Dr. Hoffmann popped the trunk of her rear-engine Volkswagen.
The female inspector took a quick view of the inside of the empty cavity, and then slammed the trunk shut. She walked around to Dr. Hoffmann’s side of the car and informed her, “Everything is in order. You may proceed.” She handed the professor’s pass card and Wayne’s travel papers back to Dr. Hoffmann.
Dr. Hoffmann thanked the inspector, shifted the car into gear, and stepped on the gas. As the car traveled onto the massive bridge, Wayne saw a sign that read: HERMANN GÖRING MEMORIAL BRIDGE.
“What was that all about?” Wayne inquired of Dr. Hoffmann.
“That was an inspection checkpoint. Not many people are permitted to commute beyond a certain distance to go to and from work,” Dr. Hoffmann told Wayne. “I am because my work is considered important.” Dr. Hoffmann had always been proud of the fact that she had an extra privilege that most other citizens did not. It made her feel as if she had more freedom than she actually did.
Wayne still had a whole bunch of important questions he needed to ask the professor. Most pressing, he wanted to find out what had gone wrong with Hitler’s assassination. “So I’m to understand that the United States is now a German territory and is run by Nazis,” he said.
“Correct,” the professor responded.
“Un-fuckin-believable.”
“Please, Mr. Goldberg. I do not like profanity used in my presence,” Dr. Hoffmann said.
“Well, in certain situations I think it’s appropriate,” Wayne retorted. “And I think this is definitely one of those situations.”
Dr. Hoffmann kept her eyes on the road and didn’t say a word.
“I’m sorry. Please, go on,” Wayne apologized, which he thought absurd since she was responsible for him being there.
Dr. Hoffmann spoke, “What was called the United States is now part of the German Unified Territories, a conglomeration of the countries once called France, England, the Soviet Union, Canada, Poland, Holland, Norway, Denmark, Czech—”
“Okay, okay, I get the idea,” Wayne interrupted. “But how? Hitler was killed in 1933, six years before the beginning of World War Two. Didn’t National Socialism die out?”
“No,” the professor replied. “After Adolf Hitler died, the party’s second-in-command, Hermann Göring, took over as leader of the National Socialist Party.”
“Then?”
“Hermann Göring was a ruthless leader. Under him, the Nazi Party continued to grow at a rapid pace. The Nazis soon began invading their neighboring countries, easily conquering them. In part, because of Göring’s push for technological innovations, we won the Battle of Britain early on. We beat the British out at developing radar. After England fell, the next country Germany invaded was the Soviet Union, which too fell to the Germans.”
“What about the Nazis not being able to withstand the Russian winter? What about that?” Wayne was anxious to know.
“No, when Germany invaded the Soviet Union,” Dr. Hoffman continued on, “with half a million troops, it was in the springtime. Moscow fell just a few months later — August 19th, I believe was the date. It would have been suicide to start a campaign against an enemy the size of the Soviet Union in the fall or winter.”
“Then what happened?” Wayne asked.
“Then it was time, Göring decided, to go after the good old United States of America. It was a long, bloody battle, but in winter, 1947, after Germany became the first nation to develop the atomic bomb… well, I do not have to tell you who won the war. Nazis thought so highly of themselves after that, that they started their new calendar then, with 1949 becoming year number one.”
Wayne was amazed at what she had said. “Germany developing the atomic bomb first, before the Americans! There’s no way. What about Albert Einstein?”
“Einstein?” Dr. Hoffmann said perplexed.
“The famous scientist,” Wayne tried to jog her memory. “You know, the one with the curly hair who developed the theory of relativity. E = MC2 and all that. He left Germany in the thirties because he was Jewish.”
“Oh, him,” Dr. Hoffmann remembered who the man was. “He was killed by German spies around 1940. Nothing was sacred to the Nazis. They found a way to murder many important American scientists.”
Wayne sat speechless for a minute as everything Dr. Hoffmann said sank into his brain. What had he done? He became irate and verbally lashed out at Dr. Hoffmann in a fury, “Göring, Göring, fuckin’ Göring! You didn’t take that into account, Dr. Hoffmann. You didn’t take that into account,” Wayne repeated. “How could you not have considered Hermann Göring taking over the Nazi party, being a great military leader, developing atomic bombs, not making the mistakes Hitler did, and winning the war,” he ranted with indignation. “YOU BLOODY WELL DIDN’T TAKE THAT INTO ACCOUNT!”
Dr. Hoffmann stopped her Volkswagen in front of a small two-story house that looked as dreary and unassuming as all of the other houses that surrounded it on the quiet, suburban residential lane. On the mailbox in front of the house, the name read: Rausching.
“Do not accuse me of anything,” Dr. Hoffmann raised her voice to Wayne. What he had said upset her. “I have no memory or knowledge of actions I might have taken as an entity in a different time plane. Whatever my alternative self has done, I know nothing of it. I risked my ass to save yours.”
“My ass is here because of you,” Wayne said sharply.
Tears began to stream down Dr. Hoffmann’s cheeks. “Its all my fault. All my fault,” she softly spoke.
There were certain people Wayne could never picture crying, such as his dad, John Wayne, and Dr. Hoffmann. But, these were extraordinary circumstances, and when Wayne watched her cry, he felt closeness to her that he had not ever felt before. He gave her a hug.
“I’m sorry,” Wayne said. “Thanks for saving me. Now we have to work together and somehow undo our mistake.”
Dr. Hoffmann regained her equanimity, “We’re here.” Dr. Hoffmann handed him clothes that had been in the back seat of her car.
“What’s this?” Wayne asked.
“I brought you clean, more suitable clothing. Quickly, put them on.”
“Anything has to be more comfortable than what I’ve got on,” he stated. Wayne removed the filthy clothes he had been wearing, and put the fresh clothes on.
“I will tell the family that you have laryngitis,” Dr. Hoffmann said. “If they hear you speak, they will become suspicious of your strange accent.”
“I talk like every other New Yorker,” he said.
“Remember, New York has not existed for forty-five years. Never refer to the city as New York. That would arouse deep suspicions. The city is presently called New Berlin,” she said.
“New Berlin,” Wayne repeated the city name with a shrug. “That just doesn’t sound right. Couldn’t the Nazis think of a more original name?”
“Please, Wayne, when we are inside the house, act happy and as if everything is normal.”
Wayne chuckled, “I’ll have to give an Oscar-winning performance for that.”
“Oscar who?”
“Never mind.”
The Rausching residence was typical of how the average family in the Reich lived. The inside of the house was sparsely furnished with only the barest necessities. The Reich emphasized production of products that would help the Reich as a whole, such as military defense items and farm machinery that could better harvest grains and food items for the masses, instead of the production of a wasteful assortment of consumer goods, such as 20 different kinds of bathroom tissue or pinball machines. On a wall hung a painting of the Führer, Karl Göring and on a coffee table was Hitler’s book, “Mein Kampf”. A German flag hung prominently in the living room.