1941, Munich, Germany

There was a knock on the door.

It wasn’t a soft, light knock. It was a sharp knock that cracked against the wood, echoing eerily throughout the apartment. 

We had all been hoping this knock would never come. Papa had been cheerful about our prospect of survival, Mama had carried on cooking her thin cabbage soup, Joseph and Max had played with their four toy soldiers on the faded rug. We had all tried to fool ourselves into believing that there was no way that knock would come.

But there it was. It had come.

Blood pounded in my ears and my heart quickened.

Thump, thump. Thump, thump.

I closed my eyes, trying to block out the sensations around me. Maybe if my eyes were shut long enough, I would believe everything was simply a dream. All the stories I heard over the past few months of Jewish families being shot or dragged off to suffer the work camps came flooding back to me now. As the butts of rifles broke down our door and the click of polished boots echoed in the entryway, something inside me snapped and I ran. Through the window, down the fire escape, out to the gray streets of Munich.

I ran without looking, without listening, without thinking. It was not until hours later that I realized the full extent of what I had done.

My family was either captured or dead by now. 

Tears of cowardice coursed down my cheeks. 

But I never stopped running.

A Year Later

1942, Berghof, Germany

Inhale

Exhale

Repeat. The steady sound of my breath was all that could be heard in the tiny room. For some reason it seemed magnified. Every thin whoosh of air reflected off the smooth stone walls before fading away, only to be replaced by another whisper of air. I focused intensely on steadying my heartbeat. It was pounding in my ears like an annoying marching band.

Thump, thump. Thump, thump.

 Just calm down, I commanded it. Heartbeat and breath. The two most important actions that symbolized physical life in a human being. They were so fragile and beautiful and...

So annoying!

 I focused again on calming myself. Falling back on my metal cot I stared at the stone roof. There was a light bulb up there somewhere. Its beam shone through a narrow crack in the stone. My only light source. One light bulb. One barred door. One guard.

One prisoner.

Thump, thump........Thump, thump.

My heartbeat steadied. That’s more like it.

I sat up slowly. I didn’t want to risk quickening the pace again.

Today was the Führer’s important dinner gathering. The Führer only had important dinners so he could invite less important generals and make himself feel superior. But it wasn’t the thought of this dinner gathering that made my heart race, it was the fact that my guard had mentioned it.

You see, my guard never talks. Ever. I think I heard him grunt ‘shut up’ once when I was talking to myself to pass the time. Otherwise, there was never a sound out of him until this afternoon. At least, I assumed it was afternoon. The single light bulb never went out, and the guards only changed once. I assumed my one meal was brought to me in the afternoon. It was the only event in my life to mark the passing of time at all.

With the accustomed harsh scrape of metal parts, the lock had clicked and the barred door to my underground cell had creaked outward. The stiff blonde-hair, blue-eyed, man had stalked in, pistol in hand, slammed down the food tray, but instead of leaving had stopped and stared at me.

At first I thought I had done something wrong, like, you know, blinked too loudly, until he spoke.“The Führer is having his dinner party today. If you behave, saumensch, you might be invited.”

His voice was unexpectedly soft. However, the harsh dialect of his native language destroyed any redemption this might have bought him.

It had been weeks since anyone had spoken to me. Granted, he had just called me a pig... but in the suddenness of that moment, I was too shocked to answer. The guard was not bothered by my silence and simply stared coldly at me for a moment before stalking out the way he had come. As the bolt creaked back into place I had sunk to the ground, deep in thought. And that is when it had started.

Thump, thump. Thump, thump.

My ears had been pulsing with blood since that incident for who knows how long. Having now successfully calmed the rush of adrenaline, I ate my cold meal and then continued my examination of the ceiling. So the “General” was having a party. That meant the War was either going very well or very badly.

Time passed, or at least I think it did, as I lay staring at the ceiling contemplating my future.

The cell door smashed open. Two visits in one day. Probably not a good sign.

Blondey and a man who looked as if a pile of boulders had been given eyes and made to walk around, stormed into the cell. If I had really wanted to I could have bolted for the open door and got a bullet through the brain. Instead I sat there, trying to keep my heartbeat pulsing at a normal rate.

Thump, thump........Thump, thump.

Without a word, the rock-shaped man snapped my arms behind my back and forced them into handcuffs. Shoving me forward, he pointed to the doorway.

So they were taking me somewhere. Well, I wasn’t going to make their job easy.

I stood, unmoving, before taking a sharp about-face and staring at the opposite wall of the room.

“Turn around stupid spy.”

I tilted my head toward the ceiling. “What if I don’t want to?”

All I could hear was the click of boots on stone. The gunshot was coming, just wait for it. Thick gloved hands squeezed my shoulders and the butt of a pistol clacked against my skull. The room spun around me like the deck of some stormy ship. My feet dragged across the floor as the men removed me from my cell. I didn’t want to leave. As much as I hated my room of imprisonment, what lay outside was much worse. At least in the cell I had stone and iron to protect me.

We climbed flights upon flights of stairs and all the while the world continued to spin like a drunken carousal. Blood was pounding in my ears and dripping on my shoulder from the head wound. My heart beat had quickened again.

