by G. Zotov
Confidential. Requires clearance from the Reichsminister of Propaganda and Public Education.
Chapter Six
Helheim
The outskirts of Uradziosutoku. Spring Abundance Lane.
WE’VE CHANGED HOTELS twice in as many days. According to Olga, you can’t spend two nights in one place in a row. She must have read this in some spy thriller or other. What’s the problem if no one here sees our faces anyway? But you can’t explain it to her. She’s away with the fairies, that one, playing their Schwarzkopf games with abandon.
The funny thing is, she believes I’m on her side. I think not. I might be unhappy to make up part of this weird society where everyone is classified, from managers to writers to Krupp executives. But it doesn’t mean I approve of the Schwarzkopf route. Oh no, thank you very much. All those constant haughty phrases about regime-fighting are just a buzz, nothing more.
The dislike for our government is a trend, especially among young people. Even Führerjugend members draw satirical cartoons of the SS and the Triumvirate. Guerilla fighters may be united all they want but they’re still unable to gain control of our cities. They seem to be quite happy having control over forests and villages. Why? That’s one question the Schwarzkopfs don’t seem to be asking.
We lie on the floor. Our bodies are almost touching.
She’s predictably naked even though she’s wrapped herself in a sheet, merely for appearances’ sake, revealing one small breast. Admittedly, she isn’t trying to jump my bones. She’s so full of herself she must be thinking I’m bound to lose my guard lying inebriated next to a naked woman. Very well. Let her indulge in her fruitless hopes. All Schwarzkopfs do.
I’m drinking Kirin beer. She’s sipping her plum wine. Ideology separates us even here as we lie on a straw mat in the heat of the night.
The room is pitch black. This cheap ryokan has no windows at all.
“This regime is only held together by shopping malls,” she whispers. “No one likes it. Look, they keep sending the best Wehrmacht units to the Urals, and what happens? Within a few years, they either desert or become so morally corrupt they defect to the guerrillas! Everything’s rotten to the bone. To bring this regime down, all you need to do is poke it with your little finger. They only remain afloat because they’ve unplugged people’s brains, submerging them into the quicksand of TV, sex and money making.”
I gulp my beer directly from the bottle. An Aryan should never do that. But I’m a Russlandish Aryan.
“Still, the Triumvirate hasn’t been toppled yet,” I grin, savoring the taste of malt. “Lots of talking, zero effect. True, you couldn’t make anyone join the Wehrmacht at gunpoint anymore. No one wants to soak to the skin in forest patrols anymore. They’d much rather munch on popcorn in front of their TVs or download porn on the Shogunet. That’s why we have to hire Chinese mercenaries to defend parts of the Ural front under the command of our officers. Even if they get smoked one on a hundred, they still manage to contain the Forest Brothers. Cannon fodder is costly, which is why the Reich is obliged to turn to the Nippon koku for new loans. We get deeper and deeper into debt; we’ve no idea where to get the money from, but still, our peace of mind is worth it. We don’t want any more tanks to shell the Reichstag like they did in the Twenty-Year War.”
Olga raises herself on the mat and reaches for me. The sheet slides down to her belly. The smell of wine comes from her lips.
“So what if they shell it,” she snickers. “As long as this stagnant swamp begins to bubble. The Reichstag! They’re but a hundred faceless slaves, the passive biomass that has been granted the right to press buttons. The only reason the Triumvirate still keeps them is because that’s where your Führer started his journey. Otherwise the Reichstag would have been recycled a long time ago. Now that the NSDAP is dissolved, we don’t have a single political party left. Great, eh? A country that’s deficient in every respect. We don’t have leaders, only ghost front figures. We don’t have a culture, only cheap television laughs. We don’t have love, only brothels. Everybody’s grown so uncaring it’s as if their hearts are being amputated at birth. The rich prefer to splurge bundles of Reichsmarks on Das Reich Club strippers while Schwarzkopfs blow up armored convoys in the suburbs of their own city. Marlo and entertainment, these are the only two things that maintain the occupiers’ power. And I’m pretty sure that the Triumvirate know what they’re doing, pretending to be fleeting shadows. In order to hate something, you need to have this something first. But how can you hate thin air?
