Apparatus 33: Dead Man Switch

by Lawston Pettymore

  I alerted at the scene Todtenhausen had just painted. Did the Russians eat children? Was the need of human currency the motive for Sister Kathe’s urgent abduction of Pyotr? Only years later would I find out otherwise. Oh, how I wish Pyotr’s demise had been as banal.

  “Where’s Pyotr? Where did you take him?” I asked out loud pretending not to be afraid of either Todtenhausen or Geronimo. I am not certain whether I could rise to save Pyotr even if Todtenhausen had given me a straight answer. And for my cowardice, I paid every day for the rest of my life, and the entire planet is paying for it now as well.

  Todtenhausen broke into a smile of a man with a dark secret and looked at me as would an avuncular uncle. “Oh, you must be Nicolaus. Yes. You are eerily identical. Is it true what Mengele predicted about you? Would you even know yet?” There was a pause, as if he were reviewing some film in his head. I did not understand the question, nor had I any idea who this Mengele could be. Was it about the polio Pyotr and I supposedly had, but for which we had no symptoms?

  Todtenhausen sensed my confusion at the question. “No? Don’t know? Oh well. Anyway, you mustn’t think we would trade your brother to the Russians. He is far too valuable to the Reich for that. He is in there. In the Cupola room. Your brother is going on a very important mission.”

  As I parsed his words, this being the first mention of any kind of “mission”, a loud hissing sound compounded with mechanical grinding of metal, like a massive door being winched open, came from the direction of the Cupola room, prompting Todtenhausen to consult his pocket watch. “Very soon now. He will be famous someday. You should be proud. Perhaps we will find a more lasting use for you also…” His voice, menacing, trailed off through a smile. Not the kind of smile of a kindly uncle. The smile of a thief contemplating an easily robbed grave.

  Zerrissen’s grip on my hand tightened. Smudged and greasy as it was, my face, not to mention my prolonged stare at the corpse on the floor, made my thoughts transparent. Geronimo had forgotten about us and had begun gnawing on Gorgass’ fingers, becoming the first mammal in Die Kuppel to consume fresh meat in weeks. Todtenhausen guessed my thoughts and smiled as Gorgass’ finger bones snapped in Geronimo’s powerful jaws. The dog was not leaving anything behind, especially the bone marrow.

  “Oh! You’re wondering about poor Gorgass here. Preferred to kill himself rather than be captured by the Soviets I suppose. Sister Kathe was just performing last rites.” Zerrissen tried to cover Halina’s eyes, but he was no match for her curiosity. No one was or ever would be, though many men will try.

  Kathe choked. Not a choke-back-tears choke, but the stifling-a-laugh choke. Evidently, removing the watch, wallet, a pocket-sized reference book with the word “WERMUT11” in traditional Teutonic typeface on it, and what looked like a passport from the freshly dead was part of last rites ritual. I was never Catholic, but I was always surrounded by Catholics, and I recognized the symbol on the passport in Sister Kathe’s hands, which she handed over to Todtenhausen with a bit of a flourish. It was the symbol of the Vatican, which I learned soon after made this a highly valuable passport. It was perhaps the most valuable kind of identification document in Europe at the time.

  We must have only been a meter or so from the surface, only concrete separating us from the Russians and from calamity. We were so close in fact, that we could hear the detonator mechanism click before the explosion of the munition rung the interior of that corridor like a bell, a ring that persisted in our ears, making any further debate or conversation impossible.

  The smell of gunpower subsided, and was replaced by one more pleasant. “Smell that?” Todtenhausen asked no one, finger in the air. “That’s bread,” he said with another prolonged, noisy sniff. “They’re baking bread for their borscht and they’re deliberately venting the aromas down here to us. The cruel bastards are well-feed cruel bastards.” We all paused for a moment to ponder such delicious luxury. Naturally, I contemplated whether the borscht for their bread was made of human child meat.

  The flashing of ceiling lights, accompanied by a cracking buzz and a shower of sparks, increased, signaling that the power was about to fail on this level as well. It was the last gasp, the death rattle of Die Kuppel.

