Christopher Reich - The Runner

Judge cleaned his face and rushed from the room. After a minute, Ingrid joined him. They stood in the half-light of the hallway eyeing one another. “I’m sorry,” they said in unison.

“No,” said Judge, “let me apologize. I should have taken your word.”

“Papa is very old and very angry. Thank you for being gentle with him. It’s easy to lose one’s temper.”

“A little too gentle.” Judge ran a finger along the edge of is tooth. “Did he do that?”

Ingrid mimicked the motion, tracing a chipped incisor. “Yes. He’s rather strong for an old man, isn’t he?”

Just then, a little boy came running down the hallway, excited by the commotion. At the sight of an American uniform, he stopped short, dashing behind his mother’s legs for cover.

“Pauli. Don’t be shy. Say hello to the Major.”

The boy stepped around his mother and extended a hand. He had straight blond hair that fell to his eyebrows and pale blue eyes. It was obvious to Judge he was ten pounds too thin. “Good morning, sir,” he ventured in accented English.

“I always knew who would win the war,” Ingrid Bach whispered to Judge, then in a louder voice, “May I introduce my son, Paul von Wilimovsky.”

Judge gave the boy’s hand a firm shake. “Are you taking good care of your mother?”

“Yes, sir. I gather the wood and clean Grandpapa’s bedpan.”

“Pauli!” Ingrid tousled the boy’s hair. “He’s the man of the house. And you? Children?”

Judge was taken aback by the encroachment on his private sphere. Usually, he would say “none”, and move on to another subject. No one liked to share a passing acquaintance’s bad news, especially when it concerned a six year old boy who had died of polio myelitis. Frankly, it was easier not to say anything. Still, something about the way that Ingrid looked, child hugged to her waist; her broken life on unapologetic display, made him feel that lying would be harder than telling the truth.

“A boy,” he said. “His name was Ryan. He left us three years ago.”

Ingrid reached out a hand to touch him even as she hugged her boy to her waist. “My dear Major, I’m so sorry.” He was unable to look at her as he spoke. The immediacy of her grief threatened to reawaken emotions over which he had no control.

“Pauli came three weeks early. For the first few days he refused to nurse. He was so fragile, so…” she let the words drop off. “I don’t know how I would’ve managed without him. He’s everything to me.”

Judge looked at the hand on his arm, acutely aware of its insistent pressure and its assumption of intimacy. He and his wife never touched after Ryan’s death.

“You haven’t had another?” she asked. The question was spontaneous, a gesture of hope.

“I wanted to, but it didn’t work out. Anyway, we’re not married any—” He cut himself off midstream, realizing he’d said too much already. Her sincerity, however unquestioned, was an invasion and had no place in the day’s conversation.

Whatever empathy he felt toward Ingrid Bach, he had to remember whose blood flowed in her veins. “No,” he said, curtly.

Ingrid dropped her hand from his arm, retreating to the opposite side of the corridor. She led him down the back stairs, through the kitchen to the great hall. Pauli took off down the driveway as soon as she opened the front door and in a moment was lost in the high grass leading toward the lake. Judge spotted his driver playing ball with the other GIs. He placed two fingers into the corner of his mouth and whistled loudly, signaling for him to bring the Jeep around on the double. Waiting, he turned to look at Sonnenbrucke’s imposing gray façade. Veins of crystal swarmed inside each cut stone. No wonder the place glittered like a diamond.

Ingrid stood beside him on the brick portico, gazing down the valley. “Why are you looking for Erich?”

“He killed two men escaping from a prisoner of war camp. One was an American officer.”

Judge thought it funny how the deaths of two men didn’t sound like anything too urgent and wished he could add to it. He remembered Altman’s words, the sly suspicion that Seyss had some ulterior motive for escaping other than simply to gain his own freedom. “One last race,” according to Corporal Dietsch. “ Kameraden.” Would Judge ever find out what it was?

“I thought most of our soldiers had already been released from your holding pens,” said Ingrid.

“Most have. But Seyss was a special case. He was being held as a war criminal.”

She averted her eyes and Judge could see a shiver rustle her shoulders. It was a subject about which she knew too much, already. “ And how did you learn about us? I mean Erich and me — that we were engaged to be married.” Judge looked over her shoulder, willing the goddamned driver to get his ass over here. Seeing the Jeep approach, he returned his eyes to her. Christ, she was a mess. Her knees were bruised. Her dress bore greasy stains near her waist where she wiped her hands when cooking. And she could do with a little makeup. He forced himself to imagine her together with the man whose picture he carried in his pocket. Seyss, the Olympian; Seyss, the owner of two Iron Crosses; Seyss, the man who’d murdered Judge’s only brother and seventy more defenseless Americans.

She’s a Bach. Remember that.

“I’m sorry,” he answered, “but I’m not at liberty to say.” Behind him, the Jeep arrived with a screech of the brakes. He climbed in, offering the slightest doff of his cap. “If you’ll excuse me, I’ll be getting back. It’s a long ride to Bad Toelz. I thank you for your cooperation. Goodbye, Miss Bach.”

Somehow von Wilimovsky didn’t suit her, and this time, she didn’t correct him. She bobbed her chin, then turned and walked back inside the lodge.

Before they reached the crest of the mountain, Judge asked his driver to stop. He stepped from the Jeep and walked to the edge of the road so that he could stare down at Sonnenbrucke. So far below, it looked a model carved from soapstone and set against a field of green. For a moment he thought he saw her standing in front of the castle, as still as one of the porcelain figurines she collected, then a cloud passed and he realized it had only been a ray of light.

Headlights pierced the falling rain. First one set, then another, until an entire column was winding through the darkness and Seyss knew it was the convoy they’d been waiting for. The trucks were still far away, at least three kilometers by his reckoning, too distant even to hear the grumble of their engines. The parade of lights passed through the village of Kronberg, then traversed the flat countryside. He counted seven trucks in all. His eyes left them, advancing along the ribbon of black a shade darker than everything surrounding it. The road wound through a hamlet of barns and farmhouses, crossed a brook, then began the climb into the mountains towards his position.

“Sit tight,” whispered Hans-Christian Lenz. “They’ll be here in ten minutes. All we have to do is wait. My brother will take care of the rest. Tonight, we’re garbage men. We pick up all the trash that falls from the trucks!”

“What’s on the agenda for tomorrow night?” asked Seyss. “Cleaning the sewers?”

Lenz grinned wolfishly. “It would give me great pleasure to tell an esteemed officer of the Waffen SS to fuck himself.”

“Would it, now?”

“Yes. Immense, in fact.” Lenz wiped the water dripping from his mustache. “Know where I can find one?”

Seyss laughed dryly, hunkering down in the waist high brush. Thank Christ for Lenz, he whispered to himself. He had found his traveling companion in a dingy two room flat in Darmstadt, exactly where he’d said he’d be should Seyss ever pass through town. It had been harder to convince Bauer to lend a hand with the operation without spilling news of it to Egon Bach. Ingenuity and improvisation were not words in Bauer’s everyday lexicon. Pride was, however, and once Seyss had shared his personal reasons for not wanting to approach the Circle of Fire for assistance so early in the mission, Bauer had agreed to go along.