Manhunt. Volume 9, Number 1, February 1961

Vengeance by Robert Page Jones

Heinrich Fischer glanced into the window of the delicatessen and gasped. There, behind the hanging rows of meat-stuffed intestines and sausage, like prison bars, appeared a face. Bloated, smooth, full-lipped, innocent looking... it was Haller.

He was a man distinguished only by his plainness, thin almost to emaciation, jostled along by the last-minute stampede of Christmas shoppers. Stringy arms clutched a battered, handleless violin case against his chest. He came up out of the subway in the West Side tenement section. It was snowing. It had been snowing all day and the slush was heaped in dirty mounds on the pavement.

In the middle of a long block he stopped, waited for a break in the traffic, and crossed. He hissed at a growling dog that darted out to snap at his heels. He did not like dogs. They were vile things that ate perfectly good food without so much as a snicker of appreciation.

He stared down at the pounded slush as he walked, chin thrust forward, shoulders stooped from too many years of sleeping in a cramped wooden cubicle. In front of Liebermann’s Delicatessen and Grocery he stopped again. He stood on the patch of wet sidewalk under the awning where the snow hadn’t reached and examined the merchandise in the window. It was a ritual with him. He had stopped in front of Liebermann’s on nearly every week-night for the past fifteen years. Tonight there was a new display; shiny tins of potted meat and Christmas cakes from the Old Country. He thought briefly about buying one of the tins of meat but changed his mind. The price, scribbled on a sign atop the pyramid Liebermann had painstakingly built in the window, was exorbitant. There was no money to spare. It was always this way at Christmas. Nobody wanted music lessons. After the holidays, when the children had new instruments, things would be better.

He stamped the loose snow from his shoes. Perhaps some sausage. He could afford that. His gaze shifted to the rows of meat-stuffed intestines hung from bloody hooks in the ceiling. Something happened. In his mind the sausages suddenly became metal bars, partially obscuring a bloated face, smooth and perspiring with a full-lipped pink mouth, innocent looking, smiling.

He felt a cold twist in his heart. A quick squeeze. He did not understand. The hated image had never come on him in just this way. Never so suddenly. He closed his eyes.

It was Haller’s face.

The image, like a searing knife-blade in the brain, branded there the washed-out blue eyes and mocking smile and sensuous lips. For a moment he stood there, fighting the rising tide of hate that for so long had eaten away at his mind, blotting out everything else. Things would be different if he could forget. But he could not. He swallowed, his mind burning as the familiar features wavered and changed shape before him, becoming a series of jagged slashes inflicted by an imaginary knife until the red gore ran together into one sickly wound that trickled blood down inside his pounding chest.

A man lurched out of the doorway, jostled him, his galoshes leaving a trail of dark pockmarks as he trudged off through the snow. The thin man opened his eyes. He blinked. The image was gone, replaced by the reflection of his own vacant face, the weak chin and thin lips a pale smear against the dark upturned collar of his coat. He stared at the reflection, feeling sorry for himself. The odor of fresh-baked bread lingered in his nostrils. He hugged the violin case closer to his chest, sneezed, dropped his gaze to the fingerless left hand protruding from a threadbare sleeve.

With a barely discernable shrug, he turned, choking back the bitterness in him as he trudged two more blocks on Sixth Street to his room.

His name was Heinrich Fischer. He was born in Germany in the early twenties, a remarkably-gifted child, who at the age of seven was studying music under his Jewish father at the Akademie in Munich. At eleven he played before royalty at the Opera House in Salzburg. It was the following year that the pogroms started. Heinrich’s parents were put into a concentration camp, but they managed to leave him with friends who still had some influence with the Nazis. He stayed on at the Akademie, even after he heard that his father and mother were dead, until one day they came for him too. He was sent to a camp a few miles outside of Munich where he miraculously survived the war. But his health was broken. Afterwards, he wrote to friends who had escaped to America before the war. They helped him get to New York where he was able to make a meager living teaching young people to play the violin.

