“Father, is this true?”
Father Schneider stared at Jaeger for a second, then took out a bible and his crucifix. “I swear by Almighty God that what I say to you here is the truth as I know it and nothing but the truth. So help me God.” He kissed the cross and put it on the Bible again.
“My apologies, Father. But we were told that they had all been killed. Field Marshal Model even had a secret report from the Red Cross. He showed it to us all.”
“The Red Cross does not make secret reports my son. If you saw something that claimed to be so, then it was false. The survivors from New Schwabia were sent home to Germany.”
Jaeger felt the surge of hope die. “Then they died anyway. Nobody lives in Germany.”
“Again, Captain, if you have been told that, then you have been told falsely. Germany was smashed, destroyed, yes. The Germany you knew no longer exists and will never exist again. Many millions of Germans died in the bombing and many millions more in the aftermath, Even now, only about eight million live in Germany. But everybody dying? No. The radiation has faded and there are few areas where people cannot go.
“Every year those who explore the countryside declare more areas safe and free for access. Even the cities are becoming safe now although few people wish to go to them. There is almost a superstitious fear of those cities as if going to them will bring hack the bombers. But, in truth, the new Germany is becoming quite a beautiful place. There are few people and most live in small farming settlements. The countryside appears untouched and the scars of the bombing are long gone. It is almost like a park, or perhaps the way Europe used to be before factories and cities existed. There is a life for you there Captain, though not as a soldier. Germany will never have soldiers again.”
“Father, please tell me that something else. Those of us who were in occupation forces outside Germany. We were told they were used as slave labor until they died. Please tell me this too was a lie?”
“It is. Let me tell you a story. I was one of those occupation soldiers. In England. The last night of the war, we were told that the Resistance had attacked a radio station, Soldatensender Nottingham. I took my platoon there and it was true. The Resistance had attacked the station and taken it off the air so that Winston Churchill and the English King could make a broadcast. That broadcast told us what had happened then offered us a home. They said we had come as conquerors but we could stay as guests. Instead of fighting the resistance unit, we made our own truce with them that night.
“Over the next few days, we learned the full extent of what had happened to Germany. Some of the men went back to see if their families had survived. Some of us knew there was no hope and stayed. It was not easy, there was much to be forgiven and forgotten and there are always those who will do neither. But for me, well, you can see the path I chose.
“Not all countries had the generosity of spirit of the British. Some put our men in PoW camps, others were not so kind. But death by slave labor? This did not happen. At worst they had to work until they could be sent home. We all suffered terribly of course. In Russia you missed the Great Famine. For more than two years there were no crops in Northern Europe and the livestock sickened and died. Calves were born dead, chickens laid few eggs and those that were, well, nobody could eat them. If it had not been for the Italians and the Spanish, the Australians and the Americans sending food, I think nobody would have survived. But we did.”
There was silence for a few minutes, Schneider remembering the horror of the nuclear attack and its aftermath, Jaeger trying to absorb the enormity of the deception that had been played on him, Eventually the Jesuit spoke again. “Captain. Before I came here, I looked up the survivors of Berlin. There were very, very few, the Americans singled out the city for special punishment. They dropped twelve atomic bombs on it. There are no Jaegers on the list of survivors. Is there anybody else i can look up, anybody else you knew?”
“Just my fiancée. We were to be married on my first leave. She was with the Luftwaffe, her name was Brucke, Sunni Brucke.”
Father Andras Schneider couldn’t help himself, he burst out laughing, Jaeger looked at him puzzled. “Captain, believe me that is one name I do not need to look up. Let me tell you one more story. Your fiancée was in the main German air defense bunker under Potsdam, just outside Berlin. The bunker was deep and well supplied and all down there survived.
“Among them was Herman Goering. The people in that bunker effectively became the German Government and Goering organized the surrender of Germany. Postwar, he and Miss Brucke became friends. I think he saw her as the daughter he never had. When he fell ill, she looked after him at his home in Karinhall. (here he had gathered every art treasure in Europe. The countries of course were all arguing over getting their treasures back but nobody would agree on who owned what. Goering was a very bad man, but he spent the last two years of his life trying to atone for his crimes.
“In his will he left Karinhall and its treasures as a legacy for all the people of Europe. A center of art and enlightenment and culture to remind them what they could achieve if they worked together, just as the devastation around it reminded them of what would happen if they worked against each other. The treasure he and his Nazi conspirators had hidden away in Switzerland, that would support the center.
“There was one codicil attached to that bequest. Me left the private apartments of Karinhall to your fiancée for her to live in, the condition being that she become the manager of the museum. She is a famous lady now, the Director of the European Center for Culture at Karinhall. You are something very rare Captain Jaeger, you have somebody in Germany who waits for your return.
Intensive Care Unit, Bethesda Naval Hospital, Maryland
“Woo-woo, woo-woo. Woo-woo, woo-woo.”
Ramsey Chalk was hunched up in a fetal curl, crouched whimpering in a corner of the room. His cries had been muted at first but suddenly they exploded into a howl of sheer, undiluted horror as he started threshing around, fighting off some ghastly nightmare known only to him. Wails of terror, pain, misery and despair tilled his room, they would have echoed off the walls if they hadn’t been so well padded. The doctor pulled the curtains closed. President Johnson looked at him in shock. “What happened to him, Doctor. Some sort of nervous breakdown?”
Doctor Gan shook his head. “I’m afraid it’s not that simple Mister President. I assume Director Hoover has been briefing you about the increasing drug use amongst kids, especially college kids?”
LBJ frowned. “College kids? The Director has been advising me about the increasing flow of illegal drugs into this country, but I was under the impression the problem was mostly heroin being sold in the poorest areas of the inner cities. We’ve had that problem for decades, ever since prohibition ended.”
“That’s one side of the problem Sir, But the truth is we are facing what amounts to an epidemic of drug use amongst college kids. Not the hard stuff like heroin, morphine or cocaine, but what some like to call soft drugs, mostly marihuana. Some of the kids have started to mess around with other chemicals, one of them is lysergic acid diethylamide or LSD.
“The kids call it acid. It’s pretty easy to get, the kids buy it on the street in tablets, capsules, and, occasionally, liquid form. It is odorless, colorless, and has a slightly bitter taste so the kids put it on a cube of sugar and take it by mouth. They get what they call a trip, typically they begin to clear after about 12 hours. LSD’s been around since 1938 but its use has only become widespread quite recently. We really don’t know much about its long-term effects or just how harmful it is.