The Barefoot Evangelist (Book; Part VIII)

 

Life’s Elements

 

“I may not be there now, but the elements are here. They may be in a different form, shapes and color but they are here and will continue to be here and they will continue their fight with me until I lose,” returned Erik, with some melancholic tone in his voice. “They never lose.”                                                                                                                               This time he didn’t stop to listen for a comment from the young lady, because he was talking to himself.

After a short rest, Erik went on to tell her that he began to walk half heartily and with mechanical steps along the river side, looking for a place to cross over and to continue his mission without knowing his destiny. He walked on until he felt that his face had lost its natural color and his eyes had sunken in from fatigue, hunger and stress knowing that he was in enemy territory. All those feelings, mental and physical hung heavily upon his body.

 

“After two hours of struggling, I saw a small wooden bridge in the distance ahead and applying my last ounce of courage and strength, I rushed and crossed it and landed on the friendly side. I rested there for a little while.

Erik went on to say that he eventually fell asleep. By mid afternoon he was

sufficiently recovered and opening his eyes he saw two men in suits and neckties standing in front of him and looking down with rather serious faces. At first, he went on to say, he tilted his head side ways pretending to be ill and exhausted. It seemed unnatural for men wearing suits and ties in that out of the way place. The fact is that Erik had never acted upon anything else but impulse all through his life, that was not bad for the kind of work he was to do. He then jumped up and grabbed one of the men by the neck and gave him a hearty shake until the other man coming to his partner’s aid locked his arms around Erik’s body pulled him without uttering a word. Erik twisted himself dexterously from the grasp, growled forth a volley of horrid oaths stood back and stared at both men as if in excess of amazement and indignation.

Seeing the anger on Erik’s face the man he had grabbed was the first to talk.

‘Take it easy lieutenant, we’re friends. We are military police. We have been assigned to monitor you and Gottner ever since you crossed from Czechoslovakia into Germany.’ “Hearing that pleasant news, I went and sat by the tree trunk, leaned my back on it, looked at both of them in surveying manner without saying a good or bad word. Suddenly I broke into a loud laugh that lasted enough time for them to find a place and sit. Once his makeshift laugh subsided, he stoop up and order the two police to get on their feet and stand at attention, which was done in a military manner. He said he walked around them and inspected them like a drill sergeant.

“You mean to tell me that you were more or less our protectors?”

They both nodded in assent with a smile of relief on both faces.

“Well, brave men of the army, let me inform you that you did a lousy job. You fell back about fifty miles and at least ten ours late,” said Erik to them.

“They asked me to allow them to explain. They began to tell me that they were monitoring our activities because they had a suspicion backed by intelligence report that Gottner was selling information to the Russians. It couldn’t have been important information, I thought, because he was in the same category as I was and we knew very little about the army activities, not enough to make any valuable sense to the Russians. Their monitoring, they went on to say, was disrupted by the commotion that took place in the guesthouse and they fell behind. They had fallen miles behind and many hours.

Information came down to us that Gottner had accepted $5,000.00 from the Russians to turn over to them an American military officer for the Russians to exchange with the Americans for two Russian officers who were captured and held in a military prison in Frankfurt. I wasn’t the target, any officer from our reconnaissance group would have done it,as long as could be referred as a spy like the Russian officers were. I suppose I filled the bill.

‘They assigned you to be his partner,’ concluded the man.

“The fall guy, you mean. Tiri titio tiri titio, then eimai pedi manas k’go? Why me, didn’t they think that I have a mother to cry for me?” I asked.

‘The records showed that you were the best for the job,’ replied the same man.

“That is nice to hear, but tell all the generals and the movers and shakers of the army, not to count on me too much longer because at the end of my hitch I am biding them goodbye and I am going home and I will eat hamburgers and French fries for the following sixty days.”

“What happened to the fisherman?” asked the young lady.

“Ah, the fisherman,” returned Erik and paused to think for a moment or two. “It was my understanding that Gottner had mistaken them for Russians, thinking they had the balance but for some reason they refused to turn it over and that is why they were found on the river bank with bullets in their heads and their bodies wet and half of their bodies in the water, the other half on land. It was Gottner who drove them to their death,” said Erik and he quickly continued with his story. “The military men went on to tell me that the incident at the guesthouse was intended to create some kind of commotion for me to be captured by the two Russians who were there, according to their information, with additional $5,000.00,  “Best laid plans of mice and men”, didn’t work out. “Or I think it was Murphy’s law, “Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong”.

“What incident?”

“Right after we crossed the border into Germany we went into a guesthouse and we ordered some hot food. We were finally served food and drinks. It was beer for me and rut-gut cognac for my partner Larry Gottner.

“Long live the king!” said Gottner, in the middle of our meal, raising his glass at eyeball high. Long live the king, as I said before, was our signal to be prepared for battle.

‘Long live the king’ I replied, raising my glass in the same manner as he had done, not knowing what he had in mind.

‘There ain’t no king, stupid, it’s a queen,’ he returned.

