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shoot!' he cried, in German - and then repeated himself, in Russian, in English and in some unrecognizable Slavic tongue. 'Don't shoot! Don't shoot! Don't shoot!' He waved the motorcycle boots above his head, conducting his own voice more than he was threatening.

'You have papers?' said Grandfather, in German and the man threw a billfold to him.

'They're not right!' the man cried, in Russian - trying to guess his captors behind the dazzling light.

'You're Siegfried Schmidt?' my grandfather said. 'A special messenger.'

'Up yours, messenger,' said Watzek-Trummer. 'You're too late.'

'No, I'm Javotnik!' said the man on the bed, sticking with Russian - fearing they were only trying to trap him with their German.

'It says Siegfried Schmidt,' my grandfather said.

'Fake!' said my father. 'I'm Vratno, Vratno Schmidt,' he mumbled. Then he said, 'No, Javotnik.'

'Siegfried Javotnik?' Watzek-Trummer asked. 'Where'd you get your dirty Wehrmacht suit?'

And my father fell to ranting in Serbo-Croat; those in the doorway puzzled at him. My father chanted:

Bolje rob nego grob!

Better a slave than a grave!

'Yugoslav?' said Grandfather, but Vratno didn't hear him; he bundled on the knifed mattress, and Grandfather walked in the room and sat beside him on the bed. 'Come on, now,' Grandfather said. 'Take it easy.'

And then Watzek-Trummer asked, 'Which army are you hiding from?'

'All of them,' my father said, in German - then in English, then in Russian, then in Serbo-Croat. 'All of them, all of them, all of them.'

'War paranoid,' announced Watzek-Trummer, who'd read and remembered a number of things from Grandfather's overdue books.

So they went back to the taxi for their food and clothes, and got water from the inner courtyard well pump behind the main lobby. Then they fed and washed my father and dressed him in one of Watzek-Trummer's nightshirts. Watzek-Trummer slept in the taxi, keeping a wary guard; Hilke and my grandmother slept in the master bedroom, and Grandfather watched over the war paranoid in Hilke's old bed. Until three or four a.m., 10 July 1945, when my mother came to relieve Grandfather at his watch.

Three or four a.m., it was - very scarce predawn light and a light rain, Watzek-Trummer remembered, sleeping in the taxi. Three or four a.m., and Hilke, covering my father's sleeping beard with her hand, notices his forehead is somewhat the age of what she imagines Zahn Glanz's forehead to be - noticed how his hands were young too. And Vratno, waking once and bolting upright in my mother's old, knifed bed, saw a slim, sad-mouthed girl - more the green stem than the flower - and said, 'Dabrinka! I told that foolish Wut it would have to be you who wasn't blown up.' in German, in English, in Russian, in Serbo-Croat.

Limiting herself to one language, Hilke said in German, 'Oh, you're all right now. You're safe here, hush. You're back, you - whoever.' And gently shoved my father back down on her bed on his back, and lay over him herself - it being a damp, chilly, light-rainy night for both their summer nightshirts.

Many languages were whispered; though the rain was light, it lasted long, and many drops fell. Tireless Ernst Watzek-Trummer, sleeping light as the rain, remembers the rustling on the old, knifed bed that sent me giddily on my long way into this scary world. In very scarce predawn light. With a light rain falling. At three or four a.m., 10 July 1945, when Ernst Watzek-Trummer was sleeping unusually light.

Old Watzek-Trummer, historian without equal, has kept track of the details.

The Eighteenth Zoo Watch: Tuesday, 6 June 1967, @ 6.00 a.m.

THE RARELY DISEASED binturong is coughing; the shambling bearcat of Borneo, suffering from his peculiar, unnamable disorder.

And O. Schrutt is waiting to be relieved of his command. His own unmarketable narcotics have finally soothed him. It's peaceful in the Small Mammal House, the infrared is off, and a lazy, docile-appearing O. Schrutt is greeting the dawn with a cigarette - puffed like a luxury cigar. I see great smoke rings rise above the ponds for the Various Aquatic Birds.

And it's clear to me, with it growing so light out - so quickly too - that we'll have to do most of our work when it's still dark. We'll have to have O. Schrutt safely tucked away - have the keys in hand, and some prearranged order of releasing - before it's light outside.

And clearly the chief problem is this: though it's simple enough to unlock the cages, how do we get the animals out of the general zoo area? How do we get them out the gates? Put them at large in Hietzing, and hopefully guide them in the countryside direction?

This is crucial, Graff. It's why, among other things, the earlier zoo bust failed. What do you do with forty or so animals loose within the confines of the whole zoo? We can't lead them out the main gate, or into the Tiroler Garten, one at a time. That way, some cluck in Hietzing would be sure to spot one and give the alarm before we're finished up inside. They have to leave all at once.

Can we expect them to stand in line?

It seems we'll have to divide them in some orderly fashion. We'll have to save all the antagonists till last, and maybe we'll release the bigger ones through the back gateway and into the Tiroler Garten; they can sneak away through predawn Maxing Park.

I think I must admit it will be a case for Fate.

Source: www.allfreenovel.com
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