# Controlled Circumcision

Vladimir Kolyshkin

CONTROLLED CIRCUMCISION


by Vladimir Kolyshkin


"The Philistine Goliath was huge and powerful; it seemed that little David could never defeat him. But David spun his sling and loosed a stone straight into the giant's forehead. Goliath staggered and crashed to the ground so hard the earth shook. Then David took the Philistine’s long, heavy sword and, with a great swing, struck off his head."


— The Bible. Old Testament.


"Sometimes I wonder what the world would be like without me?"


— Adolf Hitler


1.


The basement of the Sterneckerbräu beer hall had likely once been used for the private, drunken revelries of state councilors. But now, by the spring of 1920, everything had fallen into decay. A single small window looked out onto a narrow alleyway. Despite the sunny morning, the vaulted room held the dimness and chill of a crypt. The gaze was oppressed by bare brick walls, from which a stingy landlord had stripped the wooden paneling before leasing this cellar. The furnishings were pathetic—a few chairs, a lectern, a table, and a safe. A state of "business chaos" reigned everywhere: piles of leaflets, posters, proclamations, and various propaganda rags lay scattered across the floor.


Seated at the table was a man—young, yet visibly worn down by life. His attire was peculiar: soldier’s boots, civilian trousers, a tattered military tunic from the days of the battles for Flanders, and a fashionable civilian tie that clashed violently with the image of a demobilized soldier whose "mental backside" was still stuck in the trenches. Hoping to catch some warmth in the cold basement, he had an equally old greatcoat without epaulettes thrown over his shoulders; a bourgeois cap covered his head.


Generally speaking, this strange fusion of petty-bourgeois and military elements in both dress and thought—so characteristic of the National Socialists—always gave their movement a peculiar, dual nature.


Whistling a flat rendition of "Deutschland über Alles," he pecked with two fingers at the keys of a battered old Adler typewriter. He would pause to warm his frozen hands with his breath before returning to work.


The door opened, and three men entered. Respectable gentlemen. All wore identical long black coats reaching down to their heels, as if from the same tailor; white scarves and unusually high bowler hats.


Noticing the newcomers, the man abandoned his work, smiled warmly, and offered a greeting. The visitors, who appeared to be foreigners, grumbled something unintelligible in return. The host was momentarily flustered; it took a few moments for his shell-shocked brain to realize that the visitors had greeted him in Dutch. "Goede morgen," they had said, which means "Good morning." That was exactly how a certain Dutchman used to offer greetings—a man who, for some reason, had been mixed in among the French and Russian prisoners of war. That was back in the terrible year of eighteen...


"What would you like to know, kind sirs?" the basement dweller inquired affably; it was clear he was fed up with the paperwork and glad for any excuse for a distraction.


"Of course, they are our primary enemy. But with our own sloppiness, we are merely playing into the hands of international Jewry."


"Forgive me, I’m just run off my feet," his comrade replied. "I can’t be everywhere at once. I’m the clerk, the typist, the courier, and the... oh, whatever! Fine, fine, I’m going!.."


Just then, the telephone rang—a prehistoric, monstrous contraption in the eyes of the strange trio.


"There it is," Schüssler lunged back, clutching his slipping greatcoat, and snatched the receiver: "Hello? Yes... He is here..."


The propaganda chief stepped forward, took the receiver from the clerk, and pressed the comical, pretzel-shaped device to his ear.


"Hitler speaking. No. Anton Drexler won't be back until tomorrow. At the locomotive depot... Yes, he understands; he’s a mechanical locksmith, after all. I cannot; I have a speech elsewhere. Definitely. What?.. What was the question?" Listening distractedly to the vocal outpouring from the receiver, the propaganda chief hurried his dawdling colleague with a wave of his hand—get going, get going.


Schüssler hurried away, slamming the door and dropping some piece of paper in his wake.


"Listen, you are dealing with nonsense..." Hitler said in a raised voice to his invisible interlocutor, "...harmful nonsense that distracts from the real work. No, listen to me! The fate of the world is not decided by whether Catholics defeat Protestants or vice versa, but by whether Aryan humanity is preserved on our earth or becomes extinct. Yes, yes, that is exactly how the question stands... Tell them that... One must think globally and... futuristically. Goodbye, I have no time. I have people waiting."


"Now, I am listening to you, gentlemen," Hitler said, dropping the receiver onto the apparatus's cradle and crossing his arms over his chest (a defensive posture from a psychological standpoint). "Forgive me, you never did give your names..."


"By all means," the eldest replied, introducing himself and his colleagues: "Nathan Cassel. Ezra Kor-Beit. Goldie Darjan."