  The dynamic between the two parties—Zerrissen, Halina, and myself being one, and the dead Gorgass, Sister Kathe, Geronimo, and Todtenhausen being the other—changed. Priorities shifted. A look of urgency crossed Todtenhausen’s face, the first time he ever showed despair, verging on loss of control.

  Staring at the ceiling to estimate how much light remained, Zerrissen turned our party around and walked away from Todtenhausen and the scene of death, seeking a safer exit of which Die Kuppel was rumored to have several. They were all hidden, and not all of them were known even to scientists like Zerrissen.

  Todtenhausen called out after us, “They won’t help you, you know. They’ll fuck the children, then they’ll fuck you. Russians will fuck anything. They’ll probably fuck poor Gorgass here when they finally break in.”

  So that is that what Russians do? At least they would not eat us, as Geronimo was now doing to Gorgass.

  Todtenhausen’s voice echoed after us through the corridor, “We’ve been defeated by an enemy who has never before seen a flush toilet, Raynor. Do you realize that?”

  Despite all the banging of metal doors in their jambs, the sound of explosions, and the epithets from Todtenhausen, Zerrissen managed to find an unguarded exit, though taking it meant abandoning Pyotr. There were stairs, then a ladder that led to a trapdoor buried in the forest floor outside, with a tree stump bolted on top. The trapdoor only opened a few dozen centimeters, but they were plenty for me and Halina to pass through, and with some struggle, Zerrissen did as well. We were finally standing on solid ground under the sky. The sky was not blue but was gray and cold as the concrete biosphere we had just escaped.

  This was the first time Halina and I had been outdoors in three years, effectively, therefore, the first time in her life. Pale as troglodytes, we were all immersed in the aromas of pine, soil, rain, and even the cold chill, if cold could have an aroma, with overtones of baking bread on an occasional breeze. Even as the rain was turning to ice, I thought that this was how humans should live.

  Not quite sure of Zerrissen’s intentions, I nonetheless extended my hand, and in German I said, “I’m Nicolaus.” He returned his hand, and, in Polish, said, “Call me Raynor.” A short distance away, studying the base of a tree, Halina overheard our introductions and waved. I pointed at her.

  The Schwesterkriegerine did not like the boys getting to know the girls, even though we shared shower time together, but we knew the names of some of them. She was a bit peculiar, but not because of her leg brace. Leg braces were common in the Bunker. She was shy, and I had never heard her speak.

  “I think her name is Halina. She’s in the six-year old cohort.”

  “Does she talk?”

  “Not sure. Maybe.”

  I was not yet ready to build a friendship with this adult. To me, he was an official staffer of Die Kuppel responsible for the separation from our families, exploitation, and, for just now, the abandonment of my brother. I was not going to call him by his first name. I was thinking of calling him Zerżnąć Dupę12 to his face; his Polish was so terrible; he would not get the slur.

  Instead, I pushed my current agenda in German, “My brother Pyotr is still back there. I need to go back and get him.” This statement produced a veil of confusion on Zerrissen’s face—an expression I would see on many adult faces over the next few years. How could one explain what was and was not possible in this world to a nine-year-old to whom anything seemed possible for adults?

  Then, a cry from Halina, a tiny lilting sound you would expect from a fairy rather than a human, brought me out of my growing contempt for Zerrissen. There was a squirrel. She had never seen one before, and she was mesmerized. Naturally, she wanted to catch it and hold it. Not having had any form of protein in as many as three days, Zerris
sen and I imagined other scenarios for the squirrel, Pyotr and I having hunted and eaten many of them in the Polish woodlands. Naturally, the candidate squirrel was too fast to fulfill either fantasy.

  Returning his attention to me, Zerrissen explained that Todtenhausen was not wrong to warn us away from the Soviets. The priority now was to find the Allies, any Ally but the Russians. British, French, Canadian, Australian, or American Allies, it did not matter, just not the Russians. Sadly, this meant fleeing in the direction opposite of the delicious intoxicant of baking bread, now laced with the musk of frying bacon.

  He insisted we the Allies would soon rescue Pyotr. And meanwhile, we had to listen for anyone speaking English or French. Pyotr and I could speak a little of both. Zerrissen could recognize English, but his Polish was terrible. I asked him to stop trying, and to stick to High German.

