The Ratline (a short story)

This one has been through a few revisions. The historical backdrop didn't come to me until I'd written half of it. Once I had that, I had to go back and rejig my character names and plant references.

If there ever was a day where my conscience should have stepped aside and let my gut lead the way, the morning I met Miss Brandt was it. My finger hadn’t even retracted from her eagle shaped bell before that door creaked open. I looked up (and I mean up) at her sagging turkey neck and knew right away, this wasn’t prejudice, this wasn’t judging a book by its dust jacket. No. My standing-to-attention arm hair took its orders right out of the primordial, ‘don’t think, just run’ handbook. 

Yet instead of patting my pockets down and pretending I’d left something in my car that didn’t exist, instead of leading with an invitation to welcome the guru, Antwar Chrisne Habaar, into her life, I slapped on a harmless smile and asked, “Miss Brandt? Is Foggy ready for his walk?”

Miss Brandt’s pencilled-on eyebrows charged at each other at the sight of me. I grew hopeful. Spitting out a nervous chuckle, I reached into my inner breast pocket and pulled the creased newspaper clipping that had lured me all the way down here. I squinted to read the smeared ink-- praying number eighty-eight was, in fact, located a few houses over. Nope. Those big red letters above Miss Brandt’s head couldn’t have matched up any clearer with the pixilated photo in my hand.

My stomach sank.

Of course, they did. Though all built in Salem Witch trial chic, no two houses on Ratline Street looked alike. As I’d waded through the pre-breakfast mist, my eyes strayed from a fluro-pink mailbox to a poker-dotted one, only to be drawn away by a primary-coloured counterpart one door down. Furthermore, each of these art projects featured bold, often separately cut out house numbers that thrust themselves at every passer-by. I’d been counting my way down from number six-six-six since the turn off.

“Y’know, I’ve been reading through my grandpa’s old war diary a lot lately,” I said, more to fill the silence than anything. The woman lowered my newspaper clipping and stared at me like I’d just spat a big hoogie on her doorstep. “He made mention of a Miss Brandt on every…” I had to stop to catch my all of a sudden laboured, breath. “On practically every page of that thing.”

Throwing a flippant glance down the hallway behind her, Miss Brandt said, “common name,” before drifting away from the open door.

My lord, if there was ever a queue to pack up and run! But remember that overbearing conscience thing? It walked me right through her doorway, closed the thing behind me and even bent down to pick up the newspaper clipping she’d dropped! Forget the gut.

Foggy wasn’t anything close to the ‘puppy’ described in the flyer. Weighing more than the original Torah, with tusks instead of teeth, he bundled me off my feet like I was a plush toy. Miss Brandt scowled as I clambered to one knee. She muttered something about showing weakness before handing over a leash that looked closer to a shoe lace than anything that might hold this beast.

The moment we crossed from sidewalk to grass-land however, Foggy underwent a werewolf-eque transformation--thankfully in reverse. In complete contrast to the slobbering tooth factory who’d pulled half my rotator cuff free from the rest of my arm, once we crossed onto Himmel Park grounds, his Malinois ears suddenly perked up. He turned his head as if waiting for me to catch up and--I swear to God this is true-- he actually smiled at me.

Now let me be clear. I didn’t choose Nine-walking as a day job because I’m afraid of dogs. Typically, I melt anytime one of those furry little buggers looks my way. Even the big ones. Especially the big ones. Foggy’s homelife threw me off, that’s all. As that tail began to wag, I couldn’t have been happier to see proof that it was Miss Brandt’s ugly shadow—not him—that had bowled me onto the woman’s loose floorboards earlier on.

 We started with a couple of laps around the field just to get warmed up. Me leading, him following. No pulling. Perfectly behaved. A handful of other early-bird walkers had their nines playing with each other in the middle of the football pitch, but we stayed away to begin with. Foggy didn’t so much as raise his nose. I could tell by his whole posture, that he would have played the part like this for the whole walk if I’d asked him to--I guess he was just grateful to have some time away from his owner’s jackboot personality! But it was impossible to miss the glances he’d make towards his leash every time he thought I wasn’t looking.  So, I did it. I asked him to sit. Placed a firm yet warm hand on his head and unclipped the lead.

