Chapter One Thousand Five Hundred Ninety-Two
14th September 1963
Rural Upper Silesia
Looking through his binoculars, Manfred saw the bullet take the boar just behind the shoulder. It was the perfect shot, the bullet was a 7.62mm Springfield soft point that would open like flower, dumping all its energy and ending matters in seconds. It was exactly as Manfred had taught his namesake grandson since he was old enough to accompany him into the forest. The animal took a minute to realize that it no longer had a heart pumping blood. That was the nature of swine, Manfred doubted that there was a tougher creature in all of creation. Too bad that it was one of the escaped farm stock that had bedeviled him since the war had ended nearly two decades earlier.
Manny smiled as he ejected the cartridge from the Winchester 1895 that had once been a part of Manfred’s collection. The Graf had given it to Manfred the Younger on his recent sixteenth birthday after he had decided that he liked it. Manfred never had liked that particular rifle, it kicked extremely hard for a rifle chambered in that cartridge. Manny was considerably larger than his grandfather, so the recoil didn’t seem to bother him as much.
Malcolm and Nikolaus were watching intently. Malcolm was twelve and Nikolaus was five, so they were still learning. Manfred had done his best to impress upon his grandson the importance of his relationship with his younger cousins. He was reminded of when he had spent countless days in this same forest with his brother Lothar and cousin Wolfram. Both of them were gone now, Lothar having died in the First World War and Wolfram having succumbed to cancer. By some twist of fate, Manfred had lived to be an old man. He frequently wondered exactly how that had happened.
Picking their way through the forest, Manny stuck with his grandfather while the two younger boys ran ahead. Manfred had noticed that Manny was taller than him by the time he was thirteen, these days he had grown absolutely imposing.
“Good shot” Manfred said as they came upon the boar, Nikolaus was poking at it.
“I thought it was a bit high” Manny replied.
“No one likes a smartass” Manfred snapped as Manny just smirked.
Looking at the size of the boar, Manfred realized that it was possibly a prize winner if they weighed it before it was butchered. He knew that he would need to send one of the boys running back to the Forester’s lodge to get help. It would have to be Malcolm because Nikolaus was still too young for that sort of errand. The difficulty was that Malcolm was prone to flights of fancy. Asking him to walk through the forest on a warm Saturday afternoon was asking for trouble. Considering his grand-nephew, Manfred knew that he would need to be creative and make that work for him.
“I need a runner, you” Manfred said, looking at Malcolm. “I need to report to the Forester and tell them that the General needs help bringing that beast back from the front forthwith.”
Malcolm gave him a nod and ran off as fast as he could.
“The Forester is going to be trying to figure out just what the Hell is going on when he gets here Opa” Manny said.
“Yeah” Manfred replied, “But sometimes you need to play the game to keep a man focused.”
“Malcolm is hardly a man yet” Manny said.
“True” Manfred said, “But he is getting there.”
Tempelhof, Berlin
Sharing a room in the dormitory with Zella again was a considerable relief for Aurora. She had spent the Summer Holiday at the Prora in Binz, so being back with her irreverent friend was a welcome change after spending weeks neck deep in family togetherness in what became the largest Jewish city in the world for the month of August every year. There were all the politics that came with it and because word had gotten out that Aurora was dating yet another Goy, she had received quite a bit of grief over the matter. The people there quite literally had nothing better to do than complain and brag in equal turns about what their children were doing.
Tonight, Zella was fumbling with a suitcase sized box that she had kept in the closet of their room. She had pulled it out and had connected it with cables to the television in the recreation room on their floor, much to the annoyance of those who might have wanted to watch something other than the static on the screen. Zella had said that this was something that Aurora needed to see, so far Aurora couldn’t see what the big deal was.
“Hold on” Zella said, “I think I got it.”
Zella hit a button on the box and garish music filled the room as a man with grey hair was delivering a monologue in English on the television. Zella fast forward through this and what looked like sketch comedy.
“This was in New York” Zella said. And Kiki came walking out on the stage after the man made a joke about her kissing Benjamin.
“This is a recording?” Aurora asked.
“The latest technology” Zella said, “Sony lent it to Kiki, and she forgot to ask for it back.”
Zella was right, this was something that Aurora needed to see.
“What else can this do?” Aurora asked.
