An Encore Heard Across History

by Nathaniel Neil Whelan

Berlin, 1984

Amos Abramson knew the plan was going well when the barista walked in. The poor lighting glinted off her waterfall of silver hair and a bowtie pinched her neck above a double-breasted vest of purple silk.

“You summoned, Herr Haffner?” Her tone was flat, bored almost.

“Coffee. And make it quick.”

Amateur torturers preferred hard alcohol—it made bending back fingers a hell of a lot easier. Ernst Haffner was no amateur, but he was predictable.

“Can I get a cup?” Abramson squeaked. “Two sugars.”

A forceful slap from the nearest goon sent his head rocketing against his chest. His cheek stung from the impact.

Haffner grunted his piggy appreciation and dismissed the barista with a wave of a bejeweled hand—the most blindingly lavish hand in all of Germany. “That’ll be all.”

With a noncommittal sideways glance, the silver-haired barista bowed and took her leave.

“Your staff is loyal,” Abramson noted, a thin trickle of crimson yo-yoing from split lips. “I’d have called the police on you a long time ago.”

Haffner chewed the inside of his mouth. He removed his jacket and made a show of taking off his rings—ten, one for each stubby finger. These he tucked in an inside pocket of his suit jacket which he draped over a collapsible chair. Without his jewellery and fancy costume, he lacked the refinement he’d dedicated his life to emanating. He clutched Abramson’s jaw, raised a fist, and brought it down hard.

Abramson’s mouth filled with the taste of copper. The rope binding his hands strained against his wrists.

“Out of curiosity, why didn’t you call the police on me?” he mumbled as best he could. When his captor didn’t answer, Abramson said, “I suppose you’re more concerned about the treasures you don’t want them to see.”

Crouching, Haffner leaned in close. His breath reeked of dill. “Tell me, what interest is my Incan Tumi to you?” The ceremonial knife caught the light of the overheard bulb. “You think it belongs in your museum? Is my opera house not respectable enough?”

Abramson guffawed. “This place has more in common with a sleazy New York sex theater than an opera house.”

Another punch from Haffner. He’d be tasting blood for days.

Abramson didn’t consider himself a humorous man—he was more the tweed-wearing, crossword-doing type—but he knew it’d tip Haffner over the edge. His mind spun at the thought of what had to be done. He eyed the room. What would Haffner use? A wardrobe? No, much too big to be cruel. A storage chest perhaps?

“My patience wears thin. What value does this artifact have to you?”

Abramson smirked, his teeth stained red. “Absolutely nothing.”

“You don’t look Peruvian, so it can’t be sentimental.”

“My family is Polish. Grandparents owned a travelling carnival.”

Haffner’s brow creased. “My men catch you stealing this knife from my lobby and you tell me it means nothing to you?”

Abramson shrugged. “You stole it first. Just like everything else you own.”

A third punch from Haffner was interrupted by a statue of a man who entered the small room. A white boutonnière adorned his breast pocket.

“Herr Haffner, your guests are growing impatient. And the actors, they’re starting to ask questions.”

“Do they know what is going on here?”

“Nein.”

“Good. Keep it that way. And don’t let the guests in. Not yet.”

Abramson lifted his head. “What’s the holdup? Show must go on.”

Lips pursed, Haffner eyed him with vexation. “We have to speed this up.”

The statue left, leaving Abramson alone with Haffner and his five monstrous goons.

“You won’t get anything out of me,” he declared, willing steel into his voice.

“Ah, you see that is where you are wrong,” Haffner retorted. “I know your weakness.”

“And that is yours.”

Haffner’s eyes shrunk into his potato head as he tried to unravel what those words meant. From somewhere above, the wailing drone of tuning instruments caused the ceiling to vibrate.

“Felix!” Haffner barked. He jerked a thumb at a trunk leaning against the far wall. It was four feet in length and embroidered with bronze studs. One of the goons upended it with a mighty heave, shaking out its contents: feathered hats, cotton pantaloons, and nylon stockings.

Abramson glanced at the trunk as if it was a hungry beast waiting to devour him. This was the moment he had been dreading.

Follow the plan, he told himself. Face your fear and follow the plan.

A prickle crawled up his spine like the many legs of a journeying centipede.

“Word of advice,” Haffner said, noting Abramson’s slick forehead. “If you’re going to risk capture, don’t admit on TV that you’re claustrophobic. It makes torture much too easy.”

“That was a good interview. I secured thousands of dollars in donations for the museum.”

Keep it lighthearted. Tell jokes. It’s a good distraction. But for how long …?

Haffner ignored the comment. “In East Berlin, the Stasi attach weights to the balls of schemers and saboteurs and force them to walk in circles until they talk. Or pass out. So inventive. But such methods won’t be necessary with you. All I need is a trunk. Simple torture for a simple museum curator.”

On command, Felix cut the rope binding Abramson’s wrists, lifted him off the chair, and forcibly pitched him into the trunk. With an audible click, he was locked in.

Legs folded and shoulders hunched, the trunk was much too small for a thirty-six-year-old man. His breathing hastened, amplified in his ears like the harsh whoosh of wind at the top of a mountain peak. A maelstrom of thoughts echoed about the cramped space, filling the trunk with taunts, drowning him.

