Chapter 0: New Beginning and Rapid Offensives (1949)
As Stela stepped off the machine’s surface, she was blinded by the great flash of red light as she emerged into the inferno. Fire raged on at all sides, yet… the world did not burn. The heat, the light, they were real, but the trees… unfamiliar, the shrubbery, unknown to her eyes. All was fine…? This did not make any sense to the confused analyst.
“This is not France…” she said, as she looked around in bewilderment for the other two accidental time travelers.
“Raymond? Sene? Anyone?”
Panic began to clutch at her breast and she looked around even more desperately, looking for even a hair of a trace of the missing two. Behind her, the still humming machine began to sputter, and great blue arcs of electricity began to zap the trees around her. Unearthly wails began to emit from the machine, only to realize they were her own, and then… blackness.
Stela awoke, shaken by Raymond, the traitor, the Socialist, the… she didn’t even know anymore. The place she found herself in, was not the place she saw before, not the strange coniferous forest with refused to burn.
“Where are the t-t-trees? Th-th-the fire? The heat… it is so c-k-k-k-k-kold…”
“We are in a cave, Stela, mon amour, the machine… it does not work. See for yourself…”
But the machine was not what Stela had heard, or rather, what she didn’t hear. Where was the fire? The shaking world of lightning and pine trees ablaze? The heat of the fire? She recalled the events of the past, viewing all of those old documents from a century before, about the Blanqui Directive, of the hypocrisy of the Commune’s governance, the children she had left in the care of her mother, to fight for a cause which even she did not fully understand, her father being lined up and shot for treason against the King, and his master, the Kaiser, except for… except for… “Amour…” The word rang out in her mind. What was it that made her so… so… warm, flush with rage now? So unfocused? So conflicted? “Amour… Amour…” The world spun. Memories flooding back at once, of the mystics which advised the Totalists, of the smile of her father, while he bellowed defiance at those who took his life, the Resistance remnant of her cell fleeing into the ancient bunker, abandoned over 100 years ago and turning on a machine they couldn’t hope to understand, and watching reality and time whip around them.
And now they’ve ended up here…
“Amour..? What do you mean…? Y-you’ve had feelings for me this whole time? Yet you still say all of those terrible things?! When I left the father of my children, to fight for la Patrie?”
“Stela, I-I-I…”
“Don’t speak to me about this Raymond… I don’t want to be with you. Not after the all of these lies you have said to me over all of this time. The lectures, the indoctrination. All under a false premise… And you say you love me? No, no… We need to figure out what is going on with that infernal machine. Feelings…” she squeaks out the last few words. “Must be put aside.”
“So be it, we must find Sene. She would know more about the machine than we. Where is the manual, surely it is in the machine somewhere?” It was only now that Stela looked around her. The cave, once so dark, now seemed to have some light, from where she didn’t dare think. She still couldn’t shake the terrible flames and the haunting trees from her mind. What it meant? She didn’t know, but she knew it was significant in some way. How? She didn’t know.
Raymond gazed at the machine in the glinting dim icy light within the womb of the earth in which they found themselves. It’s twisted, flat and rusty metal. A hulk. No longer humming, but with its wires occasional sparking. The walls around them scorched with old ash, not covered in ice and frost like the rest of the cave. What had happened? Stela and Raymond looked at the machine’s seats, the places they had occupied a few minutes prior. But now…? Dust. What had happened to all of them? Sene? She seemed like she was gone, as to where, only the ancient engineer would know.
Where was everyone? The various resistance members from their cell? She didn’t remember their names, then again, they were the ones who were actually fighting. She was just the analyst who dove into the past for information! In the calmer atmosphere than the panic of before as Sene had tried to get the machine working, they saw a few words etched into the machine’s mental exterior, almost like chrome. “Le Destin Fait, Pas Ordonné.¨ Destiny made, not ordained.
¨Is this what had been intended by the Directive? To Fight Fate? To make sure that our Destiny is made? What sort of joke is this?¨ Upon saying this, Raymond began to laugh… and laugh, as the tears of anger and pain rolled down his dirty cheeks.
¨What’s so damn funny, Raymond? Don´t you realize the situation we are in? We are not home! We are in some cave, in the past! All we have known is gone!¨ Raymond grabbed her and began to jump up in down in joy.