Marlo. That’s a local slang for Reichsmarks. Well, what can I say? All I can do is beg with Hel, the Goddess, to take me down to her world of the dead. It’s true that Garm, her four-eyed dog, might never let me back out, forcing me to re-enter the black waters of the river Gjöll brimming with skulls and maggots… I’d have to shiver in the freezing cold of the Iron Forest, listening to the wailing of witches and running for my life, escaping trolls into the bush.
Still, all this ridiculous number of cons was outweighed by a single plus. There, I wouldn’t have to lie on a straw mat listening to a Schwarzkopf supporter busy messing with my head. It’s been two months already. I saved her life, for crissakes! Never again. It’s all finished: no more helping old ladies across the road or saving kittens from trees. No good deed goes unpunished.
I grope through the dark for another bottle and open it. That’s the only thing that can save me now. The beer hisses like a squashed snake — apparently protesting too.
“Why would the Third Reich need a parliament?” I ask. “Has it ever done any good to anyone? A parliament is a boring slapstick show for third-rate clowns. The Emperor Nicholas II used to have the State Duma — did you know it was off limits for women, by the way? The air there was apparently blue with cussing, Duma deputies too busy throwing punches to discuss politics. Talking about Stalin, he turned the inhabitants of the Kremlin into a similar kind of biomass — and still the Schwarzkopfs dote on him, and you don’t seem to be too upset by the fact. Here in Russland, a single bottle of vodka can replace an entire parliament. You drink, you yell, you punch someone’s lights out — just like they did in the Duma.”
She’s silent. She must be busy thinking of counterarguments like she does every time. I stealthily stroke the bag hidden to my right. Two Walter handguns and four full clips to go: I bought them earlier today at the black market. You never know what kind of surprise the streets of Uradziosutoku might have in store for you. No wonder the Resistance have plenty of ammunition! You can buy what the hell you want here, provided you’re prepared to pay triple. Rifles, handguns, submachine guns — brand new, still in the grease, with factory numbers. I wouldn’t be surprised if the Forest Brothers receive weapons and gear deliveries directly from the factory.
That’s why this war will never end. These “Forest Knights” combat the nasty “capitalist Nazis” while charging manufacturers the “tax on people’s war”. The Wehrmacht is solemnly prepared to die defending the Vaterland from the horrors of Bolshevism while their supply officers sell state-of-the-art weapons to guerrillas through the warehouse back door. What goes round, comes around. Especially marlo.
“You don’t by any chance approve of the slave trade, may I ask?”
Oh gods! Come, I pray, and transport me to the gold bridge Gjallarbrú so I can cross it through the perilous mists of Helheim and fall into the arms of the Goddess of the dead. It has to be better than here.
Her sheet slides down to her knees.
Normally, I have excellent self-control. But this room is tiny. Too cramped. Not only can I hear her breathing, I can also hear her heart race. She’s not handcuffed anymore. Yes, yes, I’m a priest; a philosopher. Unfortunately, all philosophy turns to putty when you’re sitting on the floor next to a woman wrapped in a sheet. We’re not Christian priests. We haven’t been taught to switch off our libidos. Oh but to grab, to pin to the floor, to dominate… where was I?
I take a gulp of beer. That might help me to channel my thoughts in
the right direction. “I have nothing against work camps,” I say, cool as a cucumber. “I’d say they’re truly necessary. Any citizen of Moskau can arrive at a foreign workers depot — like the one at the Sleipnir metro station — and sign a work contract. Only purebred Aryans can use hired labor. You rent them from the state. You choose the workers you need and you sign a paper obliging you to feed them a certain number of calories a day. You call it slave driving? Somewhere in Ancient Rome, a slave owner could do anything he wanted to his slave. Could kill him even. Here, arbeiters are the property of the state. You have no right to harm them. Old-age pensioners are happy: every springtime when they need someone to dig up their garden allotments, Sleipnir offers ‘two for the price of one’ discounts. What’s wrong with that?”