It was on Thursday, three days later, that Fischer saw the face clearly again. The snow had changed to a chilling rain. He stood under the faded canopy in front of Liebermann’s, peering silently into the dimly-lighted window, like a bundle of wetwash waiting to be spun dry. Today it was smoked herring, spilling out of a wicker basket into the window, and at a price!

He was about to go inside and buy one of the fish, when he saw the face, bobbing back and forth behind the sausages like a demented child’s painted balloon. Something in his stomach went suddenly berserk. His throat went dry. He knew this time that the face was no terrible invention of his tortured mind. It was impossible — but he saw the face with his own eyes. His eyes did not lie.

He moved closer to the grimy window. There was no mistake. The face belonged to Erich Haller, the man he hated more than the stench of death.

It was too good to be true. Haller! Here! In America!

For a moment he could not move. He just stood there, his heart sending a pounding rush of blood through his system, uncertain of what he should do. He sidestepped awkwardly as Haller came out of the store, pudgy arms struggling with brown-wrapped packages. Their eyes met, and for an instant Fischer thought that he saw a flicker of recognition in the other’s gaze, but he was not sure.

Lurching crazily, like a man with too much whiskey in him, he hurried into the store. The end of the violin case caught a stack of cereal boxes, nearly toppling them.

“That man—” he said coarsely. His tongue flopped.

“Heinrich!” Liebermann’s greeting was husky and warm. He stopped what he was doing and wiped big hands on a soiled apron. “You saw the herring, eh? You know, you’re my best customer for herring, Heinrich. Every time there is herring I know you will come into the store to buy some. For you, I have saved a nice prize. A beautiful fish, believe me. And such a price, eh?”

“That man.” Fischer repeated the words, his eyes wide, his mouth working. “Don’t you know who that is?”

“What man, Heinrich?” He looked puzzled.

“The one who was just here,” Fischer shouted. “I tell you, I saw him with my own eyes.”

“Of course.” Liebermann looked at him peculiarly. “His name is Schulze. Karl Schulze. He is just over from the Old Country.”

“Schulze? He told you his name is Schulze?”

“Yes. Why should he tell me anything else?” Liebermann got out the herring, tore off a piece of brown wrapping paper, put the fish on it. “Don’t tell me you know Schulze from the Old Country. It’s a small world, eh, Heinrich?”

“Yes. Yes. A small world.” His voice rose. He felt a little ill. “Quickly. Tell me where he lives.”

“Schulze?”

“Haller! I tell you, his name is Haller.” He held his fingerless left hand for Liebermann to see. “I could never forget the man who did this to me.”

Liebermann looked at him. “Perhaps he only looks like the man. It’s been a long time, Heinrich. People change. Tell me — have you ever seen such a herring, eh?”

Fool. Fischer did not wait to argue. He ran back out onto the street. The rain was coming down. There were not many people. He saw Haller crossing the street at the end of the block. He hurried after him. He had been a fool to waste time talking with Liebermann. Because of the stupid delay, Haller might disappear again from the face of the earth, just as he had disappeared during those frenzied days following the war.

Fischer quickened his pace, vaguely conscious of the rough brick fronts of the buildings sliding past, his feet making crunching sounds in the snow. The slush had become icy. His breath came in short gasps. There was a wild thumping in his chest and he knew that the pain there was caused by the cold air rushing into his lungs. He suddenly lost sight of Haller’s broad back as a bus spewed people onto the sidewalk between them. He lunged forward, bumping a woman carrying an umbrella, ignored her exclamation of disgust.

He broke through the crowd, scanning the sidewalk ahead through burning eyes. He stopped. He was in the middle of a long block. He squeezed his eyes shut and opened them again, feeling himself slipping into a delirium of hopelessness.

There was no sign of life along the street.

He stood there, the rain falling on him. He was dimly aware of the wetness. He thought, can this be some terrible trick of my mind? Is it possible? No! It is him. I know it. He has only gone into one of the buildings.

He shuffled quickly past the clouded store fronts — a cleaners with the word CLOSED FOR XMAS soap-smeared across grimy glass, greasy spoon cafes, a barber shop with empty chairs — seeing nothing. At the corner, he paused, getting his bearings. He was about to continue up Sixth Street when he spotted Haller, hanging close to the cheap apartment buildings on Trimble Street, pressing in out of the rain.

