by Pliss, Todd
In the adjacent dining area, Mr. and Mrs. Rausching, a middle-aged couple, and their son, Karl (named after the Fuehrer), age 11, and daughter, Carin, age 16, were sitting down to eat supper.
Dr. Hoffmann and Wayne entered the house.
“Perfect timing, Lisa,” Mr. Rausching said.
“How wonderful - you invited a guest to dine with us,” Mrs. Rausching said. She prided herself as a good cook, and always had extra despite the occasional lack of funds.
Dr. Hoffmann would have rather skipped the meal. She couldn’t afford to arouse suspicions by skipping it, however, because she always ate with them.
Wayne noticed to himself how Aryan looking the family was, with their stark blond hair and deep blue eyes. He felt out of place with his black hair and brown eyes. Most people pegged him as an Italian, and he appreciated that face at the dinner table.
The talk during dinner was normal table chatter. Mr. Rausching spoke of his day at his job at a building materials company. Karl spoke of his day at school and how he did well on a recent test while Carin spoke of trying out for the school track and field team. Dr. Hoffmann had explained how her guest had suddenly come down with a case of laryngitis. The family members did speak to Wayne, but he was able to answer their simple questions with a nod. Carin reminded Wayne of Lauren. It was not that she looked like Lauren, but she had the same type of look, as far as her facial features and long, curly blond locks. Wayne tried to avoid gazing at the teenaged girl, but probably did so more than he should have. He marveled at how much she reminded him of his girlfriend and wished that it was Lauren sitting there with him instead. When Mrs. Rausching passed the main course, Raucheraal, around the table, Wayne forced himself to smile as he put some of the eel on his plate.
After dinner, Wayne and Dr. Hoffmann joined the family in the living room to watch television. A soccer match was being televised.
Soccer is the most popular sport in the Reich and every citizen closely keeps up with the goings on in the National German Soccer League. On the first Sunday of each October, the final NGSL championship match takes place in Berlin, all activity in the Reich comes to a standstill. The Fuehrer customarily invites the winning championship team to the Chancellery to personally congratulate the players.
The boy, Karl, was excited because his favorite team, the Munich Stars, was playing that night. A Munich player kicked a goal to break the tied game with only seconds remaining on the clock. Mr. Rausching and Karl cheered.
“Now children,” Mrs. Rausching said, “it is time for the National Pledge, then time for bed.”
The family members stood in front of the painting of the Fuehrer, each member placing their right hand above their heart. Dr. Hoffmann did this, too, and nudged Wayne to do the same. Wayne did so, though reluctantly.
The Rausching family and Dr. Hoffmann began to recite the Reich National Pledge, “Fuehrer, my Fuehrer, bequeathed to me by the Lord, protect and preserve me as long as I live...”
Wayne could not believe the crap that he was hearing. The television was still on. He looked at the screen. The soccer players on the field also held their right hands above their hearts and were reciting the National Pledge.
“...Thou hast rescued Germany from deepest distress...”
Wayne turned to Dr. Hoffmann and whispered, “I don’t get it. Who’s the guy in the painting?”
“Quiet!” she whispered back and continued to recite the pledge with the family, “...Abide thou long with me, forsake me not, Fuehrer, my Fuehrer, my faith and my light. Heil, my Fuehrer!”
Carin and Karl kissed their parents good night and proceeded upstairs to bed. Mr. and Mrs. Rausching invited Dr. Hoffmann and her guest to join them for fresh brewed coffee. Dr. Hoffmann explained that it was getting late and that she and her guest needed to get some work done. She thanked Mrs. Rausching for a wonderful dinner and excused herself and Wayne from the living room.
Dr. Hoffmann led Wayne upstairs to the guestroom. It was a small cubicle that consisted of nothing more than a small bed and a lamp. Wayne had seen bathrooms that were bigger than the room.
“It’s not exactly the Hilton,” Wayne said.
“I will be back in a moment,” Dr. Hoffmann said. “Rest yourself.”
