The Night of Broken Glass - Part 2

by Jason McKenney

PART 2

. . . continued from Part 1 

          Herschel walked outside the hotel into the cool, early morning air and took in a deep breath of Paris. For a brief moment he wondered how many more such breaths he had left to take in his life. He walked along the sidewalk to the first open café he found and ordered a dark roast coffee and a butter croissant. He did his best to savor every bite, but he was too anxious to finish the pastry. He was a bundle of nerves. His brain was filled with thoughts of his parents and their current state of de facto imprisonment.
          He had received a postcard from his mother a few days earlier that described their difficult condition in the Polish refugee camp and it had filled his eyes with warm tears. He prayed daily for God’s inspiration for some action he could do that would help bring attention to the plight of his family in particular and the Jewish people in general. His young mind ran rampant with emotion, but he tried his best think clearly. In the end he felt he had made the best decision possible given the limited means available.
          After breakfast he continued his walk and found a small gun shop a few blocks further down the street. The sun was now up and the shop had just opened. Herschel looked at the small handguns in the glass case near the front counter.

6.35mm Mauser

          The shop owner said something to Herschel in French, but Herschel didn’t know exactly how to respond. He noticed the yellowed, handwritten price tag on a small 6.35mm revolver. He pointed at the gun and the shop owner pulled it out of the glass case. He had some limited experience with small firearms, and this one looked similar to some of the guns he had seen in the detective movies he watched. Plus the price was right. He also picked out a box of bullets. The total came to 235 francs which nearly cleaned him out.  
          Herschel put the gun and the box of ammo in his coat pocket and made his way towards the metro station.


          By the time Zammie woke up it was nearly nine o’clock. He looked around the small room and saw that Herschel had already left. He shook Kyla by the shoulder.
          “Wake up.”
          “Nuhh…” Kyla had been sleeping well.
          “Wake up, Kyla.”
          Kyla lifted her head but her eyes were still closed. “What’s the hurry?”
          “I don’t know. But I feel like we need to get moving.”
          Kyla lay back down. “Five minutes.”

French children at play in Paris - 1930s

          Zammie got up and put on his dark blue shorts, white polo shirt, and buster brown shoes. Along with the navy jacket and his beret he was dressed in a typical fall outfit for a French schoolboy in the 1930s. Kyla had arrived in Paris wearing a skirt with argyle socks pulled up to her knees, black shoes, and a red knitted sweater. Her long, black hair had been tied up in a ponytail with a cherry red ribbon. She liked her outfit more than Zammie liked his.
          As Zammie was tying the thin laces on his shoes he noticed a square piece of paper lying on the floor under the cot. He picked it up but couldn’t read the foreign writing on it. He remembered it being the postcard that Herschel was writing the night before.
          “Kyla! This is Herschel’s postcard!”
          Kyla sat up and looked at the white card Zammie was holding up. “He forgot it?” she asked.
          “I guess. We need to take it to him. I think it’s for his parents.”
          “Where is he?”
          Zammie thought for a second. “He said he was going to the Embassy.”
   

          Herschel’s train arrived at the Solferino metro station after a short ride of about two miles that crossed to the south side of the river Seine.  He was now close to the tourist area of Paris surrounded by swanky hotels not far from the Eiffel Tower. He found the street called Rue de Lille. He proceeded to walk north looking for address number 78. As he walked along the sidewalk he noticed and envied the seemingly carefree attitudes many of the Parisian pedestrians showed. He wished his life could be as simple and enjoyable as theirs appeared to be.

The Hotel de Beauharnais

          The Embassy building itself wasn’t easy to miss. The ambassador's offices were actually inside the Hotel de Beauharnais, a lavishly decorated building that had been constructed in 1714 and renovated in 1807 with additional columns and a neo-Egyptian portico at the entrance. It had been used as the German Embassy in Paris since 1871.
          There was a large metal gate near the sidewalk entrance to the Embassy grounds that were wide open. Herschel approached the watchman who stood by the gate. He explained to the watchman in German that he had an appointment with one of the ambassadors, and the watchman allowed Herschel to continue on into the Embassy.


