The Violent Century Page 8
– What was he doing in Minsk? Fogg says. Oblivion looks at him sideways.
– One of the Nazis’ concerns is that little is known of the effects of the change in the Soviet Union, the Old Man says.
– He was hunting, Oblivion says. For people like us.
– And did he find them? the Old Man asks.
Fogg and Oblivion look at each other.
40. BELARUS 1941
Across the ice. The city sprawls in all directions, advancing Germans on one side, the retreating Red Army on the other, Fogg and Oblivion in the middle. Dogs howl at the sky. Fogg raises ice particles like a screen to shield them. Word is out. Sirens in the distance. The bark of guns. The sound of wheels. They skulk from house to house, doorway to doorway. Nazi soldiers everywhere. See Belarusians rounded up on the street, sometimes led away, sometimes, more simply, shot. Burned bodies everywhere. A man with his face peeled off. Fogg raises the Fog Man again. It stalks ahead or behind. It scares people away. The Fog Man is grey to black, it is as tall as houses, it can reach into a tank, Fogg imbues it with enough force to be physical, it can slap, it can stomp, it can hurt people. He had never done this before. Had never extended the fog-sense this far, this deep. Oblivion, beside him, doesn’t speak. Sometimes removes obstacles in their way. Obliviates them. People, buildings, tanks. Oblivion is like a miniature Wehrmacht invasion all on his own.
Running, they draw all sorts of attention to themselves. Eldrich energies coursing through the air. Vomacht waves. The change. The world is a white expanse of ice slashed with red. The red of fire, the red of blood. Rising ahead of them, a monster forms itself out of the ice. The ground itself pushing up, rising, forming a grotesque ice golem, a malevolent thick-armed thing. Fogg and Oblivion skirt around it, slipping on the ice, Fogg’s Fog Man losing substantiality behind them. The sound of engines and the jeep reappears, a driver with the wolf man in the passenger seat. A tank pierces through the smoke, a Panzer II, turret protruding forward like an obscene appendage. It fires, once, a burst of smoke and noise and a hole is punched through the ice golem’s chest, and the sky shows clear through the wound.
Oblivion swears, quietly. They lie on their stomachs on the ice, watching. The wolf man climbs out of the jeep. Smiles. The ice golem advances on him, towering over the Nazi, but each step becomes more hesitant, uncertain, and the golem begins to lose definition, to melt in tiny rivulets, as if it’s sweating, until it stops, a mere step from the wolf man, and freezes there, an uncertain expression on its snowman face.
– What? Fogg whispers.
– Shut up, Oblivion whispers back.
– Get him, the wolf man says. Soldiers pour out of a truck behind them, hidden in the fog. Grey uniform, Gestapo getup, they stream across the ice, around the immobile golem. A man pops out of the ground, dressed in white camouflage, he raises his hands, snow erupts from the ground like fists, it punches the soldiers. The man moves his arms like a conductor, playing the snow. The wolf man bares his teeth, reaches out his hand, palm open, concentrating, the man in the white camouflage reels back, the snow falls, the soldiers recover themselves, make for him.
– We can’t let them take him! Fogg says.
– We’re only here to observe! Oblivion says.
– To observe something is to change it, Fogg says. He concentrates; like the Nazi. He makes the Fog Man come back. Like a giant doll. Clumsy, on the ice. Says, Come on, Oblivion. Through tight lips. The fog condenses. Ice in the air giving it weight, presence. Shouts behind. The wolf man turns but too slowly. The Fog Man, this fog golem if you think about it that way, swipes a long grey hand made of icy crystals. Aims it at the wolf man’s head.
It connects with a crunch. Drops the wolf man to his knees. Suddenly the man in white is free again. His ice concerto rises, white arms shooting out of the frozen ground in a mockery of a Hitler salute. Grab the Gestapo men. Drag them down, into the ground. The sound of screams, of crunching bones. Fogg feels ill. Arcs of bright blood on the snow, arcs of red staining the purity of white.
41. THE FARM 1936
– How far can you extend your range?
Fogg concentrates. Dr Turing makes notes on a clipboard. They are in the large field beside the main house. It is a sunny day. Few clouds. Fogg concentrates hard. Raises a light fog in the air. It hovers. Thickens.
