Moskau

by G. Zotov

  A delicate knock on the door disrupted his thoughts.

  “Come in,” in one fast practiced motion, Jean-Pierre slid the flask back into the desk drawer.

  The lock clicked, revealing the blue wheel of the janitor’s trolley in the doorway. No one in the Gestapo knew the name of this puny but agile old man. Lab workers had nicknamed him Uncle Adolf. The old man wasn’t a corporate climber type: he seemed quite happy with his current Beschlagmeister rank in the Cleaning Department.

  “Heiley heil, Sir,” he greeted Jean-Pierre unceremoniously. “Mind if I give it a quick clean?”

  “Heiley, Father,” Jean-Pierre heaved a sigh. “Oh well, go ahead, then.”

  “I won’t be long,” Uncle Adolf nodded, pulling in his rattling trolleyful of mops and zinc buckets. “As quick as a greased A-bomb,” he cackled.

  He rolled up his sleeves and leaned over the bucket to wring the mop.

  Jean-Pierre doubled up, choked by a bout of coughing.

  A blurred tattoo materialized on the janitor’s wrist: a sequence of digits listing slightly to the left, the numbers 6 and 2 darker than the others. It looked like a phone number jotted down by a drunk girl in a night club.

  Uncle Adolf followed his stare. Mechanically he glanced at his own wrist and dropped the mop. “I’m s-sorry,” he managed. “It’s… I was still a child… I was in Ravensbrück camp with my Mom… that’s where I got it… I d-don’t remember much, I was only fi-five at the time. But I had it re…moved in the seventies! What is it now? I-I don’t understand…”

  Despite the pepper vodka, Jean-Pierre sensed that he too was about to stutter. He motioned the janitor toward the door.

  The old man backed out of the room crab-like, pulling his trolley behind him. The expression of fearful amazement froze on his face. He twisted his hand awkwardly, trying to hide it behind his back.

  The door slammed close behind him. Oh. That was unexpected. Jean-Pierre had just received the latest classified data from the Triumvirate bunker. He’d barely had time to digest it. And there it was, a living proof.

  The contamination kept mutating. The present was dematerializing. The past was taking its place.

  Last night it had happened in Auschwitz in the Governorate of Poland. The place had long been cleaned up and sown with flowers. And last night everyone could see a faint but clear image of the crematoria ovens hover in the air. And on the roll-call square, the glittering outline of a Christmas tree had appeared out of nowhere. Yes, exactly. The thing was, back in 1940, Auschwitz commandant Karl Fritzsch had set up a Christmas tree in Auschwitz and laid the frozen bodies of prisoners under it, referring to them as “Christmas gifts”.

  Crematoriums were coming back. Camp number tattoos were coming back. What next?

  Jean-Pierre finished off the flask in one gulp. No need to chase it down. He finally felt in control. Oh, well. They’d managed to cover up the fact of the contamination for years — and quite successfully, too. But now people would start asking questions. Is all that information posted by the Forest Brothers on their Shogunet forums really true? Did Nazi troops really burn, rape and kill millions of people? Did they really consider the Slavs and many others inferior races?

  Doubtless, some smartass might lay his hands on the very first (yet unedited) edition of Mein Kampf and ask the inevitable question: Were we designated to be the Aryans’ slave force?

  Then the fun would begin.

  The Reich would be consumed by rioting. The Forest Brothers would jump at their chance. And they just might use it better than they had during the Twenty-Year War when their summer offensive on all the big cities had been successfully repelled by both the Wehrmacht and the SS who’d united to stand up to them. But now, Jean-Pierre just could see it coming, the Reich Union would crumble like a broken milk jar. No matter how much he despised the Triumvirate, he knew perfectly well that the taking of cities would end up in the mass executions of all SS and Gestapo workers. Guerrillas had never made a secret of their intentions.

  Could he flee while he still could? Sure. He knew a few places. But what would he do there? Become a Tokyo street sweeper? Or a cabbie like the noble-born Russian post-revolution emigres in Paris, sleeping on a heap of rags in some underground hovel?

  He shook the flask, squeezing out the remaining drops of liquor.

