The Violent Century (15 page)

Then, a roar, a familiar voice, the sound of giant footsteps crushing ice and snow as if they were mere inconveniences and Schneesturm turns his head, no longer sure, and a massive, angry figure bursts through the falling snow and it’s Tank, it’s Tank to the rescue—

He swings a giant fist and it whistles through the air but Schneesturm is quick, he ducks and then the snow howls harder and Schneesturm is gone, vanished in the blizzard, and Tank gives a cry of rage and—

Fogg grabs Oblivion, shakes him. Oblivion opens his eyes, mumbles, Wha—

– We’ve got to get out of here. Can you stand?

Fogg half supports him, Oblivion’s hand on his shoulder, and he looks at him and says, You’ve been shot?

– It’s nothing, Fogg says.

– Henry …

– Let’s go. We’ve got to get out of here—

In the snow, blindly. As if they were back in Minsk. But they don’t get far—

The snow clears, creating a globe enclosing them. Within it they see the snowman, Schneesturm’s golem, larger even than before, the details lost within its frame: its two small boxer’s ears made of lumps of coal, its nose a rotted carrot, its eyes swastika buttons picked up from the dead rocket boys’ sleeves. It faces Tank. They trade punches. Grunts of pain from Tank, nothing from the animated snowman. Oblivion stops. We’ve got to help him, he says. We can’t, Fogg says, we’ve got to get away. The mission failed. I’m not leaving Tank, Oblivion says. We don’t have a
choice
! Fogg carries him onwards. Looking back at Tank. For one moment Tank looks back at them, and smiles a goodbye.

59.
THE OLD MAN’S OFFICE
the present

– Tank, the Old Man says, heavily.

– Yes, Fogg says.

– You got out all right, though, the Old Man says. You and Oblivion.

– Yes. We made it away. Tank bought us time. Still, it wasn’t easy. The Gestapo had the street covered. We escaped in the fog. Oblivion was in no shape to … do anything. I killed one – no, two – Gestapo men. That was it. We somehow made it out to where Spit was waiting in the car. We drove to the safe house. We split up the next day.

Something else, though. Stepping out of the snow cone into a clear Parisian street. Bright lights suddenly shining into their eyes, half blinding them. Fogg, with the last of his power, raises the fog around them, letting them escape.

But just before the fog rises. Squinting against the glare, he sees him, standing with his armed men behind the spotlights, waiting.

Brigadeführer Hans von Wolkenstein.

Der Wolfsmann.

– Well, the Old Man says. Consults his folder. Turns the pages. We failed to get Vomacht that time, he says. Shrugs, as if all this is of little consequence. But we got Lischka. He was supplying Clauberg with French test subjects. And Clauberg was working for Vomacht, wasn’t he, Fogg?

– What was Vomacht doing? Fogg says.

– Research, the Old Man says. Sighs. Lischka and Clauberg. Of course, both were immediately replaced. And we had underestimated von Braun’s importance.

– Rocket-man.

That was their old code for him. The Old Man shrugs again. Rockets were never our priority, he says. Unlike the Americans.

– And the Americans got him all to themselves in the end, Fogg says, remembering.

60.
PEENEMÜNDE ARMY RESEARCH CENTRE, USEDOM ISLAND
1945

We watch it from above, the way it was photographed by Allied spy planes: it looks like an ant colony in black and white, dug into the island. The island lies in the Baltic Sea, between Germany and Poland. Your mother, Emmy von Braun (
née
von Quistorp) suggested the location: It’s just the place for you and your friends, she said. Slaves dug the secret tunnels and built the base. You hand-picked them yourself, from the Buchenwald concentration camp.

It can be a lot of fun having your own private island hideaway. Designing rockets, controlling their manufacture and launch. V2s, weapons of mass destruction. It can be a lot of fun playing at being a villain in a moving pictures serial: you feel invincible.

Not in the spring of nineteen forty-five, though. Not with the Russians advancing steadily, so close, your colleague says, mournfully, you can almost smell the vodka fumes. You have no loyalty to the Nazis. Hitler is a madman. And you have a dream, a dream more important than rockets for war or those ridiculous rocket-men – one of the Führer’s less tenable ideas, you always, privately, thought. No. You won’t miss them when they’re finally gone. Not when what you dream of is outer space itself: space, and the stars.