          “German Embassy. Two francs,” said the driver.
          Zammie handed the scruffy taxi driver two coins, and he and Kyla jumped out of the small car.
          “That car was loud,” said Kyla. “I thought it was gonna explode.”
          Zammie surveyed the exterior of the Embassy building. They had arrived just moments after Herschel had already entered.
          "Wow," said Kyla. "This is the embassy?"
         “Must be. I wonder if he’s here already?” 
          “Let’s go in and look for him,” said Kyla.
          “You think they’ll just let us go in?”
          “Let’s find out.” Kyla looked both ways before crossing the street then waited next to the big metal gate for Zammie to catch up with her. Zammie had noticed that Kyla’s fearless confidence had been growing on these time travels recently. It was like a feeling of invincibility had been slowly blossoming inside of her. Zammie felt the same way sometimes but he was still cautious to keep from making any reckless decisions. They had yet to receive any sort of serious injury while in the past, and regardless of how dire their situation appeared they always seemed to find a way out. It was possible that they would always survive or escape or evade injury no matter what. But Zammie wasn’t quite ready to fully challenge that theory.
          The two cousins spoke to the watchman (to him is sounded like perfect German), telling him that their parents were inside. The watchman smiled at the children and offered to escort them to the lobby. It was now 9:42am.

         
          Moments earlier, Herschel had arrived at the receptionist desk in the lobby. A young woman was seated and filling out paper work on the other side of the desk.
          “Excuse me,” he said to her.
          The woman looked up. Her blonde hair was pinned up neatly on the top of her head.
          “Hello,” said Herschel.
          “Good morning. May I help you?” she asked.
          “I am a German citizen and I would like to see an Embassy official now. Is that possible?”
          “Do you have an appointment?”
          “No, ma’am. But it won’t take but a moment. I just have a couple brief questions.”
          The woman appeared bothered that some kid would be asking for an official without an appointment. “Hold on one moment, please.”
          She stood up and walked to one of the office doors a few yards behind the receptionist desk. She wore a brown skirt with a white blouse. Herschel thought it wasn’t the most flattering thing the woman could have worn based on how wide the skirt made her hips appear.

Inside the Embassy

          While he waited he looked around the lobby. The different colored tiles on the floor were arrayed in various beautiful and symmetrical patterns. Elaborate crystal chandeliers dangled from the high ceilings. Oil paintings from both French and German artists hung on the walls. Waiting chairs and small tables were set up along the edges of lobby in a well-planned and orderly fashion. The hotel was exquisitely decorated, but every pattern was still balanced and streamlined. German efficiency, he thought. It made him want to spit.
          A second later the woman returned.
          “Young man, the official will see you, but he only has a couple of minutes before he must attend a scheduled meeting. Is that alright?”
          “Yes, ma’am.” He felt the presence of the gun in his pocket. “I won’t take long.”
          Herschel made his way to the office of Embassy official Ernst vom Rath, the younger of the two officials in the office at that time.



          The front watchman led Kyla and Zammie into the lobby and towards the receptionist desk just as the receptionist was opening Ernst’s office door for Herschel.
          “There’s Herschel!” said Zammie.
          The receptionist closed the door behind Herschel and began to walk back towards the front desk.  A second later the sound of five loud bangs, like thunderclaps being amplified around the white walls, were heard echoing throughout the lobby. The office door opened and Herschel appeared with the gun in his hand. His face was ghostly white and slicked with sweat.
    

          Ernst vom Rath, a young man himself at just twenty-nine years of age, had a youthful and clean-cut appearance. His brown hair was trimmed short, neatly slicked down, and parted on the left side. His white button-down shirt was immaculate and free of wrinkles. He took great pride in keeping both his office and his appearance in fine order knowing that he was representing his beloved homeland on foreign soil.
          After the receptionist closed the door behind Herschel, allowing him his few moments of privacy with Ernst, Herschel took a deep breath and pulled the cold revolver out of his coat pocket. Ernst saw the gun and immediately stood up. His first thought was this young boy wouldn’t do anything so foolish as to warrant police involvement. Ernst decided to question the boy in hopes of getting him to lower his weapon. 
          Unfortunately for Ernst, Herschel had every intention of garnering police involvement.
          “I do this in the name of twelve thousand persecuted Jews,” said Herschel. His voice sounded small and unsure to his own ears, but there was no turning back now.

