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Excerpt from A CHANGE OF REGIME:
German
Folk, defend yourselves!
Now there was an idea, Richard thought, as he glanced up at the sign. It was spread in large,
permanent letters across the top of the building. They were running out of enemies against which they could defend themselves,
but still the sign warned them, commanded them rather, defend yourselves! After all these decades, they still needed to be
told. In familiar speech, as well. But, of course, the command was meant paternally, from Father-State, from their beloved
Führer, to his dear, albeit apparently moronically forgetful, children.
Richard lit a cigarette and went into the restaurant.
Stefi was waiting in the lobby. She saw him and smiled. She had just come from spending time with her beloved Führer, and
Richard noted that her smile carried a hint of sadness. She looked weary. Or was it impatience?
They were seated at a
table in a dark corner and Richard immediately ordered a bottle of wine. Dry white in deference to his daughter’s tastes.
Jörg stood a discreet distance away, looking ever vigilant. What is he watching for? Richard wondered. Danger? Or conspiracies?
He scowled his frustration at his keeper.
“How’s it going, Papa?” Stefi asked innocently.
He turned his gaze toward
her. Papa. She was sleeping with a man thirteen years his senior and she referred to him as Papa. As if she were five years
old.
“Oh, come now, it’s not that bad! Certainly your little Greta is keeping you happy!”
“You’re one to talk.”
“I
haven’t lost sight of my goal. If you think that a huffing piece of flabby flesh, sweating and stinking and grabbing at me,
is something I look forward to or enjoy, then you’ve lost your mind.”
“Maybe I have,” Richard muttered. “But you didn’t
have to go so far, you know.”
“No? And where should I have gone? Maybe I should have joined the women’s auxiliary of
the Party and worked my way up the hierarchy as a secretary? Hmm? Or, I know! You introduced me to Rudi so that I could
endlessly tease him. Yeah, that would have worked,” Stefi scoffed, “I’m sure he would have waited patiently for a pious virgin,
in the meanwhile confiding secrets to me and taking my advice as we sipped cups of tea with long white gloves on!”
“Enough
already!” Richard snapped in Polish.
Stefi’s eyes widened and she glanced fearfully around at her father’s uncontrolled
use of the prohibited language. Neither said a word as the waiter arrived with their wine. Richard inspected the bottle,
sipped the wine and pronounced it acceptable. The waiter poured a glass for Stefi and then filled Richard’s glass. Once
he had done that, he asked if they were ready to order and dutifully listed the available dishes, emphasizing which ones were
specialities of the chef.
He was good at his job, Richard thought. A German. A paid employee. Probably free to quit
his job – if he dare – with only a month or two notice. Of course, once he had quit, it would be noted in his work documents
and he would be dogged by questions for the rest of his life. Was he work-shy? Was he a malcontent? Why had he quit a good
job? After conscription, he would have apprenticed for this position – a year or two. A year or two of abject obedience
to some senior employee. A year or two earning a pittance. But now, at last, the pay-off. He would earn enough money to
live in a boarding house, or if he were married and had children, in a State-subsidized flat. Separate bedroom for the parents
and ever-present baby, fold-out beds for the children in the living room. State-provided daycare in a squat building on the
premises. School for the elder children. A proud position on a waiting list for an automobile. The ideal family life.
No, he would not quit his job.
“What news do you have?” Richard asked after the waiter had left with their orders.
Stefi
sipped her wine. “Good news. Olek is going to be in Berlin for a while.”
“How so?”
“Ah, somehow they’ve found the
money to get him a decent set of replacement legs. They’re setting him up as wounded in West South Africa while working as
a military advisor to the government there. The hospital is being paid dollars so that they can fit him with the best limbs
available – from America.”
“Good. So you’ll get to see him?” Richard lit another cigarette. He didn’t even touch the
wine.
Stefi grinned. “Better than that! Seems his parents were old friends of the family, but poor Olek is now an orphan,
so we’re going to be putting him up in our house throughout his recovery. It will take months, what with the physical therapy
and all.”
“Ah-hah. And who will handle the cryptanalysis at Szaflary?” Not that he really gave a damn.
“I gather it’s
mostly automated and the inter-office memos are quite routine to translate. Uncle Peter said he’d help out if things ever
got more complicated than what Jurek can handle.”
“Wanda’s husband?” Richard asked in surprise.
“Yes, I guess he’s Olek’s
understudy,” Stefi answered impatiently. “But never mind that, my big news is that we’re going to arrange the marriage while
he’s here. The banns have already been posted.”
