Part One | Chapter II
September 30th, 1938
He could already almost taste the hot tea Elise would have ready for him. Thoughts of her smile made him smile too as he walked the streets, apparently not noticing the looks he was getting from passers-by.
It was good to be going home.
But as cheerful as he was, when a scream tore through the calm evening air, his senses immediately sprang to action. He was off-duty now, but that didn’t matter, even if he hadn’t been an officer in the Berlin Police Department, Luther would have never ignored cries for help.
Swinging back around, his eyes quickly found the source of the commotion. An old man had been cornered by two youthful-looking thugs, whose vulture-like grins were having the opposite effect grins usually have on faces. But it was not the smiles that drew Luther’s eyes, it was the brown armband one of the thugs wore with a splash of red and black in its centre.
As he strode forward, Luther’s mood shifted completely. Ever since ’33 whoever wore one of those armbands seemed to feel as though they could do whatever they wanted. And as time had gone on, both the number of armbands and the boldness of their wearers had increased.
“What are you doing?”
He frowned and grabbed, not very gently, the Armband Boy’s shoulder. He turned around and met Luther’s gaze, his grin disappearing in an instant. Pulling away from Luther’s grip, he raised the arm with the armband to point at the old man cowering powerlessly.
“Jew!”
Just one word. As if that one word was enough to explain everything.
Luther’s frown deepened, but before he could do or say anything, Armband Boy’s companion, who seemed far less sure of himself, fearfully sputtered an apology and something about going home. He tugged on his friend’s sleeve and whispered something to him.
Reluctantly, Armband tore his cocksure stare away from Luther, shot a threatening glance toward his lost prey, and left along with his friend.
“Are you alright, sir?”
The old man nodded, his face flush with relief and gratitude.
“Thank you. Thank you.”
It seemed to be all he could get out. He must have been pretty badly ruffled, Luther thought. Sighing, he watched the old man get on his way; and then turned back to get home himself.
Though he tried to picture Elise’s smile again, his thoughts were preoccupied and only a dim shadow of it came to mind. He no longer tasted hot tea, and when he eventually walked through the door, his greeting lacked its usual liveliness.
But the response was livelier than ever. And it was not from Elise.
“Cousin! Elise said you'd be here earlier!”
Momentarily, the shock induced by Walter’s booming voice pushed out all the dark thoughts in Luther’s head but as he was embraced by his cousin and automatically hugged back, new thoughts took their place. He did not like his cousin much. After all, Walter owned one of those brown armbands.
“Did you listen to the speech this morning? I rushed over here soon as I heard it!”
As Luther tried to piece together why exactly his cousin was standing in his living room, he noticed Elise waving at him from the corner leading to their room, an awkward smile on her face. She was fully aware of how Luther felt about Walter, especially when he was in a political mood, but evidently, he couldn’t have expected her to stop the man from visiting his own family.
“So? Will you come with me to join up?”
Walter’s pointed finish to his ecstatic speech brought Luther back to him. As he looked into his cousin’s eyes, he noticed an uncomfortably familiar glint, though he couldn’t place where he’d seen it before.
“Sorry, Waltz, go where?”
“Come on, haven’t you been listening? The Führer spoke to the nation over the radio, apparently the arrogant desperados in the West have refused to let Germany stop Czechoslovakia’s crimes against our brethren in the Sudetenland. Hitler said he had put every effort into resolving everything peacefully, but I mean, I don’t understand how he can be so patient and so generous when Germans are being murdered as we speak! If it were up to me... but anyway he knows what he’s doing, he’s given them every chance, he says he won’t resolve to war unless he has to, I believe that for sure! But I don’t think the bullets will stay in the barrels this time, Austria was one thing but this is another, you can’t expect Germany to let Germans be oppressed and killed and pilfered, there’s going to be a war, damn right there is, and if anything I hope the French and British get in so we can go in for a jolly round two; what I’m saying is, I’ve quit my job and I’m signing up for the army, I’m going to defend Germans if it comes to it, me and the lads have already thrown a party, we’re finally getting a chance to restore Germany to her glory...”
Luther could barely understand Walter’s garbled babbling, which had continued till now on a single breath that had, thank God, finally ran out. Before his red-faced cousin could take another breath for another rant, Walter jumped in.
“Speak properly, what war? What speech?”
“The Sudetenland damn it! We’re taking it if they won’t give it to us. Do you want to join the army with me or not? Damn it, Luther, I thought you’d be excited for the opportunity, it’s certainly a promotion from dealing with ragtag criminals; don’t you want justice on some true criminals?”
As his confusion began to recede, his apprehension boiled over. He may have only been practically a kid during the Great War and never fought in it, but he still remembered those years, he remembered his late father’s screamings and shakings when he had returned blind and broken, he remembered his brother’s funeral... Walter had seen none of that.
With the sickening memories making him taste bile in his throat, Luther opened the door again and gestured.
“Please leave.”
He was not angry, if anything, Luther was worried. He might not have agreed with Walter on many things, but he was still his friend, his family, and he cared. Whatever Luther’s true feelings, Walter missed them, and himself grew agitated at being shown the door.
“What’s wrong with you?”
He spat as he walked out, sparing one last angry glance at Luther’s frame before the door was shut in his face.
The glint Luther had noticed before was still there in that last glance, and now he remembered where he had seen it before. It was the same glint from all those years ago in his father’s eyes before he returned without eyes at all, the same glint in his brother’s eyes when he set off for the front; the eyes Luther could now never look into again.