The wisps of Hitler’s mustache twitched angrily and rose of their own accord. He shifted an indignant yet triumphant gaze from the grey-haired Nathan to the stocky figure of Kor-Beit, and lingered on the slender, youthful Goldie. A second later, Hitler realized this fellow was no boy at all, but a woman disguised in men’s clothing. A Jewish George Sand, the Aryan smirked. Furthermore, they bore little resemblance to newspaper hacks—those scribblers whose hands are stained with ink like a butcher's with blood. They, even the woman, looked more like fighters. Perhaps Spartacists, Commies... or from the "Erhart Auer Guard" of the Social Democrats. Jews were swarming there...


"Who are you?" the propaganda chief demanded firmly.


"I hold the rank of Major in the Israeli Army," Nathan replied, "and these are my subordinates: a Lieutenant (a nod toward the girl) and a Sergeant (a gesture toward Kor-Beit). We are from the Mossad. Special Operations Department."


"What kind of city is that? Never heard of it," Hitler said, adding acidly: "Are you already raising an army?.. International Jewry prepares for war!"


"Mossad is not a city, it is the secret service of the State of Israel. And as for the war..."


"Israel!" Hitler exclaimed, his eyes bulging so far it seemed they might drop from their sockets. "A State!? More news! And where is this... state located?" The gangly man spat again, as if ridiculing another piece of rotten meat. "In Palestine, perhaps? Or somewhere in Egypt? Or maybe..." the man with the mustache guffawed, "maybe at the North Pole or in Antarctica?!"


"You guessed it at once," Nathan Cassel replied. "But that is beside the point. This is not a geography lesson..."


"Then what is it?" Embittered, Hitler raised his voice. "What is going on here?!"


"A lesson in vengeance," the girl answered for her superior, drawing a pistol from somewhere. It was heavy for a girl’s hand, with a long tube screwed onto the barrel.


A chill ran down Hitler’s spine. Yet, it couldn't be said that he was greatly afraid. His defiant fearlessness in the face of reality was not without a touch of mania.


But he realized he was in a tight spot. He had expected something like this. From the communist traitors he had been identifying for the liquidation commission of the Second Infantry Regiment after the fall of the Soviet Republic in Bavaria (he hadn't caught them all, it seemed). Or from orthodox Jewry—from some madman like Gavrilo Princip, who killed Archduke Ferdinand in Sarajevo. He, Hitler, had attacked them too openly, too frantically. Society wasn't used to it yet; he should have worked more insidiously, more carefully, but now it might be too late. “Damm it, just my luck, letting Schüssler go... And I was too overconfident... Believing too much in my own chosen status...”


Apathy and despondency gripped him... but then, as if receiving a charge of vital energy from somewhere, he came alive: "No, I wasn't, I am! I am! And I shall be!! I cannot die!!!"


Some sixth sense told him clearly that an exquisite future awaited him, when all his boldest dreams would come true—perhaps with a terrible end, but not now, not for at least another quarter of a century. And in that time—brilliant victories in some fantastically illuminated world. He could already see the banners, the armies, the triumphal parades—and suddenly this veil shrouding his waking dreams was rudely and unexpectedly torn away. It sparked fury.


"What am I accused of?" Hitler asked, barely restraining himself, hoping he might still talk his way out. After all, it wasn't the first time he'd faced danger—at the front, during demonstrations, in brawls with communists at meetings... As had happened so often, a miracle would occur, and Fate would spare him, leaving him to fulfill his great mission.


"Your misfortune is that you think too 'globally,' and therefore, in the future, you will commit terrible crimes against humanity," said the one called Nathan Cassel.


"...and specifically against the Jewish people," Goldie added. "The word 'Holocaust' is unknown to you as of now, but to us, it is all too familiar... Here, look. Admire your own handiwork... Ezra, present the evidence to the accused."


The hulking man pulled a fan of glossy sheets from his pocket and thrust them under the defendant's nose. Hitler recoiled, squinting nearsightedly at the photographs depicting piles of heaped corpses and bulldozers shoving a human mess into a massive trench; and there was something else there, truly horrific...


For Hitler's vegetarian consciousness, seeing such a quantity of meat—and bones, for that matter—was unbearable. He felt nauseous.


"What is this?" he rasped, recoiling further.


"Concentration camps, gas chambers, mass executions, crematoria, millions of victims..."


Goldie's voice wavered; her throat tightened, and tears rolled down her cheeks. However, she mastered herself, raised her pistol, and racked the slide. Her companions also drew their weapons and readied them.


"In the name of the people of Israel..." Nathan Cassel announced.


Hitler was suddenly struck blind. Shock shook his frame to its core, and darkness rolled in. It was as if the sickness from which he thought he was cured forever had returned. His eyes stung just as they had at Ypres, on that cold autumn night in October 1918, when on a hill near Wervicq, he was caught under a multi-hour barrage of British gas shells. For a second, a saving thought occurred: perhaps his post-hospital life was merely a hallucination that had tormented him incessantly while his eyes turned into burning coals—and he would now wake up in a hospital bed in Pasewalk. From somewhere in the darkness, the invisible hand of a sister of mercy would approach and touch his cheek with soft warmth, and a gentle voice would say: "Corporal Hitler, wake up, it's time for your procedures."


