The wheels squealed slightly as the car came to a stop. Paul studied the alley through the windshield. A light rain had started to fall. In the darkness it would barely have been possible to see, were it not for the yellow cone of light projected by a solitary streetlamp.
After a couple of minutes Paul finally emerged from the car. It had been fourteen years since he’d set foot in that alley by the bank of the Isar. It smelled as bad as ever, of wet peat, rotting fish, and damp. At this time of night the only sound was that of his own footsteps echoing on the pavement.
He reached the stable door. It seemed nothing had changed. The peeling dark green stains that spattered the wood were perhaps a little larger than in the days when Paul used to cross the threshold each morning. The hinges still gave the same high-pitched screech as they opened, and the door still got stuck halfway and required a shove to open it completely.
Paul went in. A bare bulb hung from the ceiling. The stalls, the earth floor, and the coal man’s cart…
… and on it, Jurgen, with a pistol in his hand.
“Hello, Little Brother. Close the door and put your hands up.”
Jurgen was wearing only the black trousers and boots of his uniform. From the waist up he was naked, apart from his eye patch.
“We said no firearms,” Paul replied, raising his arms cautiously.
“Lift up your shirt,” said Jurgen, gesturing with the gun while Paul obeyed his orders. “Slowly. That’s it-very good. Now turn around. Good. Looks like you’ve played by the rules, Paul. So I shall play by them too.”
He removed the magazine from the gun and set it on the wood that separated the horses’ stalls. It must have had a bullet left in the chamber, however, and the barrel was still pointing at Paul.
“Is this place as you remember it? I do hope so. Your friend the coal man’s business went bust five years ago, so I was able to get my hands on these stables for a pittance. I hoped you’d come back one day.”
“Where’s Alys, Jurgen?”
His brother licked his lips before replying.
“Ah, the Jewish whore. Have you heard of Dachau, Brother?”
Paul nodded slowly. People didn’t talk about the Dachau camp much, but everything they did say was bad.
“I’m sure she’ll be very comfortable there. At least, she seemed happy enough when my friend Eichmann took her there this afternoon.”
“You’re a disgusting swine, Jurgen.”
“What can I say? You don’t know how to protect your women, Brother.”
Paul staggered as though he’d been struck. Now he understood the truth.
“You killed her, didn’t you? You killed my mother.”
“Fuck, it’s taken you a long time to figure that out,” Jurgen sneered.
“I was with her before she died. She… she told me it wasn’t you.”
“What do you expect? She lied to protect you with her final breath. But there are no lies in here, Paul,” said Jurgen, holding up Ilse Reiner’s letter. “You have the whole story here, from beginning to end.”
“Are you going to give it to me?” said Paul, looking anxiously at the sheets of paper.
“No. I’ve told you already, there’s absolutely no possibility of you winning. I’m going to kill you myself, Little Brother. But if by any chance a thunderbolt from heaven strikes me down… well, here it is.”
Jurgen leaned over and impaled the letter onto a loose nail sticking out of the wall.
“Take off your jacket and shirt, Paul.”
Paul obeyed, throwing the pieces of clothing on the floor. His bare torso was no longer than that of a skinny adolescent. Powerful muscles bulged under his dark skin, which was crisscrossed with little scars.
“Satisfied?”
“Well, well… Looks like someone’s been taking his vitamins,” said Jurgen. “I wonder if I shouldn’t just shoot you and save myself the trouble.”
“So do it, Jurgen. You’ve always been a coward.”
“Don’t even think of calling me that, Little Brother.”
“Six against one? Knives against bare hands? What would you call that, Big Brother?”
With a gesture of rage, Jurgen hurled the gun down and picked up a hunting knife from the driver’s seat of the cart.
“Yours is over there, Paul,” he said, gesturing toward the other end. “Let’s get this over with.”
Paul approached the cart. Fourteen years earlier he had been the one standing up there, defending himself against a band of thugs.
It was my boat. My father’s boat, attacked by pirates. Now the roles have changed so much, I don’t know who’s the good guy and who’s the bad guy.
He approached the back of the cart. There he found another knife, with a red handle, identical to the one held by his brother. He took it in his right hand, pointing the blade up, just as the Herero had taught him. Jurgen’s was pointing downward, which would hinder his arm movements.