“Some of the patrons, mostly men, pretended not to pay much attention to us, but we felt their evil glances upon us.

“The only weapons we carried were our pistols and two hidden hand grenades and some marshal arts training; but we were both experts in using them. I had a sneaky suspicion that there was something not kosher. Gottner called the bartender to come over. The bartender that he had called was abruptly pushed aside by another man who came over and stood in front of Gottner and waited for an order. Gottner asked him something in German which I couldn’t understand and the man shrugged his shoulders negatively. Suddenly, he stood up, looked to his left as if he were trying to spot something, he then turned and hit the man and the man fell on a table and went down with him on top. Some of the patrons hit the floor and the rest stood up. Everything changed in form and in shape. I saw lines of men’s chests with angry faces directed towards me. I heard fists landing on faces, I then realized a small revolution had started. Two or three grabbed Gottner and held him back away from the victim.

“Shoot him! Shoot the bastard! Shoot him, Greek!” yelled Gottner while he was restrained by the small mob of angry patrons. At that time, I saw two men coming my way, holding pistols discretely, but ready to fire. ‘It’s a trap’ I yelled and I jumped behind the bar. I found a small trap door. I raised my head to see Gottner but he evidently had escaped, I thought then, and I crawled out. ‘Let me be calm,’ I said to myself.

Erik went on with his story while the young woman paid the utmost attention. The whole thing, he told her, came about in a way utterly unexpected to his daily thoughts and plans. A strange sense of a strange feeling began to creep into him, but he was too young and reckless to be frightened or indignant at such commotions. If he had known the reason Gottner hit the bartender things might have been a little easier.

“When I came out by the side trap door, I saw him locking hurriedly the front door from the outside. There was a broad flight of few steps and he stood dead still when he saw me at the bottom of the steps. He looked as though his mouth was too dry for him to speak, besides being out of breath. I realized that he was very surprised to see me there. That to me was an exclamation of dismay escaped him when he saw me. What he had thought was not known to me for I didn’t have enough time to think what ever he thought. I regret to say that I just stood there as still as he did. He waited open-mouthed, and breathing hard, while I looked at him for half a minute.

“You promised me that we were going to eat and not drink and leave and go our merry way without creating a problem.” I said scathingly.

‘You said that not I. You said that. You said that and I went along with what you said, but that wasn’t what I had in my head,’he uttered slowly with a sinister meaning. His face was not distorted but some worry and fear escaped his controlled feelings.

‘You didn’t come to my side. Why didn’t you stand up by my side? I told you to shoot the bastard and you didn’t. Why didn’t you? Are you a coward?’

“Why should I kill somebody for no reason at all?” I yelled back.

His whole attitude suddenly changed and he then stepped down and came to where I was standing. It seemed that he had recovered his usual mellow self. He extended his hand to me warmly and he seemed calm with a faint smile of superior knowledge which reduced my anger and I shook it without any meaning.

“Because he was a KGB and wanted me to join him out side,’ Gottner said softly.

I don’t remember if any other words were spoken. Judging by that distorted expression on his face, he looked guilty of some bad action.

Erik, talking about his personal feelings, he said that he ought to have been in astonishment, but he wasn’t. He felt very much like people in fairy tales. Nothing ever astonishes them, scares them or makes them alter their behavior. The two of them started out towards the Interior Germany, away from the border and the place of commotion and the land without emotions.

“Hearing sounds of angry people coming from the inside of the guesthouse and the door rattling to open, we both rushed to the top of a hill,” continued, Erik. “There we sat and watched just for the hell of it.”

“While we were sitting there, away from anybody’s view, watching patrons coming out of the guesthouse rather hastily, evidently heading for home, I was soaking in disappointment for not given enough time to finish my meal. Gottner came up with another brilliant idea. That small coalmining village sat on the east bank of a river. Across the river was the friendlier environment. There were only two ways of going across. One way was by a canoe, that we knew the whereabouts and the other was to cross over on a narrow bridge. Crossing over the narrow bridge was off limits to us, because it was always guarded by two German guards, who, according to our intelligence information, were not kind to American GIs. We decided to cross the bridge and kill the guards, who, according to our intelligence, had killed some American soldiers in the past. Like I said before, my lady, I believe now as I believed then , it is wrong to harm another man for no reason. The agreement that Gottner and I had reached; I was to kill the guard on the right and he was to kill the guards on the left. In our minds we used the excuse of retaliation. The bridge was less than one hundred yards away. We came down from the hill with full intentions of killing them, but I being suddenly hit by the fresh air came back to my senses and I had a change of heart. I had to think fast. I couldn’t tell Gottner that I had changed my mind, because he would think that I was a coward. I stayed back a few paces and I threw a hand grenade on a little dilapidated shack that stood in the back of the guesthouse. Once the hand grenade hit the shack a whole hell broke loose.

Explosion on the hill

 

It was evidently a warehouse for ammunition and it exploded. We both rushed to cross the bridge, still with the clear plan in mind and in heart of killing the guards, but the guards were gone. They had evidently rushed to where the explosion had taken place, and we crossed the bridge undetected.”

