The Devil's Blessing Read online

  But he just kept on walking. Because that's what felt right.

  It wasn't so much that he didn't care. He did care—he thought he did, anyway. No, he had become a man resigned to death. He wasn't sure if it was because he was tired of running, or if he had realized that there was no use in running anymore. His days were numbered. He would die a physical death, or live the life of a prisoner, awaiting the death that the British or Soviet forces had waiting for him.

  "Hey! Stop!" the voice, now behind him, yelled. "Stop!"

  But Otto did not stop. He kept going, waiting for the bullets to riddle his back. As he awaited for his death to come, he did feel one pang of guilt—guilt that he wouldn't be able to find Richard Wolter, Ulrich's son, and give him his medicine. He was, in a sense, sentencing himself and a young man to death because of his final act of resiliency. Maybe he was being selfish. But he was tired of being a coward, too. At least this way he'd die standing up, in stark contrast to the life he lived crawling.

  But the bullets never came. Maybe a tackle would come from the men arresting him, he thought—but that didn't come, either.

  Another yell for him to stop came, maybe two, he wasn't sure. He just kept walking and looking forward.

  After about a half hour's walk, Otto did give himself a moment to turn around and look at the checkpoint he had passed. They were now more far away than they had been when he first saw them. They just looked on, not sure what to do.

  Maybe they saw the look of a determined man that wasn't going to budge. Maybe they saw themselves and the incoming fight and the change that would be in store for them all.

  Whatever they saw, they let him through, probably more stunned by his defiance than anything.

  As Otto turned his head and continued his walk west, he noticed something odd.

  He was smiling.

  Part IV of IV

  Week № 16 of 1945

  ✠

  16th April through 22nd April

  Outside Nuremberg

  Bavaria

  Chapter Twenty-One

  It was a stroke of pure luck.

  Otto was sure that the road to the town just outside Schwaig would be more convoluted. He thought it would have to be off the main road, on a tributary that itself would split off into another road. He had convinced himself that finding the town would be anything but easy, because, if the history of his trek had taught him anything, it was that nothing was easy.

  But there it was, a simple sign. Schwaig 10 km.

  The walk there was easy enough. He wasn't sure why, but he felt safe.

  Maybe it was because he was now off of the main road.

  Maybe it was because it hadn’t rained in days. Whatever it was, it felt almost as if he was coming home, even though his real home was far away from this place.

  But it did have the comforts of his home. He walked along a road that was flanked by two steep hillsides. The trees and shrubbery spilled from the ridges and came down, nearly touching the road. It was a battle of colors and textures, the green moist walls trying to reach down to the dry, brown road.

  There wasn't a single road like this back home, but the feeling of walking down the road did make it feel like a small homecoming. Maybe it was the end of something. Perhaps that something was his life. More than likely, he thought, it was that he was close to finishing his objective. That he was finally close to doing something good, something right. He was smiling.

  Soon, the green walls split and a small village came to view. Schwaig. He had made it.

  Schwaig was a beautiful village, but it was still quite large. Otto knew that the neighborhood that housed Richard was not in the town itself, but right next to it, near the forest; so that’s where he went.

  He saw a group of homes near the edge of the forest. There was life that he could see there. There was a large pen filled with sheep, and at least one of the small white homes had chimney smoke coming from it.

  Otto made his way to the small neighborhood, roughly a dozen or so homes and buildings, when he came across the first person he had seen: a man who was tending the sheep.

  "Good morning, good sir."

  "Good morning," the old man replied, in a suspicious manner.

  "I am looking for Richard Wolter."

  "Richard Wolter? There is no one here by that name."

  "Are you sure?" Otto asked. "His father, Ulrich Wolter, told me I could find him here."

  "Ah!" the man said, as if realizing something had just hit him. "Yes. Richard Wolter. I'll take you to him."

  Otto was a bit annoyed, but he also realized that, in times like these, no one was to be trusted.

  As if on cue, the old man stopped after taking two steps, and asked Otto, "What business do you have with young Richard?"

  Inside, Otto was ready to tell the old man that it was none of his business. But instead, to his surprise, his mouth just said the simple truth. "I am bringing him medicine."

  And without another word, the old man put an extra hop in his step and moved along through the narrow houses.

  They finally made their way to a small house, very similar to the rest. The houses were all white with wood beams that held them up, painted black. The white was probably some type of plaster. The roofs were made of what looked like layered, long-dead grass. It was like something Otto had never seen before. The look and feel was sturdy, but he was sure one errant flame was all that it would take to burn the entire place down.

  None of the homes were numbered, and there weren't any roads—only walkways. The old man banged on a door—rather hard, to Otto’s dismay. He wanted to announce himself as a friend, not like some type of secret German police.

  Nearly as quickly as he had knocked, the door opened to an--unsurprisingly--startled woman. She gave the man a questioning look and then saw Otto behind him.

  "What is it?" she asked.

  "This man claims to know Richard."

  "Who? Him? Richard?"

  She was beautiful. It had been a long time since Otto had seen a lovely woman.