“Erich Haller. Stop! Butcher!” His voice was little more than a womanish screech, unintelligible. He turned the corner, staggered rubber-kneed along Trimble Street, narrowing the gap between them.

He was about to call again, when suddenly Haller dropped to one knee, as if struck by a bullet. Fischer squeezed his eyes again. They did not seem to focus right. He saw Haller pick up an object from the sidewalk, one of the packages probably, and disappear through the entrance to a rundown brick house near the end of the block.

When Fischer reached the spot, he paused at the bottom of a short flight of steps. A cardboard sign tacked to one of the pillars supporting the delapidated porch said FURNISHED ROOMS. His knees nearly buckled as he climbed the steps. He tried the door. It was locked. A faded Christmas wreath hung there from a nail. Frantically, he pounded against the frosted-glass panel in the door, a soundless scream building in his throat.

There was the sound of a chain being slid into place and he felt a shudder go through him. He stepped back a pace. He wondered what Haller would do when they suddenly came face to face.

The door opened. It stretched taut the length of chain, leaving an opening five or six inches wide. A woman’s face appeared at the opening. The skin on her face looked like a thin layer of wax. She was shoddy and cheap. There was a patch of rouge on each cheek. She looked at him suspiciously through slitted eyes. “You trying to break the glass?”

“Haller,” Fischer said breathlessly. “You will only get into trouble if you hide him. I saw—”

“What do you want?”

“Erich Haller. I told you. I know he is here.”

The face became frightened. She tried to look past him. “There’s some mistake. There’s no Haller here.”

“You’re lying! Why do you lie?”

“Please,” she said nervously. “If you don’t go away I’ll have to call the police.”

“Liar!” With his right hand he reached for her throat, cursing, a horrible tremor in his voice. He was nearly blind with passion and fury. “Liar! Liar! Liar!”

She tried to close the door with his arm still in the opening, pinning him there, sending pain reverberating into his system. He wondered if the bone had been broken. With a sudden jerk, he pulled the arm free, felt the sting of tearing flesh. The door closed. He thought how odd it was that a ribbon hanging from the wreath had the words Seasons Greetings. His thumb was cut. Blood dripped in small drops onto the porch.

He stood there, staring intently at the door, his face vacant. He perspired. His head ached.

“Crazy. Crazy!” The woman’s high-pitched scream came clearly through the frosted glass. “I’ll call the police.”

The police. Of course. This was America. In America, he could go to the police for help.

Hurriedly, Fischer left the porch and walked one block back to Sixth Street where he found the beat cop, a smiling, heavy-shouldered young man with a wide jaw faintly corded with muscle, standing under a canopy out of the rain.

“Come with me,” Fischer said, gesturing. “Hurry.”

“What was that?”

“Why do you stand there?” Fischer said, the words tumbling from quivering lips. “You must come with me. I will show you where a criminal is hiding.”

“Criminal?” The smile faded from the policeman’s face, his eyes darkened. “What criminal? What did he do?”

“His name is Erich Haller.”

“Haller?”

“Yes. At first I thought he was some trick my mind was playing. But I followed him. You’ll see.”

“Slow down, buddy. You ain’t making much sense.” The policeman’s eyes shifted, watched a drop of Fischer’s blood splatter on the sidewalk. He became conscious of the chill in the air. The policeman had seen a lot of things, terrible things, but that single drop of blood made him shiver. He said, “Maybe we’d better go down to headquarters. They’ll want to hear about this Haller guy.”

Fischer’s face changed. “There’s no time for that.”

“There’s time.” The policeman looked at him piercingly.

“No!” Fischer backed away. “You don’t believe me.”

“Sure I believe you.” He smiled. “Come on, now.”