– Would it be fair to say it is dependent on local meteorological conditions? Dr Turing says.
– How the hell should I know? Fogg says. Dr Turing ignores him. Try extending it in a straight line, he suggests.
Fogg concentrates. The fog forms into an arrow, coalesces. Drifts from where they stand. Thirty feet is easy. At fifty there is a slight hesitation. At seventy feet the fog loses definition. Fogg feels sweat on his skin. The sun shines down. Dr Turing makes annotations on the paper. Good, good, he says.
Fogg lets his arms drop. How? he says. How does it happen?
– Quantum entanglement, Dr Turing says. Think of the mind as a … hesitates. As a machine, he says. A computer. Do you know what a computer is?
– A calculating machine?
– Of course. Quite right. A shy smile on Dr Turing’s face. Think of the brain as a calculating device existing in several probabilities at once.
– I don’t think I know what you mean, Fogg says, dubiously, but Turing keeps on, regardless – Fogg has the sense of a young, lonely man, used to carrying out conversations in his own head.
– The brain can be viewed as a biological quantum computer, Turing says. As such it interacts with the world on a subatomic level as well as the observable world. That means that your brain tells your hands and feet what to do – the body you feel yourself inhabiting – but it also works on a smaller scale, as well – a scale well beyond our ability to observe. Formerly beyond our ability to control. The world that is ruled by probabilities.
– I really don’t—
– The Vomacht wave was a probability wave, Turing said.
– Well, whatever you say, Fogg says. Feels nervous. On edge. The fog thickens around him. Turing smiles, makes a note on the clipboard. Interesting, yes, he says.
42. THE BUREAU 1941
– The Gibor organisation, the Old Man says.
– The what?
They are still briefing the Old Man. He paces the room. Irritable, somehow. Says, A Jewish defence organisation. Gibor, meaning ‘hero’ in their Hebrew. Some, it appears, operate as partisans, supported by the NKVD – the People’s Commissariat for Internal Affairs. What did you say his name was?
– Anton, Oblivion says. But he called himself Kerach.
43. BELARUS 1941
The man in white looks in their direction. Fogg can see his face for the first time. It is an extraordinarily ugly face. The man has no hair, not even eyebrows. His face is pockmarked and scarred, like a lunar landscape after millions of years of meteor impacts. His eyes are a pale blue, so pale they’re almost white. He flashes them a sudden, unexpected grin. It transforms his face, lighting it up. Blood and guts on the ice, the wolf man rises to all fours, his face lean and hungry, red eyes look at them, moving from the man in white to Oblivion and Fogg.
Oblivion says: Run. There seems nothing else to say.
They run.
It is difficult running on ice. The fog follows them, hiding them from view. The sound of feet slapping the ground at their side. Fogg turns his head, sees the man in white keeping pace with them, that extraordinary grin still on his face. Happy to see them. Like they’d been friends forever. Just happened to run into each other here, in Belarus, during a Nazi invasion.
They find shelter away from the city, behind a fallen Soviet tank half buried in the ice. Lean their backs against it. Breathing hard. The man in white takes out a small packet, extracts a long strip of something grey or brown. Offers it to Fogg.
– What the hell is that?
– It’s some sort of beef jerky, Oblivion says. I think. Accepts it from the man in white. Chews. It’s not bad, he says.
– American? the man in white says. He has a deep, guttural voice.
– British, Oblivion says.
– Americans aren’t even in this war! Fogg says. Somehow disliking this man, with his powers of snow and ice. Oblivion elbows him, hard. I’m Oblivion, he says. Speaks clearly, slowly. This is Fogg. You?
– Anton, the man says. Grins that crazy grin. Big guy, Fogg realises. Large square teeth with small gaps between them. My name Anton! Slaps Fogg on the shoulder. But you call me … hesitates, as if coming to a decision then, at last, says, Kerach.
That guttural sound, that ch stuck in the throat. Kerrrrrach, the man, Anton, says. Points at the ice. Makes it shake – makes Fogg jump. Jesus, he says.
– Kerach – ice? Oblivion says.
