstated to his old post as a personal guard, following Hitler
around. And the warden granted it to him. Every day, Heinrik went
to work, and every day he spoke with Hitler. Every day he returned
home and said nothing to his wife.

Weeks went by until the day came when Hitler
was released. It came as a shock to Heinrik because Hitler was
sentenced to five years for a political crime, but he never saw
that term through to the end. One day a mysterious entourage, a
group of black cars with men dressed all in black suits, arrived
with official orders to release him out of Landsberg prison after
less than one year.

Hitler stood near the exit of the prison. A
muscular, terrifying-looking man from his entourage walked over and
picked up Hitler’s belongings. One piece remained in Hitler's
possession. Close to his chest, he cradled a rolled-up painting.
Heinrik felt a little sad that Hitler had saved his life and was
now leaving for good.

“Heinrik,” Hitler said. Heinrik noticed how
unrecognizable Hitler had become in the last ten months. Now he was
very thin. It was especially apparent in the elegant suit that his
friends had brought for him to wear. The first chance that he had
gotten, he had changed out of his prison scrubs and into the suit.
He looked far more distinguished now.

“Yes, Adolf,” Heinrik said. Strangely, he
felt honored that Hitler spoke to him.

“I want you to know that no matter what
happens in the future, I value your friendship. I appreciate you
talking to me over the last several weeks. This has been a
desperate time for me, and I will never forget your friendship,”
Hitler said. He offered his hand for a shake from Heinrik.

Reluctantly, Heinrik shook his hand. As
their hands connected, he felt an unsettling feeling in the pit of
his stomach like he was shaking the hand of the man who would seal
his fate. It was a handshake that he would not soon forget.

Chapter
Four

Mother is the

Name for God

38

The skyline appeared gloomy and tempestuous
from Heinrik’s post on the top of the eastern wall of the prison.
The warden had assigned him to night duty on the wall every day for
the last month since Hitler had left. The warden had doubled the
guard on the walls, particularly during the night.

The last escape attempt by the prisoners had
gone public. The newspapers wrote about it and the government took
immediate action. Bureaucratic officials visited the warden. With
so much government influence leaning on him, he was forced to
tighten security, which was increasingly difficult since the budget
was stretched.

And now there was a new rumor floating
around like a feather drifting in and out of the ears of every
person in the prison. The rumor suggested that a group of the
prisoners were planning an escape near the east wall. Although this
rumor had stretched on for weeks, the warden still considered it a
viable threat.

He considered Heinrik to be the right man
for the job. The warden believed Heinrik was a secret weapon now.
After what had happened, the prisoners were terrified of Heinrik,
as was everyone else. They believed that he’d killed those
prisoners. He was a powerful deterrent to the prisoners. They
feared him. The fear of him helped to stop them from trying
anything.

So the warden posted Heinrik in the areas of
the prison that were more vulnerable to prison escapes. Heinrik
understood the warden’s logic, and since he’d never told anyone
that it was Hitler who had committed those unspeakable acts of
violence, he was stuck living with everyone’s false notions about
him. But being feared was better than fearing others, or so Heinrik
thought.

At first, he feared telling Gracy about his
assignment on the east wall, but actually telling Gracy was easy.
She approved of this job detail more than other ones he’d had in
the past, especially watching Hitler. The way she figured it, he
was safer because this time he was high above the prisoners and far
enough away from them. He was armed with a sniper rifle. “That
sounds safer than walking the halls, Heinrik,” she said.

Heinrik sat contently next to the spotlight.
The light was off. The machine hibernated. His job was to sweep the
powerful beam across the yard every twenty minutes or so. Heinrik
was stationed with a partner, Alexander, a twitchy guard who’d
recently transferred from another prison.

Alexander was a lot younger than Heinrik. He
had been in the profession for only a year, yet he was a lot more
stable than some of the other guards. In many ways, Alexander
reminded Heinrik of the young guard who’d died that night Hitler
had saved his life.

Heinrik suspected that Alexander had been in
his teens during the Great War. He had never been assigned to a
post with Alexander before. He knew little about him. He tried
small talk, but Alexander was not very forthcoming about himself.
He learned nothing of Alexander. All he knew was that Alexander
seemed tough and capable of doing his job.

Heinrik looked over at Alexander, who was
nestled quietly in the shadows. He appeared to be waiting for
something.

“Alexander,” Heinrik said. “Would you like
to see a photograph of my wife?”

Alexander said nothing at first, and then he
nodded. As he neared Heinrik, he noticed Alexander's old, worn
face. He looked worried, strained. Alexander was too young to look
this way.

“Good,” Heinrik said. He took out a small,
well-worn picture of his wife. It was obvious to Alexander from the
picture that Gracy was ethnic of some sort. Heinrik was positive
Alexander had noticed this, but surprisingly, he did not ask about
her heritage. He looked at the picture for a moment and then nodded
in approval.

Accidentally, Heinrik dropped the picture
but quickly recovered it. He stared at her one last time before
sticking it back into his wallet.

Heinrik took a deep breath and looked at his
watch. It was time to sweep the spotlight. He stood up and peered
over the edge of the wall. The spotlight was still dark. Heinrik
heard a faint sound coming from below him. He focused his eyes and
noticed a couple of dark shadows scurrying along the wall below.
Again he tried to refocus his eyes and he saw two prisoners
sneaking around.

“Son of a bitch,” Heinrik said.

Alexander stood up behind Heinrik. He was
looking across the yard. “Look, the guard across from us is waving
at us,” he said.

Heinrik looked across the yard and saw one
of the other guards pointing at him from the opposite wall. He was
signaling over to Heinrik who had a much clearer shot of the
escaping inmates.

“Alexander, switch on the spotlight. We have
two runaways down in the yard,” Heinrik said.

“Yes, sir,” Alexander said and then moved
behind the light and grabbed the handles around it. On one of the
handles there was a red switch. Alexander flipped it. The motor in
the spotlight jumped to life and began humming. He adjusted the
spotlight to sweep over the yard. He’d completely missed the spot
where the inmates were crouching.

“Alexander, slow the light down and move it
back toward us.”

“Yes, sir,” he replied.

Again the light completely missed the
inmates. Heinrik squeezed the butt of his rifle in frustration. He
felt as though Alexander was deliberately missing the
prisoners.

“Alexander, what are you doing?” Heinrik
asked, still facing the spot in the yard where the prisoners were
standing.

“Alexander?” Heinrik asked again. There was
no answer. The beam of light had completely stopped moving.

Heinrik turned around to see Alexander
pointing a pistol at him. The gun trembled in his hand.