“Your marriage? Here? In Berlin?”
Stefi nodded happily. “Otherwise,
we’d have to wait forever for me to get a good chance to get to Szaflary and this way everyone in the family can be there.”
“Everyone
but me,” Richard corrected bitterly. He turned his head to exhale a stream of smoke away from their table. Across the room,
a family gathering, apparently some sort of celebration, caught his attention, and he stared jealously at them.
Stefi tilted
her head and frowned sympathetically. “I know, Dad. But you wouldn’t be able to come to Szaflary either. Not until you
lose your keepers – if even then.”
Richard’s eyes strayed from the table to his “keeper” then back to Stefi. “All along
I’ve been fighting for our right to exist, to maintain our culture. And now I can’t even attend my own daughter’s wedding.”
“I’m
sorry, Dad. But we just don’t want to wait. It might be years…” Stefi began, but seemed to think better of it. “Look, maybe
you’ll be able to come to my wedding after all, I…” she saw her father’s sharp look and hastened to amend, “I don’t mean the
real thing, but Olek and I thought we could have a wedding under Reich law as well. Then you could attend.”
“What about
Rudi? He’d never allow that.”
Stefi shrugged. “I don’t know. If I put the idea to him in the right manner, maybe he’d
even support it. I could imply that Olek’s injuries extend all the way upward, if you know what I mean…”
“Do they?”
“No,
fortunately! But it’d be a good way to assuage any sexual jealousy Rudi might feel, and if I’m married, he can feel sure
that I’m not trying to trap him into marriage.”
“He doesn’t feel trappable.”
“I could paint it as a patriotic act –
one of our boys, wounded in action, taken in by a loyal German woman, blah, blah, blah.” Stefi wagged her head in imitation
of some yammering propaganda broadcast.
“He won’t allow it.”
“And I could point out how the French aristocrats did this
sort of thing all the time – had married women as their mistresses.”
“He’s more like an American gangster, sweetheart.
He doesn’t think of you as an equal – you’re his possession, and if you suggest marrying another man, you will make him angry.
Not only is that going to possibly get you thrown out of his bed – which, I must admit, would relieve me – but it could put
you in serious danger. Please! Don’t do this! It’s a bad idea.”
“But I want to be able to be seen with Olek publicly!”
Stefi wailed. “I want a life.”
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“Don’t
we all?” Richard looked across the room at the celebrating family. An older man and woman sat centrally placed, apparently
it was their anniversary. An anniversary. Friends, family, a little celebration. The distant husband and wife kissed each
other and there was approving laughter at the table. Richard closed his eyes against the warm family scene. “Don’t do it,
Stefi. It could be dangerous.”
“Well, I know Rudi better than you, and I don’t think I’ll have any problems, if I handle
it correctly.”
Richard turned his attention back to his daughter and studied the small lines of determination that had
set in around her mouth. The one thing his daughter had definitely inherited from him was his stubbornness. Unless he could
offer new information, there was no point arguing with her. “Alright, do what you think is best, but please, Stefi, remember
what happened to Joanna. Don’t be misled by his buffoonery. The man is a monster…” He stopped speaking as their appetizers
arrived.
Stefi delicately took a bite of the toast with its artfully displayed salmon, nestled cozily on a thin slice of
cucumber and decorated with a bit of sauce and a sprig of dill. “Eh, tasteless.”
Richard looked down at the wafer thin
slices of beef and horseradish sauce that was on his plate. He had been only a youth when Szaflary had suffered through an
attempt at an invasion and a siege. All supply lines were cut-off with a prolonged attack on the surrounding area. There
had reigned a ceaseless feeling of hunger, of worry, of near desperation. Even as he sat in the dim and smoky atmosphere
of the restaurant, he could smell the fresh air of the woods, the damp leaves underfoot as he had led his siblings on long
hunts for mushrooms, berries, even, when they were lucky, rabbits. Anything to help, anything at all. His mother inventively
used the fruits of their labor to enhance the cabbages and potatoes and beets that formed the staples of their diet. Never
once, had any of it been tasteless.
He missed Szaflary terribly! He had not been there since Zosia’s wedding, more than
a year ago, and now, it was possible he would never be able to go there again. Not as long as he remained under the Führer’s
thumb, not even once he was Führer. He would have to keep up this impossible act, even then. God, he missed his home! He
missed his parents and his family – the family as it had been then: full of a sense of purpose, committed to their cause,
to each other, appreciative of the flavor of a wild mushroom. He looked up at his daughter, at the beautiful, pampered young
woman who risked her life by prostituting herself to a monster, who bit into her appetizer and groaned that it was tasteless.
