2

Berlin, Sunday, April 4, 1897

It was a cool but sunny spring day, perfect for a picnic. Herman and Astrid, now married seven years, walked along the Spree River near the workshop, a basket of food and bottle of Riesling under Herman’s arm. They found a spot beneath a tree along the river and Astrid laid a faded quilt upon the ground. Herman helped her sit, for her swollen belly showed the two would soon become three. Frau Vogel had never warmed to Herman until Astrid became pregnant. Now Herman’s mother-in-law would sing in the kitchen as she prepared their dinner, careful to ensure her daughter was never hungry, and even gave Herman an extra helping of strudel with a smile.

“I love the cherry trees, Herman, don’t you?” Astrid asked. “One of Father’s favorite songs is about them. He used to sing it to me when I was little. He has a nice voice, if you can believe it. Odd as it seems, he was a choirboy before he became an anarchist.”

Astrid began to sing a slow, sad song in French. Her voice was sweet and soft, and Herman lay down and closed his eyes to listen better. Feeling a light breeze, the sound of the river flowing, the smell of damp earth and the cherry blossoms landing softly on the two of them, he inhaled his wife’s voice and at that moment was possibly the happiest man in Berlin.

Herman asked, “I’ve heard you sing it before. It’s so lovely, yet sad. ‘Le Temps des Cerises’ . . . ‘the time of Cherries’?”

“Yes. It’s from the Paris Commune of the Spring of 1871. For ten weeks, the city of Paris was ruled by the people. All adult men and women had the vote. Women were paid the same for their labor as men. There was no death penalty and total separation of church from state. It was a dream. The common man and woman were equal to any aristocrat before the law, except of course, all the aristocrats fled. The government of France collapsed at the end of the Franco-Prussian War, but the people of Paris refused to surrender.”

“The aristocrats would never allow that to stand!”

“No, my love. The royals across Europe were so afraid these ideas would spread that the Prussian and French Armies, having just concluded a war, cooperated in the defeat of the Commune. The Prussians blockaded the eastern side while the French Army came from the West. It took one week, la semaine sanglante, ‘the bloody week,’ to take the city. That is our heritage as anarchists, Herman. And I will sing ‘Le Temps des Cerises’ to our child, in hopes that the dream that all become equal before the law will someday become a reality.”

She slowly sang the song again, stopping to translate from time to time. “Les belles auront la folie en tête, et les amoureux du soleil au coeur.”

“‘The girls will have folly in their head,’” she said, “‘and the lovers have sunshine in their heart.’ I’ll translate the rest another time. It’s quite a bit sadder, and I don’t want to spoil this beautiful day.”

After their lunch, Herman gently laid his head on Astrid’s expanding stomach and dozed while she rested against a tree and read a book by one of her favorite authors, an Englishwoman named Margaret Harkness.

Herr Vogel had insisted on Herman learning English so that he could deal with their wealthy British customers. Astrid would share her favorite passages with Herman when things were slow and he worked adjusting the firing mechanism of a rifle. She could never get Herman to read much besides the occasional dime novel, though. He was very fond of American Westerns and Mark Twain, though he had been well schooled before fleeing Russia.

Herman was an apt gunsmith and Herr Vogel was hopeful to pass the business on to him, but Herman never forgot the image of the young boy bleeding in the street, nor of the tsar’s entrails splayed between his legs. He was a more than competent marksman, and sometimes his father-in-law would take him to a range outside Berlin to demonstrate a hunting rifle to a potential client. Herman enjoyed the concentration, the inner stillness required for a long-range shot, and so long as the targets were paper it was nothing more than an exercise in meditation. He would begin to breathe slowly and deeply and soon entered a state of total calm as finger and trigger became one.

But Herman saw himself as a man of the future. One of the shop’s biggest customers, Herr Herbst, was an electrical engineer and he hired Herman for an apprentice program. Soon Herman was busy stringing cables and installing lights in the nearby Reichstag and other government offices. He would still work in the gun shop evenings and weekends, but as he helped to banish the darkness of night, his hours grew. Astrid grumbled over his long days, especially as the time for her confinement drew near, and Herman persuaded Herr Herbst to allow him to leave work for the child’s delivery.

Herr Vogel meanwhile met regularly with “fellow travelers” among the anarchist community. Bismarck’s socialist reforms during his time as Reichskanzler had kept their activity to a low simmer, but they kept in close contact with their busier comrades in Paris and Geneva. One evening, Herr Vogel called Herman to the shop after he came home from work.

“I have something to show you, my boy, something I’m very proud of. I’d like you to test-fire it for me this Sunday.”

He produced a leather case much like that for a small trombone. Herr Vogel brought out three pieces reverently: When assembled, there was a barrel, a tubular magazine, and a hollow metal flask with a threaded brass nipple. The flask attached to the assembled magazine and barrel to form the butt. The case held two more flasks and a slender metal rod of unclear purpose, which attached to the underside of the barrel.

“What manner of rifle is this, Herr Vogel?”

“Ah, Herman, this is Mein Meisterstück! The finest weapon I’ve ever crafted. It is a long-range air rifle. I am not sure, but I believe it would be effective up to two hundred meters”—he slapped Herman on the shoulder—“in the hands of a skilled marksman. We must test it this weekend. I made this at the request of someone high up in our circles. I do not know its intended use, but if it’s aimed at a crown, I wouldn’t mind.”

