Sirius (21 page)

There is only man for the job: Claus von Stauffenberg.

*

The Allied invasion is executed with a military force that the world has never seen from them before. The most powerful fleet of all time, 6,000 ships, conquers the coast. The skies darken, the Luftwaffe open fire, 11,000 fighter planes in total. Over the next few days, hundreds of thousands of soldiers storm onto land.

In Normandy. So not in the straits of Calais, as Rommel predicted. The German troops have been thrown a red herring again, and need time to re-orientate themselves.

The World War is now raging in the very heart of Europe.

“Paris cannot fall into the hands of the enemy, and if it must, then only as a field of rubble!” commands Hitler. But his wish will not be fulfilled.

The liberators are on the advance, and wherever they march they are met by cheering Frenchmen and women, who hold uncorked red wine bottles high in their outstretched hands, inviting the soldiers to join them in a tipple. The girls blow kisses and cover the tanks with flowers. It’s nice to be the liberator. In the West, that is.

In the East, the Red Army is drawing closer. They are already outside Lublin, in Poland. Here, the liberators are not met by cheers of joy. As they open the gates to Majdanek concentration camp, hell opens up before their eyes. More than a million Jews have been murdered here, their ashes still smouldering in the crematoria. The pictures of horror make their way around the world for the first time.

Berlin is still far away from both Fronts, but the noose is growing tighter with every day that passes.

Dr. George Crown is stationed in the American marine hospital near Cherbourg, as a medical officer. Their main function is to provide emergency assistance. Bullet wounds, emergency amputations and so on. Everything has to happen quickly, life and death always hangs in the balance. And the army of wounded is growing by the day.

But it’s a small world, even in the midst of a World War. Dr. Crown steps up to the bed of a man who needs an urgent X-ray. He recognizes him at first sight – it’s James Stewart, the Hollywood star.

“What are
you
doing here?” asks Crown.

“I escaped from a burning plane at the last minute,” replies Stewart wearily. “With the ejector seat.”

James Stewart is Group Operations Officer of the 453rd Bombardment Group. He wears the medal of honour with an oak leaf cluster, awarded for his aerial attacks on Germany.

“Your face seems familiar,” says Stewart. “But where from?”

Crown thinks for a moment, rolling the bed over to the X-ray machine.

“I think you’re confusing me with my father,” he says. “I’m sure you know our dog, Hercules.”

James Stewart smiles. “The dog, of course. Hercules, my greatest rival. What’s he up to nowadays?”

“He’s in Berlin,” says Crown. “We don’t know any more than that.”

“In Berlin?” exclaims Stewart in surprise. “I was there too, but as a bomber up in the sky. Hopefully I didn’t hit him.” Then, with a wink, he adds: “What’s that thing people say? You know, that our paths always cross twice in life.”

The X-ray pictures give the all clear. Before long, James Stewart is climbing into the next available B-24.

“Say hello to Hercules from me, when you see him again,” he calls out. “It surely won’t be much longer now.”

*

A major situation briefing in the Wolf’s Lair. A discussion on the advance of the Red Army and to what extent blocking divisions should be used to seal off East Prussia. Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg, the man responsible for these matters from the military staff, has flown in especially from Berlin to make a report.

It is hot in the briefing barracks, so Stauffenberg asks for permission to go and freshen up. The Führer wrinkles his brow. He doesn’t think it’s that hot, and the other officers in the room aren’t exactly fresh either. But Field Marshal Keitel nods.

Stauffenberg comes back. He puts his briefcase down under the conference table, right next to Sirius. Sirius is surprised by the fact that the man is wearing an eye-patch, and that he’s missing his right hand. Who does that remind him of? Oh yes, Barbarossa, the lion tamer. Maybe this man is a lion tamer, too? His thoughts are just wandering to Benares, the lion, when he hears a gentle ticking in the briefcase.

The presentation is taking its time coming. Stauffenberg excuses himself again, this time saying that he needs to pop out to make a phone call. The Führer and Keitel are already leaning over the world map. The dog sniffs at the briefcase, and a strong smell rises into his nose. He gives a loud yelp.

“What’s wrong, my doggy?” asks the Führer in concern. “Did I step on your paw?”

Alarich Heinzel, the Führer’s adjutant, puts the briefcase somewhere else so that the dog has more space.