¨Stela, do you not understand? The Directive! This is what it was intended for! We´ve begun what was ordained so long ago. We can change the world! A new beginning! A new world!¨
¨World? What about our own families? Our loved ones! La Patrie!¨ When she had said this, Raymond began to laugh again, now the laugh of a madman.
¨Sod La Patrie! Sod our past! This is so much bigger than ourselves Stela, my dear, mon amour-¨
¨Stop calling me that! You don´t deserve me! What about our cause? Those left behind?¨
¨It doesn´t matter my dear… We can remake the world in our own image. We need to find Sené. Now!¨
¨Why? To fix the machine? To return to our home? We don't even have the manual!¨ Stela began to cry at this. She mourned the life she could've had, the life she had! Before the resistance… Before Raymond, but as the tears flowed down, so did a new idea beginning to burn in her heart.
A new beginning? Oh yes, she would have a new beginning. A new beginning in this time, a new beginning for herself, but she wasn’t going to abandon her past. She began to dry her tears and through the sobs said to Raymond,
¨We´ll find her, by God we´ll find her… If I cannot have my life back… I will take someone else’s life for my own. ¨
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May, 1949:
“Forward!”
The cry of a thousand throats from up and down the line. Victory was at hand. Everyone could feel it. The not quite so eager resumption of the Civil War three years ago was long since gone. The loss of friends and comrades had erased that. That and the political officers behind the men whom which they commanded, but no one dared say that.
But who really cared anyways, had they not taken Beijing not even 4 months ago? Had they not taken Nanjing and Shanghai a few weeks ago? Whether or not it seemed to the Kuomintang, they were losing, badly and they would of course fall to the glorious Peasants Revolution!
Simply another version of the hated monarchy and just a step lower in their barbarity to the Japanese.
This was the perspective of Zheng Zedong. He may have been born before the Long March, but like his father before him he was an ardent Communist, and a soldier for the Revolution. The smell of cordite and gunpowder ran before them as they charged the enemy positions as they pressed on to Qingdao.
Jumping into the Nationalist trench, rifle and blades barked and sparked and bit into whomever stood in their way. The red haze of blood-lust lifted, just as easily as it had come.
“Is this your first charge, sonny?”
The startled young Communist wheeled around with his bayonet. But quickly flew out of his hands, and was held by the man before him.
“You need to watch how you use that thing, young’un.” Now a face could be assigned to the voice. It was an older man, with an irritated look on his face. However, what gave him pause was the crossed rifles on his collar tabs. A Sergeant.
“So sorry, Comrade!”
“Comrade Sergeant.”
“Sir?! We fight for a classless society don’t we? Why should be add appellations to our officers? Who elected you?”
“You really haven’t been in the army long, have you?”
“2 weeks, Comrade Sergeant.”
The older man shook his head ruefully. “Who do I get all the new fish…? Listen kid, the army isn’t like the full Socialist Paradise we want to create. We sacrifice ourselves, and our pride to defend the People to create our new society.”
“The rules of the Revolution apply to the military! If we don’t apply our own ideals to everything of branch of the Party, how can we say we fight for Socialism?”
“Because the military is different, Private. We sacrifice our own rights as members of our Society to defend it. Officers are set over you for a reason. It is because they have been approved by the Party to their positions, and is not the Party the will of the People?”
The indignant private nodded his head slowly.
“Then trust me. What is your name, Private?”
Zheng stiffened to attention immediately and rattled out the same old things which had been drilled into him by his political instructors.
“Zheng Zedong of the People’s Liberation Army.
Member of the Communist Party of China since 1933!”
The Sergeant’s eyebrow rose upon hearing the name and date. “You are the son of Chairman Mao?”
“No sir. I am the son of Min Zedong. I am of no relation to the Chairman.”
“You certainly don’t look old enough to have joined in 1933. I didn’t join myself until 1935… And I’m 42!”
“I was born into it, sir.”
“Good Lo- Greif…”
“We do live in atheist state after all, God is of the imperialists!” The smug private nodded to himself, yes, this was Party Doctrine! And the Party was never wrong!
“Come with me, Private, camp needs to be made. The Russians are coming to through here on their way to help us in the Coastal Front.”
“They aren’t coming to help us take Qingdao?”
“No. They have more important things to attend to, do you want to face those snorting steel monstrosities the Imperialists might send the traitors? Do you want them knock down the gates of Beijing?”
“The Revolution would never allow the Imperialists to take Beijing!”
“You really are inn-... The Revolution wouldn’t, not without being able to immediately force them out again, eh?”