  The sound of damp branches and underbrush crunching beneath boots followed by our first encounter with a soldier as he emerged from a stand of trees. A Russian jogging in the direction of the Bunker, heavily laden with satchels hanging from his shoulders, bulging with what must have been the plastic explosive that was reducing Die Kuppel back to its original pre-concrete form of sand. He slowed to a gait, gave the shopkeeper a glance, then looked at Halina, and finally at me. He did not look like a monster, nor did the thought of eating or even raping us cross his mind. Perhaps it was because of our appearance and obvious state of near starvation. He reached inside one of the bulging rucksacks, and instead of producing explosives, he pulled out a string of the most beautiful sausages I had ever seen. My family made wonderful sausages, so I was an expert in the matter. He tossed the entire string at us, moved his head with a “that way” motion, and scrambled off.

  We were too dehydrated to successfully choke down much, but as we nibbled at the sausages, staggering on our way westward, we stumbled across a relatively thawed stream that seemed potable, and we immediately fell onto it, cracking through the thin coating of ice floating on top, soaking ourselves in near freezing, but pure, clean, water. Between that Russian private and this stream, we felt, for the first time in a week of desultory resignation, that we could witness the end of the war alive.

  Star Crossed

  We crossed the stream, and continued to move west, only stopping to rest and shiver, stamp our feet to avoid frost bite, keeping each other warm by huddling again like the boys did when Pyotr and I were still together, before our fortunes had changed so drastically in just the hour since our egress. Having subsisted entirely on adrenaline, our bodies were in replenishment mode, metabolizing the sausages and the clean water. Thoughts of sleep crossed our minds for the first time in days. My thoughts wandered, going into a state of waking dream, during which I relived kindness of that Russian soldier, not much older than me, a pleasant thought intruded upon by the moments with Todtenhausen, his man-eating dog, and the odd statement he directed at me, “Would you even know yet?”

  Who was this Dr. Mengele, and what had he predicted about me? Was he the handsome doctor on the train platform where Pyotr and I were separated from our parents, and taken to the Bunker for the following three years?

  As I was pondering about whether I could trust Zerrissen enough to pose such questions to him, the ground began to shake as violently as when a Schwesterkriegerine shook the bed of a child sleeping past the morning shower alarm. Our circumstances changed again.

  We looked at each other, our pupils dilated black with fright, each wondering if the other had an explanation for the quaking ground.

  Then we saw it: a cloud, red as if angry, and in its center a column of fire, then steam, and dense, rust-colored smoke were rising from the direction we had just escaped.

  Then we heard it. Not the usual boom of Russian munitions, but a constant roar. Louder and clearer each second. Flames flashed at the apex of the red tornado. Artemis’ arrow atop Zeus’ lightning bolt, the green- and brown-splotched shaft climbed into the gray, low hanging clouds, taking with it an unnaturally bright fire at its base. Did the Soviets blow something through the cupola high into the air? Did this volcanic explosion result from the contents of that Russian private’s other satchels?

  Then a wave of heat, which was not unwelcome. Even at this distance, we could feel our cotton and wool clothes drying. Steam rose from our hair. We saw the forest behind us burn, pine trees exploding into flame, tossing smoking pinecones high into the air, the act of a tree aware of its own death, spreading its seeds far away from danger to possibly live another day, even as we were doing so ourselves. We had escaped the frying pan of Die Kuppel only to be trapped in a Polish forest on fire.

  Glittery points of light, made visible in the muted sunlight of the depressive overcast spring sky, glowed like embers the size of wasps, each one popping into smaller ones, the size of fireflies, themselves finally popping into sparkles the size of gnats.

  Then we smelled it, and it an acrid smell. It was not like any of the foul odors of the Bunker; this was different. Through the roar, Zerrissen yelled for us to soak our sleeves in the freezing water and hold them to our noses, and to stay away from anything that sparkled.

  The black cloud grew skyward with an olive green and barnyard brown lance now emerging from its center, which spread out like a poisonous flower opening into a four-pointed star. The four petals fell back to earth, each tumbling downward as symmetrically as with as much grace as synchronized swimmers. The central lance, thinner, stripped of its petals, levitated higher, resembling at this distance a telegraph pole pushed by the fire below into the clouds. This creature, whatever it was, had shed its seed, like the pine trees in the holocaust, before being consumed in its own flames.

