The Violent Century (10 page)

– Brigadeführer Hans von Wolkenstein, the Old Man says. A dreamy look in his eyes. The grey-haired man stares at them from the photograph. Honorary SS rank, the Old Man says. Attached to the Gestapo, the Nazi secret police. Department F.

– Department F? Fogg says.

The Gestapo has five departments. A for Enemies, B for Sects and Churches (primary amongst them department B4, dealing exclusively with the Jews), C for Administration and Party Affairs, D for the Occupied Territories (under which Brigadeführer Hans von Wolkenstein would otherwise be assumed to be working, per his appearance in Belarus), and finally E, the department of Counter Intelligence.

– Department F, the Old Man says.

– Übermenschen, Oblivion says.

– Aye, the Old Man says, some poor imitation of a regional accent. Nazi equivalent of our own dear Bureau for Superannuated Affairs.

– I thought the Nazis show off their Übermenschen, Fogg says.

The Old Man smiles. They show off
some
of them, certainly, he agrees. The presentable ones, at least. The most suitably
Aryan
. For propaganda purposes they have a high value indeed.

– You really don’t understand, do you, Oblivion says. Fogg says, What. The Old Man watches, that same tolerant smile on his face.

– The Gestapo is not the SS, Oblivion says. Fogg knows the SS have their own special Übermenschen unit. Their uniform is white, the twin lightning bolts of the SS on their chests within a giant umlauted U. The SS – Schutzstaffel, or Defence Corps – are a military entity. The Gestapo is police …

– They’re the ones in charge of hunting
Übermenschen, Fogg says, whispers, realisation sinking in. The Old Man’s smile is grim. He nods.

– Brigadeführer Hans von Wolkenstein, he says. Austrian. Early supporter of the National-Socialist Party. A favourite of Adolf Hitler, advanced rapidly through the ranks of the Party before disappearing from view about a year ago. We can get very little information on Department F. We didn’t even know von Wolkenstein was a spotter, until this moment, though we surmised as much …

– 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.

They sit there with their backs to the metal, enclosed in fog, chewing.

– 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.