Expectations be damned. By the time our forty-five minutes was up, I was ready to leave the park through the opposite entrance, walk Foggy onto an inter-city bus and take him far, far away. He was an angel--only running when I pointed, stopping dead when I whistled. Letting other dogs sniff him without a hint of aggression--always keeping one eye fixed my way to check I approved of each new wet nose inspecting his darkened flanks. Hearing the squeaky snap of his leash-clip, I wasn’t sure whether to hate Miss Brandt, or praise her for owning this incredible animal. Striding alongside a panting tongue that never crossed the line of my knee, I began practicing my pitch to make this a regular thing.

“Miss Brandt. The German Quarter is only nine tube stops and a bus leg away from where I live, It’s so convenient for me!”

“Miss Brandt, your neighbourhood felt like home the moment I turned onto your street.”

I received my first wave of nausea on our way out of the park. I passed beneath the steel archway which read, “Parks Will Set You Free,” yet to come down from my high of freshly cut grass and nature, when I spotted the notice board. Fixed against the back wall of an unattended administration office stood an uncountable number of community notices. Only one stood out to me however—an A3 printed photo of a rather familiar tan-faced Malinois. Above it read, “Missing Dog.” Below it read, “Help us find Foggy.” To this day I’m not sure why I didn’t take a closer look at contact number listed—numbers are usually a big thing for me. If I had, I may not have rushed back to Miss Brandt’s house in such a fluster. 

I received my second wave of nausea as I emerged from the underpass beneath Holle Highway and crested the steps onto Ratline Street once again. Voices bounced from housefront to housefront, “Foggy where are you? Foggy, here boy!” A high unison whistle flew into the air. Foggy’s tail shot between his legs, his ears dropped, and for the first time all morning, he tugged at his lead. I barely had time to run my palm down his neck before the first of the search party--a pock marked man-- rounded the corner. He wore a white T-shirt with Foggy’s damned face printed across the front! Now, I should mention here: before I took up nine-walking, I used to work the till at a printshop. I know for a fact, that it takes at least an overnight run to get one of those T-shirts printed and turned around for a customer—that’s eight hours for the conversion of the image to a printable format, another six in drying time. Even then, you’re relying on the cashier being on-the-ball. So, to say the sight of Foggy’s face set my alarm bells ringing is a gross understatement.

The man’s mist-obscured frame multiplied into a pair, a baker’s dozen, until a starting football team’s worth of nine-hunters stood before me. I took my first step backward. A low, tractor-throttle bellow came out of Foggy’s mouth. I took another backward step off the curb and onto the shadow of the underpass before reason caught up with me. Pulling on Foggy’s neck with heart-breaking force, I raised the lead toward the first man. I lifted my voice to its most inviting. “You guys can’t be out looking for my boy here, can you?”

As the man’s beady eyes ran me up and down with all the empathy of Chris Hansen on To Catch a Predator, I took my chance to scan the other faces. All were in their final few decades. Many of the women donned Broadway style makeup. Many of the men looked like they’d climbed out of a time machine from pre-Weimar Berlin—dressed for a meeting with the Kaiser, or perhaps for one last hurrah on the town before war. Miss Brandt wasn’t among them.

I took in a big gulp and patted down my sweat-pant pockets for the newspaper clipping that had brought me to Ratline Street in the first place. “You guys are probably thinking the worst right now, but trust me, I’ve got a reasonable explanation.” I unzipped my jacket and dug around the pouch inside my breast pocket.

“What are you doing in our neighbourhood boy?” the man scanned me from toe to head and drew back his nose as though I’d turned up to his col de sac, half nude. “You’re nobody’s Grandson. Not anyone from around here anyway.”

My pocket searching ceased as a thick lump struck me in the throat. I studied the man’s face and tried to blink some reason back into my head. I focussed on his out-of-control eyebrows—almost climbing as high as his hairline! --and forced myself to acknowledge that despite his odd choice of words, this old Todger couldn’t possibly know anything about that sore spot. I forced a grin, hanging my free hand around the back of my neck. “No, no. You’re right. My family could never afford to buy one of these beautiful houses.” I glanced down at my whining canine friend--sitting now, but still rearing his head as far away from the man as the lead, coiled around my closed fist, would allow. “I’ve been walking Foggy for Miss Brandt.” I pointed up the street to where number Eighty-eight lay way down by the far end. “Lovely lady, I’m sure all of you know her?”

