I AM, of course, one of Mr. Abendsen’s admirers; my own works, such as they are, have been influenced strongly by his, in particular my novel Man in the High Castle (Berkley Books, U.S.A., 1974 [a reprint paperback edition]).
It goes without saying that The Grasshopper Lies Heavy (its German title, Schwer Liegt die Heuschrecke [Miinchen: Konig Verlag, 1974] is perhaps more familiar to us) has become Hawthorne Abendsen’s most renowned book, although “underground” both in printing and distribution, due to its political and religious nature. Although Grasshopper offended the Authorities, they themselves studied it with keen professional intent, for it outlines major historic “possibilities” of an “alternate world,” of a sort familiar to SF readers, in which the Axis is not favorably described, thus causing Mr. Abendsen and his family to seek an uneasy and certainly temporary sanctuary in the Rocky Mountain states between the two more militant zones of the United States, partitioned off by treaty after the defeat of the Communist-Plutocrat Alliance.
Further writing by Mr. Abendsen, who lives as modest and conventional a family life as possible, in view of his vulnerability to police reprisal for his famous underground novel in which the Axis lost the war, is meager; most appear in the form of hasty letters printed in nonprofit “fanzines,” as they are called, outside the United States—for obvious reasons.
The Two Completed Chapters of a Proposed Sequel to The Man in the High Castle (1964)
ONE
ON the morning of August fifth, 1956, Reichsmarshal Hermann Goring flew north from the big Luftwaffe base located at Miami, Florida. He had not wakened in a good mood; on his mind, like an iron press, rested the recent memory of the Little Doktor’s appointment as chancellor of Germany and all German-occupied territory. And when one ponders, Goring thought, it was after all my bombers that defeated England and won for us the war; the Ministry of Propaganda did nothing more than whip up and excoriate the people to a useless but fashionable enthusiasm.
Below him the Gau of Virginia passed; his R-15 Messerschmitt rocket flew low enough for him to glimpse black specks: slaves working the fields in the God-ordained manner, both timeless and circular. It appealed to reason and to good sense. But nothing could please him today.
He had not properly anticipated the death of the old chancellor, Bormann. Others had, as, for example, Goebbels himself—not to mention the eager eggheads in the higher SS. Keeping politically alert, however, had not benefited the Reichsfuhrer SS, Reinhardt Heydrich, who chafed, fumed, and wrote many memos at his permanent headquarters on Prinz-Albrechstrasse, home in Berlin. I wonder what he intends? the Reichsmarshal mused. Supposedly a concentration of Waffen-SS troops and armor, specifically the Leibstandarte Division, commanded by old, dependable Sepp Dietrich, had gathered in order to protect Heydrich from removal—Dr. Goebbels had certainly by now considered that—and in addition to threaten the party, should it fish for a loyalty oath to the new chancellor by the generals, something Bormann had been unable to do. And then, meditating, he wondered once again if he had been wise to leave the Miami Luftwaffe base, his center of protection throughout the current crisis. After all, Baldur von Scherach, the head of the Hitler Youth, had been arrested on Goebbels’ order. But Goebbels had been jealous of von Scherach since the success of Project Farmland: the draining of the Mediterranean. The project—Scherach’s one achievement—had been popular with the masses whom Goebbels appealed to, so there lay a conflict of interests… resolved a few days ago by von Sherach’s arrest.
Of course, in a showdown the Wehrmacht had an advantage: possession, solely and exclusively, of the hydrogen bomb. For years the SS had sent its agents skulking about army installations, trying to learn enough to build a nuclear reactor of their own. Evidently they had failed. But any government, representing either the party or the SS—or a third force, perhaps a coalition—would need the generals, in particular the support of the supreme wartime field marshal, General Rommel, living now in retirement, but still vigorous. And still hating the party and the SS for his removal as Military Governor of German-occupied America a few years after Capitulation Day—a day that he believed in his arrogant ignorance he had personally brought about at Cairo. Whereas the knocking out of the English radar network by the Luftwaffe had achieved the victory, as every German schoolboy knew.
The autopilot of the R-15 bleeped, indicating that he had reached his destination, Albany, New York.
