Paul Christopher - The Sword of the Templars

“Old hands,” he said.

Peggy said nothing. The man continued to look mournfully down at his hands. “Old,” he repeated.

“They look like they might have played the piano once,” ventured Holliday.

“Violin,” murmured Drabeck. “I once played the violin, in Vienna, a very long time ago. The Wiener Symphoniker, the Vienna Symphony.”

“You were a violinist?” Peggy said, wondering for a moment where this was leading.

“I was a boy, very young. I was at the Universitдt fьr Musik und darstellende Kunst Wien, the music school in Vienna, yes? I had a job; I was to be with the Symphoniker, my dream since I was very small. Then came the Anschluss, and we were all Nazis whether we liked to be or not; it made no matter.”

“That would have been 1938, then,” said Holliday. Hitler’s relatively peaceful annexation of Austria.

“Ja,” said Drabeck. The waitress returned, carrying a tray. On it were an array of bottles, plates, and glasses, including an enormous glass mug of foaming beer as dark and opaque as Guinness. She set it all down in front of the old man.

His eyes gleamed. He slathered the Strammer Max sandwich with horseradish and dark mustard then took an enormous bite. Egg yolk squirted out of the sides of the sandwich and dripped into his beard. Hand shaking a little, he picked up the big glass mug and quaffed an enormous slug of the black, foaming beer to wash down the food. He sat back in his chair, sighing, his breath coming in hard little puffs as though he’d just been in a footrace.

“What happened then?” Holliday said.

Drabeck wiped the sleeve of his jacket across his mouth, taking the foam out of his drooping mustache.

“My Schwuchtl father knew the big cheese here, yes? The boss, Herr von Kellerman, the Count up in his big Schloss there by the ruins. He and my father were together in a…” He paused, his bushy eyebrows lowering as he frowned, looking for the right words. “Ein Geheimbund…”

“Secret group?” Holliday said. “Secret society?”

“Ja, that is it,” nodded Drabeck. He took another bite of the sandwich and more egg yolk dripped. He put the sandwich down and licked his fingers, then took another long swallow of beer.

“Do you remember the name of the secret society?” Peggy asked.

“Ja, sure,” said the old man. He took another bite and spoke through the mouthful of food. “Die Thule Gesellschaft. Der Germanenorden.” He swallowed and drank more beer.

“The Thule Society,” nodded Holliday. “The Teutonic Order of the Holy Grail. They were formed just after World War One.” The Germans had been looking for some groping mythology to make themselves feel more important, much like “The Star-Spangled Banner” being written as a morale booster after the British burned Washington to the ground and captured De troit. Except that the song that became the national anthem was no more than a patriotic song that bound the nation together and boosted an overtaxed country’s sense of itself a little. The urge for Germanic mysticism had given birth to the rise of Adolf Hitler, the seed of his anti-Semitic screed planted in the rise of Aryan fundamentalism, his first converts among members of groups like the Thule Society.

“Ja,” said Drabeck. “That’s it.” He unscrewed the top from the clay bottle of Steinhдger and poured himself an oily couple of ounces into the inverted cone of the glass brought by the waitress. He drank it off neat and smacked his lips. “Mein Vater, my father, thought it was a sign from the heavens, the symbol of Thule and the…” He paused again. “Das Wappen, das schildfцrmiges,” he struggled.

Holliday got it.

“The shield, the coat of arms.”

“Ja,” said Drabeck, relieved. “The, how you said, coat of arms of the Thule and the family of the Kellermans was so much the same.” He poured another glass of the clear gin and drank it off again, then reached into the breast pocket of his jacket and dug out an inch-long stub of pencil. He picked up a napkin and drew on it quickly. A simple sword in front of a slightly curving swastika. “Thule Gesellschaft,” he said, showing them. He added the sword and ribbon crest they’d seen carved in the stone above the front entrance to Schloss Kellerman. “Das Wappen auf das geschlecht Kellerman, gelt, ja?”

“The sword again,” said Peggy.

Drabeck tapped at the drawing with his pencil stub.

“Ja, der Schwert.” He nodded emphatically.

“So,” said Holliday slowly. “Your father and Herr Kellerman were in the Thule Society together…” He let it dangle.

Drabeck poked the last of the sandwich into his mouth and chewed reflectively.

“Kellerman was ein Obergruppenfьhrer, a general in the Schutzstaffel, the SS. He knew people in the Party, so my father also. Little Heini-Himmler, Goebbels, and der Dicke, the Fat One, Gцring, he knew all of them, so they had my father become Stellvertreter-Gauleiter…”

“Deputy gauleiter, district boss?” Holliday supplied.

“Ja, as you say, boss of the district, the town here.”

“And you?” Peggy asked.

“I played the violin.” Drabeck shrugged, pouring another glass of Steinhдger. He drank, then wiped his lips with the back of his thumb. “What could I do? My eyesight was poor, I could not shoot, or kill, or anything like that, so Kellerman made me his Putzer.”

“Putzer?” Peggy said.

“Der Hausdiener,” said the old man, struggling.

“Orderly, I think,” said Holliday. “An aide-de-camp.”

“Ja,” said Drabeck. “His servant. I polished his boots and ran his bath, just so, ja? I went with him everywhere, polishing his verdammte Stiefel. Russia, Stalin grad, Italy, Normandy, always polishing the boots.”

“The Berghof?” Holliday asked. Was that the connection with the sword?

“Ja, sure, there, too, a few times. There I am having the privilege to pick up the Hundkacke of Blondi, Hitler’s dog, from the rugs and fetch die Nutte Eva’s little cakes from the town. And polish the boots.”

“And then?” Peggy said.

Drabeck poured more Steinhдger.

“You know Dachau?” Drabeck asked.

“The concentration camp?” Holliday said.

“Ja, das Konzentrationslager,” nodded the old man. “They had a camp here for the workers at Dornier and Maybach. Making Raketen, ja?”

“V2 rockets,” supplied Holliday.

“Vergeltungswaffe Zwei, ja,” nodded Drabeck. “They had to have people to work. Italians and Poles mostly. Juden, of course. Jews. My father took women from the camp and… used them.” The old man paused, looking down into his empty glass. His hand was on the clay bottle, but he made no move to pour from it. He looked up and stared Holliday in the eye. “When the war was over and the Americans released the prisoners, some came to the town looking for my father. He was hiding at Schloss Kellerman. You know it?”

“We were there this morning,” said Holliday.

“They found him in the old ruins. They brought him back here to the town square and hung him from a lamppost with dem Kabel, the electrical wire. He kicked and jerked for five minutes, and his face turned black. His tongue was like a fat sausage sticking from his mouth. I was his son. They made me watch.”

“Holy crap,” whispered Peggy.

“Ja,” agreed Drabeck. “It was unpleasant for me.”

“By then Lutz Kellerman had disappeared?” Holliday asked.

“Natьrlich,” grunted the old man. “No more boots for Rudy.” He poured himself another glass of Steinhдger. His forehead and cheeks were shiny with sweat. He belched quietly, and a hiss of gin fumes laced with horseradish and hot mustard spread across the table.

“And Axel?” Holliday said.

“Switzerland,” said Drabeck. “A refugee, with his mother and his older sister. He was young, three, four maybe.”