Armistice

by Harry Turtledove

  “Ja. They should. But they’re not. You take what you can get. If you grab for it all, you usually wind up with nothing. That’s what the Führer did. So wave to the nice Russian son of a bitch, Rolf.”

  Clenching his teeth, Rolf waved to the nice Russian son of a bitch. The Red waved back. He had not a care in the world. For him, the fight was over, and he’d come out of it whole. For Rolf, the fight, the real fight, had been lost in 1945. They might get the Ivans out of West Germany. They might rebuild the place so everybody had a job and food on the table and a nice flat and an automobile. Still, it wouldn’t be the kind of Germany he wanted to live in. It wouldn’t be the kind of Germany where people were proud to meet a veteran from the Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler.

  “I don’t think you understand what the Führer meant to so many Germans,” Rolf said, holding his voice down and picking his words with care. “The Führer was…He was a man in a million. No, a man in a million million.”

  “That, I won’t argue with. He was the best speaker I ever heard. When he talked, you believed him. You couldn’t help but believe him. I believed him, too, along with all the other fools,” Max said. Rolf bristled. Max held up a hand in a gesture of peace. “Just ask yourself this, Rolf—are we better off or worse off than we would have been if Hitler died when he was two years old?”

  “It’s better to try grandly and fail than never to try at all,” Rolf declared.

  “Oh, Quatsch. Quatsch with sauce, in fact,” Max said. “How many people dead? How many cities smashed in the last war? How many A-bombs this time around because all we are now is a football pitch for the Amis and Ivans to play on?”

  “We should have won,” Rolf said stubbornly. “It’s all England’s fault, when you get down to it. If she hadn’t made the Yugoslavs betray us, we would have started against Russia six weeks sooner. We’d have made it to Moscow before the mud and the snow could stop us. And the Tommies jumped into bed with Stalin so they wouldn’t lose to us. They’re still paying the price for that.”

  “We were fighting England—fighting the whole British Empire. We decided in our infinite wisdom to fight Russia at the same time. Then, because that wasn’t enough already, your man in a million million decided to declare war on the United States. Sure, Hitler was the Gröfaz, all right.” Max used the sardonic German contraction for greatest general of all time.

  “You don’t get it. Hitler made us feel like Germans again. He made us feel like men again.” Rolf remembered how broke, how hopeless, how far down on his luck he’d been before he joined the Nazis. He remembered how proud he’d been when he got into the SS, and then into the Führer’s elite bodyguard. He’d gone to war with a smile on his face and a song in his mouth.

  “How many of us feel like dead men thanks to him?” Max returned. “Aren’t you sorry about anything?”

  “You bet I am. I’m sorry we lost.”

  “Himmeldonnerwetter! You’re hopeless, you know that?”

  “No, I’m not. I still hope. I just don’t expect anything any more. All you want to do is get old and get rich and get fat. I don’t give a shit about any of that nonsense.”

  “Why did you stay in Germany, then? You should have joined the French Foreign Legion or something. I know for a fact they took Waffen-SS men, no questions asked. You could have been fighting Communists in Indochina all these years. See what you missed out on?”

  Rolf knew Max was still trying to get under his skin. He answered seriously even so: “You know, I thought about it. You’re right—plenty of guys I used to know are wearing the white kepi these days, if they’re still alive. But I just couldn’t stomach the notion of fighting for France.”

  “Um, you do know we’re on the same side this time, right?” Max said.

  “Fuck you,” Rolf said mildly. “Of course I know. They’re still French, damn them. I’ll tell you what they should have done in 1945, them and the English and the Americans.”

  “I’m all ears,” Max said. “What can you see that Churchill and de Gaulle and Roosevelt—no, it would’ve been Truman—couldn’t? Give forth, O great sage of the age.”

  “It’s plain enough. They should have done what the Führer wanted. They should have joined up with us and rolled east to put an end to the Russian problem once and for all. I still don’t get why they wouldn’t do it. Working together, we could have ridden roughshod over the Red Army.”

  Max made a small production of lighting a cigarette. Then he said, “Well, you were in the LAH. I have to remember that. No wonder you can’t see it.”

