ACT III
18
Twilight Time
Germany surrendered the same day we arrived in Moscow. The highest-ranking asshole left alive signed the German Instrument of Surrender—good name for a piece of paper—and poof. Nazi Germany ceased to exist. Just like that.
I thought it would mean… more to me. I don’t know what I thought. That it would put an end to all the suffering, restore my faith in humanity, something like that. I think they just ran out of people to kill. The dead are still dead, the burned still burned. The war in Europe is over but it rages on in the Pacific. More bombs, more death, more bodies floating in rivers.
They’ll put some Nazi leaders on trial, but the rest of them aren’t going anywhere. The policemen who shot families on the street. The baker who told the Gestapo his neighbor was a Jew. The kind people who stood by and did absolutely nothing. They’re all there. I’m still here.
What I really hoped for was to feel like myself again. I thought it would erase what I’ve seen, what I’ve done. But you can’t make the past go away. The war has smeared all of us, and those stains won’t come off in our lifetimes.
Oh, and I fucking hate Russia. Mother said I would. Of course, she said it because she knew I’d want to decide that for myself. I thought: It can’t be that bad. I’m sure I’ll find something to like. New place, new friends. It’ll keep my mind busy. Maybe I can stop thinking about what I did. Maybe I can stop thinking about Bad Saarow. I helped her pack. I didn’t whine, not once. Now I can’t say she didn’t warn me.
She never said anything about moving into a haunted house. Our place was built at the end of the century. They call it “Art Nouveau.” I doubt it was ever “nouveau.” When electricity came along, they stapled the wires on the walls and ceilings and painted over them. The lights flicker whenever I walk by. I swear, we live with the spirit of the previous owner and he’s just as pissed as I am about the water heater. My guess is he killed himself after staring at green walls for too long, that or the seizure-inducing roses on the kitchen wallpaper.
I barely understand why we had to leave. I sure as hell don’t know why we had to come here. Mother said we’re going to build rockets, but there had to be better places than this. The Soviets torched everything west of here to slow the Germans’ advance, and the Germans burned it all again on the way out. There’s nothing left. No farmland, no livestock. There’s nothing to eat, anywhere. Moscow’s just fog and slyakot, mud and melting snow taking over the city streets. The people are great, though, except one in seven is dead and the other six are famished.
It’s the Soviets that defeated Hitler. For every American soldier who died, the Soviets lost eighty. We haven’t met anyone here who didn’t lose a close friend, a husband, a brother. They’ll rebuild everything, of course, with slave labor: two million prisoners of war and just as many Soviet dissidents Stalin had arrested. No wonder these people are paranoid. This whole place is a prison without walls. And if you don’t play nice, you get sent to the one with walls, and forced labor, and death. There’s lots of death, and brainwashing. Millions of little brains being washed. School is bad enough, but the youth organizations are just… I’m a proud member of the Komsomol. We’re the end of a long assembly line for perfect Soviet citizens. You start at seven—because why wait?—and join the Little Octobrists, then you graduate to the Young Pioneers at nine. They’re like Girl Scouts. Creepy, zombified propaganda-spewing Girl Scouts. Joining is voluntary, of course. You have a choice, unless you really want to go to school, get a better job, or not have your neighbors look at you funny, or not add a tenth circle to this fiery, everlasting hell. I volunteered. Mother said I had to.
19
Ac-cent-tchu-ate the Positive
I received another letter from Hsue-Shen.
My dear Sarah,
It is with a profound sense of irony that I have accepted a commission in the US Air Force. I cannot vote or marry but I can apparently hold the rank of colonel. The commission is only temporary. I shall travel to Germany to interrogate a group of rocket scientists who surrendered to American forces shortly before the Reich fell. Though their expertise would no doubt prove useful, I shudder at the prospect of welcoming anyone who enabled Hitler in the slightest manner.
I understand and respect my friend’s reluctance. That is why I chose him. Von Braun’s value is obvious, but that of those who were captured with him is not. Few people understand the science well enough to weigh their knowledge against their character. This entire endeavor is but a moral compromise, but if one is to make a deal with the devil, one should at least be able to negotiate the terms.
—MOTHER! THE WATER HEATER BROKE AGAIN!
—Then get out of the shower.
My daughter is having a difficult time adjusting to our new circumstances. She believed the war’s end would be an end, but for her it is only the beginning. Cold water and stale bread are also not helping.
—I’m freezing! Oh, and there’s definitely something moving inside my bedroom wall.
—It’s only the wind, Mia.
—Seriously, Mother. What are we doing here?
—We are giving the Americans someone to compete against. We are going to build V-2s, then make even better rockets.
—Great! Why are we in Russia? Rocket scientists are in Germany, not here.
—Do you wish to go back?
—Fuck no!
—MIA!
—Sorry.
—Do you know where Wernher von Braun is at this very moment?
—Hmmm. It’s the middle of the night in America, so I’d say in his bed.
—Witzenhausen. Von Braun is in Witzenhausen.
—That sounds suspiciously German.
—It is. The Americans have not deigned to debrief him yet. I had to pull some very reluctant strings in Washington to make sure they send someone.
—Are you telling me I went to Germany for nothing?
—I am telling you we need to put pressure on the Americans.
—How? Wherever he is, Mother, von Braun’s not here. The Soviets may have been good at this before Stalin, before the purge, but they’re so far behind now… We’re not going to build rockets ourselves, Mother.
—Then I suggest you find someone who will.
—There’s no one! The Soviets aren’t up for this any more than the Americans were. It’s the Germans that build rockets. That’s why I went there in the first place.
—Get some Germans involved, then. The Americans will only take about half of the people you gave them. You left over twenty-five hundred people behind in Bleicherode, if I remember correctly, and a good third of the people working for von Braun never even left Peenemünde, which happens to be inside Soviet-occupied territory. There are plenty of people left with some knowledge of the V-2.
—I don’t know, Mother. I mean, there are V-2 rockets out there already. They exist. What good is making one with a hammer and sickle on it?
—We are creating a race and the Soviets do not have anything to race with. It will take them years to get a working rocket. You can give them a V-2 in ten months.
—That seems very optimistic. I think it would ta—Wait a minute. I can?
—Yes, darling. You know enough. Give the Soviets a working V-2 and you will get the Americans’ attention. Make it cross an ocean and I guarantee von Braun will get his own research center and all the resources he needs. Then you can race him higher and higher, all the way to the stars.