Moskau

by G. Zotov

I shake my head. “I don’t even know my biological parents. Who do you think they were? Were they really a picture-perfect loving couple? That’s what everyone seems to think: that the Mom and Dad you never knew would lavish their love on you. Even the Führer’s biography is classified. We know nothing about his father Alois, apart from the fact that he used to be an ‘honest man and a patriot of our Fatherland’. Never mind this honest man used to batter both his wife and the future Führer black and blue. You cannot say these sorts of things in public, it’s considered antigovernmental propaganda. Who knows how I might have turned out had I stayed with my parents? Lots of people brought their children to the Lebensborn because they were paid compensation and received better rations and discounted bus passes. Sorokin treated me like his own son. You’ve seen it yourself: he’s still happy to see me. Yes, he was an SS officer. But I assure you he was never interested in their ideology.”

  Before she can reply, Dr. Sorokin walks back into the room holding a small flat black box. An external disk. A logo is attached to its side. I’d recognize it anywhere: two lightning bolts against a black triangle and a Gothic inscription below,

  LEBENSBORN

  “You’re right,” Dr. Sorokin says in a hollow voice as he powers up a Buch computer sitting on an orange desk. “I’ve known Loktev’s name for quite a while. They brought him to Moskau about the same time as you, only they sent him to a different home. He was six months old. Soon he began showing signs of some extraordinary abilities. Everybody loves prodigy children even though they are in fact quite commonplace. Now Pavel Loktev, he was unique. They constantly spoke about him at Lebensborn conferences. The Main Security Office kept tabs on all children of his kind.”

  He paused. “When Pavel was ten years old, the Moskau Lebensborn branch received a visit from a man who was to be addressed as Professor. He was very old, stooping and emaciated. He brought us a secret Triumvirate memo, authorizing him to choose children for the so-called MG Project. He inspected about a hundred potential candidates from ten homes and chose but two: Loktev and another boy, the son of a French officer and a dying Ukrainian girl with leukemia. He had such a funny name, that other one… was it Cod? Or Trout… French names can be most funny. Our staff had liked the name so much they’d decided not to change it. He took both boys to Berlin.”

  He turns the computer screen so that I can see. An old man stares back at me: his hair gray, his face furrowed.

  Olga reacts first. “Jesus Christ almighty! This is Hauptsturmführer Josef Mengele!”

  At this point I very nearly drop off my chair. “I’m sorry Doc,” I say. “How is it possible? Mengele died in the 1960s. You told me that his Birkenau experiments on Jewish children in Auschwitz were only Bolshevik propaganda, a horror story they invented to discredit National Socialism.”

  He sighs and lays his hand on my shoulder. “The main disappointment of this life, my boy is that every man wishes he could forget his past. This is true about political regimes as well. Mengele was pronounced dead in 1961. You weren’t born yet. According to the news story on Viking TV, his Opel was destroyed by an anti-tank mine planted on the Professor’s route on the Аnhalterstrasse in Berlin. A lavish funeral followed, complete with the Professor’s tomb and monument. This was in fact a ruse to cover up his disappearance. A lot of people were unhappy about him. The unsavory details of his rumored experiments were too much even for our Japanese allies to stomach. So the Chancellor decided to bring him undercover. Officially dead, he in fact continued his experiments in the Gestapo lab.”

  My breathing seizes. I used to discuss Mengele with Olga. Hatred filled her voice every time she spoke about him, telling me the most incredible things. Apparently, the Shogunet was packed with eyewitness stories of his Auschwitz exploits when he was still on the SS medical team. According to Olga, he injected chemicals directly into a person’s iris trying to change their eye color. He harvested children’s organs. He sewed identical twins together. Of the three thousand twins he’d claimed for his experiments, only three hundred survived.

  If you listened to her, he performed surgery without anesthetics on three-month-old babies, he sterilized nuns and castrated young boys. Mengele had a special interest in midgets, submerging them in snow to find out how long it takes a man to die of exposure.

