Panzerfaust

Chapter 17 - Reunion

October 16th, 1944, Vienna, Greater German Reich

They roll into Vienna by late forenoon, when the silver morning light graces the old rooftops, making them shimmer with a faint glow among thousands of fuming chimneys in the chilly autumn weather. The Imperial Capital stretches before the slowing windows, like a beautiful woman in her lover's bed, revealing all her hidden treasures for the eyes of those who knew where to look. Sophie's head is on a pillow next to his lap, flipping through a magazine only looking at pictures; there is no way she could read that fast. Macskacicó, pardon, Rozi is sleeping in Otto's cap on his other side. 

'Let's grab breakfast, shall we?' He says standing up, stretching his long legs. 'I know a place near here where they serve the best Wiener Frühstück you will ever taste.'

'I thought we are going to Berlin?' Confusion is evident on her lovely face, shielded by messy blonde tresses.

'We are.' Otto combs through the silky hair with his fingers, pulling her close. 'We are just... stopping by.'

'Alright.' She says with a sigh, sitting up. 'Give me ten minutes to fix myself first.'

The Sturmbannführer bums a cigarette from Burghardt and his boys standing on the platform when Sophia emerges from the train, hair combed and face freshened up, tiny waist wrapped in beige woolen trenchcoat. 

'Shall we?' Kissing her cheek, he links their arms together and she does not recoil from the public proximity, letting him lead her through his city.

The streets of Vienna are paved with culture, the streets of other cities with asphalt. Otto inhales the vienese air through his nostrils, filling his lungs much better than anywhere else in the world. Living in Berlin since the divorce made him appreciate his birthplace even more; in terms of beauty and finery the German capital cannot even compete with the Crownjewel of the Danube. 

The café is just a corner away from the Hauptbahnhof, a cozy little gem by the Südtiroler Platz with discreet waiters and strong aromatic smell of wiener melange in the air; he missed this too; to hear österreichische Deutsch on the street; even if most of the Hungarian elites spoke a version so similar to it. 

'Eggs, sunny side up and melange.' Otto gives the order to the approching waiter after seating Sophia down by a table, remembering how she likes her eggs. 'I'll be right back, Schatzie. Order whatever else you want.' 

'Where are you going?' Why does he keeps giving her chances to escape? 

'You won't even have the time to properly miss me.' 

Otto turns the corner once he exists the building, lighting up a cigarette, hands shaking with nerves. Glancing inside the bistro, he sees Sophia asking an older patron a few seats away for his newspaper; scrolling to the third page in a hurry for foreign news. Oh Kätzchen, you didn't seriously thought an Austrian newspaper will publish anything of what really happened in Budapest?

'My favourite Bruder.' A familiar voice reaches his ear and he turns around in an instant; Alfred Skorzeny was once as tall - if not taller than his younger brother; until a splinter from a faulty engine tore his left leg off from the knee down when he was just twenty years old; now he is limping towards the Sturmbannführer on the busy morning Schelleingasse with his cane knocking harshly on the cobbled stones. His dark Skorzeny hair is lined with silver not from old age, but from a hard life, stubble breaking through his sharp jaw, but otherwise he looks presentable enough.