“Of course, Comrade Sergeant!”
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June 4th, 1949:
The strange part of the passage back into time, was that they couldn’t recognize anything. This wasn’t Europe, the cool weather and slightly out of place stars were good markers. Well… it wasn’t Africa, it wasn’t hot enough. Was it North America? The little village at the foothills didn’t look… normal. It had an… Asiatic look. Like the Asia of… before the Germans, back home. Just like the Huns… make everything look like Germany. So strange, even Paris retained some of its French looks, Asia just looks like Germany. But now Asia still looks like… Asia again.
“Where even are we? What time are we in?” such was the thought of Stela. Meanwhile Raymond was still going on this being a new reminder of “a new beginning!” Red banners were flying there too. Very strange.
“Do you think that we should go into to town? We could be near Guangzhouwan, maybe they will speak French, or auf Deutsch. Besides, we can foster the Revolution here!” this was Raymond.
“What about the people at home? We should be fostering the Revolution there! But…”
“Buuuuuuttt… We can’t go back!”
“We can! We… just need to find Sene again. She must know how to repair the machine. What else are we supposed to do? Afterall, it's not like she knows… Burmese or whatever where we are, she couldn’t have gotten far, you remember how much she was struggling to keep up with the rest of us as we fled from the DGSI.”
“Agh… Well, we should get out of here, eventually, after all, getting our new start-”
“I don’t want to hear more about this ‘new start’ crap! We need to bring the freedom to our own families, to our home!”
“Erghhh… Stela, need I remind you who the one who was starting with the defeatist talk?”
“Who, me? Never! A-Always for the Revolution!”
“C’mon Stela, how long have we been fighting Herr Wilhelm together?”
“Too damn long…”
“Eh! See! That can be classified for defeatist talk!”
“... I just want to be home… I want to see my husband again… my parents again!” Then she erupted throwing a rock at him, “AND WE CAN’T DO THAT HERE! …Regardless… what if these natives… have anti-European sentiment?”
“Well… Seeing as the villages are still… Asiatic, they may still not know of a Europe!”
“Christ, Raymond… You really are ignorant of history, aren’t you?”
“I don’t know! That’s your job! I just take the information you give me and sift through it for useful information! You don’t think I actually bother remembering that, do you?” Stela just sent him a look of disgust.
“Whatever, Raymond. But just because they don’t look European, doesn’t mean they don’t know of a Europe… You know, there was a time that-”
“Yeah, yeah, indirect influence.”
“Exactly. We can’t look down on them just because-”
“They don’t know of true Socialism, I’m aware.”
“Not quite what I was going for, but ok. We shouldn’t show ourselves at first. We’re probably not gonna understand them.”
“Asians are nice people though, most of the time though.”
“Eh, we’ll see, but how can we know that’s just European sensibilities rubbing off on them?”
“You’re hopeless, aren’t you?”
“What do you mean?”
“Whatever… Je suppose avant.”
“Avant! Through the mud and the green fields beyond!”
The pair tramped off into the dry mountains, unaware as to what they were marching themselves into, unarmed, and unprepared.
The odd Asiatic village was bustling with activity, people went to and fro, as if in a panic. They were packing as if to leave, but as for the two unfortunate Frenchies, they couldn’t understand a word.
“Shouldn’t we… ehm… see what’s going on?” Stela asked.
“You really think they’ll understand us? This isn’t Europe, you know, with a European lingua franca. I doubt they’ll know German, or French for that matter. Does it look like they have European influence? Where are the buildings? The churches? The cars? All they seem to have is manpower, and primitive oxen carts. I mean, even the old women are tugging along their burdens!” He said this pointing to a little Chinese grandmother dragging a bag of worldly goods and the little children tugging their own share.
“I mean, even from the more Asiatic parts of China back home had European sensibilities… Where are the young? Why aren’t they helping their elders carry their junk?”
“Don’t you think it might be because of-”
The droning sound of thunder approached, the locals dropped what they were doing, the children began to wail as the adults dragged their young into the ditches. “What on earth is that?”
“I don’t know… it sounds like thunder, why are they-”
WHUMPF! WHUMPF! WHUMPF!
The explosions began to hit the town’s buildings, the orange glow of fire and death began to fall on the road, where the now refugees’ belongings were. Even now it was unmistakable as to what it was. Artillery, big artillery. through the artillery fire, the wailing of the civilians could be heard. A shell fell into a ditch, the wailing got dimmer as a great cloud of red billowed out from the site.
