In the Land of Armadillos by Helen Maryles Shankman Read Free Book Online Page A

darkly colorful, slippery, and raw. “Not really. I don’t sleep much these days. Drawing makes me feel better. Go on, Herr Sturmbannführer. Draw.”
    â€œI told you, I can’t draw. And don’t call me that. There’s no ‘Herr Sturmbannführer’ between you and me, Toby.”
    â€œOkay, then, I’ll go first.”
    Toby took a pencil, scribbled on the back of the paper, then shoved it across the desk. Reluctantly, Max fingered the pencil, then looked at the line. It was just a meaningless squiggle. How could you do anything with that? He stared at it and stared at it, and then, in a flash, he had it. Squinting and tilting his head, he began to draw. A few minutes later, he slid it over to Toby, almost fearfully awaiting his judgment.
    â€œI see. A rabbit. Clever, very clever,” he mumbled. He tipped the glass upward, finishing the vodka. “Come on, Max. My turn.”
    â€œWhat do I have to do?”
    â€œJust draw a line. After that masterpiece, it should be a piece of cake. I’ll do the rest.”
    With the tip of the pencil touching the paper, Max hesitated. He had the distinct feeling that he was on the point of losing control of the situation. Best to just say no, turn Toby out into the night, with a guard, of course, to get him home safely. Better yet, he could just leave, locking the artist in the attic room. By morning he would surely be back to himself. But then he would miss the pleasure of seeing Toby draw. On the paper, Max made an irregular zigzag line, the lightning insignia of the SS, and pushed it across the desk.
    Toby studied the scribble, tapping the end of the pencil against his teeth. “Perfect, just perfect,” he said. With fierce joy, he bent over the paper and began to draw. Max wished he would just stick to drawing, but Toby wouldn’t shut up. “It’s bedtime, isn’t it? How about a story?”
    The pencil went scritch scritch scritch. The grandfather clock in the stairway bonged midnight. Outside, the wind wept and tore at the windowpanes. The hairs prickled up on the back of Max’s neck.
    â€œOnce upon a time, there was a handsome and powerful prince. He owned a castle filled with servants, but still, he was lonely. The prince fell in love with a princess who lived in a faraway land. He wrote her many beautiful letters filled with poetry, inviting her to visit him. He decorated his castle with the finest flying carpets from Persia, drapes woven by enchanted spiders, furniture built by captive fairies, but still, the princess wouldn’t come. It turns out the princess was actually fucking her son’s riding instructor. The End.”
    Max lifted himself from his seat and punched Toby in the face. His chair teetered on two legs for a moment before falling over backward. Bunching his hand into a fist, he stood over the emaciated, angular figure and punched him again. Blood spurted from Toby’s nose, ran from the split lips, the twisted, insolent mouth. Max yanked his gun from the holster and whipped it savagely across the unprotesting face.
    Toby’s eyes rolled up into the back of his head and he passed out. Breathing hard, the SS man stood over the prone, crooked body and pointed his pistol at Toby’s heart.
    Astonishingly, the hand with the gun faltered, dropped back to his side.
    â€œNo,” he said forcefully to the ruined, unconscious face. “I won’t do it, you Jew bastard. I won’t kill you, no matter how much you want me to. You’re going to live, you little shit, whether you like it or not.”
    He checked to make sure that Toby was breathing, threw a blanket over him, and walked to the door. The pen drawing of the naked girl and her foot-fetishist lover lay under the upturned chair. Max righted the chair, picked up the drawing, and turned it over.
    Bars, walls made from stone, a sink, a bed, a toilet. On the bed sat a man in a prison uniform, reading a letter.