Eitan

There were so many times when people would move from Allegheny Heights. Lot of times it was because it was a small town and there were opportunities in the larger cities. Other times it was just that the young people heard about so many other things to do in other areas and others just didn’t like the idea of being in a small town isolated from the rest of the world by the mountains that surrounded the town. It wasn’t very often though when someone actually left the outside and moved in the town.

On June 12th 1994 a young man named Ralph Ferry moved from San Francisco to Allegheny Heights. He was just 25 and, according to the women in town, his looks made him the desirable man in the valley. He was memorable because not only was he good looking and smart but he was the first person to move into town in over forty years.

Ferry set up a shop right on Main Street. It was strange for a young man but his shop, after a few weeks, started baking some of the best pastries and desserts in three states. He became one of the most popular people in town and he made every person he met feel special even to the point of buying food for a few of the neediest people in town. Eventually he married a local girl and had two kids…a son and a daughter.

One day, just as the sun was rising, he got a strange phone call asking if he knew where his brother was. “I don’t have a brother,” Ferry replied. The caller insisted that yes Ferry did have a brother named Eitan. Again and again Ferry said the same thing, “I don’t have a brother,” and then the caller got more vocal about it. Finally Ferry hung up and tried to go back to sleep. It took a couple hours but he finally drifted off and he slept well until the alarm went off at 7:30.

The morning was just like any other. Ferry got up, showered, had a piece of toast for breakfast and then he went to the shop. Most of the employees were already there and working hard when he got there. They had to be they had an order from a shop in Pittsburgh. Right away he started dipping doughnuts in his special jamocha/white chocolate spiral frosting but as he did he could hear some of the workers talking.

“Did you hear Diana Fergusin was found dead this morning,” one of them said. No one said they had heard anything so the story continued. “She was found in her bed. I heard them say that her face was ripped apart so bad they hardly recognized her. She was fully dressed and there were no signs of a rape and nothing was stolen. They don’t know what to make of it.” Ferry didn’t say a word. He just did his thing and he didn’t want to hear any of the gossip that usually took place but he was interested in the story about Miss Fergusin.

By noon all of the order had been baked and sent out and the usual customers had come by to get their usual treats so Ferry decided to take the rest of the day off and maybe walk out to the pond at the south end of town and do some fishing.

Hr was walking down the street when an old man of about ninety years of age walked up to him. Ferry never met this man but he was polite and he stopped to talk to him.

His name was Paul Friedrich. He moved to town back sometimes in the 1950’s and he always kept to himself in a house out off of Shannon Drive. “Mr. Ferry, how are you this bright day,” he asked with a very thick accent.

Ferry said that he was doing well. “And how might you be sir,” he asked.

“I am a bit troubled,” he replied. “I have heard troubling news about your brother and I don’t want to share it with you.”

“What is this,” Ferry asked. “You are the second person today who has asked about a brother I do not have. I am an only child and I have been since birth.” He was starting to get frustrated so he calmed his mind, bid the old man farewell and he once again started for the lake.

Before he got thirty feet away he heard the old man yelling, “Eitan, needs you.”

He stopped just for a second and yelled back, “I don’t know any Eitan and I don’t have a brother. I am an only child!”

All he heard as he walked away was the old man saying the Eitan needed him. Ferry ignored it the best he could but he was really upset before he got out of earshot. He did make it to the fishing hole but he didn’t enjoy it much. Even the five pound bass he caught didn’t lighten his spirit. He was there about an hour give or take ten minutes before he started home. Luckily the old man was nowhere to be seen but as he walked by this one house he felt a strange, almost magnetic, attraction to it. He didn’t stop. He just rushed by and got into his house as quickly as humanly possible.

On the way in he grabbed the day’s mail. It was the usual stuff, bills, ads and a letter or two from his mom and his uncle. They kept in touch by writing a letter so he would get it every Thursday. It always told the same stuff…how the family was doing things like that. He read them but usually when he went to bed. Those letters were better than taking pills to put him to sleep. He took his mom’s letter and went up to bed and, as usual, he was out in less than ten minutes.