It just kept falling and falling. Someone nearby was screaming, “Make it stop! Make it stop! Please, God, make it stop!!” French? Stela then took it for her voice. She was the one screaming. Is that what Revolution was like? How could anyone live through such cruelty? It seemed to last an eternity. An eternal reign of fire and terror. Just as suddenly as it came, it ceased.
And something worse came as the explosions ceased.
Even the cries of the now orphans, or of the widowed, or the ones who lost children, the refugees who lost everything, came nothing to this.
URRRAAHHH! URAHHHHHH! URAAHHHH!
The cries, not of terror, but of anger and hatred. Soldiers came over the ridges which shielded the ruined town and the road out. They carried red banners, and red armbands, wielding rifles and blue uniforms. But the young socialists didn’t see that, all they saw before their eyes were the explosions of a few moments ago.
URAHHHH! URAHHHH!
The ghastly war cries were getting closer and that is when Raymond noticed the armed soldiers coming closer, shooting everything that moved with their guns’ sharp staccato, even the unarmed civilians.
He shook his shocked friend, “Stela! Snap out of it! They’re shooting everything! Come on! We need to move, I don’t want to end up on their bayonets!”
She came into focus at that, after all, no one wants to be impaled on a bayonet. They moved back to where they had came, but soldiers in khaki were coming down the mountain towards them. A different faction in whatever war this was as they poured lead and fury down to their enemies in blue and khaki bandoliers. Their route back to the machine was blocked. Now, all they could do was wait in the brush.
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June 6th, 1949:
‘The rumble of the engines, and the trundle of the wheels, through hell and horror trudge, and yet our spirits never yield. Will they ever sing of this forsaken pawn of war?’That’s what Zheng was thinking as they moved in to attack this pissant little town on the way to Taizhou. After all, Nigbo had fallen 3 days ago, and now the whole of Zhejiang would be Red.
However, even the most idealistic comrade would admit shifting the Nationalists from Limingcun would be difficult, the past two days of attacks had failed, these weren’t the shoddy half-trenches of two months before. These were proper defenses. The preliminary mortar fire whispered down from on high. Proper artillery occasionally rumbled in the distance, to Zheng it put him in the mind of many mountain lions, coming down the mountainside for food. So long as they didn’t come for him.
“Why us?” he muttered to himself.
“Because we were all…” Zheng nearly jumped out of his skin.
“Good grief, Sergei, little warning next time?” Sergei was an odd duck, like a ghost, coming only when not expect. A whistle blew in the distance, “Sergeant Sergei Semyonovich!” Then some unintelligible Russian garble.
“I must go, don’t get killed.” and at that the monotone Russian left.
One of the other privates piped up once the Russian had left, “He’s an odd duck isn’t he?”
“Yeah, he is. Seems a bit pessimistic, eh?”
“Well, they say he fought at Kursk, you know. Used to command a brigade, but disgraced himself in front of Marshal Zhukov after the war. Now he’s here as penance.”
“Oh come on, Li Wei, you don’t actually believe that. After all, the Soviets have sent over 20 divisions across Revolutionary Asia! 14 are here in Zhejiang, fighting to help end Nationalist resistance… Don’t these bull-headed fools understand that ‘Lose land, keep men, land can be retaken, Keep land, lose both?’”
Li Wei nodded his head, if it came from Comrade Mao, it had to be true, right?
“After all, I doubt the Russians would send their worst to help their fraternal brothers in socialism, eh? I mean… they even sent some of those divisions to help those useless Vietnamese, with their weird pygmy of their “masters” and their own tongue. If they’re going to send any… less worthy material, they’d send them there. Besides, the French? They’ve got to be a pushover…”
“Yeah, well… My grandfather fought the Japanese in Korea, back 50 years ago, fought the Russians too. He thought all of this was just a bunch of neo-Russo Imperialism…”
“Imperialism? Don’t make me laugh! How could the birthplace of the Revolution be a hidden Imperialist?”
“Well, I did say, thought. He got it in the neck last year during the last round of purges, but yeah. A good socialist would never turn his back on his comrades interests!” More nodding. Indoctrination ran deep.
Stalin’s organs started roaring their deathly music as rockets flew overhead into the forested mountains. Even if it was friendly, it still chilled Zheng’s bones with their deathly sounds.
