This café is like Neverland. Outside it smells of death and dampness. In here it’s fresh coffee and chocolate pastries. Where on earth did they get chocolate? It’s like the war never made it past the front door. White china, white linen, white chairs. Come in! The world’s gone to hell, but we’ve got Franzbrötchen!
Here comes the Kellnerin.
—Einen Kaffee, bitte.
I— Shit.
The war’s back. Waffen-SS just walked in. Wow, there must be a dozen of them. I can see their reflection in the window. They’re moving on either side of the door. One of them is just behind me, I can hear him breathe. They must be making way for someone. I wonder—Here he is. Oh, great! Two oak leaves on his collar patch. He’s an Oberführer. That’s a… I don’t know what that is, an über-colonel or something. A very important asshole. You can tell how full of themselves they are by how slow they walk. This one is slooooow. I hope he wants his coffee to go. I also wish he’d come in five minutes ago, when I had a major general sitting beside me.
Happy thoughts. A week from now, I could be back in Washington eating pancakes. Oh, here’s my coffee.
—Danke.
Über-colonel is staring at me. It’s making me nervous. I’m sure he knows. Could he be…? Nah. I’m being paranoid. Then again, if the devil is walking the earth, I can see him wearing this uniform. There’s enough evil to pass around in these parts.
—I’m sorry. Do you mind?
Shit. He’s talking to me. My blood pressure shot through the roof. He didn’t wait for me to answer. He just sat down across from me. Now I’m really being paranoid.
—I—no. Please.
—Kellnerin! Coffee!
No knives on the table. I can’t run. I’ll have to go through a dozen men if he decides to stop me, and I won’t kill them all with a spoon.
How would I know if he’s the Tracker? Our ancestors described them as ghostly and ashen. That’s what Mother said. I’m not entirely sure what that means. We lived in Asia back then, so my bet is they’d never seen a white guy before. There weren’t that many around those parts a thousand years ago. This man—I don’t know. He’s not the whitest fellow I’ve seen. He won’t win Aryan of the Year but he could use some time in the sun. I’m freaking out now. He might be—Really? He’s staring down my shirt.
—Sir?
—What a beautiful necklace.
My necklace. My heart’s throbbing. That medallion is the one thing that survived us all, the only tangible proof of who we are, short of looking in a mirror. That necklace belonged to the One. I didn’t even want to touch it when Mother gave it to me. We’ve held on to that thing for three thousand years. I didn’t want to be the idiot who drops it in a lake.
—Thank you, sir. It’s a family heirloom.
—That stone. Is it a sapphire? I’ve never seen one this orange.
—It’s just a garnet, I’m afraid.
—May I?
He wants to touch it. I don’t think he means to harm me. In fact, he’s not paying attention to me at all.
—Here. Let me take if off.
He’s holding it to the outside light. That stone is so close to his eye now… What is he—
—You’re right. Not a sapphire.
—How can you tell?
—Believe it or not I was a jeweler before all this. Seems like a million years ago. The refraction’s not right for a sapphire.
—I told you it—
—It’s not a garnet either.
—Then what is it?
—I don’t know…. It seems I’m a little rusty. Here, you can have it back. Thank you for the company.
He’s leaving. He’s no Tracker, that’s for sure. This isn’t the depraved rabid animal Mother described. I look at this man and I see… dispassion, indifference. That wasn’t wrath or furious anger sitting in front of me. That was apathy.
What would the Tracker have done? Slash my throat right here at the table? We left this country because of him. Mother said he, they, were getting close.
How did she know? How does she know now?
I suppose it’s as good an excuse as any if you have to convince a child to leave everything behind. Then again, maybe she did know. A stranger asking too many questions. Old friends turning up dead. We’ve never met any of them, but we have hundreds of people working for us. Maybe they knew. It’s kind of funny when I think about it. I’m a carbon copy of my mother, but there’s still so much I don’t know about her. What would she have done in my place? Would she have killed Dieter? Would she be angry that I did?
I’d still look exactly like Mother no matter who she slept with, but maybe I’m what he was there for. Maybe they fucked in Bad Saarow. “I didn’t think you’d come back, not after what happened.” Maybe she broke up with him there. Maybe… Maybe I need to get some sleep.
16
Down, Down, Down
Hitler is dead. We heard it on the radio.
Berlin has fallen, Hitler is dead, and we’re still here. We’ve “set up camp” in a small town near the Austrian border. That’s what they said, Dornberger and von Braun. “We’ll set up camp here.” There’s no camp. We’re in a resort hotel, for crying out loud. Haus Ingeburg, that’s what it’s called. There’s an indoor pool with a view of the Alps. There’s a sauna. Von Braun is in the fucking sauna.
We wait. We wait and listen to the radio. The Americans can’t be more than a couple of miles away, but so are the Germans, and no one wants to risk getting caught. Not when we’re so close. Wait. Wait. Wait.
Mother must be going mad. I know I am. I haven’t slept in three days. I need Mother. I need to ask—I don’t even know what I want to ask. Dieter, the Tracker, Bad Saarow. I have a thousand questions stampeding in my head. I can’t formulate a single one. It doesn’t matter. She’ll make sense of all this. I just need to get home.
I cut myself. I didn’t even notice. I was playing with a switchblade I stole—confiscated—from a kid in Bleicherode, scratching my name on a wooden table. It’s a nice table. I don’t know why I was doing it. Von Braun walked by. He looked at me and screamed my name. I thought he was angry about the table, or looking at my leg jumping like a jackhammer, but he grabbed my arm, hard. I… I cut myself. Long cuts—not too deep but deep enough—across my forearm. Lots of them. Maybe a dozen. I must have been at it for a while. I was as shocked as he was when I saw the blood. I didn’t know what to say. There was nothing to say. No matter how convoluted a story I could come up with, there was no way to sell this as anything but what it was. I tried, though. I really tried.
Von Braun didn’t say anything. He didn’t scold me. He let me pretend. I thought that was nice of him. I suppose normal isn’t what it once was. That or he didn’t care. Here he is now. Oh, no. That’s Magnus, the other von Braun. He’s younger than his brother. An engineer. Everyone likes Magnus. I do, too. I suppose it doesn’t hurt that he speaks English.
—Hi Lili! What are you doing?
—Just reading a book. You?
That’s not true. I haven’t opened it.
—Getting some fresh air.
He’s smiling. Magnus is always happy. Always. I don’t know how he does it. Then again, I don’t know how he builds rockets for Nazis.