by A. D. Winch
She took pity on me, found a room for me in this big house with an old lady from the church and arranged for employment at a typing pool. I had landed on my feet, as the phrase goes and I am still in the room Betty found for me. Apart from going to church, which I feel I am obliged to do due to Betty’s good will, I will spend today alone. My landlady has gone to her son’s place and I am happy not to socialise. This is the first occasion since arriving in Buffalo that I feel I can devote some time to myself. By using this book as a diary, I can keep my thoughts in some kind of order, make my plans, be systemic about it and let you know what I am doing. I will begin with my fears, of which I have three:
I am currently a prisoner in a country which will see me as a traitor if the OSS discover what I did at Roswell. What will they do if they find me?
I want to escape and return home but I cannot afford this. How can I leave without sufficient money?
I am pregnant. What will I do when baby Alexander or Alexandra arrives?
All I know for sure is that I have five months to find the answer to these questions.
Alexander stopped reading and stared at the bunk above him. His mother had never told him any of this. Until a few minutes ago he had not even known his father’s name was Johan. Now he understood why his surname was Johansen.
Alexander took a deep breath and flicked through the pages until he found May. Five months after the first diary entry.
25th May 1967
The army and CIA have arrived in Buffalo. I have stayed indoors all day. They must be looking for me. What am I to do, Johan?
26th May 1967
I had to go out to buy groceries. While I was out I bought a newspaper and I swear that I saw Agent Angel. I know I am paranoid, and that he is probably in Roswell with you, but I am more scared than ever. This is not good for the child. I will be giving birth in less than a month if the Doctor is correct.
In the newspaper, I read that the leader of the USSR, Alexei N. Kosygin, will be visiting Niagara Falls tomorrow. I have made a decision that I will approach the Soviets and ask them to get me out of this country. I have enough knowledge of American military activities to use as a bargaining tool. I hope this does not cause you problems. Tonight I will take a cab to the Falls and try to smuggle myself onto the boat they plan to use, if anyone will tell me which one. Once the Soviets board I will try to make contact. My Russian is not as good as it was but I remember enough to make myself understood. This could be my last entry. If it is goodbye.
However, as Alexander turned the page, he found another entry.
2nd June 1967
Oscar Wilde wrote, “A bird at evening flying to its nest, Tells me of One who had no place of rest.” It seems quite suitable now.
I am lying in a bed, in a military hospital, in Moscow. I have my own room but it is virtually empty apart from my bed and a small table. The walls are a horrible blue up to my head height and then brown to the ceiling. Sat just inside the door is a nurse who never smiles and outside the door is a soldier. I do not know what he looks like as I can only see the back of his head through the window in the door.
There is a large radiator under the window to the outside world. It is summer but the room is cold and I doubt that it is on. My clothes sit on the table. They are neatly folded and every time I try to get them the nurse gets out of her chair and pushes me roughly back into bed.
‘You are going to be a mother,’ she tells me in a tone that makes it sound like ‘you are going to die a hideous death.' She could at least acknowledge that something wonderful is happening and I am about to bring life into the world but she does not. I wish you were here, Johan. I know that you would be excited but keep me calm.
The KGB has been through all my belongings and returned most of them. A pair of silk pantyhose have gone but nothing else. They also returned my diary. I am sure that they have dissected the contents and will continue to do so. I know they are reading this and will continue to do so when I fall asleep but I have given up my right to privacy.
When they visit and question me they are polite and if I say that I am tired they respect this, otherwise the grumpy nurse pushes them out of the room which is funny to see. At the moment, I do not know if their respect is due to my pregnancy or that they value highly what I have for them. I must be careful.
My departure from America was far easier and swifter than I could have ever imagined. On the night of the 26th May, I took a cab to Niagara Falls. There were newspapermen hanging around and, with just a smile, I soon discovered that Alexei N. Kosygin would be travelling on the ‘Maid of the Mist’ to see the falls. It was not a large boat and had a simple white roof to shield passengers from the water spray as they watched from its one viewing deck.
The newspapermen also pointed out the CIA man who was hovering around the ‘Maid of the Mist.' I approached him. More smiling, complimentary comments and holding my pregnant belly resulted in being told time schedules and entourages for Kosygin. When I had all I needed I found a secluded spot and tried to sleep which was impossible. The roar of the falls nearby, my swollen stomach, the thoughts of what I was going to do and leaving you kept me awake all night.
The next morning the CIA and KGB arrived. I watched them leave their cars and board the boat together. I gave them ten minutes and then brazenly walked up to the gangway, and I tried to board myself. Unsurprisingly, I was stopped by a very polite CIA man. In my best, almost hysterical voice, I complained that I had been told to come here as an interpreter, against my Doctor’s advice. I said that I was eight months pregnant which was obvious for all to see and then I started to cry. The poor man didn’t know where to look nor what to do. He summoned his superior who in turn summoned a KGB man.