But it was no angelic voice he heard, but the harsh words of a court-martial sentence. It was so absurd that only fragments reached his stunned consciousness:


"Preventive sentence... grateful humanity... carry out immediately."


In a frantic attempt to save himself, he tried to talk them down, employing his obvious mediumistic abilities, as if the Devil himself spoke through his lips. Но его прервали, толкнули к стене.


And then he remembered the automatic weapon weighing down his back pocket. Knowing he wouldn't have time to thumb the safety, chamber a round, or much less fire, he still whipped out the Browning and aimed it at the figures, barely visible like shadows.


Nine quiet thuds echoed under the stone vaults of the crypt-basement. Each agent fired three times. God loves a trinity.


The promising folk tribune fell dead.


"Perform the controlled circumcision," Nathan ordered Sergeant Kor-Beit, unscrewing his still-smoking silencer.


The hulking sergeant extended a bent finger bearing a massive gold ring, took aim as he leaned over the executed man, and pressed a microscopic button. The ring’s setting flipped aside, and from deep within the ring, a dull crimson light flared, bursting forth. A ruby needle slashed across the neck of the Jewish people’s primary enemy. The smell of burnt meat filled the air, like in a crematorium. The enemy’s head separated from the torso, rolled across the floor, and stopped, staring at the ceiling with wide-open, glassy eyes.


Lieutenant Darjan grabbed Hitler's head by the hair, lifted it, and holding it before her, spat in the dead Aryan’s face.


"Curse you, you snake! I've dreamed of this moment since I was a child..."


"Nothing personal, Lieutenant," the grey-haired man chided. "We are fulfilling the will of our people... Hurry now!"


Sergeant Kor-Beit unfolded a light but sturdy bag and opened the flap. Goldie threw the bloody cabbage-head into the black abyss of the bag. The zipper shrieked as the sergeant closed the flap.


"The deed is done!" he said.


"Moving out!" the grey-haired major ordered his subordinates.


2.


The brilliant April sun blinded them as they stepped out onto the street. There was a clear sky over all of Bavaria—deep, blue, and washed clean by the spring. Keeping their composure, they walked along the pavement, professionally avoiding looking around yet noticing everything.


Around the corner, a vehicle that looked like a Packard—but equipped with a much more powerful engine and reinforced suspension—was supposed to be waiting for them. However, the car was nowhere to be seen. Or rather, it was hidden by a gathered crowd. Nathan wedged himself into the thick of the onlookers and immediately recoiled, a grotesque image forever etched into his visual memory: a mangled Studebaker lying on its side, the Packard’s radiator crumpled like an accordion, its doors caved inward. And a vast amount of shattered glass. And blood.


Onlookers jostled the policemen; the policemen pushed back. Rumors and chatter echoed from all sides: "The driver was killed instantly... right there..." "Which driver?" "The one in the Studebaker. He slammed into the Packard at full speed." "And who was in the other car?" "They say it was empty, just parked there. Otherwise..." "His own fault. They swig schnapps first thing in the morning and then get behind the wheel..." "Too true." "They drive like madmen, ready to mow you down. Especially these 'New Germans.' They think because they got rich on the people's misery, they're allowed anything." "Well said. It was safer with horses..." "The laws need to be tightened!" a man of bourgeois appearance declared gloomily—a typical völkisch type. "Right you are, genosse." "You'll answer for that 'genosse' as an insult, you filthy Inter! Probably served in the Red Army, you red-ass. Where were you in May of nineteen? Pity they didn't hang all of you when the Soviets were liquidated..." "I was where I was! We have freedom of speech! Long live the Soviet Republic!" the Red wailed and began to sing: "Wacht auf, verdammte dieser Erde!.." "I'll show you freedom, you crooked-mouthed devil... with a baton to the skull," the policeman snapped. "That’s the spirit," the völkisch man chimed in. "That’s the Bavarian way, and I’ll lend a hand..."


But the policeman, shamed by his lack of restraint, bellowed in a more official tone: "Don't press in, citizens! Go about your business, this isn't the cinema." "And if I'm unemployed, Herr Officer, where should I go?" "Wherever you like, just get out of my sight." "There you go, just like my wife..."


The crowd, hungry for a spectacle, clamored and grew like a rolling snowball. Approaching his team, Nathan said in a muffled voice: "The car is gone. Smashed to bits." "And the mobile platform?" Goldie asked, horror in her eyes. "Likely the same..." "What do we do?" Kor-Beit panicked, clutching the bag under his arm as if he could hide it that way. "Maybe I should go take a look?.." "Stay calm. We wait for the outcome. If the apparatus is intact, we’ll claim the car. If not..." "The electronic controller is testing the circuits right now," Kor-Beit commented with technical precision. "Most likely, the device is beyond recovery. If so, the self-destruct pyrotechnic charge will trigger." "We have to warn the people!" Goldie fretted. "No need. Everything is accounted for," the technician reassured her.


