On a cool July morning eighteen-year-old Matt Shapiro exited the Trier city bus and started down the street, his heart beating rapidly and palms sweaty. Now he was just five minutes from meeting the Brauns. A Rottweiler charged barking to a wrought iron garden gate, silvery ribbons of viscous drool trailing from its jowls. When it reached the gate, the brute hurled its muscular body against the gate, withdrew, and hurled again and again.
He arrived at the one-story house and stood in front of the windowless black door for a moment before ringing the bell. Helmut Braun answered, Matt recognizing him from a photograph the agency had sent after his acceptance into a program giving American high school graduates an opportunity to spend time in Germany and improve their language skills. In his seventies, Mr. Braun had sharp-boned cheeks, and a thin white scar curving from his wattled chin to just below his left eye.
“Ah, the American boy at last,” he said, switching a walking cane to his left hand. “Come inside.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“Call me Helmut.” He chuckled. “My wife sleeps yet. I speak only simple English, ja?”
He showed Matt around with a crisp efficiency that had made him a successful operations manager for the German railways until his retirement. The home was open plan with Scandinavian furnishings and a hash of family photographs hanging on the walls, some from the 1940s and 50s reminding Matt of photographs at his maternal grandparents’ home in Pennsylvania. This unexpected familiarity comforted him. Access to the bedrooms and guest...
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