The Traitor's Emblem (7 page)

Damn it, why did I have to do it up so tight? he thought as he struggled.

Suddenly his fingers found the exact spot to pull, and the apron came undone. Paul fled and reached the fourth and final floor of the house. With nowhere else to go, he ran through the first door he saw and closed it, fastening the bolt.

“Where’s he gone?” Jürgen screamed when he reached the landing. The boy who’d grabbed Paul’s apron was now clutching his injured knee. He gestured to the left of the corridor.

“Let’s go!” said Jürgen to the others, who had stopped a few steps below.

They didn’t move.

“What the hell are you . . .”

He stopped abruptly. His mother was watching him from farther down the stairs.

“I’m disappointed in you, Jürgen,” she said icily. “We’ve gathered together the best of Munich in order to celebrate your birthday, and then you disappear in the middle of the party to mess around on the stairs with your friends.”

“But . . .”

“Enough. I want you all to go down at once and rejoin the guests. We’ll talk later.”

“Yes, Mother,” said Jürgen, humiliated in front of his friends for the second time that day. Gritting his teeth, he set off down the stairs.

That isn’t the only thing that will happen later. You’ll pay for this one, too, Paul.

6

“It’s good to see you again.”

Paul was concentrating on calming down and recovering his breath. It took him a few moments to comprehend where the voice was coming from. He was sitting on the floor, his back against the door, afraid that any moment Jürgen might fight his way through. But when he heard those words, Paul jumped to his feet.

“Eduard!”

Without realizing it, he’d gone into his elder cousin’s room, a place he hadn’t visited in months. It all looked the same as it had before Eduard left: an organized, tranquil space, but one that reflected its owner’s personality. There were posters on the wall, Eduard’s collection of rocks, and above all, books—books everywhere. Paul had already read most of them. Spy novels, Westerns, fantasies, books on philosophy and history . . . They occupied the bookcases, the desk, and even the floor beside the bed. Eduard had to rest the volume he was reading on the mattress in order to turn the pages with his only hand. A number of cushions were stacked under his body to allow him to sit up, and a sad smile floated on his pale face.

“Don’t feel sorry for me, Paul. I couldn’t bear it.”

Paul looked him in the eye and understood that Eduard had been watching carefully for his reaction, and had found it strange when Paul hadn’t been surprised to see him like this.

“I’ve seen you before, Eduard. The day you came back.”

“So, how come you never visited me? I’ve seen almost no one but your mother since the day I got back. Your mother and my friends May, Salgari, Verne, and Dumas,” he said, raising the book he was reading so that Paul could see the title. It was The Count of Monte Cristo.

“They forbade me to come.”

Paul bowed his head, ashamed. Of course Brunhilda and his mother had forbidden him to see Eduard, but he could have at least tried. In truth, he had been afraid of seeing Eduard like this again, after the horrible experience of that afternoon when he had returned from the war. Eduard looked at him bitterly, no doubt aware of what Paul was thinking.

“I know how ashamed my mother is. Haven’t you noticed?” he said, gesturing toward a tray of cakes from the party that sat untouched. “It wouldn’t do to let my stumps spoil Jürgen’s birthday, so I wasn’t invited. How’s the party going, by the way?”

“There’s a band; people are drinking, talking about politics, and criticizing the military for losing a war we were winning.”

Eduard gave a snort.

“It’s easy to criticize from where they’re standing. What else are they saying?”

“Everyone’s talking about the Versailles negotiations. They’re pleased we’re rejecting the terms.”

“Damned fools,” said Eduard bitterly. “Since no one fired a shot on German soil, they can’t believe we’ve lost the war. Still, I suppose it’s always the same. Are you going to tell me who you were running away from?”

“The birthday boy.”

“Your mother’s told me you haven’t been getting along very well.”

Paul nodded.

“You haven’t touched the cakes.”

“I don’t need much food these days. There’s a lot less of me. Take them; go on, you look hungry. And come closer, I want to see you better. God, how you’ve grown.”

Paul sat on the edge of the bed and began to wolf down the food. He hadn’t eaten since breakfast; he had even missed school so he could prepare for the party. He knew his mother would be looking for him, but he didn’t care. Now that he’d overcome his fear, he couldn’t pass up this chance to be with Eduard, the cousin he’d missed so much.

