Moskau

by G. Zotov

  She stubbed out her cigarette and turned to the door. Pavel’s lifeless stare focused on her. He was biting his lips. His hands shook. He didn’t look superhuman at all now.

  “Before you go… tell me… who the hell are you?”

  She brought her lips to his ear. When she stood back up, Pavel’s hair was gray.

  She curved her mouth in a grin. How funny. A young man, his head gray and shaky with old age. And she was the one who’d done it.

  “I should have guessed,” Pavel whispered. “The moment Jean-Pierre sent me the DNA results. He couldn’t work out where you were from. But this explains everything. After our researchers died in the Novgorod incident… The mind boggles. I might just think I’ve gone mad. Okay? Much easier this way.”

  She shrugged. “Be my guest. Sorry about your hair. You can always change it, anyway, when you grow yourself a new face.”

  Pavel didn’t try to stop her. The door slammed shut.

  An hour later he opened the last file. He spent some time staring at the words and numbers. Reluctantly he rose and reached for the desk drawer.

  He took out both his Browning handguns: generous 13-rounders. After some thought, he added two extra magazines, then tilted his head to one side, staring curiously at the remaining thermal grenade at the bottom of the drawer.

  He already knew what he was going to do.

  Chapter Four

  The Semitic Hamster’s Wheel

  Meistersinger Forest. The next morning.

  I PRIZE OPEN MY UNYIELDING EYELIDS, seemingly stuck together with Henkel super glue. I can’t see anything. A layer of murky white substance clings to my skin. Demons of Helheim, am I still here?

  I grab at my face. I’m blindfolded. I pull the fabric off… glory be to Asgard! I’m home!

  A woman laughs.

  “I’m sorry!” Olga manages through her laughter, tightening her grip on the steering wheel. “I took the liberty of tying a towel over your face to protect it from the sun. It’s so hot today, you can’t imagine.”

  Her black hair flaps in the breeze like a pirate flag. I look around me. We’re speeding along an autobahn in an old brown Horch cabriolet, the forgotten child of the German car industry. The Horch rattles its parts, spews clouds of black smoke but soldiers on.

  I yawn. My joints crack as I stretch. “I really hope it’s gonna end soon. I’m fed up with going in and out of your world like a yo-yo.”

  She keeps her eyes on the road, ignoring both mine and the car’s complaints. “I hope so too. I frankly can’t wait.”

  I don’t get the chance to ask her what she means by this. Olga slows up as we approach a pile of concrete blocks: a makeshift security checkpoint. A scrap of red fabric flies over the barricade. It actually looks like part of the flag of the Reichskommissariat Moskau with the eagle cut out (or ripped out?) of it.

  I can see the outlines of armed people in civilian clothes. All of them sport conspicuous red ribbons they wear either on their breast pockets or on their faded Wehrmach caps.

  They’re Schwarzkopfs.

  It’s the first time I see guerrilla fighters so close. There’re about six or seven of them, each armed with either a Mauser rifle or a Sturmgewehr. The gunner behind the barricade swings his MG 42 machine gun, training its sights on us. The gun’s blunt snout points at my forehead.

  Olga brakes smoothly. One of the fighters walks leisurely toward the car, his hand resting on his gun. He’s a young guy with a gorgeous raven-black head of hair and a beard that covers most of his face, leaving only his eyes exposed.

  Olga offers him her ausweis. He lowers his head, reading it. The roots of his hair are strawberry-white.

  How funny. The kid is actually blond. Still, he’d rather dye it black just to show his protest against the regime. They and their ideology!

  “Comrade Sélina?” the disguised blond asks.

  She smiles. “That’s me. You should have received word of our arrival. I have a free pass to Novgorod. Did the Committee for People’s Liberation contact you? Our clearance mandate was signed by Father Eleutherius of the Forest Church himself.”

  “Yes, yes, of course,” the blond wakes up. “They emailed us yesterday.”

  He produces a shiny e-funk phone (definitely a trophy he’s taken off a captured officer) and switches it on. The letter’s icon lights up: a crucifix entwined with a hammer and sickle.

