Moskau (an Alternative History Thriller)

by G. Zotov

  The warm night had passed quickly. The first rays of sunshine dawned upon the lampposts hung with swaying bodies. The skeletons of gutted buildings still smoldered. Now that tobacco smoking was officially permitted, sidewalks were strewn with cigarette butts. The remaining sidewalks, that is. Half of Moskau had disappeared overnight, including the Ministry of Propaganda building still flying its red flag.

  This was a phantom city. Deep inside their surviving apartments, bloodshot-eyed people desperately pressed every button on their remote controls.

  Still, their TVs wouldn't work.

  Abwehr report #844

  The Twenty-Year War: Outcomes and Deliberations

  ACCORDING TO THE LAST POLLS, about 75% of the Moskau population are unhappy with the Triumvirate. Surprisingly, at the same time no one wants the current regime to change. How can two such mutually incompatible ideas coexist in the population's minds? Easy.

  People still remember vividly the horrors of the Twenty-Year War when they had no heating or lighting in winter and freezing families had to warm themselves by breaking furniture for fuel in makeshift wood heaters. Inflation went through the roof: a loaf of bread that cost thirty billion reichsmarks in the morning would rise in price by the evening. Even cities lucky enough to escape the street fighting still shudder when they think about those terrible times.

  SS divisions were in control of Moskau and Kiev, the Wehrmacht had been given Yekaterinodar and St Petersburg, the Gestapo wreaked havoc in Kursk while the Southern cities of Sochi, Tbilisi and Yerevan were plunged into the chaos of clashes between the Turkic legions. The Reichstag was destroyed in 1998, followed by the Reichsbank building in 2002. Damaged by Luftwaffe bombings, nuclear power stations leaked a constant stream of radiation.

  Italy as well as the Reich's other satellites promptly adopted neutrality, keeping a safe distance from the collisions of the new Civil war. "Greater Germany is our beloved big brother," Romano Mussolini said openly. "And if our brother has an itch to scratch, we'll wait respectfully aside even if he draws blood in the process."

  Soon after that, Italy completely distanced itself from Germany. Having started with Japanese loans and investments, Mussolini ended up becoming completely dependent on the Nippon koku. These days, Japanese is Italy's second official language. Everything in the country is owned by the Japanese, pizzerias included. The Sicilian mafia has been wiped out by the yakuza newcomers. The Mafia's unwritten omerta law was abandoned so that even in the old Palermo villages a guilty thug would offer the gang's oyabun leader his severed pinkie as a sign of his repentance. Both the tower of Pisa and the Piazza San Marco in Venice were leased out to the Japanese for 99 years.

  Basically, we've lost all of our allies. The satellite states tend to support those with real power. We have nothing left to our name apart from overly aggressive statements.

  Neither the Schwarzkopfs nor the Forest Brothers movement are likely to present any threat in the nearest future. Moskau's population isn't interested in the goings-on in backwater provinces. They may be badmouthing the Triumvirate and laughing at the lies spread by the state-owned TV and the stagnant system, but they will still support them, however reluctantly, as well as any actions aimed at preserving their piece of mind.

  In their heart of hearts, they're wary of having to face the truth (because they know they shouldn't be thinking these kinds of thoughts). They're too afraid of a change of power because that's what it's like in Russland: every new regime is worse than its predecessor.

  Having spent decades in the woods as hunters and gatherers, the Schwarzkopfs can't conceive any other lifestyle for themselves as one of struggle against the regime. The ideas of economy, food deliveries and even street cleaning are alien to them. All they can do is fight and brainwash others. This is a road to nowhere. This is exactly why the Third Reich (the one before the Twenty-Year War) failed: it had invested too much time into ideology.

  If a law-abiding person has to support his family on ration cards year in, year out, he is bound to start questioning the regime's integrity. He will start wondering why his enemies have a better lifestyle than he and the likes of him who are the creators of the ideal Aryan state.