The next morning he woke up and went through his usual routine but since it was bill time and the grocery ads were there he stopped to look at the mail. There was the gas bill and the cable bill. That one was thicker than usual.  Ferry thought maybe he should cut down on his pay-per-views. Then he saw something strange. There was a letter in a yellow envelope. It was addressed to Eitan Feiglin. It was the right address but there was no one living there by that name and as far as Ferry knew there was no one in town with that last name. “What in the hell is going on here,” he asked as his wife came down the stairs.

“What is it honey,” she asked with a smile. No one knew why but for some reason Ferry’s wife always had a smile on her face.

“There is some guy named Eitan and for some reason everybody thinks he’s my brother,” he said in a steady tone.

“But you don’t have a brother,” she said as she walked up to him.

“I know,” he said as he ducked a kiss. “I am an only child and always have been.” The conversation for another couple of seconds and then it switched to something less irritating to Ferry. That seemed to let him relax some because he was actually looking forward to getting in the car and driving to work. He had his regular radio show he listened to on the way and that actually made him smile at least until the news came on.

“Police report that the call came in at 3:15 AM. On reaching the scene the body of Marjorie Bachmann was found in her living room. A police spokesman said that Ms. Bachmann’s face was ripped to shreds as if it were clawed by an animal. The rest of the body was untouched. They are searching for a link between Ms. Bachmann and Diana Fergusin who was killed less than twenty four hours before,” the announcer said before they went back to talk show Ferry was listening to.

He knew that was going to be the talk of the office so he prepared for it by mentally tuning it out. If you ask him there was no such story and there was nothing on the radio except the normal talk show about paranormal site in the Grecian Islands. He was right. He opened the door and that was the first thing he heard but there was something new…the police had found another, unidentified, body under a bush in the center of town. From what he heard the body was in the same condition as the others. Another new bit of information that was not on the radio was that all of the three bodies were completely drained of blood kind of like a vampire would do but Ferry had never heard of a vampire that mutilated his or her victims. But then again the only vampires he had seen looked like Tom Cruise or only fought werewolves. This stuff didn’t seem right even in a Hollywood movie. Once again he put it in the back of his mind and got to work.

Ferry went on with his day and when the shop closed he locked up and started for his car. When he walked the block to the parking lot he saw that the Allegheny Heights police had his car surrounded and they were searching in the trunk and under the seats.

‘What are you doing,” Ferry yelled as he walked up to the car.”What are you doing with my car?” They went on to explain that they had a description of the man who was going around killing the women in town and that he fit the description to a T. “I was here all day,” he screamed as the police walked over and placed Ferry in handcuffs.

They took him to the station and locked him in one of the interrogation rooms. He was in there at least six hours before one of the detectives walked in and questioned him. Again and again they asked him if he knew any of the murdered women. Of course he denied any knowledge of them. They measured him, weighed him and finally took pictures of him. Then for some reason they walked in and just let him walk out but on the way out they asked him one more question…they asked him if he knew  a man named Eitan Lonbroso.

“No, I never heard of the man until today,” he said. Since then I have been getting phone calls about him. I got a piece of mail for him and I have been asked a lot if I knew him. They say he is my brother…I never had a brother.” He was visibly upset and tired. It was hard for him to control his anger but he also knew that the police station was no place to let loose.

He decided that he was too shaken to drive home so he started walking. About a mile from the police station he heard an old man’s voice in the darkness. He could tell where it was coming from. It was that house he passed earlier in the day…the one that had something about it that was drawing it to it.

“Eitan,” the voice was yelling. “Eitan boy where are. I want you to come home right now.”