  “We are to offer you our full cooperation,” the bearded youth remarks deferentially. “Can you wait ten minutes? We’ll contact the other checkpoints and tell them to flag you through. Fancy a cup of tea? We’ve just made some.”

  Tea! Yeah right. No hope of them drinking coffee.

  In all the cities they take, guerrillas burn coffee stocks first thing. As if something’s gonna change from the sheer fact that they will now drink a proper cuppa and not the hated “Kraut brew”. Then again, Russlanders have always preferred destroying to actually rebuilding. They’d demolish the old, but instead of building something new in its place they’ll just sit down for a smoke at the demolished site. True, I couldn’t call myself a regime supporter anymore but just seeing Schwarzkopfs filled my heart with apprehension. These people have spent the last seventy years in the woods, fighting. They can’t do much else. How are they going to run Moskau?

  They take us to an impromptu guardhouse next to the barricade. It must have been a local café once. The Führer’s portrait lies broken on the floor. The Schwarzkopfs walk right over it in their muddy boots, trying to step on his mustache. I don’t feel sorry for him at all.

  The blond picks up a filthy teapot from the table and pours tea into glass mugs. Two more fighters sit at the table. One is an old man wearing a tattered shirt and a pair of pants probably as ancient as himself. The other is young, in a smart black business suit and holding the latest computer tablet. Oh, well. These guys are so cartoonishly defiant of all things German but still they can’t resist Japanese technology.

  I have a funny feeling they won’t be in a hurry to fight the Japs.

  I take a gulp of tea. It’s hot and bitterly tart with none of coffee’s aroma at all. How can anyone drink this?

  “How are things in Moskau, Comrade?” the young one asks me. “Are they expecting us?”

  I’m dying to tell him who his comrades are and where he can shove them. Still, I can’t afford to expose myself: even Olga won’t be able to save me then.

  She stares at me anxiously with a light squeeze of my hand as if signaling, please don’t.

  I’m not going to. Not on this empty road in the thick of Meistersinger Forest with only trees, birds and armed guerrillas for company. If anything happened to me here, no one will ever find whatever’s left of me.

  “Well, what can I say… Comrade,” I take vindictive pleasure in stressing the word ever so slightly. “Some are, others aren’t. Most really don’t give a shit. They watch their TVs and go shopping, that’s the extent of it. Moskauers, what do you want? That’s the way they are now. They couldn’t care less about who’s in power.”

  The young guy glares at me as he sullenly sips his tea. “That’s exactly how the Nazis wanted them to be,” he grumbles. “Their goal was to distract people and zombify them. You wait till we get Moskau back, Comrade! All the shopping malls will be abolished as detrimental influence. It’s so much better to distribute limited amounts of goods to everyone. Say, a pair of pants per person. Otherwise it’s not fair, is it? Some motherfucker might stash away ten good suits for his own consumption while another guy has to walk around naked! The owners of these shopping malls, we’re gonna sort them all out. They shouldn’t have brainwashed good people, should they? Offering them all those duds to wear! They’ll be among the first to be court-martialed.”

  “Who else, then?” I ask, curious.

  “All them fucking collaborators,” the old boy joins the conversation, ancient pants and all. “Still, offering them fair trial is too good for them, heh. Just line them all up, one bullet to the head eac
h, end of story.”

  I’d dearly love to wrap his teapot around his head. Still, I can’t.

  “You know many who didn’t collaborate?” I ask him. “You just couldn’t afford not to. Take tram conductors – they’re all subalterns in Keselring’s conductor regiment. Are they war criminals too? A regular janitor who works at the Department of Cleanliness – is he a Triumvirate’s champion? And how about a candy maker from the Pastry Cooks Union – does he deserve a bullet or will ten years’ hard labor do? If you think like that, guys, I’m afraid you’ll have to put all of Moskau up against the wall.”

  Olga keeps digging her nails into my hand but my brakes are off already.

