Chapter 4

4.
“Waltz #14 in E minor, Op. Posth: Frédéric Chopin”

Bruno Pesch had only been inside the Streng house once before, but he knew exactly where it was. He had walked there with Max many times, years ago, back when they were friends. After a long day at the Oper, Maestro Streng made Max practice for an additional four hours, and on occasion, Bruno would walk him home in case he needed someone to complain to.

Max loved to complain, if it wasn’t about having to practice it was about any number of things from the food, to the weather, to the aches and pains that his brilliance burdened him with. “My fingers are so sore, Bruno. I want to throw that stupid violin in the Spree, Bruno. Why can’t I be normal like you, Bruno?”

Bruno, on the other hand, never complained. Not about the father that beat him, the brother that abused him, or the mother that ignored him, he only listened, and kept careful catalog of Max’s grievances so that, the next day, he could rid him of them. Surely there was nothing he could do about the weather, But if any of Max’s complaints centered around a person, clarinetist perhaps, who didn’t know his place, or a dancer sucking too much attention from him during a solo, well that Bruno could do something about.

He saw himself as a knight whose duty it was to protect Max, and Max as an angel who needed protection. He even looked like an angel. Tall and slim with clear blue eyes, white blonde hair, and his playing; it was a talent that must have come from the world beyond this one. It was pure and beautiful and it made Bruno want to be pure and beautiful. But since he couldn’t be, he dedicated himself to the preservation of that which Max possessed.

It was hard at times. Especially when Max took to complaining. And he was often hurt by Max’s complete lack of manners. He was never invited into the house for a cup of tea, even on rainy days when it simply would have been the polite thing to do. The only time he was granted access was once when Frau Streng saw him at the gate.
It had been five years since then. He was a man now, a soldier, but why did he still feel like that boy, trepidatiously making his way up the cobblestones to the front door? He stood up straighter and let a finger run along the length of his pistol. He stood at that very gate now. Noticing that the latch was unhinged, he gave it a nudge, let it swing open, and watched a scene from the past.

It was a very hot that day, he remembered, all the trees were green and full, dripping with flowers, the air soaked with fragrance. Frau Streng was wearing a thin white dress that left little to the imagination, two large bracelets that were the color of an exotic sea, and sandals that showed her toes, one of which was adorned with a ring. Max had whizzed past her without so much as a hello and disappeared into the house. As Bruno was about to turn away, Frau Streng took him by the shoulder and led him inside launching immediately into a series of questions; where did he live, how long had he known Max, did he play an instrument? Bruno answered her to the best of his ability as he followed her through the winding darkened halls of the Streng house. It smelled of earth, he remembered, and wasn’t very tidy, but he felt he could be happy there. If only he were Max. He felt he could do a much better job of it, because he knew how to be grateful.

She led him into the kitchen. It was bright and the table was strewn with cut flowers.
“I was arranging,” Frau Streng told him. “Would you like to know the secret to a perfect bouquet, Bruno?” He nodded. “Three, five, seven,” she pointed to the different levels of her arrangement with a broken stem, “always be asymmetrical. Sit. Let me get you some Cachaça.”

Bruno took a seat at the table. The sink was filled with dirty dishes and seemed overrun by cats. Flowers and gardening equipment covered every visible surface. There was newspaper on the floor and a series of strange objects had been suspended from the ceiling by fishing wire. A pair of doors opened to a colorful garden that Frau Streng herself might have been grown in. It was a marvel.

The breezy interrogation continued as she washed a glass and prepared him a drink. He thought it was milk at first. “Do you like it? It’s a Brazilian recipe called Leite de Onça which means, milk of the Jaguar.”

Bruno did like it. It tasted like cinnamon and made him feel lightheaded. From somewhere in the house music began. Max had started his afternoon practice.

“Do you know what song he’s playing?” Bruno asked with wide eyes.

Hanna was sorting through a pile of blue cornflowers. “It’s Chopin. A waltz. I’m not sure which.”

The boy sighed.

