Cigars

Marie rang the doorbell. It didn't take more than ten seconds for Hans to answer. He must have been standing near the door waiting for them, Werner thought later, because there was no the shuffle-stepped old man could have made it from the living room to the door in ten seconds. 

"So you're the Bursche Marie keeps talking about?" 

"Yes, sir, that's me." Werner said with a smile. He reached out to shake Hans' hand but Hans swatted it away. He raised his hand. 

"Heil Hitler."

"Heil Hitler." Werner answered. Hans eyed him suspiciously, but then seemed to make up his mind. He let his granddaughter and the young man in, closing and locking the door behind them. 

"And you work where?" He asked, as he paraded them through the hallway and to the living room. Even though he was a bit of a hunchback, and he shuffled when he walked, he still radiated a powerful energy. Somewhere under the frail old man was a young and proud veteran. 

"I'm stationed at Auschwitz." Werner responded. Marie cut her grandfather off.

"Please, let's talk about something else." But Hans waved her words away. He shook his head a little bit, Werner couldn't tell if that was a tick or if he was unpleased by the way Marie had acted. 

"Let us talk about what we want to, Marie. So, what's the name again?"

"Killian." 

"That's not a German name." Hans said hostily. They'd reached the living room. Marie tried to assist Hans as he sat down but he pushed her away. "I can do that myself!" He gestured too the couch across from the one he sat on. Werner and Marie took a seat. He kept eying Marie in an angry way, as if he was trying to say; I can still do everything I want by myself, I'm not that old!

"No it's Irish." Werner answered with a smile. "My parents met in Ireland, they fell in love there." He said. What he said hadn't been a lie, but he also hadn't said that they lived there permanently. 

"Irish." Hans repeated. "Marie, get me and this man some cigars." 

"Alright, grandpa." She was about to stand up but Werner held out his arm to keep her seated. 

"Hans, I'm sure you can get them yourself." Werner wasn't trying to be rude, but he didn't like the way Hans treated Marie and he had picked up on Hans being someone who actually liked to do things himself. To feel useful even in his age. 

"Alright, I will." Hans answered. But he didn't sound irritated, maybe a bit surprised, but in a positive way. Werner glanced at Marie, she watched him with pain in her eyes. He slowly walked to the cabinets. He'd had arthirits for years and his joints were as stiff as wood. 

The room was beautiful. The walls were brick, and they weren't painted over in most places, giving the house a story-book way about it. There were tall windows with stained glass, large cabinets with cups and little spoons. There was a picture of Jesus over the fireplace. The slightly smoky aftertaste in the air promised good cigars and tobacco. 

Hans sat back down with a grunt. He opened the package and took out two cigars. "You're going to have to stand up to get it." He said to Werner who smiled and heeded his command. The old man lit the cigar for him. Werner clenched it between his teeth. Cigars are there to puff, not to inhale, Werner was glad he knew that. He returned to sit back down next to Marie. She looked a bit embarrased but at the same time interrested. She couldn't tell where this was going even though she could usually asses situations well, especially if they involved her grandfather and smoking. 

"So you're in Auschwitz?"

"Yes."

"Do they have a lot of communists there?" He asked. Werner knew that he'd have to answer these questions well, otherwise he'd end up on the street. He took a puff of the cigar before answering. 

"Currently they do, yes. But in the future they'll be more jews than anything else."

"You think so?"

"I know so." Werner answered. He shrugged and exhaled another breath of smoke. It curled through the air, eventually mixing with the oxygen and the other components of our atmosphere, making it dissapear. 

"Do you like your position?"

"I do, yes. I don't work with the workers, I work with the doctors."

"You're a doctor?"

"I'm only an assistant."

"Good, I hate doctors. They told me to stop smoking and drinking brandy, two things I won't even stop after I died.

"Life is too short to not enjoy it." Werner agreed with a hazy smile. 

"You must be a smart boy." Marie's grandfather said. "You seem to be one, and more importantly, Marie doesn't date men who aren't smart."

"Grandpa we aren't-."

"Yes you are. I see the way you look at him. I'm old but I'm not blind!" Hans snapped. Werner's grandfather was grumpy as well, but nothing like this old german. "And don't interrupt our conversation, Marie. I can't remember where we were." 

Werner studied Hans. He was shortish, but that could have just been the hunchback. He was clearly a sick man, because only men who are going to die act like he did. He was obviously also a smart man, if not a bit forgetfull with age, but he also seemed like the kind of man who, once he'd decided to like something, would refuse to see the downsides. 

"We were talking about Auschwitz, cigars and what a charming young man I am." He added the last part to make Marie laugh, which she did. Grandpa narrowed his eyes at them, were they making fun of him? But he decided to ignore it. 

"Did you ever fight at the front?"

"No. I never did. But honestly, Auschwitz is as much a front of this war as the Western front is." Werner said slowly. He was right; this was the place where war crimes shot up in numbers; the curve rising exponentially. Auschwitz was the place where nazi-ideology was realized, where Hitler had the most to say, the strange place between the world as it might be if he won and the world as it still was. 

"Do you think we'll win this war, Killian."

"Yes, yes I do." He responded with a smile. "Otherwise we'd have died for nothing, right?"