Absorption: Ragnarok v. 1 (Ragnarock 1)

by John Meaney

  Over the coming months and years, Gavriela sometimes met a lover - but only in her dreams, and though she sometimes woke with Roger’s name upon her lips, by the time she came to full wakefulness, the shards of remembered fantasy had sunk into amnesia.

  It continued that way until the decade’s end, when nightmare rushed into the waking world, as German tanks began to mobilize and the warlike mood strengthened, after the horror known as Kristallnacht descended out of nowhere.

  Even after Kristallnacht, there had been letters from Berlin. But as the year slipped from ’38 to ’39, the news became worse. Many of those imprisoned at first were released - save for the two thousand beaten to death during their incarceration; but then the true intention of the Nazi state revealed itself. News became darker, whispered rumours and the things that were not stated in the newspapers; and eventually, no more letters from Berlin, none at all.

  Switzerland, determined to maintain neutrality, continued to run train services, though no one pretended these were normal times. It was possible, if you chose to risk it, to travel into Germany.

  One morning in September, nearly a full year after Kristallnacht, Gavriela walked to the Hauptbahnhof without luggage and bought three return tickets to Berlin. As she boarded alone, she could only hope - or delude herself - that her parents would be with her on the journey back.

  Dmitri awoke to the sight of pert buttocks - four cheeks, two nice little arses - bare to the air in his bed. Piotr and Ludmilla were brother and sister, and very willing. To do anything, for so little payment, but never for free.

  They were in his bed, but he was alone, and always would be.

  He rolled out, bare feet on the cold floor, and found the greatcoat he used as a dressing-gown. Then he pulled it on, slid open the wooden door to the hallway, and grabbed his towel and soap from the table inside the apartment’s front door. He could have washed with the pitcher and bowl in his room, but he preferred the communal bathroom.

  Also, it was a test. If any of his belongings were disturbed on his return, he would take it out on Ludmilla first, then her lovely brother. And the valuable stuff was beneath floorboards, at the back of the pantry, and underneath the wardrobe, in hiding-places that amateurs were unlikely to discover.

  Back in his bedroom after getting washed, his hair slicked down and tightly combed, he dressed quickly, using double knots on his shoelaces as always, because the ability to run could be a lifesaver. His twin stilettos went into their usual hidden sheaths - on his left forearm and left calf - because they could be deathbringers.

  He adjusted collar studs and cuff-links, checked his reflection, ran the comb through his beard, then turned to the two naked teenagers on his bed.

  ‘Be out of here by nine. Take your present from the table by the door.’

  Pulling on his overcoat and fur hat, he left.

  The street was cold in the early morning, wide and deserted - like Paris but free of traffic, for only a few official cars ever passed along the wide boulevards. Few Muscovites would know what Paris looked like; but Dmitri was no ordinary citizen, and the comparison seemed natural to him.

  There was a large M over the station entrance, and whether you pronounced it mye-tra or mé-tro, it was still the same thing, another similarity. Dmitri descended into the depths of Dobrininskya Station with his fellow commuters.

  Here, the similarity to Paris ended. The walls were a yellow neo-Renaissance splendour, with a mosaic whose nearest Parisian counterpart was inside the Louvre, not an underground railway station. But Moscow’s Metro stations were palaces of the future, with crystal chandeliers and the most expensive marble, each station unique in its artistic architecture.

  In a secular state, the proletariat’s faith was restricted to their descendants’ hopes for prosperity; the stations were a reminder that such mundane paradise was possible.

  At Park Kultury, sometimes called Gorky Park but never officially, he alighted from the Circle Line. Coffee-coloured swirls in marble surrounded gleaming white panels; and again the chandeliers shone.

  He made two interruptions to his journey, both short stops to meet informants, and finally reached Dzerzhninsky Square, where Beria’s fearsome statue frowned down upon the citizens who dared not look upon his face.

  Inside Headquarters, a young lieutenant saluted and said: ‘Sir, Colonel Yavorski would like to see you now.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  There was a samovar in the canteen full of the dark tea he needed to get his brain functional. But if the colonel said now, he expected instant compliance. Dmitri’s shoes clicked along the parquet flooring, then he knocked on the colonel’s door and slid it open.

  ‘Sit down,’ said Yavorski, ‘so I can thank you properly for another job well done.’

  ‘Sir?’

  Dmitri closed the door and crossed to the hardbacked chair, while Yavorski took his place behind the heavy desk, beneath which was slung a holstered Stechkin pistol that was supposed to be a secret.

  So what kind of thanks do I get today?

  Inside, he smiled, though his face remained blank. He had dark impulses, betraying what he thought was right; and he had twisty impulses, driving him to betray the darkness inside him, to trick the Trickster. It gave him a love of gambling, though he despised money.

  He preferred more interesting stakes.

  ‘I’m referring,’ said Yavorski, ‘to one of your perspicacious reports from several years back.’

