Gennat nodded pensively. ‘I’m quite certain they can be, Herr Marczewski. And thank you for the invitation.’
‘Then you accept?’
‘I accept.’
Paul Marczewski shook Gennat’s hand and took his leave. Rath noted his laughter lines. Marlow was right, he was a charming fellow, even if Rath was loath to consider how many men’s lives he might have on his conscience, and precisely what Marlow understood by ‘charming fellow’.
Still, that didn’t matter. Marczewski was helping them lay a trap for a dangerous contract killer, the last remaining member of the Weisse Hand.
‘What do you say, Rath,’ Gennat said, when they were back among themselves. ‘Care to join me at Concordia’s celebrations?’
‘Perhaps from across the street. Europahaus is, in fact, the ideal location for a sniper.’ He lit a cigarette. ‘It would be my pleasure, Sir, to arrest Harald Dettmann in person.’
Gennat smiled, and they went silently into the clear night. The stars twinkled bright in the dark water of the harbour basin, above the sickle of a crescent moon. Perhaps everything would turn out just fine.
Epilogue
The four men pay him no heed. Instead of guarding him, they drink and smoke and laugh and play cards.
Tokala doesn’t stir, doesn’t move a muscle. His face is devoid of emotion. He sits with fixed gaze, dignified in his captivity, like his heroes.
Captured at last. He had always expected it, ever since the day he killed the wicked man at the little lake. How many years have passed since? In all that time they haven’t once come looking for him, have kept away from his forest. Despite his violating the agreement and meddling in their world.
He expected the men from the surrounding villages and town to come and fetch him, but in fact it was these soldiers, who have suddenly sprouted everywhere in their strange uniforms. They treat him like a murderer, even though they cannot know he has killed.
All these years Tokala has hated himself for not having prevented Niyaha Luta’s death. Even today he can still hear the splash of her arms and legs as they writhe against the shallow water; still see the wicked man shift on top of her as he submerges her again and again…
Tokala never thought he’d see him again, but then, many summers later, the wicked man stood at the lake once more. Tokala sat tight in his hiding place, in the same bush where he had witnessed Niyaha Luta’s murder all those years before. The wicked man had grown fatter, but Tokala recognised him and stayed where he was, watching everything.
He saw another burst forth from the forest and jam something in the wicked man’s neck, not a knife, but a glass arrow; saw how the wicked man collapsed, sank to his knees, and was dragged into the water; how the policeman now appeared, the one who had almost perished on the moor.
Tokala didn’t understood why the two men were suddenly fighting, rolling about as they wrestled on the floor.
Then the wicked man got up, knocked his assailant out and threatened the policeman with a pistol.
And Tokala felt the same old impotence return.
The wicked man meant to escape. Again.
This time Tokala wouldn’t allow it, and reached inside his quiver. He couldn’t help it, even though he knew the arrows would betray him, that the police would come for him, the people from the town.
There was no other way, it had to be done.
He didn’t understand what happened after. The police officer pulled the arrows from the dead man’s neck and left eye and threw them far into the lake, where they sank. Then he took the pistol and fired twice, one bullet for each hollow.
Tokala didn’t understand, and eventually withdrew to his forest. Sat with Odakota and waited, but neither the police nor anyone else came looking for him. After a time, he began to venture out again.
Soon after, flags had fluttered from the houses of the town, red and white, with black swastikas; and Tokala saw men in uniform, so many uniforms, more than there had ever been under the Kaiser. Some change had occurred. Even a man who dwelt on the moors couldn’t fail to perceive it.
Winchinchala no longer wrote, or laid books out for him, and Tokala looked for her and found her grave down by the lake. One last time he ventured into town with flowers from the moor, but since then he has never returned among men, not even to fetch his books.
Then, the uniforms hadn’t lied, war broke out. Tokala thought it didn’t concern him, like the first war, during which he’d avoided the soldiers in his forest as he did all others. They didn’t find his hut, since no one was familiar with the moorland on which it stood, no one apart from himself and Odakota, his black dog friend.
It needed a second war and new soldiers to catch him. He was careless. He had thought the fighting was over because the shooting had stopped. And perhaps it had – but the soldiers were still there.
They picked him up.
They must be Russian. He can just about understand them. They don’t know what to make of him, of that much he is certain. They almost shot him, just like that, but at the last minute an officer had pushed the soldier’s machine gun to one side, and the wild face and slit eyes had stood and followed the salvo as it was swallowed by the moor.
Tokala had already closed his eyes in anticipation of death, but this is no deliverance. The worst possible thing has happened. They have locked him up.
These are evil men. They shot Odakota in front of his eyes, he had to watch his beloved pet die while tied to a chair. He pulled hard on his shackles, but all it achieved was to tip the chair, to the raucous amusement of the soldiers.
They say he is a spy, a lone fighter, a werewolf; they have offered him any number of possibilities to which he might say ‘yes’. Have spoken to him in Russian, Polish and German, and he has met them with silence in all three. He bore his suffering like a man. Not a single cry of pain came from his lips.
Now they have put him in this crate, which roared skywards no sooner had they thrown him onto the worn leather of his seat. They are taking him to specialists in Moscow, the officer says, who also speaks German, very good German in fact, they would get it out of him, see what kind of man he was.
Clearly they have never seen his like before.
He sits by the window as the aeroplane gently shakes, listens to the hum and roar, and looks out, sees the country spread out beneath him, the forests and lakes, the land of his forefathers. He sees how beautiful it is. And suddenly he is overcome by an immense love for his homeland. He has always loved this country, but never before has he appreciated it so clearly as now.
All of a sudden, he knows what he must do, knows how he can recapture his freedom.
He looks around. Four soldiers sit with him in the cabin, smoking and playing cards. They are not watching him, thinking him safe, up here in the air.
He is still bound, but only by the arms, which they have tied in front of his chest so that he may sit.
The door latch: he has seen how it works, how they closed it before. He is still Tokala, the fox. He is sly, he is deft, and he is quick.
It is only two or three steps, then he is by the door, slides the bolt back with both hands; the door flies open almost of its own accord.
Suddenly there is a loud roar, more violent than the dull rumble to which they have so far been exposed; the wind reaches inside their metal shell and pulls on his clothes.
Waziyata.
The north wind itself has come to claim its son.
A cry issues from behind and Tokala turns around. The wind has blown the playing cards from the table, and they whirl through the cabin, as the men jump to their feet. Tokala sees the fear in the soldiers’ eyes. Four machine guns are pointed at him. Four men cry out. Step back from the door and get down – but he refuses to obey. One of them draws a bead and repeats his threat to shoot. Panic speaks from his voice.