Hardly had he spoken when smoke began to billow from the crash site. The crowd recoiled. And when a fountain of brilliant sparks erupted, everyone began to scatter. The policemen retreated with the dignity of soldiers. The stage of the drama cleared, laid bare to their sight. As expected, the cause of the commotion was the long-suffering Packard. Or rather, its remains. They suddenly flared up as if doused in gasoline. That was what everyone assumed. The twisted metal burned like paper, blazing with a fierce flame. The heat of the thermite mixture, melting the metal, reached even the mysterious trio standing at a distance.


Finally, the fireworks exhausted themselves. The fire died out as abruptly as it had begun. No one was hurt—except for the aforementioned trio. They had lost their means of transportation. And not just across space...


"Well, that’s that," the elder summarized. "We’ll have to go on foot."


And so they walked, trying not to break any traffic rules to avoid being detained. This proved difficult, as no rules seemed to exist. And they call themselves Germans! The sidewalks were packed with people, and the roadway, like most Munich streets, was saturated with a flow of automobiles and horse-drawn transport. People dashed across the streets not just at intersections but wherever they pleased, darting literally under the noses of drivers. Trams clanged, cars croaked, honked, and beeped. Everyone steered wherever they wanted. It was a hell called an urban street in the 1920s.


They had to mobilize all their attention and be extremely cautious. They yielded the way to strollers and those in a hurry with a courtesy uncharacteristic of true Bavarians. They crossed intersections with the talkative crowd, yet they were still nearly struck by another stray car.


Nathan cursed and instinctively looked at the bag Kor-Beit was carrying.


To avoid further risk, they decided to take a carriage; one happened to be nearby. But as soon as they approached the cab, the horse grew agitated, snorted, and recoiled from them. Perhaps it caught the scent of fresh blood. Not realizing this, Kor-Beit tried to steady the horse, grabbing it by the bridle. At that, the animal went completely wild, neighing fiercely and rearing up. The driver cursed: "Teufel!" and swung his whip at the suspicious youth.


They had to take the tram instead. A wooden car on iron wheels rolled up, decorated with garish advertisements. Boarding was organized, strictly in turn; here, the Bavarians showed their discipline. A young girl gave up her seat to Nathan. He refused at first, then sat on the wooden bench and thanked the thoughtful fräulein. Nathan and Goldie stood nearby, pressing as close to their chief as possible. The conductor approached them and took the fare. Nathan paid for everyone. Clinking the pfennigs of change, the conductor thought that a gentleman like this belonged in a Rolls-Royce, not in a rattling tram full of commoners. But the rich have their whims. Or maybe he wasn't rich anymore—bankrupt, likely. What times these were! No Kaiser. No strong hand. Nothing. Just democracy. Imagine: the good old Reich—a republic! And where will it lead? Lord, help us all.


To mislead any potential pursuers, Goldie—noticing the conductor’s suspicious gaze—asked how much longer until the "Odeonsplatz" stop. The conductor replied that it wouldn't be long, exactly five stops, and that he would announce it specially for them. Having answered, the conductor turned away to his post, glancing back at Goldie once more on the way, shrugging his shoulders as he hoisted himself onto his rightful seat.


"Well now, if anyone asks him, he'll say that such-and-such people got off at Odeonsplatz," Nathan thought. "Capable girl. Speaks with a Berlin accent. Even a hint of a Mecklenburg dialect. Unlike Kor-Beit, who has no head for languages... Though he is brilliant at sub-quantum electronics—a God-given talent—a top-tier athlete, a national javelin champion, and no slouch in hand-to-hand combat..."


"Sendling Gate," the conductor announced, and when boarding was finished, rang the bell for the driver. "Next stop, National Theater."


People entering the car bumped into Kor-Beit's bag as they moved down the aisle, and Goldie flinched every time. "Put it here," Nathan pointed to the floor by his feet.


Kor-Beit set the bag down next to the basket of a certain citizen sitting beside the chief. With his head tilted to one side, shielding himself from everyone with the cover, this gentleman was reading a Russian book titled Crime and Punishment.


At the next stop, a schutzmann entered the tram. Seeing the policeman, Kor-Beit and Goldie instinctively thrust their hands into their pockets. Nathan turned to stone, pulling his head slightly into his shoulders.


"Oh, look, blood!" exclaimed the girl who had given Nathan her seat. She hadn't gone anywhere and was standing close by.


Half the car turned at the cry. Nathan threw a worried look at the bag. From beneath it, along the dusty slats of the floor, flowed thin streams of blood, looking like red mercury. The worst part was that the schutzmann took an interest. He approached the Mossad agents, seemingly reluctant, yet getting closer and closer.


"It seems to be leaking from YOUR bag?" the cursed girl said, addressing Nathan.


