From the Ashes

by Sandra Saidak

  “And you gave them us!”

  “Not them!” Karl swept a hand to indicate the dozens of freedom fighters watching in silence. “Just you! You’re the only one they want.”

  “Oh, and naturally, if I just turn myself in, they’ll leave this place untouched.”

  “As a matter of fact, yes.”

  Adolf laughed.

  “I’m serious! Look, they didn’t have the manpower to take this place before. You think they’ve got it now?” Karl opened the briefcase, and drew out some papers. “They put everything in writing and told me to let you read it. I guess they didn’t trust me to deliver a simple message.”

  “Poor Karl. Underrated again. It’s the story of your life.”

  “Just read the damned thing! I don’t expect my opinion to count for much just now, but I’ll give it to you anyway when you’re finished. They’re not telling you everything.”

  “What a surprise.” Adolf picked up the first sheet, crisp with the official stamp of the Department of Political Security, and read it. For a while, Karl and the others ceased to exist.

  The message was simple enough. Within three days, Adolf was to report to the Waffen SS base in Helsinki, and offer his complete cooperation in rectifying the current difficulties faced by the Reich. That probably means the revolution, thought Adolf. If he did so, the writing promised, his family would be freed from their current accommodations at Heidelberg prison. More than that, they would be restored to their previous position and rank.

  If Adolf failed to cooperate, they would all be shot in four days. Any stoic calm he might have regained by telling himself they were already dead was dispelled by the photographs included with the letter. There were four in all, beginning with one taken during Adolf’s last visit home. Leisl had just gotten her hair styled to look like Lottie von Tripp’s character in her latest movie. Kurt was wearing his uniform with its gold Hitlerjugend badge. Even his mother’s expensive new designer peasant dress was one Adolf recognized.

  The next three pictures were all taken since his flight. Adolf, who had learned a great deal about the deceptive uses of technology, knew in his gut the pictures were genuine.

  Leisl’s bright eyes had dulled, and her beautiful face was thin and pinched with worry, but it was still her. Adolf thought his mother had aged twenty years in the last three. The drab gray prison garb hung loosely on her gaunt frame. His father, on the other hand seemed to hardly have changed at all, other than to look older and meaner. Frieda had had another baby since he was last home, but their father was not in the picture. Something was wrong with Marta, her eyes vacant and staring.

  If these pictures were meant to break Adolf’s heart, they succeeded.

  The ultimatum ended with a promise not to interfere with those residing at the base. If, however, Adolf chose not to comply, a Götterdämmerung bomb would be dropped on this mountain to pacify the entire area, as it was too difficult to reach any other way.

  Exactly how Adolf was supposed to save the Reich from the unwashed hordes wasn’t made clear, but phrases like “returning to the Fatherland”, “setting a good example for other misguided youth” and “extraordinary influence over lesser minds” gave some clues.

  Adolf carefully returned the contents to the briefcase, and gave it back to Karl. “You said you would give me your opinion whether I wanted it or not. I find I want it.”

  “You’re sure?” Karl looked like a man expecting an attack, but unsure from which direction to expect it.

  “Maybe not. But I sure as hell don’t know what they’re talking about. Any idea what they think I can do?”

  “They think that you can single handedly stop the revolution in its tracks."

  Adolf couldn’t help it. He laughed. He tried to stop, but the more the absurdity of it all played across his mind, the more he laughed. Karl waited with surprising patience, and even offered Adolf a hand up when the fit of laughter finally passed, leaving him exhausted on the floor of the cave.

  “Why are you heroes always so damned self deprecating?” Karl asked. “You walk around on a goddamned magic cloud, then when someone asks you to do something, you get this look of pious innocence and say, ‘who me?’”

  “Yeah, I’m a real hero,” said Adolf. “Just ask Ilsa.”

  “Well, like it or not, the Party experts have decided that you and you alone have the influence, charisma and power of speech to convince the world that Judaism is just a silly cult whose time is past—for the second time, I suppose—and that the revolution is a bad idea. And, they believe, that if you promise the people better times ahead, and immediate easing of their sufferings, they will believe you."