Wayne, his body sore and throbbing with pain, lay down on the firm mattress of the bed. He wanted to go to sleep, and wake up to find out all that had happened to him had just been a terrible nightmare. Before he could doze off, Dr. Hoffmann walked in, holding first aid supplies. Wayne slowly sat up.
“Take off your shirt,” Dr. Hoffmann instructed Wayne.
Wayne removed his shirt, revealing his badly bruised back, on which large welts had formed. “I want you to tell me something – what was that unidentified meat that passed for dinner?” he asked. “I hope it’s not what it looked like.”
“That delicious dish was raucheraal. It is always a treat.”
“What exactly is raucheraal, if you don’t mind me asking? Please don’t say that it’s snake.”
“Smoked eel.”
“I think I’m going to be sick.”
Dr. Hoffmann rubbed an ointment on Wayne’s back.
“That feels good,” Wayne said. “By the way, who was the pudgy guy in the painting?”
Dr. Hoffmann replied, “Karl Goering, the Fuehrer. He is the son of Hermann Goering.”
“I can see the resemblance,” Wayne said. “What was with that pledge? Do you believe all that garbage you were saying? Heil, my Fuehrer, my faith and my light! Give me a break!”
“Please, Wayne, be careful with what you say. You never know who might be listening,” Dr. Hoffmann warned. She started to place bandages on the welts on Wayne’s back. In a soft tone, she said, “I have always thought, ever since I first learned the National Pledge in grade school, that it was an inadequate one. It is a vow of loyalty to a person, the Fuehrer, when it would be more logical to pledge allegiance to our country, Germany. But I am required, as are all Germans, to state the Pledge once per evening before bedtime.”
“Well, I saw the way the kids said it,” Wayne observed, “from their hearts. They sure brainwash them young.”
Dr. Hoffmann finished the bandaging.
“Thank you,” Wayne said appreciatively. “Now, I’ve been thinking about what we can do. On January 30th, 1933, at precisely 8:35 p.m., Hitler drank a cup of champagne that I laced with something to stop his heart. Now, you send me back to that night at exactly 8:35 p.m., and I’ll use modern techniques to start his heart again so that he lives. That way, with Hitler in charge of the German armies, there will be a World War Two, but the Krauts will definitely be the losers”
“There is a problem with that,” Dr. Hoffmann said.
“What?” Wayne exclaimed. He stood up, and felt like pacing, as was his habit when he had nervous energy to burn, but the room was too small to do any of that. “It’ll work. It’s the only chance we’ve got.”
Dr. Hoffmann sat down on the bed. “I cannot run my time machine without Gadolinium crystals to power it and I haven’t any. The time machine hasn’t even been tested yet.”
“If it’s not working, how then did I arrive back in 1995?” Wayne wanted to know.
“You were sent only temporarily back to another point in time,” Dr. Hoffmann explained. “Even without a time machine, the matter that comprises your body would have been pulled back to its original starting point eventually. It simply did not belong in another time frame. A time machine would have only sped the process up. I, Dr. Hoffmann, American with a working time machine, became Dr. Hoffmann, German without a working time machine, the moment Adolf Hitler died. That is why your arrival back to 1995 was delayed. With no existing time machine to speed up the process, your organic matter was naturally brought back to its original place in time.”
Wayne did not really understand what Dr. Hoffmann was talking about. He was only interested in undoing what he had done. “Where can we get a hold of those Gadolinium crystals?”
; “There is only one location where the crystals are produced,” Dr. Hoffmann answered. “At the military base called Oberkoblenz. The crystals, being very radioactive, are a component of German bombs. It would be impossible for you to get inside that base, though. Only select personnel work there.”
“Could you get in there?” Wayne asked.
Dr. Hoffmann shook her head no. “I, unfortunately, would not be able to get clearance for Oberklobenz.” Then she made a rather strange remark. “In a short while, we might all be doomed anyway.”
Wayne’s ears perked up at what he had just heard. “What do you mean by that?”
“Since the Great War, Germany has managed to threaten and coerce Japan into giving up most of its territories outside of Asia, with the exception of one very important piece of land that the Japanese still have under their control. Germany desperately wants to get a hold of this territory.”
“And that is?”
“The South American rainforest, and all of its lumber, oil, and other natural resources they can rape it of.”