Had her plum wine been decanted in a water pail, I’m pretty sure she’d have already poured it over my head. The Schwarzkopfs are notorious for their Shogunet forum protests against the “invaders’ dictatorship” — but God save you from offering an opinion different from theirs. The forum’s Systemführer would activate Verboten, banning you from the discussion. In Russland, everybody loves the sound of their own voice. If tomorrow the Schwarzkopfs somehow came to power, my body would dangle from the nearest lamppost, and not just mine. A revolution may look like cute romantic drivel only while it’s still brewing. But once it wins, it turns into the dragon’s jaws.
“I would so love to make people finally come to their senses,” there’s no anger in her voice, only bitterness and disappointment. “At least national socialism was an enemy. But this is a dummy, a clone that’s not worth a single pfennig, a cheap imitation of the Third Reich. You only argue with me to defend the Triumvirate out of principle because you’d hate to see Moskau taken by the Forest Brothers. But in fact… what kind of Vaterland is this, if you have the Chinese defending it? Why would all the senior officials keep their money in Tokyo banks? Why is the yen more popular here than the reichsmark? The SS and the Gestapo may be the regime’s backbone, but even they are tired, serving out of habit simply because that’s the way things are! Our thinking is as thick as two short planks: ‘We’re already used to the Krauts, but what are the Forest Brothers going to be like? No one can tell. At least now we have marlo and plenty of brothels, restaurants and night clubs.’”
She takes a sip of her wine. “When you brought me to your place, they were about to launch a new reality TV series: Africa. In it, they planned to attach a mini camera to the forehead of a convicted untermensch and drop him off in the thick of the African jungle. He is hunted simultaneously by a Wehrmacht infantry division in helicopters and by a local warrior tribe to see who can kill him faster. The Viking TV’s Direktor has promised that if the game takes off, the Reisebüro Travel Agency will arrange safari trips for wealthy tourists. To join in the fun, you understand. Can’t you see what they’re doing to us? We watch popcorn movies, read disposable books and laugh at conveyor-belt jokes. The Reich has devoured our brains like some real-life Cthulhu. My brothers honestly believe they’re going to bring this regime down. I’ll say, not without some help from lobotomists.”
Did she just say Cthulhu? Then again, why not? Lovecraft has never been banned.
I take her in my arms, unexpectedly for myself.
She shuts up mid-word. Glory be to Asgard! I should have done it earlier. Silence is a bliss: a silent woman is so much better than the one that preaches her politics to you.
My fingers burn against her cool skin. My mouth turns dry, my lips erupting in a web of cracks. Suddenly I sense this light coming from her. Yes, her body is exuding light, her eyes glowing like embers. If Uradziosutoku collapses again… let it do so, I don’t care.
Olga throws the sheet away. She’s completely naked. Oh Gods… she’s awesome.
“I’m sorry,” I croak like a schoolboy who’s just had his teacher flash her tits at him. “Your arrogance is outrageous-”
How could I explain to you what I feel? Every time she touches me, it’s like being electrocuted. She bogs me down, deeper and deeper, until all I can see is a whirlpool overhead and some frogs and algae caught in it.
“Why did you save me?” she thunders. “I need to know.”
I’m too weak to resist. Her energy consumes me, enveloping me like honey. Very well, I’ll tell her. I know I’m gonna regret it. If that’s what she wants…
Our lips are close, almost touching.
I hear a rustle. Barely audible but one produced by a rather voluminous body. This is another forte of these ryokan places: their doors are but sheets of paper. The sound carries far, making your eardrums explode with the groans of other lovesick couples.
I duck to my right and whip a Walther out. Its carriage thunders shut in the silence of the room.
“Stay where you are,” I snap. “What is it they say in the movies? Move and you’re dead.”
I least expect to hear the sound emitting from the screen. A soft giggle.