This caught Hanna’s attention and she put a motherly hand on his thin shoulder. “I think it’s a fine thing to love music. I do, and I can’t play a note.”

Her voice rang in his head as he stood there, his heels sinking into the empty flowerbed. How kind she was. Bruno noticed that the crystal morning had turned to a slate gray afternoon. In six months he would be up to his knees cornflower. This made him smile and the smile triggered a memory, not for Bruno, but for Hanna who had been crouched at the window with her maid Helga for the past ten minutes wondering what a Nazi brown shirt was doing standing in her front garden.

“I know that boy. He used to follow Max around,” Hanna whispered.

“What do you think he wants?” Helga clutched a rolling pin tight to her chest.
“I’ll ask him.”

Bruno was just about to move off when a noise from inside the house startled him. He moved his hand to his pistol and waited. A moment later the door opened. It was Frau Streng and she was pregnant.

Bruno lowered his hand and took a step back, deeper into the flowerbed.

“Bruno, isn’t it?”

He nodded, speechless.

“How are you?”

“I’m well.”

“Can I help you with anything?”

She was as kind as he remembered her. Bruno just stared. She was ready to pop, and the baby, it would probably be as talented as Max, if not more so.

“Are you looking for Max? Because he’s not home.”

Bruno bristled. “Max still lives here?”

The color drained from Hanna’s face. She thought of Josh and wished he were there.

“He didn’t take a room on the Alsen Strasse?” Bruno stepped out of the flowerbed, knocking his heals on the cobblestones.

“He may have, he doesn’t tell me anything anymore.” Hanna backed into the doorway.

“He’s a liar. And you’re lying for him.”

Hanna could feel Helga tugging at her skirt, pulling her back into the relative safety of the house, but she couldn’t move, Bruno’s eyes were locked on hers.

“Do you have any panther milk?”

Hanna’s mouth dropped open. “Any what?”

“That drink you make. It tastes like cinnamon.”

“Oh, Leite de Onça. I could make some.”

And for the second and last time in his life, Bruno entered the Streng house. It was dark, and dirty, and too warm, and it smelled, not of earth, but of mold and fried onion. The kitchen was brighter due to the French doors that looked out over the garden, but there was no garden to speak of, not in November, and the doors were shut tight, fogged with condensation from a boiling pot that stood on the stove.

“Have a seat, Herr…”

“Sturmmann Pesch.” But Bruno didn’t sit. He circled the table and when he got to the French doors he tried to open them.

Hanna came to his aide. “I’ll do it. It’s tricky, we seal them for the winter, you see.”

Bruno moved away from her. “Forget it, if they’re sealed. It’s very hot in here.”

“Shall I turn the oven off?”

But Bruno didn’t answer. He sat at the table attempting to fight off the sickening feeling that had begun to creep up the back of his neck.

Hanna turned the oven off and opened a window. “That should cool things off.” Hanna had no idea if she had some or even any of the ingredients she needed to make Onça and began going through her cupboards. “I know I have some cinnamon in here somewhere,” she said, forcing lightheartedness.

“Just stop.”

Bruno’s words froze her solid; one arm reaching for a mystery jar that she suspected contained paprika.

“I think I’ll be sick if I drink that. May I please have some water?”

So Hanna poured him a glass of water and sat with him at the table while he drank it. And after a moment or two of silence, Bruno found his words.

“Do you know why I’m here?”

Hanna grinned and met his eyes. “No, Bruno. I don’t.”

“Gratefulness. Because that day, when you made me that drink, it was really nice of you and I wanted to say thank you.”

“You’re very welcome.”

“I’m grateful for things in life. I’m not spoiled and I don’t treat people like dirt unless they deserve it. They tell us that we’re supposed to hate Jews, well; I don’t hate anybody unless they give me a damn good reason. Is that insubordination? I don’t care. It’s common sense. Are you a Jew?”

Win his trust, was all Hanna could think of. This boy, this child, he would sense duplicity. “My mother was. My father was from Argentina.”

“Like Max for example, I was a knight to Max. I guarded him, and then he lied. And I forgave him, and he lied again. Well, now I think I have a pretty good reason to hate him, don’t you think?”

