TWENTY-FOUR
Blackness, but life. Or is it? Am I dead and in purgatory? Or hell? Pressure on his face, a tingling, rough, chemical-smelling texture. Shooting pains in every limb, tortured muscles, twitches. Dancing with St Vitus.
A vision filled his head, flickering torch flames, light dancing across the limestone walls of the cave. And the animals appeared, herds of bison, bulls, antelopes, rendered with such skill that the artists would inspire Picasso. The oldest art in the world. Art about hunting. Art about food. This is important. Is this the true origin of art? The communication from one human to another about the source of what we need to survive? Is this why every child is born an artist until the system, the murder machine, knocks it out of them? See the texture of the bison’s shaggy coat. Watch the layer upon layer of Paleolithic animals, their human hunters gathering, the stars looking down, gods. On the ground, in the dark earth, little figures, the very first sculptures created by human hands. Voluptuous women, fertility symbols. Sex objects, their effect tangible. Is this what art truly is? Textures and layers and the communication, the shared acknowledgement of our base needs. The ideas flooded his mind, then faded as quickly. Lost to him.
He lay on his left side, his face in the carpet, inhaling fluff, his right knee forward. In the recovery position. He thought about how he needed to take a piss.
His eyes were locked shut and it took a long minute to force them open. Beige. Needles danced across his chest.
If I’m not dead, then why can’t I move? I must’ve had a heart attack. Or a stroke.
Then a startling idea.
I don’t know where I am or how I got here.
His mind was wiped, like the power surge from the Darkphone taser had shorted his memory. This was his worst fear.
He grunted to his knees, grabbed the edge of a desk and got to his feet so he could slump into a swivel chair. His vision was cloudy, just hazy blobs, his mouth dry and rough and with a vague taste of blood. He blinked hard and rubbed his eyes until the scene became clear.
He was in a nondescript office, magnolia-painted walls, no windows, a square room, twenty feet on a side. A door here. A door down there with the toilet symbol on it. He sat beside a wooden desk, not an MDF job, but good, carved oak. Old. Why do I know this? On the desk was a big bottle of mineral water, a bottle of red wine, a couple of glasses and a corkscrew. There was also a baguette and a pack of cheddar cheese slices.
The smell of bread reached his consciousness.
What’s going on?
Am I at home? No. That carpet. Is this work? Yes, this must be work. Some paper on the desk, blank. What’s my job?
A clock on the wall. 8.25. Morning or evening? What day? I need help.
No phone. He felt his pockets. No cellphone there. Then he realised that something unusual must have happened as he always had a phone.
‘What’s your name?’ he said aloud.
He couldn’t answer. The clock ticked, suddenly loud, suddenly invading his mind.
His shaking hand poured a glass of water. He gulped it, thought it tasted a little salty, then opened the wine, which tasted sour, but, as a heat radiated across his chest, he felt better. He poured some more.
He wondered why he didn’t try to leave. He went to the door, twisted the handle, heard a click, felt the door push towards him. He stepped back, awkwardly, and a woman came into the room.
A glimpse of dimly-lit corridor outside the door, the subdued noise of heavy construction, or maybe dance music.
‘How are you?’
‘Fine, I -. I don’t know my name.’
‘Oh you poor thing. Sit down, come on.’
She closed the door behind her, then took his arm and led him back to the chair. She sat on the desk beside him, put down her little black handbag, poured herself a glass of wine. She had long, well-tanned legs, bare, and wore an expensive suit, all in red, her skirt so short that he could see her white panties.
‘Drink,’ she said, putting his glass into his hand.
He drank and felt dizzy, the needle pains still shooting across his shoulders and the back of his neck, the hairs tingling there.
She kicked off her heels, slowly opened the buttons of her jacket. She was wearing just a white bra inside, brilliantly bright lace, so fine that he could see the dark discs of her areolas and the bullseyes of her nipples.
He thought about YouTube and the video he saw that explained the reason men have nipples, because for the first few weeks in the womb, we are all female, all female, so the nipples form and the ovaries and the vagina and the clitoris, then, and only then, if the DNA of the new human has been determined to be male, the ovaries drop out of the vagina to become testicles and a fold of skin forms to create a scrotum and to cover the extended clitoris and make a penis. That’s why men have a dark line from crack to sack to underside of dick, it’s where the fold of skin joined up.
The nipples just stayed nipples.
Hers were erect. She watched him.
Men, women, we are all the same.
‘Do you know my name?’
‘Only one name matters,’ she said, removing her jacket, folding it neatly onto the desk.