“Eduard, I want to . . . I’m sorry I haven’t been to see you. I could have snuck in, in the afternoons when Aunt Brunhilda goes out for a walk . . .”

“It’s okay, Paul. You’re here, and that’s what matters. You are the one who has to forgive me, for not having written. I promised I would.”

“What stopped you?”

“I could tell you I was too busy shooting the English, but I’d be lying. A wise man once said that war is seven parts boredom to one part horror. In the trenches we had plenty of time, until we started killing each other.”

“So?”

“I couldn’t do it, simple as that. Not even at the start of this absurd war. The only people who’ve come back from it are a handful of cowards.”

“What are you talking about, Eduard? You’re a hero! You volunteered to go to the front, one of the first!”

Eduard gave an inhuman cackle that made Paul’s hair stand on end.

“A hero . . . Do you know who decides for you whether you’ll sign up as a volunteer? Your schoolmaster, when he talks to you about the glories of the Fatherland, the Empire, and the Kaiser. Your father, who tells you to be a man. Your friends—the same friends who, not that long ago, were arguing with you in gym class over whose was biggest. They all hurl the word ‘coward’ in your face if you betray the smallest doubt and blame you for the defeat. No, Cousin, there are no volunteers in war, only those who are stupid and those who are cruel. The latter stay at home.”

Paul was dumbstruck. Suddenly his fantasies about the war, the maps he’d drawn in his exercise books, the newspaper reports he’d loved to read, all seemed ridiculous and childish. He considered telling his cousin this but feared Eduard would laugh at him and throw him out of the room. For at that moment Paul could see the war, right there in front of him. The war wasn’t a bald list of advances toward enemy lines nor the dreadful stumps hidden below the bedsheets. The war was in Eduard’s empty, devastated eyes.

“You could . . . have resisted. Stayed at home.”

“No, I could not,” he said, turning his face away. “I’ve told you a lie, Paul; at least, it’s partly a lie. I also went to get away from them. So I wouldn’t turn out like them.”

“Like who?”

“You know who did this to me? It was around five weeks before the end of the war and already we knew we’d lost. We knew that at any moment they’d call on us to go home. And we were more confident than ever. We didn’t bother about the people falling beside us, because we knew that it wouldn’t be long before we’d be going back. Then one day, in the middle of a retreat, a shell fell too close.”

Eduard’s voice was quiet—so quiet that Paul had to lean in to hear what he was saying.

“I’ve asked myself a thousand times what would have happened if I’d run two meters to the right. Or if I’d stopped to tap my helmet twice, like we always did before leaving the trench.” He rapped on Paul’s forehead with his knuckles. “Doing that made us feel invincible. I didn’t do it that day, you see?”

“I wish you’d never gone.”

“No, Cousin, believe me. I went because I didn’t want to be a Schroeder, and if I came back, it was only to reassure myself that I was right to leave.”

“I don’t understand, Eduard.”

“My dear Paul, you should understand better than anyone. After what they’ve done to you. What they did to your father.”

This last phrase fixed itself into Paul’s heart like a rusty hook.

“What are you talking about, Eduard?”

His cousin looked at him in silence, biting his lower lip. Finally he shook his head and closed his eyes.

“Forget what I said. Sorry.”

“I can’t forget it! I never knew him, no one ever talks to me about him, though they mutter things behind my back. All I know is what my mother’s told me: that he went down with his ship on the way back from Africa. So tell me, please, what did they do to my father?”

There was another silence, this time much longer. So long that Paul wondered if Eduard had fallen asleep. Suddenly his eyes opened again.

“I’ll burn in hell for this, but I have no choice. First I want you to do me a favor.”

“Anything you say.”

“Go to my father’s study and open the second drawer on the right. If it’s locked, the key used to be kept in the middle drawer. You’ll find a black leather bag; it’s rectangular with a flap folded over it. Bring it to me.”