That Sergeant from a few days ago who had humbled him came up to the parapet before the men. “Men! Today! We fight for our brothers! We fight for our brother behind enemy lines under Nationalist oppression! We fight for Comrade Mao!” He paused for effect, and thumped his chest in salut. “Hail Mao!”
“Hail Mao!” came the resounding cry of 1000 throats. Time for his second charge…
“URAAAH! URAAAH! URAAAH!”
The men in faded blue came forward to take away the village and mountains from the men in khaki, as the Nationalist’s machine guns inconsistent warbling shredded through the mass of men. German, American, Japanese, old, or new. All of it present here, defying the forces of Communism, and fighting for them with Mosins and SKSs and SVTs. As they went closer by foot, by bloody foot, the advance stopped, and a more terrible sound came.
The rumble of the Soviet engines drawing closer and closer, and the horrible roar of jets, air-launched rockets flew overhead and crashed into the pillboxes, and bombs were dropped. Tank cannons roared as they moved forward to crush the enemy infantry. The tanks went in front of the infantry as they followed behind, even as enemy mortars began to fall in amongst them.
Even if the naive teens didn’t understand the madness of war, it had them, even as their friends died around them. The young man Zheng was talking to earlier about the strange Russian tankist, dead, with a bullet having caught him in the throat. But Zheng wasn’t allowed to care for his dying comrade, his “comrades” forced him on, “for the glory of the Revolution” and to “kill the capitalist pigs.” Not for revenge, not for his dead friend’s ideals.
The first charge was never like this, not like this slaughter. Just some scattered wounded men, not… not dying in droves. Now, the tank was crossing the trenches, down, down, get into the enemy trench. Spray them with lead and go on. That’s what he had been taught, but… what he saw was grimy men with their hands up, some of them scared boys like him, not the crazed opium-addicted slobs his years of indoctrination had told him what the enemy was like.
Yet, then he saw the slaughters of the ditches with the rotting corpses as they had finally pushed the enemy out of Limingcun. It was just ruins! Why did they have to fight over ruins? Why did they have to come to kill defenseless people they were supposed to be fighting for, was not the Revolution compassionate about the victims of capitalism, like these poor peasants?
It was only tramping through the ruined roads and homes into the brush he saw the Europeans. He got his rifle ready, after all, weren’t these the people who controlled the Nationalists? The armed vagabonds and jackals who gobbled up China’s wealth? But… they weren’t armed. They were haggard.
Should he shoot them? He might get a commendation! But… was it right? They didn’t look like sleek fat capitalists. A man and two women, one young and one old and bloody. The tongue they spoke sounded as if they were constantly making sh-sh noises, for mercy? For thanks? For… forgiveness? He didn’t shoot them. He just let them be, after all was the Revolution not about mercy? Yet… it didn’t show mercy to the people of this town. He had to think.
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“My God! He let us be! Raymond, please, we need to get out of here, Sene, please! We need to go! Before he changes his mind, we can’t let that village’s fate become our own!”
“Oui, let’s go back to the Ordonne. We need to get out of this loopy-land. Asia, without European influence… What a strange world, but if they had Red… They’re Marxist, before that one came I heard another say the words “Marx” and “Comrade”… how could they do such things? Surely, they would never do such things, isn’t the Revolution about lifting out your fellow man, not killing them… Right? … Right?”
“Well… the Commune of the past did try to kill every capitalist, even liberals, in their sight…” She lowered her voice to ask herself the all important question of, “Why did I have to… give up my life, for this? Was it worth it?”
“What was that, young one?”
“Nothing, Sene, nothing…” ‘If only I could’ve changed the past… What I’ve seen… That’s not what I want for my family… My children… God, what I’d give to live long enough to have any…’
“We need to keep moving, do you want to end up with your head on a pike of those hypocrites? God… Trust the Asians to foul of true Socialism…”
The two women looked at each other and said nothing. Raymond really was a real Red, even if all of things they had seen wouldn’t convince them. Not even Sene being found broken, bleeding, and unconscious, near the front, having been beaten by the Asians in khaki uniform. Still, appearances needed to be kept.
“They’re not all bad it seems though, that one decided to spare us.”
“They could be… reformed…” The old woman prodded helpfully.
“True… Still, lets see if we can get the machine fixed regardless, just… in case.”
“Weren’t you the one who was bawling about making a ‘new start’?”