The man and the bone thin woman next to him, exchanged a narrow-eyed glance that sent my stomach into convulsions. Out of anxiety more than anything, I started searching my pockets again, this time pulling them all the way out, like floppy Beagle ears.

 “Yes, we know Rianne,” answered the woman. Her voice matched the smoker’s lines that spread out above and below her lips. She gripped the man’s elbow and continued. “Rianne’s the one who’s got us all out here searching for Foggy.”

As if extending a life raft my way, Foggy stretched forward and sniffed at a stray slip of paper flittering on the concrete panel between my legs. My heart, my spine, even the surface of my skin lit up with electric delight. I bent down and presented the newspaper cut-out to the elderly woman as though she were the Kaiserin her neighbours were all dressed to meet. Foggy stayed well behind me. She took it, squinted and immediately glanced to the man beside her.

Sucking in his lips and pressing his eyebrows together in a deeply formal manner, the man reached into his back pocket and produced a leather case. He handed a pair of spectacles to the woman and waited patiently while she studied the cut out from the classifieds.

Dog walker wanted. This Friulan is taking a Castle holiday!

If you can handle a puppy with lots of energy, apply to walk Foggy today.

 Eighty-Eight Ratline Street. Call 09 8734523.

I tried to read her expression, but her flaring nostrils and lizard-like lip licking, translated to no recognizable emotion.

  “This is a fake,” she announced. My eyes flicked between the various neighbourhood watch members as they advanced to form a flat phalanx on either side of the elderly couple. I released a nervous scoff and took a step back as the edges of that line began to creep down the steps into the beginnings of a flanking manoeuvre (who said all those Tom Clancy novels were a waste of time ay?)

“What do you mean it’s a fake?” I asked in my most forgiving tone, stepping past the halfway mark into the underpass. “If I were some dog-thief, I’d hardly parade him down the same street I snatched him from would I?”  

“Miss Brandt, doesn’t go on holiday’s kid,” echoed the woman’s voice. “No one in The Ratline does!” responded the woman.

Releasing the type of sigh, I bet he’d never dare to use on one of his peers, the pock-marked man shook his head. “We’re wasting our time here. Let’s go talk to Rianne.”  

I peered beyond the nine-walker’s feet, past house six-sixty-six into the hazy, dead-end-street and scratched the back of my neck. Although the prospect of going anywhere with this bat-shit mob sounded like a god-awful idea, I figured irrationality had its limits. I consulted with Foggy’s pleading eyes, ignored his whimper and climbed my way up into Ratline Street for a third time.

The door at the end of Miss Brandt’s hallway was a four-panel, oak affair. The pock marked man led the way, his loafers heavy on the floorboards. He pushed on through. An aroma of eggish, sulphur immediately rushed out to greet me. I looked over my shoulder. Aside from Foggy—still dutifully heeling by my side—the rest of our troupe were gone.

The moment Foggy locked eyes on Miss Brandt, he leapt up at my chest—paws swiping. At first I drew my throat out of range, but soon noticed his wide, pleading eyes. I relaxed.

“Damn Mut,” muttered the man in front of me. “That thing never learned to stay still.”

A pang of heat rose up in my throat. “It’s not his fault. The one to blame is his—” as my eyes subconsciously shifted to Miss Brandt, my jaw dropped with equal independence, “—owner.”

There at the far end of the sitting room, the woman who had towered over me less than two hours ago, cowered in a wheelchair. Beneath the wool blanket on her lap, poked legs that ended in pink nubs just above the knee. She looked a solid decade older than when I had last seen her.  

“What is this place?” I asked. Stumbling back towards the hallway, no longer able to push out the hunch that had been growing since I first lay eyes on that missing dog poster. Both the lips of Miss Brandt and the man stretched into thin, rubbery smiles. Above the woman’s head rose a red wall adorned with iron crosses, jagged symbols, a man with piercing blue eyes and a curious choice of facial hair.