Ferry stopped right where he was and he turned toward the house. It was that man, that old man, he had met earlier. What was his name, he thought. He couldn’t remember but he could fake it. He turned and walked to the gateway in front of the house. The fence was black wrought iron with huge silver spikes on the top of each post. It was covered with ivy which was in bloom with flowers that shone bright blue in the dim night’s light. He walked through and didn’t have the chance to say anything g before the man opened his mouth and started talking.

He looked directly into Ferry’s eyes. His eyes were grey and deathly cold. The wrinkles on his face were deep, so deep that he almost looked as if his face was covered in fur rather than skin and his hair was short but messed up and it was pure grey, not a lick of color anywhere to be seen.

He pointed at Ferry and said, “Eitan, you have done more than you should have today. I am proud of you now come into the house and get some rest.”Ferry walked up to the steps and stopped. “Eitan you come in this house and I mean right now.” He walked down and took Ferry by the arms and walked him into the house.

The house was dark inside. The windows were covered with aging black paper and the paper itself was torn in places and covered with a thick mold in other places. The house wasn’t well lit. Ferry looked around and guessed that that wasn’t one light bulb that was over 40 watts. The furniture was a mix of 1950’s deco and Victorian. There was one thing Ferry did notice…there was a wall of books and every one of them was somehow related to the German side of WWII.

The old man walked across the room and sat down on a chair that looked more like a throne than a chair. “Eitan, come here,” he said. “Come and sit so we can talk.”

It was then that Ferry noticed that the old man had an accent. It was an accent that he had heard before. He thought for a minute. This man sounded like his grandmother. His grandmother was was born in Breslau Germany and his accent matched her’s exactly. He was a German and he knew just about where he was born because of the accent. He was born in Silesia…most likely in the same town as his grandmother. He knew some German so he decided that he would check. “Wurden Sie in Breslau geboren,” Ferry asked as he looked into the eyes of the man before him.

“Ja, aber wir müssen nur Englisch sprechen,” the old man said while showing no emotion on his face.

“I know what you mean,” Ferry said with a smile.

“Eitan, you have done very well for me,” the old man said. “I have more than I need for a while so you can stay here if you like. I have food in the kitchen if you’d like or you can read some of the books I have. I want you to learn everything you will need to know. You know that someday you will take his place.”

“Yes sir, I realize that,” Ferry said not quite understanding what was going on. “If I may I would like to go out for a short time before I begin studying.” The old man said that it was fine for Ferry to leave but he wanted to show him something first. He took Ferry by the hand and led him to the basement. There Ferry saw dozens of refrigerators covering two of the walls with an operating table in the middle complete with leather straps, bright lights and everything. The old man walked over and opened one of the doors. Inside were a dozen or so bottles, each containing a half of a gallon of deep red blood. Oh my God, Ferry thought, what have I gotten myself into?

“Tomorrow we start,” the old man said. “If this works for you then we will try it on others until we get the desired result.”

Ferry wanted to ask but he didn’t want to know what was going in that basement. Whatever it was he was no part of it and he liked it that way. He got out and started running, not walking, down the street to his house. The minute he got inside he locked the doors behind him. Closed the windows and sat down to call his mother. He had a question that only she knew the answer to.

It didn’t take long for his mother to answer and, after the general chit chat that takes place between a mother and son during a phone call, he got around to asking the question. The minute he asked if he was a twin the phone went silent except for the sound of breathing and the sound of his mother starting to cry.

“I never wanted you to know,” she said through her tears. She was getting old and her mind wasn’t the way it was so many years ago so it took her longer to answer and it was possible that her mind was what she remembered but it wasn’t necessarily right.

‘Never wanted me to know what,” he asked as he tried to calm both him and her down.

“Yes, Ralph you are the oldest of a set of identical twins,” she said. “Your brother was taken from the hospital just hours after the two of you were born. We lived in a small town in Pennsylvania…if I can remember back that far I think it was called Allegheny Heights. I loved that town.”

