Page 22 Winter 1994 - 95
Juggling Tales
BY BARBARA MEYER
Nico
patted his forehead, trying not to disturb his makeup, and ducked his
handkerchief. His fingers zittered over the belt, fitted with small
baskets, that contained his equipment. He couldn't drop anything this
time. This was one test he dare not fail.
The
stage was a billow of blue smoke that rose from noisy drinkers below,
drinkers whose brass bars and swastikas shown against precise wool
uniforms. Munich seemed far from the front tonight.
Without
words, Nico had to depend on the musicians to follow his lead. His
scarred throat, his claimed muteness put him almost beyond suspicion.
Almost.
He
fell into the familiar rhythm. Two balls, a third, then a fourth, he
accelerated until his hands were flying. No point in searching the crowd
for that one face, no way to tell that face from any other Nazi's. Nico
would have to be patient.
There
was intermittent clapping when he threw the balls high in the air and
caught them in the small baskets on his belt. This was one routine he
could have done in his sleep, except that he got little sleep any more.
The
trio of broad, curved knives he left for his flashy finale. They should
please this group, he thought, who knew guns and gas and bombs so
intimately.
He
took the obligatory bow and left the stage. They could go to hell with
their applause. He had performed well enough to keep the job, he was
sure. The real show would be later.
Without changing from his garish harlequin costume, Nico wandered out into the cabaret with its maze of tiny tables. One of his duties was to watch for possible .flash points, to defuse arguments with humor or sleight of hand. Clubs like Der Kessel didn't muscle SS officers.
Near
the bar Nico stood looking at faces, alternately tossing two cubes in
one hand. They were soft, stitched together at the edges. They looked
alike, but he could feel the difference.
"Nicolas,"
said someone at the table next to him,
Nico
caught both cubes, but in his confusion, he almost spoke. The voice was
one he was not likely to forget. He bowed slightly to his cousin,
touching his lips with a finger.
"Someone
told me you'd gotten shot."
No
surprise, Nico thought, that Rolf had avoided the word,
"wounded." Ever the dandy, he looked deadly smart in his
beribboned uniform, his shiny black boots. Colonel
Rolf
turned to his gray-clad companions. "Military exemption," he
said, motioning toward Nico, who was not going to write out a corrective
statement. Rolf had always hated him, had hated his father, Klaus von
Tauben, more.
"General
von Tauben was killed on the Russian front?"
All
Nico could do was nod yes, but while his eyes
It
was time for Nico to give them a wan smile and take his leave. He nodded
toward Rolf, who looked at him through slits. Rolf, who could find any
excuse to have him rounded up and shot before his work had even begun.
Instinctively
Nico reached into the front basket at his waist for the all-important
cube. Yes, he breathed relief, it was still there.
But
as he stepped back, someone bumped his elbow. The cube flipped out of
his hand, landed on the floor, and
rolled to a stop at the tip of Rolf's boot. |