The keyhole in the lid seemed meters away, reminding him of the circle of daylight visible from the bottom of a well—a sight he knew too well. Fear manifested in the near-darkness, a fear that was damp and squeaked like rats. A childish panic seized his muscles. Tightness wrung his chest like a washcloth.

He pressed his palms against the sides. His elbows slowly bent inward.

Oh God! The sides are closing in!

A faraway voice scolded him, told him to grow up. It was his educated mind which knew better than to believe that. But why should he listen to it? It didn’t know fear like he did.

A knock on the lid. “Getting comfortable?”

Face your fear and follow the plan. Stay focused. Breathe. Control it. You’ve practiced for this moment. In and out. In and out.

He used his watch as a metronome, inhaling and exhaling on every tick-tick of the second hand. But a thought floated to the front of his mind: where is the barista?

It barreled through his concentration like a battering ram.

Where was the explosion? Where were the shouts of outrage? Regret mixed with anxiety. He never should’ve trusted her. He thrashed, a fish out of water flopping around on a deck.

Let me out! Let me out!

His mouth moved, but his mind was such a jumbled mess of thoughts and fears he didn’t know if he had said the words out loud.

“Let me out! Let me—”

Bang!

The trunk shook violently.

A second passed. Then another. Suddenly, the light from the keyhole widened. He reached out with eight-year-old hands to climb out of the well and …

… the barista grabbed his arms and yanked him upright out of the trunk.

“Okay, friend,” she said. “We need to go.”

Abramson remained cemented to the floor.

“We have seconds,” the barista pleaded, snapping her fingers in front of his face. “We need to go. Now.”

He observed his surroundings; the chaos clued him in.

“The plan,” Abramson mumbled, heart still hammering. “It worked.”

One of the goons bumbled about, shards of glass decorating his rough hands. Felix stood silent, stunned, mouth gaping like a baby begging for a lollipop, while the remaining three goons screamed in surprise, rubbing their eyes with clenched fists. Blinking rapidly, Ernst Haffner had tumbled to the ground, his lumpy form visible through the greenish smoke curling about the floor.

And the remains of a French press, shattered to pieces, coffee pooling around its base, a homemade flash grenade nestled inside.

The barista snatched the Incan Tumi—the blue gems glistening in the gold hilt—and indicated the door with a pistol she’d pried off the nearest goon. “Let’s go.”

Abramson stumbled, still disoriented from the trunk. On wobbly legs, he retrieved Haffner’s suit jacket off the floor. It was coated in a layer of dust.

“What are you doing?” the barista hissed, as one of the goons fumbled for his own pistol. “Put that down!”

Abramson wasted no words; he shook his head no.

Fuming, the barista took Abramson’s weight and led him out the room and up a set of rickety stairs where thick plush curtains soon consumed their view.

A bullet whizzed by with a whip-like crack, fired by someone in the rafters above.

The barista cursed. “Come on. This way.”

Still supporting his weight, she hustled Abramson out from behind the curtains and onto the main stage of the opera house. Their footfalls echoed throughout the empty turtle shell of the auditorium.

Actors in full makeup poked their heads from around the curtain, Don Giovanni himself expressing panic at the commotion.

Abramson’s lungs burned as the barista helped him up the main aisle, the cushioned seats falling victim to the shots raining down from the stage. Six men had gathered, scattering the actors in a frenzy of flailing limbs.

Among the blizzard of stuffing, the barista zigged and zagged. Pivoting on her heels, she took pot-shots at the stage; a sconce exploded in a shower of sparks.

“You okay?” she hollered.

“Just keep going,” Abramson muttered, blinking away the dizziness.

At the back of the auditorium, the barista aimed her pistol at the goons’ feet, giving enough cover for Abramson to sneak out the wide oak doors. She followed suit.

They hobbled across the lobby, past the in-house café where the barista had been stationed and a display of Haffner’s more legitimate treasures. Abramson’s bloodied reflection stared back on the smooth surface of the glass.

Pandemonium raged outside, a flurry of top hats and furred coats as opera-goers squawked in fear like wealthy seagulls, alerted by the gunshots from within. But Abramson didn’t care. The night air kissed his bruised face, the street ahead opening as if in bloom.

The barista forced Haffner’s suit jacket onto Abramson’s shoulders.

“At least we look the part,” she said, guiding him through the gyrating throng.

“Your stun grenade worked. I’m impressed.”

“Lot of good it did you,” she snarled. “If you knew the trunk would affect you, you might as well have taken the full blast of the flash—”

“The trunk kept me safe from the flash,” Abramson interjected. “Besides, I only needed those few extra seconds to grab this.” He tugged on the suit jacket.

“Whatever.”

Over their shoulders, they spied four goons surveying the clucking crowd. Squashed in the middle, a stupefied Haffner barked orders, sending his minions one by one into the fray. He was still some distance away, but Felix—the man who had forced him into the trunk—was already bowling his way in their direction. Coincidence? Had he spotted them? Abramson didn’t want to linger and find out.