  There was a folder on his desk. A vindication or proof of incompetence?

  Here it comes.

  Yavorski tapped the folder.

  ‘The Nationalist Socialist movement in Germany has risen from obscurity to power, as you predicted. Although how you could guess that Hindenberg would offer the Reichschancellorship to Hitler, I have no idea. Luckily, your report was my defence.’

  ‘Thank you, sir. I knew that Hitler has . . . persuasive powers.’

  ‘Well, good. Without your report . . . I’m just glad we’re not in the regular army. Do you have any idea how many officers have been shot by our Great Leader’s order?’

  ‘Not exactly, sir.’

  But he knew that thanks to Josef Stalin’s actions, the military was almost headless, leaving only ordinary troops who would do whatever the Great Leader said, but without the strategic and tactical experience to wage any kind of true warfare.

  ‘Only the British have been yelping about German rearmament, and that’s stirring things up in an interesting way, because the Great Leader despises the British above all.’

  ‘They are reactionary imperialists, sir.’

  ‘True, and this little Bavarian corporal heads the National Socialist party, but they’re the natural enemies of Bolshevism, not our allies.’

  ‘Allies?’

  ‘Premier Stalin will do the opposite of whatever the British want. That, I’m sure of.’

  ‘That’s . . . very interesting, Colonel.’

  ‘But you think the Germans will turn on us later, even if they sign a treaty of alliance?’

  This was the kind of question that could make the difference between promotion and the firing-squad.

  ‘I do.’

  ‘Privately, Dmitri, I agree with you. But I’d like you to be far away from here, just in case someone disagrees with your assessment.’

  So this was to be an assignment. Every nerve thrummed with alertness.

  ‘The west is a known quantity, at least to me,’ Yavorski continued. ‘What I need is a linguist with a devious mind to work on the east.’

  ‘Within the USSR, sir?’

  He knew that western Europeans woefully underestimated the vastness of the Soviet empire, far larger than the United States of America, and the mix of peoples from Aryan types to Mongol, all united by the common tongue of Russia, just as Latin once united Europe.

  ‘You’ll spend a few weeks in the Kueriles,’ said Yavorski. ‘But only to acclimatize and equip yourself. There’s a ship arriving with your assistant ab
oard, an experienced man called Sergei Alegeev, who’s quite a wrestler.’

  Dmitri blinked, then asked the question Yavorski was clearly expecting.

  ‘A wrestler, sir?’

  ‘Once you’re in Tokyo, he’ll use his contacts at the judo headquarters, the Kodokan, to help you. It’s not the sportsmen we’re interested in, it’s their military connections.’

  The Kuerile Islands had long been disputed territory. The Japanese claimed they belonged to the emperor, not to Mother Russia.

  ‘I did the usual sambo course in training,’ said Dmitri. ‘Is it similar?’

  Yavorski looked left and right, an indication that whatever he was about to say, he would deny later.

  ‘Sambo actually is judo, but we’ve erased the story of its origins for the usual reasons. So now it’s a purely Soviet discipline, not a Japanese art with a few add-ons from our territories’ native wrestling.’

  Dmitri remembered hearing about a top judo man being executed, and had dismissed the case as unimportant.

  ‘You want me to observe the Japanese military, sir?’

  ‘The Great Leader is terrified - or would be if he weren’t so courageous - of the Japanese intentions. So, by the way, are the few surviving generals who are giving thought to the current situation.’

  Rubbing his face, Dmitri thought it might be allowable to reveal his ignorance at this point.

  ‘I’m no expert on the Orient. Not yet.’

  ‘Trust me, Dmitri, neither am I, but I’m clear on one thing.’ Yavorksi tapped the folder again. Perhaps it wasn’t Dmitri’s work, but a different dossier. ‘The Japanese have held Manchuria even longer than the other new territories, from Burma to the Philippines. Think of it - Vladivostok is surrounded by the bastards. Either they’ll go all out into central China at some point, or they’ll turn their attention to us. But they don’t have the resources for both.’

  ‘Ah.’ Dmitri thought about the geography, and the Chinese ‘magnetic warfare’ strategy that had drawn the invaders so far inland already, at huge cost. ‘They might decide we’re the easier target. ’

  ‘Precisely. However murky and complex your job gets out there, that’s the simple heart of it. Do they intend to attack us? Answer that question, and your mission is fulfilled.’

  Dmitri nodded. This was more clarity than he often had before a long-term assignment. Now he could assimilate the details against a background of understanding, a logical context.

  ‘We have the force of dialectical materialism on our side, Colonel. Our victory is inevitable.’

  Yavorski smiled, reached beneath his desk - going for the pistol? - then pulled open a drawer and extracted a large bottle of Stolichnaya, the lemon vodka that he loved and Dmitri detested, but had never said.

  ‘Let’s drink to that, Dmitri.’