  Any good empire is founded on two principles: ideology and economic successes. The exact methods of achieving the latter were irrelevant. Even the Nippon koku's loans were good enough. As soon as a previously impoverished citizen of the Reich got access to the world's pleasures, all you had to do was point out the enemies supposedly scheming to strip him of his freshly-acquired abundance. Make him fear his enemies: the rest he'd do himself. Fear is a tremendous force. Its power is behind many things in this world.

  The Reichskommissariat Moskau seems to be living from day to day. The country is up to its ears in debt and to the best of my knowledge, we can't pay it back. If Japan asks for it, we'll have no other way but to start a war with them. The Nippon koku understands this too which is why the Japanese are forced to throw even more loans at the problem.

  For the same reason, it wouldn't be wise to completely eradicate the Schwarzkopf movement. They seem to be one of the Reich's most important resources on a par with arms production, the timber industry and peat extraction. They could be made responsible for all kinds of economic or security blunders, allowing the Reich to enforce draconian measures on its population and blame them for having to fight the enemy within.

  Until the country is self-sufficient and abounds with its own gold and money, it will always need an enemy: to stay in shape, to explain away the inexplicable and to always be at the ready. The Schwarzkopfs should be kept sufficiently weak to not be able to take over cities but strong enough to carry the blame for our failures. Luckily for us, the situation remains stable. But even the Schwarzkopf leaders have no idea who finances their military operations, buys their weapons and equips their field hospitals.

  (From the Classified Archives of the Moskau Triumvirate)

  Endorsement:

  We need them like we need oxygen. Without them, we can't exist.

  Top Secret.

  Unique clearance: Viking TV Direktor.

  Chapter Seven

  The Revelation

  The village of Alexeyevskoye near Novgorod

  MY EYES STING. I don't feel my legs. For the first time in years I'm scared. My heart flutters with panic. This is probably what a deer feels when he hears the sound of hunters' bugles and the barking of dogs.

  I stand at a deserted clearing amid the forest: a bodeful bare patch devoid of grass. The air ripples, sending waves of heat into my face. I'd love to run away but my legs refuse to obey me.

  As I stagger uphill, the phantom outlines of cottages rise on both sides of me, gaining shape and color with my every step. Olga has already told me: as the Reich disintegrates, the signs of their long-forgotten crimes bleed through the fabric of reality, becoming visible again.

  I can see the houses well now, rising up amid the trees. Some miss a roof, others a wall or two. They are all charred.

  Does that mean that this village existed in our world too? It must have. I can see the ghostlike outlines of bodies doubled up on the ground: villagers gunned down by the soldiers.

  Little by little, we reach the top of the hill.

  Ravens croak overhead. The air is crystal clear but still I can't breathe. My lungs are packing up. I choke on the taste of bitter smoke in my mouth.

  Olga turns round, staring into my eyes long and hard. She bites her lips with anxiety, apparently expecting something from me.

  I too expect a lot from her. I made that much clear. She gave me her word — so now I want her to keep it and stop contaminating our world. I want her to go back to where she belongs and leave our planet alone. She promised me to do so if I came here with her. In that case, why do I feel so sick?

  "So... here we are," I struggle to speak. My tongue is coated with ash as if someone has used it to put out the fires. "Happy now? What else do you... want... from me? I think I'm gonna faint..."


  She touches my cheek, her red nails grazing against my skin. "You don't remember, do you? I shouldn't have hoped you would. What are you feeling now, my boy?"

  My boy? Who does she think she is? Still, I'm too weak to indulge in sarcasms. I'm too busy thinking about her question. Admittedly it has thrown me.

  The taste of smoke in my mouth keeps getting stronger, unbearably bitter. Ash grates against my teeth. I think I'm about to throw up. I can barely think straight.

  Why is this happening to me?

  Olga doesn't look as if she expected an answer. She walks over to the edge of the hill. The breeze ripples her hair. She points down, at the phantom silhouettes of the burned-out houses. The scene of the anomaly. Olga's portal; the wormhole that has triggered the disintegration of our universe.

