Weaver

by Stephen Baxter

  This amazing cosmology explained a lot, from the true meaning of the Scandinavian creation myths to the destruction of Atlantis. And it was the reason why, even after years of ardent searching, nobody had found a trace of proof that the primordial Aryan race, source of all high civilisation on Earth, had ever actually existed.

  If he’d been watching this with friends, with his buddies from the stalag, Gary might have laughed. As it was he was chilled. Most Germans he had met were as sane as he was, more or less. But there must be somebody high up in the Nazi hierarchy who believed in this garbage sufficiently to have it researched and dramatised. They’re crazy, Gary thought. And they are in control. I’m trapped in a world of the mad, as if the whole planet is a vast stalag run by lunatics—

  There was a tap on the door.

  Reflexively he hid the beer under his chair, as if he was in the stalag and a goon had called for a late-night inspection. He checked himself, deliberately picked up the beer, and set it on the coffee table. He stood, turned off the television, and wrapped his dressing gown tight around him as he walked to the door.

  A young woman stood there. She was dressed plainly, in a knee-length black skirt and a modest blouse with a kind of neckerchief. She wore her dark hair pinned back in a bun. The whole effect was of a uniform, like a Girl Guide troop leader. She had a face that was more handsome than beautiful, he thought. She looked strong.

  She grinned at him. ‘What’s wrong with you? Never seen a woman before?’ Her accent was some English variant unfamiliar to him.

  ‘Not hardly, for a year. Look, I’m sorry.’ He stepped back, impossibly awkward. ‘I guess I left my manners back in the stalag. Come in.’

  She swept past him. ‘You weren’t expecting visitors.’

  ‘Hell, no. I mean - sorry. I guess you know who I am, right?’

  ‘Yes, Corporal Wooler.’

  ‘Call me Gary.’

  ‘Thanks,’ she said, amused. ‘I’m Sophie Silver. But you can call me Doris Keeler.’

  That threw him completely. ‘What did you say?’

  She glanced around the room, at the beer, the empty food plates, the television.

  ‘You’ve been making yourself at home. Good for you. Mind if I sit down?’

  ‘I—’

  ‘Have you got any more of those beers?’ She sat confidently on one of the easy chairs. ‘Needs a bit of colour, this place, doesn’t it?’

  ‘Um-’

  ‘That beer.’

  ‘Oh. Sure.’ He went to the kitchen.

  She called after him, ‘I don’t want to drink up your treat. But then again, I’m supposed to be your treat too, aren’t I?’

  Again he was thrown. He brought her a glass of beer, and sat on the sofa. ‘Look, Miss Silver - or Keeler—’

  ‘Doris will do.’ She sipped her beer. ‘Yum. Better than the shitty wine we get back home.’

  ‘Where’s home?’

  ‘Colchester.’

  ‘Colchester. Look, Doris, I’ve had kind of a bumpy day. You’re talking in riddles here. Who are you? Did Julia Fiveash send you?’

  ‘She sent Sophie Silver. She didn’t know Doris Keeler was here for the ride too.’

  ‘So start with Sophie Silver. Who is she?’

  ‘She’s supposed to be your, well, your mate is probably the right word. Did Fiveash tell you this show village is lebensborn?’

  ‘I don’t know what that means.’

  ‘This is a love camp. Lebensborn means the fount of life. Another of Himmler’s ideas. He wants to purify Aryan blood. The Fuhrer approves; he’s named Himmler the Reich Commissioner for the Strengthening of the German Race. So Himmler’s setting up a programme of breeding, where Aryan men, especially SS officers, can couple with suitably chosen females of the right sort. And if you and I successfully reproduce, there will even be a new sort of religion into which we can baptise our little Nordic runt.’

  ‘Well, that’s another bloody stupid idea of the Nazis.’

  ‘True. But you’ve got to admit it’s more fun than invading Poland.’ She winked at him. ‘They must like you.’

  ‘I’ll say. But I take it healthy Aryan copulation is out of the question—’

  ‘Come near me and you’ll be posting your balls home to America,’ she said. ‘No offence.’

  ‘None taken. So that’s Sophie Silver. Who’s Doris Keeler?’

  ‘Resistance.’

  ‘Ah.’ He took another drink of his beer. ‘You must have taken a hell of a risk to get in here.’

  ‘You don’t need to know the details,’ she said evenly.

  ‘Then tell me why.’

  ‘For you. Or rather, for your friend Ben Kamen.’