She got off the table, sat on his lap, her hand on his chest. He looked into her eyes, saw the cold blue of the northern ocean there, surrounding dark pools that held his reflection. Her face was like a painting he saw once, he couldn’t remember which, framed by perfect golden blonde hair. He wanted to ask which name mattered. Why am I afraid of her?
Jacob looked at his wine glass, wondered. But she’s drinking too. He looked at the water bottle.
Then her hand was behind his head and her mouth was on his, her hard tongue pushing between his teeth, her lips soft and tasting of roses. Her breath was inside him, fast and shallow. She murmured something, but it was as if she was talking another language. She shifted herself, made room for her other hand to slip between his thighs.
His cock was hard, so thick with blood it hurt.
‘I can’t do this,’ he whispered weakly. Who are you?
‘Hush,’ she said, both hands on his belt now, pulling it back, releasing it, opening his chino button and his fly. The pressure release was a deliverance, his erection now held back just by his shorts. God, let it out, let it free.
She got off him then, grabbed his shorts and trousers at the waist and pulled them sharply, down to his knees. She looked at his cock, its thick, pulsating purple veins, its glistening head, gave a nod and got on her knees.
Then she took him inside her mouth, her tongue flicking around and around his head, which felt close to exploding. There were no strokes, just a relentless massage. His lifeforce pulsed through his penis and he grunted. ‘Stop.’ He watched her as she gorged on him, using one hand to tug her knickers down. Then she took her penis in his hand, lifted him by it, to the desk. She turned and raised her skirt and bent over the desk, one hand on the polished oak, lace in rings around her knees, her other hand taking his dick and guiding it towards her smooth, round, ass, her gluteus maximus, the largest muscle in the human body. Why am I thinking that? Why is it that it turns me on, that it turns all men on? As he wondered why, why, always why, she took him into her cool, dark place, caressing his length. He thrusted, almost against his will at first, gently, slowly, her salty smell of the freshness of forests and the sea and life itself drifting up to his nostrils.
She reached back with her hand and pulled him out of her vagina, rubbing him against her now, down to her clitoris, her own little penis, and into her coiffed pubic hair. The sudden friction made him gasp and the head of his penis bulged as every nerve ending there cried. She grabbed his balls then, squeezed them hard so that her fingernails dug into his scrotum. He gasped again.
Then she tilted her hips forward and guided him into her other hole, her heart of darkness. She pushed back against him, took his cock deep into her anus, her sphincter tight against him, less natural lubricant there, more good friction. She grunted, a calm, measured sound. New, earthy smells reached him as she reached around and grabbed a buttock in each of her hands, spread them apart so he could go truly balls deep. Then she moved a hand around to her clitoris, rubbed it vigorously. He felt her body’s little trembles, moved his right hand around to join hers, massaging her beautiful little dick and loving her skin.
Her panting got faster and she suddenly twitched forward, his penis once more exposed. So she took hold of it again and guided it back into her warm and wet and swollen vagina, flooded with her natural mucous, her squalene and pyridine and urea and acetic acid and lactic acid and alcohols and glycols and ketones and aldehydes - what a chemistry set is a human - where he felt like he was home, sweet home and she screamed quietly, her entire body rocking and he came in an anxious flood, not really knowing who, what, where or why.
A firm hand pushed him back onto his chair, a sogging, sticky mess of a man. She found a little pack of wipes in her handbag, cleared away some of his semen from her, tossed it in a little waste paper basket. She took another wipe, handed it to him.
She dressed quickly, went to the bathroom.
He tried the door she came in, but it was locked.
She emerged from the bathroom, perfectly made up, like she’d never fucked the life out of him just minutes previously.
‘I need to go,’ she said. ‘The guests will be arriving any time.’
‘Guests?’
‘The Grand Divertissement Royal. Food, art, King Louis Sixteen’s Champagne. The President is due to arrive in an hour. Should be a real blast. Don’t worry, I’ll have some food sent down to you. Sophie’s cooking up a storm.’
She knocked on the door. There was a click and it opened from outside. She left, glancing back at Jacob, the look in her eyes almost saying Sorry.
The door closed, and was locked.
Jacob sank into his chair. The mention of Sophie had brought everything back.
‘Jesus fucking god,’ he said.
He finished the wine.
Then he got up and paced the room. There was nothing really to see. The desk drawers had been cleared, just held some notepads and blank envelopes. There was a couple of leads plugged into the wall by a little shelf unit, along with USB lead and outlines in light dust that showed the recent removal of a computer and printer. Some user manuals for accounting software - QuickBooks - and a copy of CRM for Dummies. A calendar on the wall, a drinks supplier, pictures of women in bikinis with huge bottles of spirits. July was a curvy brunette in stars and stripes with a gigantic bottle of bourbon. Classy. So it was an administrator’s office, somebody who dealt with stock and orders and accounts for a bar or a restaurant, a small operation. Or a separate operation?
