The Bricklayer, Page 2

room where the fireplace was being installed. Several were locals that he knew by face, and some by name. Others he did not know and seemed to come from as far as the exotic materials with which they worked.

  The living room was lofty and curved out at smooth angles that arched around, establishing a semi-circular boundary. The fireplace stood in the center of the longest wall and was easily dwarfed by its surroundings. Fine European paintings adorned the walls. Tables strewn about in dotted intervals were topped with gilded vases, ornate game sets, statuary and rare trinkets.

  The fondness for toy soldiers was not unique to Sanders’ boys alone, for atop one of the tables was an assortment of such figures striking the requisite combat poses of men in the throes of battle.

  Plush couches and sofas covered a modest portion of the floor, but all faced away from the fireplace towards the unmistakable centerpiece of the room. A giant, angled window spanning the full length of the room’s western wall provided a breathtaking overlook of the snow and tree covered mountains outside. It was hard not to stare.

  The various chess boards, crystal bowls heaping full with pralines, statues, immaculately detailed busts, the miniature figures of soldiers, and collections of photo albums scattered throughout the room all seemed so lacking as distractions from the view. They were mere afterthoughts attempting to bring a level of normalcy to the location. On their own many of the items were priceless, but here in the living room they were simply space fillers ineffectively used to downplay the braggadocious nature of the sweeping view. Even with the assortment of objects littered about, the room was unmistakably an observation deck masked in a pretense of being a living room.

  The fireplace could hardly do much better than the other objects in drawing attention away from the window, but Sanders would do his best to make it so, and fortunately the Italian stone he had to work with would go a long way toward that end.

  The process, aside from the fine material, was little different from the hundreds of other fireplaces he had built through the years. The interior brickwork framing had already been completed and did not take much effort for a man of Sanders’ skill. The bricks seemed to stack themselves in perfect order as if enchanted by some form of wizardry.

  The marble cuts that would form a decorative surround to the fireplace had yet to be installed. But they were the finishing touches and would serve only as an outer shell to cover the inner workings. It was all a tradeoff. The bricks would be unseen with their work hidden behind the beauty of the polished stone. The marble would serve little function but to attract admiring eyes to the warmth and power emanating from within. Together the bricks and stones would work a marvel that would hopefully amaze the owner and his guests when daylight faded from the mountain tops and their distracted eyes longed for other stimuli.

  Setting the stones in place came after ensuring the cuts on each side matched in their varied sizes. They would be staggered slightly with a base stone modestly larger than the one set on top of it. The four stacked blocks on each side would jigsaw upward into two supporting columns. Three more large stones would cross the top of the fireplace and serve as a bed for the mantel. The two outer slabs making up the top were carved in such a way as to have a post structure angling out of the main body of the stone to create cradling arms, outstretched to provide additional support for the weight of the mantel. The mantel itself consisted of a singular slab that resembled a fallen log as it spanned well beyond the length of the framing columns and supports.

  The fireplace had taken Sanders two full days to construct. He stacked several logs inside the pit to make a pyramid-shaped cover for the bed of kindling that he laid beneath. The fireplace was finished and ready for use. All that was required was for someone to light the fire. To that end he placed a small box of matches atop the mantel as a final touch, a gesture marking his work as complete.

  As he set about cleaning the area and collecting his strings and tools Sanders stopped to admire the view he had created. It was a view he hoped would counter that of the landscape. At the very least it would enhance the room with a homely ambience of glowing warmth radiating off the marble’s surface and tinting the area in a flickering orange-red hue. But the appreciation for his labors would have to be left to his imagination, as no one was present to comment on his crowning achievement or to test its functionality.

  He wished his boys were there to cast their eyes on the finished work; to be able to see the fine marble as well as the panoramic view the living room offered. But all they would have were his words and stories. Sanders scanned the room hoping to take in as much detail as possible, searing the images in his mind so that his shared memories would be rich and complete.

  The paintings on the walls were no doubt priceless, but were of little value to Sanders all the same. He appreciated the workmanship and time that went into their creation, but what made these ones with their depictions of town square markets and fields of flowers more costly than others was beyond him.

  The bowls of pralines were piled in such a way that to even take just one would likely topple the whole stack. They were potentially edible decorations that were made practically untouchable. Sanders’ gaze shifted from the pralines toward the table behind the couches where the toy soldiers were placed. He thought again of his boys and the joy he had watching them play with their own sets at home. It seemed so wrong that such things would just sit there unused. He had never seen the owner in person but was well aware of the fact that he had no children of his own, let alone little boys. Here the toys were likely discarded on top of the table without much thought or concern, but at Sanders’ home they would be centerpieces.

  The figures he placed in his bags were just two of the dozens scattered about on the table. They were mere trinkets amidst a sea of others in the vast palace and would not be missed. Sanders edged the remaining toys around so that the open space where the two figures had previously stood didn’t seem quite so empty. Even with the souvenirs absent the change in the tabletop arrangement of soldiers was virtually indiscernible.

  His boys would have new soldiers to play with this evening. Sanders also now had some small piece of proof to go along with the tales that he would share with them, and in future years with his yet unborn grandchildren.

  ***

  The brickwork was shoddy and had fallen into decay after the munitions factory that the buildings had previously housed were abandoned. Piecemeal bricks of varied colors and consistencies were poorly aligned throughout the compound in a garish hodgepodge. The mortar was crumbling in places and large portions of the walls were covered in black soot. Anyone can lay bricks, but not everyone is a bricklayer, at least that’s the impression that caught Sanders’ eye as he was herded off the train.

  The theft of the two toy soldiers would likely not have been discovered if it had not been for the owner noticing their absence himself. He had developed an instant fondness for the collection gifted to him by prominent businessmen on his birthday. They were some of his most prized possessions and he knew immediately that the set had been tampered with. When Sanders was traced down as the culprit he was sent to the grounds of the old munitions factory that now housed the Dachau concentration camp on direct orders of the furious owner of the missing toy soldiers, Adolf Hitler.

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  Author’s Note

  -This story is a fictional recounting based on events described in The Hitler Book by Henrik Eberle and Matthias Uhl (Chapter 5, March-November 1939, pgs 43-46). Their work revolves around the narrative created of the German leader’s daily lifestyle and personal habits for Joseph Stalin through the Russian interrogation of Hitler’s aides, Otto Guensche and Heinze Linge after World War Two.

  -The character of Sanders and his theft of Hitler’s toy soldiers is a combination of two separate events.

  -Hitler received several military models and toy soldiers as birthday gifts from German industry leaders and he was quite captivated by them.

  -Martin Bormann, head o
f the Nazi Party Chancellery and a part of Hitler’s inner circle, informed him that some of the presents were stolen by SS soldier servants by the names of Wibizek and Sander. Hitler became enraged upon hearing this news and had the two send to concentration camps.

  -Similarly an oven-fitter working at Hitler’s Berghof retreat in the Obersalzburg noticed the collection of books that Eva Braun and her friends had kept around for pleasure reading. After making disparaging remarks about the quality and types of books found in the collection, the oven-fitter was sent to the Dachau concentration camp.

  -The famed fireplace adorned with Carrara marble at Hitler’s Kehlsteinhaus (Eagle’s Nest), on the same mountain as the Berghof, was gifted to him by the Italian dictator and fellow fascist, Benito Mussolini.

  -In addition to his affinity for toy soldiers Hitler was also quite fond of pralines.

  -During his twelve years in office Hitler survived dozens of assassination attempts, with ten occurring even before the Second World War began.

  About the Author

  Robert T. Belie has lived all over the world including stints in Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. As a former US Army officer, he has seen, experienced, and