And if the Nazi era is over, nevertheless there are others desirous of your services. There is no reason to become unduly panicked. The Nazis are uncivilised, you secretly feel. But you’re a pragmatist. Working for Hitler got you an island, a secret base, the best minds Germany could produce (well, no, not the
best
minds, you concede, as your Jewish colleagues either fled to America or were murdered in the camps), but some of the very best, anyhow, not to mention a limitless supply of slaves for the work. Too bad, almost, that the time has come to change sides. The time has come to surrender.

It’s spring and the air is filled with the smell of flowers and munitions. You gather your men. The decision is reached. You will not surrender to the Soviets. They are animals, the Russians. They might treat you like prisoners of war. Worse: they might treat you like
criminals
.

There is only one thing to do, at this stage.

You must find yourself an American.

The withdrawal takes time. Peenemünde must be abandoned. Already the Nazi high command is suspicious of you – they never trusted you to begin with, if you’re honest with yourself. And Peenemünde is too exposed, the Soviets are too close. You and your men mobilise, you get shipped by train to the Alps, to Oberammergau, where the SS can watch you and make sure you remain loyal. Your brother, Magnus, is with you.

It is Magnus who facilitates the surrender. Magnus who ends up chasing a US private from the 44th Infantry Division on his rusty bicycle, calling out, in an English thick with his German accent: My name is Magnus von Braun. My brother invented the V2. We want to surrender!

We want to surrender.

By the end of the war, we know,
everyone
wanted to surrender.

61.
THE OLD MAN’S OFFICE
the present

– Still, the Old Man says again. You got out, in the end. And Oblivion, of course.

– But not Tank, Fogg says, and the words fill the room like smoke. They won’t go away.

– No, the Old Man says. Not Tank. That was … regrettable.

– They shipped him out, Fogg says. They shipped him to Poland.

Thinking of Tank, fighting Schneesturm, knowing the Gestapo were waiting just beyond the snow. Knowing that, even if he won, he had already lost.

Knowing only that he’d bought Fogg and Oblivion the time they needed to get away.

And smiling back at them, one last time, as they walked away.

– Yes, the Old Man says. They shipped him to Poland, Fogg.

Not letting him off. Forcing it back. The memories. The knowledge of what he’d done, or not done. The knowledge of walking away.

– To our old friend, Dr Mengele, the Old Man says.

And: As I said … regrettable.

Fogg closes his eyes. It is so quiet in the Old Man’s office. It’s deep underground. There’s no one to hear him scream.

62.
AUSCHWITZ, POLAND
1943

This is the thing about closing your eyes: that, not seeing – this act of
unseeing
– does not stop the things you don’t want to see from happening. Tank does not close his eyes. Shackled like an Androcles taken into captivity, Tank sits hunched inside the armoured truck, alone in his cage, waiting. He has nothing to do now but wait. It is very cold inside the truck but that’s one thing about Tank, he doesn’t feel the cold easily. He’s drowsy, both from the beating and from the drugs the Gestapo man, von Wolkenstein, ordered to be administered to him, back in Paris. Then, when they took effect, von Wolkenstein came and stared at him for a long moment and put his hand on Tank’s shoulder, solemnly, and said, ‘What a pity you were not born a German.’

Then comes the inside of the truck, and more drugs, and no food, and the long, slow drive across Europe, in the snow. The two drivers in the front take turns driving, stopping only to pee and refuel, and even that hurriedly. It makes Tank smile. They are afraid of him, afraid that he’d escape or that there’d be a rescue. But neither is forthcoming, and then Tank nods off again.

Then the truck stops. He can hear the drivers just sitting there, for a moment. As if they’re taking a breath. Or waiting for something. Then the sound of doors opening and feet hitting the ground and coming around. He wants to tear off the shackles and hit the men with them when they come but he has no power left in him, he can barely keep his eyes from closing.

The doors open. Sunlight floods the dark interior, hurting Tank’s eyes. Then they’re pulling him and he staggers out, and stands on the cold ground and straightens himself up for the first time. He can feel them moving away, and he grins. He lifts up his hands and the shackles clang as they hit each other.

Tank blinks in the light. The drivers are backing away but now soldiers approach, guns pointing at him, almost a dozen of them. There’s a short exchange. He doesn’t get much of it.

– What’s this?

– That one’s for Dr Mengele.

The drivers get back in the truck and drive off. The soldiers stop at a safe distance and keep the guns pointing at Tank and wait. That’s all.