I hope, he thought, that Fritz Sacher has come up with proof of his contention. If so, I will reward him. The reward, carefully wrapped in cloth, lay in the rear compartment of the ship: a great bottle containing a uniquely deformed fetus, the product of medical experiments carried out by Dr. Seyss-Inquart. The father had been a Slav, the mother a Negress. The fetus, worked on by Seyss-Inquart’s staff during its development in the womb, had a foot where its head should have been and eyes at the end of its feet. Only this one existed, and it had been part of the Reichsmarshal’s collection of more than a hundred genetic sports. It was in fact the best. But pleasing Fritz Sacher came before the pride of collecting, at least if the research scientist’s claims could be believed.
An armed patrol with dogs kept watch along the perimeter of Sacher’s New York estate, but it was through secrecy that the operation protected itself. Luftwaffe funds supported it; hence his knowledge. The Abwehr, Naval Counterintelligence, supplied men and so Admiral Canaris knew, too. He was not therefore surprised when, upon climbing from the R-15, he found both Sacher and Canaris waiting for him.
Puffing with the exertion of descending the rungs of his ship, Goring said, “I brought you a Wunderkind, Herr Sacher.” He eyed Admiral Canaris, whom he did not like. “Nothing for you.”
“Der Dicke [the Fat One] emulates the Japanese,” Canaris said to no one in particular. “The giving of gifts. Ceremony.” He examined his watch. “I’d like to get started.” He started from the field, into the building that had once been a governor’s mansion in the prewar days when America had governed itself.
“Try and guess the deformity of this,” Goring said, reaching up to grasp the bulky, cloth-wrapped bottle.
“Who knows you’re here, Reichsmarshal?” Sacher asked. “Anyone in the SS? We’re especially concerned about the SS.”
“Only my own people,” Goring answered as he lifted down the bottle and held it out to the young scientist Sacher. “This one is novel; it will give you quite a lift.”
Accepting the bottle, Sacher said, “Many thanks, Reichsmarshal. Your collection of enormities is well known. I remember as a schoolchild touring your villa near Brenner and seeing…” He had by now unwrapped the bottle. “A cephalopedalis. Well. How nice.” He stared fixedly at the fetus floating gradually to the bottom of the bottle. “Must be worth at least a thousand Reichsmarks at home; even more here. I have as yet created no real collection myself; only a few—”
“Can we get started?” Admiral Canaris called sharply.
They entered the building. Goring and Canaris followed the white-robed research scientist down a hallway and into a large room that, the Reichsmarshal guessed, had once been a dining room. The two men sat at a table with papers and objects before them, neither of them particularly distinguished-looking; they both seemed ill-at-ease, and when they made out the Reichsmarshal they rose awkwardly in respect.
“These are the surviving members of the twelve-man Kommando group originally sent through our nexus,” Sacher said. “That is now eighteen months ago that we first became aware of the parallel universe, which we then called die Nebenwelt, because it borders this, and is beside it constantly, plus being available by means of a weak spot, such as exists here. Such we have known the entire eighteen months. Now we can present accurate specifics relating to this Nebenwelt, and it is for this presentation, Herr Reichsmarshal, that Admiral Canaris and yourself have been asked to meet with me here. I introduce Herr Kohler and Herr Seligsohn to you; they will speak briefly on their encounter.”
“I am Kohler,” the shorter of the
two men explained. Beside him his companion self-consciously reseated himself. In a squeaky, untrained voice Kohler continued, “We with others of our Kommando unit who survived the crossing from here to that world but who did not also survive the crossing back, as we did, lived ordinary lives in the Nebenwelt for virtually a year and a half, speaking the English language with facility, it being the language of this geographical area in that universe. We found it to be a reasonably satisfactory milieu, but overrun with Jews. We inquired, via the public library and through accidental contacts, as to why that would be, and also why English and not German dominates as the spoken and written language. As we had anticipated before our crossing—as Herr Sacher originally theorized—the Nebenwelt constitutes an alternate Earth to ours in which the Rome-Berlin-Tokyo Axis mishandled the war and allowed the Allied Nations of Communism and Plutocracy a victory by default. Because of this, America remains a number one Jew State, and the Bolsheviks control half the world, the other half; they have divided the world between them, as Dr. Goebbels predicted in event of an Axis defeat.”