  His friend Pavel seemed to think they still had loads of time. Well, they didn’t. If they failed to stop the trigger agent, the Reich would melt like a snowman in springtime. Both SS divisions, the Viking and the Death’s Head, would melt like a puddle of slush under the scorching sunrays. The edifices of the Ministry of Propaganda and Public Education, the Gestapo, the Wewelsburg Castle would sag to the ground in a spongy mass of melting snow, complete with their staff. Cities would dissolve into nothing, reducing the Reich Union to a handful of ashes torn apart by the warm wind. The Forest Brothers would march right through the phantom walls with no one to oppose them. And where would Pavel spend his marlo then, amid the desolation of ghostlike wastelands?

  Jean-Pierre opened the file. The seal on the title page sported a large black eagle.

  He reached for it, pinching it with two fingers like a pickpocket, and checked it against the light the way one checks watermarks on bank bills. Unbelievable. When they’d been running the DNA tests of the Schwarzkopf terrorists killed during the von Travinsky assassination attempt, no one had thought of checking Olga Sélina’s blood sample. They’d searched her house, hacked her email and questioned her neighbors: the file included a complete report of it all. One thing they’d omitted was that any successful job applicant in Moskau, whatever the position, was obliged to submit his or her DNA sample to a classified depository. Jean-Pierre had contacted them and requested it: a small vial containing Olga Sélina’s blood.

  Before his meeting with the Triumvirate, he’d run a thorough check, paying special attention to her DNA’s polynuclear chains. And then… oh, yes. Why was he so nervous? It had to be expected after the Novgorod experiment with its show of flames and mass psychosis.

  He’d give himself another minute, then call Pavel on his e-funk. He had to know what he was about to deal with. He also needed to understand that his talents might not even be needed.

  Olga Sélina wasn’t a human being. No idea where she’d come from.

  Tourist Guide #1

  The Cities of the Reich Union and their Cultural Differences.

  …SOON AFTER THE TRIUMPH of National Socialist ideas, the capital cities of the leading reichskommissariats, primarily Moskau, Amsterdam, London, Dallas, Oslo, etc, enjoyed a major overhaul. Most streets received new names; quite a few buildings were torn down and replaced by new edifices in the Teutonic style.

  As an example, the Novodevichy Monastery in Moskau was destroyed in 1964 after having turned into one of the secret Resistance symbols: back in the 18th century, the monastery had served as a prison for Princess Sophia the Stupid, the sister of the Emperor Peter the Great who was a passionate opponent of the German culture. In its place, architect Alex Obergau had erected a new Gestapo building complete with a complex network of underground floors.

  The road leading to the Bismarck Airport received the new name of Hindenburg Autobahn while the widest Moskau street became Mein Kampf Avenue. The Reichsleiter Bormann Metro now included stations like Friedrich the Great, Prussia, Hohenzollern Road and Brandenburg Gate (the former Red Gate). The Recreation Park Station became the Triumph of Will and the Smolensk Station built during Stalin’s rule became June 22nd.

  The Kiev Station had its name changed in 2004 soon after the end of the Twenty-Year War, due to the falling out with the Reichskommissariat Ukraine. Its name had been changed to Ostermann Station[xviii]. That had been the period of naming streets and landmarks to commemorate those Germans who used to serve the old Russlandish Empire. In 2005-2010, Moskau had received a Minister von Kleinmichel Lane[xix], a Prime Minister Boris Stürmer Boulevard[xx] and any number of parks named after the Emperor Peter III: the ex-
Duke of Holstein who could barely speak any Russian but boasted the rank of a Prussian Colonel.

  Everywhere you turned, new monuments to the two Katharinas were being erected, with the emphasis on the fact that both Empresses boasted pure Aryan blood[xxi].The ex-Bolotnaya Square had been renamed Michelson Square after the Estonian German Major General who’d in 1774 successfully suppressed the peasant revolution led by the Cossack Yemelyan Pugachev while the finest of the Kremlin towers, the Spasskaya clock tower, had been given the name of Field Marshal von Münnich, the military leader at the court of the Empress Anna Ioannovna.

  They hadn’t renamed the Moskau district of Lefortovo, though, as it had already been named after the Swiss General Franz Lefort, a close friend of Peter the Great. But the Preobrazhenskaya Square became Anna Mons Square after Peter the Great’s disgraced lowborn German lover.

