AIMÉE APPROACHED THE NEO-NAZIS congregating by the shuttered ClicClac video shop. She had slicked back her hair and donned her skinhead outfit. Her fingers, more for protection than decoration, were filled to the knuckle with silver rings. She wished her heart wasn't pounding so hard, keeping rhythm with the flashing purple-and-green neon sign over the storefront.
A balding Arab shopkeeper in a flowing gray robe swept the sidewalk near her in front of his produce shop. Strains of whining Arab music blared from inside.
"Your type, cherie?" several skinheads jeered. "You like sharing the street, why not share the Arab's tent?"
She growled. The box with twenty-five editions of Mein Kampf was heavy. She'd liked to have thrown it in their leering faces. Instead, their taunts forced her to establish some Aryan credentials. Hating to do it, she jostled the storekeeper, then bumped into him.
"Abdul, keep to your side," she said.
He kept his shiny head down and pushed his broom further away, mumbling something in broken French that she pretended not to understand. She kept advancing towards him, angling him into a corner. His head glistened with perspiration as he tried to sweep around her biker boots.
"Can't you speak French, Abdul?" Aimee said. "Go back where you came from!" She kicked the broom from his hands.
He cowered against the shop door, while scattered cheers erupted among the skin-heads. He scurried back to his shop and closed his doors.
As she mounted the side steps of the ClicClac shop she heard, "Who's the kick-ass Eva Braun?"
Many pairs of suspicious eyes checked her out. Her heart beat so fast she was afraid it would jump out of her chest. What if she had to do more than kick a defenseless Arab's broom away? She pushed that out of her mind as she joined a motley heavy-metal-type pair, their arms entwined, filing upstairs.
A panorama of shining Hitleriana greeted her as she entered an upstairs room. Blown-up photos of Adolf Hitler saluting to gathered masses and huge red swastikas covered the black walls along with a photo of barbed wire and wooden stalags with a red circle and line through it. The caption above it read AUSCHWITZ=JEW HOAX.
Where were the photos of the living skeletons in rags next to empty canisters of Zyklon B gas that had greeted the Allies who liberated Auschwitz? She figured details like that would probably be missing from the evening.
There was a photo of a Vietnamese whose brains were being blown out by an American officer and one of a toothless, grinning Palestinian boy, with burned-out Beirut in the background, pointing a machine gun at a corpse riddled with holes. But all in all, the vignettes of hate were predominantly Nazi.
Thierry Rambuteau, in an ankle-length black leather storm-trooper coat, stood at the front of the room. Despite his youthful shaved stubble, faded blue jeans, and hi-tech track shoes, he looked old for this crowd. Around his piercing blue eyes were age lines; he could be fifty, she thought. Something about Thierry was off, he didn't belong. Maybe it was his attempt at a youthful appearance or maybe that he had brains.
She shoved the box of Mein Kampfs on the table. Thierry nodded at her, indicating a seat he'd saved for her. She sat down. Many of the faces in the smoky room surprised her. Scattered among the shaved heads were truckers in overalls, a few professor types in corduroys, and what looked like several account executives in suits. But the crowd was mostly skinheads, average age mid-twenties, who milled around the room. Among the thirty or so assembled, most wore black, smoked, or were busy shoving cigarette butts in empty beer bottles.
She felt eyes on her and looked over at the man sitting beside her. He had dark sideburns, slicked-back hair, and wore a mousy brown sweater vest with black jeans cinched over nonexistent hips. His deep black eyes and curled lip were what got to her. Like metal filings to a magnet, she felt repelled and attracted at the same time. His eyes lingered a second too long before he averted his gaze. Behind that look she saw intelligence and felt animal attraction. Bad boys were always her downfall.
A table had been set up with stacks of free videos, a keg of beer and plastic cups, SS armbands, and Third Reich crosses on chains. There wasn't exactly a rush for the videos but the beer and crosses were going fast. She quickly snagged a pointy-edged cross to complete her fashion statement.
"Kameradschaft!" Thierry had moved to the dais. "Welcome! Let us begin our meeting, as always, with our moment of reflection."
Heads bowed briefly, then, on a signal Aimee didn't hear, loud shouts of "Sieg heil" rang through the room in unison. Arms shot up in the Nazi salute.
Thierry saluted back. This quasi-religious brotherhood feeling sickened her. Even though she knew the philosophy of the neo-Nazis, it shocked her to watch them in action.
He launched into a diatribe about Jews being scum. She surveyed the crowd's reaction. Hate was reflected in every face. True, Thierry carried fervor and a certain charisma. He explained earnestly that scientists had proven that certain races were genetically inferior. A historic fact, he pointed out simply, shown by culture and society. She felt that Thierry had convinced himself of his own words.
Then the lights dimmed and the video was shown. This was no amateur home video, but a slick production costing real money. The title, in large letters, read "The Hoax That Is Auschwitz." Scenes of present-day Auschwitz, surrounded by bucolic farmlands tucked into a green pastoral valley, flashed by while a pleasant, businesslike voice narrated, "As a nonpartisan group, we came to view the so-called 'death camp' using state-of-the-art equipment to detect mineral and bone content in soil compositions. After careful measurement in many areas of the camp where there had supposedly been gas chambers, we found no chemical residue or traces of Zyklon B gas. We discovered no evidence of mass graveyards, or anything resembling them, for that matter. The remaining compound buildings, of solid wooden construction, attest to its use as a work camp and to the skill of the German builders, in that they are still standing after more than fifty years." The camera focused then on the railroad tracks that ended at the iron gate of Auschwitz with the slogan wrought in iron still above it: "Arbeit macht Frei"-"Work Makes You Free."
After the video, a skinhead wearing tight lederhosen and a leather vest exposing pierced nipple rings connected by chains shouted, "I'm proud to be a member of the Kameradschaft."
A chorus of grunts backed him up. She noticed a banner near him emblazoned with '1889 Hitler's birthdate-When the world began!'
"We are heroic Volk," someone shouted from the back. "Like the Führer says in Mein Kampf. We have to start at the root of the problem, the mutant bacteria that contaminates everything it touches, to halt its growth. We have to strike now!"
Thierry slammed his fist down as he emphasized the Nazi tenets. "In every way, the Aryan is superior; our confidence should rise and soar."
She figured their video archives, her goal, were stored in the back room. She intended to check the area behind a lifesize photo of Hitler saluting, but a finger dug into her arm as she stood up.
"Sit down," said a trucker in grimy overalls.
"Who's she?" grumbled his friend, in a slightly more stained jumpsuit.
Nervously, she sat down. Someone elbowed her in the ribs. She turned sharply to see the one in lederhosen smiling at her. His white blond hair poked straight up, as if standing at attention.
"Boys wear tattoos, little lady," he said to the accompaniment of sniggering around her. "Aryan women don't."
"Some do and some don't." She jerked her head around, indicating other women. Not many had tattoos. Some wore dirndls but all had on clunky Doc Martens. "Depends on individual preference."
"Using big words. Do you know what they mean?" he said.
She didn't answer, just cracked her gum.