  “And why, pray tell, do they believe that I would ever even attempt such a thing? Not that it would work if I did! But do they think I believe for one minute I could really save my family? That I didn’t already bury them, like all the others in my same position?”

  “The problem is, Adolf, that there have been way too many people in your position. I’m not talking about me; when I went outlaw, I doubt they particularly noticed.

  “But you! You’re everything Hitler dreamed of: the handsome, blond, Aryan superman; a natural leader; an I.Q. that’s off the charts. But they were counting on you to use your gifts for them, not their enemies! This entire generation, it seems, has turned against the Reich.”

  “Maybe they should take that as, I don’t know, a hint, or something, and change what they’re doing! Anyway, I can’t let them use me like that, even if I wanted to! Besides, last I heard, I was dead!”

  “So what? That sort of status changes every day in the Reich! And coming back from the dead will only increase your popularity with the masses.

  “But…there’s something else you should know.” Something in Karl’s voice made the hairs rise on the back of Adolf’s neck. “When I was working for the government, I saw something I wasn’t supposed to. Come to think of it, this is probably one secret they wanted to leak out. It was just a draft of an emergency plan for if the Reich were ever to be defeated. At that time, of course, I didn’t take it seriously. I doubt anyone else did either.”

  “Karl, I’m sorry, but I don’t have a lot of time just now.”

  “Got five seconds? The name says it all. ‘Scorched Earth.’”

  “Yeah, and what the hell is that supposed to…oh. Sheisse.”

  “You got it. From the original dream of Hitler himself. If the Aryan Superman cannot maintain his supremacy over the earth, it would be better to end it all, here and now, rather than—“

  “Forget the rhetoric! Just tell me one thing: Can they do it?”

  “You have to ask?”

  Adolf suddenly thought of what he had brought to the base—was it just this morning? All at once, he knew with terrible certainty what the rebel scientists would find when they analyzed it.

  “That new toxin,” he said at last. “It doesn’t distinguish between Aryan and non-Aryan, does it? It just kills. Everyone.”

  “Afraid so,” said Karl. “Quick and painless—at least I’m sure it’s supposed to be. It probably won’t even kill animals or plants. Our current Führer is such a nature lover, you know. Almost as much as the first one.”

  Adolf shook his head. “It’s more than that. He’ll want it all left behind. Animals, plants, buildings, monuments. Like some giant mausoleum to be discovered by whoever someday visits from outer space, or else evolves down here.”

  “So it’s not just you’re love for your family they’re counting on. It’s a basic choice between life and death for the human race.”

  Adolf nodded. Then he put on his coat and went to the food caches in the back of the cave. He stuffed bread into his pocket, and found a full canteen of water.

  “Where are you going?” asked Karl.

  “To the desert. Isn’t that what all the other so called heroes used to do at times like this?”

  “But—“

  “I’ll be back in three days. German punctuality is probably t
he only thing I can still count on.

  He stopped only to send Rika and Mina back inside. Then he headed north, toward the wastes of what had once been called Lapland.

  It was the closest thing to desert he could find up here.

  Book IV

  CHAPTER 30

  “’And the Lord spoke unto Moses in the wilderness of Sinai…’” Adolf looked up from the book to the starry northern sky, and said, “Well, that’s good. Now, would You mind speaking to me? I’m sort of in the wilderness too right now, and I could really use some help.”

  He waited, but no answer came to him across the desolate hills. He continued to wait, not knowing what else to do. At sunrise, he would have to decide: either begin the journey to Helsinki and the agents who awaited him there, or flee. Again.

  Adolf kept the Torah open to the Book of Numbers, although it was too dark to read. No matter; he had memorized it all long ago. That fact came as a surprise to him, as he sat alone for the first time in longer than he could remember, and tried to make sense of it all.