  “What are you talking about now?” Rolf demanded, indignant at last.

  “Most of us got conscripted and did our bit for the Vaterland and hoped we’d come out the other side alive and with our balls still attached. We listened to the Nazi stuff, but most of us didn’t pay much attention. You liked it, though. You volunteered. Nobody got into LAH any other way.”

  “Damn right!” Rolf said proudly. “That’s why the Waffen-SS was the Führer’s fire brigade all over the place. Whenever the Wehrmacht weenies got in trouble, we’d go bail them out.”

  “It’s all true.” Max made a hash of blowing a smoke ring. “But so what?”

  “What do you mean, so what?”

  “I mean so what? Look where you are. Look what’s happened since you volunteered. Look at everything. Wouldn’t we all be better off if we’d stayed home and raised cabbages and left each other and our neighbors alone?” Max said.

  For once, Rolf found himself without an answer.

  —

  The colonel who commanded the Tula air base was a narrow-eyed Tajik named Aziz Dzhalalov. “I serve the Soviet Union, Comrade Colonel!” Boris Gribkov said as he saluted after coming into Dzhalalov’s presence. Asians seldom rose so high in the Soviet military. Either Dzhalalov was a comer or he had good connections.

  “Yes. We all serve the Soviet Union, even in these difficult times.” The Tajik’s Russian was fluent—he spoke with schoolbook purity of grammar, which hardly any real Russians did—but had a throaty accent that showed the influence of his native tongue. “Are you ready to do anything the workers and peasants of the Soviet Union require of you?”

  “Comrade Colonel, I would be…reluctant to carry another A-bomb,” Gribkov said. “I have already delivered more than my share for the rodina.”

  “Reluctant.” Dzhalalov spoke the word as if it left a foul taste in his mouth. “How do you mean, reluctant?”

  “In the same way my navigator did, sir.”

  Had Dzhalalov looked at his dossier? The way his mouth twisted said he had. “You would kill yourself before you obeyed an order?”

  “I hope I would have the courage to do that, sir. Leonid Tsederbaum did. Enough is enough. Haven’t we had enough?”

  Dzhalalov’s flat features weren’t made for showing emotion, but Boris thought he looked disgusted. “Who gave you the power to decide when it was enough? That is for the leaders of the state and the Party.”

  “Comrade Colonel, how well have they used that power?” Boris asked.

  He waited for the Tajik colonel to tell him such questions were no concern of his. Dzhalalov hesitated instead. At last, he said, “Certain mistakes were made. But the man who made them is no longer among the living.”

  Was that the new line? It would let Stalin’s successors steer away from his policies. “I see,” Boris said: the most noncommittal noise he could find.

  “In any case, no one will ask you to use A-bombs,” Dzhalalov said. “Our agreement with the Americans and the other Western powers requires that we hold back. Would your lordship kindly consent to delivering loads of conventional weapons on the bandits in our satellites?”

  He didn’t use mat. That was smart; few who hadn’t spoken Russian since they were still in the cradle could hope to do it properly. He used sarcasm instead. Perhaps because the weapon was deployed less often than obscenity, it stung more. “Yes, Comrade Colonel,” Boris said. Ten tonnes of explosive delivered devas
tation on a scale he could understand. Ten thousand tonnes, or whatever the A-bomb was equivalent to? No. If the word overkill hadn’t already existed, the A-bomb would have birthed it.

  “I thank your most gracious lordship.” Dzhalalov still wielded that rapier of wit. But he also really did sound grateful. Had some pilots here already told him no? Had despair and indifference reached that far?

  Remembering how that groundcrew sergeant had reeled down the runway, Boris asked, “Sir, is maintenance on the bombers adequate? Will they take off fully loaded? That’s tight even when everything works well. When it doesn’t…” He shook his head. “If we do take off, will we fall out of the sky halfway to where we’re going, or on the way back?”

  “Maintenance will be seen to,” Dzhalalov said.

  “Sir, do you mind my asking just what that means?” Boris said. Sometimes, when top people in the Soviet Union needed something done, they would tell the people who’d do it that everything was fine. They would do that regardless of whether it was or not, often regardless of whether they’d look to see if it was fine. And sometimes they got what they wanted, and sometimes the people who tried to do whatever needed doing had unfortunate accidents.

