Apparatus 33 by Lawston Pettymore (bearly read books TXT) 📕

at University, but the only female anyone could see in his life was Halina. Most people thought them siblings, with Nicolaus as the brother who inherited all of life’s beauty and intelligence, leaving none for his crippled, mute sister. The two would meet every few days at a beer hall within walking distance of her khrushchyovka after classes at her trade school. In the same way, they celebrated annually over pitchers of German bocks and pilsners, their adopted birthday, May 1st, the day Zerrissen had dragged them out of the Bunker.

They would begin the ritual by sharing the experiences of the week, inquire after each other’s health, in gentile, but silent signing, at which both were now accomplished. They communicated in this way, safe from prying ears, of poetry, opera, lyrics of protest songs by denounced musicians, movies, hilarious off-color jokes making the rounds, erudite critiques of the incompetent East German government and Marxist system, at which point their conversations would become a flurry of hands, interrupting each other with a slap on the table, pointing, laughing aloud, mystifying and amusing the patrons in the surrounding booths, certain that the mute couple was talking about them, which, in fact, Halina and Nicolaus unabashedly often were.

When the subject of Pyotr’s unresolved disappearance did arise, Nicolaus described a sensation he called his ‘phantom twin’ - the feeling that Pyotr was there, or nearby. Every few weeks, the feeling was so strong that his arm and neck hairs would stand up, which he described as the feeling of dandelion seeds blown on the back of his neck by a draft from nowhere. Nicolaus could not know that each of these phantom moments coincided with the Wermut capsule orbiting on the near side of the Moon during its closest approach with Earth every 27.32 days.

The two became extensions of each other as real siblings do, and if Halina wanted the relationship to go further, she never gave any signal, to the relief of Nicolaus who was not inclined that way towards females in general and valued her more to fill the void left by Pyotr.

Sometimes they would go to his student flat on campus and listen to recordings on tape and vinyl of Negro jazz and other forms of Amerikanische Musik contraband, possession of which could send them both to jail. Evidently, any classmates eavesdropping on these sessions refrained from dropping a dime on the pair, preferring instead to his dropping the phonograph needle on the delicious forbidden music.

On day passes, the two would cross the Checkpoints to admire West Berlin merchandise, and watch movies, especially the affordable matinees from America - a venial middle finger to General Secretary Erich Honecker that was selectively overlooked by the State.

Nicolaus’ absorbed these movies and related magazines, to feed his innate skill with languages. By the time of his graduation, he could speak English with the accent of an East London guttersnipe, or Oxford Lord, or a Texan oilman on vacation, with equal indifference. His plan was to be hired by an embassy or perhaps a Western company as a translator.

But his choice in the matter, such as these things ever are when the State pays for your education, was taken away from him the night he celebrated his graduation for performing an unnatural act, a crime against the State, at a theater in East Berlin known to cater to boys and men interested in that sort of thing. Nicolaus was arrested by the State police while on his knees.

ULF

When informed by the local chapter of the East Berlin Central Committee that he was promoted from mere resident to superintendent of his apartment building, that day became the proudest of Ulf’s life. He was not an educated man, nor, by virtue of birthing complications, was he particularly bright. His mother’s husband, a corporal in the Wehrmacht, had been sent to Stalingrad to fight for the Reich and Fatherland. His platoon was marched directly from their railroad car into combat where he had just raised his rifle in the direction of the Russians when a sniper bullet penetrated his helmet through-and-through. He was dead before his corpse fell on a heap of countless others from both sides and was promptly replaced by another German infantryman just arriving out-of-breath from the train.

A year later, surviving soldiers from the Soviet battalion defending Stalingrad was formed into a platoon and ordered to walk westward, not stopping until they hit Berlin, living off the land along the way. As they crossed the German border, they found themselves on a neglected truck farm, barely two chickens surviving, which Ulf’s mother struggled to maintain on her own.

Still in their teens and knowing nothing but combat since the age of 13, the platoon deployed per their training in military fashion, hunched over in groups of two throughout the farm, using their rifles to turn over buckets and baskets, poking mounds of hay and leaves with bayonets, or tossing grenades where dark or blind corners presented a risk. These Soviet boys had learned the hard way to distrust nooks and crannies.

Just such a precaution had one soldier drop an incendiary grenade down the farm’s one-hole latrine, setting everything below on fire, including significant portions of the shed that covered the hole. This did not matter to the platoon, which had been performing this morning ritual outdoors in ice-covered foxholes for half a decade. The search for deserters, combatants, and anything that could be construed as food or firewood, continued into sheds, barns, lean-tos, and anything resembling a structure.

Finally, at the farmhouse proper, they burst through the front door, expecting a modicum of resistance, finding instead Ulf’s mother cowering in a corner, whimpering in a language they did not understand but recognized as German. What the soldiers did understand was their own hunger, and they helped themselves to the meager pantry of bread and canned beans. They left the baking powder and flour alone but were delighted to find a string of sausages and a tin