Raymond paused, his back stiffened. Stela did know what buttons to push, especially if to show him as wrong. “We… can always have our new start… but if it doesn’t pan out, we can just go to another time.”
“Well…” The old woman croaked, “I don’t think this is in our world…”
“Not in our world? Are you insane? It… can’t be possible, it shouldn’t be possible!” Raymond paled.
“She may be right… in all of my research-” pointing that out that last bit, still bitter Raymond didn’t bother to remember what they learned of the architects of their world. “- not one mention of a socialist movement being… this influential in Asia, aside from India. But the Indians… well, they’re skin is a kind of tan isn’t it? It isn’t yellow, not like these fellows in khaki and blue.
In fact… it reminds me of… the uniforms of the French army during the First Weltkrieg. Not that they’re the same of course! But… still. It’s a tad worrying. No other army back home ever used uniforms of blue. Not in Asia at least, only we did with the Communal Militia and partisan forces during the final stages of the Second and Third Weltkriegs… Still a damned shame with the failure of the Second British Revolution. They might’ve turned the tide for us. Imagine if the RAF had fought the Luftstreitkrafte… that would be quite the event during those terrible years of failure.” Stela sighed at this… history truly was full of ‘what ifs’ wasn’t there?
“Yes, yes… I just don’t want to have to… make a new beginning here. I wanted to do it in Europe, damn it! Even a halfway civilized place like the Americas. Not in the barbarous fringes of Asia! Even Africa would be better, I mean… surely… surely… at least they would be under a civilized rule under Egypt or those queer Dutchmen at the bottom of the continent.”
Their trek back into the mountains ended as they came back to the icy cave.
“Careful Sene, we wouldn’t of course want you to slip and fall again here. It’s still a bit- UUFFF!” Stela slipped on the icy and stabilized herself at the last minute. “Well… yeah.”
“Of course, Stela, I’m aware. I went out of this damnable place before you two came to…”
“Why didn’t you wait anyways, we could’ve avoided…” Raymond shuddered remembering the two days in the no-man’s land. Corpses and constant fear of death did that to a person after all. “That.”
“Heh… What you fail to see monsieur, is that I did wait. I even built a fire with the brush around the cave entrance. I must’ve waited… three days?”
“You could’ve woke us up!”
“Woe to fools… That’s what I did, or… tried to at least. It was almost as if you two were catatonic!”
“How come I could wake up Mrs. “I wanna go home”?”
“I-”
“Oh, come on Raymond! Don’t act as if you don’t care about home!”
“Uh-huh… Whatever you say…”
“I don’t know! Why are you in such a rush! Don’t you understand these old bones can only go so fast?”
Raymond slowed his pace as Stela made sure Sene didn’t fall over. At least they came to the rusted hulk that once was their passage to this strange world. The wires weren’t sparking anymore, but still frayed and disconnected and snapped in places with its ancient copper wiring. Being in hiding for 100 years only to undergo minimal maintenance for a single trip would do such a thing.
Sene clucked her tongue more and more and shook her head as she looked over more and more of the machine’s corpse. Until she finally found something that her stop still. The old woman bent over to grab something in one of the machine’s rusted exterior paneling. A book.
“I need light!”
“With what- Oh… right, the brush outside.” Raymond scrambled away to the cave entrance and Stela came closer to Sene and looked over her shoulder to try and see what it said in the horrible lighting.
“Ah… don’t worry about this old thing. I just wanted him to go away, it’s in code, we won’t be able to read it anyways…”
“What…? Why? I thought you said you couldn’t read it in the lighting.”
“I was telling the truth. I can’t read it in the lighting. But while you two young ones were in your ‘sleep of death’ I was awake for three days afterwards, remember?”
“Yes.”
“So, you were an analyst back in Saint-Etienne, yes?”
“Yes, of course! You know this Sene…”
“Then analyze as to why I would keep it here. As to why I would be… so… confused as to all that has to happened.”
“Well…” Stela began to search her memories, from when they met at the base, to when… She shook her head, nothing was coming to her. She remembered babbling about something being cold, and wondering where the heat and something about trees being on fire. Then came the words of before Raymond had pulled that lever, about Sene… “You didn’t think this was possible, you… thought everything you knew to be a lie.”
The gray head nodded slowly, “That is not all. I… don’t know how to fix the machine, I am useless here to you.”