– Da! Ice, Anton says. Pulls up the sleeve of his coat. Shows them his naked arm. A tattoo there. A raised fist, embedded within a blue Star of David. Fogg says, Jesus, again. Anton nods enthusiastically. Jesus, he says.
– We need to get out of here, Oblivion says. Fogg wholeheartedly agrees. Anton, as if understanding their meaning, if not their words, nods. Points at the two of them. Then points to the distance. Points at himself. Points back where they came from. Kill Nazis, he says, complacently.
Oblivion nods. Stands up. Fogg and Anton follow. Oblivion reaches to shake the Jewish Übermensch’s hand.
– You’re crazy going back there, Fogg says. Anton grins again, and Fogg thinks it is almost like a grimace of pain. Kill Nazis, Anton says.
– Yes, well, Fogg says. Plenty of them about.
He and Oblivion make their way across the ice. Anton stands, watching them go, but he is soon swallowed up by the fog.
44. THE BUREAU 1941
– That tattoo is a special sort of encouragement dreamed up by the NKVD, I would think, the Old Man says.
– How so? Fogg says.
– Gives them an extra incentive not to get caught.
Fogg thinks of being a Jew and being caught by the Nazis. No, not Nazis. The wolf man. Wonders what happened to Anton. Thinks, he would have opened up a hole in the ice and jumped inside rather than be taken alive.
Didn’t like the way Anton and Oblivion had looked at each other. And didn’t like what the man could do to the ice.
The rest of their escape was red and white and grey.
They fled across the frozen terrain. Slowly. Tortuously. But no more Übermenschen. Fog surrounded them. Fogg’s every moment a pained focus, a quantum entanglement with ice and water particles, with smoke, with dust. Oblivion cleared the way when they came on hostile forces. Anything alive was hostile. Mostly they passed by undetected. They were just two shapeless figures in the mist. But once they hit a group of infantry, soldiers in a semi-circle, a group of Belarusian civilians digging a hole. The soldiers fired before the hole was dug deep. The bodies piled up soundlessly, it felt to Fogg at the time. Soundlessly. They should have walked away, just skirted the hole, the pile of corpses. Instead they didn’t even use what they had, only their knives, all discipline forgotten, days on the Farm, the drills, the Old Man’s orders: gone.
They had come at the soldiers with knives, like berserkers. War robbed you of heroics as much as of humanity. Serrated edges. Remembers burying it in the commanding officer’s gut, and drawing it out, entrails spilling on the ice, steaming, the fog rising into the air like a dagger. Remembers running the edge across a man’s neck and feeling the geyser of blood, warm on his hands and face. When the soldiers at last brought up their weapons, they had suddenly realised what they’d done. Breathing heavily, almost as in sexual congress, Fogg shaped the air around them into a weapon. Oblivion punched holes of unbeing through men whose flesh melted.
The rest of their escape was uneventful.
– We nullify each other, the Old Man says. Has already dismissed them. Speaking to himself. Oblivion says, Sir?
– Had there been Übermenschen on just one side, the Old Man says. If only the Nazis had them, for instance. Then the war could go a different way. But having them on every side nullifies the advantage. I’m afraid, gentlemen, that in this war, we are merely common soldiers.
Seems to lose interest. As if their mission, after all, had not concluded favourably. Dismisses them with a wave of his hand. Good work, he says, as they leave. But half-heartedly. Outside, Fogg lights up a cigarette. Oblivion too. It’s war. Everyone smokes. Leave the Bureau, walk down Pall Mall, heading to the river. Cold on the embankment. Stare into the water. Green-grey and murky.
– What would you do … hesitates. What would you have done, in life I mean, if the Old Man hadn’t found you?
Oblivion looks surprised at the question. Doesn’t answer. So little that Fogg knows about him, so little we have been able to dig up. Where had he come from. You? Oblivion says. Fogg shrugs, the question bouncing on him, shapes in the fog from the lights of river traffic, trapped ghosts projected on a screen. Maybe a carpenter, he says. Doesn’t know why he says it. It makes Oblivion smile. A carpenter, he says. Yes, Fogg says. Oblivion says, Really.
