He means his speech, and I have, a good six times, until I was word perfect.
‘I have it by heart,’ I say, and he grins even more and squeezes my hands.
‘That’s good, Meister Kroos. Very good.’
But there are things I need to know. Like when and where all this happened. Because the speech he’s written doesn’t give such facts. And so I gently, subtly coax these from him, under the guise of natural interest. And, reassured by the fact that these are his fellow geneticists, he speaks about it, and the first thing I discover is that this was done a good ten years ago, when the two men who together form the creature we call Reichenau were barely in their twenties.
‘I almost chose differently,’ he says. ‘At first the Francke body was to be the host. It was fitter, stronger than the other. But when it came to the week before the operations, I changed my mind. There was something about Reichenau that convinced me he should be the host. Some psychological quality, you might call it. And so it was that it was the Reichenau half that was the host. We removed Francke’s head and then reconnected, attaching the spinal brace, and … ah, but you know all that, Otto. I am preempting your speech, no?’
‘Your speech, Meister,’ I say, and everyone listening to us laughs, delighted by our exchange.
But now I have more detailed information and if I can find a moment I will jump back and have Ernst investigate that time period.
It is two hours, however, before I get the chance.
Ernst is there at the platform. For him the wait has been brief. A matter of seconds.
‘Autumn,’ I say, ‘2323. There at the Akademie. He was there at least two weeks, maybe longer.’
‘Good,’ Ernst says, beaming. ‘I’ll get on to it at once.’
And he hurries from the platform, leaving me to jump back again, into that hot and crowded room, just in time to see the president make his entrance.
Adelbert Schafer is a tall, elegant man. He has been president these past six years, replacing the unfortunate President Koch, who, some say, was killed at Schafer’s orders. Whatever the truth, Schafer has ruled Greater Germany with an iron fist, and if anyone is responsible for setting Gress and his SS dogs on me, it’s him.
Eventually I meet him and shake his hand. It seems he too has heard of how I’d ‘saved’ Meister Klug.
‘You did the State a great service, Meister Kroos,’ he says, his steely eyes fixing me. ‘If there is any favour I can do you in return …’
It’s unexpected.
‘Thank you, Herr President,’ I answer him, and bow respectfully. And he moves across to greet Klug himself, in his wheelchair, crouching to Klug’s level to speak to him, the two men talking for a moment before they both turn to me, then roar with laughter and chink glasses.
It’s a strangely disconcerting moment, for it seems almost as if they’re mocking me. That all the rest – all of the praise and laughter – is but an act.
And if it is?
It is a warning for me to be more careful. A reminder that I don’t really fit in around these people. That, like the sword brothers I was once among, these men would kill me were they to know the truth.
And so the evening passes and I find myself back in my huge room, fifteen floors down from the likes of Klug and Fischer, the chain on my door, hoping that Fischer won’t come visiting, that he’s found younger and more willing flesh to try.
I sleep, and wake to find myself bathed in sweat, gripping the bedclothes like I am about to fall, the dream I woke from making me gasp. My girls, but not my girls. My girls transformed, their flesh as pale as bleached ivory, their eyes like pearls, unseeing, each of them walking past me in that ruined, twilit landscape, my darling Katerina last of all.
Like the dead, their feet making no prints. As if they never were.
I lie there for a time, trembling like a frightened child, then go through and shower. What does it mean? That Kolya has disposed of them? Or is it just a dream? Am I wrong to give it meaning?
I go to the window and stand there, watching the sun rise over Neu Berlin, filled with dark forebodings, then turn and go to the wardrobe, where the do hu have hung my suit for the ceremony and, not bothering to call them, begin to dress.
373
The anteroom of the ancient Reichstag building is packed. More than a hundred academicians are there, with their servants and bodyguards, making their last-minute preparations. Only I, waiting in the wings of the great auditorium, Klug’s speech in hand, am unmoved. Like an island of calm in the midst of it all.
