Juan Gomez-Jurado - The Traitor's emblem

It was three years before Clovis Nagel grew tired of feeling Reiner’s breath on the back of his neck. He couldn’t sleep without a weapon under his pillow. He couldn’t walk around without turning to check whether he was being followed. And he didn’t stay in any one place longer than a few weeks, for fear that one night he might awake to the steely shine of those blue eyes, watching him from behind the barrel of a revolver.

Finally he gave up. Without funds he couldn’t run forever, and the money the baron had given him had run out long ago. He started writing to the baron, but not one of his letters was answered, so Clovis boarded a boat bound for Hamburg. Back in Germany, on his way to Munich, he had felt momentarily relieved. For the first three days he was convinced that he had lost Reiner… until one night he went into a tavern close to the train station and recognized Paul’s face amid the throng of customers.

A knot formed in Clovis’s stomach, and he fled.

As he ran as fast as his short legs would carry him, he realized the dreadful mistake he had made. He’d traveled to Germany without any firearms because he was afraid of being stopped at customs. He still hadn’t had time to get a hold of anything, and now all he had to defend himself with was his switchblade.

He removed it from his pocket as he ran down the street. He wove in and out of the cones of light cast by the streetlamps, running from one to the next as though they were islands of salvation, until it occurred to him that if Reiner was following him, Clovis was making things too easy for him. He turned right down a darker side street that ran parallel to the train tracks. A train was approaching, rattling along on its way to the station. Clovis didn’t see it, but he could smell the smoke from the chimney and feel the vibration in the ground.

A sound came from the other end of the side street. The ex-marine was startled and bit his tongue. He started running again, his heart almost leaping out of his mouth. He could taste blood, an ill omen of what he knew would happen if the other man caught up with him.

Clovis came to a dead end. Unable to go any farther, he hid behind a pile of wooden crates that smelled of rotting fish. Flies buzzed around him, settling on his face and hands. He tried to wave them away, but another noise and a shadow at the entrance to the alley made him freeze. He tried to slow his breathing.

The shadow became the silhouette of a man. Clovis couldn’t make out his face, but there was no need. He knew perfectly well who it was.

Unable to stand the situation any longer, he lunged toward the end of the alley, knocking over the pile of wooden crates. A couple of rats ran terrified between his legs. Clovis followed them blindly and saw them disappear through a half-open door that he had unwittingly passed in the darkness. He found himself in a dark corridor and took out his cigarette lighter to get his bearings. He allowed himself a couple of seconds of light before tearing off again, but at the end of the corridor he tripped and fell, grazing his hands against some damp cement steps. Not daring to use the lighter again, he picked himself up and started to climb, ever alert to the slightest sound behind him.

He climbed for what seemed like an eternity. Finally his feet alighted upon a stretch of flat ground and he dared to flick on his lighter. The trembling yellow light revealed that he was in another corridor, at the end of which was a door. He pushed it and it wasn’t locked.

I’ve thrown him off the scent at last. This looks like an abandoned warehouse. I’ll spend a couple of hours here, till I’m sure he’s not following me, Clovis thought, his breathing returning to normal.

“Good evening, Clovis,” said a voice behind him.

Clovis turned, pressing the button on his switchblade. The blade jumped out with a barely audible click, and Clovis threw himself, his arm extended, toward the figure waiting by the door. It was like trying to touch a moonbeam. The figure stepped aside, and the steel blade missed by almost half a meter, fixing itself in the wall. Clovis tried to pry it out but had barely managed to remove the filthy plaster before a blow knocked him to the ground.

“Make yourself comfortable. We’re going to be here for a while.”

The voice came out of the darkness. Clovis tried to get up, but a hand pushed him back down. Suddenly a white ray split the gloom in two. His pursuer had turned on a flashlight. He pointed it at his own face.

“Does this face look familiar to you?”

Clovis studied Paul Reiner at length.

“You don’t look like him,” said Clovis. His voice was hard and tired.

Reiner pointed the flashlight at Clovis, who put his left hand over his eyes to shield himself from the glare.

“Point that thing somewhere else!”

“I’ll do whatever I want. We’re playing by my rules now.”

The beam of light moved from Clovis’s face to Paul’s right hand. He was holding his father’s Mauser C96.

“Very well, Reiner. You’re in charge.”

“I’m glad we’re in agreement.”

Clovis moved his hand to his pocket. Paul took a threatening step toward him, but the ex-marine pulled out a packet of cigarettes and held it up to the light. He also took some matches, which he carried in case his lighter fuel ran out. There were only two left.

“You’ve made my life impossible, Reiner,” he said, lighting a filterless cigarette.

“I know a bit about ruined lives myself. You destroyed mine.”

Clovis laughed, a deranged sound.

“Are you amused by your imminent death, Clovis?” asked Paul.

The laugh caught in Clovis’s throat. If Paul’s voice had been angry, Clovis wouldn’t have felt so frightened. But his tone had been casual, calm. Clovis was sure Paul was smiling in the darkness.

“Easy, there. Let’s just see-”

“We’re not going to see anything. I want you to tell me how you killed my father, and why.”

“I didn’t kill him.”

“No, of course you didn’t. That’s why you’ve been on the run for twenty-nine years.”

“It wasn’t me, I swear it!”

“So who, then?”

Clovis paused for a few moments. He was afraid that if he answered, the young man would simply shoot him. The name was the only card he held, and he had to play it.

“I’ll tell you if you promise to let me go.”

The only response was the sound of a hammer being cocked in the darkness.

“No, Reiner!” screamed Clovis. “Listen, it’s not just about who killed your father. What good would it do you, knowing that? What matters is what happened before. The why.”

There were a few moments of silence.

“Go on, then. I’m listening.”

“It all started on August 11, 1904. Before that day we’d spent a couple of wonderful weeks in Swakopsmund. The beer wasn’t bad by African standards, the weather wasn’t too hot, and the girls were very obliging. We’d just returned from Hamburg, and Captain Reiner had named me his first lieutenant. Our boat was due to spend a few months patrolling the coast of the colonies, in the hope of striking fear into the English.”

“But it wasn’t the English who were the problem?”

“No… The natives had revolted a few months earlier. A new general had arrived to take over command, and he was the biggest son of a bitch, the most sadistic bastard I’ve ever set eyes on. His name was Lothar von Trotha. He started putting pressure on the natives. He was under orders from Berlin to come to some kind of political agreement with them, but he didn’t care about that in the least. He said the natives were subhuman, monkeys who’d dropped down from the trees and learned to use rifles only by imitation. He hounded them until the others showed up in Waterberg, and there we all were, those of us from Swakopmund and Windhoek, weapons in hand, cursing our filthy luck.”