I took a chance that the Americans could only speak English and spoke to the KGB man in the best Russian I could remember. Through sobs, I told him that I wanted to defect, that my sobbing was a cover and that I had a considerable amount of information that would be of great interest to him and his comrades. I added that all he had to do was just say he had requested a translator, and then we could talk some more so he could assess my value to the USSR. He did as I asked.
By the time, Kosygin was on board I had convinced my new comrades of my worth. After a tour of Niagara Falls, I accompanied the Soviet entourage back to the airport where we were all flown back to Moscow. There is more but I cannot write this yet.
Alexander stopped. His fingers were in his mouth, and he was biting his nails constantly. He had never known. His mother had kept this all from him – a complete secret.
Once again he flicked forward; this time to his birthday. There was no entry so he read the next entry instead.
25th June 1967
Yesterday was filled with such joy and such pain that I can barely write it down. I gave birth to twins! Our babies! The birth had complications. I lost a lot of blood and passed out as our first child, Alexander, was born. He is here now beside me. He is asleep, beautiful and looks like you. He is my joy. His sister, Alexandra, is not here. They have taken her. They will only give her back when I have told them all that I know. This is my pain. I hate them, Johan, I hate them so much! Who would do this to a mother?
Tears welled up in Alexander’s eyes. I am not alone, he thought. I have a twin sister. I have a family. I am not alone. I am NOT ALONE! A smile crept across his face.
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***
Chapter 17 – Father and Son
Alexander searched under his bunk and took a beer from his bag.
“Time to celebrate,” he whispered to himself, stood up and opened the bottle.
As he drank his first mouthful, he looked over at Eric.
Eric was sleeping. He was curled up like a baby, but it was clear that he was not as relaxed as one. His face was pained, and his eyeballs were constantly moving under his eyelids.
Alexander wondered if he had been too harsh on the boy earlier. After all Eric had lost his parents and, by comparison, losi
ng his hat was hardly a big deal. Maybe Eric was right. All his life, Alexander had lived with constant paranoia; perhaps he was seeing danger where none existed.
The more he thought about it, the more he convinced himself that he had been too severe. Alexander felt he should try to offer Eric more support. In many ways, they were not too dissimilar as neither had grown up with a proper family. Alexander had grown up without a father and with an unconventional mother. In the morning, they would talk, and he would offer Eric some help if he needed it.
Ursula was lying on the bunk opposite to Eric. Alexander turned to look at her. She opened her dark eyes to look at him.
“I’m pleased for you,” she said and closed her eyes again.
“Thank you,” replied Alexander, assuming that Andrea had already told her about his twin sister
For a long while, he continued to gaze at the thin, black girl he had rescued over twelve years ago. At the time, he had considered looking after her himself but his lifestyle would not have allowed for bringing up a child, and the obvious questions would have been impossible to avoid.
His memory of the time finding Ursula was hazy, and he could not trust that it was accurate. Once he had located her pod he had worked fast and without any sleep. Somehow he had summoned superhuman strength and had managed to tip the pod into a tunnel beneath Pompeii. After this, he had driven the sleeping baby Ursula out of Italy and into France where he had continued to drive north. There had been no plan except to get as far away from the landing site as possible. By the time he reached Paris, he was virtually falling asleep at the wheel. The baby beside him was still asleep, so he drove into a district called Saint-Denis, parked the car and also fell sound asleep. He had slept for barely an hour before being woken by a screaming and hungry infant. Even though his mother had warned him that the ‘package’ she was sending would need special care and had hinted at what this may be, he had not fully understood her. In his car, he had biscuits and a bottle of water. Neither was suitable for the baby. She needed proper baby food.
Somewhere he had bought baby milk powder for her but he didn’t remember how or where. However, he did remember spending an endless day in a parked car entertaining the baby. By that point, he was past exhaustion. He had slept only one hour in the previous forty-eight. His paranoia had increased, and he had started to question what was real and what wasn’t. People had walked past the car and had looked in. They had seen a white man with a black baby, which had increased his paranoia even further.
“Colour doesn’t matter,” muttered Ursula in a doze.
Alexander wanted to agree with her but couldn’t.
When night eventually fell, he took Ursula out of the car, found a shopping trolley and put her in it. It was cold and raining, and he sought shelter in a poorly lit underpass. After walking about halfway along it, he saw a plump, black lady coming towards him. Without thinking about his actions or the consequences, Alexander left Ursula and ran away.
As he looked at Ursula now, he felt immense relief that Madame Benjamin had found her. The woman and her husband had brought Ursula up well. Impulsively Alexander kissed his fingers and placed them on Ursula’s forehead. She smiled, and Alexander moved away from her to sit with Andrea.
“Why didn’t you tell me about my mother?” he asked brightly.
Andrea looked up from her tablet. The screen was covered in information about plankton.
“I do not understand the question,” she answered. “Please be more specific and concise. There is much I need to investigate before we arrive in Amsterdam.”
“I just wanted to know why you didn’t tell me about my mother?”
“This is rather a vague question. Why did I not tell you what about your mother?”
“That she went to the USSR. That she gave birth to twins. That I have a sister.”