“Okay mom, what happened,” Ferry asked. He was getting impatient but after all this was his mom and he didn’t want to upset her more than he already had.

“They searched for months but they never found anything,” she said. After a couple years you, your dad and I moved out of town, changed our names and started all over again. I am sorry I never told you about him before.” She was bawling her eyes out and her voice was really strained so he thanked her and started to let her off the phone after he wrote a note reminding him to send her a couple dozen roses in the morning. But, before he hung up he asked one more question. “Mom, what was our name before you changed it?”

“Our name was Feiglin,” she said. “Yes, our name was Feiglin. It was a long and honorable Jewish name.” He gasped when he heard the name. He told her that he loved her and said for her to take care.

Ferry had no idea that he was Jewish much less that his entire history was wrong. He had a brother; he wasn’t the Baptist he thought that he was. He wondered what else about his past and his present life wasn’t true.

Then his thoughts went to the old man. That accent, he was German. Ferry was sure of that. His age…he was old. Maybe he was old enough to have been a Nazi? Could he have been a Nazi? They arrested all of them over the years, didn’t they? Wait a minute didn’t they find one in Cleveland a few years back? Yes, I am sure they did. He got deported to Israel didn’t he? Ferry’s mind was spinning. So much information, so many questions asked with no sure answers. Ferry didn’t like the feeling so he left his house and went down to the corner bar where he finished off a half of a bottle of cheap whiskey before he went home, hugged his wife and passed out on the couch.

In the morning he woke up with a huge hangover. His wife was standing above him with a big cup of coffee. “Are you okay darling,” she asked with her usual morning smile.

He gulped down the coffee, kissed his wife without answering her and then he rushed into the den to look up that strange old man. The computer took its time booting up. Ferry was squirming in his seat the entire time. He entered the name that he remembered. It took him a minute to figure out the right spelling but he finally got it…Paul Friedrich.

A results page flashed on the screen. Ferry clicked on the first one and it opened a page of Nazi war criminals who were never found. Friedrich’s name was the second on the list. It had a link attached to it so Ferry clicked on it and when it opened the first thing he was a photo of an SS officer…a captain he thought.

“Holy crap,” he said as he stared at the screen.

Another link on that page led Ferry to Friedrich’s military records. He read it in close detail especially when he saw that the old man served at Mauthausen under Dr. Albert Heim. A quick look at Wikipedia showed that Heim was working on experiments on prisoners, mostly the Jewish prisoners from the prison camp but he also experimented on people from the disposed countries who refused to behave to Nazi standards.

Another “holy crap” came from his mouth as he shut down the computer, after printing everything out. He would need information if he was going to go to the authorities and have that man, no matter how old he was, pay for his crimes. He knew that there wasn’t much they could do to a man but he knew he had to do something. First though he had to find Eitan and see what was going on.

He left for work but on his way he passed that house again. He wasn’t sure it was stupidity or just an overwhelming curiosity but he pulled the car over, got out and walked over and into the yard. The second he opened the gate the old man was out on the porch.

“Eitan,” the man said. “Come on up.”

Ferry walked up onto the porch and just stared at the old man. He must have stood there for a good five minutes before the man started walking toward the door. “Kapitan,” Ferry said in a darkly cold voice. “Kapitan Friedrich.” The old man turned. His look was as if he had seen a ghost or even a demon. There was that much fear coming through from his voice.

“Eitan, why did you call me that,” Friedrich said. “Why did you call me kapitan?” He stood and stared at Ferry as if he was trying to think of something to say or something to do. Then he realized that the man in front of him wasn’t Eitan. “Who are you he screamed! Where is Eitan?”

“No I am not Eitan,” Ferry said. “He is my twin brother and I want to find him.” The Ferry asked what was going on and he told the old man that he was not leaving until he got an answer.