Herman marveled at the workmanship but wondered why the most beautiful devices men crafted through the ages had almost always been weapons. He admired it, as one would a cobra swaying before the charmer, but he did not love it as Herr Vogel did. It was a tool. A tool he had no use for.

“Very well, Father. We’ll see what your device can do this weekend.”

“Device? My son, you wound me! This is a weapon worthy of heroes. Of liberators. Yes! That’s what I’ll name it. Liberator!”

The following Sunday, April eleventh, Herman and Herr Vogel brought their wives along to der Jägerverein, the Hunters Club outside Berlin. It was a mild summer day and the ladies packed their picnic basket with a goodly measure of pickles, cheese, and Wurst. Herr Vogel lacked the wealth to be a member of the club, but he was allowed the use of the range whenever he wanted as he had several clients among its well-to-do members. Befreier (that is, Liberator) was tucked into her traveling case as the two men advanced to the firing line while the ladies sat on benches ten meters back, beneath the trees.

Herman found the pieces fit together snugly. It took about twenty seconds to thread the flask into place. A soldier in combat would find it slow to reload, but this was a weapon for hunters. Or snipers.

The small tubular magazine ran along the right side of the barrel and, reaching into a leather pouch, the gunsmith fed twenty .44 caliber lead balls down the tube until it was full. “The flask, when fully charged, is sufficient for one entire magazine. You will need a fresh one every time you reload.”

“How do I recharge it?”

“Ach, here . . .” Vogel pointed to the metal rod attached beneath the barrel. Pulling it out, he attached the base to a spare flask and explained the rod was a pump. “Given its small size, it takes fifteen-hundred strokes to fully charge a flask.”

“Fifteen-hundred? That’s insane!”

“I have a larger pump in the shop. This would only be used in the field in an emergency. You shouldn’t ever need to use it. Now let me shoot once to show you how to operate it.”

“I know how to fire a rifle, Father.”

Herr Vogel patted his son-in-law on the shoulder. “Yes, you do, which is why you’re here. But the loading of this rifle is unlike anything you’ve ever seen before.”

The gunsmith set up paper bull’s-eye targets at fifty-meter intervals, up to two hundred meters, then returned to the firing line and aimed the rifle at the nearest target, his left foot forward. Lifting his left thumb, he said, “Observe.”

He pressed a slim metal strut with the heel of his left hand, sliding a small block in the breech to the right while lifting the rifle barrel slightly. Herman heard the balls rattle as one fell into the cup of the block. When Herr Vogel released the strut, the block slid silently back into the breech: The rifle was loaded.

“Just remember to lift the barrel slightly when you reload. A minor incline is sufficient.”

Herr Vogel fired, the discharge a hollow thunk. Not silent, but instead of the sharp crack of a gunpowder-fueled discharge, it was softer and of longer duration, spreading the sound out perhaps twice as long. Herr Ott lowered the weapon and smiled in satisfaction when he saw he’d hit the target dead-center.

Turning to Herman, he handed him the rifle. “Your turn.” He stood behind Herman and set up his spotting glass. “Reload, and let’s begin.”

The rifle was well-balanced, though the round shape of the flask kept it from settling comfortably onto the shoulder. Indeed, the flask, the source of the propellant, was the weapon’s Achilles’ heel. If roughly treated the neck could rupture where it threaded into the firing chamber. This deadly apparatus would have to be handled as gently as a baby.

After tilting the barrel and reloading, he laid down and got into firing position, resting the barrel on sandbags. He began his breathing routine, aligning the sights. As he inhaled, the sights would rise; as he exhaled, they would lower once more. He let his breath out slowly, and as the sights approached the bull’s-eye, he gently squeezed the trigger. It fired with a soft cough. Too soon. The bullet hole was ten centimeters too high.

“The trigger pull is very delicate,” Herman said.

“Ach, I should have warned you. This has no firing pin, merely a valve that releases the compressed air into the firing chamber. Do not squeeze the trigger until you are ready to fire.”

The next three shots were dead-center and within three centimeters of one another. At one hundred meters, his shot group was still a respectable five centimeters.

Herr Vogel then produced a telescopic sight and deftly screwed it into place.

After some adjustment, Herman was hitting the target dead-center once more, now with a three-centimeter variance.

“The barrel isn’t even warm!” Herman marveled.

“No messy explosions,” Herr Vogel said with pride. “No smoke, no flash, and very little sound. A sniper would be difficult to find. Befreier is truly worthy of her name.”

At one hundred and fifty meters, the holes in the target were still within five centimeters of one another, but at two hundred meters the distance ballooned to twelve.

Herr Vogel clucked his tongue. “Tight enough for a shot to the chest, but as the accuracy wanes its penetrative power would also. I think we have what we came for. Hilda will be quite cross with me if we spend the entire afternoon playing with this beautiful lady while ignoring her and Astrid.”

After disassembling the weapon and stowing it back in its case, Herman dusted off his hands. “Your Liberator has a soft voice, Father.”

“Sometimes, Herman, if you want people to listen, you must whisper.”