  In Amsterdam, Ilse Wolf was working at home, poring over a ledger on the kitchen table, when the brass knocker rapped twice on the front door - surely not Erik, having forgotten something - then a third time. A stranger’s knock.

  She capped her fountain pen, used blotting paper on the figures she had written, then went to answer the door.

  ‘Ah, Frau Wolf. You remember me, I trust? Hans t’Hooft, from the Census Bureau?’

  He smelled of hair tonic, his blond hair slick, his parting made with razor precision.

  ‘Um, yes. Of course. Erik’s already left for the office.’

  ‘That is good, because it is you I would like to see. Shall we go inside?’

  Ilse was already inside, and every instinct warned her to slam the door shut. But this was one of Erik’s colleagues, and the job was important. Or perhaps it was the disquieting news from Germany that made her feel the need for conversation with someone she recognized, even if she disliked them.

  ‘I was just going to make some tea.’

  ‘That would be very nice, Ilse. It’s all right if I call you Ilse?’

  ‘Um . . .’ She shook her head, then headed for the kitchen. ‘Please sit yourself in the front parlour, Herr t’Hooft.’

  But he followed her into the kitchen, and stood too close as she filled the kettle, popped the whistle over the spout, and put it on the range.

  His tongue was like a snake’s as it flickered across his lips.

  Ilse said: ‘May I ask what you wanted to talk about?’

  ‘You may.’ From his inside pocket, he withdrew a punched card. ‘You know what this is?’

  Ilse wiped her hands on a tea-towel, although they were clean.

  ‘It’s a Hollerith card.’

  ‘An impressive answer, but quite incorrect, dear beautiful Ilse. You are very beautiful, did you know that?’

  She backed away, cloth held before her.

  ‘I’m a married woman, Herr t’Hooft.’

  ‘Plainly, but you haven’t identified this, not clearly.’ He held the card out to her, then gave a smile, and slipped it back inside his jacket. ‘It’s your death sentence.’

  Ilse’s ears filled with a sound like rushing surf.

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘Erik Wolf is a Jew. His card marks him as such. Plainly.’

  A sick greenish phosphorescence seemed to slide across her vision.

  ‘No . . .’

  ‘Surely you knew you were marrying a Jew.’

  She shook her head.

  ‘For certain’ - again the flickering lick - ‘favours, it might be possible to alter incriminating information. Certain intimate favours.’

  ‘Incriminating? There’s nothing criminal about—’

  ‘Surely you follow the news. Wehrmacht tanks will be rolling along Amsterdam streets in a matter of months, and we’ve already had certain - well, private visitors - who have indicated how useful it will be to use machine searches for vermin.’

  From the range, a whistle sounded, steam flowing through the kettle’s spout: a touch of domesticity amid the monstrous.

  ‘No.’ She let her hands drop, the tea-towel dangling to the floor. ‘Please . . . the kettle.’

  ‘By all means take it off the boil. But let’s not pretend it’s tea I’m interested in.’

  Her hand was shaking as she reached for the kettle—

  Dear God. Dear God.

  —and swung it backhand, pivoting fast, smacking its weight into t’Hooft’s temple. There was a soft crunch, and scalding water splashed on her hand. She yelled, then put the kettle down.

  ‘Oh, no. Oh, no.’

  Blood so dark it was almost purple was welling from the supine man’s head. The slick hair was splayed like wires, or the limbs of a daddy-long-legs.

  ‘Oh, no.’

  Then she crouched down, reached inside the corpse’s jacket with her unburned hand, and extracted what she needed.

  So much evil, contained in a rectangle of innocuous card.

  THIRTY-FOUR

  FULGOR, 2603 AD

  A nightmare tipped Roger into wakefulness before dawn. Grey images of heading on a train into a city filled with danger were evaporating, scarlet banners marked with a hooked cross, and then the real world coming into focus. In seconds, he had forgotten why he woke, remembering that he had gone two days without sleep prior to last night; and his body needed more.

  But he had screwed up - possibly - by taking Alisha to the Zajinet Research Institute. There was something very sharp about the Weissmann woman - that came back to him now - and he did not like the way she had looked at him.

  Had he betrayed himself and his family?

  ‘If we ever get tripped up,’ Dad told him when he was young, ‘it will be through something trivial, something utterly harmless. So we treat each everyday action as non-routine. We focus on the moment, always. And lead better lives as a result.’

  Later, when Roger was older, Dad had explained it differently: a streetwise fighter learns to put his or her attention out in the world, always aware of the current threat level - and in doing so, adopts a form of mindfulness that both mystic and psychological disciplines hav
e aimed at for millennia.

  ‘It’s why Zen and killing are linked,’ he said, ‘when they ought to be opposites.’

  In the context of holodramas like Roger’s favourite, Fighting Shadows, there was something exciting in such discussions. But in the reality of everyday life, the likelihood of prison sentences arising from careless words delivered when exhausted . . . it was just too stupid.

  I’ve got to talk to Dad.