A History of What Comes Next

by Sylvain Neuvel

  —I’m sorry, pea plants?

  —Pea plants. A monk named Mendel—he was a botanist—bred lots of pea plants and looked at different traits, like the pod shape or color, the height of the plant. He found that traits do not mix, that one always wins out over the other.

  —What does that mean?

  —It means tall plants and short plants do not make medium plants, only tall plants. Mendel described the ways in which pea plants inherit these “traits”—he called them factors—from their parents. He published his findings in 1866. No one cared at the time but most of what we know is straight out of Mendel’s work. People talk about genes now but we have no idea what they are. Some researchers think they are proteins. There was a paper last year that showed a nucleic acid was involved in how bacteria inherit certain traits. We simply do not know.

  —What does that have to do with us?

  —Everything. Whatever these genes are, our children seem to inherit all of them from us, and none from their father.

  —We could find out. We could help with the research.

  —No, Mia. We will not waste time indulging personal curiosity. That is not our path.

  —…

  —Tell me what the path is.

  —Mother!

  —I mean it.

  —Take them to the stars, before Evil comes and kills them all. That is the path.

  —You should find comfort in that. Most people do not have a clear purpose.

  —But what if … Never mind.

  —Mia …

  —What if we’re wrong? We’ve lost the knowledge. You said yourself we don’t know why we do what we do. Why do we keep doing it? Take them to the stars. It’s just words on a necklace, Mother. Why do we follow them like scripture?

  —Because they are your words. You see the person who wrote them every time you look in the mirror. You see her sitting across from you now. I do not know why we set ourselves that task but we did. We made a choice and you would make it again if it were yours to make.

  —I don’t—

  —You do know. I’ve seen you tear through our journals as if you’d read them before. The events are unfamiliar, but the choices feel obvious. You know what these women will do before you read it, and you know why they did it even if it is not on the page. You convince yourself otherwise because you crave what everyone else has, but you know who you are. Deep down, you have always known. It scares you, the same way it scared all of us, until …

  —Until what?

  —Until you see your own daughter and realize she is you. Then you will know. You will know you are me, and my mother, and the Eighty-Seven, and the Ten. And you will know that those words are real.

  —All right, that’s enough. I’ll be okay, Mother. I’m okay. Let’s talk about something else.

  —We do not need to talk about anything. You have some personal items to pack.

  —Do we really need to move now?

  —Tomorrow. He is too close for us to stay.

  —How do you know?

  —I told you. There was a murder across the street from—

  —People get murdered every day, Mother. It doesn’t mean it’s the Tracker.

  —It was not a murder. It was a bloodbath.

  —There are deranged people ev—

  —It happened across from our house! I will not take that chance, Mia. Tomorrow we move to Moscow. Pack what you can. We will burn the house in the morning.

  —I just …

  —You just what, Mia?

  —I just don’t think he’s real.

  —Then let us make certain we never have to find out.

  ENTR’ACTE

  Rule #5: Don’t Leave a Trace

  AD 1945

  The war was coming to an end when the Tracker made it to Berlin. As always, the brothers were late—thirteen years behind the traitors. The store the women ran had burned down. Friends had moved away or had died in the trenches. For George, the eldest, this was the end, a final attempt at capturing the traitors before retiring to have children. His brothers would continue without him until his boys were old enough to hunt on their own.

  Years of failure had taken their toll on George. He would honor his father’s wishes and spawn a new generation, but he had long stopped believing in their cause. All he had hoped for was to kill his prey and put an end to this pointless chase. Now, staring at the ashes of an old spice shop, he had to come to terms with the idea of watching small versions of himself grow up to live the life he had so resented. That, he decided, would be better achieved with large amounts of whiskey. He sat at the bar in the tavern across the street and asked for the bottle. The barkeep obliged, turned to wash some dirty glasses, and started talking to the wall.

  —Shame what happened to Ahmet’s place.

  George grimaced as he downed a full glass. The barkeep kept talking.

  —Rough day?

  George’s throat was still burning. He looked at the patron next to him, facedown on the bar, slowly adding width to a small puddle of drool. He took a deep breath, let the smell of stale beer and cheap cigars fill his lungs, before he acknowledged the barkeep looking at him in the bar mirror.

  —Are you talking to me?

  —Yeah! I said you look like you’re having a rough day.

  —What were you saying before that?

  —I saw you looking at the rubble. It’s a shame what happened to Ahmet’s shop.

  Two words: Ahmet’s shop. George’s breathing got shallow. He felt a tingle in his stomach. It wasn’t the booze, that hadn’t kicked in yet. This was something he had felt every now and again. Something that always came and went.

  —I thought the shop owner was a woman. Sara.

  —Sara was the daughter. The shop belonged to her mother, and Ahmet, her husband. Good man.

  —You wouldn’t happen to know where they went, now would you?

  —Sorry. They just … disappeared.

  George exhaled what little hope had sprung inside him and poured himself another glass of whiskey.

  —Zum Wohl!

  That one didn’t burn as much going down. It wasn’t the first time George tried to drink himself into oblivion. He knew what was coming: despair, followed by rage. A headache, bloody hands. George didn’t care. He always enjoyed that first hour or so, when self-pity was stronger than self-loathing.