  The meatgrinder chewing through time. My time.

  "Have you ever asked yourself why you don't know what you look like?" her voice assaults my eardrums, loud and clear. "Do you know why you don't have mirrors in your house? Or why you've never looked into your own ID papers? D'you know why none of your co-workers ever called you by name? You don't, do you? Otherwise you would have wondered if you really existed. You can't see yourself, can you? I brought you here hoping you might remember. But it looks like I'll have to help you."

  She reaches into her purse and produces a pocket mirror. "Here. Take a look. Then tell me who you really are."

  I take the mirror from her the way one might accept a venomous toad. My hands shake violently. I wouldn't have been able to hold a cup of tea without spilling it all over myself. Icy horror rips through my heart. I'm scared like a child in the dark.

  My reflection stares unblinkingly at me.

  A gaunt man of about thirty-five, his face covered with blond stubble. A filthy blood-stained bandage is wrapped around his forehead. A semicircular shrapnel scar on his left cheek. Blue eyes. I know that I know him.

  I do. By Fenrir and all the gods of Valhalla, I do know him!

  This is the guy from my visions. The Oberleutnant who shot that panicking deserter in the ruins of the dead city. The one who told his soldiers to throw grenades into the cottage with the children. The one who sent the prisoners of war to the minefield.

  His field-gray tunic is half-rotten, covered in snow. Fat lice crawl over its lapels. A braided epaulette on his left shoulder; an eagle clutching a swastika above his breast pocket. The two SS lightning bolts are mounted on his one lapel, three silver diamonds on the other.

  My eye begins to twitch. My reflection winks back at me. This is... He is...

  I stagger and drop the mirror. It smashes to smithereens.

  "Name?" the girl demands with military curtness.

  "Erich Tannenbaum," I say mechanically. "Obersturmführer Tannenbaum, Waffen SS. I served in Riga, then in Novgorod. Decorated with the Iron Cross for my role in punitive raids. Was dispatched to Stalingrad on August 28 1942."

  She nods. With a satisfied smile, she reaches into her purse for some cigarettes. "Nice meeting you, Erich," she says as she lights up. "Here as you know, I go by the name of Olga Sélina. I don't know my real one. Neither do you. But it was me who burned alive in this village when I was three years old — in the house you told your soldiers to destroy. I told you about me, remember? I loved raspberries, I would eat them till both my little cheeks were red with juice. I loved playing with Nana, my rag doll. I learned to say "mama" early; I'd reach my little hands out to her and she would throw me up in the air and kiss me. I'd love to know what would have become of me. An actress or a painter, maybe. Or a famous physicist. Or a school teacher. Or even a housewife, why not, who might divorce her husband and start receiving lovers at home behind her children's backs. Doesn't matter now. I'll never know," she pauses as she always does, letting out the smoke. "Because you killed me."

  Panic-stricken, I shrink back to the edge. She smiles — again. Once again, like back in that Uradziosutoku café, I stare into the empty eye sockets of a grinning, scowling skull.

  Chapter Eight

  The Kiss

  NOW I HAVE NO DOUBTS about what I suspected all along. Finally, it all makes sense. She's crazy. Oh yes she is, and it explains really a lot. The temple's disappearing walls back in Moskau, the charred cottages here... Her madness must be contagious. It's probably some kind of brain-destroying virus. Like in those documentaries when people go mad after being bitten by a rabid monkey.

  I can't have killed children. I still cringe and recoil whenever I remember that vision. I might not be the most charitable person on earth but I've never raised my hand to a child, let alone burn one alive.

  Time to put an end to all this. Time to shake off her witchery.

  I'm trying to remain calm but I can't. My usual cool fails me. I dissolve into a fit of hysterics.

  "It can't be!" for the first time in my life, I yell at someone. "You told me, remember? You came from a parallel world! How could I have gotten there? I couldn't have done it! It wasn't me! It wasn't me!"