"Impossible," the grey-haired man hissed through his teeth. "It's waterproof."


"Blood isn't water," the persistent fräulein argued illogically. "And bags aren't leakproof unless they're made of rubber..."


The girl had no intention of being deliberately insolent to the dignified gentleman. She hadn't given up her seat out of respect for his grey hair, but only because he resembled her boss, in whose office she worked as a secretary—the kind who makes advances but never thinks to offer a raise. Perhaps if he did, she would be more compliant... It was all so irritating; it was no wonder she snapped.


"What is the matter here?" the schutzmann finally asked as he arrived. He saluted, touching his palm to his funny little hat, which slanted at the back.


"Trifles," Nathan laughed tensely. "The fräulein is mistaken. It's not from mine; it must be leaking from that gentleman's basket..."


Nathan spread his knees wider and nudged his neighbor on the bench. The man sitting askew straightened his head, peered from behind the book cover, then slammed it shut and threw his hands up like an old woman.


"Oh, for heaven's sake! It’s my meat leaking!.." he cried out in a foreign tongue—Russian, it seemed.


He pinned the book under his chin, bent down awkwardly, turning crimson, and lifted his basket by the straps. It then became clear that the bottom was soaked in blood, which continued to drip.


"A thousand apologies," the Russian lamented in a strained voice, switching to German. He then had the presence of mind to tuck the book into his pocket and get a better grip on the basket.


"I went to the market, bought some meat, and it thawed. The sun got to it; what a late spring we're having, look at it pouring through the window!.. But what am I to do?! Lord God, I must do something!"


He pulled a Russian newspaper, The Exile, from his coat, started to read it, then caught himself, crumpled the sheets, and began wiping the blood off the basket. He didn't succeed much, only smearing himself. Then he stared stupidly at the bloody wad, not knowing where to put it; in despair, he shoved it into the basket and headed for the exit, looking somewhat pathetic and lopsided as he held his arm out to avoid staining his coat. Behind him trailed whispers, growing into a murmur of public indignation: "Riding around with meat..." "While the workers are bloated with hunger..." "I was at the market yesterday; they charged me an arm and a leg for a kilo of meat. I got home, looked at it—nothing but gristle. Bones and more bones! And this one, you see, has pure meat... Sly dog..." "Someone should check where he got it, whether it was at the market at all. Maybe he swiped it from a warehouse... Schutzmann! You should check his papers, see who he is..." "I cannot," the officer replied. "There are no grounds." "No grounds? He’s smeared blood all over the car!" "He doesn't look like a thief. Seems like an intellectual..." "They all seem like intellectuals until it's time to steal... Filthy Democrats. They need a Bismarck." "Exactly! High time. It's clear as day—we need a strong hand!" "They ought to be driven out. There’s a Jew sitting in the government, speculating, trading under the table." "And then there's the emigrants... Russia sends them here on purpose; they have their headquarters right here in Munich..." "They've swarmed over our heads, and Germany isn't made of rubber; we've nothing to eat ourselves..."


The "intellectual" emigrant retreated timidly, almost running like a wounded beast, leaving a trail of bloody drops behind him.


"My apologies!" the policeman said to Nathan Cassel, clicked his heels, did an "about-face," and marched off after the bumbling Russian.


Nathan took off his bowler hat and wiped his soaking-wet forehead with a handkerchief.


3.


From the tram stop, they headed in the opposite direction to throw any pursuers off the scent. They moved through the narrow stone alleys of the city center and the shaded lanes of the outskirts. Along the way, their "chameleon coats" gradually altered their color and cut. These changes occurred slowly, remaining imperceptible to passersby.


After circling the city for another quarter of an hour, they reached the railway station. Without any trouble, they purchased tickets and boarded a train that departed from the platform five minutes later. To be safe, they traveled in separate cars. All around were tourists with backpacks, boisterously singing songs, including: "Deutschland über alles!—Germany, Germany, above all!"


The Mossad agents disembarked in Uffing, near Lake Staffelsee, some sixty kilometers from Munich. The town was patriarchal, submerged in a sleepy drowse. Here lived blunt but warm-hearted folk who wanted nothing to do with the politics that electrified the Bavarian capital.


To their satisfaction, the strangers encountered no one on the deserted streets of the town, save for a local of indeterminate age leaning against a fence by a hardware store that smelled of tar. Perhaps he was a clerk, but he looked the part of a clear simpleton. He was basking in the sun, smiling. A shimmering thread of saliva stretched from his lower lip to his chin. Goldie shuddered with revulsion.


"Guten ta-a-ag," he said with a lispy drawl, bowing affably as he removed a grimy cap from his head. Apparently, in accordance with village custom, everyone here greeted everyone they met. Because of this, a stranger in such places was particularly conspicuous. In terms of operational security, this was a definite drawback. It would have been wiser to set up their base in Munich itself. But someone from the brass back at the Department—someone who had likely never been "in the field"—had decided that the further the base was from the site of the operation, the calmer and safer it would be.