  —His sister might know.

  —…

  —Ahmet’s sister. Fata. She’d be over fifty by now but she might still be around.

  —Fata. Do you know where she lives?

  —Nah. Haven’t seen her in years. Schöneberg, maybe. Fata Hassan is her name. Sorr—

  The barkeep grabbed his throat and fell to the floor. It took a few seconds for George to realize he was holding a knife. His knife. George looked at himself in the bar mirror and got angry at the man staring back. He wanted to know more. He had questions his mouth was too numb to ask, and the man gargling on the ground wasn’t answering them. He turned around to see who would, but the room spun the other way. He spotted half a dozen young people sitting in the corner. The floor tilted when he got up to approach them and sent him crashing against the wall. The people laughed at him as if it were his fault, as if he were impotent. George’s knife hand started acting on its own. Blackout.

  George was sitting at the youths’ table. Their heads were missing. They all sat there, headless, taunting him. George grabbed each body, one by one, hoping to shake some sense into them. Blackout.

  Guilt was for the weak, but George felt ashamed of what he had done. He tried to fix it, put these people’s heads back where they belonged. He matched each one to a body as best he could, but the heads kept falling. George found some cocktail shakers to hold them in place. The whole process was tiring, and when he was done, George sat himself back at the bar for some rest. When he woke, the room had stopped spinning. He saw the scene he had created and decided it was probably best to leave.

  The man sitting next to him was still
facedown on the bar, but the puddle of drool had grown bigger and redder. George wiped his blade on the man’s shirt and grabbed the whiskey bottle before stumbling out of the tavern. He cursed the blinding sun and headed to Schöneberg on foot, hoping the walk would sober him up faster than he was drinking.

  The police stopped him midway. George’s heartbeat went up a notch. He had spent his whole life chasing the traitors. There was nothing else. That was his life. It was his brothers’ life, his father’s. Every day felt exactly like the last, and for as long as George remembered, he had seen the world as pale and bleak. Fighting was the only thing that really got his heart pumping, the one thing that reminded him he was still alive. When four police officers stood in front of him on Goebenstraße, he thought the ensuing battle would be the highlight of his day. He went for one last sip of whiskey, but the bottle was empty, and in a brief moment of lucidity, he remembered two words the dead barman had uttered: “Fata Hassan.”

  George got on his knees and thanked the police for stopping him.

  —Oh thank God! I’m so glad to finally see someone. Can you help me find my way home? I’ve had way too much to drink and I’m afraid I’m completely lost.

  The officers asked where home was, to which George replied that he hadn’t found a place yet. He had just moved to Berlin and had been living with a friend for two days.

  —Can you please take me to her place? I don’t know where it is—Schöneberg, somewhere—but her name is Fata Hassan. Please help me.

  The Tracker could be very charming, and after a brief stint at the police station, two Berlin police officers drove him to an apartment building on Freisinger Straße. George thanked the officers and entered the building. He found Fata Hassan’s apartment and kicked her door in.

  When Fata returned home from work that night, she found a man sleeping in her bed. She did not scream. Instead, she went to the kitchen and grabbed a knife. She returned to the bedroom to wake the stranger.

  George woke not knowing where he was. He gathered he was in Germany when he heard Fata speak but remembered nothing of what had transpired earlier. It was only when she told him her last name that George realized who he was speaking with. He introduced himself as Sara’s cousin, which brought a smile to Fata’s face. Eager to meet a new member of the family, she made dinner for the both of them. George listened to Fata reminisce about her brother and his wife for hours. It was almost midnight when he finally asked where he could find Sara.

  —America! They went to America. I don’t know where. Ahmet said he couldn’t tell me and I haven’t heard from him since. But that’s where you’ll find your cousin.

  George’s head was still pounding, but he enjoyed the feeling of normalcy that came with a home-cooked meal. He was polite, did not strangle or stab his host. He thanked Fata for dinner and said he hoped they would meet again. He was almost out of the building when Fata ran after him.

  —Wait! I have something to show you! I found this in the family album. You can have it if you want.

  In her hand was a picture of a man, two women, and a child. On the back of it, a handwritten note said: “With my beloved wife, our daughter Sara and little Mi’a. 1931.”

  ACT  III

  18

  Twilight Time

  Germany surrendered the same day we arrived in Moscow. The highest-ranking asshole left alive signed the German Instrument of Surrender—good name for a piece of paper—and poof. Nazi Germany ceased to exist. Just like that.

  I thought it would mean … more to me. I don’t know what I thought. That it would put an end to all the suffering, restore my faith in humanity, something like that. I think they just ran out of people to kill. The dead are still dead, the burned still burned. The war in Europe is over but it rages on in the Pacific. More bombs, more death, more bodies floating in rivers.

  They’ll put some Nazi leaders on trial, but the rest of them aren’t going anywhere. The policemen who shot families on the street. The baker who told the Gestapo his neighbor was a Jew. The kind people who stood by and did absolutely nothing. They’re all there. I’m still here.