“Useless? You aren’t useless, your mind in this subject is far greater than our own. Its… What are the words. We need to work together if we’re going to get back home.”
“Well… that is true. However… If we’re going to find ways to get out of this, we need resources.”
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August, 1949:
“Well, at least it isn’t Chita.”
“You got that right… Better than for most of us after… the war.”
“Who knew all you had to do was say your father was a Spartacist!”
“Tsch, that doesn’t mean I agree with his politics, Hermann.”
“Well, all we have to do is act like the good little Communist, in this hell-scape, as well as all of those ‘redecation’ classes.”
“The greatest liars are also great magicians.” They both nodded, these innocent statements between the ex-servicemen with runes on their collars. Here they definitely had it made for a person who used to part of the blackshirts, better than their comrades who were still in the gulas in Chita and the like, where they were worked to death and forced to watch those Bolshevik propaganda. Surely, the Glorious Reich wouldn’t do such terrible things, the Jews were Germany’s misfortune, but mass-murder? Hermann shook his head, that wasn’t the German way, they were civilized after all! And now they were the slaves of the uncivilized Bolshevik Untermenschen?
When Hermann commented on this to Gerhardt, being the pessimist, but devoted Nazi he was just said, “Thank God those bastards didn’t kill us out of hand… and do those things… to our bodies.” They both shuddered at the shared memory of their fallen comrades… No the Ivans weren’t nice people, but Hermann and Gerhardt hadn’t been angels either.
“C’mon, we need to get to the briefing, I heard it’s actually important this time.” As Hermann started to hussle a bit more to the Forbidden City with their guide.
“Not about being good Communists and Heiling Chairman Mao, eh?”
“No, No, I heard from Lao that it had something to do with construction work.”
“Der Gott in Himmel…”
“What? What’s wrong?”
“You didn’t listen to the stories back home, did you?”
“”What stories?”
“You really didn’t pay much mind to foreign news back in the Vaterland while in you were in short pants, did you?”
“I was in short pants just before the War… I became a man during the war.”
“Ah… I see… Back during early years under the Fuhrer, the early 30s you understand, all that the news spewed was of Stalin’s industrialization and all of the human chaff it consumed. Like so much sand, he didn’t care how much he used up.”
“Oh, come on Gerhardt, you don’t think that the Asians are like the Russians. They used to be civilized, but the Russians…? They have never even heard of the word civilization!”
“Bah! All Communists are the same, they have no morals, and they have no value for life. As far as I’m concerned, they spring from the same well.”
“I mean, they don’t torture us… much. Aside from having to learn their dreadful language… So complicated and sing-songy, not like good old simple German.”
“Are you saying you would rather live and suffer… this disgrace! Of serving our enemies… What would your father think!”
“You’re one to talk about fathers, yours was a Spartacist!”
“Shh, shh, we’re here.” They were in the Forbidden City and before a palace of enormous size. After all, the people who condemned and fought imperialists, inhabited the palacial behemoth of days gone by. The guide who took them there took his leave and left, scooting away as quickly as possible. Habits were hard to break, especially social customs, Hermann got a ghost of a smile on his lips as he remembered when the Nazis had tried to break German culture to their own version, with their horrible endless repetition of Wagner… which quickly disappeared as he looked at the empty foreboding palace. As they entered the palace, the two whites walked into the sea of yellow, Asian faces. A new guide, in a fresh bellhop style uniform reappeared and took them through the crowd of curious and astonished yellow faces as they whispered to each other in the language they could only partly understand. After all, being in a foreign country for two years, you couldn’t not pick up some phrases at least, not without a conscious effort at least.
As the two Germans went further into the crowd in the dimly lit building, the sparser it came and the fancier the attire became. Then as the uniforms got ridiculously overblown in its detail, it stopped, as it quickly became just guards, each giving them shifty looks. Even if they were capitalists and were deemed “reformed” enough to see high personages. Such as the Minister of the Economy, Deng Xiaoping! The two nervous sentries fidgeted constantly as they waited for the two ex-SS men.
One of them said, “Papers!” in Mandarin. Well, that at least was something they had picked up. Hermann stuck his hand into his inner coat pocket, with his fingers struggling to get get out the large passbook from the small pocket. The other guard’s bayonet came up, as if on its own accord, just an inch from his midsection. Hermann froze.