Someone was shuffling behind them, and again, the distinct scent of tar wafted through the air. Nathan looked back—the simpleton was trailing after them.


"What do you want?" Nathan asked in German.


"He-he," the fool laughed.


"Don't follow us..." Nathan handed him a few marks. "Here, money for beer."


The local madman snatched the bills and darted away, dancing and skipping.


They passed a shuttered wooden kiosk with a lopsided sign reading "Flowers" and approached an inconspicuous manor house; nearby, the pointed steeple of a church poked through the still-bare trees.


Goldie said: "I was so overwrought back there in the city that I feel wet and sticky; it’s disgusting. I’m going to take a hot bath—as hot as I can stand it! And then..."


"I’m afraid you'll have a long wait," Ezra Kor-Beit countered. "The water still needs to be heated, and we declined a maid. We shouldn't have declined her..."


"Oh, it’s as if I’ve forgotten where I am," the girl lamented.


"More like when you are," Nathan Cassel corrected her. Addressing them both, he said: "Well, friends, I suppose we can be congratulated on a mission successfully accomplished?"


"Let's not jinx it, Chief," the cautious Kor-Beit replied. "We still have to get out of here."


They opened the gate in the iron fence and, crunching over the gravel, walked up the path toward the white building with low French windows and a colonnaded porch. This villa had been specifically acquired by the prep team.


The villa had originally belonged to some retired admiral who was killed during the bloody unrest in late '18 or early '19. After his death, the property passed to another owner who also died unexpectedly, after which the house went on the market.


The rooms in the house were not particularly large, but they had all the modern conveniences: electricity, telephone, and so on. In the wood-paneled living room, where almost all the furniture was shrouded in dust covers, Kor-Beit began to assemble the backup mobile platform for the temporal transporter. Unfortunately, its throughput was significantly inferior to the standard unit; they would have to leave one by one. But it was still better than nothing. And yet, some of the brass had been against encumbering the group with "excess" equipment. Idiots.


The man responsible for the technical side of the mission assembled the apparatus from disparate parts that had been stashed in boxes for security. There was no telling who might break into the manor while the owners were away. The device must not, under any circumstances, fall into the wrong hands. Of course, in these times, no clever mind in Germany—or perhaps in the entire world—could have made sense of the device, strange as it looked to the locals. Even Einstein wouldn't have been up to the task, even though the postulates he discovered formed the basis for the theory of Time Travel. And yet...


Nathan drew the curtains, lit the chandelier, and began to light the fireplace. It proved a difficult task. He stained his palms and his white shirt cuffs with soot. Yes, this was a far cry from home, where a fireplace flared up with a false flame at the push of a button on a remote control.


Goldie borrowed the Chief's matches and ran to the bathroom, and soon the roar of the water heater was heard.


"I could go for a splash in some hot water right about now myself," Kor-Beit daydreamed, adjusting a micrometer screw on the transponent polzometer.


"Only after me!" Goldie shouted, appearing in the living room doorway half-undressed.


Nathan hastily looked away and, hiding behind a high backrest, sat in an armchair right over its cover; it was likely dusty, but to hell with it—he didn't feel like standing up. The fire in the grate had caught and seemed determined not to go out.


"Fine," Kor-Beit said, "I’ll just wash my face for now and take a carbonated shower when I get home. Hot baths are bad for men anyway."


"And why is that?" Goldie inquired.


"Frig mit nicht kein narrische fragen," [Don't ask me foolish questions.]


"Nudnich!" [Bore!]


"Hey! Speak only in the Inter-Language," Nathan grunted from his seat. "The walls might have ears. Our national identity must not be identified under any circumstances."


Kor-Beit instinctively lowered his voice and deigned to explain: "Just so you know: a constant temperature is maintained in the testicles. If you plunge them headlong into hot water, can you imagine the turmoil that starts in there?.."


"Then unclip them and put them on a shelf," Goldie advised.


"They'll freeze there."


"Well, put them in an incubator."


"You're joking, right?"


"No, I’m not. I’m just wondering, Ezra, why you even need them if you keep forgetting your marital duty."


Nathan grunted and slumped slightly in his seat so that he was completely hidden by the back of the chair.


"I remember my duty," Ezra Kor-Beit snapped, "but I’m an athlete, so I’m conserving energy; I have a regimen... You know I want to compete in the 2092 Olympics."


"An athlete! You’re an egoist, that’s what you are. Olympics or no Olympics, it’s high time we thought about a child..."


It was probably rash to take a married couple on such a critical mission, Nathan thought, packing his pipe with tobacco. But it's too late now; I insisted on it myself... It turns out that when family people see each other, they think more about the family than the job. It relaxes their focus, and that’s exactly when we'll get pinched... Though the work seems clean enough. And if not for that stupid accident, no one would have remembered us at all. Then again, if we hadn't lost the standard TT unit, it wouldn't have mattered. We would have already departed—Back to the Future, as they say... But listen to them go on.