Fogg tries to imagine a world in which he is not standing by the railway tracks, the expanding wave rushing towards him, the frozen faces behind the windows of the approaching train, that crystalline shimmer in the air, the gathering fog, the onrush of probabilities hitting him, altering him on a micro-scale, a change he’s not even aware of until it is a done thing, and the faces unfreeze behind the windows, and the train rushes on, and the fog gathers around him like a living thing … no, he can’t imagine it, this alternate present is a blank in his mind. What would he have become? Follow his father into the market stall, off-loading vegetables, shouting, A pound for a pound! Fresh apples, darling, still with the dew of morning on them! Saying, There you go, mate, closed-cap mushrooms in a brown paper bag, the scales, the old cash register, drinks in the pub, slap the missus around on a Friday night, church on Sunday, God looking down on a world unchanged.
– Fogg? I lost you there, Oblivion says.
– Vomacht or not, Fogg tells him, there on the embankment, as an air-raid siren begins to sound, we’d still be soldiers, Oblivion. And there would still be a war.
SIX:
TRANSYLVANIAN MISSION
TRANSYLVANIA
1944
NAZI FORCES ENTER HUNGARY
March 19, 1944
* * *
In a surprise action, Nazi forces have taken over Hungary in a bloodless operation, code named Margarethe. Hungarian Prime Minister Miklós Kállay, a long-time ally of Adolf Hitler, was invited by the Führer to the palace of Klessheim, outside Salzburg, Austria, on March 15 for negotiations. It appears Mr Kállay has been secretly negotiating with Allied forces in order to reach an armistice.
As Mr Kállay was in Austria, Nazi forces moved quietly into Hungary, occupying the country without a fight. Mr Kállay returned to Budapest March 19, where he was welcomed by German soldiers. Hungarian Regent Miklós Horthy was faced with no choice but to surrender.
45. TRANSYLVANIA 1944
There is an ancient grandeur to the Carpathian mountains. Sleepy villages sit under distant, snow-capped peaks. Smoke rises peacefully from chimneys. Trains chug-chug-chug along the mountain pass, their sound like a lullaby.
… at least if you read your trusty old Baedeker’s.
Which manages to forget the train wagons going to Poland, the thundering industry of factory-produced boots hammering on the harsh winter ground on their searches door to door, locating and assembling the Jews of Transylvania, like so much extra luggage, to be shipped to the camps. As for the gypsies of Transylvania, their fate is not unlike that of the Jews. Camps are broken up in pre-dawn raids, children torn from the arms of parents, wagons set on fire, horses confiscated for the war effort and men, women and children sent on the trains that leave laden and return empty. Up in the mountains the forests are dark and deep and hide the men Fogg had been sent to find. Up ther
e in the mountains the snow sits on the dark leaves and the bears make their way through forest trails, huffing and puffing, and the wolves howl at the moon like a lament. This is where we come from. But this is not our story.
Fogg sits huddled by the fire. Cursing winter and this backwoods arse-end-of-nowhere dump of a godforsaken country. Baedeker’s glowing words of ancient Transylvanian grandeur lost on him, if truth be told. Curses the Old Man for sending him here. Peers around, from side to side. Spooked by the shadows. The sounds in the trees. His first night a bear came ambling into the clearing where they slept. Drawn by their meagre supply of food. Wasn’t detected until he was so close that Fogg, who was miserably asleep, woke up to the smell of wet fur and the rank breath of the bear, and the sight of teeth.
– He is hungry, the poor thing, Drakul explained. He had materialised in the clearing, a gaunt shadow. Frankly, he gave Fogg the screaming abdabs. Drakul had walked right up to the bear and laid a hand on the bear’s neck and the bear came down on all fours and sniffed the air, and then followed Drakul meekly out of the clearing, into the forest.
– But so are we, Drakul said, later. They were eating steaks by the fire. First red meat in weeks, from the way the other partisans attacked their food. Fogg didn’t have the heart to ask where it had come from. Didn’t need to.
Poor bleeding bear indeed.
Drakul is an emaciated man, unnaturally elongated, stretched, no meat on him, his skin like leather, his eyes black holes. His English is surprisingly good. Learned it from the two previous recon officers.