  As I scream, I taste the smoke again, mixed with something different, something salty. Blood? It seems to be. My every word brings it all back to me. Me, receiving my orders from Oberst Neumann and descending the trail back to the village, then walking amid the burning houses in my gas mask. I walk over to one of the cottages. A child is crying her head off inside. The girl who is about three years old looks out of the window, her face bloated with tears. She climbs the window sill and bangs on the glass. I can see her so clearly. Even now Olga still looks very much like her.

  The soldiers look at me expectantly, awaiting my orders. I know them all by name. That one over there is Hans from Hannover; next to him is Heinz who loves to tell dirty jokes; and this one is young Wolff from Heidelberg. He's not as devoted to the Reich as I am and has only joined the SS on his Nazi parents' insistence.

  I raise my hand, then drop it sharply, signaling them to begin.

  Tears pour down my cheeks, burning my face. "I can't have... why... what's wrong with me? Tell me... please..."

  Her gaze fills with sisterly kindness. Gently she strokes my head. "You're dying, Erich," she says, her voice sad but calm. "Remember your vision? The one where the Oberleutnant killed the soldier in the dead city? He was then shot in the head by the Russian sniper, remember? Well... it was you. The bullet's stuck in your brain. You're in hospital, Erich. We're in Stalingrad. They can't remove the bullet: you're gonna die if they do. But even so you don't have long."

  A faint smile crosses her lips. "All this month you've been hallucinating about Moskau and your life there. You see, the bullet hit the part of your brain responsible for altering reality. Did you ask me about parallel worlds? I'm sorry, Erich. They don't exist. Moskau, the California Republic, the Nippon Koku owning half the world... it's all in your head. It's only your mind playing up. Sorry."

  She stares past me into space. "Even unconscious, you can't forget the little girl. The one you let be burned alive. Which is why I'm always here with you. You can't stop thinking about me. The world around you fades, disappearing, turning into a phantom of itself. You'll leave with it. The moment you breathe your last breath, your universe will die. I heard what the doctor said. You won't see the end of this day."

  I raise my head to the sky.

  That weird vision I had earlier. The viscous white mass, the clangor of steely objects, the little lights shining through the haze. But of course. Field hospital. The clatter of extracted bullets against surgery bowls. The flickering of dozens of candles in the dark because they have no electricity.

  We're besieged by the Russians. We survive gnawing on horse meat and frozen bread. Schnapps is the only thing readily available. I've been drinking it nonstop trying to forget the little girl in the cottage window. It didn't work though.

  All of a sudden I feel exhausted. That's it. That's the end.

  I don't need anything anymore. I just want to die.

  My fingers close around the swastika-clutching eagle on my pocket. I rip it o
ff, followed by my SS insignia, stomping the braided epaulette into the ashes covering the ground. My legs give way under me. I collapse, kneeling before Olga. She's beautiful.

  "I'm so sorry," I sob. "How can you ever forgive me... please..."

  I want to tell her so much but I'm out of words. I keep repeating myself. My last seconds dwindle, the world around me shrinking like the snow in springtime.

  The forest crumbles into ashes. A large crack runs across the glass-like sky, revealing flames behind.

  She crouches next to me and takes my hands in hers. "Tell me," she whispers, "what you always wanted to tell me. Tell me now."

  "I love you," I'm surprised with the ease the words fall from my lips.

  Our mouths touch.

  The kiss is brief and innocent. None of that French tongue nonsense (from what I heard at least). Her lips are soft, warm and inviting. I waited for this a long time.

  A clap of thunder booms overhead. My ears don't feel the impact.

  The world disintegrates. The universe is no more. Moskau, London, Neuer York and the Reichskommissariat Turkestan — they all turn to ashes. The Führer's monuments blur into nothing; the eagle on Moskau's emblem fades as if painted with invisible ink. No Odin's Temples; no Security office, no tanks in the streets. No Schwarzkopf guerrillas taking over the city.

  They're all gone. Evaporated. Born of my fantasy, the world of Moskau dies an agonyless death. Pitch darkness envelops us. We float in a space devoid of top and bottom.