  “How did I get here? Can You at least tell me that?

  “It started as a game; I know that. But does that mean that it couldn’t turn into something real?”

  It had turned into something real. Adolf didn’t need a burning bush or a voice from on high to tell him that. The religion of a dead race, deemed inferior by those who had conquered a world, had returned to the world of the living. Perhaps it had begun as just a pastime for rebellious rich kids, but somewhere along the line, seeds were planted, and had taken root.

  “Just call me Herr Fertile Soil,” sighed Adolf. “Somewhere along the way, I started believing in You. And right now, I’d really like for You to believe in me. Tell me what to do. You know I’ll gladly give my life for this world and for Your covenant—because I believe the two are connected, and will always be, if we can get through this current crisis. But I don’t know how to make that happen.”

  He stretched out on the gentle hillside, his arms forming a pillow beneath his head, his coat spread over him like a blanket. The stars were so beautiful, the night so peaceful. There must be a message here somewhere.

  But if there was, it was beyond Adolf’s power to decode.

  “Of course, there’s always the possibility that I’ve simply gone insane,” Adolf said to the sky. “I’m sure that’s what my father is saying. If I’m lucky, I can even convince our Illustrious Leaders, when they bring me in. Then I’ll just get a little brain washing, rather than full-scale torture.

  “Of course, if I really am crazy, then so are the thousands of other former rich kids and educated men and women in this movement. And the tens of thousands of illiterate poor, who’ve given their life to this cause—and their faith to You. If You’re even there.”

  Adolf found a surprising amount of comfort in the knowledge that the faith he had embraced was shared by so many. “We can’t all be crazy, can we?”

  He closed his eyes, trying to imagine giving himself up. Renouncing the cause; naming hundreds of courageous friends as “traitors” and “dangerous agitators”. Declaring everything he learned in the Judenmuseum to be a lie.

  He couldn’t do it.

  But to run again?

  He was too tired.

  “How long have I been on the run?” Adolf asked the sky. That, at least, he could figure out without divine intervention. He had fled Berlin in April of 2004. Now it was August, 2007. “Three years, four months. Hey! That’s forty months! You’re really fixated on the number forty, aren’t You? Is this supposed to be a message or a joke?”

  Adolf tried to pray some more, but found he had run out of words. Toward dawn, he dozed. Now, thoughts came easier and feelings found names. For so long, Adolf had been living in his mind; thinking, planning, trying to outguess the enemy, wondering if every face he met was the enemy.

  Now, for the first time in far too long, Adolf could remember what it was he had first loved about Judaism; about this god with no name, whose face no living man could bear to look upon.

  He remembered the loneliness. Not just his own, but what he imagined must have been felt by an entire people who were despised by everyone around them, condemned to wander without a home, yet at home anywhere on the earth, because God was there.

  He remembered Ilsa polishing the brass menorah, that the people who made it and all they stood for would not be forgotten. And the message of Hanukkah: the light of hope shines through even the darkest of nights.

  The simple message of equality between all people; the idea that everyone should treat others as they would wish to be treated. Adolf felt again the longing to live in such a world.

  As he slid deeper into sleep, Adolf could hear the psalms of David, and imagine the soul of the man who could write such words. “There’s a guy who screwed up even more times than I have. Maybe not on so big a scale, though.”

  But David found strength in his faith. No matter that his own courage faltered sometimes; that his power to do the right thing lapsed more than once. He always found his way back to God.

  But what did God think of you? Adolf asked David in his dream. Did he love you throughout it all? Did he forgive your affair with Bathsheba and your murder of her husband? Did He give you the strength to forgive yourself when you killed your own son Absalom? When you acted like a madman and a tyrant, could He still see inside you the gentle shepherd boy who used to write love songs to Him?

  And David answered, “Yes.”

  Perhaps if Adolf had awoken then, he too, could have kept his fragile faith. But his dreams darkened, until he found himself gasping for air in a cattle car crammed with frightened people. He saw the souls that flew from the broken bodies of men and women as all they were was reduced to ashes in the ovens. He smelled the stench of death and injustice on a scale the world had never before known.