“Because Professor Larsen had instructed me not to tell you,” and Andrea turned away to continue scanning the information on her tablet.
Alexander returned to his bunk with his beer. He had known Andrea long enough to know that the conversation was over.
Ursula was still dozing, but she knew she could not sleep yet. The clickety-clack and the gentle rocking motion of the train were soothing, but it was too early. Her mind was buzzing with the news from her grandparents. They had told her that the OSS and gendarmes were looking for her and Eric. Fortunately, the two of them were out of France and now on a train out of the Czech Republic. Her grandparents, however, were still in Paris, and she feared for their safety. Her head filled with questions with answers she didn’t dare to accept.
What if they found her grandparents? What would her grandparents do? What would happen to them? She wanted to be at home with them again. She wanted to be there. She…
Her thoughts were interrupted by a knock at the door.
“Jízdenky, prosím,” and then English “Tickets, please.”
Alexander jumped up and opened the door. Standing there was the train guard. He was not a tall man but his stomach protruded over the belt of his regulation guard’s trousers and a button of his white shirt had burst revealing his belly button. Clipped to his shirt was an ID card with a photo of his head. In both the photo and in real life, the man had a long, well-kept mullet. The fringe was cut neatly over his eyebrows and the back of his hair reached down to his shoulder blades. Alexander stared at the haircut, lost for words. His mouth had fallen open.
“Tickets, please,” the guard said again, looking a little embarrassed by the attention he was receiving from Alexander.
He was saved by Andrea, who pushed Alexander out the way and thrust the tickets into the guard’s hand.
The guard checked them carefully, scanned the compartment to make sure there were no other travellers and handed the tickets back.
“Děkuju,” he said and hurriedly walked away.
Andrea locked the door before returning to her bunk. The compartment was quiet apart from the noise of the train. By ten o’clock only Andrea was awake, and she continued to work through the night.
Professor Schwarzkopf had been having a fun time. One of the benefits of old age, he felt, was that he could pretty much do what he wanted. Nobody would say anything to him, no matter what he did. Either they feared that he may drop dead at any minute or that he was senile and best avoided. He was, therefore, allowed the freedom to walk around the base, rummaging through bins and collecting the items he needed. Once collected, he put them in a clear, plastic bag so he wouldn’t lose them.
By the time, he returned to the pods he had a large assortment of nail clippings, hair, flakes of dead skin, a tissue containing blood and dried mucus. The makeshift lab was empty, but Professor Schwarzkopf knew that Kurtz would return soon. He needed to work fast.
The new pod was closed, but Professor Schwarzkopf knew how to open it. He couldn’t believe how simple it was but how complicated too.
It’s alien technology or at least hybrid alien technology, he thought, so why should it function like anything on earth?
It was true telekinesis, moving things with the mind. He wondered how far the human race was from inventing and using such technology. The last time he had visited the base, he had been shown a demonstration of a soldier who had lost a hand. The base doctors had attached a robotic hand which the soldier could move through thought alone. Once they had perfected this they would attempt to connect soldiers to military vehicles with wires so they could drive, fly, sail or shoot without lifting a finger. The next step after this would be to have soldiers connected to vehicles wirelessly. Professor Schwarzkopf believed that, within twenty years, this would all be reality.
Up to this point he had only opened and closed the new pod by visualising it open and closing. In spite of his worries that Kurtz would return soon, he wanted to attempt an experiment.
Professor Schwarzkopf stared at the silver pod. It rested securely on two X-shaped stands with a ladder propped against it. He continued to stare but in his head he visualised th
e pod hovering ten centimetres above the stands. Nothing happened. He felt like the comic character, Magneto, he had seen back in the sixties. He tried again but this time with his eyes closed. From the direction of the pod, he heard a faint noise, and he opened his eyes promptly. The pod was still resting on the stands. It was possible his imagination was playing tricks on him, but he thought the ladder had moved slightly.
From the changing rooms, attached to the inflatable lab, he heard voices. Kurtz was coming. He had no time to lose; he opened the pod and climbed up the ladder. He took the random DNA samples he had collected, and scattered them around the inside of the pod. When he had finished, he closed the pod again and climbed down the ladder, just as the changing room door unzipped.
Kurtz, Professor Li and Professor Warne entered. All were dressed from head to toe in protective clothing. They looked determined and approached him menacingly.
Obviously Kurtz has put them up to this, thought Professor Schwarzkopf. He was sure that she must have said something as they were usually much more passive.
“We need to talk to you,” sneered Professor Kurtz, poking her finger in his direction. “We are a team and a team works together. There is no ‘I’ in team. You are not helping our team.”
“Thank you for pointing out that there is no ‘I’ in team. I am not a native speaker and even though I have lived in an English speaking country for longer than you have been alive this has always concerned me. You need to know ‘I’ am not part of your team and never will be. However, I have helped your team a lot. Without me, the pods would never have been opened.”
Kurtz seized on his words before he had finished, “And this is how you are not helping us!”