  “Why not?” the old boy says, oblivious of my sarcasm. “They deserve it. We’ve been fighting the enemy since childhood in these here woods while those motherfuckers lounged about in their hot tubs drinking their pagan coffees! Let them go and work at building sites now! Let them atone for their crimes with hard labor! They should have known better than to whore for the Krauts!”

  This I don’t even doubt. What a wonderful bunch of understanding and highly tolerant people. “But how about your comrades from the St Michael the Archangel troops? What are you going to do about those walking pro-tsarist anachronisms? They support the monarchy, they advocate capitalism – I don’t think they’ll be all that against shopping malls, brothels and work camps! They can always use cheap labor to tend their summer gardens for them. What if they disagree with your decisions? I’m pretty sure they have their own agendas.”

  The kettle boils again, spouting a cloud of vapor.

  “Let us sort them out,” the blond guy says. “They’ve been fighting Krauts too, no doubt about it. Still, they have these wrong ideas about the world. If they raise their objections, I’m afraid we’ll have some explaining to do. And if it comes to that, we’re more numerous and our weapons are better.”

  Olga sits there white as a sheet. Deep in my heart, I celebrate. It’s one thing to hurl a grenade at the Oberkommandant and quite another to meet all these forest people who actually make the revolution happen. First the members of this mad tea party will hang everyone who’s ever offered a helping hand to the regime (which were bound to be numerous if selling an ice-cream to an SS officer qualified you as a collaborator), after which they’ll start mopping up their own ranks. This is bound to end in another Twenty-Year War as their victories will trigger yet another race for power just like the Wehrmacht’s triumphs did.

  Why oh why is Russland always in the same shit? Every hundred years or so starts all over again! Here, the wheel of history is more like some manic hamster’s wheel.

  Without waiting for me to answer, the blond pulls out his e-funk and walks out.

  A heavy-set man walks over to our table, breaking the lingering silence. I look up. Oh.

  He’s wearing the cassock of a Forest Church priest.

  “Are you enjoying your tea, brothers and sisters?” he asks, gasping from all his extra weight. “My blessing be with you. May the Lord grant us strength to defeat those German pagans.”

  Olga’s inconspicuous squeeze very nearly breaks every finger in my hand. Oh no, fuck it. You wait.

  “Did you say German, holy father?” I ask, staring pensively at the ceiling. “You know very well there’re virtually no Germans left in the barracks. You’ll have to fight your own, I’m afraid. What was Christ rumored to have said about not killing thy neighbor? From what I heard, no one had ever seen him blessing any armies to storm cities. You sure you’re serving the right god? Never tried on a green turban, by any chance? It sounds like the Prophet Muhammad would suit you more.”

  The priest gasps soundlessly like a fish out of water.

  Cussing under her breath, Olga pulls me out of the café. “Are you nuts?” she hisses. “You wanna see your brains smashed against the wall?”

  We’ve almost reached our car when the bearded Schwarzkopf appears from behind the concrete blocks, heading straight for us. I slide my hand into my pocket and close my fingers around the Parabellum.

  “It’s all right,” the fighter grins. “Here’s your pass,” he offers us a scrap of red paper. “Stick it in your windscreen and all the other checkpoints will flag you through. No worry. Something else?”

  Olga takes — no, rather snatches — the paper from him and climbs back into the car without saying goodbye. I make myself comfortable next to her and flash a demonic grin at this motley Schwarzkopf crew.

  An hour later, Olga finally slows down. All this time she’s been speeding as if the Führer himself had risen from the dead and was after her. She bites her lip, her eyes like two daggers.

  “I’m sorry,” I say meekly. “Couldn’t keep my tongue in check.”

  She nods, demonstratively disappointed in my foul behavior.

  We drive past a road sign that reads in Gothic lettering, Novgorod, 140 km. I have a funny premonition. The closer we get, the harder it is to breathe.

  Reichskommissariat Archives #3

  File F299. Musicians

  … AS THE VICTORIOUS WEHRMACHT TROOPS continued their liberation of Europe, the Ministry of Propaganda and Public Education completed their examination of literature and turned their attention to the reform of another highly important area: popular music.