Nathan stood up (practicing by rising on one leg) and gripped the pipe in his hand like a pistol.


"Well? How long do you intend to continue this domestic spat?" the Chief asked in a threatening voice.


Goldie clamped her mouth shut and flitted away to the bathroom.


"How much longer will the assembly take?"


"It'll be ready in half an hour," Kor-Beit replied, wiping sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand. "And another half hour for calibration... And then we wait for the Wave. Until they lock onto our beacon..."


"Fine. I’m going to the kitchen; if it works out, I’ll fix some lunch. Otherwise, I’ll starve to death with you two."


"Chief, what if it doesn't work out?"


"The calibration?"


"No—the lunch... Maybe we could go to a restaurant? I think we’ve earned it."


"Right, as if I need one more emergency. Until DEPARTURE—you stay inside. That’s an order!"


"Yes, Major!"


4.


They ate lunch sitting at a long table, once mahogany but now thoroughly riddled by woodworms. The chandelier remained unlit; only a lamp on the fireplace mantle glowed, casting a gentle warmth.


"And what’s for the second course?" asked Ezra, who was noisily finishing his second bowl of soup.


"Gefilte fish," the domestic-minded Nathan replied. "But don't count on seconds, my friend. I couldn't find a large frying pan in the house, so I had to cook with a small one and cut the portions. I’m not your scullery maid."


"Everything is delicious, Chief!" said a clean, rosy-cheeked Goldie, using her fork to separate the white fish meat from the bones. "It seems I made a grave mistake in my choice of a husband."


Ezra Kor-Beit choked on his food.


"Now, now," Nathan grumbled, "don't go dragging me into your marital games. I’m a confirmed bachelor. And that's how I'll die. I’m perfectly content with a girlfriend who visits once a week... Though, lately, she’s been grumbling louder and louder... Apparently, she thinks I’m an egoist too. But there’s no fixing that now. You can't remake yourself."


Nathan stood up and walked over to the crystal radio set sitting on a nightstand.


"I wonder how you turn on this dinosaur?" he said, tossing a dusty doily off the polished wooden lid of the receiver.


"Plug it in and turn the dial—the one on the bottom left," offered Kor-Beit, the electronics expert. "The right dial is for tuning the heterodyne to the wave."


"The Wave?" Goldie asked, surprised.


"No, not that Wave. He means primitive radio waves."


Nathan turned the knob until it clicked; immediately, hoarse, barking voices burst into the room. Nathan winced and pushed the tuning slider further. The scale was primitive, without even a backlight. Finding music, the Chief lowered the volume and returned to the table. Berlin Radio was broadcasting light music.


"I love retro," Nathan admitted. "If it weren't associated with the Hitler era, my nostalgia would be entirely bittersweet."


"You can consider his era over before it even began," Ezra said. "That’s why we were sent here... Chief, do you think we can count on the Golden Star of David? It would really help me when they’re drafting the list of athletes for the Olympics."


"I expect so. We have every chance of receiving the highest honor."


"I was just thinking," Goldie said, wrinkling her smooth forehead, "by clearing the stage of the raving Führer, aren't we just opening the way for an even more predatory beast? What do you think?"


"How much worse could it get!" Ezra Kor-Beit threw up his hands.


"I agree with Ezra," Nathan supported him. "Hitler was the most odious figure of Fascism. Mussolini and Franco are choirboys compared to him. Only Hitler wanted, as he put it, to 'remake the world fundamentally and in all its details.' In that sense, he truly was an Übermensch."


After the dance music, the classics began. It seemed to be Spring Waters by the Russian composer Rachmaninoff, who was living in America at the time. Goldie must have recognized the divine music too, for she said:


"It’s the height of spring back home now. Nisan—the month of flowers..."


Lunch ended. Rachmaninoff’s "waters" faded away. Kor-Beit immediately went back to the apparatus to double-check the settings. Goldie packed her things for the journey. Nathan packed the cash, placing it in his valise, then checked in on Ezra.


"Sergeant, what about the Wave? Has it arrived yet?"


"No signal yet," a worried Kor-Beit reported.


"Fine. I’m going to lie down. Wake me when it’s ready."


Nathan was woken by light hitting his eyes. The morning was sunny and joyful, but the Chief’s heart sank with a bad premonition. Nathan got out of bed; there was no need to dress, as he had slept in his clothes.


In the dining room, the Sergeant and the Lieutenant greeted the Major with grim faces. Breakfast was European-style. Goldie set a plate of fried eggs, jam, coffee, and toast before the Chief.


"I try to avoid fried foods," Nathan said, pushing the toast aside. He took plain bread and dipped it into the yellow eye of the fried egg. The eye burst and ran.


"Well, report," the Chief ordered, breaking the eerie silence.


"The signal didn't come," Kor-Beit reported, hanging his head.