  With the sound and fire subsiding, we picked ourselves up, and swept off the twigs, leaves, and other detritus of the Polish forest floor, and only to be confronted by a platoon of five soldiers in uniforms I did not recognize, who were also staring at what was left of the receding spectacle. Their helmets were askew with leather straps hanging down unbuckled, exposing unshaven, filthy faces their rifles raised, cocked, and aimed at Zerrissen, one eye on him, the other on the angry cloud drifting away behind us.

  A soldier with two chevrons on his sleeve, his jaw in motion with something that could have been chewing gum, looked at us not with a smile, but not with a frown either. He spoke the first English I had heard in more than three years.

  “Well, hello.” Then looking at the remaining sausages around my neck, he added, “Going on a picnic?”

  Die Kuppel, 1934

  As Ozymandias exhorted the mighty to look upon his works and despair, so did the Reich fully expect history to do when they surveyed the newly completed Die Kuppel.

  Surreptitiously excavated under the Polish forest outside the village of Dubica Górna, its concrete corridors, laboratories, manufacturing lines, living quarters were laid out in the form of the German Iron Cross. Four progressively widening arms protruded 100 meters from a central rotunda thirty meters in diameter, its domed ceiling protruding only a few meters above the forest floor, carefully restored of natural camouflage of sticks, ivy, brush, and pine trees, as carefully woven together as a Jackson Pollack painting, most of which were real, a few of which were vents, instruments, antennas, and secret entrances in disguise.

  As the influx of personnel became a topic of speculation in Dubica Górna, a cover story was concocted and circulated through the usual underground channels that a medical facility was being built to handle a disease scourging and crippling the children of Europe. Indeed, regular shipments of children, ages three to six, all with leg braces and the other impurities of the inferior races, were made conspicuous.

  As the patient population increased, Die Kuppel directors, not overly concerned with their quality of life, begrudgingly acknowledged that a staff of governesses would better wrangle, feed, and otherwise care for whatever undesirable children of this age minimally required. The Catholic Church, never missing a chance that some of the children might grow up to tith
e its coffers, and which was already cozy with the Nazi Reich, was happy to oblige.

  By order of Pope Pius XII, an order of nuns specific to the task was formed, the 35th Teutonic Order of Solemn Vows, Daughters of Olaf, the Nordic war hero, but otherwise officially referred to as the Schwesterkriegerine, to serve the purposes of the Reich, and to weaponize as it deemed necessary.

  Die Kuppel, referred to by its thousand residents as the Bunker, was an evolved and expanded form of its little sister, La Cupole, in Normandy that had a similar purpose. The difference was that its creators had learned this lesson the hard way: rockets invite Allied bombers.

  The rocket under development at Die Kuppel was as tall as a grain silo, and officially designated the A10, but for those hopeful of its extended reach affectionally attached the moniker Amerika Rakete. One looking down from above might have imagined the circular opening surrounded by the circular dome as the iris and eyeball of the Earth. For those few who knew its true purpose, however, the image conjured instead was of Earth’s sphincter expelling suppositories on selected populations, even as far as half a hemisphere away.

  Wishing to avoid the latter comparison, the architects gave the center hole a more glamorous title, Die Oculus, inspired by the round opening in the dome of the Roman Pantheon, aspirations for salvation of the Reich by the gods of Prometheus being coddled within the dome not totally dismissed.

  But unlike the ballistic, up-then-down, trajectories of rockets launched from La Cupole, the warhead placed into orbit atop the A10 from Die Kuppel would remain in orbit, waiting for a target to be assigned to it, at which point it would ignite small thrusters to retard its velocity, according to the mathematics of Kepler, fall out of orbit and on top of the inferior race de jour populating the selected geography below.

  As with its little sister in Normandy, the idea was that launches could take place every few hours, by night or by day. Calculations on not just a few chalkboards suggested that with a few modifications, the Amerika Rakete could send a small payload beyond Earth orbit, perhaps even to the Moon.