Did he want an answer? This whole thing was odd. Hanna had no idea what he was saying. She had no recollection of him as anything more than one of Max’s little friends.

“Maybe if you talk to him. I find that’s the best way to work most things out.”

“I tried!” Bruno shouted, “And he made fun of me. Now I have to find a way to make things right…” Bruno trailed off. It hadn’t dawned upon him until that very moment. Well it sort of had, earlier, he’d pictured going over to the Streng house with some friends and putting a bullet in the Maestro, that would show Max. But it wasn’t so much a reality plan as it was a fantasy plan, one that diminished as he got farther from Max and closer to the house. But now, with Frau Streng sitting across from him, it was so perfect, so obvious. It would send exactly the right message. Max would know that she had been generous and he had not. That Bruno was grateful and Max was selfish. If he killed her right then and there, it would be all Max’s fault. And that baby, he would be saving another little Bruno somewhere from what was sure to be another little Max.

“Sturmmann Pesch? Are you alright?” Hanna touched his hand.

“Yes. Frau Streng. Much better. I think I’ll have that panther milk after all. Then I’ll be on my way.”

She smiled, relieved, and when she turned her back to make it for him, he raised his pistol and shot her in the back of the head. He had to kill the maid too, she’d been watching them from the other room and screamed. Before he shot her, he asked if there was anyone else home. She said, no, and he shot her, just like that.

Well, now he had the whole house to himself. He hadn’t really planned on what to do next, and since he’d spent the whole afternoon jerking around, he figured he’d just have a look about then leave. His Rottenführer was probably wondering where the hell he was, anyway. Still, another five minutes wouldn’t make too much of a difference. He’d killed a Jew after all. Well, half a Jew, and a maid, and an unborn baby Jew. Two and a half people--that made his total count so far, four and a half. He had killed his brother also, and a man with whom he’d given in to temptation. Or was it really only four? An un-born baby and his half-breed mother, that really only equaled one, right?

Settling on four, he took himself on a tour of the house. The living room was ugly, so was the master bedroom and the bathroom. The only nice feature about the whole place was its high ceilings, and he wondered what these people had against daylight since all the curtains were closed. He decided to do them a favor and open them, every curtain in the house. This task finally got him to the room he was looking for, the place where Max spent most of his time, the second floor music room.

No, it wasn’t the Swiss Alps, nor was it the Alsen Strasse. It was a largish, empty room containing a grand piano, a few music stands, some papers, instruments, and in a corner, a small uncomfortable looking cot with some pictures of motorbikes cut from the newspaper. Bruno gazed upon the modest lair of his angel. He sat on the cot and removed his blood-splattered glove. It had come full circle. He and Max were even now. His bare hand groped the bed while he thought back to the night it all turned; the night Max sealed his own fate.

It had been a show night, something by Brecht if he remembered correctly. Max was second chair violin and Bruno was his knight. He was glad to do anything for him, so when Max told him to make sure his music was on its stand, he willingly checked. Later that night, he heard Maestro yelling at Max for some careless mistakes he made during the show. Max told him he was missing a page from his score, that he had to improvise, that the dim-witted prop boy must have misplaced it. Prop boy? Dim-witted?

Bruno opened the curtains in the music room and hit a note or two on the piano before leaving. Wouldn’t it have been amazing, he thought, if the talent from Maestro’s baby were transferred to him when he killed Frau Streng? That would have truly been amazing. But when the piano keys yielded nothing, no brilliance, not even a hint of a spark, he closed the cover. Maybe it took a day or two for it to kick in. He would try again another time. And with that resolved, with it all resolved, he descended the stairs and left the house, closing door and gate behind him without looking back. He had to get back to his section. They were to be ready in case vom Rath died. There would be riots and he remembered hearing something about wearing plain clothes, which meant going home and changing. Gauleiter Goebbels had quite an evening planned. His only hope was that his message wouldn’t get lost within a bigger one. Still, he wasn’t too worried. As far as Bruno knew, the orders were just to smash up some glass.