Jacob used the bathroom, which was small and clean. A little bottle of aftershave there. Curious. Chanel Pour Homme.
He paced the office room again, examined a pile of junk in a corner. Some old flipcharts with business mumbo jumbo on them, piles of the really old school printouts on the big concertina sheets with the holes down the side. Looked like daily sales reports. And then, a box. One of those big, heavy duty cardboard moving boxes.
He lifted the lid and smelled time, age.
‘Interesting.’
He took it to the desk. Heavy.
It was a box of somebody’s most personal possessions, like their death room had been cleared out. Quickly.
A leather diary, very old. German text on the cover, gold foil embossed.
A couple of bound printout journals.
A worn crucifix, brass Jesus, wooden cross, wall mount.
An ancient stethoscope.
A small portfolio folder. Inside, some drawings, in pencil and charcoal and Conté crayon. A thighbone. A mandolin. A hare. ‘These are stunning.’ The signatures would have meant nothing to most people. But Jacob knew them to belong to Leonardo da Vinci, Pablo Picasso and Albrecht Dürer, the greatest German artist of the Renaissance.
Some old posters, rolled up, with beautiful blonde women in white shirts with black ties, golden sunshine and swastikas. ‘Been there.’
Some gold rings.
Some family photos, black and white, mom and dad and an old man and a boy and a girl.
Under the photos was a foot-long, heavy object wrapped in cloth. He unwrapped it to find an SS dagger, an evil object. Drawn from its scabbard, a dull and deadly glint, an inscription on the hilt, Death to All Sub-humans, flakes of rust along its edge. Or dried blood.
‘Fucking hell.’
Hands shaking, he was drawn back to the leather diary. He read the gold cover text and his heart turned to stone.
Meine Glorreichen Kampf. My glorious struggle.
He opened the book and saw the handwritten German text. He began to read. He stumbled, but took the meaning.
My Glorious Struggle, Book III
I am bitter. We have received orders to pack up, to disperse. The prisoners are to be executed, the camp commander says that once all pure Germans are at the surface, all exits will be sealed with concrete and explosive charges dropped down. Or we could just leave them to starve to death. But he wants to be sure. We must be sure.
I will destroy all my research notes and lab equipment. I am disgusted at having to abandon my work. I had made progress, much progress. But all the most important findings have been seared into my mind. And any of my experiments can be repeated at a future time.
I fear that the War is lost. Allied bombers fly over in swarms every day, all headed towards the Fatherland. I rarely see any of our own fighters. Last night, we too were targeted. The raid lasted an hour, heavy bombs pounded the entire sector. But only one or two hits on our fortified factory, a few slaves dead. No matter.
My work is done. All documents, organ samples, drugs, equipment and my Waffen-SS Captain’s uniform were loaded onto trolleys and taken by workers to the surface. They were placed in a pit with much of the camp records. Petrol is too scarce, so I made up white phosphorus solutions in glass bottles. When thrown onto the material, the glass broke and the phosphorus burned with the light of the sun. The workers were then machine-gunned and tossed onto the embers.
Our last officers’ supper at Mauthausen was about as fine as could be. Trout as a starter, venison from the forest, apple pie and the last of our wine. We toasted the Führer and the Reich and made our plans. I have built a fine collection of art and will use this as my ticket to the next Reich. Our commander announced that the chain of command with Berlin was broken and that the morning would bring the end. It rained heavily all night.
I’m wearing a fine grey suit, for the clothes make the man, driving north, towards the original border with Germany, in an unmarked car with a commander from the labour camp. I carry a case full of art and jewellery, a new ID and a complete file which talked at length about my illustrious career as a project manager in the rocket force. The crackling of explosives reaches us, the end of Mauthausen. Farewell to the Stairway of Death, to thirty thousand Polish animals, to my hundreds of patients. The closing of a chapter.
My companion, Erich, is a personable character and makes good conversation. We crossed into the Fatherland as night fell, no checkpoints, just some peasants hanging around, fear in their eyes. Erich has brought a basket of provisions, enough sausage and wine to keep us going for a few days. We will need to find petrol and bread soon.
We are in a forest clearing. Erich sleeps and I look up at the night sky. The stars are bright but there is the constant sound of distant bombing. Just as one shouts into the forest, so it echoes back.
We are travelling west, towards Holland. Erich is convinced that we must find the Americans. The British will hate him for his work on the destruction of their cities. The Russians will simply torture and kill us. And I have no desire to be tortured.
