Panzerfaust

Chapter 38 - An invitation, once again

September 10th, 1945, Schönau am Königsee, Bayern, Greater German Reich

'Du hast ein Blätter, Oti.'

Sturmbannführer Otto Skorzeny turns to his wife's voice from his sitting place on the veranda of the Hütte, taking his lingering eyes off the Brechtesgaden Alps to his stepson's tiny stature. A little wobbly in on his feet, but with determination in his eyes, Armin von Fölkersam is holding a fallen leaf in his tiny palm towards him, big blue eyes - bluer than the glacier lake stretching across their view - waiting for his reaction.

'Vielen Dank, Herr Fölkersam.' 

He takes the leaf carefully from the child's open hand, observing it as if the toddler handed him an ancient papyrus from Egypt. 

'Why did you chose this one?' 

Armin opens his little mouth - showing off a set of baby teeth, then closes it - not too eager with words yet. 

'Do you like its colour? How it's different than the rest of the leaves?' 

The boy nods, smiling and Otto acknowledges with satisfaction that his tiny stepson knows words, he just does not feels like saying them out loud now. 

'By the time we go home from here, you will have an entire garden of trees for yourself. That sounds good, doesn't it?'

The villa in Charlottenburg was almost ready; only the rest of the forniture is getting arranged right now while the Skorzeny family takes a little well deserved vacation in Bavaria, under the early autumn sun and the fresh alpine air in their lungs.

'Will you share your garden with me, Armin?' Sophia Skorzeny looks up from her sketchbook across them on a plush armchair. 'I like trees too.'

Armin traps to his stepmom giggling, climbing up the pillows placed to keep Sophia's legs comfortable, to lay his dark haired head on her bulging belly. Kissing the toddler's head, his wife rocks the child in her arms, cooing.

'What are laughing about to your sister, hmm? 

While Otto always called Armin his stepson, Sophia dropped the adjective entirely; the boy was hers now; her baby boy and their baby's big brother. 

'One day we'll have to tell him, you know. Sooner than you'll expect; he'll look you straight in the eye and ask why his surname isn't the same as yours and mine and our children's. What are you going to say him then?'

'The truth, Otto, I'll tell him the truth. What good did it do for our marriage when you started hiding the truth from me because you felt like I won't be able to deal with it? If you forgot; let me remind you, me hurling things against your head demanding divorce. Truth is the only good way. Armin might not be my blood, but he is my son.'

Their domestic bliss is broken by someone clearing their throat; Otto spots Klaus Müller by the steps of the veranda.

'Entschuldigung, Sturmbannführer but there's a government car coming up the hill towards here.'

His wife turns her gaze to his and he sees the fear in the cat-green eyes ignite with a flame in them. I never wanted her to know that fear. 

'Alone?' Otto asks the Bursche, stroking a finger over his lips.

'No sir, it's flanked with two other Kübelwagen.'

'Get inside.' Standing up, he pulls the toddler and his wife to their feet.