Nebula Awards Showcase 2009

by Ellen Datlow

  “Simply to help you in this investigation.”

  “There isn’t much to investigate. You’re completely loyal to your chief I take it?”

  “Of course.” Hitler seemed honestly puzzled. He started the car and we drove down the drive and out along a flat, white road, surmounted on both sides by great heaps of overgrown rubble.

  “The murdered man had paper lungs, eh?” he said.

  “Yes. Guess he must have come from Rome. He looked a bit like an Italian.”

  “Or a Jew, eh?”

  “I don’t think so. What made you think that?”

  “The Russian watch, the Oriental shoes—the nose. That was a big nose he had. And they still have paper lungs in Moscow, you know.”

  His logic seemed a bit off-beat to me but I let it pass. We turned a corner and entered a residential section where a lot of buildings were still standing. I noticed that one of them had a bar in its cellar. “How about a drink?” I said.

  “Here?” He seemed surprised, or maybe nervous.

  “Why not?”

  So he stopped the car, and we went down the steps into the bar. A girl was singing. She was a plumpish brunette with a small, good voice. She was singing in English, and I caught the chorus:

  “Nobody’s grievin’ for Steven,

  And Stevie ain’t grievin’ no more,

  For Steve took his life in a prison cell,

  And Johnny took a new whore.”

  It was “Christine,” the latest hit in England. We ordered beers from the bartender. He seemed to know Hitler well because he laughed and slapped him on the shoulder and didn’t charge us for the beer. Hitler seemed embarrassed.

  “Who was that?” I asked.

  “Oh, his name is Weill. I know him slightly.”

  “More than slightly, it looks like.”

  Hitler seemed unhappy and undid his uniform jacket, tilted his cap back on his head, and tried unsuccessfully to push up the stray lock of hair. He looked a sad little man, and I felt that maybe my habit of asking questions was out of line here. I drank my beer and watched the singer. Hitler kept his back to her, but I noticed she was looking at him.

  “What do you know about this Sagittarius?” I asked.

  Hitler shrugged. “Very little. His name, of course, is an invention.”

  Weill turned up again behind the bar and asked us if we wanted more beer. We said we didn’t.

  “Sagittarius?” Weill spoke up brightly. “Are you talking about that crank Klosterheim?”

  “He’s a crank, is he?” I said. The name rang a distant bell.

  “That’s not fair, Kurt,” Hitler said. “He’s a brilliant man, a biologist—”

  “Klosterheim was thrown out of his job because he was insane!”

  “That is unkind, Kurt,” Hitler said reprovingly. “He was investigating the potential sentience of plant life. A perfectly reasonable line of scientific enquiry.”

  From the corner of the room someone laughed jeeringly. It was a shaggy-haired old man sitting by himself with a glass of schnapps on the little table in front of him.

  Weill pointed at him. “Ask Albert. He knows about science.”

  Hitler pursed his lips and looked at the floor. “He’s just an embittered old mathematics teacher—he’s jealous of Felipe,” he said quietly, so that the old man wouldn’t hear.

  “Who is he?” I asked Weill.

  “Albert? A really brilliant man. He has never had the recognition he deserves. Do you want to meet him?”

  But the shaggy man was leaving. He waved a hand at Hitler and Weill. “Kurt, Captain Hitler—good day.”

  “Good day, Doctor Einstein.” Hitler turned to me. “Where would you like to go now?”

  “A tour of the places that sell jewelry, I guess,” I said, fingering the pendant in my pocket. “I may be on the wrong track altogether, but it’s the only track I can find at the moment.”

  We toured the jewelers. By nightfall we were nowhere nearer finding who had owned the thing. I’d just have to get the truth out of Bismarck the next day, though I knew it wouldn’t be easy. He wouldn’t like answering personal questions. Hitler dropped me off at the Precinct House where a cell had been converted into a bedroom for me.

  I sat on the hard bed smoking and brooding. I was just about to get undressed and go to sleep when I started to think about the bar we’d been in earlier. I was sure someone there could help me. On impulse I left the cell and went out into the deserted street. It was still very hot, and the sky was full of heavy clouds. Looked like a storm was due.

  I got a cab back to the bar. It was still open.

  Weill wasn’t serving there now. He was playing the piano-accordion for the same girl singer I’d seen earlier. He nodded to me as I came in. I leant on the bar and ordered a beer from the barman.

  When the number was over, Weill unstrapped his accordion and joined me. The girl followed him.

  “Adolf not with you?” he said.

  “He went home. He’s a good friend of yours, is he?”

  “Oh, we met years ago in Mirenburg. He’s a nice man, you know. He should never have become a policeman. He’s too mild. I doubt he’ll ever find his Grail now.”

  “That’s the impression I got. Why did he ever join in the first place?”