The first thing Tank notices after the soldiers are the train tracks. They disappear over the horizon but they terminate right where he’s standing. A last stop and destination.

The rails terminate at the gates to a camp. That’s the next thing he notices. The camp. Barbed-wire fences, guard towers, low, grey brick buildings. It’s a massive enclosure, like the biggest prison camp he’s ever seen. Then there’s the sign over the gate, in wrought-iron letters.
Arbeit Macht Frei
. Tank’s lips form the words without sound. He doesn’t speak German, much. They learned some on the Farm, but … The letters are not straight, either. They’re arranged in an arc over the gates.

Arbeit
… Work? He thinks.

And
Frei
he knows, it means freedom.

Arbeit macht frei
.
Macht
– makes.
Work makes you free
?

Just working this out leaves him tired. The soldiers just stand there, watching him. He must have nodded off because, when he opens his eyes again, a train has pulled into the station and is being offloaded. Tank stares. The passengers all wear shabby clothes and all have a yellow Star of David stitched onto their sleeves or to their breasts, and so he reasons that they must be Jews. Most of them are very thin. They get off the train, old people, children, mothers and fathers and youngsters. Officers are barking orders at them, and there are many more soldiers, hurrying them along. They all head into the camp. The gates are open and they all go in, an exodus of Jews. None of them looks at Tank. That’s one thing we notice, about the scene. None of them looks at Tank, not even once. Like he’s not there.

Like they’re trying very hard to not notice he’s there.

He sees them walking through the gates. Carrying nothing. Parents holding their children’s hands. Sees a man in the distance. Crisp uniform. A horsewhip in one hand, beating rhythmically against his thigh. Thump. Thump. And pointing. Sorting the incomers into two streams. Left. Right. Left. Right. Thump. Thump. Thump.

Black smoke rising in the distance. We notice that, too. The black smoke. Tank notices it as well. It’s impossible not to. The smell. The air is choked with it. It makes a contrast with the smell of fresh hay and trees from the outlying areas. It’s a charming sort of place in the Polish countryside, with a small village nearby, just out of sight, and forests, and that black smoke, that damnable black smoke rising.

After a while the Jews are all sorted left or right and the man with the horsewhip comes walking through the gates. Not hurrying. He’s got all the time in the world. The horsewhip thumping rhythmically against his leg. Thump. Thump. Thump bloody thump, Tank thinks. The man comes over and looks at Tank and smiles a small and satisfied smile. Tank returns his gaze. Thinking the drugs are wearing off. Thinking maybe he can make a go at it. Tests the shackles, casually. The man’s smile just grows a little wider.

– I’m Dr Mengele, he says. You must be Tank.

Tank looks at the man. Looks at the soldiers with their guns trained on him. Looks at the distance. Figures he can’t do it. Does it anyway.

The shackles drag him down. He swings one at the doctor but he’s too far away and it whistles before his face but doesn’t connect. Mengele doesn’t even move. Just stands there, smiling. ‘What a beautiful specimen,’ he says. Then he gestures with his head and someone fires, not a bullet, a dart. It hits Tank in the neck and he feels himself going numb.

– Take him to the menagerie, Dr Mengele says; the last words Tank hears for a while.

63.
AUSCHWITZ. DR MENGELE’S LABS
1943

We can’t now tell whether it is night or day. There are no windows. Tank opens his eyes, regains consciousness as they come inside. The room reeks of shit and piss and cleaning fluids and sweat. Mostly it reeks of an animal sort of fear. Tank isn’t often afraid. But he knows the smell, and like an animal it makes him want to whimper.

He is not alone in the room.

It is a long corridor brightly lit by white electric lights. On each side of the corridor are cages. In each cage there are specimens.

Like with animals in an exotic menagerie, the floors of the specimens’ cages are littered with their own excrement. The specimens are very thin, Tank notices. Or rather, he tries not to notice. Like the Jews going through the gates of Auschwitz, trying to unsee Tank. Tank blinks his eyes. Dr Mengele, ahead of him, turns and smiles reassuringly. ‘Superb recovery,’ he says. He nods at someone behind Tank. Something touches Tank, lightly, on his bare skin and intense pain flares up through Tank’s body, spreading like a liquid, making his whole body ring out like a bell. Then the touch is removed and the pain goes away. Tank turns and sees men in white smocks holding long cattle prods. Electricity. They’d just shot him up full of electricity. He looks back at the doctor. The doctor is smiling. Do we understand each other? he says.