I have seen Klug already, in his palatial penthouse suite, to make the final small changes to his speech. Now there is nothing else to do but wait for the ceremony to begin.
That dream, that awful dream, has been on my mind all morning. Much as I’ve tried to draw a veil over it, the thing simply will not go away, fuelling my fear that something has changed; that Kolya has somehow made his move.
And if he has?
I don’t know. For once I am totally at a loss. Nor do I want to think it through. Not now, anyway. Not before this is done.
‘Otto!’ someone calls, and I see it is Theoretician Fischer. ‘Good luck with the speech!’ he says. ‘We’ll meet up later, yes?’
I nod, then turn back. All manner of dignitaries are on that massive stage now, taking their places before the ceremony begins, including the King, President Schafer and the Grand Master of the Guilds, Kurt Hammill, whose role within this State is far less influential than it will be in centuries to come.
And as I watch, so Klug is brought onstage, in a healing couch, to be placed between the King and the president, the great man beaming across at me, his protégé.
The main hall of that massive auditorium was packed already, but now the balconies begin to fill, the great men hurrying to their places, even as the room behind me empties, leaving me the last man standing.
I watch as a huge screen moves on its tracks overhead, while the projectors – there to give all the relevant illustrations to my talk – come to glowing life.
It is almost time.
A tall man in a dark cloak crosses the stage, stopping at the microphone, to turn and bow at the great dignitaries seated there. This is Meister Schwab, the Speaker of the Reichstag, and Schafer’s Chancellor. A powerful and charming man.
I stay where I am, waiting for his summons as he introduces me to the host. And as I do, I am aware just what a historical moment this is. This great gathering of the German hierarchy. Why, it’s like Nuremberg again. All that’s missing are the flags and banners, the torches burning up the darkness.
Finally, I hear my name, see Chancellor Schwab turn and summon me, and go across to a great storm of applause. And, as it falls quiet again, so I face them and begin.
Their enemy. The fake among them.
But that’s by the by. I am aware now of the massed ranks in the Reichstag below me, their eyes drawn to the things that are being projected into the air above me – pages of statistics and diagrams, still images of the procedure. It all goes well, yet as I come to the part about Reichenau and how he came to be, so that great audience gasp.
I half turn, still speaking, wondering what’s going on and realising as I do that the crowd is not looking at the images above me, but at something just beyond me.
And there, smiling at me, laser-gun in hand, is the unmistakable figure of Reichenau himself.
I fall silent.
And even as I do, so his voice sounds clear in that great, echoing space.
‘I hear you were looking for me, Otto. Only I’m very hard to find. Unless I want to be found.’
‘How do you do that?’ I ask him, narrowing my eyes, trying to guess what his next move will be, ignoring the great crowd that is witnessing our exchange. ‘How do you anticipate each move we make? Are you up there ahead of us in Time, looking back, or …?’
Only Reichenau is not listening. His smile has gone, his face is harder now. There is hatred in his eyes and on his small, n
arrow lips. Hatred and madness.
‘Time to die,’ he says, and pulls the trigger.
Part Thirteen
Pretzel Logic
‘We are stillborn, and for generations past have been begotten not by living fathers, and that suits us better and better. We are developing a taste for it. Soon we shall contrive to be born somehow from an idea.’
– Fyodor Dostoevsky, Notes from the Underground
374
I wake. To silence and stillness.
Someone is holding my hand. For the briefest moment I don’t recognise them, and then I smile. It’s Urte. I look up at her in wonder.
‘Why aren’t I dead?’
She smiles. A tender, anguished smile. ‘Who said you weren’t?’
‘Then … you brought me back?’
‘No. We kept you alive, then patched you up. You’re lucky to be here at all. He burned the focus out of your chest before you could react. We think he meant to take you with him, but we got to you first.’
I pull back the cover and look at my chest. There is discoloration but the skin is fine. They’ve done a good repair job on me.
‘How long have I been out?’
‘A month. But we sent you back. You haven’t missed anything.’