“We are in The Ratline boy,” said the man. “The place hounds howl towards at night, the place where no man dares to raise his own nose to the sky.” He crunched up his nose. “that is…until this morning.”

“Is this….” I swallowed, “Is this hell?”

 A guttural scoff exploded from the disabled woman’s throat. “Do you take us for your kind boy.” She looked up at her walls. “There are no sinners here.”

For a moment a terrible thought struck me. It wasn’t possible that this might be the other place…I kept this thought to myself.

“You like numbers don’t you boy?”

Without warning the man snatched at my wrist and forced back my shirtsleeve. He twisted my arm in a manner that sent pain surging from my elbow, up through to my shoulder. I arched my back and exposed the belly of my forearm to relieve the pressure.

The man’s broomish-brow pushed up into a peak at it’s centre as he studied my practically hairless, olive flesh. Tugging with another violent thrust, the man extended my arm towards Miss Brandt as though it were an inanimate object.

She leaned forward in her seat, clutching the edge of her horn-rimmed glasses, inspecting my limb with clinical interest. Pulling her lips into the shape of a cat’s anus, she drew her lashless eyes up to my own. Under that gaze, it almost felt like I’d crossed her somehow, simply by lacking whatever it was she’d been expecting.

“Curious,” She said, “for a moment there, I thought you were--” she trailed off before twisting her unoiled neck towards the wall behind her. I followed her gaze to a monochrome image, framed in black, holding centre stage among the collage of dark-memorabilia.

My eyes widened at the sight of an emaciated man with a jagged boulder clasped between his hands, lugging it onto the back of a military cargo-truck. He had the chin of my mother and I suppose people might even say he looked a bit like an older version of me. Most prominent to my eye however, was the set of faint digits stencilled on the inside of his far arm: 8734523.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve studied that image. There’s a copy of it in my wallet, on my bedroom wall, shit I even had my phone case custom printed with it!

Guess what the pin to all my bank accounts is?  8734523

Guess what password I’ve used since I was ten years old? EIGHT8734FIVE2E

Back at the print shop, I spent half a summer restoring the original photo to colour—rendering those numbers to their original faded green. A couple of my school mates thought it was a twisted thing to do, but when it’s all you’ve got left—

Turns out they were half right. I almost threw up right there in front of a customer when I first lay eyes on that restored image. In colour, the uniformed men behind my Grandpa simply became too real. No evil shark eyes, no other worldly villainy. Just ordinary men carrying out unforgivable acts.  

I drew my eyes back down to Miss Brandt. “Common name ay?” my face began heating up, “NO SINNERS HERE AY?”

I stomped across her outdated floormat, but my pockmarked friend snatched the upper part of my shoulder with his free hand before I could reach the woman. Miss Brandt ogled me from her chair, a half-smile stretching across her waxy lips. Once again, examining rather than gazing-- like I was some lab specimen, brought here specifically for her learning pleasure. “Calm down boy,” she said, “That photo is proof that whatever you think I’m responsible for, is all a load of Quatsch!”

“There are no Sinners here in the Ratline boy,” recited the man by my side.

Foggy released a low growl at the sound of his voice. My body shook with too much adrenalin to respond. All I could muster was a shake of the head as the wench before me explained herself. “I’m sure that diary of your dear Grandpa tells the tale of a ‘cruel woman’ who turned away the only man she ever loved during his hour of need.” She rolled her eyes and stretched a pale, talon-like finger towards the bottom corner of the image.

I didn’t need to squint at make out those minute digits. “June 12, 1944.” I recited, then added, “one month before the liberation of Majdanek death camp.” I made sure to state this fact in as bemused a voice as I could muster. “Let me guess, you think if he was alive that late in the war, he must have made it out.”

For the first time, a flicker of doubt crossed those cold, inhuman eyes. The colour left Miss Brandt’s face as she looked into my eyes. Eyes I shared with a man whom I’d never had a chance to meet—the image of her betrayal. I held the gaze, until I saw her vulture-like throat, lug down a heavy lump. No doubt, thoughts of those last-minute death marches and firing squads finally breaching the woman’s decades long denial. For the length of a dog hair, I even felt a pang of pity for the woman. The things we cling to, I thought to myself. But then I looked up at my grandfather’s face once again.