Wayne sighed, “You have to be kidding.”
Dr. Hoffmann continued, “Some of my colleagues in high places have informed me that the powers that be in the Reich Ministry of War are planning to carry out their threat to bomb the Japanese capital of Tokyo. If they do that, the Japanese have said they will retaliate with what they call the T bomb.”
“The T Bomb?”
“T stands for Total Destruction,” she said. “A bomb so powerful that it could set off an atomic chain reaction and destroy all life on Earth.”
“They wouldn’t!”
“Yes, the Japanese would,” Dr. Hoffman said. “In 1975, when Germany tried to take control of the Japanese ruled Hawaiian Islands, the Japanese government used biological warfare to destroy all life on them and make them uninhabitable. They very much still have the Kamikaze attitude.”
“That’s insane,” Wayne said. Then he asked, “Where is Oberkoblenz Military Base?”
“A few kilometers away from Lindenwold,” she said.
Wayne did not know where she was talking about. “Where’s Lindenwold? Tell me where in relation to what American city.”
Dr. Hoffmann thought for a moment, and then replied, “It would have been called, I believe, Syracuse, before the war.”
Wayne knew where Syracuse was, in what had been upstate New York. He had a friend who had attended university there.
“Couldn’t you get me in? Don’t you have connections? Or passes? Or something?” Wayne said desperately. “We have to get a hold of those crystals.”
“Let’s talk about this tomorrow,” she said. “It is too risky a discussion to chance any of the family hearing it. The children are both loyal members of the Hitler Jugend.”
“But, Doc-“
“Tomorrow, you will come to work with me. You cannot be left here alone. I am sorry that I called the authorities on you, but I did so out of fear. Good night.” She turned to leave.
“Doctor Hoffmann, I will get a hold of those crystals at any cost,” Wayne promised her. “I will not live the rest of my life with this on my conscience.”
Dr. Hoffmann exited the room.
Wayne turned off the lamp and laid face down on the bed. He was completely exhausted, and his back still hurting. Every time he attempted to close his eyelids to fall asleep, a thousand images flashed before his eyes – what he had gone through in the past 24 hours, getting his hands on those crystals to power the time machine, and, of course, Lauren. Finally, with difficulty, he drifted into a deep sleep.
Wayne had slept a little under 3 hours when he jumped awake at the sound of his room door being kicked open and the sight of SS Captain Von Helldorf and two armed Gestapo Nazis with machine guns pointed directly at him. Dr. Hoffmann was with them.
“So we meet again, my friend,” Von Helldorf said in his wicked tone.
Dr. Hoffmann, wearing a troubled look on her face, blurted out, “Wayne, I had nothing to do with this, I swear to...”
“Shut her up,” Von Helldorf ordered one of his men.
The Gestapo Nazi slapped the professor hard across her face with the back of his hand.
Wayne moved towards Von Helldorf, “You fucking bastard.”
The same Nazi who had slapped Dr. Hoffmann hit Wayne hard in the stomach with the butt of his weapon. Wayne doubled over in pain.
“I checked with the Reich Institute for Scientific Experiments,” the SS Captain informed Dr. Hoffmann. “They are not familiar with your experiment. I do not like being lied to, Doctor. I have checked your records. You have served the Reich well for the past twenty-five years with your research. Why you should do anything foolish now is a mystery to me.” Von Helldorf held up the official papers that Dr. Hoffmann had given him. He directed his attention at a frightened Wayne, “These papers indicate you are a Heinrich Grubermann, identification number 87-46932, your German bloodline documented back to 1832. There is only one problem with that, my friend. The Reich Central Security Office has no records of a Heinrich Grubermann, identification number 87-46932. Can it be that you are a Jew?” He focused his cold, steely eyes on Dr. Hoffmann and said to her, “Surely you know the penalty for aiding a Jew in any way is death.” He commanded his men, “Take him away.”
Wayne was handcuffed and led out of the room.
Captain Von Helldorf put his face up to Dr. Hoffmann’s face and told her, “You will be taken care of. I can assure you of that.” He then strutted out of the house.