Erich carries plans for the rockets and believes that he can use them to buy our escape across the Atlantic. He’s excited like a little boy when he talks about America. A new beginning. Perhaps that is the best thing for us. Europe is in ruins, a failed experiment. I agree that a new start is what is needed. The start of a new Reich, the Fourth Reich.
But Erich doesn’t make it, so all is left to me.
I fly over England, but not in a bomber! I travel with a group of scientists and engineers from all fields, mainly rockets and jets, and we are being taken to America, to a new life. This flight cost me a string of pearls and one of my favourite paintings, which I will retrieve one day.
The aircrew like to keep reminding us that Herr Hitler is dead, killed by the Russians in his Berlin bunker. They say that he was cowering like a scared dog when they shot him. Besides that, they treat us well. We have been given chocolate and chewing gum.
Our plane, a Dakota, flew us to so nearly-fascist Ireland, where we boarded a Liberator for the eight hour flight over the merciless Atlantic. Our own Amerika Bomber programme was beginning to bear fruit, Erich had told me, with proving successful on a long-range plane that could fly to New York, drop its bombs and return safely to base. But aircraft like the one we rode in put an end to that.
I try to sleep, but that temporary escape evades me.
My inner ears scream as we drop from the sky. The aircraft banks towards, we are told, Long Island. We stare through the windows at the clouds until, finally, we pass through them and there it is. New York. While I am proud of my accomplishments and what the Reich managed to achieve in just a dozen years, I am impressed at the sight of this new city. It is a fitting place to continue my journey.
We land at a military airfield and are interviewed individually. It costs me much of my gold, the teeth and wedding rings of a thousand Jews, to get my freedom. On the great island of Manhattan at last, I make my way to our safe house to the south, in the financial district, where I am made welcome. And so my German past ends. The Fourth Reich begins.
Jacob closed the diary, glanced at the books of bound, printed pages. Book IV. In English, thank God. But not yet. His head was pounding, he needed to get out. He took the dagger, held it behind his back, went to the door.
‘Help,’ he called, his voice breaking.
A second passed, footsteps outside. ‘Yes?’
‘I need to see the congressman. It’s very important.’
A long pause. ‘He’s busy.’
‘Just call him.’
‘Wait. Quiet.’
A chance? He decided that he would stick the knife into whoever opened the door, no matter what might be waiting outside. He picked up the next instalment of the memoir.
The art market is exploding. The Jews are my best buyers, with their cursed, perpetual wealth. New York is a home for many of the artists who fled Europe and I have made it my business to seek them out, encourage them, represent them to the Jews. I am building a fine collection, adding many works by the New York abstract expressionists and the Eurotrash, Mondrian, Ernst, Chagall and Duchamp. As I sell one piece, I buy two.
The profits are building well and I am now in a circle of German industrialists who have vast holdings in the city. A site on Wall Street has been donated to the cause. I will soon be in a position to commence construction of the reactor and begin to turn lead into gold.
I discovered a fine American artist, Edward Hopper. His paintings ring true to me, their air of melancholy, separateness. It is easy to feel lonely in this city of four millions. I must find a wife. The safe house has expanded into a wide social network, many hundreds of our number now constructing a new future in New York.
Manhattan takes its name from the Indian island of many hills. Today, the hills are made of concrete and steel and blood and money.
I am married. Again. This time to an American. But still I dream of Eva.
Construction is under way! I found a scientist, Bruno, from our nuclear program, the Uranium Club, at Göttingen. He’d been brought over in Operation Paperclip, spent a couple of years out in the godforsaken desert of New Mexico, White Sands. He slipped away during a research trip to Nevada, hitchhiked his way across the continent and found us. I know that the god Woden is watching over me, because I met him on a Wednesday. I showed him the blueprints that I had brought with me and he immediately set to work improving the design based on what he had learned in the desert.
I am responsible for finding the uranium that is required, as well as certain metals. I shall make contact with Bruno’s associates at White Sands. Their loyalty is to be expected.
The building is reaching for the sky, a secret basement, with many false walls, hidden stairways and radiation shielding is built. Now for the reactor. My first child is born, a son. In truth, I do not care for the boy, I am more concerned with giving birth to a great machine, one that will power the Fourth Reich towards our great, unquenchable dream and the final exposure of the ultimate truth, that -
Noise outside.
Jacob moved to the door, the side away from the opening, the dagger held tensely. How many has this murdered? His hands sweated. I’ve never killed anyone before. But I want to, need to. This must be Darwinism in action.
The lock clicked.
The door opened.
He lunged.