There was silence, then. No one spoke as the Reichsmarshal and Admiral Canaris pondered.
“Did you manage,” Canaris asked presently, “to make out specifically why their war miscarried?”
Irritably, Goring said, “What does that matter? Technical details; for academic scholars.” To Sacher he said, “Your Nebenwelt is a hallucination, a phantasm. It isn’t real, not like this.” He rapped his knuckles noisily against a nearby case filled with scientific texts.
Kohler said, “We brought back artifactual documentation.”
“Faked,” Goring said bitingly.
“It is up to me to determine that,” Admiral Canaris pointed out. He walked to the table, bent to scrutinize the assembled papers and objects. “Why do you reject this idea ad hoc, Reichsmarshal?” He glanced inquiringly at Goring. “Is it that you can’t conceive of this? As Herr Kohler says, we’ve known of it—at least theoretically—for a year and a half. You’ve had a long time to digest the idea, and now we have material brought back by men who’ve been living there. I find it intriguing.” He picked up a massive book from the desk, thumbed through it intently. “But, of course, disturbing.” He eyed Kohler, who remained doggedly on his feet, unwilling to back down. “We have here something called The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, by William Shirer.” Glancing at Kohler, he said, “I gather this will answer as to the ‘technical details.’ ” His voice was withering.
“The period up to 1945,” Kohler agreed, nodding. “I have read it several times; it is complete, absolutely the best I could find there. At several bookstores in New York I asked and was told this volume is totally comprehensive; it is certainly not one I selected at random.” His voice rang with conviction. “And it certainly is not faked.”
Sacher said, “While waiting for you, Admiral, and you, Reichsmarshal, to arrive here”—he took the book from Canaris, opened to a marked place—“I personally examined this. Let me read you.”
“Just tell us,” Canaris said.
“Their history,” Sacher said, “apparently diverged from ours in the early thirties. President Roosevelt was not successfully assassinated and was in office in 1941 when America entered the war against the Axis.”
“Bricker never became president?” Canaris said alertly.
“No, Herr Admiral.” Sacher shook his head.
“In prosecuting the war,” Kohler said, “Field Marshal Rommel failed to take Cairo and therefore never managed to link up with the German army coming down from Russia. Nor did the German army break the Russian lines; at a town called Stalingrad on the Volga the Communist hordes counterattacked and destroyed our entire Sixth Army corps.”
Beside him Herr Seligsohn murmured, “And”—he did not look directly at Goring—“the Luftwaffe concentrated on bombing civilian population centers in Britain and did not put out of action their radar network. So, consequently, no invasion of the British Isles took place.”
“Toward the end of the war,” Kohler said, “the Anglo-Saxon powers developed the atomic bomb. The Jew Einstein suggested it in a letter to Roosevelt, although himself born in Germany; he betrayed his homeland.”
Goring said, “Germany is not a homeland for any Jew.”
Drily, Canaris said, “Herr Einstein seems to have agreed.”
“They brought back material,” Sacher said, “on the condition of Germany as it is now. It has been divided between the Anglo-Saxon powers and Communist Russia. Split in half, no longer a nation.” He added, “Japan is as of this date a satellite of the United States. And communism has spread throughout the Orient; specifically into China.” His voice was stony, impersonal, a mere recitation of facts without emotion. “It becomes evident how vital the assassination of Roosevelt was in shaping our world. If any one single event could be said to have—”
“I would be interested in knowing,” Goring broke in, “how our great wartime Field Marshal Erwin Rommel, who lead us to victory in ‘47, fared in this so-called Nebenwelt. I cannot imagine him in defeat.”
“After the loss of North Africa,” Kohler said, “the field marshal was transferred to France to take command of the forces awaiting invasion from England. While en route by car he was spotted by a British Spitfire and machine-gunned, hence hospitalized. He did not command during the invasion of Festung Europa at its West Wall.” He paused. And then in a low voice said, “There is more.”
“Well?” Goring demanded.
“Field Marshal Rommel joined a group of traitors conspiring against the life of Adolf Hitler.”
“That could never be,” Goring said.
“Wait,” Canaris said, gesturing tensely. “Let him finish.”
“The plot failed,” Kohler said. “The conspirators were strangled and hung from meathooks, which is appropriate. Erwin Rommel, being a soldier and former patriot, was allowed to shoot himself. He so did.”