   Thump, thump. Thump, thump.

I had to stop it. I had to calm myself down. I didn’t want to be afraid. Fear was weakness, and weakness meant death. That was the motto I had lived by for five months before being captured as a spy. I was determined to keep living by it. I just had to convince my heart not to be afraid and the rest of me would calm down as well.

Suddenly, there I was facing two smooth, ornate doors. There were muffled male voices coming from behind them. My breathing slowed and the world steadied.

“I’ll see if he’s ready.” The soft voice with the harsh words came from a long way off. The doors opened and closed in front of me. A greasy breath heaved on the side of my face, “You must be on your best behavior pig. Use your manners. Even pigs must have some manners.” Rock man chuckled next to me, his laughter like oil bubbling from the earth. “Do you have manners pig?”

I was determined not to answer him.

“Stupid schwein.” A gob of spit slapped my right cheek. Staring straight ahead, I resisted the urge to wipe it off. The doors swung open again and the blonde haired man marched out. He stared coldly at me for a moment before speaking, “He’s ready.”

With a forceful push, I staggered into the room.

It was a beautifully dark room. Candles were the only source of light and the shadows they created danced on the paneled walls like spirits at a haunted gathering. There was a long table directly before me. It was lined with men in uniforms on either side. They were on the meat course. Rows of dead ducks and pigs lay glistening on the tabletop. It looked like some ghastly murder scene. Every eye, both dead and living, was fixed on me. The deathly silence stretched between me and those at the table, waiting for some interference to break the spell.

And then I saw him; the Führer.

His dark hair had been slicked back although a small piece of it had come loose and hung over his large forehead. His thin lips formed a disapproving frown, they were probably frozen that way, and just above them was that pitiful square of a mustache. It was a patch of mold on the skeletal face that he had failed to scrape off. But his eyes...his eyes are what struck me the most at that moment.      

They were dead.

They had sunk back into his head and tired creases of skin hung around them. Those eyes stared at me and I stared back. They were so void of emotion that they might have been switched with the dead pig’s eyes on the table and I would barely have noticed the difference. The dancing candle fire was reflected in his eyes, giving them some illusion of life.

“Gentlemen,” The man whispered, cleared his throat, and spoke again.

“Gentlemen, some of you, in your common ignorance, have forgotten the main focus of this war.” The man paused for effect and swept his dead eyes around the room. “Would anyone care to enlighten us?”

The uniformed men shifted uncomfortably like schoolchildren who didn’t want to be called on by the teacher.

“No one?” The man’s voice was just above a whisper. His fist came smashing onto the table and he shouted, “We fight so that this great country can be restored. We fight to bring prosperity. WE fight to cleanse Germany and the world of filth like this!”

It took me a moment to realize he was talking about me.

But of course he was talking about me.

Thump, thump. Thump, thump.

“Why am I here?” The question leapt from my mouth before I could stop it.

A low murmur spread through the room. They were probably surprised I could form sentences at all.

Slowly, like a cat sizing up a jump, the man came out from behind his chair. His uniform was spotless with the blood red swastika on his upper left arm.

“You are here so that we all may witness your filth and our resolve for battle will be strengthened.” His voice was quiet again.

I felt my anger get the best of me. Blood rose in my cheeks and I didn’t care how important the man in front of me was.

Thump, thump. Thump, thump.

“You think you’re so much better than everyone. What makes you so special? Nothing. You’re nothing but a terrified child, hiding behind your parades and black spiders, while other soldiers look innocent people in the face and kill them.” My chest was heaving. The anger that had mounted inside of me for the past few months came spilling out like a breaking dam. In this moment of blind rage, my family flashed across my mind. For all I knew, they were dead. Right then, I decided I would not be silent. I had run from my family, now I would stand for them. My fury gave me strength so that I barely cared that the Führer had put a hand inside his military coat and was drawing out glinting black metal.

“You don’t understand the first thing about liberty or freedom. You think the price of perfection is ridding the world of anyone who doesn’t meet your standers! You think my people are filthy, take a look at the blood covering your own han—

    Thump, thump.......

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

That filth of a human being collapsed before me as my gunshot echoed sharply around the room. A thin haze of red mist hovered in the air. I had always liked the red mist it was unique, colorful.  

“Send for someone to clean up this mess,” I spoke calmly to the nearest server. Wiping off my hand pistol I stowed it back inside my military coat. I sat heavily and sighed, “I’ll have to have the rugs thrown out tomorrow in exchange for new ones. Pity.” I sighed again, “They always make such a mess of things, don’t they?”

No one was looking at me. As their Führer I usually demanded respect but now all eyes were focused elsewhere.

“But after all, what better way to make an example. Perfection will only come through the elimination of animals such as this,” I gestured to the limp body of the Jew on the embroidered rugs. “This purification of our world is not possible without sacrifice. This is why we have to be willing to pay a price to achieve this goal, even if that price is,” I paused and a tight smirk graced my face, “even if that price is dirtying new rugs.”    

Slowly I sipped my wine as I let the message sink in.

Certainly death, I thought, was an easy price to pay.