  I remember my telling her that this was a bunch of lies. Nothing but blood-curdling gothic horror stories. A creature born of a human mother cannot be a monster who in cold blood tortured thousands of people to a slow death. This must have been just another Shogunet fake. The informational war is much crueler than trench warfare. The Schwarzkopfs would stop at nothing to spin a scary tale. Then again, don’t our schools teach that Joseph Stalin used to eat babies for breakfast, that the Red Army leader Klim Voroshilov was a homosexual who shared his bed with Stalin’s best friend Kaganovich while the Soviet minister of foreign affairs Molotov suffered from schizophrenia? Whoever wins the war gets the right to rewrite history.

  So Olga was right, then. It was all true.

  What else do I not know?

  Sorokin opens a classified directory and leaves the computer for us. Silently he rises from his seat and goes back to the bedroom, shutting the door behind himself. Olga and I brush shoulders as we peruse the dry wording of an official report in front of us.

  Mengele spent eleven years working on Loktev. The French boy with a funny name proved a disappointment. Three years after the experimentation had started, Mengele sent him back to Lebensborn. The way the French boy’s body began to transform as the result of the experiments didn’t answer his expectations. Besides, the boy’s constant stuttering was driving Mengele mad.

  With Loktev, however, everything worked out just fine.

  Ever since the late 1940s, Hauptsturmführer Mengele had been possessed by an idea quite popular among the Reich’s leaders.

  He wanted to create a super human.

  His classified research was dubbed MG: “Mengele’s Project”. By trying to change prisoners’ eye color back in Auschwitz, the Professor had in fact sought to create a being which was capable of instantly changing its appearance.

  Mengele plied Pavel with injections, he transplanted other people’s stem cells and tissues into him, operated on his brain to change its structure and changed his DNA. Twice Loktev died on the operating table, and each time he was brought back to life.

  Finally, Mengele succeeded. The boy’s face had turned into a malleable biomass similar to water in its structure. Pavel now could turn into anyone he wanted. It was enough for him to glance at a person’s picture to soak in every detail of their appearance the way a sponge soaks up water.

  Basically, Mengele built a shapeshifter. A werewolf.

  And that wasn’t all.

  Loktev could regenerate. Slowly, but still. His cuts and bruises heal faster. He’s very difficult to kill unless you hit him in the eye with a large caliber or blow him up with a quantity of explosives. Minor injuries like burns, frostbite or concussions don’t hinder his function. Having completed a three-year meditation course in Tibet, Pavel now can connect to the brain of a person he needs – just like a computer connects to the Shogunet – in order to determine his or her whereabouts. This was how he located me in Uradziosutoku.

  He’s not exactly a super human yet, but definitely a good working model. Mengele died before he could fine-tune him.

  The list of Loktev’s abilities makes my brain swim. It’s a miracle the guy can’t fly.

  I turn to Olga. “Why is he looking for you?”

  “I already told you I don’t know. I mean it. I have a theory, of course. I’m not even sure if it’s me he’s hunting down. You saw him yourself over there in front of the hotel, didn’t you? He wasn’t trying to arrest me, was he? I had the impression he was after you.”

  The bedroom door creaks softly.

  Dr. Sorokin reappears behind me and eases me away from the computer, gently but decidedly. He unplugs the external disk from the computer. The screen
turns black. He closes the computer. End of the show. Not that I was dying to see more.

  He shakes a Banzai cigarette out of the pack: the best you can get here.

  “Mengele became Pavel’s first assignment,” he says, nipping the filter. “The Professor had a stroke. He became superfluous. So the Gestapo decided to get rid of him. Although he couldn’t conduct any more research, he was very dangerous by sheer token of his still being alive. Mengele was convalescing in a classified Gestapo hospital. The only person he accepted medication from was his son Rolf. Loktev arrived at the hospital posing as Rolf and kindly fed Mengele a cyanide pill. After that, he became the Gestapo’s most prized agent.”

  Sorokin draws on his cigarette. “This assignment was followed by a great many missions of every possible caliber. A person capable of shapeshifting can glean all sorts of secrets. He can spend a night with someone’s unsuspecting wife. He can pay a visit to someone posing as their long-dead father so that the dumbfounded person mechanically answers whatever questions Loktev poses them. You shouldn’t think he’s a run-of-the-mill hired killer.”