“Alright, I’d say that’s more than enough,” said the man who still had a grip on me. “How about we send this boy downstairs where he should have gone from the start?”

The man’s kransky fingers pressed into my flesh, but as he moved to take a tighter grip around my back, I snatched my arm free and twisted out of his reach. On cue, Foggy leapt at the man. To think I assumed I could have avoided his lunge earlier on! He ripped out the stubble covered jugular before the man even had a chance to raise his hands. Miss Brandts’ floor boards now matched her walls with an extra-wet paintjob.

Snorting, slopping sounds filled the room as Foggy’s teeth gnashed. A low-pressure fountain stained his snout a deep, almost black shade of red. He drew his eyes up at Miss Brandt, who white knuckled her wheelchair’s hand grips and receded further into her seat than the accused at Nuremburg.   

“Easy,” I mumbled, extending three straightened fingers Foggy’s way.

Miss Brandt’s cruel mask twisted into something satanic. “Go on and take him with you then. He’s already tainted with sin anyway. Leave us be.” 

Foggy glanced my way, bending at the knees. I shook my head. Taking one step closer, I raised my hands to my hips and gazed around at a volume of paraphernalia that would get you banned from entering most countries. I made sure those black, post-elderly eyes were fixed on mine before I responded. “You think any of this is sin free?”   

She extended her quivering lower lip and stared at Foggy. “You don’t understand the times we lived in boy. We weren’t soldiers.” The conviction in her voice came through so thick, I wondered whether I was really the one she was trying to convince. “Me and everyone else in the Ratline just lived the lives we were told to live. What choice did we have?”

“And nobody got hurt at the expense of you living that life?” I growled, resisting the urge to snap my fingers.

“What was that you said earlier?” answered Miss Brandt as she rubbed her prune-like thumb and forefinger together in front of Foggy’s nose. “It’s not the dog. It’s the owner you’ve got to blame. The one issuing the orders.”

Remember that meddling conscience? Well, I forgot to mention, there is one thing which that conscience, never fails to cede ground to: my allergy to hypocrisy.

So, I took Foggy. Against my better judgement, the two of us stepped over Mr Pock-mark’s still writhing body, left bloody prints all the way down Miss Brandts’s hallway, and stepped out onto the cool air of Ratline Street. That’s when I noticed the house numbers again. Number 89--blue and pink, number 102—visible from across the road with its reflective mirror numbering.

Foggy and I continued on past the watchful eyes of the nine-hunting team—disbanded now to their various gardens and front porches. Though curious, none of their eyes suggested the hate I’d seen in Miss Brandt. Not a single one of these wrinkled faces hinted that secret stashes of war-crime memorabilia may be waiting just beyond their own closed doors. Yet when Miss Brandt had put out the call. They obliged her. I can’t tell you how much this troubled me.

 As we neared house six-six-six, I started searching for guard towers, cameras, roaming Gestapo with their sniffing hounds. Some underlying surveillance I hadn’t noticed, some threat to justify the residual loyalty to their former leaders.  Nothing.

I glanced down at Foggy and patted him between the ears.  His tongue hung out, red and panting. Still shaking as his eyes scanned, hypervigilant around the neighbourhood, occasionally tuning his head back to house eighty-eight, cowering when he lay eyes on its steepled roof. A pang of guilt struck me and I sped up to a jog, drawing my eyes ahead to the underpass, towards Himmel Park on the other side. Suddenly my mood lifted and I let a smile spread across my face. I stepped off Ratline Street and bent down at the first opportunity.

 Foggy burst forward the moment I unclipped his leash. A brief panic rose up in me as I watched his splayed paws, clear the rest of the steps and slip out of sight. I jogged after him in a hopeless rush, doubting I’d reach the end of the underpass before he made it to the far end of the park. I breathed a sigh of relief as I hit the bottom of the steps. Those pointy ears waiting for me at the edge of the field, eyes glinting as his tail wacked against the grass. I needn’t have worried. This was a nine I knew could change. All it took was a bit of freedom from his owners reach.