“Why was I not informed?” Captain Von Helldorf wanted to know.
Dr. Hoffmann had a ready-made response. “So you would not show any leniency on the subject.”
“This was approved by the Reich Institute for Scientific Experiments as is required?”
“Yes, sir.”
Captain Von Helldorf glanced down again at the papers that the professor had given him. Everything appeared to be in order, right down to the official seals. He picked up his phone receiver to notify the cellblock guards of a prisoner’s release.
Dr. Hoffmann waited in the Gestapo headquarters’ main area, near the entrance to the building. Wayne, who still was in pain, but at least had been permitted to put his clothes back on, was brought up to Dr. Hoffmann by a Gestapo man.
“Thank you,” Dr. Hoffmann said.
“I can’t tell you how glad I am to see you,” Wayne said to Dr. Hoffmann.
“Keep your mouth shut,” she whispered back to him.
As Dr. Hoffmann and Wayne walked out of the Gestapo headquarters and into the dark night, SS Captain Von Helldorf watched the two of them with a trace of suspicion in his eye.
Without saying a word, Dr. Hoffmann led Wayne to her car, an aged, yellow Volkswagen Beetle. Dr. Hoffmann opened the door on the driver’s side and got in the car. Wayne stood there, not sure what he was supposed to do. Did this woman he thought he knew want him to get in the vehicle with her? Could he even trust her after the stunt she had pulled earlier with calling those goons on him? Wayne, wanting some answers, got into the car.
Dr. Hoffmann turned the ignition key, shifted the car into gear, and started driving. After she had driven half a mile from Gestapo headquarters, Dr. Hoffmann, without taking her eyes off the road, asked, “How are you feeling?”
“Like I’ve just been put through a meat grinder, thanks to you,” Wayne said pissed off. “Why did you call those schmucks on me? What the hell is going on here, Doctor Hoffmann?”
“You indicated earlier to me that your name was a Wayne Goldberg, I recall.”
“It still is,” Wayne said. He was stunned. Could Dr. Hoffmann really not have known who he was now?
As they drove, Wayne viewed the landscape of the city streets. It did not seem like the old city of Manhattan that he had been so familiar with. Buildings appeared to have a strange hybrid of a neoclassical and modern architectural design, with a distinct European flavor. He did not recognize any of them. The biggest difference, Wayne noticed, was the fact that never before had he seen the city so quiet. It had never been so dead. It now had a barrenness that was unnatural. This wasn’t the same city that Wayne knew so well and it hadn’t been for over forty years.
“You will need a place to stay tonight,” Dr. Hoffmann said. “Since I am single, I have been assigned to live with a family. The house has an extra room that you can sleep in. I sometimes bring students over to the house to work on projects with me late into the night, so your being there should not arouse any suspicions.”
“You didn’t answer my question, what is going on here?” Wayne asked again. “You told me that nothing could go wrong. I mean, at first I thought all this was a joke — you pretending not to know me, your changed appearance, those Nazis arresting me. But then me getting whipped and tortured — nobody would take a prank that far. Explain to me what got so fucked up.”
Dr. Hoffmann rolled down her window to let fresh air in. A pleasant breeze swept through the small automobile. “I do not know who you are. I risked my life to get you released for one reason.”
“How nice of you,” Wayne sarcastically said. “And what do I owe this great honor to?”
“My curiosity was aroused when you mentioned the time machine and the letter my father had written me prior to my being sent to what was then the United States of America,” Dr. Hoffmann stated. “I have never mentioned nor discussed those two things to anybody. Ever. How did you have knowledge of the time machine and the letter?”
“You really don’t recognize me?”
“No.”
“Oh, boy,” Wayne sighed.
“Wayne, tell me where you’re from. Please explain to me how you know who I am. Please explain how you are acquainted with the private things in my life,” Dr. Hoffmann begged more than asked.
“Where do I even start,” Wayne said. “Damn, my back is killing me.” Wayne tried to reposition his body in the small bug, but there was barely enough room to move. Wayne thought about the insanity of his situation and exhaled deeply. “Well, here goes,” he began, “You were teaching my advanced physics class at New York University when one day at the end of class you asked me…”
Wayne related to Dr. Hoffmann about how she had asked him to come to her laboratory on that day, about how she had put her time machine to use, about the Hindenburg incident, about what she had shared with him about her parent’s fate in Germany, and, of course, about how she had sent him back in time to kill Adolf Hitler to make the world a better place.
The one incident Wayne did not tell her of was the incident with her parents, Josef and Greta, in 1933 Nazi Germany. He was not sure how Dr. Hoffmann would have taken that news. After he finished talking, Dr. Hoffmann rebounded with a multitude of questions. She wanted to know about the world Wayne came from. What it was like to live in a democratic society. She was very interested in the politics of the major countries of the world and had been astonished when Wayne told her that in his world men had already walked on the moon. No programs existed or had ever existed in the Reich for such a superb accomplishment. With no history of a cold war between the German Unified Territories and any of the few independent countries in the world, the Reich had never deemed it essential to develop a space program. Germans did not have to travel to the moon to know they were a superior people.
“Fascinating,” was Dr. Hoffmann’s response to what Wayne had told her.
They approached the George Washington Bridge. It was a vaguely familiar sight; he used to drive over it to go from Manhattan to New Jersey when he and his friends would go to canoe down the Delaware River.
The Volkswagen pulled over to the side of the road and stopped in front of a small building that had a sign out front that read: INSPECTION.
“Why are we stopping?” Wayne asked.
“Inspection,” Dr. Hoffmann said. “Keep quiet. I have papers for you.”
An inspector — a youthful, Nordic appearing woman — sauntered up to the Beetle. “Work pass card.” she requested from Dr. Hoffmann, as she had a hundred times a day from other people as well.
“Here is my card,” Dr. Hoffmann said as she removed her pass card from her coat pocket and handed it to the inspector.
The inspector noted Wayne. “Pass card or papers for the passenger,” she requested of the professor.
Dr. Hoffmann removed official sealed papers from her breast pocket and gave them to the Reich Ministry of Road Travel employee. Dr. Hoffmann had forged the required travel papers on short notice and was proud of how authentic she had made them appear. She didn’t foresee any problems at the inspection site.
The inspector surveyed Dr. Hoffmann’s pass card and Wayne’s travel papers and then instructed Dr. Hoffmann, “Pop the trunk.”
The inspector who worked the shift when Dr. Hoffmann usually drove by, at an earlier time of day, would routinely wave Dr. Hoffmann through the inspection site without making her stop. She guessed, after he had been stopping her and checking her pass card for ten years, that the inspector finally trusted she was indeed authorized to travel out of the city.