  Already in 1949, eager to meet the population’s expectations, the Ministry banned jazz as “a product of an inferior race”, removing all jazz records from distribution. The Untermensch musicians Louis Armstrong and Leonid Utyosov[xxxii] were sentenced by the People’s Tribunal chaired by Roland Freisler and deported to Africa. In 1959, a new decree obliged musicians to record all new songs in German alone, aiming to increase the role of Greater Germany in the new society.

  Unfortunately, not all the artists appreciated the importance of this measure. The French singer Edith Piaf refused to sing in Hochdeutsch and committed suicide by poisoning herself. The Glenn Miller Orchestra was disbanded while Miller himself escaped to Nevada where he was forced to play bars for food.

  Still, forbidden waters are sweet. Very soon, underground jazz bands were mushrooming everywhere (don’t we all know the tendency of forbidden things to turn trendy overnight), including the Beatles: a British band singing in their local language. Bootleg copies of the band’s records became widely popular all over the world while the group itself lived in hiding in their fans’ houses, constantly moving town. Finally in 1971, the band members were arrested in Manchester by a special Gestapo unit. The band’s founders John Lennon and Paul McCartney were sentenced to ten years in work camps while George Harrison and Ringo Starr got away with a televised act of public repentance.

  In 1964, another widely publicized scandal involved the sentencing of a certain Elvis Presley who, as the prosecution insisted, “sang in a Negro’s voice”. Having served his one-year sentence, the singer mended his ways by recording the song Alles in ordnung, Vater dedicated to the “Great Father” Alois Schicklgruber.

  The Ministry of Public Education spared no effort in popularizing classical music. All primary school students were obliged to spend three hours a week listening to the creations of Richard Wagner who used to be the Führer’s favorite composer. Symphonic orchestras competed to perform his masterpieces while pop groups offered various adaptations of his works.

  Russland, however, was destined to go one step further and invent its own musical style. Its Triumvirate issued the famous Decree #22 of May 15 2005, forbidding anyone to write their own lyrics. A week later, the Reich’s Minister of Public Education sanctioned the following state-approved lyrics,

  I very much love you,

  You also love me,

  That is so beautiful,

  It is our love.

  If you will leave me

  I still shall love you,

  I pine without you.

  Flowers too pine without you

  Love is very special

  That is cool, that is delicious.

  Love burns a fire inside me,
>
  My adorable Fräulein.

  Soon after the performances of the poem began, the Schwarzkopfs started a rumor that it had been authored by the five-year-old retarded grandson of the Minister of Public Education. The Ministry denied the rumor on the grounds that all mentally incapacitated persons were to be deported to Africa. In the following years, all musicians in the Reichskommissariats of both Moskau and Ukraine performed these lyrics with slight alterations. Their audiences didn’t seem to mind, apparently not realizing that the lyrics remained the same, seeing as the music and the performers’ appearance were equally identical. Pop music stages were filled with young people of both genders virtually indistinguishable from each other who dressed in the same way and sang in very similar voices. Such depersonalization was necessary if we didn’t want our youth to be attracted to false idols.

  Those who tried to write their own songs automatically fell under the Involvement in Illegal Musical Activities Act which was punished by three months incarceration and up to five years in labor camps. The profession of lyricists had become obsolete.

  All and any elements of the Semitic and Roma cultures had been banned.

  Previously, Roma performances had been highly popular in Russland, especially as wedding music. Which was why the Gestapo was forced to start raiding wedding parties in search of clandestinely played Gypsy music. As for actual Russlandish folklore performed by groups of cheerful babushkas, it was gradually replaced by yodeling Alpine singers and march-playing military bands.

  The audience accepted the new entertainment choices rather easily, soon forgetting the likes of Armstrong and Edith Piaf. For most of them, simpler was indeed better. I’m pleased to inform you that the music reform has been successful.

  (From the report made by Brigadier Klaus Meine of the Music Broadcasting Service at the request of the Ministry of Propaganda and Public Education analytic group)