Pictures of Hitler
By williemeikle
- 587 reads
It wasn't until after old Uncle Lech died that I found out what he
really did in the war.
And even after I found out, my abiding memory of him is one of laughter
and joy and a lust for life. It's just that every time I think of him
the other images become superimposed, the ones that started the day I
found the notebooks, the day before I found the picture.
It all started well enough. A thin silver mist hung over the still lake
and nothing moved but my arm, the fly rod and the thin line that snaked
out over the water. The Rockies seemed to hang between the mist and the
sky, their cold blueness warning of the winter to come.
I had already caught the night's supper - two fine rainbows, over three
pounds each. I was only really casting for practice. I raised my arm
for a cast and Loki started barking. I almost ignored it - anything
could set that dog off, squirrels, racoons, even its own reflection in
the water. But there was a tone in the bark that I'd never heard
before, one of fear and desperation. As I rowed back to the shore the
dead grey eyes of the fish stared at me in reproach.
He had made me leave in the morning.
"Go and catch your fish," he said to me, and his accent was as strong
as ever. He never lost it, despite all the years he spent in this
country. "The young need to take their pleasures while they can."
I sensed then, a premonition of things to come, but he shooed me out
with his big farmer's hands.
"Get on with you. An old man needs plenty of time alone with his
memories. Sometimes they're all that's left of the man he was."
And with that he hurried me out into the clear morning.
Now I was running up the path to the lodge, already knowing that I'd
never hear that well loved voice again.
Loki was at the door, crouched on all fours, his nose pressed tight to
the gap underneath. He was whining, a thin mournful note from deep in
his throat, and his legs were trembling, as if he would keel over at
any moment. I had to push past him to get the door open and he actually
bared his teeth at me. It didn't look like menace - it looked like a
smile.
Uncle Lech would tell no more stories. I would never know how he
escaped from the concentration camp, and I would never hear the one
about how his Polish relatives got him out of the country.
He used a knife - the big one I keep for show, and he'd done a good job
with it. He sat in the rocker, his chest bare, its whole broad expanse
little more then a sheet of blood - blood that had drained into a pool
under his feet. His eyes stared back at me. There was no sign of pain
there, or of fear, only a grim determination that even death hadn't
faded.
The next thing I knew I was at the door, whooping in great draughts of
air and trying hard not to lose my breakfast. And that's when the hairs
at the nape of my neck rose and a cold chill settled in my spine.
There was a creak behind me, a noise I recognised immediately, just a
single creak, but I knew that the rocking chair had moved.
I turned, slowly, my mind giving me pictures of my uncle, my dead
uncle, coming for me with outstretched arms. But there was only the
dead man, the knife and that grim determined stare.
I walked the three miles into town to report the death. I could have
used the telephone in the lodge, but I couldn't walk into that room
again just then, not even if my life depended on it.
The next few hours passed like a dream - the drive with the sheriff and
the doctor back to the lodge, the pasty look on the lawman's face as he
came out of the lodge and the deep sincere sympathy I got from both
men.
The sheriff took me back to town and got me booked into the hotel - I
don't think I could have managed anything on my own. He promised to
look after all the arrangements.
"Don't worry about a thing. We all know how much you loved that old man
- we'll take care of him for you."
He took Loki with him when he left - the dog looked happy with the
arrangement. I was left to stare unseeing at the four walls of the
room.
I don't know how long I sat like that, only that it was getting dark
when the knock came on the door. When I opened it there was a thin,
gray man there, nervously clutching a very old briefcase.
"Mr Svanrovit?" he cleared his throat and tried again. "Mr Sigmund
Svanrovit?"
I nodded in confirmation and waited. The little man's eyes rolled
behind the thick lenses of his glasses, and fine beads of sweat formed
on his brow. I was almost intrigued - I've never seen a man so utterly
terrified of someone he had just met.
"Your uncle, Herr Kaminski, asked me to give you this in the event of
?" His Adam's apple went up and down and he had to run his tongue over
his lips before continuing. "In the event of anything happening to
him."
He pushed the briefcase out in front of him, as if he was afraid that I
might punch him. I took it off him, looked down at the cracked, faded,
leather, and looked up again to see him escaping away down the
corridor.
On any other day I would have wondered who he was, how he found me, all
the happy stuff you have time to think of when your life changes little
with the passing days. But for now my mind had no room for curiosity. I
put the briefcase on the bed and went back to staring at the
walls.
I was remembering. I was twelve years old, a hungry orphan begging on
the pavements around Times Square. Frazier was fighting at the Gardens,
and the big money was out in force.
It had been a good night, I had five dollars in my pocket and I knew
where I was going to sleep. And that's when the silver dollar clattered
on the ground at my feet. I bent to pick it up and a pair of leather
clad feet came into view. He looked like one of Frazier's opponents,
but looking at this man, I had a feeling that he might have given
Smoking Joe something to think about.
"I have been looking for someone like you," he said. He had an accent
I'd only ever heard in the movies, and even back then there were plenty
of strange older men cruising around the Square. I dropped the dollar
at his feet and backed away.
"I don't do tricks." I said, looking into his face and seeing the
sudden shock there.
"Oh no," he said and laughed, a great booming thing, "I'm Polish not
Bulgarian." He put out his hand, and something about his smile made me
take it. We walked, like father and son, to the nearest coffee
house.
He offered me friendship, countryside, bear and trout and no more
begging. I was already wise enough to the world to know a good thing
when I saw it.
Since that day I have kept the new name he gave me, his 'little blond
warrior'. He took care of me, fed me, made me into the man I am today.
And I loved him, every day between then and now. Tears filled my eyes
and washed the patterns on the wallpaper to flowing, melting rivers. I
lay back on the bed, closed my eyes, and sometimes later, I
slept.