  How typical. As usual, the kindly Doctor is trying to justify his patient’s idiosyncrasies. “Who is he, then?”

  “A problem solver. I only told you what I know about him. I’m sure he has other abilities. Loktev is the Gestapo’s secret weapon. And if they’re using him to track you down it means your number’s up, my boy. It doesn’t mean he’s gonna kill you. He might need you for something else. Think about it.”

  He turns to the door. “I’m going to the lab now. I’m a night owl. I’ll be working all night so the room is yours till morning. Enjoy.”

  I can’t even thank him. Neither do I turn to the slamming sound of the front door.

  Chapter Six

  The Son of God

  Moskau, Das Reich Shopping Mall

  THE TRANSPARENT GLASS ESCALATOR glided upstairs, its steps filled with happy, laughing people loaded with brand-name shopping bags. Sexy girls in cropped tops and field-gray cargo pants and cute young men in T-shirts and Dassler sneakers[xxv], they were all carried up under a large fluttering banner sporting a black eagle.

  A red sign overhead sported a cigarette ban with an inscription,

  NICHT RAUCHEN!

  If you smoke, you’re a Bolshevik!

  Pavel smiled. What sweet idiocy. Considering how many Moskauers supported the Schwarzkopfs, the Moskau administration must have doubled the tobacco profiteers’ yearly turnover with this announcement. These days, lots of people had stopped letting strangers into their kitchens for fear of them spotting any tobacco plants. Having said that, no copywriter with any amount of brain cells would willingly work for the Ministry of Propaganda and Public Education.

  Aimlessly Pavel paced the wall, whiling away the time by studying the shoppers. On weekends the kaufcenter was packed, women crowding the sales areas, men drinking beer. Should he buy something too, maybe? He was only human, after all.

  Every lad on the escalator had at least two girls clinging on to him. No one found it unacceptable: the long war had decimated Moskau’s male population. Polygamy was the order of the day. As an old joke went, “What’s three sultanas and a raisin?” — “Three wives of a Turkic Scharführer.” “What about the raisin?” — “They’re raisin’ his kids, aren’t they?” When Pavel had been a child, the joke was constantly on the radio recruiting new volunteers for the SS Turkic Brigade. It felt like ages ago.

  Pavel remembered his childhood well. Still, he tried to block out the memories.

  This time he’d borrowed the inconspicuous identity of a twenty-year-old Uradziosutoku guy. Pavel had spotted him drinking tea in a street café as he walked past. It had taken Pavel twenty seconds to memorize his face: he had a passport with a similar photo.

  Mengele had always told him to get rid of the original whose identity he’d used. Still, Pavel rarely followed his advice. He only killed when he absolutely had to. He never enjoyed killing people: this was an emotion reserved for sick people whose place was in the African camps. Having said that, he always carried out Security Office assignments without hesitation. An order was an order. When they’d told him to administer poison to that ginger nutcase researcher in the Gestapo’s isolation block under the book store, Loktev had done exactly that. To a degree, it was an act of mercy: the guy must have gone completely nuts when he’d seen his dead brother in the flesh.

  Pavel couldn’t copy voices but he didn’t need to. When you meet your family member who’s been dead for the last ten years, your brain goes into a coma. You don’t ask yourself why he speaks in a low baritone instead of his old falsetto. Loktev sometimes used his ability just for fun (even though it was admittedly childish), like back in the movie theater when he’d absorbed Jean-Pierre’s face. The usheress had very nearly had a fit seeing two identical men leaving the theater the one after the other.

  Borrowing the face of the guy in the café was the same game Pavel kept playing. He didn’t need to copy strangers’ identities: he had a whole array of stock characters at his fingertips. Those were bland inconspicuous faces that don’t stand out in the crowd. They could be anyone. You donned one of those, and no one would be able to identify you later. Their originals were long dead, some even during wartime.

  Pavel always carried a boxful of passports in his suitcase. Those were his spare faces, issued by the Third Reich, Nippon koku, Manchuria and the California Republic. He very often did the same thing he’d done in the Gestapo’s isolation block: he would enter a place as one person and leave it as someone different. All you had to do to activate the process was crack an ampule buried in a tooth. The substance inside triggered the facial biomass, setting it in motion. Not particularly pleasant despite the addition of a pain killer to the formula.

