The Vienna Writers Circle by J. C. Maetis

Author:J. C. Maetis
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: MIRA Books
Published: 2022-12-16T16:12:03+00:00

29

Daniel

The knock came on my door not long after I’d returned from Brunnerman’s, and at first I thought someone might have followed me back from there or been waiting outside my apartment building, watching for my return.

I was still nervous each time going to Brunnerman’s, worried that I might get stopped by the SD or robbed while carrying the diamonds—but at least it was only every three months, and now that I’d changed my route and time I went, I hadn’t bumped into Schnabel again in the area. If he went to that same café at a set time periodically, then I was now almost two hours past that time.

But at that later hour, the shadows were heavier in the streets, more chance of robbers lurking. So my nerves were still on edge each time I visited Brunnerman’s, with also the uneasy feeling a couple of times that I was being watched.

My nervousness didn’t in fact completely recede until I was back in the apartment, my part-held breath easing out as I shut the door behind me. I took the bundle of cash from my inside pocket and went into my bedroom, lifting out a bottom drawer there and hiding it underneath. That, too, was always a worry returning from Brunnerman’s, that amount of money on me also making me a target for robbers or awkward questions from the SD or SS.

“Ivor! Mr. Brunnerman gave me some stamps again for you,” I called out toward the kitchen. As with Josef and me, I also still used his original name rather than Alex when we were alone. He was preparing some toast and jam to go with his hot chocolate as I walked in. Now fourteen, Ivor-Alex had grown the last year, and seemed to have developed a horse’s appetite on the way. “Some really colorful and exciting ones this time.”

As I spread out the selection of stamps on the desktop from Kenya, Mauritius and Mozambique, zebras and ocean views with swaying palms, Ivor beamed.

“Thanks, Papa, they’re great. I don’t think I’ve got anything like these.”

I patted his shoulder and we smiled at each other. He was getting too old and big now for the little-boy hugs I gave him a year or so ago.

The knock came at the front door then, and all the nervousness I felt going to Brunnerman’s suddenly resurged.

I moved toward the door with trepidation.

Andreas

The knock came on our door not long after dinner.

Stefanie went to answer it. Another heavy knock came just as she was reaching to open the door, and I should have realized then something was wrong.

I held one hand up to halt her, but it was already too late. Two SS guards burst through as Stefanie barely had the door a few inches open, knocking her backward.

All the gun training I went through with Alois hardly helped. A squad of five men wielding rifles, two of them peeled off and caught up with me halfway through my run to the bedroom to grab the gun on its high wardrobe shelf, tumbling me over and pinning me to the ground.

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