by Ahern, Jerry
Natalia wanted to took away, but would not allow herself the luxury.
“We have checked all the dental records, Herr Rourke,” the German military doctor-a young, severely expressioned man-began. “But, in the case of such men, dental records were not enough. The American, Dodd, had several times dislocated his knee. The right one. Logic infers there would have been considerable scar tissue and cartilege. We found both in the post mortem. An appendix scar, such as was the common result before the advent of modern surgical techniques, was also expected to be present. I had never seen one before, of course, but consulted with medical records at New Germany. And, of course, I verified surgically during the post mortem. The appendix is missing. Other small scars on the body, as noted in his records, were all present as they should be. The general shape of his bone structure, his musculature, all matches. There was no DNA typing five centuries ago, so there was no means by which to make a comparison. However, I am confident this is the corpse of Commander Dodd.”
“What about firigerprints?” Annie asked.
They were checked, of course, and they match. But fingerprints of themselves are not a valid technique for identification, Frau Rubenstein. With current techniques, they can be altered comparatively easily. There is a type of laser surgery on cloned
human tissue, where new fingerprints are grown and the old skin at the fingertips is merely removed, the new skin grafted in place, giving a new fingerprint. Again, a laser technique-there are no discernible scars if the procedure is performed competently.”
“What about the other body?” Paul asked.
“Ahh! A much more positive identification, Herr Rubenstein,” the young doctor said enthusiastically. He let the flap of the body bag fall back over the charred face of Commander Dodd, then moved along to the next drawer.
Natalia’s breath steamed and for some reason, that at once thrilled and frightened her, she wanted Michael’s arm around her.
She forced herself to stare at the next body as the flap of the bag was opened and drawn back. The face, only half burned, was much more recognizably human, and matched photographs she had seen of Zimmer.
Annie, who had seen Zimmer in the flesh, said, “My God, that’s him.”
The German doctor-his name was Belzer-added, “Indeed it is, Frau Rubenstein. We were able to check his retinal print, something unavailable in the case of Commander Dodd. As you can see, one eye was destroyed, the right, but the left is intact. Even with the most sophisticated techniques, retinal identification cannot be-what is the word?”
“Faked?” Michael suggested.
“Yes, faked, Herr Rourke. This can be no other than Deitrich Zimmer. Body scars, everything matches. DNA typing agrees one hundred percent. As, of course,” and he smiled a little condescendingly, “do the fingerprints.”
“So they just fell out of the sky?” Michael asked. “This is almost too convenient.”
“The report is considerably detailed, Herr Rourke, but in summary, as I understand, the gunship on which both men flew-President Kurinami had ordered the arrest of Commander Dodd for expropriation of strategic materials and Herr Doctor Zimmer was aiding in the Herr Commander’s escape
the gunship Herr Commander Dodd and Herr Doctor Zimmer used, developed mechanical difficulties of some sort and there was an explosion. These bodies, as you may already know, were assembled from parts. I was at the scene of the crash. Finding the sufficient number of teeth in order to check dental records was challenging in the extreme. Herr Doctor Zimmer’s head, for example-” And Doctor Belzer drew the bag back farther.
Natalia looked away in disgust. There was a difference between doing it in combat and watching it afterward, the clinical thing about k coldly, frightening.
Deitrich Zimmer’s head rested over the shoulders where it belonged, but it was not attached to the body …
She stood alone, apart from Michael and Annie and Paul. The morgue which had been set up to store the bodies was a small pre-fab building at the far end of the German base’s airfield.
The wind blew strong here. Natalia was cold.
And she feh hollow, because it was all over. Vengeance, albeit of an rmpersocal kind that was not satisfying, was finally theirs. Yet, no vengeance could compensate for the loss of John and Sarah and the baby.
Part Four
Life Threads
One
Natalia laughed as she thought about it, that women only glistened and never perspired. Would that it were true. After helping with moving chairs and pairmng scenery and washing dirty children all day long, the moisture on her body was nothing more or less than sweat. “AD right,” she said, raising her voice to the children. “How many of you want to be shepherds?*
Not one of them raised a hand.