“ I shall always remember, from the fury I read in Gottner’s eyes when he was locking the door from the outside, he felt betrayed and he was determined to blow up the guesthouse with everybody in it. That thought didn’t occur to me then but I realized that way later,” said Erik and stopped as if to have think his next sentence.

“From there we continue on and that is when he said that he wanted to kill somebody just to watch him dying. Gottner is a killer, ” he said mumbling his last sentence.

“Is a killer?” she asked. “You are speaking as if he is still alive.”

 

Jake and his gang

At that moment Erik’s eyes caught a glimpse of Jake, “I know why I hate the bastard,” said Erik with some anger and some fear in his voice and his glance as he looked around him as if he were searching for an exit.

“I know why. My God, now I know why I hate the bastard.” He stopped for a moment, placed his hands on the bar and rested his forehead on his hands and mumbled.

“I know why I hate this big obnoxious creature who is standing behind me.”

“You are talking about Jake, aren’t you? I know why you hate him; it is because he probably reminds you of Gottner,”

“No, miss, Jake doesn’t remind me of Gottner. Now I know why I should have done away with him. I Should have killed him when he told me that he was looking to kill somebody just to watch him dying; but I will do it now.”

The last remark he made was so inaudible the young woman could not make it out, but Even if she have heard it clearly, it wouldn’t had made much sense to her being touched by his troubling emotions and comprehending a struggle in Erik’s head, she placed her hand on his shoulder. Feeling no response from him, she slowly withdrew it.

“Jesus, what ever your name is, what are you talking about? What is your problem, man? Snap out of it.” She made that insolent remark in the hopes of snapping him out of that mood. Somehow she thought that he was speaking of Jake.

“Do you think it’s right every time you meet somebody you don’t like, to kill him?” asked the young woman with some indignation.

“No, but I later on realized that Gottner was up to something no good and I am confessing to you by telling you that I should have killed Gottner the moment he indicated to me that he wished to kill me. I had a notion, almost like a hunch as I now have about Jake.”

“My lord! I told you to forget this man Jake, he is bad news.” uttered the woman astonishingly.

“You see, you do not know the whole story,” replied Erik, lifting his had and looking at her softly.

“What story?” she returned rather indignantly, “The army story, your wife’s story, your Jesus story? I heard them all and none of them justifies a killing.”

“You don’t know the whole story,” he repeated in the same calm manner.

“Let me hear the whole story then,” said the young woman, with more indignation now.

“This man Jake,” said Erik, speaking softly, but with great vehemence not withstanding, “is Gottner.”

The young woman bewildered looked at Erik and then at Jake, who was standing nearby and still involved in his usual style of amusement; and then she brought her eyes back at Erik. She gazed at him with the face that showed nothing but a mixture of fear and perplexity. She could honestly certify that Erik was about to place his life in a considerable danger.

“It might be that Jake is just reminding you of Gottner,” pleaded the young woman.

“No, Miss, Jake doesn’t remind me of Gottner, I told you; he is Gottner.”

“Hey, Irish.” They both heard Jake, calling somebody over the crowd, “Hey Irish, come here!”

That sound of shouting words passed by the young woman without ever been thought of because her mind was toiling with Erik’s statement, but Erik became visibly alarmed, if not angry.

“You mean to tell me that it was Jake who wanted to kill you and killed the three fishermen?” asked the young woman.

“It is Gottner who wanted to kill me, but he didn’t have the guts and left me there to die. He was the one who started the boat and stirred it towards the waterfall and he jumped out. It was Gottner and Jake is Gottner. His body was never found. I knew it, I knew it. I knew that he was still alive,” Erik returned, shaking his head solemnly.

“Are you trying to tell me that Jake is Gottner or he is like Gottner? I am asking the same question over and over again in the hopes of hearing a different answer,” the young woman stated.

“It is more than twenty five years ago and he has changed, like we all do, but his attitude and gestures stayed the same. I will not probably be able to prove that it is he, so I must invent something to get him angry to come to me. Look, where my merciless Lady Luck has brought me. Of all the beer joints, saloons and taverns in New Jersey, she brought me to somebody that I hadn’t forgotten but had given up of finding him. She brought me to the one I must confront and kill or he kills me. Did you hear him calling somebody by his ethnic ancestry?”

She nodded in assent.

“That is his style. That was Gottner’s style,” returned Erik.

“But many men call others by their ethnic ancestry.”

“I know; I know,” answered Erik, with rueful face. “If he were in the middle of dozen [C1] d[C2] evils, and looked like them in every way, I would have recognized him and I [C3] would be willing to march into hell to get to him.”

“There are traces of anger or regret in your heart. I don’t know if it’s a regret for not killing Gottner or what,” said the young woman. “You cannot be angry with yourself for what he did. He is the one who killed the fishermen,” pleaded the young woman, with an exclamation of a low cry, knowing she was now in a situation that it was human being with which she had to deal with and he could go out of control and ruin many lives. “At least you are still alive.”