The Secret of Lions (23 page)

“How are we going to get over this wall?”
Anna asked.

I looked around and noticed a fire escape
that protruded out over the wall from the second floor off of a
building on our side. I pointed up at it and said, “That’s how
we’ll get over it.”

I took Anna by the hand and led her toward
the doorway of the building. As we neared the front door, we
realized the door was already open. The lock was already shattered
from gunfire. Wood and metal splintered out across the entrance. I
was careful not to make any sounds as we walked into the dimly lit
foyer.

Light fixtures were spread out across the
inside of the lobby. Many of them were broken. Pieces of glass from
shattered bulbs littered the hardwood floor. My eyes focused on the
shadows. I did not want to run into the insurgents. The building
appeared to be completely abandoned. It was silent except for the
creaking floorboards. Old, dried blood splatter stained the walls
of the main corridor.

An old man lay dead in the doorway of his
apartment. I focused on the splinters of a broken broom handle that
lay near the corpse’s head.

“He was bludgeoned to death,” I said,
pointing at the corpse. Anna looked at me intensely. She had never
seen a dead body before. After what I’d witnessed in that basement
all those years before, I was no longer afraid of violence or
death. I had seen it.

“Let’s keep going,” I said, ushering her
along.

We walked up the stairs. Blood-stained
carpet lined the halls and the rooms of the second floor. And there
was an odor. It was awful. Anna, especially, felt unsettled.

“There is so much blood, but where are the
other bodies?” she asked.

“I don’t know. Are you sure you want to keep
going?”

“Yes,” she said. “I don’t care about the
Jews any more than you do.”

“Okay,” I replied.

I led the way to an open apartment. The
inside was cluttered. Fragmented furniture pieces leaned against
the walls. A dark-colored couch was dissected into two pieces. One
half was in the center of the living room. The other half dangled
out the window. It was tangled in the frame of a shattered window.
Broken glass covered the top of it.

“What could have broken that couch in half?”
Anna asked.

“I’m not sure,” I replied, lying. I knew
exactly what could have done such a thing. I had heard rumors
during my travels with Hitler. The rumors were about a division of
the SS police that specialized in clean up and death.

They were called the “Todesgruppen” or
“death squads.” They were deployed only after the planes had
finished bombing their targets and the soldiers had finished
sweeping through the urban areas. The Todesgruppen were an elite
group of killers that cleaned up after the initial infantry raids
were complete.

The Todesgruppen possessed specialized
weapons, such as shotguns, flamethrowers, and even chainsaws. They
were twisted Nazis who slaughtered any Jews left alive in the
target zone.

I hoped we did not see them. Although I was
not unsettled by violence, I was unsettled at the type of men they
were.

I smiled at Anna and urged her to the edge
of the couch—at least that half. I looked out beyond it. Hardly any
glass remained attached to the window. Most of it was on the top
half of the couch or out on the street below. I grabbed the arm of
the couch and pushed.

It would not budge, at first. I tried
kicking it, but it was wedged tightly in the window’s frame. I
stepped back a few meters and cleared Anna from my path. With all
of my force, I charged into the couch and shoved it out the window.
It bounced out onto the balcony and fell over the side rail.

Anna walked out through the broken window
first. She waited for me. Together we stopped and peered up at the
balcony over our heads. Hanging from the third floor balcony was a
small boy’s shoe. A blood-stained shoelace dangled from the edge of
a broken railing. The railing was bent completely outward.

“It must have taken a lot of force to break
the railing like that,” Anna said, ignoring the child’s shoe.

“Maybe there’s another couch on the street
below. We’re not the only lusty teenagers out scouting around,” I
said.

She laughed.

Despite the remains of the city and the
symbols of death that surrounded us, we both wanted to have fun.
Deep in my gut, I felt something was wrong. There was some kind of
painful memory that fought to be remembered, but I couldn’t see
it.

“Peter, are you all right?”

“Yes, I am fine. Let’s continue,” I
answered.

“We can get over the wall now. The only
problem is how are we going to get down to the street?” Anna
asked.