  That was known as bad luck.

  Colonel Dzhalalov scowled. “Do you doubt my word?”

  “Comrade Colonel, you aren’t going to be flying the mission. I am. That gives me special interest in making sure it goes as smoothly as it can.” Boris spoke as diplomatically as he knew how.

  Not diplomatically enough, though, for Dzhalalov’s scowl darkened. “Why should I not arrest you for insubordination, disobedience, and obstruction? That would solve my problem in a hurry.”

  Boris shrugged. “Sir, of course you can do that if you want to. My guess is, you haven’t done it because you need this mission flown, you need the guy who flies it not to mess it up, and you figure I’m the one who’s most likely to be able to do it for you.” Talking to a Russian, he would have said not to fuck it up, but the Tajik officer was keeping things clean, so he did the same.

  Dzhalalov exhaled through his nose. “Fly the mission, Gribkov. The plane will be airworthy. Fuck your mother if I lie.”

  So he knew how to use mat after all. He just picked his spots. In this context, Yob tvoyu mat’ meant something like I really mean it.

  In the same way, Boris’ “I serve the Soviet Union!” translated as You talked me into it. So much of what went on in the USSR went on between the lines. Then Boris asked a real question: “What’s the target?”

  “Budapest. The Hungarians are making a nuisance of themselves.”

  They’d already been making a nuisance of themselves when he got shot down after bombing Bratislava and parachuted into northwestern Hungary. The Red Army convoy that picked him up from the Hungarian secret police and took him back to Budapest had run the gauntlet coming and going. No, the Hungarians didn’t love their fraternal socialist allies.

  “Budapest it is, then.” He saluted and left.

  If the rest of the crew for the Tu-4 were thrilled to attack Hungary, they hid it very well. “What kind of airplanes can the Hungarians throw at us?” Anton Presnyakov asked.

  “Yaks and Lavochkins, probably,” Boris answered: Soviet leftovers from the last war. The copilot nodded. Boris went on, “I don’t know if they have radar guidance.” If they did, those old fighters would be almost as dangerous as modern jets. If not, then finding the Tu-4 in the black night sky would be a matter of luck.

  “Will the plane be fit to fly?” Lev Vaksman asked.

  “Comrade Dzhalalov promised it would. I believe him,” Boris said. “If you want to ride herd on the groundcrew men while they check out the beast, go ahead.”

  “I’ll do that,” the flight engineer said. “It’s my dick, too.” Off he went, to the revetment that hid the bomber.

  Boris didn’t see him again till suppertime. “How are they doing?” he asked.

  “They’re working,” Vaksman said, sounding surprised he could tell the pilot that much. “Most of them seem to know what they’re doing. We won’t fly tonight, though, no matter what the colonel wants. Tomorrow, if we’re lucky.”

  It was the night after. Vaksman got his hands greasy and sported bandages on a cut and a burn. Armorers bombed up the Tu-4. A groundcrew man with lanterns guided Boris out of the revetment. The airstrip wasn’t blacked out, which struck him as odd. But the Americans wouldn’t come over Tula, and the rebellious Soviet satellites couldn’t.

  Getting the Tu-4 airborne was always an adventure. Boris did it, as he had so often before. His heart pounded every single time, too. But then the flight turned to routine. He droned southwest, across Russia and the Ukraine. As soon as he crossed into Hungary, antiaircraft fire started coming up. Most of it burst far below the bomber, but the reactionary bandits were very sincere.

  Budapest burned below him as the plane delivered its load of death. The Red Army had wrecked the city in 1945. Now the USSR was wrecking it again, or wrecking it some more. Boris wheeled the Tu-4 away. No night fighters came up after him.

  “Now,” he said, consulting his written orders, “we go back to Mogilev, in Byelorussia.”

  “Mogilev!” Presnyakov said. “Why not Minsk? It’s bigger and closer to the border.”

  Boris turned his thumb down. Minsk had taken an A-bomb. It wasn’t worth landing at any more.

