Stormfuhrer (14 page)

This gave Farash an idea.

“Norway and Denmark are deep sources for iron, coal, and wood.  These countries can be taken almost without a shot fired.”

Goebbels stopped and turned to look at him.  No one outside of the cabinet knew of the Fuhrer’s immediate plan to invade Norway and Denmark simultaneously, certainly not this wild astrologer who couldn’t do so simple a task as invent convenient predictions regarding Germany’s affirmative place in history from the nebulous words of a fellow astrologer.  “And?”  Goebbels looked Krafft up and down, as if visually dissecting the man to extract more relevant information.

“The Fuhrer should have no worries regarding Britain and France if he chooses to invade Norway and Denmark.  None of them have anything with which to stop us and they know it well.  They think of nothing but bolstering their own defenses.  Why didn’t these “Allies,” for instance, declare war on Russia for invading Poland?  They declared war on Germany for doing the same thing only a few weeks before.”

“
The British and the French aren’t idiots.  They fear such a move would bring Germany and Russia closer together.  Germany doesn't have an actual alliance with Russia and they want to keep it that way.  The Allies have no idea of the hatred Hitler has for Russia, nor the extreme differences between National Socialism and the idiotic notions of Stalin’s communism.  It's all socialism to them so there are some that think we’re linked ideologically.  They don’t want that link to grow into something more material.  Hitler will never ally with . . ."  Goebbels stopped mid-sentence.  He seemed to have said too much and turned to continue the walk.  The Reichsminister was agitated now.  Perhaps he was beginning to see Krafft as someone with a special talent, maybe even someone who could be trusted.  The Minister of Propaganda had let Krafft into his confidence, just for a few seconds.  Now, he wanted to take a pistol and blow off the man's head.  Unfortunately, that's not what the Fuhrer wanted.

Farash knew he was safe, for now, but he would still need to offer reassurances to bolster the man’s ego by reinforcing his position of superiority.

"Can I be forward?"

"You are always forward, Mister Krafft," replied the Reichsminister, clearly annoyed.

"I need you to hear me.  What I’m saying right now.  Keep this information between us, if you like."

"Go on."

"Germany will invade Norway and Denmark on the 9th of April.  Our Fuhrer will be very successful and the Brits and French won't lift a finger, just as they did nothing when we took back the Rhineland, just as they did nothing but talk when we took Poland and shared it with the Russians, just as they won't on April 9th, just as they won’t . . ." Farash was about to predict the invasion of France.  No, he would save that card for later.   If I am wrong, execute me."

Goebbels thought. "April 9th?"  He smiled faintly.  "Complete success?  Would you be willing to put that in writing, Mister Krafft?" 

"Yes, in writing."

"Then you have a deal.  I will keep the information to myself.  If all happens as you predict, I will be your biggest supporter when in the company of the Fuhrer."  Goebbels knew that the invasion had been put off until June, if it were to happen at all.  The Fuhrer had been forming a long tradition of making last-minute changes that negated months of hard planning.  Farash saw in his face that Goebbels was sure it wouldn't happen on the given date, if at all, and was fairly certain that the English and French would indeed get involved somehow. 

For Goebbels, this would be a perfect opportunity to show up the charlatan astrologer.  He
would
show the Fuhrer the document, perhaps on April 10
th
, signed by Krafft, detailing when, where, and how the invasion would take place.  That way it would mean Krafft's incarceration when the date and outcome were incorrect.  It wouldn't be much of a loss, really, since the man had no real gift for propaganda.  It was dangerous to trust these Rasputin types.

Fall 2023

Mr. Hayes sat cross-legged on his colleague’s desk at a front corner of the classroom and listened as Mr. Perry delivered his short lecture.

“Can
love
be a theme?” he asked the class.

Many low yes’s could be heard.

“No.  It can’t.  Love is a concept.  A literary theme must be expressed as a complete sentence, a statement about life.  So . . . can this be a theme: ‘Love between children and their parents’?”