Then, all of a sudden, a deafening explosion rips through the room. The bomb in the briefcase has been detonated, and the shockwave is so powerful that it hurls Alarich Heinzel across to the window.

Then the ceiling caves in. Lieutenant-General Rudolf Schmundt receives a blow to the head from a roof beam. The heavy map table splinters. Heinrich Berger, the stenographer, is killed on the spot, while the other men manage to crawl out into the open air, severely injured.

And the Führer?

With burst eardrums and tattered clothing, he staggers across the compound, clearly in shock. It is a miracle that he survived.

“It was destiny,” he wheezes, covered in blood. “The stars wanted it that way.”

Colonel General Jodl, also back on his feet, salutes: “
Mein Führer
! The miracle is called Hansi. If he hadn’t yelped, the bomb would have exploded right next to you, and you would be dead.”

“Hansi!” screams the Führer in desperation. “Where is my doggy?”

A search team clambers down into the ruins of the briefing barracks to find Hansi. The Gestapo, meanwhile, are hot on Stauffenberg’s heels.

The dog lies buried beneath the map of the world. His heart is beating, but only weakly. His eyes are closed, peacefully, and his tongue hangs sideways out of his mouth.

Two men lift him carefully onto a stretcher. They cover him with the flag that was just on the table, as a mark of respect, and march off in goose-step to his master.

Dr. Morell, the Führer’s personal doctor, has been summoned. He inspects the dog thoroughly, listening to his chest with the stethoscope, checking his organs, shining a light through his pupils, measuring the temperature on his tongue – and then an expression of concern settles on his face.

The Führer is holding Hansi’s paw. He is fighting back tears, and losing this battle too.

“Good doggy,” he sobs, “you warned me.”

Dr. Morell proceeds to the diagnosis: “A heart attack. The dog is critically ill.”

The Führer commands: “Order to the Air Force! Fly Hansi to the Charité at once! Sauberbruch is to give it his all, I repeat, his all!”

The propellers can already be heard setting into motion. The dog opens his eyes briefly, seemingly with the very last of his strength, then immediately falls unconscious again when he meets the Führer’s tear-soaked gaze.

The coup has failed. And it was all his fault.

*

Don’t they say that a person’s life flashes before their eyes in the very last seconds before they die? Well, exactly the same thing happens with dogs.

Sirius lies in the plane to Berlin, watching the palm trees on Sunset Boulevard rush past. He thinks of the visit to the dog cemetery that John Clark recommended. An honorary grave in Hollywood, side by side with Humphrey Bogart’s dog. How wonderful that would be. He sees before him the widow who lives twice. Her gratitude makes him feel good. He remembers the meadows of Lucerne, and once again smells the wonderful scent of fresh manure.

Manzini waves at him. The magician is still standing in the circus ring, pointing with a shrug at the time machine and smiling wistfully, as if wanting to ask for forgiveness, as though he is saying: even miracles can go wrong. Sirius understands completely. He too, has just caused a miracle which wasn’t how its creator intended it to be. He forgives the magician.

He has lived a wonderful, fulfilling life.

“Don’t give up!” says the tree.

“I fear my time has come,” breathes Sirius weakly.

“Oh nonsense,” replies the tree, “the next day is a new one.”

Sirius pauses. “What do you mean by that?”

“
Gone with the Wind
,” mumbles the tree, unsure now.

“Tomorrow is another day,” says Sirius. “That’s how it goes.”

“Really?” says the tree in surprise. “Well, trees can’t go to the cinema, remember.”

Sirius tries to imagine a tree sitting in the cinema. The poor viewer behind him, only seeing the film through the branches. Missing the most important scenes because the trunk is in the way. The man gets up, goes to the box office and asks for his money back. They don’t believe him, and accompany him back to the cinema, but by then the tree is already gone, because he didn’t like the film.

Sirius falls into a peaceful sleep.

*

Professor Sauerbruch and the lead doctors are already standing at the ready when the dog arrives. He is driven up in the state carriage. The Führer’s guard battalion, which just this once is now the Führer’s dog’s guard battalion, salutes.

“Patient Hansi!” announces the commander. “Emergency case!”

The Charité is on red alert, as though the Führer himself had been the victim of the explosion. Which, secretly, Professor Sauerbruch would have preferred. He was a close friend of Claus von Stauffenberg; he even made his hand prosthesis for him.