I may be stronger now, but he’s a lot stronger than I am: I will have to tire him out, not let him push me to the ground or back me up against the sides of the cart. Use his blind right side.
“Who’s a chicken now, Brother?” said Jurgen, beckoning to him.
Paul rested his free hand on the side of the cart, then hoisted himself up. Now they were standing face-to-face for the first time since Jurgen had been left blind in one eye.
“There’s no need for us to do this, Jurgen. We could-”
His brother didn’t hear him. Raising the knife, Jurgen tried to slash at Paul’s face, missing by millimeters as Paul ducked to the right. He almost fell off the cart, and had to break his fall by grabbing on to one of the sides. He kicked out, hitting his brother’s ankle. Jurgen tottered backward, giving Paul time to straighten up.
The two men were now facing each other, standing two steps apart. Paul put his weight on his left leg, a gesture Jurgen took to mean he was going to jab toward the other side. Trying to preempt this, Jurgen attacked on the left, just as Paul had hoped. As Jurgen’s arm surged forward, Paul ducked down and slashed upward-not with too much force but just enough to slice him with the edge of the blade. Jurgen screamed but instead of pulling back, as Paul had expected, he punched Paul twice in the side.
They both backed off momentarily.
“The first blood is mine. Let’s see whose is spilled last,” said Jurgen.
Paul didn’t reply. The punches had robbed him of breath, and he didn’t want his brother to notice. He needed a few seconds to recover, but he wasn’t going to get them. Jurgen rushed toward him, his knife held at shoulder height, in a lethal version of the ridiculous Nazi salute. At the last moment he twisted to the left and traced a short straight slash across Paul’s chest. With no space to retreat, Paul had to jump off the cart, but couldn’t dodge another cut that marked him from his left nipple to his sternum.
As his feet hit the ground he forced himself to ignore the pain and rolled under the cart to avoid an assault from Jurgen, who had already jumped down after him. He emerged on the other side and immediately tried to get back up onto the cart, but Jurgen had anticipated his move and was back up there himself. He was now running toward Paul, ready to skewer him the moment he set foot on the timbers, so Paul had to drop back.
Jurgen made the most of the situation by using the driver’s seat to launch himself at Paul, holding the knife out in front of him. As he tried to dodge the attack, Paul tripped. He fell, and that would have been the end of him but for the fact that the cart’s shafts were in the way and his brother had to crouch down under the thick slabs of wood. Paul made the most of the opportunity by giving Jurgen a kick in the face, catching him full in the mouth.
Paul turned and tried to wriggle away from Jurgen’s reach. Wild with rage, and with blood frothing from his lips, Jurgen managed to grab him by an ankle, but he lost his grip when his brother kicked back and struck his arm.
Panting for breath, Paul managed to get to his feet, almost at the same time as Jurgen. Jurgen bent down, picked up a bucket of wood chips, and hurled it at Paul. The bucket hit him square in the chest.
With a cry of triumph, Jurgen surged at Paul. Still stunned by the blow from the bucket, Paul was knocked over and the two of them tumbled to the floor. Jurgen attempted to slit Paul’s throat with the edge of his blade, but Paul used his own arms as protection. However, he knew he couldn’t last long like this. His brother was more than forty pounds heavier than he was, and besides, he was the one on top. Sooner or later Paul’s arms would give way and the steel would slit his jugular.
“You’re done for, Little Brother,” screamed Jurgen, spattering Paul’s face with blood.
“The hell I am.”
Summoning all his strength, Paul brought his knee up hard against Jurgen’s side, and Jurgen toppled over. Immediately he threw himself back on top of Paul. His left hand gripped Paul by the neck, and his right tried to free itself from Paul’s grip as he tried to keep the knife away from his throat.
Too late, he noticed that he had lost sight of the hand in which Paul was holding his own knife. He glanced down and saw the tip of Paul’s blade grazing his abdomen. He looked up again, fear etched on his face.
“You can’t kill me. If you kill me, Alys dies.”
“That’s where you’re wrong, Big Brother. If you die, Alys will live.”
Hearing that, Jurgen desperately tried to free his right hand. He succeeded and raised his knife to plunge it into Paul’s throat, but the movement seemed to happen in slow motion, and by the time Jurgen’s arm came down, there was no strength left in it.
Paul’s knife was buried up to the hilt in his belly.