Some yes’s could again be heard.

“No.  That’s still a concept.  A theme in literature should always be expressed in the form of a
statement
, a complete thought, like “Love between children and their parents can sometimes be strained when children show disobedience.”  The students were silent.  A few were looking in Mr. Perry’s direction.

Karen Pierce sat in a middle row.  She nervously looked at Mr. Hayes, who seemed to be staring through the side wall and into his own classroom.  He detected her gaze and looked back, raising his eyebrows in an obvious attempt to find out what the matter involved.  Did she need to leave the room?  The student looked down again at her desk and pretended to take notes from Perry’s lecture.

After class, in the hallway, Karen dropped a folded note into Mr. Hayes’ hands.  All the students had filed out, and Perry had gone back to his classroom and closed the door behind him, locking it and turning out the lights for his daily conference period nap.  After she had turned a corner, Hayes stood in the hallway and unfolded the note.  It read, “I know who you are in the game.  Maybe we can help each other.”

The next day, during his morning bus duty, Karen approached Mr. Hayes.  Hayes stood by the curb, appreciating the cool morning breeze coming off the Gulf of Mexico.  “I’ve been wanting to talk to you.  It’s about the game,” she said.

“
If it’s about your character, you should know that we don’t discuss it.  We just play it.  That way everything stays in the game.  No unfair advantages.”

“
I think we both know that it’s more than a game.”

Hayes was silent for several seconds.

“You’re Heinrich Mauer, the camp guard, aren’t you?”

Hayes considered.  “Yes, I was Mauer.  He’s dead now. 
Er ist tot
.”

“
Nein, er ist nicht tot.
”

“
No, Karen, I watched as he died.  Actually, I killed him myself with a phenol injection.”

The buses were starting to clear and most students were already making their way into the hallways just before the first release bell.

“OK, I’m not going to reveal my character, but I saw Heinrich lying in the hospital.  He’s in a coma.” 

“
Assuming he
is
alive, which he isn’t, you’ve just revealed to me that we work or at least did work in the same camp.  So you might as well tell me, are you a prisoner or a guard?”

“
When you come back to the game, we can help each other.  Nothing weird or anything.”  Karen smiled and walked into the building, ignoring his question.

Mr. Hayes thought about following her but decided against it.  If Heinrich was alive, assuming she was right, it wouldn't matter for long.  If the upper brass in the SS feel he has any remaining use, they’ll send him to the front, which will put him far away from Savina.  If not, he’ll likely wake up senseless and eventually be “euthanized” by one of the doctors.  None of the camp leaders could have any lingering respect for him, and at some point they’d realize that he was just taking up space.

Hayes had learned so much about the Nazi way of doing things that it was hard for him not to sympathize with Mauer a little.  There had been hundreds of thousands of German citizens deemed “life unworthy of life,” especially children and the elderly.  Whole wings of hospitals in some of the larger cities had been filled with persons mentally and physically unable to contribute to society in any meaningful way.  They were considered “Parasites on the Volk.”  Doctors and scientists made use of their bodies—especially their brains--for scientific research, usually after they were poisoned, gassed, or starved in their beds.  Heinrich Mauer would go this route.  He was either dead or as good as, so that story was over.  Was it over?  He could not completely convince himself of the logic of this scenario.

Instead of returning to the Game, Hayes needed to find other interests with which to occupy his time.  It was essential to his own mental and emotional well-being to find something else.  There wasn't anything else, no other focus that might drive away the obsession to see Mauer dead and Savina safe.

Back at home that night, Hayes detected consciousness in the screen of his helmet, a vague faintness that registered black and white, pixelated with haze in the blackness of the surrounding enclosure.  Karen’s words, and those of the camp Doctor, had made the repeated attempt inevitable.