Pliss / Reich
CHAPTER FOUR
Wayne was again brought to Gestapo headquarters for interrogation and escorted back into the infamous Hall of Justice. More torture was to follow. Wayne was terrified that after this session of torture, he would be shot dead – if he even survived the torture.
Wayne, again stripped down, was tied securely to a dunking chair suspended on a hoist above a large filled pallet of sludge. The foul stench of the sludge was enough to make a man crazy. Once again, SS Captain Von Helldorf and his obedient men tried to drag information out of their prisoner, but it was all in vain. Wayne was slowly lowered into the sludge, and then completely submerged for a full minute, which the Gestapo men found hilarious.
Wayne told Von Helldorf whatever he thought the Captain would want to hear. He made up stories that he was with an underground. He was asked about his involvement with Dr. Hoffmann, but kept silent about that. Wayne did not want to get Dr. Hoffmann in any more trouble than she might already be in. Besides, whatever he said would not be believed. And nothing Wayne said satisfied those bastards anyway.
Wayne, looking as if he had just crawled out of a sewer, was untied from the dunking chair. With his hands secured together with rope, he was then suspended from a rack with his body hanging upside down.
“Clean him up,” Von Helldorf ordered.
The two Gestapo men picked up a hose that had been hanging on the wall, and proceeded to hose their prisoner down with ice-cold water. The water pressure was so strong that Wayne thought it might as well have been bullets instead of water hitting his body. He was glad, though, to have the sludge off of him.
With a rag, the Captain personally smeared a sweet, sticky substance all over Wayne’s upper body. Wayne was perplexed. What were these sadists up to?
“I could kill you now,” Von Helldorf stated. “But no – that would be too easy. Though it would give me great pleasure. I have other plans for you. I hope you have enjoyed our time together as much as I have, my friend. Here is a little something to remember me by.” The Captain gave Wayne a final dropkick in the stomach before he and his men left the room.
Wayne, strung upside down like a prize fish that had just been reeled in, wondered what was going to happen next to him. He did not need to wonder long.
Behind Wayne, a screen window built into the wall slid open. Wayne heard this and tried to look behind him, but was not able to twist his body around enough to be able to do so. He did, however, hear the small swarm
of bees that flew out from behind the screen. The bees, attracted to the sweet, sticky substance that had been smeared on his body, were instantly attracted to Wayne and began to cover his body.
Sometimes things will pop into someone’s head at the strangest times. Things that a person would never in a million years think about unless that person happened to be in a bizarre situation where that though could come in handy. Such was the case with Wayne at that moment in time. A television show he had seen at least twelve years earlier all of a sudden popped into his mind. It was a weekly show about all kinds of wacky, unusual people and the things they would do, such as eat glass or bicycle across the country. Wayne recalled seeing one particular episode in which a man let himself be covered from head to toe with bees and how he subsequently never got stung. Wayne remembered the bee guy explaining why the bees never stung him. The guy said, “The most critical thing was to stand motionless.” Wayne took the advice of that guy on the long ago seen television show. As he felt the insects crawl all over him, Wayne hung motionless. He was not stung once.
Shortly thereafter, two Gestapo Nazis, whom Wayne had not seen prior to his interrogation, entered the room wearing protective bee clothing and took Wayne down from the uncomfortable position he had been subjected to by hanging from the rack.
Wayne was shackled together at the hands and feet and put into a prisoner transport van. He was not the only prisoner there – he counted four other prisoners in the transport van. They were all men: two young, one middle-aged, and one who appeared to be in his sixties. They all wore the same emotionless look on their faces and remained silent.
The cargo van started to move. Wayne had no idea where they were being taken. It was pitch black inside, the windows having been blacked out. Wayne breathed a little easier. He knew that if he were going to be executed, it would have been done back at Gestapo headquarters. He also knew that he was being transported somewhere for a reason.
The van drove for twenty minutes before it came to a stop in a dreary, industrial section of New Berlin City. An electrified barbed wire fence and armed Nazi guards surrounded the prisoner holding area. Nearby, the smokestacks from various factories spit out a steady stream of pollution and toxic substances into the atmosphere.