‘No? I—’
I look past her, sensing movement in the doorway on the far side of the room. It’s Ernst and Zarah, and, just behind them, Svetov. They all have a look of relief to them, and from that I realise how close I must have been to death. Proper end-of-it-all death.
‘Are you all right?’ Ernst asks. And I nod and smile and take his hands. Only one thing is eating away at me. One question that, it almost seems, I have been asking myself all the time I’ve been unconscious.
How does Reichenau know what we’re going to do every time?
If we could answer that, we’d surely have him.
But I say nothing of that yet. Instinct tells me I ought to let things stew a while. That an answer will come. But not until it’s time.
‘Otto?’
‘Yes, Urte?’
‘Do you feel up to visitors?’
I smile. ‘So you four aren’t visitors?’
‘No. I mean … it’s young Moseley. He wants to come and see you.’
‘Moseley?’ And for the briefest while I don’t recall who he means. But then it clicks. ‘Moseley? The one Gehlen was so insistent about?’
‘And for good reason,’ Ernst says. ‘The man’s a genius.’
‘As are they all—’
‘Yes, but …’ Ernst laughs, a sharp, strange sound. ‘Well, you’ll see.’
And so, an hour later, Moseley comes to visit, the young man – in his mid-twenties at most – dressed in Edwardian clothes, his dark hair cut short, his black boots highly polished.
He looks the very picture of his age.
‘Meister,’ he begins, bowing to me, but I’m having none of that.
‘It’s Otto,’ I say, and, from where I sit propped up among my cushions, I indicate the chair nearby.
He takes the seat, then clears his throat, his whole manner awkward. ‘Thank you for seeing me,’ he says. ‘And thank you for bringing me here, to Four-Oh. I …’
‘It wasn’t me,’ I say, before he gets too effusive. ‘Gehlen wanted you. He was insistent.’
‘Maybe, but … I was dead. In my world, I mean. Or my timeline, should I say. Shot dead at Gallipoli. My best work ahead of me. But here …’ He looks down. ‘I’ve never felt so free. So … happy, I guess. And to be in such company … I keep thinking I’m dreaming all of this … that some time soon I’ll find myself awake again, back in the trenches at Gallipoli, thick layers of flies covering everything. Or maybe that was the dream. A bad dream, but a dream all the same. Because I feel alive here. Truly alive.’
I smile. ‘You’re welcome. But look, why are you here? What do you want?’
‘Want? No, Meister. I don’t want anything. Not for myself. But I’ve heard what’s been happening, and I thought … Well, I wondered if I could help. If you ran things past me, I … Look, I know it seems immodest but, it’s what I do. What my mind does, rather. It connects things. Comes up with answers. It always has done, since I was a boy. And I thought …’
‘Then you thought right,’ I say, knowing instinctively that this is what was needed. For someone to come along and look at it all from a fresh viewpoint.
And so we begin. Randomly. Me pulling things from the air and him asking questions. Until, suddenly, he lifts a hand to stop me.
‘Okay. I think I see what it is.’
‘You do?’
He nods. ‘Our friend, Reichenau … imagine if you looked like him – if you had to suffer that other brain in your head, there all the time? What would you do?’
I shrug. What would I do?
Moseley leans toward me. ‘I’d go back and change it, wouldn’t you?’
‘Maybe …’
‘No. No maybes about it. You would. So why doesn’t he? Why can’t he?’
‘I don’t know. I …’
‘What if Meister Klug’s footnotes were true, and Kolya did give over his illegitimate child to become a doppelgehirn? And what if he wants it to remain that way? What if Kolya is preventing Reichenau from making that change, possibly even protecting that section of Time against Reichenau?’
I consider that, realising, even as I do, that I am excited by the idea. Kolya and Reichenau, not friends at all, but enemies! All this time I have been wrongly assuming that they have been working together, when in truth …
‘Schikaneder,’ I say. ‘That’s who we need to see.’ And though Moseley does not follow me, I see it clearly. Yes, it’s time to pay our artist friend another visit. To ask him a few more questions. By knife-point if necessary.