  MARIAN STALEY DIDN’T KNOW what she felt about Fayvl Tabakman. She thought it might be love, but she wasn’t sure. It wasn’t what she’d felt for Bill when they first met. She’d fallen for him hard, head over heels. She would have gone to bed with him the first time they went out, only nice girls didn’t do that. It made a man think you were loose. He might have his fun with you then, but he’d never walk down the aisle. You had to make him wait.

  Everything with Fayvl was happening in slow motion by comparison. She’d known him for a while before the Russian A-bomb and Russian air defenses turned her life inside out. But then she’d known him as the little refugee man who fixed shoes so well and so cheaply, not as someone she might possibly want to sleep with.

  It worked the same way for him. He might have noticed her as a pretty woman while Bill was still alive, but he wouldn’t have done anything about it in a million years. She would have sent him packing if he’d tried, and in a hurry, too. He had to know it then.

  Not so much now. Loss draws loss, Marian thought. The Nazis had robbed him of his wife and children; the Communists had taken her husband. They shared something she’d never wanted to know, but knowing someone else who knew it with her took—a little—pain away.

  “Does it bother you that I’m not Jewish?” she asked him one night.

  “In the old country, it would. Here…” He shrugged. “Less. I like you no matter what religion you got. Does it bother you I am a Jew?”

  “No,” Marian said at once. “You’re just you. The Jewish people I’ve known haven’t been any different from anybody else. Not because they were Jewish, anyhow.”

  “Is funny. I hear lots of Americans say that. Not all Americans, but lots of,” Fayvl said. “In Poland, you never hear like that from a goy. In Poland, Jews always different. Americans, they don’t care so much.”

  “Why do you suppose that is?” Marian asked.

  “I used to think was because American goyim all wonderful people and they don’t hate nobody,” Tabakman said. “Then I’m here a bissel longer, and I see is not so. Like Poles and Germans and Russians and Hungarians and everybody else got Jews to beat on, Americans got shvartzers.”

  “Shvartzers?” Marian pronounced the unfamiliar word as well as she could, which wasn’t very.

  “Negroes,” Fayvl said with precision. “Jews got it easy here on account of Americans, they hate somebody else worser.”

  Marian wanted to tell him that he was wrong, that everybody in America got along with everybody else. She wanted to, but the words stuck in her throat. She remembered the race riots in Detroit during the last war, and
the lynchings and segregation that persisted to this day in the South. She didn’t think she’d ever said kike, but she knew she’d come out with nigger a few times.

  Quietly, she said, “You haven’t been here that long, but you see things about my country I never noticed.”

  “I don’t grow up here. Is to me not like to a fish water. You go to Poland, Poland like it was, Poland before Nazis and Russians, I bet you show me plenty I don’t know.”

  “Maybe,” Marian said, in lieu of I doubt it. She stood up. “I feel like another cup of coffee. How about you?”

  “Please.” As usual, he showed off an Old World courtliness. Up till now, she’d found it charming. She’d never wondered how and why he’d had to acquire it. A fussily polite Jew in Poland might have a better chance of keeping his Christian neighbors from deciding to beat him up or burn down his house.

  Heating up the coffee and putting in cream and sugar gave her a few minutes away from the problems of Europe and the somewhat—but only somewhat—different problems of the United States. She and Bill hadn’t talked about things like this when they were going together. They hadn’t talked about things like this after they got married, either.

  She wondered why. Her best guess—and it would never be more than a best guess now, because she couldn’t ask Bill about it any more—was that he’d wanted to shield her from the dark side of things. He’d seen war; he’d risked his life and had friends lose theirs while she stayed thousands of miles away from danger and death.

  I know danger now, by God, she thought, carrying the steaming cups of coffee back to the living room. She’d missed her own death by very little, either from her house crushing her or from radiation sickness. And she knew the death of the one she’d loved best. Fayvl’s wound there was older but went even deeper. He’d lost his children along with his wife.

  “T’ank you so much,” he murmured when she gave him the coffee. He sighed and nodded. “Is good.”

  “It’s coffee.” She shrugged. “It’s been sitting in the pot too long. It’s getting bitter.”