It was no longer her role – it was who she was. Even if they got exactly what they wanted, they had lost their own lives
in the process.
Stefi caught her father’s intense gaze and smiled wanly. “I need Olek here. I know it’s risky. I know
that we shouldn’t taint our family by adding any unnecessary connections, but I asked that it be arranged this way, because
I need him.”
“I understand. Just please, please, be careful.”
“I will, Dad. More careful than you, anyway.”
“What’s
that supposed to mean?”
Stefi sputtered. “Have you forgotten who your little Greta is married to?”
“It’s a tactical
maneuver,” Richard snapped. “You’ve seen the sort of shit I put up with because of your mother’s background. The further
I progress, the less appropriate our marriage is. She’s holding me back.”
Stefi picked up her wine glass and sloshed the
wine around a bit. “What do you plan to do, divorce her and marry Greta?”
“Maybe. I need to strip away as much of Günter’s
support as possible. She’ll bring her family ties with her if we marry.”
“I don’t think it’s worth the risk. Günter is
a dangerous man – he’s not going to take this lightly.”
Richard shrugged.
“It’s not the tactics, is it?” Stefi asked,
her eyes narrowing. She leaned toward her father and hissed, “You like fucking her, don’t you? She excites you, is that
it?”
“Let me have what little life is available to me,” Richard sighed tiredly.
“Your life? What about mother’s life?
What about us, your children?”
With deliberateness, Richard directed his gaze at Jörg. “That’s not available to me, right
now, in any case. I’m letting you all off the hook by staying away.” He raised a hand to stop Stefi from interrupting him.
“And besides,” he added angrily, “your mother, my dear wife, won’t let me touch her as long as they are around. Shall we
guess how long that’s going to be?”
Stefi wet her lips. “I didn’t know that.”
Richard lit another cigarette. The waiter
arrived with their meals and looked questioningly at Richard’s untouched plate. Richard nodded, waving his hand to indicate
that he could take their appetizers away. Let someone in the kitchen enjoy his untouched meat, he didn’t want it.
They
emerged from the restaurant in a sour mood and into a light, uncomfortable, evening rain. Richard paused at the entrance
and scowled at the sky. He wasn’t that far from home, but if he wanted to get a taxi for Stefi, they should go back into
the restaurant and have one ordered.
Three businessmen walked toward the entrance of the restaurant. The foremost of them
boldly approached Richard and holding a gun in one hand, flapped open an identification wallet in front of his face. Richard
glanced back at Stefi – she was under the guard of the second man. He turned his head the other way to see that Jörg was
already being disarmed. “Fucking lot of good, you are,” he snapped angrily at Jörg.
He turned his attention back to the
man in front of him. “Let me see that!” he ordered, grabbing the identification wallet. Führer’s Special Services. “What
do you want?”
“You’re under arrest, Colonel Traugutt.”
“On what charge?”
“Secret indictment.” The officer gestured
toward a car. “Come with us.”
Richard looked down at the gun pointed at him, he turned his head and looked again at the
one pointed at Stefi. Three, possibly four, against two. Rather risky, he thought. Besides, if he and Stefi – especially
Stefi – exhibited the sort of talent that would allow them to disarm and escape three armed men, that would blow their cover.
Better to find out what it was all about. “Alright. If you let the girl go.”
“Naturally, Colonel. Just come with us.”
Richard
allowed himself to be frisked, disarmed, and escorted to the car. He settled into the back seat and watched out the open
door as the other two men carefully backed away from Stefi and Jörg. Along with his escort, they jumped into the car, the
door was slammed shut and Stefi and Jörg disappeared behind the impenetrably dark glass of the auto.
As the car drove off,
a partition went up between the front seat and the back. So, he would not even get to see where they were taking him. Richard
could not help but wonder how many days it would be before his badly-decomposed body would be found floating in the Spree.
The battered corpse would be too far gone for there to be any indication of cause of death. Bruises, burns, knife-wounds,
strangulation marks – all would be indistinguishable from the depredations of decay. Suicide, they would say. Family problems,
the story would go. A recent separation from his wife, obviously depressed behavior. Clearly, the simple arrest and investigation
into corrupt activities had been the final straw. Released after a short interview, he had disappeared, and then, evidently
distraught, jumped into the river.
Suicide.
High level officials always committed suicide.
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Available
now: A CHANGE OF REGIME. Order it from your bookseller or online
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