Heads down, they trekked forward, pushing past Germans and tourists alike. A crack as the barista stepped on the lens of an abandoned monocle.

“This way,” she hissed, guiding him down a side street.

A second turn and a third soon followed, each street narrower than the last. They were alone save for the handful of night critters skittering about in the growing darkness.

“Stop!”

The voice was like a blast of hot wind, almost loud enough to knock them off their feet.

The pair sped up, overturning trash bins in their wake. But Felix was more agile than he looked, leaping over each obstacle like an Olympic runner.

It was only a matter of seconds before he caught up and lunged. A meaty hand ripped the jacket off Abramson’s shoulders. Caught off guard by the lack of purchase, Felix tumbled to the ground, his boss’s garment as his only prize.

With surprising speed, Abramson pivoted on his heels and sprinted back the way they had come, back toward their pursuer.

“What are you doing? Come back!” the barista shouted, following him despite her command.

As Abramson bent to retrieve the jacket, Felix latched onto his ankle. A painful squeeze threatened to pull him down, to make him buckle at the knees. A moment more and he would have been flat on his back, but a swift kick to the chin by the barista rocked Felix’s head back, loosening his hold. A second punt knocked him out cold.

Without looking back, they took off again, leaving the crumpled body behind.

“Alright, we should be safe here,” Abramson said once they had slunk behind a second-hand bicycle shop ten minutes later.

“You’re crazy,” the barista wheezed.

Abramson ignored the comment. He indicated the Incan Tumi in his partner’s vest pocket. “Payment as promised.”

“Don’t you want half?”

He shook his head. “But be careful who you sell that to. Haffner will be looking for it.”

From out of her pocket, the barista produced a file and began sawing away at a chain locking four bicycles together. She kept looking over her shoulder for oncoming goons.

“What are you going to do with the money?” Abramson inquired. “I suppose you can retire from the weapons game.”

She shrugged. “I’m good at it.”

“You seem to have taken a liking to this barista business.”

“Yeah, right. Maybe I should open a café.”

The howl of police sirens ripped through the night.

“Just tell me this,” the barista said, chain now broken. “You refused to tell me what was in it for you. And now that the job is done, all you’ve taken is a jacket.”

“Not a jacket,” Abramson replied. “Teeth fillings. Gold teeth fillings.”

“Fine. Keep your secrets.”

She mounted one of the bicycles and began pedaling away, but Abramson called her back. He had been dubious about her talents—he didn’t even know her real name—but she had helped pull off the heist. Even though he swore not to tell anyone, he felt he owed her something.

“Did you know that during the war Haffner’s grandfather travelled from camp to camp indexing items confiscated from imprisoned Jews?”

Confusion glazed his partner’s features.

“And if something went missing or not catalogued at all, who would know? Especially if those items belonged to a pair of lowly Polish carnival owners.” He paused before adding, “How do you think the Haffner family got their fortune?”

Her right eyebrow was cocked, but something seemed to register in her eyes. A nod so subtle it might not have been a nod at all. Then, without a backward glance, she pedaled away, silver hair sparkling in the moonlight.

Straddling his own bike, Abramson journeyed along the Spree, the evening stars sailing across the river’s rippling surface.

Up ahead, a homeless man sat upon a stack of newspapers, a sun-scorched accordion wailing sorrowfully between his hands. The music did not agree with the night.

Abramson pulled up alongside him. Rummaging in the inside pocket of the suit jacket, he retrieved Haffner’s ten rings. Nine he gave to the homeless man who shrank into himself, wary of the generosity of someone who appeared in worse shape than himself.

“For something more upbeat.”

The tenth ring—a simple gold band with curlicue carvings—he kept for himself. He breathed deeply, the clean air ballooning his lungs, a stark contrast to the stuffiness of the trunk. His own grandparents had suffered giving up the gold, and he had been prepared to suffer to get it back, regardless of how pathetic his torture was in comparison.

There was no way to know for sure if this exact ring was forged from the material extracted from their molars—even after checking camp archives and consulting with smelters and jewelers there was no guarantee—but he was ready to believe. And anyway, if the gold hadn’t belonged to them, it had been taken from a different family, friend, or neighbor.

To his left, a lone accordion sang the giddy sound of carnival music.

Hope warmed Abramson against the growing nighttime chill. The gold ring, twice stolen, caught the light of the moon as he put it on. After a moment of reflection, he took hold of the bike’s handlebars, satisfied with what he’d accomplished, and continued onward along the Spree, his ancestors caressing his finger all the while.

About the author

Nathaniel Neil Whelan has an M.A. from Carleton University and a diploma in Professional Writing from Algonquin College. He currently works as an Outreach Officer for Carleton International and as a Social Media Editor for the Canadian Museum of Nature. In addition to several other publications, he is the winner of the 54^th Jerry Jazz Musician Short Fiction Contest for his story “A Failed Artist’s Paradise.” Whelan lives in Ottawa with his partner and pet cats Goose and Loki. You can follow him on Twitter: @NathanielWhelan.

About the illustration

The illustration is a self-portrait by Max Beckmann, 1911. In the collection of The Baden-Wuerttemberg State Archive, Baden-Wuerttemberg, Germany. In the public domain.