“Not even outside?” he asked, incredulous.
“If you don’t mind.”
“All right, all right,” he groaned as he stopped to extinguish the cigarette on a stone wall. Seeing a trashbin nearby, he ceremoniously went over to it and threw away the end. “There! Satisfied?” he asked sarcastically.
“Yes, you’re a dear,” Zosia answered seriously. “Thank you.” She grabbed his hand and placed it on her abdomen to soothe him, and he smiled sheepishly in response.
A short distance along they found a computer superstore, and the two of them wasted several hours drooling over the computing power readily available to the hoi polloi. “Kids write their school reports on these!” Peter whispered to Zosia, repeating the information he had learned from a salesclerk who had assumed he was shopping for his child.
“Well, I heard that I’m supposed to want to put recipes on them!” she giggled in reply.
“Shit. What a fucking waste. We could use this stuff!” he moaned while fingering one of the fantasy-world price tags. Twelve thousand Union dollars. It might as well be a trillion.
They left to get lunch. There was such a profusion of restaurants and cooking styles to choose from that they took some time before they settled on Chinese. Afterward they had dessert in another establishment, and Zosia declared that she was in love—with hot fudge sundaes.
“Decadent,” she muttered between mouthfuls. “Sinfully decadent and depraved.”
Peter laughed and used his napkin to wipe off some of the fudge sauce that dripped down her face. “Yeah,” he agreed, “I could get fat and happy here.”
“Don’t do that! I like your lean and hungry look.”
The bar that served the desserts had alcoholic drinks designed along some pseudo-European patriotic lines, and when they saw the fanciful names, neither could resist the temptation to try one. Peter nearly retched on the sickly sweet mixture that they called a Union Jack, while Zosia was absolutely enamored of the vodka, cream, and coffee combination that was called a White Eagle.
They emerged from the bar and counted their money. The five hundred Alex had given them was disappearing rapidly. Back home, it would buy several years off an automobile waiting list; here it was a good day’s outing.
Their next stop was a clothing store. There was nowhere outside the NAU that they could wear anything they bought—imported clothes would immediately be noticed within the Reich, and the style in the bunker was, to say the least, rather casual, so they simply browsed with the intention of learning about the fashions of the country.
Nevertheless Zosia held up a pair of blue jeans and suggested Peter try them on.
“No fucking way,” he replied rather more rudely than she had expected.
“Oh, come on, contrary to rumor, they’re nothing like what you wore. Thecolor’s much nicer, and there are all these double seams and extra pockets and these quaint little rivets here.”
“I know, and I’m pleased by that.”
“Then why not?”
“The material—it’s too similar for comfort.”
She was however insistent, and after a bit of back and forth he conceded, “I’ll try on a pair of black ones if you like, but not those.”
“You’re obsessive,” she replied, but did not press further.
Once he had dutifully tried on several styles and they had discovered the right size, Zosia insisted that they spend their dwindling supply of cash to buy the jeans. “They look smashing!” she exclaimed.
“They’re hot,” he protested as sweat streamed down his face.
“Oh, come on. You don’t own anything, and Adam’s clothes are getting worn. Buy them, you look great!”
He decided not to pursue her referring to his wardrobe as Adam’s clothes and instead argued, “It’s stupid to spend this much on something I can buy back home for marks.”
“You can’t buy these. Oh, treat yourself. Treat me! I like you in them. And besides, you can wear them for your next interview. It’ll be an investment. We’ll charge the Brits.”
“They’re too hot to wear here, at least in August.”
“They’ll have air-conditioning,” Zosia answered, and that was the final word.
Once they were outside the store with the package under her arm, he leaned over to kiss her. “Thanks. I’m glad you think I looked nice in them.” It was a deliberate effort on his part to accept the purchase gracefully and was completely contrary to what he actually felt. He had indeed found her attention quite flattering, but it had also been disconcerting to him, since the last person who had fussed over him in any way had been Elspeth. Little presents and worrying about how he looked had taken on an ominous significance in his life, and it was not easy to forget the price that he had always paid for her attentions.
Next they visited a music store. Peter stood, entranced, for more than an hour in the shop listening to one recording after another at the little machine that played selections. The depth of feeling expressed in the music did not seem to match the cheerful materialism of American society, the lives without trauma. Perhaps, he thought, there was distress and pain even in a free society; even without tormentors, there seemed to be torment. Indeed, the very stability and generally peaceful nature of the society around them seemed to give voice to music and musical poetry that cut to the quick of his soul. They were the missing themes of his life—somebody else sang of his alienation, of his loneliness, of the desperation of his soul.
Zosia tugged on his sleeve a number of times, bored once she had examined all the technology, and he finally detached himself from the earphones. She promised solemnly that if he came up with a list of recordings, they would findthe money and the wherewithal to smuggle them back, and with that promise she was able to entice him away and farther down the Avenue.