Fischer could think of only one thing to do. He moved suddenly, lowering the violin case like a battering ram, slammed it into the policeman’s groin. The policeman groaned, stared at him as if dazed, fell toward on his knees. He ran, swung down a side street, knees thumping hollowly against the violin case clutched awkwardly against his chest. Sweat stung his eyes and he could not get enough air into his lungs. He came to another corner and tried to make the turn too fast. He went down, slamming heavily against the packed snow. The violin case slithered out in front of him. Grit ripped into the flesh of his palm and he stifled a cry as a sharp object wrenched at his knee. He rolled against one shoulder to stop his forward momentum, came to his feet, stumbled against a wall. He picked up the violin case, forcing his weight on the leg with the hurt knee, and almost went down again.

A man detached himself from the shadows of a doorway and came toward him. “You okay, buddy?”

“Yes. Thank you.” He brushed the snow from his coat, glancing behind him.

The subway entrance was just a few steps ahead of him. He would be safe there. He fumbled through his pockets at the ticket booth, grabbed his change as a train thundered into the station, fell in with the jostling crowd that poured through the turnstile. When he glanced over his shoulder he felt a quick squeeze in his heart. The policeman stood at the turnstile. Finally he was inside the car. He took a seat near the window. He could see the policeman, running toward him. Why don’t the doors close, he thought. What are they waiting for? Everyone is ready. Everyone is sitting here. Why don’t they close?

He shut his eyes. When he opened them again, the train was moving. The car was crowded and most of the seats were occupied. A young girl sat opposite him. She had blue eyes and long, yellow hair.

She put out a small hand and said graciously, “Is that your violin?”

“Yes.”

“Will you play it for me?”

“No. I used to play. Now I only teach young people to play — like you.”

“Will you teach me to play?”

“It is very difficult.”

“I would work very hard.”

“Would you?”

“Oh, yes.” She clapped the tiny hands together.

“Then I will teach you.” He wrote his address on a scrap of paper and gave it to her. “Here. Tell your mother that you are going to become a great virtuoso on the violin.”

The train came out onto an elevated. As he looked into the blue eyes, a scene long lost of some happier time in his boyhood flashed across his mind, vanished as the train lurched to a stop. People came into the car. Rain slashed against the windows. He put his head back. The trembling in his chest had stopped. He relaxed. There no longer was any element of doubt in his mind. Now he knew. He could kill a man. There was a look of sadness on his face. He looked out of the window, thinking how odd it was that it should be raining now.

During Fischer’s third year at the camp, on the morning of the first seasonal rain, he had been dragged from his damp cubicle and sent to the cookhouse. Normally the work of cleaning pots and pans was done out of doors, in the prison compound, but because of the rain Fischer was allowed inside. He worked next to a table where Haller, the fat Nazi cook, stood dicing potatoes and tossing them into a watery slop. Fischer’s eyes took in the small pieces of batter that clung like snails to the damp table legs. A shudder ran through him. Perhaps it was the rain, but he knew that the day would be a long one. He wondered what game he might play to occupy his mind, to help pass the time, and his eyes went to the mound of potatoes. Of course! He would steal one. Not that he would actually take one of the potatoes — the risk was absurd — but, if he put himself on a rigid schedule, he might spend the remainder of the day planning such an offense. The important thing was that he devise a game to occupy his mind. Lethargy was a luxury that could destroy him, turning his brain into a spongy waste. He began to plan. Rank, greasy water was splashed over the front of his shirt, and soon he would exude a sour odor. If he were able to slip one of the potatoes into his shirt, a cursory search by the guards might fail to detect it. The plan had a certain amount of appeal. Its daring amused him. By noon the thought had risen in his mind, dashing out of control, until he realized that he would actually test its soundness. His brain had become fogged with the enormity of what he was about to do. He waited until Haller’s back was turned. Then, carefully, he inched his left hand toward the table. His fingers closed around a gritty potato. It was done! He was about to snatch the prize away when he felt Haller’s knife crush through his knuckles. He screamed. The crack of bone came to him like the familiar sound of snapping violin strings. After what seemed like a long time, he got to his feet and stumbled dazedly out of the cook-house into the prison compound, the sound of Haller’s oily chuckle ringing in his ears.

Fischer walked along slowly. He had been walking aimlessly for an hour. Down one street, across at the intersection, up the next street. There was still plenty of time. He carried the violin case and a small package of liverwurst, a special treat, he had purchased at Liebermann’s.