  And he awoke knowing that the blood in his veins was the same as in those who helped create that holocaust.

  The sky was growing light in the east. Adolf felt the weight that he had come here hoping to lift, crash down on him again. How had he ever imagined that God would speak to him; that answers could be found in the last moment before all was lost?

  “I guess the final proof that You never existed lies in the deaths of all those people.” Adolf stood wearily and wrapped his coat tightly around himself. “What kind of god stands by and does nothing when something like that happens? If You lacked the power to save them, then You’re incompetent. If You had the power but didn’t use it, You’re a worse monster than Hitler. Either way, I’ve got nothing left to build from.”

  But nothing left to lose, either.

  Going home suddenly seemed like the simplest thing to do. Maybe it was that faint hope that he could still save his family.

  “Or maybe,” he said as he began the long walk south, “I’d simply rather die where I was born than in some ditch in a foreign country.”

  Adolf reached the base at the appointed time. Before he had time to identify the threat, four guards were on him, stuffing him into an airplane. But they didn’t hurt him, nor anyone else that he could see.

  Moments later, they were airborne.

  CHAPTER 31

  Adolf had never traveled by air before. Few civilians did; children almost never. With his family, he had toured Europe in luxury train compartments and private automobiles. Air travel had always been restricted to the military. This plane was luxurious enough to convince Adolf it was some high-ranking officer’s personal transport. There were no passengers besides Adolf and his six guards.

  The windows, though bulletproof, were transparent and Adolf enjoyed the sight of the world in miniature, passing beneath him. Rivers, lakes, forests and farmlands all looked like some exquisite toy, perfect and eternal. There was comfort in that.

  Then they flew low over a city, and Adolf could see the decay and the want; the pathetic stream of refugees leaving only with what they could carry.

  “Where are we?” he asked the near
est guard. “What’s happened down there?”

  “I’m sorry, mein Herr,” said the guard. “We have strict orders not to engage you in any conversation.”

  “Oh. Well, thank you for explaining that.” Adolf continued his surveillance of the world his family had helped conquer.

  Despite the Party’s boast that no atomic weapons had ever been used on European soil, much of the countryside looked sick. Worldwide pollution was taking its toll even here. Some places were pock marked by craters from more conventional bombs. Others bore the mark of fire; terrorist explosions and Party reprisals. Adolf began to wonder how much longer the Reich would have a world to rule.

  He was grateful to be left in peace. Guards politely offered him food and drink, which he equally politely declined. Late in the afternoon, they arrived in Berlin.

  At once, the pace of things picked up. The next set of guards were less distant and deferential, but still not directly hostile. He was subjected to a degrading physical exam, where doctors probed his every orifice for weapons, bombs, poisons and signaling devices, but even that was done matter of factly without questions or insults.

  Next, they hustled him through a hot shower and into a beautifully tailored dress uniform of the Volkssturm. Adolf was impressed to see his rank was that of captain.

  A skilled barber left him pink cheeked, with hair even blonder than before, and styled in the latest fashion: wavy bangs and a sleek braided tail in the back. “Good thing I’ve been wearing it long, huh?”

  The barber smiled cordially, but said nothing.

  Just when he was beginning to wonder if they hadn’t mixed up his file with the latest movie heartthrob, Adolf was taken to an office whose door bore the standard Party medical insignia and the name Dr. Siegfried von Dymler, Chief Psychologist, SS.

  His guards ushered him in, then left, closing the door behind them. Adolf looked around. He stood in a lavishly appointed office. Against one wall a silver tea service sat on an antique wooden table. Beside the tea service was a tray of tiny lemon cakes trimmed with slices of real lemon. Adolf’s mouth watered at the sight of them. Crossed cavalry sabers hung on the wall, beside a landscape painting. On closer inspection, Adolf saw that it was an original Hitler watercolor.