It had been weeks since his attempt to kill Mauer.  Richard Hayes now found himself standing over a hospital bed.  The vagueness of the interaction made it clear that Mauer's body was not completely healthy, but he was definitely alive.  There was static in the audio, accompanied by a ringing sound that he couldn’t shake off.   Either his body hadn't taken the full injection, or the liquid that had been in the syringe wasn't what he had guessed it to be. 

He watched her breathe, following the thin, white sheets as they moved slowly and rhythmically up and down over her chest, her head turned toward him, eyes closed.  He suddenly felt like an outsider and then quickly realized how fearful she would be to see Mauer staring at her from above.

She moved in her bed, three away from his, which he had been just vacated.  He stood in bare feet in a hospital gown.  He looked at his hands.  They were big; the hairs on the backs of his wrists and arms were blond and thin.  The hands were pale.

He looked across Savina’s form, small and dark.  She lay in a short row of beds usually reserved for officers and guards; Savina wouldn’t have received this level of treatment had she not been useful to someone, probably the old doctor.  She was an orderly he clearly favored.

He touched her cheek.  She was unresponsive.  He wanted to lie next to her, like in his dream, with the ceiling lifted away to expose the stars of the cold night, even thought that she might respond as she had in his dream, willing and open to any suggestion in the midst of a vast and empty camp.  That was a beautiful thought—the two of them, free, far away from the camp, lying under stars, sharing ideas regarding the bizarre situation in which they had found themselves.  What did he know about her?  She was a Pole, brought here by train when Warsaw had been invaded.  That was pretty much it.

Hayes knew that if he were to get her out of this situation, it would have to be soon, before she was fully healed, before she again joined the general population of the camp.

“The wine is here, Herr Mauer,” whispered a uniformed soldier who had walked past but then stopped to grab Heinrich’s arm. “I’m assuming you’re back to what you were before your two weeks off? . . . crazy bastard.”  The tight-lipped, dark-haired soldier smiled a lipless smile.  “By the Kettle.  Tonight.  We’ll all be there.  Your . . . farewell party.”  The, shorter enlisted man seemed quite familiar and patted Heinrich on the arm before walking back in the direction he had come.  He showed no condescension or irony toward the officer, only familiarity, too much familiarity from an enlisted man nowhere near the regulation height of an SS officer and nowhere near Mauer's rank, even now.  Mauer's standing had indeed fallen to be spoken to so familiarly by a mere corporal of the
regular army.

For a moment, Hayes had no idea what to do with himself.  He decided to lie back down on his bed and watch for Savina to awaken.  After some hours of watching her sleep with almost no detectible movement, he decided to explore areas of the camp with which he was least familiar.  He needed to find blind spots, ways of getting someone out of the camp without being seen and without being followed.  He had some ideas about how this might be accomplished, but no definite plan as of yet.

Eventually, he found his way to the rear of the general kitchen, not far from the hospital.  It was in the back of a broad canteen, filled with stainless steel counters and wooden chairs.  Giant ladles hung from hooks on a circular wheel depending from a beam overhead.  In the larger of the several kitchen areas, an immense black kettle stood in a huge alcove of the back wall.  A fire was lit beneath it and several
Wehrmacht
soldiers and a few SS men stood drinking just outside of its warm circumference.  He was somewhat late for his “farewell party.”

“
Herr Mauer!” shouted the corporal who had told him of the gathering. “You made it!  And without bumping your head or stabbing yourself with poisonous needles.  They really don’t know what a fine officer they’re sending away.”  The assembly laughed and stared at Mauer, addressing him with affection to join them.  One handed him a clear bottle, apparently vodka, from which they had already begun taking drinks.  This wasn’t the first of  such meetings that Hayes, as Mauer, had attended.  He had in fact gained a great deal of information about this world of Germans, Nazis, and camps from these encounters.  At such events, characters would often drink heavily, and the more they drank, the more loose their tongues became.  The company was usually not so mixed--SS, non-commissioned officers and company officers all stood together, enjoying the warmth of the fire and the company of comrades.