  What I really hoped for was to feel like myself again. I thought it would erase what I’ve seen, what I’ve done. But you can’t make the past go away. The war has smeared all of us, and those stains won’t come off in our lifetimes.

  Oh, and I fucking hate Russia. Mother said I would. Of course, she said it because she knew I’d want to decide that for myself. I thought: It can’t be that bad. I’m sure I’ll find something to like. New place, new friends. It’ll keep my mind busy. Maybe I can stop thinking about what I did. Maybe I can stop thinking about Bad Saarow. I helped her pack. I didn’t whine, not once. Now I can’t say she didn’t warn me.

  She never said anything about moving into a haunted house. Our place was built at the end of the century. They call it “Art Nouveau.” I doubt it was ever “nouveau.” When electricity came along, they stapled the wires on the walls and ceilings and painted over them. The lights flicker whenever I walk by. I swear, we live with the spirit of the previous owner and he’s just as pissed as I am about the water heater. My guess is he killed himself after staring at green walls for too long, that or the seizure-inducing roses on the kitchen wallpaper.

  I barely understand why we had to leave. I sure as hell don’t know why we had to come here. Mother said we’re going to build rockets, but there had to be better places than this. The Soviets torched everything west of here to slow the Germans’ advance, and the Germans burned it all again on the way out. There’s nothing left. No farmland, no livestock. There’s nothing to eat, anywhere. Moscow’s just fog and slyakot, mud and melting snow taking over the city streets. The people are great, though, except one in seven is dead and the other six are famished.

  It’s the Soviets that defeated Hitler. For every American soldier who died, the Soviets lost eighty. We haven’t met anyone here who didn’t lose a close friend, a husband, a brother. They’ll rebuild everything, of course, with slave labor: two million prisoners of war and just as many Soviet dissidents Stalin had arrested. No wonder these people are paranoid. This whole place is a prison without walls. And if you don’t play nice, you get sent to the one with walls, and forced labor, and death. There’s lots of death, and brainwashing. Millions of little brains being washed. School is bad enough, but the youth organizations are just … I’m a proud member of the Komsomol. We’re the end of a long assembly line for perfect Soviet citizens. You start at seven—because why wait?—and join the Little Octobrists, then you graduate to the Young Pioneers at nine. They’re like Girl Scouts. Creepy, zombified propaganda-spewing Girl Scouts. Joining is voluntary, of course. You have a choice, unless you really want to go to school, get a better job, or not have your neighbors look at you funny, or not add a tenth circle to this fiery, everlasting hell. I volunteered. Mother said I had to.

  19

  Ac-cent-tchu-ate the Positive

  I received another letter from Hsue-Shen.

  My dear Sarah,

  It is with a profound sense of irony that I have accepted a commission in the US Air Force. I cannot vote or marry but I can apparently hold the rank of colonel. The commission is only temporary. I shall travel to Germany to interrogate a group of rocket scientists who surrendered to American forces shortly before the Reich fell. Though their expertise would no doubt prove useful, I shudder at the prospect of welcoming anyone who enabled Hitler in the slightest manner.

  I understand and respect my friend’s reluctance. That is why I chose him. Von Braun’s value is obvious, but that of those who were captured with him is not. Few people understand the science well enough to weigh their knowledge against their character. This entire endeavor is but a moral compromise, but if one is to make a deal with the devil, one should at least be able to negotiate the terms.

  —MOTHER! THE WATER HEATER BROKE AGAIN!

  —Then get out of the shower.

  My daughter is having a difficult time adjusting to our
new circumstances. She believed the war’s end would be an end, but for her it is only the beginning. Cold water and stale bread are also not helping.

  —I’m freezing! Oh, and there’s definitely something moving inside my bedroom wall.

  —It’s only the wind, Mia.

  —Seriously, Mother. What are we doing here?

  —We are giving the Americans someone to compete against. We are going to build V-2s, then make even better rockets.

  —Great! Why are we in Russia? Rocket scientists are in Germany, not here.

  —Do you wish to go back?

  —Fuck no!

  —MIA!

  —Sorry.

  —Do you know where Wernher von Braun is at this very moment?

  —Hmmm. It’s the middle of the night in America, so I’d say in his bed.

  —Witzenhausen. Von Braun is in Witzenhausen.

  —That sounds suspiciously German.

  —It is. The Americans have not deigned to debrief him yet. I had to pull some very reluctant strings in Washington to make sure they send someone.

  —Are you telling me I went to Germany for nothing?

  —I am telling you we need to put pressure on the Americans.

  —How? Wherever he is, Mother, von Braun’s not here. The Soviets may have been good at this before Stalin, before the purge, but they’re so far behind now … We’re not going to build rockets ourselves, Mother.

  —Then I suggest you find someone who will.

  —There’s no one! The Soviets aren’t up for this any more than the Americans were. It’s the Germans that build rockets. That’s why I went there in the first place.

  —Get some Germans involved, then. The Americans will only take about half of the people you gave them. You left over twenty-five hundred people behind in Bleicherode, if I remember correctly, and a good third of the people working for von Braun never even left Peenemünde, which happens to be inside Soviet-occupied territory. There are plenty of people left with some knowledge of the V-2.