  Her hair was a light brown that matched her eyes, but what really stood out to him was her skin. It was white, like bone. It looked clean, something he had thought he would never see again. It was the type that hadn't seen the sun in months, not even the rays that would sneak through the clouds. Her face said that she had been indoors for what seemed like years. It wasn't just that her skin looked clean; it just looked to him that her entire being was clean. Clean from the horror of war. Clean from seeing the horrors. Clean of having a sullied soul.

  Her hazel eyes looked right at him.

  "How do you know Richard? No one knows him. Get out."

  She must be Ulrich's daughter, Otto thought. She had his spirit.

  "No. I don't know who Richard is, personally," he said, "but I do know his father. Ulrich."

  "You know Ulrich?" she asked. Her body relaxed, and the door eased a little more open as she let go of the handle. The old man smiled and stepped aside, knowing that this had become a welcome introduction.

  "Where is he? How is he?"

  "Can I come inside?" Otto asked.

  And with that, she raised her head in a defiant gesture. Not against Otto, but against the tears that were trying to form behind her eyes. She knew. She knew that her Ulrich Wolter was dead. As soon as a man asked if he could come inside and talk to her about his wellbeing, the news was written on the wall.

  "Of course," she said, "come in."

  Inside, the home was nothing more than one large room. There were no glass windows, but just small doors on the walls to let the air in. Since it was still cold, there was no reason to have them open.

  The cracks in them did provide some light, though most of it came from the table in the middle filled with candles.

  "How did he die?" she asked as she readied the table. She asked so nonchalantly that he thought he had misheard her.

  "What?"

  "Ulrich," she said, this time stopping and turning towards him. "H
ow did he die?"

  "I..." Otto was at a loss for words. This wasn't how this was supposed to happen. This wasn't how anything was supposed to happen.

  This young lady—Ulrich's daughter, he presumed—was simply supposed to ask for her brother's medicine. She was supposed to thank him for saving his life. He hadn't thought about someone inquiring into Ulrich's death. That was his mistake.

  "He..." Again, Otto paused to find the right words, to find the right lie that would make his daughter happy. He instead went with the truth. "Died in landmine field." He didn't know what else to add. He was searching for something, anything, to fill in the horrible silence that was making it hard to breathe in the room.

  Thankfully, she ended the silence for him.

  "Oh," she said, as if learning the news about something as irrelevant as who had won the year's flower festival. "Was it painful?"

  "Was what painful?" As soon as he asked, he regretted making her ask the obvious question.

  "His death," she said. "Was it painful? Did he die instantly?"

  "Yes," he said. "I mean, yes, he did die instantly. He felt no pain." He said the last lie with a smile. Partly to sell the lie; partly because he was happy that he could still lie. He was starting to worry that he was becoming too honest to the point of being improper. He was happy he still had a small bit of common courtesy.

  "Good," she said. "Would you like some water?" she asked, gesturing to a chair for him to sit down.

  He agreed to both and took his seat, happy to sit on real chair. The relief that came over his feet and back were only outdone by the relief of finding a wooden cup in front of him, filled with water. He drank the contents in a near single gulp and loudly slammed the cup back down, so relieved was he that he forgot where he was and who he was with. Without being asked, she poured him another cup, only this time, he made sure not to make a fool of himself, and only sipped the water this time around. Even if he did want to drink as quickly as the last.

  "Richard?" Otto asked. "Where is he?"

  "Sleeping," she said. "Getting to sleep has been so difficult with the White Plague that I thought I wouldn't wake him. Even if you do have his medicine," she said. "You do have his medicine, yes?"

  "Yes!" Otto said, relieved that he could finally bring her good news. Without even thinking, he pulled off the sack that was filled with medicine, and handed it over to Ulrich's daughter.

  She opened one of the brown boxes and looked inside. "Penicillin," she said, starting to cry.

  "It is good, yes?"

  "Perfect," she said, and finally looked at him with a smile that was brighter than any candle inside that room.

  ❧

  Even though the room was just one big space, it was divided up nicely by some different things, such as furniture and drapes. Behind one of those drapes was where the young woman took Otto.

  "Who's that?" Otto asked.

  "That's Richard," she said. "Can't you tell?"

  After a moment, he could. He had all the tell-tale signs of tuberculosis. He looked sickly, like someone with the flu, but the real tell was the bloody napkin that was next to him, that caught his coughing and his hacking and his weight, or what was left of it. He looked like a small skeleton. But none of those reasons were Otto was so confused. It was the boy's age.

  "I had no idea that he was a baby."

  "Ulrich didn't tell you?" she asked, genuinely perplexed. "We just had him four months ago."

  And that's when it all made sense. Richard was never a young man like himself, nor was this young lady Ulrich's daughter. She was Ulrich's young wife. It was a classic May-December union that Otto had failed to recognize. He was an older man--not that much older--but older nonetheless. He had had a lovely young bride. Good for him, Otto thought. It was the least he deserved.

  "Why, what did you think?"

  "Oh, no, nothing," he said, lying again. Luckily, the subject turned quickly to the pressing matter at hand.

  "Can you bring it?"

  "Bring what?"

  "The medicine," she said.