  The village of Kholmogory in the North of Russland, previously famous for being the birthplace of the great 18th-century scientist and polymath Mikhail Lomonosov, was renamed Braunschweig-Lüneburg after the family of the hapless German Regent Anna Leopoldovna[xxii].

  In 1944, the legendary Solovki Monastery had been handed over to the Metropolitan Sergius Voskresensky, the founder of the Aryan Orthodox Church, who preserved its status as a cloister. After the death of the Reichskommissar of Ukraine Gauleiter Erich Koch in 1986, the Senate Square in St. Petersburg had been renamed Koch Square which prompted the witty Petersburgers to call the memorial column opposite the Temple of Ullr the “Koch rod”.

  Still, due to the constant assassination attempts on the Third Reich officials, it had soon become pretty clear there wouldn’t be enough streets to go around. Many major avenues were named after the official religion, like Thor Street, Loki Boulevard and Odin Thoroughfare. The Neskuchny Garden, the oldest park in Moskau, had become the Valkyrie Woods. The Fontanka River in St. Petersburg had become the Hvergelmir, the poisonous stream running through Niflheim — the world of gloom.

  Kiev’s main thoroughfare Kreshchatik was renamed after Nidhogg the Black Dragon while a whole plethora of new builds had been added to the League of Nations’ list of world heritage sites.

  The best artists of the Third Reich had created the mosaics and frescoes of the Bormann Metro. The Ostermann Station still boasted the rare fresco depicting the Führer entering Kiev on a white charger to the enthusiastic greeting of local women offering him cabbage patties and mineral water.

  The lobby of the Triumph of Will station was lined with the busts of Aryan athletes who’d earned 33 gold medals during the 1936 Olympics in Berlin. The exit of the Bauer Station (what used to be the Agricultural Exhibition Station) was graced by a monument to Hans Ulrich Rudel, the first man in space. Clad in his spacesuit, the hero astronaut was sitting in a chariot holding the reins of Hrimfaxi — the Norse horse of the Moon.

  The old Myasnitskaya, or Butchers’ Lane, became Sausage Street, now housing some of the best beerhouses in Moskau including the Aryan Meal, the Princess of Hesse Darmstadt and the Bürgerbräukeller — an exact copy of the one in Munich where Hitler had launched his Beer Hall Putsch back in 1923. The latter place used to be called Leo Tolstoy but was renamed after a scandalous article in the Völkischer Beobachter which proved that Leo was in fact a Semitic name.

  The Reichskommissariat Ostland, previously known as the Baltics, now remained the only place in the Reich Union where they still worshipped Hitler as a holy martyr. In Riga, they had his monument erected topping the Schwarzkopf House in gratitude for liberating Latvia from the horrors of Bolshevism. And in Tallinn, a hundred-foot statue of the Führer had been put up next to the Tall Thomas Tower: raising the torch of Liberty in one hand, Hitler was clutching a little Estonian girl to his chest, symbolizing protection from the Red hordes.

  In 1971, the old capital of Belorussia the city of Minsk had been renamed Sleipnir after Odin’s eight-legged horse. The city’s Oberkommandant (who’d been running the city for the last 70 years, having survived about fifty guerrilla attacks which had left him deaf and blind) was still active, building new stables and upgrading the horse race course, regularly staging the Sleipnir Cup races which attracted a lot of Japanese tourists.

  Endorsement: “Remove the above guide from publication and send it to the Gestapo’s classified depository. Arrest the author, charge him with blasphemy and slander of martyrs’ names.

  Signed: SS GruppenFührer Georg von Travinsky, Oberkommandant of Moskau

  Chapter Eight

  Darkness Awakens

  The outskirts of Uradziosutoku. Ryokan ‘Kyushu.’

  THE GRIN SLIDES OFF my face. I change my grip on the Walther’s butt, grabbing it with both hands. “I’ll count to three. If you don’t come out…”

  “Go on,” the voice says, soft and polite. “If I don’t come out, then what?”

  The air fills with dry crackling. The painted cranes on the partitions explode in a confetti of ripped paper. The room fills with Japanese soldiers: five on one side and five on the other. They look identical in their green tunics that make them resemble toy crocodiles. All are holding Arisaka automatic rifles. The red dots of their infrared sights converge on my forehead.

  A man ducks slightly to enter the room. He’s wearing a three-piece suit and a bowler hat.