  ‘Ben.’ He sat up straight. ‘They took him out of the stalag.’

  ‘Well, he’s alive. But the SS have him. They mean to use him.’

  ‘For what? - No, I guess I don’t need to know that.’

  ‘I got a briefing through the Special Ops Executive - you know it supports the resistance. We, or rather the British military intelligence, are putting together a plan to get him out. We want you to help.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘Well, we don’t know yet. But you’re connected. You know Ben. And your mother is involved in the analysis of the situation.’

  ‘My mother?’

  ‘She sends her best, by the way. I’ve already spoken to George Tanner.’ She looked at him; perhaps he was showing his shock. ‘Your father-in-law.’

  ‘I know who he is, damn it.’ To have these names fired at him, the names of his family and friends in this extraordinary place, was very disconcerting.

  ‘All these people,’ Doris said, ‘have a relationship with Ben Kamen, and can plausibly be positioned close to him as assets during the retrieval attempt.’

  ‘You make us sound like pieces on a chess board.’

  ‘Well, that’s military intelligence for you. All you have to do for now is stay out of the stalag.’

  He said immediately, ‘I’ve been refusing release programmes and exchanges since the day I was brought to the stalag. I was a soldier; I am a POW; that’s how I want to be treated.’

  ‘All right. But the fact is you’d be a lot more use to the war effort if you stay here. Actually I’m not interested in your agonising,’ she said briskly. ‘I’ll stay an hour, if I may, for form, and then you can do what you want.’

  Well.’ He sat back. ‘Kind of business-like, aren’t you?’

  ‘Isn’t it better to be?’

  ‘So what shall we talk about? How did a girl like you finish up in the resistance?’

  ‘It’s best if we don’t talk,’ Doris said. ‘What’s on your television? I’ve watched a bit of it from the other side of the Winston Line. It’s quite popular, funnily enough. Any more beer going begging?’

  XXI

  12 December

  The Wehrmacht transport dropped Ernst off, and he walked up the drive to the Miller farmhouse. It had been snowing this December Friday, though it wasn’t desperately cold; the snow was moist and sticky.

  He walked slowly. He was tired tonight, his imagination worn out by all the briefings following Hitler’s sudden declaration of war upon America.

  The declaration itself wasn’t a shock; the Fuhrer had been infuriated for years by the Americans’ bending of the meaning of neutrality in its support of Britain: ‘Roosevelt is picking a fight,’ Josef always said. And the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor was a good time to go to war, for suddenly America found herself fighting on two fronts.

  And he was reluctant to go into the house, so sour had the mood been that morning, after the post had come with the bad news about Alfie. This isn’t my problem, he told himself. That was what Heinz and his officers told him every time he tried to talk about this. It’s just a billet. Walk away. And yet he was bound up with these people. So he walked to the house and in he went; what else could he do?

  He hung his greatcoat and hat on a hook in the hall, items of a German soldier�
�s military issue beside Fred’s battered farmer’s overcoat and the children’s school blazers and gabardines. He left his slushy boots in the hallway, so that he had to walk into the kitchen in his socks. The kitchen was warm, and full of cooking smells. It was yet another memorial day, Coronation Day, the anniversary of the crowning of King Edward previously denied him by his abdication. Ernst had been able to provide another bit of meat, a pork joint; he could smell it in the oven, while pans of vegetables sat on the range, steaming.

  Only Irma was here, with baby Myrtle, six months old, in her cot. Irma was hanging decorations on her Christmas tree, a fir about five feet high. There was a Nativity scene too, a stable and little wooden figures carved in wood, set up on the mantelpiece over the stove. Myrtle’s baby bag, her haversack-like protection from poison gas, sat on the floor near the cot.

  ‘Hello, Obergefreiter,’ Irma said. She looked tired, as always, and she pushed a lank bit of hair out of her eyes. ‘Do you need a cup of tea?’

  ‘Thank you. I will wait for supper. I can smell the pork.’

  ‘I’ve salted it for crackling, the way you like it. Thanks for the joint, Ernst.’

  ‘Don’t thank me, thank the King...’

  The truth was that Ernst wasn’t sure how much longer he was going to be able to provide treats like this. At war with America, life for all of them in the protectorate, German and English, was going to get harder. But there was no need to bring that into the family home, not tonight, with a Christmas tree and a roast in the oven.

  Dutifully he inspected the tree. There were garlands of some kind of tin foil, and bits of paper made into chains, and balls of wool scraps, multi-coloured. One odd touch was a set of little wooden battleships, suspended on bits of thread from the branches. There was even an angel, carved of wood and clumsily hand-painted, strapped to the top of the tree with a bit of string. ‘It is pretty.’