Again there was silence, long and strained.
“I think,” Goring said at last, “that these so-called ‘artifactual documentations’ are forgeries put together by the Abwehr.” He studied Admiral Canaris, trying to penetrate the slightly ironic mask that had, at his words, slid in place. “The motivation, however, is unclear to me. Obviously in part it is to slander the field marshal. The rest I do not understand.” He made his voice harsh and affirmative, but inwardly he felt doubt, confusion. He needed time to digest all of this. Certainly this trumped-up “disclosure” related to the current political crisis in the Reich’s politics; that much was clear. Intuitively he sensed that Admiral Canaris and his counterintelligence organization had engineered the venture; after all, Kohler and Seligsohn were Abwehr agents, as had been the entire Kommando squad.
And yet—it appeared true that an alternate universe did exist, as Sacher had, for a year and a half, declared. That much we did not dispute. If only he could send some of his own Luftwaffe people, loyal to him…
“I hasten to add, Herr Reichsmarshal,” Kohler said, “that the decision to bomb English cities and not the radar network was not yours but the Fuhrer’s.” He peered hopefully at Goring.
Pacing about, his arms folded, Admiral Canaris said, half to himself, “For several minutes now I have been thinking of something odd. In Japanese-controlled regions, specifically the Rocky Mountain states and the PSA, a book has been circulating; it is banned here, but my office has routinely examined it. They say it’s very popular among the Japanese, for reasons I do not understand. It is a work of fiction, pure fiction, or at least so we have up to now supposed.”
“The Grasshopper Lies Heavy,” Goring said. He had read it; the ban on reading Hawthorne Abendsen’s book did, of course, not apply to him. “A narrative of the world as it would be today if the Allied powers had won the war.”
Canaris said, “And also an analysis of how the Allied Powers could have won. They could have won, this Abendsen alleges, if the Soviet Union had stopped General von Paulus at Stalingrad. Abendsen bases his
fictional world specifically on that.” Turning to Sacher he said, “This is a historical condition reported by these two Kommandos; this occurred in Nebenwelt, so it would appear to me that Abendsen’s book is an account of Nebenwelt.”
“Not quite,” Kohler said. “Both Seligsohn and myself are familiar with Abendsen’s book; there is a vague resemblance between the world he describes and the environment studied by us over the past eighteen months. But many details vary. The relationship fails to be precise. By example, in the book Rexford Tugwell is president at the time America enters the war; in Nebenwelt, Roosevelt still—”
“But Abendsen,” Canaris persisted, “seems to have had at least a diffuse awareness of the Nebenwelt. Even if details differ, the resemblance is basic; to ignore it would be politically unwise.”
“Why unwise?” Goring said.
Canaris gestured. “It means that Sacher has no monopoly as to access to Nebenwelt. If one man, Hawthorne Abendsen, is aware of it, then others can be—have already been, perhaps. We don’t have the undivided control over egress that we need.”
“Need for what?” Goring said. He had never been able to fathom the admiral’s convoluted thinking, typical as it was of intelligence reasoning.
A veiled expression appeared on the admiral’s face. Obviously choosing his words with care, he said, “Any military operation planned by the army would now of necessity be shelved—in view of this.”
“Why?” Goring said, still not following. “What military undertaking is planned?” He thought at once of the space program, the colonization of Venus and Mars. So far, the Wehrmacht had stayed aloof; emigration had been handled solely by the SS. He wondered if at last the army intended to participate. Certainly it would help; so far the SS had signally failed to round up sufficient numbers of genetically adequate human specimens.
Canaris, however, switched to another area of the topic; slippery and deft, he eluded even a direct question. “A point-by-point comparison between Abendsen’s imaginary alternate world and the Nebenwelt should be developed. I would like to know exactly how they compare and differ.” He gestured. “It may be what the Japanese call synchronicity, a meaningless coincidence. Or rather what our own physicist Wolfgang Pauli calls synchronicity; I forget that the acausal connective concept is of German origin.” He scowled. “It is their use of that damn oracle that confuses me, that I Ching they employ in the making of every decision. Fortunately the party has rejected it as degenerate oriental mysticism.”
The Shifting Realities of Philip K. Dick Page 15
