Much to Hirt's exasperation, Martin's relief, and Kramer's dismay, the experiments with mustard gas did not go as expected. There were no apparent signs of the poison affecting the prisoners. Some of them, who had received a higher amount of drops, had a slight rash. But nobody received the burns that Hirt and Co had expected.
Hirt was out of his mind. His brow was furrowed furiously, and he snapped at Reißer, who'd come to take the photos. "What do you want to take a picture of if there's nothing there?" He'd spat. But he kept his head quite well for a man who'd waited a long time for something that didn't work out. He wrote a long letter and demanded the product be delivered again, this time one of higher quality. He would do another row of experiments, this time with 30 men - and woe betide the product would disappoint him.
They traveled back to Strassburg in silence. The air around Professor Hirt was charged with anger and frustration, even though he remained polite when the driver made a wrong turn. Another layer of uncomfortable silence lay between Reißer and Martin that had nothing to do with their comrade. Since he'd visited his room, Martin felt like Reißer seemed distant - a bit disappointed. Martin couldn't figure out why. He'd said all the right things, hadn't he?
Reißer, who had picked up on Martin's initial hesitation to follow orders and had felt slightly less cornered and hopeless around his new acquaintance, now felt even more alone. He just knew that Franz Weiher was against the system - at least against the concentration camps. And yet, as so many others, Weiher didn't dare speak about it.
***
Martin never thought he'd be so happy to see his little apartment in Strassburg. He opened the windows and leaned over the balcony, savoring the fresh air. He knew he'd be back in the Natzweiler-Struthof soon enough - probably in less than a month, but he'd have at least two or three weeks to take a breather.
He'd found some letters, one from Marlene, who was begging him to return over the weekend. He weighed his options: go back home or to the Wirtshaus and try to out-drink the owner. He laughed out loud at the thought—but of course, he'd go home—back to the children who needed their father and Marlene, who needed her husband.
He tossed the letter onto the table, and it skidded to a halt beside an untouched bottle of wine he'd bought in a moment of weakness.
He turned back to the courtyard that made up the painting, which his window framed so beautifully. It had looked the prettiest in the summer— June and August had been warm and wonderful. He'd also found more excuses to stay in Strassburg. Now that the trees were bare and the cold was sneaking in, he found less and less. Not that he didn't like going to his great-grandfather's family...it was just becoming increasingly difficult to dodge Marlene's wish for intimacy. He'd only slipped up twice. Franz had somehow taken back complete control of his body, and Martin had been exiled to a small part in the back of the man's mind. Both of these times, Martin had drunk alcohol—he had lots of proof that the drink somehow anchored Franz Weiher to who he used to be.
He was unsure about how the whole thing even worked. Was Franz still alive—or was his conscience entirely wiped out? He'd remembered when his grandfather Theodore talked about his childhood. He'd said he didn't remember his father, just a few things, like when he'd left for war. But even that memory had been fuzzy. Franz was supposed to have died in the trenches-the ones that Martin had been saved from. But his body had shown no sign of damage that day. Had he been whisked back into Franz's body the moment before a bullet or a grenade was supposed to hit him? Had Martin ducked while Franz would have charged—had Martin's cowardliness saved his life? Or was there something he was missing...had Franz gone missing and just been reported dead, or had somebody mixed up the bodies? There were many possibilities.
Whatever had happened that night—it was Martin who lived with the consequences. And he was getting sucked into the system faster than he could understand it. He'd already been to a concentration camp, for God's sake. He'd helped a man conduct experiments on other human beings.
Martin made a mental note to take Franz's journal with him the next time he visited. He wanted to try and understand the man he'd been forced to play.