“We have to drop down,” I said, scratching
the adolescent stubble on my cheek.

“I was afraid you might say that. How do we
get back over the wall again once we return?”

“We will find a way. Unless you want to go
back?” I asked.

“No, I want to see at least one living Jew
tonight. I want to see the scum of the earth. How can we understand
what our fathers stand for when you and I have never even seen a
real Jew?” Anna asked.

It seemed like a valid point. I had never
thought of it before. It was unusual for me to question any of my
father’s politics.

Anna brought out a side of me I hadn’t
known. She made me more defiant, rebellious. So I agreed, and we
climbed over the railing. One at a time, we fell onto the broken
couch. I landed on it first. The cushions softened our
landings.

“That wasn’t too bad,” Anna said.

“No, it was easier than I thought it would
be.”

We heard a sound approaching, coming from
the street ahead. An tin can rolled down the sidewalk toward us. I
listened as the wind blew and echoed between the alleyways. I
grabbed Anna’s hand. “That is where we should go,” I said, pointing
upwind. I led her down the sidewalk.

Warsaw’s north side was in worse shape than
the rest of the city by far. The north side used to be a luxurious
district.

But now buildings were torn in half; the
bones of the former apartments protruded out over the rumbled
remains. The concrete on the road was broken up and uneven due to
the German bombardment.

A strange gaseous scent filled the air. I
recognized it immediately. The Nazis only bombed some of the Jewish
communities. The real purpose of this was to test out the
artillery. It was not meant to cripple the armed forces of Poland.
The Polish army was a joke compared to their German neighbors. So
of course the Germans defeated them very quickly.

“What is that smell?” Anna asked. We turned
the corner, and she knew without my response. It was the smell of
fire and ash.

Fire burned over several buildings ahead of
us. Some small, nearly dead fires still exhaled lumps of gray
smoke. The largest of the fires roared in the center of the road
about three blocks away. It was in the shape of a hill. The fire
moved in only one direction: up. It climbed higher and higher into
the sky. The peak of the fire was lost in a large black cloud of
soot and ash.

Anna was curious. She had never seen
anything like it before. And in a strange way, it was beautiful.
Her father had kept her far from any of the images of war. Living
her whole life in luxury, violence was a stranger to her. She had
always stayed far away from fire. Now she stood meters from it. She
was awed in the presence of it.

“Let’s keep going,” she said jubilantly.

“Okay,” I said. I felt the Colt 1911 pressed
against my side. “Do you still have your father’s wine?”

“Yes, I put it back inside my coat pocket
when we dropped to the couch.”

“It didn’t break?” I asked.

“No, it stayed intact,” she answered.

“Good. Are you ready to drink it?”

“Yes,” she responded.

“Let’s find a good place first and then
we’ll open it,” I said.

“Okay,” Anna responded. She held out her
hand and I took it.

71

Hitler’s breath fogged up the car’s
passenger window. He stared out impatiently. An entourage of SS
guards surrounded his limo. They drove in black cars with two
motorcyclists trailing alongside. MP38 machine guns attached to
leather straps hung from the shoulders of the motorcyclists.

His entourage generally was much larger, but
tonight he did not want to attract attention to himself. He did not
want anyone to know where he was going. It was not a public matter,
but a personal one.

The memories that took place inside the
little lake house did not belong to the state; they belonged to
Hitler, Gracy, and me. The crimes that happened under the large
oaks, beyond the bleached-white porch swing, and inside the
structure of a once beautiful lake house belonged in the
reflections of young Willem Kessler, the son he stole.

They drove most of the night until they
finally arrived. Down a long dirt road and under the old
trees—Hitler would never forget—they drove toward the house in
front of the barren, serene lake. The driver peered back at him
through the rearview mirror as the Führer’s breathing became
irregular. The driver did not dare to speak. He feared Hitler as
much as he respected him. Hitler hardly ever sat in the back of the
car alone. This was the first time that the driver had ever noticed
it.

The lake house was untouched and barren, as
Hitler had demanded.