  How touching. The Japanese can be so old-fashioned.

  “Lay your gun down,” he says in an excellent Russlandish. “Right now.”

  No accent, wow! He got his “l”s and “r”s right! He must have spent some quality time working in Russland to speak the language like that.

  Olga has wrapped the sheet around herself. With her face unnaturally white in the torchlight, she resembles an ancient Greek statue. The soldiers are impassive. They don’t smile at all, just hold their weapons: a set of plastic dolls, human machines waiting for you to press the button to set them into motion.

  “‘xcuse me,” I say to her shyly. “You aren’t going to dematerialize, by any chance?”

  “I would’ve if I could,” she snaps back. “I told you I can’t control these things. They just happen. And right now, they don’t.”

  Oh great. There isn’t even a window here to escape through. This is a perfectly confined space.

  I open my hand. The Walther drops to the floor. The soldiers indifferently move their sights away from me.

  “Good decision,” the besuited Japanese nods his approval. “You’re a wise man, Priest.”

  He steps forward and bows to us. I don’t think I’d be able to describe him at a later date. I can never tell the difference — it feels as if all Japanese are produced at some classified clone factory.

  “Who gave you the right-” I know it sounds pointless but I need to say something.

  He dissolves into a smile. “What are you talking about? What right? In a totalitarian regime dealing with citizens of yet another one? If I understand it correctly, you’re here illegally. Don’t worry, no one’s going to extradite you. Allow me to introduce myself. I’m Major Onoda of His Majesty’s intelligence service. I can offer you help and protection. Do me the favor of coming with us to my office. It’s not far from here. I have some excellent green tea there.”

  He makes it sound as if we’re exchanging niceties at some tea party, not stuck in a cheap brothel with a bunch of soldiers pointing their bayonets at us. Still, it doesn’t look as if they intend to kill us. They had plenty of time to do so. That’s why Olga’s defense instincts haven’t kicked in.

  You just can’t rely on her, can you?

  “How did you find us?” I ask. Not very original, but you’re not supposed to be. Not in this kind of situation.

  “I assure you it wasn’t difficult,” he bows gallantly again. “First of all, the Moskau Triumvirate has put you on a classified Wanted list. We have enough informers among the Gestapo staff. Secondly, you used your card to withdraw some yen from a cash machine in Uradziosutoku. You can’t believe how happy you made me by doing so. It was like winning the lottery. I asked our pol
ice to add your pictures to their database. So the moment you showed up on a street camera next to the ryokan in Spring Abundance Lane, those images were automatically forwarded to the police. All I had to do was arrange for some backup at the risk of disrupting the course of your undoubtedly important date.”

  At this point I regret dropping the gun. Not because of the Jap: I’ll kill him anyway simply to repay his mocking courtesy. But the second bullet is going into Olga. What did I tell her? Isn’t she supposed to be a freakin’ Resistance member? The leader of a hit squad? How can one be so negligent? Using a bank card, in this day and age, like a scatterbrain schoolgirl! No wonder none of her group survived — they wouldn’t, would they?

  “Mind waiting behind the door while the lady gets dressed?” I say.

  He bows. “Absolutely. But I beg you to accompany us. We’ll all wait behind the screen to give Madame some privacy. Hope Madame won’t mind my soldiers taking her purse along… I dread to think what might be inside… could be another gun, you never know.”

  Olga stares at him, silent. She’s beautiful. I could forgive her everything, even her dumbass ways. She didn’t even apologize for her blunder. Not that I’d expect it from a Schwarzkopf. The Forest Brothers don’t seem to be able to realize that they too can make mistakes. I still have a faint hope she might escape while we’re waiting for her. Unfortunately, there’re no escape routes out of here.

  She dons her kimono. We walk out into the street, past the hotel’s owner at the reception studying a thousand-yen bill against the light. A Lexus is parked next to the streetcar stop, apparently meant for us. A Nissan truck next to it is supposed to take the soldiers.

  It’s dark. The men’s faces are tinged red from the round street lamps covered in Japanese lettering. A ruffled black pigeon lands onto the ryokan’s upturned roof. The air brings a whiff of oyster sauce from the ryokan kitchen. Clumps of flowers are swaying in the wind. Far out in the bay, a group of samurai is getting drunk on sake. I can hear the sounds of a Japanese folk song,