Paul did as he was told. He tiptoed down to the study, scared that he might meet someone on the way, but the party was still in full swing. The drawer was locked, and it took him a few moments to find the key. It wasn’t where Eduard had said, but finally he found it in a little wooden box. The drawer was filled with papers. Paul found a piece of black felt at the back, with a strange symbol etched in gold. A square and a compass, with a letter G inside. The leather bag lay underneath.

The boy put it under his shirt and returned to Eduard’s room. He could feel the weight of the bag against his stomach, and trembled just imagining what would happen if someone were to find him with this object that wasn’t his hidden beneath his clothes. He felt immense relief as he entered the room.

“Have you got it?”

Paul took out the leather bag and walked toward the bed, but on the way he tripped over one of the piles of books strewn across the room. The books scattered and the bag fell onto the floor.

“No!” cried Eduard and Paul at the same time.

The bag had fallen between a copy of May’s The Blood Revenge and Hoffman’s The Devil’s Elixirs, revealing its contents: a pearl-colored handle.

It was a pistol.

“Why do you want a gun, Cousin?” said Paul, his voice trembling.

“You know what I want it for.” He raised the stump of his arm in case Paul was in any doubt.

“Well, I won’t give it to you.”

“Listen carefully, Paul. Sooner or later I’ll manage, because the only thing I want to do in this world is to leave it. You can turn your back on me today, put it back where you got it, and force me to go through the terrible indignity of having to drag myself on this ruined arm in the dead of night to my father’s study. But then you’d never find out what I have to tell you.”

“No!”

“Or you can leave it on the bed, listen to what I have to say, then give me the dignity of choosing how I’m to go. You decide, Paul, but whatever happens, I will get what I want. What I need.”

Paul sat on the floor, or rather collapsed onto it, clutching the leather bag. For a long while the only sound in the room was the metallic tick of Eduard’s alarm clock. Eduard closed his eyes until he felt a movement on his bed.

His cousin had dropped the leather bag within reach of his hand.

“God forgive me,” said Paul. He was standing at Eduard’s bedside, crying, but not daring to look at him directly.

“Oh, He doesn’t give a damn what we do,” said Eduard, caressing the delicate leather with his fingers. “Thank you, Cousin.”

“Tell me, Eduard. Tell me what you know.”

The wounded man cleared his throat before beginning. He talked slowly, as though each of the words had to be dragged out of his lungs rather than spoken.

“It happened in 1905, which is what they’ve told you, and up to that point what you know is not so far from the truth. I remember clearly that Uncle Hans was on a mission in South-West Africa, because I loved the sound of that word and used to say it again and again as I tried to find the place on the map. One night, when I was ten years old, I heard shouting in the library and went down to see what was happening. I was very surprised that your father had called on us at that time of night. He was in discussion with my father, the two of them sitting at a round table. There were two other people in the room. I could see one of them, a short man with delicate features like a girl’s, who was saying nothing. I couldn’t see the other one from the door but I could hear him. I was about to go in and greet your father—he always brought me presents from his travels—but just before I entered, my mother grabbed me by the ear and dragged me to my room. ‘Did they see you?’ she asked. And I said no, over and over. ‘Well, you’re not to say a word about this, not ever, do you hear me?’ And I . . . I swore I’d never tell . . .”

Eduard’s voice trailed off. Paul grabbed his arm. He wanted him to continue the story, whatever it took, though he was aware of the suffering that it was causing his cousin.

“You and your mother came to live with us two weeks later. You weren’t much more than a baby, and I was pleased, because that meant I had my own platoon of brave soldiers to play with. I didn’t even think about the obvious lie my parents told me: that Uncle Hans’s frigate had gone down. People were saying other things, spreading rumors that your father was a deserter who’d gambled everything away and had disappeared in Africa. Those rumors were just as untrue, but I didn’t think about them, either, and eventually I forgot. Just as I forgot what I heard soon after my mother left my bedroom. Or rather, I pretended that I’d made a mistake, in spite of the fact that no mistake was possible, given the excellent acoustics in this house. Watching you grow up was easy, watching your happy smile as we played hide-and-seek, and I lied to myself. Then you started getting older—old enough to understand. Soon you were as old as I’d been that night. And I went off to war.”

“So tell me what you heard,” said Paul in a whisper.

“That night, Cousin, I heard a shot.”