The cars stopped in the driveway. Pebbles
flew out from under the tires. Some landed on the porch; the rest
disappeared into the grass around the faded green staircase. A few
pebbles landed near the bottom of a rain gutter that came down from
the roof.

Water dripped out the bottom of the drain
and merged into a small puddle on the ground. The grass around the
lake house was still damp from the previous night’s rain. The house
had been deserted for the last ten years. Once, Heinrik and Gracy
dreamed of owning it and raising their son in it. Instead, I was
raised there by an imposter.

The Kessler’s dream house was haunted by
their undead memories. And even though Heinrik Kessler had never
set foot in the house, never slept next to his own wife in it, his
memories haunted it.

Heinrik Kessler’s ghost haunted Hitler as
well. For years, Hitler had submerged any guilt he felt about
Heinrik and Gracy. He felt stronger and stronger about me, but as I
grew older, I grew to look more and more like my real father,
reminding Hitler of his malevolent deeds.

Hitler continued to stare out the car
window. He leaned his forehead against it, his eyes slowly dropping
to look at the ground next to the car. He watched as a brisk breeze
blew through the long blades of grass all across the front
yard.

“Wait here,” Hitler said to the driver. He
opened the door and stepped out.

The SS guards stood behind his car near the
trees. One guard parked his motorcycle and followed Hitler up to
the house. The tips of his trench coat drug across the ground as he
walked to the porch. He went in before Hitler with his machine gun
at the ready. He entered the house and checked the downstairs rooms
to be sure they were safe for the Führer to enter.

Hitler remained in the open doorway. The
other SS guards left the cars and walked around the perimeter of
the house. They set up positions on every corner of the house,
shielding the Führer from any potential ambushes. After securing
the upper floors, the motorcycle guard returned to the porch.

“No one enters,” Hitler said to him.

The Führer walked into the darkness of the
inner hallway. For nearly ten years, he had not set foot into that
house. It was only in his dreams that he’d reentered the memories
of that house.

Returning was a living nightmare. He never
thought he would regret killing a Jew and her husband. After all,
Heinrik was not the closest friend he had ever had. His fondest
friend was August Kubizek from his childhood. There was only one
person he loved so much it made him feel regret for killing a Jew.
The only person who could make the guilt of killing Gracy and
Heinrik unbearable was me.

“I remember,” Hitler whispered.

A table near the opening to the living room
was set up with family photos. A picture of Gracy, pregnant with
me, was placed in front of the others. After Gracy’s death, which
he told his staff was a suicide, Hitler had all of her possessions
placed throughout the house as if she were still living there
happily. The dream house of Heinrik and Gracy was no more; the lake
house was now a memorial to them.

A diagram of the Kessler family tree was
also laid out. At the bottom were grandparents, the parents of both
Gracy and Heinrik. Almost the entire Kessler family was completely
obliterated. Only one person remained alive: me.

Hitler swallowed hard thinking about what he
had done to the only son he had ever known. He ignored the velvety
cobwebs that connected each picture frame to the other. It was like
staring at the Kessler’s dead family tree—branch after withered
branch.

Nightingale floors creaked under the weight
of each step Hitler made. He walked near the spot in the front hall
where he’d first noticed the creaking and he instantly remembered
it. Bypassing the living room, Hitler went straight through the
kitchen and into the dining room. In his mind, he placed the
Kessler family throughout the house, moving, living a normal life.
He saw their ghosts.

Gracy sat with her back to the fireplace and
Heinrik sat at the head of the table next to an empty chair. Hitler
wandered to the chair. He pulled it out of its resting place. The
legs of the chair scraped the floorboards. The sound echoed and
then vanished among the dusty, high ceiling beams.

Hitler sat. He leaned back and stared into
the darkness of the kitchen doorway. His back was now to the
fireplace, just as Gracy had been sitting in his vision. Lights
streamed in through the blinds of the kitchen window. He could hear
the creaking of one of the guards patrolling on the front porch. A
flashlight beam filtered in through the drawn blinds. It faintly
lit the dining room.