“What’s a more or less atheist doing casting a Christmas pageant?” she asked herself under her breath. But that really wasn’t true; she’d once been an atheist, simply because everyone around her was; but she was one no more.
After she’d seen the bodies of Dodd and Zimmer buried, she left Eden, telling herself she would never return. By the grace of Colonel Mann’s J7-V, she’d flown to Lydveldid Island with Paul and Annie, staying with them there for several weeks and, while she was at it, studying Grristianity under one of the country’s many clerics. It was a way to pass the time and focus her mind on something else. And religion, Christianity and Judaism, hadn’t seemed to have hurt the only real friends she’d ever had.
In the end, she said good-bye to Paul and Annie and told them to contact her in Europe as soon as Annie was pregnant. And she had herself baptized, but not without realizing there was never going to be any philosophy, religious or secular, which she would ever fully embrace, any but her own. Nor did she intend to conduct her life in any manner other than the way in which she had conducted it ever since she had abandoned the KGB and begun to aid the Rourke Family, in the fight for freedom.
She didn’t delude herself that now, somehow, she would have a better chance of prayer being heard (she was convinced that someone
was there to listen, but not that the likelihood of being heard was at all enhanced by water and the sign of the cross, only by the sincerity of one’s intent; if God was Love, then God, unlike men, could not turn a deaf ear simply out of dislike for the petitioner). She prayed, whenever she thought to do so, however, for John and Sarah to recover.
Andsometimes she prayed that she would be able to ignore the feelings which stirred within her every time she thought of Michael Rourke.
Hewas beautiful and wonderful.
Johnhad intended that she marry him. That was obvious. But John loved her. That was implicit.
Sheloved John and-God help her, she prayed-she loved Michael.
Workingwith the children of The Wild Tribes was her only chance for salvation, and atonement as well. If there was a hell, she had already consigned herself to it. But that was no excuse to continue along a path she knew was wrong. Nothing could ever undo the evil she had done in the name of her native land. And she never prayed to God for herself.
Beggingwas not in her nature, at least not begging for herself.
Twoministers from Lydveldid Island and one from Mid-Wake had taken up residence in what was called ‘Gaul’, roughly the location of pre-War Strasbourg, France, along the German border.
Theyhelpedher with the school and managed the hospital (the man from Mid-Wake was a retired Navy doctor) and she, in turn, was helping them with this Nativity play.
Shefancied the wisemen differefttly. Women, in those days, were bond servants and nothing more. But, had she been a man and in company of the Three Wisemen from the East, she would have killed Herod and been done with it. It should have been obvious the man was so obsessed with power, that killing the Holy Child or any child, would not bother him one iota.
Thewisemen, like most true intellectuals, were innocents in the ways of the world.
Sometimes,Natalia thought she would have made a very fine avenging angel.
“Ifno one wants to be a shepherd, then who wants to be an angel?” Thelittlegirl, Reverend Slaughter of Mid-Wake, hadnamed Charity, raised her litde hand.
Charity,like all of the Wild Tribes children to greater and lesser degrees, had a face that was distorted by normal standards, the nostrils so wide the nose seemed flat, the teeth larger than they should be in normal human children, the skin leathery looking and to the touch, and the color of cafe au lait.
Hereyes were blue and very beautiful when she smiled, though.
Atfirst, Natalia had seen the children of the Wild Tribes as ugly. Now, she saw them only as children. And, as children, they were beautiful and unique.
Shewas rernmded of a verse she remembered from her reading of the Bible (one could not even partially embrace a philosophy without reading its principal text) about the sins of the fathers being visited upon their children. The ancestors of the Wild Tribes children had planned for nuclear holocaust, but not planned well enough. Some were French, some German, some Austrian, none sufficiently well equipped to survive underground long enough.