At exactly four forty-five he turned onto Trimble Street. He was only vaguely aware of the cab that cruised slowly past him looking for a fare, of an old man with newspapers under his arm, of a cat that watched him from the warmth of a porch chair. He stopped a few yards down from the familiar brownstone and looked around him wearily. The rain had stopped during the night, but it was colder now, and the snow had frozen into ice underfoot.

He pulled the threadbare collar around his throat. In a few moments, he knew, a green-and-white car would turn the corner and come toward him down the street. He knew because he had made his plans carefully. After the first full shock of deciding to snuff out a life had passed, after the sweating and the momentary panic were gone, there remained only the work to be done. It was unpleasant work. There were tedious details to be attended to. The hours of standing in chilly doorways as he observed the comings and goings of the people who lived in the brownstone on Trimble Street. The purchase at the hardware store. The stop at Liebermann’s.

He began walking again as the green-and-white car passed him and pulled to the curb in front of the brownstone. A girl got out and ran up the steps to the porch. He followed her slowly, gripping the railing, stood stamping the wet snow from his shoes as she fitted her key in the lock. He coughed. The wreath with the words Seasons Greetings was still on the door. He began humming to himself, tunelessly, waiting.

The girl seemed to be having difficulty with the lock.

“Here. Let me,” he said, putting the violin case at his feet. He opened the door, stood back and motioned for her to preceed him, a smile on his face.

“Thank you,” she said. She went inside and he heard the sound of her small feet on the stairs.

Inside it was very dim and cold. There was not much air. He squinted at a row of names under the dusty mailboxes in the hall. Brown. Mulhern. Schulze! His feet moved noiselessly over the worn carpet that ran down the hall to the flight of rickety stairs. He took the stairs slowly, right hand on the railing, with only the sound of the floorboards creaking under his weight.

Haller’s apartment was in the front, overlooking the street. The lock was no problem. He had learned about locks in the concentration camp. There was only one room. It was small, cramped; the walls squeezing in like a giant vice. For a moment Fischer felt like turning and running out. He thought how odd it was that the pitiful, fishy-smelling cubicle was so much like the pitiful, fishy-smelling cubicles of the concentration camp.

Fischer pulled back the curtain that draped the window. The curtain rings made a whining noise. A fly started across one of the panes of glass, hesitated, as if it were not sure of where it wanted to go. Fischer watched the fly, listening to the sound of the traffic in the street. He closed his eyes and the familiar image came to him clearly. He wondered what Haller would do when he returned home to find this skeleton in his room. Smiling, he placed the tip of one finger over the fly and pressed it against the glass.

He was still standing there, when he saw Haller down the street, a lopsided figure, one shoulder down, hurrying along toward the brownstone. Fischer wondered if Haller had come to America to accept a job as a cook. Perhaps he was the chef at one of the big downtown hotels.

He slid the curtains closed, casting deep shadows in the room, and fished the potato from the pocket of his coat. It was not a very large potato. He had wanted a bigger one, round and temptingly fat, but it would do; besides, Liebermann had thrown it in with the liverwurst, free of charge.

Quickly, he unfastened the clasps on the violin case, and removed the heavy, flat-honed meat chopper he had purchased at the hardware store. He put the package of liverwurst in the violin case and slid the case beneath the bed. He placed the potato carefully in the center of the sagging, wooden-topped dresser, opened the door to the closet and slipped behind it just as Haller came into the room.

From his hiding place he could see the potato clearly, illuminated by a soft shaft of light from the hall, no more than an arm’s length away.

Haller did not close the door. He seemed to be standing still. Fischer could almost place him by the rasp of the other man’s breathing. He knew somehow that Haller was staring at the potato, puzzled, perhaps disturbed by some half-forgotten recollection.

Fischer wanted to cough, but he did not, sucking air into his mouth and down into his pounding chest. He wondered how long it would be before Haller’s curiosity made him reach for the potato. He raised the chopper slowly over his head. There was a faint crinkling of the flesh around his eyes and the corners of his mouth pulled into the beginnings of a smile.