The man was reluctant until finally he seemed like he was just giving up. He sat down on a chair on the porch and he started talking. “I came here after the war,” he said. “it was safe hear. No one was looking for me so I came to this town and settled here. I have lived quiet until a few years when I heard that a Jewish family lived not too far from me. She got pregnant. I knew when she gave birth so I took one of the babies when they were born. I wanted to experiment to see if I could turn a Jewish baby into a baby that the Reich could be proud of.”

“What do you mean,” Ferry asked.

“Being a Jew is a disease. I knew it was and I knew that if I tried I could turn a Jew in a perfect human being. I spent years giving a Jew baby new blood to purify his system and get all the Jew out of him. Eitan was my victory. He was a Jew and now he is exactly what I wanted.”

“You’re crazy,” Ferry said as he stood in shock. What kind of mind could ever think of anything like that? Then he remembered that he was talking to a Nazi. No matter how old they became they still had the twisted ideas they were taught in the good old homeland.

Just then the gate swung open and Eitan walked into the yard and up to the porch. “Who is this father,” Eitan asked.

“He’s here asking about our work,” Friedrich said calmly.

“Eitan, I am your brother,” Ferry said interrupting the old man. “I am your twin brother.”

“I have no brother,” Eitan said as he looked at Ferry and then he looked at the old man. “I am an only child and he is my father.”

“No Eitan. You are my brother. We are identical twins,” Ferry said.

“No,” Eitan screamed. “I do not have a brother.”

“He kidnapped you when you were born,” Ferry yelled back. “He’s doing an experiment on you. He’s changing you from what you are…what you were meant to be.” Eitan just stood there and looked between Ferry and the old man. There was confusion in his eyes and also a touch of anger and hatred. Ferry could see what was happening so he kept pushing. Eitan…go look in the window. Go look at yourself. He did like Ferry said and he looked at his reflection. “Now Eitan, look at me. We look too much alike for it to be chance. I am your brother. I am telling you the truth.”

“I have a brother,” he said. There were tears in his eyes and his sadness was reflected in his voice. “Why didn’t you tell me?” He turned and walked toward the old man. “Why didn’t you tell me,” he screamed. All of the anger and hatred now had a target. “Why didn’t you tell me,” he screamed again. The old man just sat silently, ignoring everything that Eitan was saying.

“Eitan, look at your chest. There should be a birthmark there,” Ferry said as he lifted his own shirt. There was a small brown mark on his chest just to the right of his left nipple. Eitan did as he was told and he lifted his shirt. There, to the left of his right nipple, was the exact same mark.

Eitan’s fury was well beyond control. He wasn’t listening that either Ferry or Friedrich was saying or what they were going to say. At that moment all off his Jewishness was gone. He was experiencing the feelings that the Nazis felt toward anyone they caught. He walked over behind the old man who was crying for his life. He grabbed the bad by both sides of his head and with one movement he twisted and snapped Friedrich’s neck. His head fell to the side and his eyes glared forward still showing the fear that he died feeling.

Eitan looked at his brother and smiled a smile that hid all the anger he was feeling. He walked slowly toward his brother. “What is your name,” he asked with a new shyness. Ferry told him that his name was Ralph. Eitan, without thinking, rushed over to Ferry and got him in a bear hug that even a bear couldn’t survive.

Ferry called 911 and reported what had happened. The coroner came and pronounced Friedrich dead at the scene. The police talked to Eitan and Ferry. Once they found out what had happened they realized that Eitan did everything because he was suffering from a mental disorder from being held a basic prisoner to Friedrich. They met with the DA and Eitan and Ferry once again explained and she ruled that he would not be prosecuted under the Stockholm Syndrome.

A few days later Ferry and Eitan flew to meet their mother who welcomed her lost sun with open arms. They spent the rest of their lives getting to know each other and, after all those years, Eitan was welcomed into a local synagogue as a full member.

And after all the hell that Eitan, Ferry and the townspeople of Allegheny Heights went through…the Nazi threat was over.