Franz Weiher was the man to be with when you were drinking.
He could out-drink anybody at the table. The only men he'd ever lost two were a pair of twins from Poland, who'd been on the run. He'd met them in a bar in the early 1930s, and the three had drunk until the bartender kicked them out. Franz Weiher had managed to follow them to two further bars until he woke up face-down in the dirt next to a farmhouse, ways away from where he lived and from where his last memory stood.
Schneider had been a match for Martin, but only because he hadn't truly appreciated the depth of Franz's alcoholism - or known that Franz's drink limit was quite a bit higher than he'd assumed.
Franz ordered two for every drink Hirt, Kramer, and Reißer ordered. At the night's end, he was not an ounce drunker than they were.
"Dear God, I'm sure Franz was wild," Kramer said, rubbing his eyes. Hirt had told them about how Franz was the one who drank the most in their battalion during the First World War - and Franz had been a mere 18 years old then.
"I wasn't too bad when I was younger. But my wife beat it out of me." Reißer said with a chuckle. "Every time I came home drunk, she'd shut the door and lock it."
"So, where'd you sleep?" Martin asked.
"The doghouse," Reißer admitted. The men roared with laughter. Even Reißer snorted and put his head into his hands before gently shaking it and smiling. "My poor dog couldn't fit in beside me; he had to sleep next to the house."
Hirt also held his alcohol well. None of the men were violent drinkers - at least not that night, but they all got pretty loud. The owner of the Wirtshaus didn't mind; he joined them once most of the other guests had gone and had a beer himself.
"No one in this town has ever beat me at a drinking game," he'd said. "And I bet even Franz couldn't."
"I bet he could," Kramer said with a smile.
"I'm sure I could," Martin replied almost automatically, "but I'm not about to try it out when I have important work tomorrow."
Reißer, Hirt and Kramer all nodded. Franz raised his glass, and they all raised theirs. Then he leaned over the table to the owner and promised to be back on the weekend to test that.
After that last glass, they thanked the owner and left the Wirtshaus. All of them walked straight enough that any police officer would wave them through the test - they were men used to drinking. None of them had exaggerated with the alcohol - not even Franz, who'd drunk the most by far. They were all pleasantly buzzed, and it had been out of their alcohol-induced state that they'd started to refer to each other by their first names. Franz wasn't sure if the friendliness would remain tomorrow, but he hoped it would. He felt more at ease around them when he could use their first names and not some surname with a rank or title shoved in front.
They parted ways as Kramer headed to his apartment and Reißer, Hirt, and Franz headed to the hotel. They all had separate rooms. Hirt was on the first floor—he'd organized it so as not to stress his lungs too much. Both Reißer and Martin were on the fourth. They bid farewell to Hirt and then climbed the stairs up to their chambers.
"Would you care for another drink?" Reißer asked Franz.
"Another one?"
Reißer nodded. "I'm sure you can handle it." He said with a grin.
One more wouldn't hurt. Out of all the men he'd talked with that night, he got along the best with Reißer. He followed the man into his room. The smell of smoke hit him like a slap to the face. It was imposingly strong and, although Franz often smoked himself, a bit too overdone. However, when Reißer handed him a cigarette, he accepted it. They sat on plush couches as Reißer poured another drink.
"You seemed a little...off today at the camp," Reißer said and cocked his head to the right.
"Really?" Martin swallowed hard. All sense of camaraderie disappeared into thin air. Had just Reißer noticed, or had the others as well? Was it Reißer's idea to ask Martin about it in such an intimate setting, or had Kramer perhaps put him up to it? "Honestly, I..." His voice faltered. The best lies are the ones closest to the truth. "I wasn't expecting some of the prisoners to be so...when we saw them returning to their blocks after the Abendapell (evening roll call)...they looked exhausted. I knew it was a labor camp, and I think it's alright," here he lied, "that people who wronged or pose as some threat to the state should be the ones forced to do the work - but the last time I've seen men so...broken was during my own time in the war and..." Martin had no idea where to pin the end of his lie against the wall - he was afraid that anything he might say could be used against him. That someone - maybe the Gestapo, maybe Reißer himself, would connect the dots and eventually find that Franz Weiher wasn't Franz Weiher - and because all sane people would rule out time travel, they'd reckon he was a spy. Martin didn't want to end up as an NN prisoner in one of the camps - or somewhere on some torture machine. "It brought me back to a time and place I don't like to revisit."
"I understand," Reißer said gently.
Martin didn't realize it at the moment, but he had said everything right—to the wrong person. Reißer did not sympathize with the Nazi ideology; there was no need for Martin to prove his loyalty—Reißers wife was Jewish, and he'd miraculously been able to cover that up, but he still went to bed every night, afraid that their secret would see light and she would be taken away from him. Reißer had observed Martin on the way to and inside the camp and recognized the quiet aversion in Martin's eyes. The same unwillingness and opposition that he held deep within himself, too. But Martin was too young and anxious to realize Reißer could have made a good friend.