Thefathers* returned to the surface when the radiation was still too strong.
Theirchildren-these children-paid for those sins with leathery skin, distorted faces, distended teeth, theoccasional missing or extra digit, and a heritage of violence which had nearly eradicated them forever.
Sofar, twenty-eight hundred and some members of the ‘Wild Tribes of Europe’, as they were called collectively, had been found.
Sevenhundred five of them lived and learned how to live better here at Strasbourg.
Onehundred eighty-three of those were children, some of them teenagers, some of them infants, the remaining seventy-two, her children, none of whom wanted to be shepherds, one of whom-Charity-wanted to be an angel.
“Allright; you are an angel.”
“Thankyou Natalia!” Charity, before Natalia could stop her, ran up to her and threw-her arms so tighdy around Natalia’s thighs that Natalia nearly lost ber balance. “I love you!”
Nataliadropped to her knees and hugged Charity. “Hove you, too.”
“AndI love you, I finally realized.”
Nataliastood up.
Charityclung to Natalia’s skirt.
Natalialooked over ber shoulder, then closed her eyes. The shoul
dersof his parka still spotted with snow, hair tousled-wonderful- it wasMichael Rourke and she wondered if Charity wete disching at herknees again or if her knees just stopped working…
That’sthe way it always is; never can get a shepherd when you need one.” “Why did you come here?”
Michaelsat on the couch-he obscured it, she thought. Iris tegs so long, his shoulders so broad. He lit a cigarette, but he didn’t answer her.
Herpre-fab was as personalized as she could make it, bat when she looked around it nothing even looked familiar, certainly not inviting. She poured a glass of the German taste-alike for Seagram’s Seven Crown, John’s favorite alcoholic beverage, one of her favorites, too. Natalia exhaled, her fists -God, they were small, she thought, compared to Michael’s hands-balling tight on the counter as Michael was suddenly standing there on the other side. She looked up into his face. “You should not have come here.”
“Why?”
Thiscan’t be.”
“Whatif my father never wakes up? And, what if he does? He has a wife. I don’t. I came to correct that.”
“You-you-“She wasn’t breathing right.
Theradio was playing Christmas songs, a program from Mid-Wake uplinked to a communications satellite put into geosynchronous orbit three months ago by New Germany; and now the whole civilized world, such as it was, had communications.
“Me?What?”
“No,it’s-” Natalia began again.
Michael’shands reached out and covered hers. “I didn’t come here to be a look-alike substitute for the genuine article. If you can’t accept me as anything else but that, then Til leave.”
Shelooked up at him across her kitchen counter. “You don’t know what you are asking, Michael.”
“Oh,yes I do,” Michael Rourke told her, his brown eyes smiling. Tm asking you to love me.”
Shebit her lower lip. She swallowed and she had nothing to swallow. She tookagulpofher whiskey and it burned her throat, drinking
itso fast. “I, uhh-” She turned her back to him, stabbing her trembling hands into the pockets of her skirt. “I already -” She told herself to shut her mouth and her mouth obeyed. He must have walked around the counter, because she felt hands - strong hands - touching at her waist, the fingers almost encircling her. “Let go of me, Michael.” “No.”
Hishands were on her shoulders and he turned her around and she turned her face away, but then his hands were on her face and lifting her face toward his.
Hiseyes, everything about him, his father, not his father. Tears started in hereyes. “Can’tyou see-“
“Maybe,maybe I see something else.” He didn’t kiss her, just held her face so he could and she could not stop him. Her arms were at her sides.limp, useless. She lowered her eyes. “I thought about you,” Michael almost whispered. “I never stopped thinking about you. You were my friend. You still are my friend. I don’t know a lot about things like this. Madison was an angel, like your litde girl, Charity. I don’t love Madison any less. But what I feel for you, I’ve never felt for anybody”
Sheshook her bead, tried to speak, could not. “This is wrong, Michael. Its wrong for us-” “Life, living? That’s wrong?” “Michael, I beg you-“
“No.Tell me to go away and Til never be back. That’s my promise. Look at me and tell me that, Natalia. Just look at me and say it. That’s all you have to do and ifs all over forever.”