  ‘Well, I’m doing my best. We have a box of stuff we bring down from the loft every year. Fred made the angel, and his father made the Nativity scene. His father was a real woodworker.’

  ‘What is this tinsel?’

  ‘Chaff, from the RAF bombers. You find it all over the fields.’

  ‘Why the little battleships? These were issued for Scharnhorst Day, last Monday. You should use the King’s coronation medallions.’ One of these, stamped in wafer-thin tin, had been issued to every child under sixteen.

  Irma tutted. ‘Tell that to Fred. I’m not having that bloody usurper’s image on my bloody tree.“ Besides, little Myrtle eats them.’

  Viv came bubbling in. She was still in her school uniform, but Ernst could see she had put a bit of lipstick on, no doubt for his benefit. ‘Good evening, Ernst! I heard you come in.’

  ‘I must have noisy socks.’

  ‘What do you think of the Nativity? I set it up.’

  ‘It is very nice.’

  ‘See what I did?’ She picked out the infant Jesus from His crib. The tiny doll, small enough to fit in the palm of her hand, was quite delicately carved, though worn from handling. And it had a yellow star on its breast, cut out from paper and fixed with a spot of glue. Viv winked at Ernst, as so often trying to draw him into a private connection. Ernst said nothing. She put the model back in the crib, and got to what she was clearly longing to ask. ‘I just wondered, you know, if there was any more news about the exchange programme.’

  In fact he had enquired at the town hall in Hastings that day. ‘As far as I am aware, nothing has changed. Although, look, the war situation is changing daily, even hourly. Everything is’ - he hunted for the colloquialism - ‘up in the air.’

  ‘I don’t see why the Japanese bombing a lot of American boats in Hawaii should make any difference. I’m so glad I’m going, ever so. I mean, it will be ever such fun, to see Berlin!’

  Irma said wearily, ‘Oh, you’re such a silly girl, Viv. And so selfish. Don’t let your father hear you talking like that.’

  Viv sniffed. ‘I’ll say what I like.’

  Ernst touched Irma’s arm. ‘It is all right. She is young, after all—’

  It was the wrong thing to say. ‘I’m not young!’ Viv turned and stormed out of the kitchen, and almost collided with her father. Fred walked in and glared at Ernst.

  ‘Good evening, Fred.’

  Fred scowled, the dirt rubbed deep into his lined face. ‘Battle. I suppose you’ve heard.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘The auxiliaries blew up an ammo store there. It’s on the German radio. There’ll be reprisals, won’t there?’

  Ernst knew nothing about what had happened at Battle, but he was sure that this was another consequence of Hitler’s declaration of war against the Americans. But the news was grave and depressing. In Albion resistance attacks had blossomed, bombs and assassinations and attacks on collaborators. And the reprisals had been harsh.

  ‘They’re taking one from every house, they say,’ Fred said.

  ‘It is best not to speak of this until necessary,’ Ernst said stiffly.

  Fred turned to his wife. ‘And what’s wrong with that empty-headed little bitch upstairs?’

  ‘Don’t speak of her that way.’ Irma used a fork to test how the swedes were cooking. ‘She’s just fretting about her exchange trip, that’s all.’

  ‘She can’t think she’s still going to Berlin. Not after Alfie. And not after the way everything’s blowing up.’

  ‘You know what she’s like, Fred.’

  ‘Yes, I know what she’s like, she’s bloody selfish and she couldn’t care less about her brother, and I know she’s not going to Berlin.’

  ‘Yes, well, you let her work that out for herself if that’s how it’s going to be. Don’t go wading in and calling her names.’

  He walked to the sink, his limp pronounced. He stepped over baby Myrtle as if she was no more than a heap of firewood. He never acknowledged the baby’s existence, not even by a glance. He rolled up his sleeves. He dumped out washing from the sink, underwear and smalls, shoving aside the box of Rinso, and began to wash hands and arms grimy from the fields. ‘I tell her the truth, that’s all. You’re too bloody soft.’

  ‘I wish you’d wash in the yard,’ Irma said. ‘Look at the mess you’re making. And never mind calling me soft. I’m just trying to protect Viv, is all.’

  ‘Protect her? What about protecting Alfie, eh?’ He glared over his shoulder at Ernst. ‘How can it be right to call up a fourteen-year-old boy for forced labour?’