  Weill smiled and shook his head. He was a short, thin man, wearing heavy glasses. He had a large, sensitive mouth. “Sense of duty, perhaps. He has a great sense of duty. He is very religious, too—a devout Catholic. I think that weighs on him. You know these converts, they accept nothing, are torn by their consciences. I never yet met a happy Catholic convert.”

  “He seems to have a thing about Jews.”

  Weill frowned. “What sort of thing? I’ve never really noticed. Many of his friends are Jews. I am, and Klosterheim.”

  “Sagittarius is a friend of his?”

  “Oh, more an acquaintance I should think. I’ve seen them together a couple of times.”

  It began to thunder outside. Then it started to rain.

  Weill walked towards the door and pulled down the blind. Through the noise of the storm I heard another sound, a strange, metallic grinding. A crunching.

  “What’s that?” I called. Weill shook his head and walked back towards the bar. The place was empty now. “I’m going to have a look,” I said.

  I went to the door, opened it, and climbed the steps.

  Marching across the ruins, illuminated by rapid flashes of gunfire, I saw a gigantic metal monster, as big as a tall building. Supported on four telescopic legs, it lumbered at right angles to the street. From its huge body and head the snouts of guns stuck out in all directions. Lightning sometimes struck it, and it made an ear-shattering bell-like clang, paused to fire upwards at the source of the lightning, and marched on.

  I ran down the steps and flung open the door. Weill was tidying up the bar. I described what I’d seen.

  “What is it, Weill?”

  The short man shook his head. “I don’t know. At a guess it is something Berlin’s conquerors left behind. A land leviathan?”

  “It looked as if it was made here . . .”

  “Perhaps it was. After all, who conquered Berlin—?”

  A woman screamed from a back room, high and brief.

  Weill dropped a glass and ran towards the room. I followed.

  He opened a door. The room was homely. A table covered by a thick, dark cloth, laid with salt and pepper, knives and forks, a piano near the window, a girl lying on the floor.

  “Eva!” Weill gasped, kneeling beside the body.

  I gave the room another once-over. Standing on a small coffee table was a plant. It looked at first rather like a cactus of unpleasantly mottled green, though the top curved so that it resembled a snake about to strike. An eyeless, noseless snake—with a mouth. There was a mouth. It opened as I approached. There were teeth in the mouth—or rather thorns arranged the way teeth are. One thorn seemed to be missing near the front. I backed away from the plant a
nd inspected the corpse. I found the thorn in her wrist. I left it there.

  “She is dead,” Weill said softly, standing up and looking around. “How?”

  “She was bitten by that plant,” I said.

  “Plant . . . ? I must call the police.”

  “That wouldn’t be wise at this stage maybe,” I said as I left. I knew where I was going. Bismarck’s house. And the pleasure garden of Felipe Sagittarius.

  It took me time to find a cab, and I was soaked through when I did. I told the cabby to step on it.

  I had the taxi stop before we got to the house, paid it off, and walked across the lawns. I didn’t bother to ring the doorbell. I let myself in by the window, using my glasscutter.

  I heard voices coming from upstairs. I followed the sound until I located it—Bismarck’s study. I inched the door open.

  Hitler was there. He had a gun pointed at Otto von Bismarck, who was still in full uniform. They both looked pale. Hitler’s hand was shaking, and Bismarck was moaning slightly. Bismarck stopped moaning to say pleadingly, “I wasn’t blackmailing Eva Braun, you fool—she liked me.”

  Hitler laughed curtly, half hysterically. “Liked you—a fat old man.”

  “She liked fat old men.”

  “She wasn’t that kind of girl.”

  “Who told you this, anyway?”

  “The investigator told me some. And Weill rang me half an hour ago to tell me some more—also that Eva had been killed. I thought Sagittarius was my friend. I was wrong. He is your hired assassin. Well, tonight I intend to do my own killing.”

  “Captain Hitler—I am your superior officer!”

  The gun wavered as Bismarck’s voice recovered some of its authority. I realized that the HiFi had been playing quietly all the time. Curiously it was Bartok’s Fifth String Quartet.

  Bismarck moved his hand. “You are completely mistaken. That man you hired to follow Eva here last night—he was Eva’s ex-lover!”

  Hitler’s lip trembled.

  “You knew,” said Bismarck.

  “I suspected it.”

  “You also knew the dangers of the garden, because Felipe had told you about them. The vines killed him as he sneaked towards the summer house.”

  The gun steadied. Bismarck looked scared.

  He pointed at Hitler. “You killed him—not I!” he screamed. “You sent him to his death. You killed Djugashvili—out of jealousy. You hoped he would kill me and Eva first. You were too frightened, too weak, to confront any of us openly!”

  Hitler shouted wordlessly, put both hands to the gun, and pulled the trigger several times. Some of the shots went wide, but one hit Bismarck in his Iron Cross, pierced it, and got him in the heart. He fell backwards. As he did so his uniform ripped apart and his helmet fell off. I ran into the room and took the gun from Hitler, who was crying. I checked that Bismarck was dead. I saw what had caused the uniform to rip open. He had been wearing a corset—one of the bullets must have cut the cord. It was a heavy corset and had a lot to hold in.