I woke, unrefreshed, in a dark, unfamiliar room. For a split second I
was back there in Manhattan, in the orphanage where the only night
sound was the crying of lost children, but then I turned and my arm hit
something soft and leathery and I came fully awake and back to the
present.
A glance at the clock told me it was not yet midnight. I switched on
the bedside lamp and drew the briefcase towards me. Something in my
mind had healed - now I was curious.
I don't know what I expected - legal papers maybe, deeds to the lodge,
a will, stuff like that. What I didn't expect was the yellowing, faded
notebooks that spilled out onto the bed.
I picked up the top one. It was maybe sixty pages of paper, each filled
completely with tiny crabbed script - in German, with the odd passage
of Latin. As I read - another talent to thank Uncle Lech for - I
realised it was a set of research notes concerning the history of the
Teutonic Knights.
Flicking through the other books I found more research, into the Holy
Grail, the Spear of Destiny, the Ark of the Covenant, Excalibur,
Demonology, even a discourse on the origins of the Vampire myth.
I had no idea why Uncle Lech would have such things in his possession.
"If I can't see it, eat it or fuck it then it doesn't exist," he used
to say, usually after a small bucketful of vodka. More to the point, I
couldn't see why he wanted me to have them.
The rest of the books held more of the same. I placed them back in the
briefcase, carefully - Uncle Lech had obviously held them in some
esteem to have left specific instructions.
At least they had given something else to think about. I fell asleep
again with my mind reeling with images of pentacles and demons,
chalices and swords. It was no surprise that I dreamed.
They came out of the mist, the hooves of their mounts raising thunder
which echoed around the village long before they came into view. They
emerged from the gloom like wraiths, their armour shining silver in the
moon's light. As one they lowered their lances, and as they charged
they sang, a loud battle song that spoke of power and domination.
The villagers ran, like chickens faced with a wolf. They took shelter
in the Great Hall, huddled together as if their very closeness would
protect them, but the Knights merely laughed. And they built a great
fire around the structure, singing their battle songs as the bodies
burned and the smell of cooking meat rose in the air.
They took off their helmets and let their hair blow in the stiff wind.
And when they turned their heads their eyes stared straight at me and I
woke, my mind full of reflections of the face I see in the mirror each
morning.
At first I was unsure where I was. There was something hard behind my
back and when I opened my eyes there was only a grey cloud, a heavy fog
directly in front of me.
I raised my hand to wipe my eyes and my vision suddenly cleared, at the
same time as I recognised where my dreams had brought me.
The rocking chair gave its old familiar creak as I almost jumped out of
it. My heart hammered up through the gears until I was panting like a
hot dog. My feet were bare, but I was wearing a clean set of clothing.
The old briefcase was lying at my feet, in the middle of a red stain
where someone had tried without success to remove the traces of blood.
And there was something else, lying face down on the floor, a small
gilt mounted picture.
I left it there and headed for the door. For long minutes I stood in
the cool morning air, just taking in deep breaths. Obviously I'd walked
in my sleep, a classic stress reaction.
But how had I managed to change my clothes? And why had I picked the
old rocker?
My brain was too fuddles to make sense of it. I left the door lying
open and headed for the kitchen and coffee.
I was wondering just why I had added milk and sugar to my cup when
there was a discreet cough behind me. I turned to see the thin grey man
who had given me the briefcase back in the hotel.
There was a doubling in my brain, a sense of being detached from
reality yet still all too clearly part of it. I felt my mouth open and
close as if in speech, but I could not hear, could not feel, could only
see as the thin man stood sharply to attention, his eyes shining. At
first I thought it was fear that I saw there, but then I realised what
it was - it was devotion.
Then the mental grip on my mind was gone, as suddenly as it had come.
The grey man said two words in German, words that caused the thing in
my mind to stir anew, but this time I was strong enough to keep it at
bay, and more than strong enough to hustle the thin man out of the
lodge.
He looked at me fixedly, staring deep into my eyes, then a small smile
grew at his lips, and it was still there when he turned away down the
track.
I turned to go back into the lodge and a vice took hold in my brain, a
grip so tight and so strong that it took me down and away into
blackness.
I am in the lodge, the centre of attention of a large group of the
townspeople - all the important ones. The sheriff is there, and the
doctor, and the mayor, as well as the, now well known, thin man. They
stand around me in a semicircle, and the light from the lanterns gleams
from the shining silver of the buttons on their uniforms and the
gleaming black red armbands that were so familiar to me.
I speak to them, these people who have kept my secret for long years,
years while I waited for the time to be right again. And they listen,
as rapt as all who heard me over the years. Fired by my vision, they go
into the night to restart the great work.
The rocker creaked as I woke with a start. I found myself staring at
the small picture which I had seen previously on the floor.
It was a group picture. Six Russian soldiers are standing over the
bodies of a man and a woman on the ground. The man has his chest bare
and deep scars are gouged in the flesh. Despite the mutilation you can
still make out the flop of hair and the moustache.
And there, in the back of the picture, held, handcuffed between two
more Russian guards, stands my old Uncle Lech, much younger but still
unmistakable. He was bound tightly at both wrists, and you can see
where the ropes chafe him, but there is still a broad grin on his
face.
I write this in the hope that whoever finds me later will understand.
The blackouts have been getting stronger, more severe, and today there
has only been one lucid hour, just enough to write this
chronicle.
I will get my knife and I will sit in the rocker, and I will try to end
it if I am given the time, if only to forget the words the thin man
spoke at the door, two small words in German that mean the end of every
memory I hold dear.
Mein Fuhrer.
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