The dog is taken straight to the intensive care ward. He lies on the trestle, hooked up to all kinds of devices and tubes. An oxygen mask covers his snout. Thankfully, the monitor reveals that he still has a heartbeat.

“
Tension pneumothorax
,” diagnoses Sauerbruch. “Both lungs have collapsed. Coronary vessels already severely attacked. Critical condition. Don’t x-ray, just take him straight to the operating theatre.”

And yet Dr. Morell said it was a heart attack! He is nothing but a charlatan. Everyone knows it; only the Führer has remained loyal to him. He trusts the “miracle doctor” blindly, eager for his daily “wonder injection”. Exactly what drugs are in it, only the devil knows. Methamphetamine or cocaine, presumably. But that’s another matter.

No-one opens up a thorax better than Sauerbruch. It’s becoming his speciality. And it doesn’t throw him in the slightest that it’s a dog’s thorax, for he knows his stuff with rib cages of all varieties. A lung is a lung. His main concern now is the patient’s circulation – the dog’s heart is beating weakly. On two occasions it even stops, and on the monitor only a straight green line can be seen, without any movement, deathly still. But then the pulse begins to beat again. Sirius is fighting for his life.

The operation draws out over a number of hours, and even the professor himself is at the very end of his strength when he finally lays down the scalpel.

“The dog has made it,” he says. “He’s going to survive.”

At that very moment – and just a few streets away – Colonel-General Fromm is giving a special commando the order to fire. Claus von Stauffenberg is executed on the spot. He dies with a cry of “Long Live Germany!”

*

Conrad Nicholson Hilton has invited Carl and Rahel Crown to his summer party, as the future parents-in-law of his daughter Electra. They have no idea that it will be their last big party in Hollywood, otherwise they would try to enjoy the evening more.

They are a little stiff and shy. The other guests know them, if at all, as hotel staff, dressed up in Bordeaux-red uniforms. Hilton introduces the Crowns as “friends of the family”. When pressed for more information, he adds: “Mr Crown is a famous Plato researcher from Berlin”. Isn’t that right? That’s what his daughter told him, and she would know, because she’s studying philosophy. In her twelfth semester.

“A porter who’s a Plato scholar?” asks Rex Whittaker, the director of the New York Plaza Hotel, with a look of surprise. His wife looks piqued.

“Plato,” she giggles tipsily, “isn’t that the word doctors use for…?” She points self-consciously at her husband’s trouser fly.

“No darling,” replies Mr Whittaker, adding in a whisper, “that’s “penis.”’

“Oh,” she replies, rolling her eyes.

“Plato,” Conrad Nicholson Hilton corrects, “was a philosopher in the Middle Ages.”

The band plays
Bésame Mucho
. People dance.

“Didn’t you used to have a famous dog?” asks Rita Hayworth, who is now married to Orson Welles. “Goliath, or something like that?”

“Hercules,” replies Crown.

Sad, but true. Hercules has slowly faded into obscurity into Hollywood. And the incompetent doppelgänger played a part in that. Jack Warner put the legend on ice.

“He’s in Berlin,” Rahel chips in. “On tour.”

Rita Hayworth smiles sympathetically. “On tour? That’s just another way of saying
Auf Wiedersehen
. Isn’t it?”

“We hope so,” says Crown, not catching her drift.

The Crowns don’t mean to give themselves airs, but they now have a famous son-in-law. Andreas Cohn. He recently made his debut as a soloist, accompanied by the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra. Mozart’s Violin Concerto No. 3.

The
New York Times
enthused:

“We have listened to Menuhin. We have listened to Heifetz. We have listened to Oistrakh. Always with our ears. And now we have listened to Andreas Cohn. With our hearts.”

The
Diablo
, they call him. Because his virtuosity has almost demonic traits, but also because of his hellishly romantic looks. Women are throwing themselves at his feet.

“Didn’t you bring the
Diablo
with you?” asks Lana Turner. “I’d love to hear how his violin sounds at close proximity. Very close proximity, if you know what I mean.”

“Is it true that he thinks about Hitler while he’s playing?” Ava Gardner wants to know. “I mean, during the angry parts.”

“He doesn’t think, he just feels,” comments Crown knowingly.