“Careful… where you stick that, would you?” Hermann said, pausing occasionally, trying to enunciate the strange words. “I… doubt that the Minister of Economic Affairs would…” He couldn’t find the words for the end of that sentence. But the sentries seemed to understand it, as one of their faces went very white, as he told the one with the bayonet, translating what he had said, who in turn went whiter than the pale German standing before him and quickly lowered the bayonet from Hermann.
Gerhardt smirked and remarked to Hermann in their own tounge that, “These Chinese aren’t that different than the dullards we have for sentries back in the Vaterland like we did under the Fuhrer.”
“Ja.” Hermann responded as the passbook finally came out from the rebellious coat pocket, handing it over. “Careful though Gerhardt. We can’t say too much of life back home. I heard that the Minister has learned German specifically to deal with his German “helpers”.”
“Here are your papers, you may go inside,” the sentry said. The large oaken doors were pulled open by the sentries.
Behind those doors… were the lavishly decorated and musty office. Satin curtains, a pair of gilded plushed chairs, and a battleship of a desk, battlements for lamps and paperwork, in front of large French windows, streaming light into the room. The rotund and sweaty paper-pusher behind the desk had a face of pure blandness. Just like oatmeal. ‘It’s like one of the offices of the SS-commandants back in the Vaterland, but I’ll be damned if every bureaucrat didn’t spring from the same tree, they’re faces are the same. Even if they’re engineering mass-murder, or happily signing off death lists. Not a hint of joy. Not a hint of sorrow or regret. Nothing… like glass.’
It was only as the two SS-men clicked their heels together and salted in the German fashion unconsciously that the Minister looked up and addressed them. “Comrades… I trust you are working on dropping such trappings of… your pasts?” The Minister spoke German. But it was German as if he were a Bavarian!
Hermann blanched, but Gerhardt just stared.
“Only if you drop the trappings of the Imperialism you people constantly bray about.”
Hermann looked at his comrade in shock, no one would’ve dared to speak in such a way in this place! Not if they had their own deaths on their mind!
The Minister also stared at Gerhardt, no emotion, as if analyzing him as if Gerhardt were a page of statistics. Then a small smile creaked out of his bland face, with a small chuckle. “Not even going to address my excellent German, eh? But yes, you’re right. Just the appearances we have to keep up. However, Herr Standaretenfuhrer-” Now at that Gerhardt blanched, “please refrain from using such… actions in public? Wouldn’t want the Russians coming down to take you back, would you? Not when you’ve been living rather nicely in comparison to most of your comrades back in Chita?” The Minister really had done his research. “Now, if you two would stop being so… stubborn and foolish for the moment. I must ask for your advice. And know that is the only reason why the two of you are still within my protection. The Chairman would much rather see the two of you hanging from the street lights, but he trusts my judgement. Any… questions?”
The bland man really had lain the truth bare, now hadn’t he?
Hermann raised began tentatively, “Why us…? Why not some of the other men back in Chita? Some of them have degrees in economics, or have more experience than the two of us. I’m the son of a factory manager, Gerhadt… is the son of a Spartacist-” spitting out the last word in contempt.
“Yes… that is true. I am afraid… My government was unable to secure some of the more… preferable candidates due to political reasons. Some of them participated in war crimes, or were ardent Nazis. The two of you on the other hand. No war crimes, that the Russians were aware of anyways, or didn’t make your politics well known, or at least, well known for someone in the SS. However, whilst you have answered your own question for yourself, Gerhardt is a special case. You see… while he is the son of a Spartacist, he was a functionary within Herr Goebel’s bureaucracy during his Four Year Plans, correct?”
Gerhardt gave a small curt nod, clearly uncomfortable with this knowledge being shared.
“Well then, good. However, I will say that only came out after we got you. You see, we have both of your rooms bugged, quite remarkable as to what you can learn from someone muttering in your sleep.”
‘Christ, these people are even worse than back home… Not even in the SS are they that crazy about surveillance, even with persons of interest…’ Hermann thought as he wiped some nervous sweat from his forehead.
“Alright gentlemen, I need you to supervise the execution of the Chairman’s economic plan. With this terrible war winding down, and the perfidious Kuomintang on their way out, China needs to industrialize. Chairman Mao-” ‘He’s really laying the Party line now, isn’t he? Must be bugged himself!’ “- has proposed the Great Leap Forward, and it must be executed to bring China to have at LEAST, the third largest economy in the world by 1954.”
Gerhardt and Hermann looked at each other, yes, this was going to be some interesting work…