NataliaAnastasia Tiemerovna opened her eyes and looked up at Michael Rourke and opened her mouth and couldn’t say it.
Andhe kissed her mouth and her body, without her letting it, melted against his.
Andshe knew what death was, in that instant, and life, too …
Nataliastood perfecdy still, Michael’s hands moving over her.
Herbody trembled as he kissed her.
Shehad pictured this and, like a nightmare, it had terrified her. Because she had pictured herself fantasizing that the Rourke whose fingers now undid the button at the waistband of her skirt, drew down the zipper, pushed the skirt down over her hips, although she would know he was Michael, she would pretend was John.
Butthat did not happen.
Heopened her blouse, pushing it down along her arms, leaving her arms bound within the fabric. He undid the hook and eye fasteners at the back of her bra, the bra sliding down over her arms on its straps. And she did not move.
Whenshe looked into his eyes, touched her lips softly to his face, it was Michael and there was no dark fantasy within her that it was John. His hands pushed her slip and her panties over her hips and along her thighs and down to encircle her bare feet.
Michaellifted her up into his arms and carried her across the room.
Tellme that you love me, Michael,” Natalia whispered.
“Ilove you,” he said softly, simply, as comfortably, she thought, as if he had said it coundess times to her.
Michaelset her down on the bed and she lay there, waiting for his will.
Heundressed quickly, the muscles of his chest and shoulders and arms rippling easily.
Andthen he was beside her, freeing her arms of her clothes, freeing her heart.
Sherealized she was crying only as she spoke, saying, “I love you, Michael. I love you.”
Two
“Mr.Rubenstein7”
PaulRubenstein turned around to look for the source of the voic behind him on the path through the park. The face, which went wit the voice, was open and smiling, blonde and fair. Stig was a sincei student of history, if not the most naturally gifted.
“Yes?”
1was wondering, sir, if I might walk with you a bit and ask you few questions concerning today’s l
ecture, please?”
Stig’sEnglish was a bit peculiar, but vastiy better than Paul Ru benstek’skelandic. “Certainly. May aswell cross theparktogethei What is it you wish to know?” And young Stig fell in at Paul Ruben stein’s side.
Butold habits died hard, and however long Paul Rubenstein livei with his wife m the rebudding Hekla community, he knew, he wouk never quite lose the old habits. He kept the boy on his left so, if i came to that, he could shove the boy back with his left hand lonj enough to get at the battered old Browning High Power, he still wore under his coat and probably always would.
Hesupposed a psychiatrist would call it paranoia, because noth ing here in Lydveldid Island posed even the remotest threat. But he remembered, on a path like this, before the volcano had erupted and destroyed everything, before the rebuilding of the Hekla Community had begun, the death of a very beautiful, very pregnant young girl named Madison Rourke, Michael’s wife.
Paranoiaor not, Paul Rubenstein would never risk his own fate or the fate of a loved one by going unarmed.
“Iwas wondered, sir-“
“Wondering-youwere wondering, not *wondered’, okay?” “Yes. Thank you,” the boy smiled. “No matter how hard I under
stand,or try to understand, I mean, with men such as yourself and Doctor Rourke alive, it is incomprehensible to me that evil flourished so that the war could ever start.”
PaulRubenstein smiled, looking down at his shoes for a moment, then over at young Stig. “I believe you just gave me a very great compliment. So, I thank you for that. Before The Night of The War, like everybody else, I was so busy with having a ‘normal’ life that I thought anyone who planned for something I personally thought was impossible was a litde crazy. I really did think that way, Stig.
“Therewas my job, my friends, a girl I was going with, the rush to the office every morning, the rush home every night, and not much time to sit down and think about what the world around me was really like, as opposed to what it seemed to me to be. John Rourke saw Life differendy.