Their next stop was a huge bookstore with a coffee shop and comfortable chairs and couches scattered about. After scanning the popular fiction and political sections, they both naturally gravitated toward the science, mathematics, and technology section. Zosia found an incredible selection of documentation on computers—too much in fact. After spending a moment gathering her courage, she selected an apt title and seemed intent on reading and digesting the book then and there. Peter left her to her research and began inspecting the titles farther along. He found a sealed three-volume series on cryptanalysis that left him cold. It was humiliating. According to the table of contents listed on the back cover, the first volume summarized everything he had spent years risking his life to learn. In the second and third volumes was information with which he was only partially familiar. He had scrambled desperately to get his hands on the latest research, had risked the lives of smugglers to get research papers and books into the bunker, and there it all was for 450 Union dollars. Algorithms, protocols, codes—everything publicly available to anyone with the money and the time to read it.
Freely published in a free society. His complete admiration and respect for America’s First Amendment took a momentary backseat to his utter rage at the damage that would be done. Of course, Nazi agents in the NAU would get their hands on these books, and of course they would use the information to their advantage—even their bloated and corrupt regime would eventually see its value. Meanwhile, when Alex had, upon his request, tried to set up some sort of liaison with the American Security Agency, they had completely refused any contact. “Not if he’s going back,” they had said. Alex had pointed out that someone who was bravely willing to risk his life to take the best analysis techniques back to where they would be the most useful should be rewarded with equipment and information that would make his job easier, but they were adamant. Even assurances that Peter would not survive long enough to betray any information at all if he was ever taken into custody had not impressed them. What did they care about suicidal courage? They would not compromise their security and that was that.
Peter turned pointedly away from the books. He did not have enough money to buy them now, and in any case,
it would take some effort to smuggle them back. He looked around and spotted a book on computer-generated musicle compositions. He paged through and smiled. What a thing to do—use mathematics to derive music; what a marvelous way to waste one’s life. He replaced the book and walked down the aisle to the next section, labeled sociology,
presumably located there because it was alphabetically after science and technology.
A treatise on child abuse caught his eye, and he picked it up and perused it. It was a depressing little work, detailing the lifelong implications of a violent upbringing. Peter felt a wave of sorrow for its unnamed victims and a twinge of guilt at hispreoccupation with his own troubles. He looked at the forward to learn why the author had written the book, and there the author explained that the effects of violence on children were so profound that they would affect not only the child but also society for the rest of the victim’s life.“How can we expect anything else when they have no basis upon which to reconstruct a normal life?” the author asked.“The silent killer of personality” she called it and added that “even adults, who come armed with other experiences and strongly held beliefs, often cannot cope with systematic violence directed against them.” At this point, she quoted a survivor of Nazi terror to support her supposition: “Anyone who has been tortured remains tortured. . . . Anyone who has suffered torture never again will be able to be at ease in the world. . . . Faith in humanity, already cracked by the first slap in the face, then demolished by torture, is never acquired again.”
Peter shook his head as he read the words, rejecting outright the prophecy. Nevertheless, he also felt a strange comfort in knowing that maybe someone out there truly understood what he felt. Perhaps since those words were printed, the writer had found hope? Maybe he could trace the man or his writings and see if there was some solace to be had in his story. He turned to the footnotes at the back of the book and there read the man’s name and a brief biography. An Austrian who had fled to Belgium because he was Jewish, he had been tortured for his role in the Belgian resistance and deported to Auschwitz. He had escaped during the uprising there in 1946 and fled to America. After writing several treatises on his experiences and being largely ignored, the writer, apparently unable to escape the demons that continued to pursue him, committed suicide in 1978.
Peter gasped. He did a mental subtraction: thirty-two years. Thirty-two years and the man had still not escaped! Carefully he set the book back on the shelf.e went back to where Zosia was studying her book and convinced her to take a coffee break. They went into the little coffee bar, Zosia still clutching her book as though it would run away, and settled down with some fancifully flavored coffees. Peter told her about the cryptology volumes he had found.
“Yeah, my father told me about them when they were published,” she responded.
“Oh, why didn’t you tell me?”
“He wanted to buy them for you and give them as a gift when you arrived, so it was a secret. But when he went to buy them, he found out they’re restricted to citizens only—not even a residency document is good enough. So he couldn’t get them.”
“That’s stupid. That’ll never stop the Germans from laying their hands on them.”
“I know. Us neither. It’ll just take a bit longer. After that we have to get them out of the country, but sooner or later you’ll see them.”
“Thank your father for his effort in any case,” Peter replied, still distracted by the quote he had read. Was it a prophecy? Was he doomed to never truly be free again?
“I think it’d sound better coming from you.”
“Yes, of course. I’ll do that.” He sipped his coffee, then to change the subject he told Zosia about the curious music book he had seen.
“How odd! To think someone would do research on something so useless!” She sighed and shook her head, then switching to quiet German in the interests of privacy, she added, “They really do have shallow lives, don’t they.”
“Oh, what makes you say that?” he asked, also in German.
“Well, they don’t seem to have any purpose. They just go to school and work, buy a house and a car, and then they die. It’s so meaningless.”