Chapter Seven
The Tattoo
Moskau, Horst Wessel St, the Gestapo labs
THE MOMENT JEAN-PIERRE CARPE reached his lab, he got down to the pressing business of opening his desk drawer. As he produced the precious flask, he half-turned to cast a glance at the Führer’s portrait as if it could reproach him for such an immoral act. The Führer (whom the artist had depicted against the backdrop of the Reichstag, holding a hysterically grinning little girl in his arms) remained predictably silent, so Jean-Pierre tilted his head and took an impressive gulp of pepper vodka. As he tried to replace the top, it dropped to the floor where it bounced away, ringing against the tiles.
Jean-Pierre still couldn’t get over it.
Apparently, he’d been wrong. The shit was going to hit the fan much sooner than he’d told Pavel it would. The Triumvirate had just released a classified memo. The contamination had reached a new level. Oh, yes. Just like that. They had expected it to happen, of course, but not so soon.
Yesterday morning an entire SS base staff had disappeared from the forest not far from the town of Johannesburg (the former Ivanovo) where they used to train commandos for anti-guerrilla missions. The building itself, the rooms, even platefuls of soup in the mess hall were still there. The personnel, however, had disappeared. One of the SS men had managed to leave an inscription on the wall, made in blood: Not me. Riddles, riddles.
He took a third swig. He couldn’t taste the pepper at all.
He immediately thought of all the files he’d recently perused in the Main Security Office.
The Maya Indians. In the 10th century A.D., the population of several Yucatan cities had disappeared into thin air. The surviving tribes had fled north believing this to be divine punishment.
Then there was the Roanoke Colony in 1590: all 118 of its inhabitants had similarly disappeared without a trace. They too had left laid tables behind as they had been about to have dinner when they disappeared. And in 1930, all 200 inhabitants of the Eskimo village Anjikuni had been transported to God knows where. Arriving police had seen lights still burning in the houses — but no people.
In December 1945, a trainful of passengers traveling from Canton to Shanghai had disappeared, several hundreds of them. It had never arrived at its destination, as simple as that. Despite prolonged searches for the train, not one of those who had boarded it had ever been found either dead or alive. No satisfactory scientific explanation of these cases had ever been offered.
Which only provided for one possible explanation, however unsettling.
The contamination had happened before. It had the tendency to reappear with remarkable regularity. Before, it had always disappeared by itself — or people had somehow managed to eliminate it. So it had never lasted for very long. Now, however, it seemed to be growing: expanding. This was the biggest epidemic of its kind in the history of humanity, and it was considerably stronger than those before it.
He’d already seen the consequences of this in a few White Sea villages near the city of Archangel in the v
ery north of Russland. Oh yes: there it had already been unfolding — in the area where night was traditionally longer than day. What had he seen there? Same shit as in the Temple of Odin, Aryan St., the other day. The peasants’ meager kitchen utensils, earthenware and even the ovens themselves were floating in the air, translucent, until they disappeared completely as if through some hole in space. You could put your hand through a log wall as if it were quicksand.
The number of contaminated locations had been growing every month. It was a chain reaction. They were too many to be contained, whether by placing concrete sarcophagi over them or by posting roadblocks and SS guards all around. Not only houses but entire areas of forest had turned into ghost locations — next to St. Petersburg as well as near Moskau. The most amazing thing about it was, you’d walk through the woods knowing there used to be some pine trees there but they weren’t there anymore! You’d make your way through thickets and you’d hear this strange rustling noise as if you’re forcing your body through a sand dune. In some places, entire collective farms[xvii] had disappeared in less than sixty seconds. Their panic-stricken inhabitants had to be taken to special camps to make sure they didn’t tell anyone about what they’d witnessed.
Jean-Pierre took another quality swig from the flask.
Still, before it had been only buildings that disappeared. Things like hills, kitchenware and potted plants. But all the while, both the Gestapo and the Triumvirate had known it was only the beginning.
Soon it would be the people’s turn.
They’d expected it to happen. And now it had. A hundred well-chosen men — commandos, trained killers — had disappeared into thin air. Wherever had they gone? Whatever had happened to them? Actually… this wasn’t even the worst thing about it all. Those in Roanoke and on the Shanghai train had disappeared too, so the Gestapo researchers had expected this turn of events to come. There was something much more sinister than this.