And, throwing the sheet back, I swing my legs round. ‘Come,’ I say to Moseley. ‘There’s not a moment to be lost.’
375
But first I go to see Old Schnorr.
‘Master Schnorr,’ I say, looking across at him from the doorway. ‘I need some information about Herr Schikaneder.’
‘Come on in, Otto,’ the old man says, gesturing towards the empty chair just across from where he’s working, his thick-lensed glasses on. ‘It’s good to see you well.’
I turn, meaning to introduce Moseley to him, but Schnorr anticipates me.
‘Henry … how is it going?’
‘Well, Master Schnoor. Very well. But Otto needs some information urgently.’
‘About Schikaneder?’ And he puts down whatever it is he seems to be mending and looks at me. ‘What kind of thing, Otto?’
‘His real name, for a start.’
Schnorr seems to freeze. His eyes fix mine. ‘No, I—’
‘I need to know,’ I insist. ‘And all else you know about him.’
The silence between us stretches. Breaks.
‘Hecht,’ he says. ‘His given name was Hecht, Klaus Hecht.’
‘No,’ I say. ‘I don’t believe it. He’s nothing like Master Hecht. He looks nothing like him.’
‘No,’ he concedes, ‘but he shares the same mother.’
‘So he’s a half-brother?’
‘Yes. but look, there’s little else to say. He didn’t fit, so we exiled him. End of story.’
‘And yet Kolya contacted him. He was the only one. And that must mean something.’ I shake my head, trying to figure this. ‘Did Hecht – our Hecht – ever get to see him? In Prague, I mean?’
‘Not as far as I know.’
‘But he might have?’
‘You’d have to ask the women. They’d know for certain. Or Albrecht. If he’ll tell you details of his brother’s life.’
I turn and look to Moseley. ‘Henry, will you look into that?’
He nods and is gone. I turn back, looking to Old Schnorr again. ‘It has to be him. He’s the piece that doesn’t fit the puzzle.’
376
And so, just an hour later, I find myself back in Prague, on
the fifth of December, 1892, the day after I visited Schikaneder for the first time.
As I make my way across the Charles Bridge towards Schikaneder’s house, it’s snowing once more. My gun is tucked into the pocket of my long coat, my knife sheathed at my belt. And, in a folder in my hand, I have a picture of Reichenau that I drew from memory.
The hour is late, the roads almost empty. As I make my way through the Jewish Quarter, I find myself whistling an old folk tune. A Russian song, I realise and laugh. Korobuska …
And find myself facing a smallish figure in a cloak.
My hand goes to my knife.
‘Good evening,’ the figure says in perfect Russian, and as they throw back the hood, I see it is a woman. A very young and very pretty woman.
‘You’re not from here, are you?’ she says, and smiles.
A whore? I wonder. She looks too sweet, far too well dressed, to be a whore. But why else would she be out here at such an hour? And why approach a stranger such as I, unless …?
I draw my knife a moment after she’s drawn hers, and as she lunges, targeting my heart, so I quickly jerk aside and, tugging the gun from my pocket, strike out, using the handle as a club.
I can feel the bone crack. Hear her strange little croak as she tumbles and lies still, the knife clattering away on the icy paving.
Urd protect me! I think, crouching to feel for a pulse, knowing that she is dead. Then, knowing I need to hide her, I take her by the feet and pull her across the street, rolling her beneath a bush that serves as the boundary to the garden of one of the nearby houses.
I cross back. There’s little blood, luckily for me, and, picking up her knife, I look about me, then hurry on. Only I’m rattled now. Does this mean that Kolya knows I’m here? And if so, will there be other assassins on my way, waiting to jump out and ambush me?
I take two paces then stop dead, realising that I’ve not been thinking, that I ought to be jumping back to Four-Oh to let them know what has just happened. Only I know that if I do, he’ll jump back in – if it is Kolya – and bring her back to life. Then try again.
The Master of Time: Roads to Moscow: Book Three Page 14