“And you think we have meaning?” he asked somewhat sharply.
“But of course! Don’t you?” she responded with surprise.
“No. Or rather, less than they do.”
“How can you say that? We have a cause. We have a purpose to our lives.”
“In your terms, it’s a pointless cause,” he countered mordantly. “Think about it. Our cause, our entire purpose for living, is to overthrow the government and establish national independence. In the best of all possible worlds, if we succeed, and if all turns out well with no civil wars and everybody working together”— his voice took on a sarcastic note at that thought—“the most we can hope for is to be their poor cousins. With smashed economies, uneducated populations, and a devastated environment, our greatest achievement would be to be like them. If we started today, it would take us at least a generation or two. At least! They’re already there. Doesn’t that make us the ones with pointless lives?”
“No, no, no, no, no,” Zosia disagreed, shaking her head for emphasis. Still she could not quickly formulate a reply; she just knew intuitively that he was wrong.
“We’re struggling to be like them. If you think they’re shallow, maybe you should rethink what you’re doing for a living.”
“No, no.” Zosia continued to shake her head. Something in what he said really bothered her, but she could not put her finger on it. She didn’t think it was the idea; rather it was something like the hopelessness in his tone, the way he so blithely devalued everything they did. “No,” she said as she finally formulated a reply, “I’m sure it will be different. It would be madness to give in just because we’re not sure of where the future will take us.”
“But once again, you’re blithely able to condemn that which you do not understand. You think that because that woman over there doesn’t have to kill to survive, her life is meaningless?” He discreetly indicated the young woman at a table near them.
“No, that’s not what I said!” Zosia replied, annoyed.
“Well, what would you have them do? What would give meaning to their socalled shallow lives? Do they need a revolution just to keep themselves ideologically sound? Would their lives be more meaningful if they had to fear arrest at every turn?”
“No!” Zosia grew slightly angry. “You’re taking it all out of context!”
“Well, if it’s not the outcome that makes our struggle meaningful, are yousaying then it’s the stress and weariness and fear? Does spending our lives looking over our shoulders or sleeping badly give us purpose? I, for one, am sick to death of it!”
“Why are you badgering me? I just said it to make you feel better about the books!”
“But you quite willingly trash other people’s lives because they don’t conform to exactly your standards!”
“Oh, that! Come off it. Look, I apologized, but you wanted my opinion. You asked me, remember!”
“And you were so certain you knew what it was all about.”
And so it went, neither giving ground, both offended that their enjoyable little-break had been spoiled by the other’s obstinacy and ill will. They argued for nearly an hour, slowly dragging in one thing after another. The topic strayed, the passions were directed here and there, but the rancor was a constant. Neither had the sense or the ability to realize they were hot and tired and stressed. Finally they both managed to fall silent simultaneously and for long enough to realize that they had argued over nothing. Yet again.
“I think we should go,” Zosia said quietly and in English. Their strategy of speaking German had probably protected the topic of their conversation, but it had naturally drawn much more attention than they had anticipated. It was clear as bits of their language were overheard that the patrons had wondered, what were two Germans doing in the Free City?
Peter nodded his agree
ment and they both stood. The number of people who watched them as they rose and left was embarrassingly large. At the barrier that separated the coffee shop from the bookstore, he turned to face the curious stares and said, “Yes, we’re from the goddamned fucking Reich, and no, we’re not goddamned fucking Nazis so you can stop your fucking staring at us!”
Zosia slipped away and waited at the first bookshelf as he spoke, beside herself-with embarrassment. When he turned away from his audience and joined her, she grabbed his arm, dropped her book on a convenient shelf, and rushed them out of the store. Outside, they avoided looking at each other. She was angry at the scene he had inflicted on her; he was furious at her lack of loyalty and the way she had rushed him out of the store. They walked in silence trying to cool down, each painfully aware from previous experience that although the argument was about nothing, it would return and would take ages to dissipate.
Finally, several blocks away, Zosia ventured, “We’ve got to do something about this.”
“Oh, everybody argues. It’s no big deal,” he said, trying to reassure himself more than her.
“It is a big deal. We do it all the time and about nothing! Things are going well and we still can’t handle it. What if there were genuine trouble in our lives?”
“You think our lives are going well?”
“Yes, don’t you?”
He sputtered his derision. “Yeah, sure, everybody spends the best years of their lives hiding from the authorities in an underground bunker.”
Zosia chose to ignore his sarcasm.“Maybe you should see a psychiatrist while you’re here. Maybe they’ll help you with your dreams and stuff. After all, they’re not Reich-trained. I’m sure they can help.”
“So, it’s all my fault. I’m nuts and that’s why we argue,” he responded bitterly.
“No, that’s not what I’m saying. It’s just that maybe—”
“I get it. It’s me. If I weren’t so fucked-up, we’d get along fine. Just like you and Adam did. The perfect couple, the perfect husband,” he grated, walking along even more rapidly, as if he could outpace his anger.
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