  I felt sorry for Hitler. I helped him sit down as he sobbed. He looked small and wretched.

  “What have I killed?” he stuttered. “What have I killed?”

  “Did Bismarck send that plant to Eva Braun to silence her? Was I getting too close?”

  Hitler nodded, snorted, and started to cry again.

  I looked towards the door. A man hesitated there.

  I put the gun on the mantelpiece.

  It was Sagittarius.

  He nodded to me.

  “Hitler’s just shot Bismarck,” I explained.

  “So it appears.” He touched his thin lips.

  “Bismarck had you send Eva Braun that plant, is that so?” I said.

  “Yes. A beautiful cross between a common cactus, a Venus Flytrap, and a rose—the venom was curare, of course.”

  Hitler got up and walked from the room. We watched him leave. He was still sniffling.

  “Where are you going?” I asked.

  “To get some air,” I heard him say as he went down the stairs.

  “The repression of sexual desires,” said Sagittarius, seating himself in an armchair and resting his feet comfortably on Bismarck’s corpse. “It is the cause of so much trouble. If only the passions that lie beneath the surface, the desires that are locked in the mind, could be allowed to range free, what a better place the world would be.”

  “Maybe,” I said.

  “Are you going to make any arrests, Herr Begg?”

  “It’s my job to file a report on my investigation, not to make arrests,” I said.

  “Will there be any repercussions over this business?”

  I laughed. “There are always repercussions,” I told him.

  From the garden came a peculiar barking noise.

  “What’s that?” I asked. “The wolf hounds?”

  Sagittarius giggled. “No, no—the dog-plant, I fear.”

  I ran out of the room and down the stairs until I reached the kitchen. The sheet-covered corpse was still lying on the table. I was going to open the door onto the garden when I stopped and pressed my face to the window instead.

  The whole garden was moving in what appeared to be an agitated dance. Foliage threshed about and, even with the door closed, the strange scent was unbearable.

  I thought I saw a figure struggling with some thick-boled shrubs. I heard a growling noise, a tearing sound, a scream, and a long drawn-out groan.

  Suddenly the garden was motionless.

  I turned. Sagittarius stood behind me. His hands were folded on his chest. His eyes stared down at the floor.

  “It seems your dog-plant got him,” I said. “Herr Klosterheim.”

  “He knew me—he knew the garden.” He ignored my challenge.

  “Suicide maybe?”

  “Very likely.” Sagittarius unfolded his hands and looked up at me. “I liked him, you know. He was something of a protégé. If you had not interfered none of this might have happened. He might have gone far with me to guide him. We could have found the cup.”

  “You’ll have other protégés,” I said.

  “Let us hope so.” His voice was cold as the stars.

  The sky outside gradually began to lighten. The rain was now only a drizzle falling on the thirsty leaves of the plants.

  “Are you going to stay here?” I asked him.

  “Yes—I have the garden to work on. Bismarck’s servants will look after me.”

  “I guess they will,” I said.

  Once again I’d gotten to keep the Cup, but I told myself this was the last time I played the game. I wanted to go home. I went back up the stairs and I walked away from that house into a cold and desolate dawn. I tried to light my last Black Cat and failed. Then I threw the damp cigarette into the rubble, turned up the collar of my coat, and began to make my way slowly across the ruins.

  MICHAEL MOORCOCK

  Although it had already been published in New Worlds, I didn’t have a new story to take to Milford [writing workshop] (when it was still at Damon’s in Milford, Pennsylvania) in 1966, so I took “Pleasure Garden” because I was curious what people would think of it. Generally it went down pretty well. I was keen at that stage to get rid of all the exposition required in those days to “explain” an SF or fantasy story and which in my view often distorted an otherwise good piece of imaginative fiction. Also I had hit on the notion that iconographic figures actually functioned as narrative and I think, though I had done the first Jerry Cornelius novel just before, this was the first short story to try out this notion, since New Worlds was all about packing in as much narrative (or implied narrative) as you could per paragraph. Anyway, Gordie Dickson struggled with it a bit but was as kind as he could be while Norman Spinrad and Harlan Ellison thought it showed, as it were, a way forward. Later that year I talked to Fritz Leiber about this need some editors had for you to rationalize every part of a story which was conceived more as a surrealist or absurdist piece. He said that he and a few others who b
egan in the thirties (Bob Bloch was another he mentioned) started off submitting to literary magazines who turned the stories down because they were too fantastic, but if you tacked some sort of explanation on to a story, you could sell it to one of the SF magazines and that’s what they started doing. Even in the late ’50s mainstream critics were still describing both Tolkien and Peake as writing some sort of postnuclear-disaster fiction! I still hate pigeonholing fiction and I have to say things seem to be improving a bit in that direction. A shame it’s taken over forty years to get there!