          Before Ernst could say his first word Herschel pulled the trigger. Ernst felt a hot sting in his belly then heard the firecracker-like snap of the revolver a split second later.
          Then another. And another.
          And two more.
          Five rounds hit Ernst in his midsection, passing into his stomach and kidneys and splintering his ribcage. He began bleeding profusely. He looked down and saw that his hands, his white shirt, and the neatly placed papers on his desk were all splattered in crimson. 




            When Herschel walked out of the office, Kyla and Zammie both saw the gun still in his hand. They could calculate the math: the sound of gunshots plus gun held in hand, but the answer didn’t quite register in their brains. He couldn’t have?
          The receptionist rushed over to the office door and looked inside.
  “Mister vom Rath!” she screamed. “Help! Somebody help!” She ran into the office to help Ernst who had fallen to the floor by his desk. A dark red stain was expanding on the rug underneath him.
          Within seconds three German Embassy security officers had rushed out of nowhere and had their guns pulled on Herschel. They were yelling at him to drop his weapon. Herschel made no attempt to resist arrest or to escape. French police soon arrived in their snappy blue uniforms and insisted on questioning the young would-be assassin.
          After the shooting, the watchman led Kyla and Zammie back outside near the front gates. The watchman soon left them alone so he could attend to the drama unfolding inside. A crowd of civilian onlookers was growing along the sidewalk in front of the Embassy. The screaming and influx of police officers was attracting everyone’s attention.

Herschel leaving the police station.

          A few moments later the two cousins saw Herschel being escorted out of the Embassy by the police. There were officers and detectives on all sides of him prohibiting anyone from getting close to him.
          He was shoved into a four-door black sedan which took off towards the police station, honking for the pedestrians to get out of the way as it departed. Ernst was loaded into an ambulance and driven to a nearby hospital. He was still alive for the time being, but barely.
          “What do we do?” asked Kyla.

Herschel being driven by police.

          “Let’s follow them,” said Zammie. “We’ll get a taxi.”
          The two cousins ran towards the street where the crowd of pedestrians was clogging the Embassy gates. They shoved their way through the mobs and waved down the first taxi cab they saw. The car was a relatively new Peugeot 402 with big curvy fenders and yellow doors. Zammie thought it looked like something a young Michael Corleone would have been driven around with in The Godfather.

Peugeot 402 used as a taxi.

          “To the police station, please,” Zammie told the driver.
          “Which one?” The driver didn’t turn around to face them, but Zammie could tell that he had black hair and dark copper-colored skin.
          “Uh . . .” Zammie had no idea to which station they were taking Herschel.
          “Can you follow those police cars up there?” Kyla pointed at the black sedan that was turning a corner further up the street.
          “Yes, ma’am.”
          The driver quickly sped off in an attempt to catch up, narrowly missing pedestrians along the way.
          Kyla was still in shock at what had happened in the Embassy. “Why did he do that, Zammie?”
          “. . . I don’t know . . . I thought he was . . . just . . .”              
          Kyla looked at her cousin. “What’s wrong?” Kyla noticed Zammie’s eyelids appeared to be getting heavy.  “Are you getting sleepy now!?”
          Zammie nodded towards the front of the car, pointing with his lips. Kyla looked over the front seat and saw a small, silver Arjuna statue with a bow and arrow standing on the dashboard. It looked exactly like the statue they had at home except this one was only five or six inches tall.

Arjuna: Facilitator of Time Travel

          “Arjuna?” asked Kyla. “You mean that’s it? It’s sending us home now? But that can’t be it. What about Herschel?”
          “. . . dunno . . .,” was all Zammie could manage to say.
          The small statue’s eyes were glowing red. Zammie soon fell asleep, and Kyla quickly felt herself growing immensely tired as if she hadn’t slept in days. She couldn’t keep her eyes open.
          “That’s it?” she repeated. “It’s over . . . already . . . but . . . it can’t be . . .”
          
          And out she went.

To be concluded in Part 3 . . .  

TIME TRIP ADVENTURE 4

KILLING FOR COUNTRY  

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TIME TRIP ADVENTURE 1

THE JOURNEY TO ANCIENT GREECE 

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TIME TRIP ADVENTURE 2

A RIDE ON THE UNDERGROUND RAILROAD

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TIME TRIP ADVENTURE 3

WITNESS TO THE FIRST THANKSGIVING 

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