  For a while Pavel had carried his frayed childhood photo in his wallet, just to remember who he used to be. Recently he’d disposed of it. His past was now irrelevant.

  Because the only things that exist are in the here and now.

  Mengele had told him about werewolves: savage monsters in human shape who used to turn into wolves during the full moon. Still, the Professor denied his MG Project had anything to do with them.

  Turn into a wolf… that would be fun but nothing more. Wolves belonged in the zoo. His abilities made him more like the son of one of those Nibelung gods. The Security Office turned a blind eye to the bit of freelancing he did on the side: on orders from the Sicilian mafia or Hong Kong criminal triads. They paid well while the Gestapo’s accountants were stingy with every reichsmark. Which was why he’d had to fly back to Moskau economy class in that Junkers rust bucket and had to subsist on a Sturmbannführer’s wage.

  Not that money mattered to him anymore. He was into a much much bigger game.

  This time he’d come back to Moskau from Uradziosutoku in secret. None of his co-workers, even his best friend Carpe, knew about it. He needed some time alone to have a good think.

  “Friend, I’ve got something for you,” a wheezy whisper came from behind him. “Looking for some tobacco?”

  Pavel turned round. A school kid looked expectantly at him, dressed in Führerjugend uniform: gray shorts and a diamond-shaped red and white sleeve patch.

  That he’d live to see this! Children profiteers offering bootleg tobacco in broad daylight! This was the Gestapo not doing their job properly.

  “How much?” Pavel whispered back, trying on this new role.

  The kid cast a cautious look around. “Half a grand. Cool stuff, man, you won’t regret it.”

  Pavel did a mental check of his finances. He seemed to have enough. Reaching into his pocket, he produced two brand-new bills. One of them was a five hundred. He shoved the bill into the young vendor’s hand and received a small plastic bag.

  Why not, Pavel thought as he shook the bag (it seemed the kid had ripped him off for at least ten grams). Everybody will look for a non-smoker. Definitely not for someone who smokes like a chimney.

 
The other bill lay slightly crumpled in his hand. He brought it to his eyes.

  A thousand Reichsmarks, bearing the hologram of the Reichskommissariat Moskau. A pale-blue bill, covered in Gothic script with a smattering of some Cyrillic letters on top.

  Before, all money used to bear the portrait of the Führer. The Twenty-Year War had introduced some changes, though. First they’d tried to print new money with portraits of famous philosophers, writers and actors on them. But after the first scandal (when DNA tests of the exhumed remains of one such philosopher had proved his Semitic origins) they’d been forced to change the system. Now all money bore the images of various animals: deer, rearing horses, rampant bears (which made up part of many town emblems, Berlin as well as quite a few Russlandish ones) and even a proud spread-winged eagle. The repeated idea of depicting a wild boar was equally repeatedly rejected as no one in Turkestan would accept Reichsmarks bearing it.

  Pavel raised the bill in his hand. The black sun watermarks glistened against the light. Every Reichskommissariat had the right to print its own money. The Reichsmark wasn’t as good as the yen but there was no other choice, really. Even Americans themselves didn’t accept the dollars of either California or Neuer York (a non-descript gray excuse for money) anymore. The British pound had been discontinued in 1971 when the Brits had been forced to accept the Reichsmark. What else was there left? The Thai baht? The Manchurian yuan? The rupees of Azad Hind? All of them were worthless wads of paper.

  Whenever Pavel freelanced for the mafia, their bookkeepers never paid him in bills. Only diamonds. They would never depreciate.

  Pavel looked around himself. The mall’s eateries were packed with dozens of people huddled in lines, casting impatient glances at their watches as they waited for a free table. The local crowd always liked to pretend there was no war going on in the Urals.

  And what if they were right? It was after all the Chinese dressed up as Wehrmacht who were doing all the fighting. The legless underground beggars in fake uniforms were Romanian crooks. Moskauers’ philosophy was to seize the day; their modus operandi was to drink themselves silly in posh clubs, drive the coolest Japanese cars and generally burn their money… whoever didn’t, was an untermensch.