  "Oh, of course," he said, nearly knocking over the curtain that was Richard's makeshift room. He quickly returned with the sack.

  "Do you know how to administer the medication?"

  "You mean like giving someone an infusion? Oh, no!" he said, with a nervous laugh.

  "Give it to me," she said, grabbing the sack, spilling all the boxes on the floor.

  There were several brown boxes, most the size of a man's hand, but others in varying sizes. She opened each box, leaving the first one open, and then quickly opening and closing the rest. She kept doing that until she found what she needed.

  Inside the first box and the following ones were bottles of penicillin. Finally, in the last box, was a syringe.

  "There is no gauze or antiseptic," she said. "We're going to have to sterilize him ourselves. Can you watch him for a bit?"

  As he was saying that he could, she was already getting up and leaving the small chamber. That was when Otto finally had the opportunity to get a good look at the small boy.

  He was pale, just like his mother, except his paleness came from being sickly. The whiteness of his skin nearly became yellow in the creases and cracks of his new, small face.

  His breathing was labored, but it was steady. He was asleep, but his mucus-filled lungs could be heard as his chest rose and fell.

  Richard's eyes were slightly opened, but even they had small flakes of yellow crust. His face was hollow. But even after all that, he still looked like a handsome young boy—to Otto, at least.

  Soon, the young woman entered the room, and that's when it hit him.

  "What's your name?"

  "What?" she asked, totally confused by the question. She was carrying a small steaming pot and a few pieces of cloth. As she laid them down, she realized, and understood his question.

  "Ah," she said. "Ursula," she said, with a smile. "Ursula. And you?"

  "Otto," he said, happy to use his first name.

  "Otto," she repeated. "That's a nice name. Nice to meet you, Otto. Would you help me with my son?"

  "Yes, of course!" he said. He had fallen into a schoolboy daze, lost behind whatever was happening behind those eyes.

  It was a cramped place, both tense and peaceful. Richard's makeshift room was in a small corner of the home. There was a closed hatch door that would usually let light in, but had to be closed. The cold air from outside was determined.

  Candles. They surrounded baby Richard from every angle, each of different size. With a loving mother working over him, it was like a something he would see in a dark corner of a church, Ursula and Richard, the Pieta.

  At first she tried to just pull out the medicine from the vile by pulling on it with the syringe. After realizing that the air pressure was too tight inside and that air needed to be pushed in first, it was already too late. The rubber that was being used on top of the vial had given way and small parts were now floating in the medicine. It mattered not. It was like a bottle of wine who's cork had come apart inside. Using the needle like a straw was easy enough.

  With the syringe filled and his body cleansed with warm towels, all that was left was the hard part. The actual infusion itself.

  "Have you ever done this before?" she asked.

  He shook his head no. She nodded in return that she understood. They both accepted that this would be the job of the mother and the mother alone.

  Throughout time, much had been made about the roles of mothers and fathers with their children. It was always said, or many times unsaid, that the dirty work was done by the father and the loving work done by the mother. But that wasn't true. Both the loving and the hard work were always done by mothers. Mothers were the ones who reminded the child that they were loved—the hardest job on earth.

  She had some spare rope that was more twine than anything. She kept wrapping it around each arm and each hand, desperate to find a vein. With Richard's loss of weight also came the fact that his inside
s were deteriorating as well, making veins as elusive as a smile.

  But yet, she persisted, looking everywhere for a place to infuse him. Even a child's usually stout legs were now like mere hinges on Richard's failing body.

  "I have an idea," she said, and began pressing on her son's neck.

  Otto wasn't sure what she was doing, and then began to understand. She was applying pressure to her son's neck, trying to make the artery in his neck jump. And that it did.

  The only problem was, poor Richard was awoken and began to wail, so loudly that the house echoed and so strongly that small pieces of red mucus began to fly out.

  Otto panicked and looked to Ursula to see how she fared, but she looked as calm as someone who was staring into a motionless pond. This was not the first time she had seen this, he realized. If this was nothing, what was hard?, Otto thought to himself. Maybe she wasn't as sheltered from hell as I thought.

  "Here," she said, letting go of Richard's neck. "Hold him like I just did."

  "You mean choke him?"

  "No," she said, almost annoyed. "I wasn't choking him, and neither will you be. You'll just be applying pressure so I can stick him in his neck vein."

  "I don't know," Otto said, slowly slumping back.

  "What do you mean 'You don't know?' I'm not asking you your thoughts on what we need to do. I'm asking you to help me save my son's life!"

  She doesn’t know, he realized. She didn't know that she was next to a monster, a man less than a monster. Someone who had betrayed the laws and rules of every civilization. He didn't deserve to be around such a lovely family, and she didn't deserve to have his fiendish hands around her angel's neck.

  "Otto! Are you listening to me? There isn't any time! You have to apply pressure on his neck, just the side. That's it. That way I can stick him. Please." The last word came out like a whimper from a child.

  Okay, he thought. He could do this. He wasn't choking the child; he would just be applying pressure. Just like she said. He needed to put the memories of what he had done behind him. If he wanted to ever get past what he had done, he would have to start, and it seemed like he needed to do it now.