The coffee scalded Nathan’s throat, and tears welled in his eyes.


"God, I don't know what’s wrong," the Sergeant said, spreading his hands in confusion. "I’m going to take the device apart bolt by bolt and put it back together again..."


After noon, Nathan risked leaving the house for a brief scouting mission, the main goal of which was to buy a fresh newspaper—preferably a Munich one. He bought Der Morgenstern, its headline jumping out at him immediately. Like a screaming animal, the blaring headline throttled him as he pressed the paper against his side with his elbow: "BRUTAL MURDER IN BASEMENT!" He hurried back, trying not to attract any attention.


Arriving home, the Chief impatiently unfolded the fresh sheets of the Morning Star, which smelled of kerosene. A chill ran down his spine as he read the front page to the end. This is what was printed:


"Yesterday, at approximately three o'clock in the afternoon, a brutal murder occurred in the basement of the Sterneckerbräu beer hall, the headquarters of the so-called 'National Socialist German Workers' Party.' Found at the crime scene was the decapitated corpse of the notoriously scandalous orator who spoke in the völkisch spirit—Adolf Hitler, born 1889, an Austrian German from Braunau am Inn.


From a meager police dossier, it is known that Hitler, who held the military rank of corporal, was as recently as a month ago a 'confidential informant' for the liquidation department of the Reichswehr’s 2nd Infantry Regiment, under the General Staff’s section for propaganda and surveillance of political groups.


Shortly before his tragic demise, the deceased had joined a right-wing radical party founded by Messrs. Harrer and Drexler.


This information was obtained from his party comrades, who discovered the body and helped the police identify it. Found in the pockets of the deceased was party membership card number 555."


(Strange it wasn't 666, Nathan thought).


"In the opinion of the NSDAP members, Party Comrade Hitler—this outstanding orator and organizer, the 'national drummer' as he called himself—fell victim to the enemies of the party. It was not specified whom the deceased's colleagues had in mind. However, the descriptions of the perpetrators of this act, monstrous in its cruelty, are known..."


There followed a fairly accurate description of the appearance, age, and sex of the suspects. It reported three MEN! Presumably foreigners.


"It’s a good thing we dressed Goldie in a man’s suit," Nathan thought. "They’ll be looking for three men, not two men and a woman. 'And He said that it was very good.' However, we need to get out of here quickly."


"Do you understand now why we declined the maid?" Nathan said after his colleagues had also read the report. "By now, like a true German woman, she would have already been running to the police station to report suspicious foreigners..."


5.


They had been living in 1920 for three days now. In the evenings, Ezra and Goldie would go out into the garden to breathe the fresh air, while Nathan went out every noon to get the newspapers.


Hitler was buried in a closed casket so as not to shock the public with the absence of his head. One passerby asked: "Was this Hitler fellow truly just some guy from the street corner?"


The Völkischer Beobachter printed a memorial article about the slain man. All in all, the obituary stated that he had died young and that "surely the German gods loved him."


One circumstance troubled Nathan. During the day, glancing out the window by chance, he saw two policemen walking slowly past the fence of their house. They were stealing glances at the windows. Nathan ducked behind the curtain. About two hours later, the policemen passed by again, casting the same sidelong looks at the house. Nathan decided this was no coincidence. Still, there were no grounds for panic yet. Perhaps it was just a fluke. After all, it was a policeman's duty to patrol the streets. However, he decided to heighten their vigilance. His anxiety spread to his subordinates.


Goldie paced the room nervously, her fingers interlaced behind her head. Her neck bowed under the weight of the gesture, her hair falling over her face.


"Stop drifting back and forth!" Ezra barked at Goldie. "You’re creating interference..."


"Don't be rude to a superior officer," Lieutenant Darjan snapped back.


"I have the right; you’re my wife."


"We aren't wedded. Only when I take your surname..."


"Silence!" Nathan bellowed. "Lieutenant Darjan, go to your room and watch the street from the window. Do not turn on the light. If a car stops near the house or if you notice any covert movement—report it."


"And if they come for an open inspection?"


"Stop talking. March to your post!"


"Chief, we need to clear out of here," Kor-Beit said three hours later. "мы капитально засветились back on the tram; the conductor remembers us. Yesterday, some woman from the house next door saw Goldie and me in the yard and gave us a suspicious look. We might have left a trail elsewhere, too. And that’s on top of Schüssler’s testimony. Soon they’ll piece together all the scattered facts and..."


"I know," Nathan snapped. "I’ve specifically studied the methods of the German police. Even the Soviets couldn't dismantle the old mechanism. Nevertheless, I maintain: there are no grounds for panic. Not yet..."


He looked at his watch; it was half-past two in the morning. He peeked into Goldie’s room. She was asleep, sitting on a chair by the window, leaning against the sill with her elbows spread touchingly wide. Nathan’s heart ached; she looked so defenseless at that moment. He loved her like a daughter—like the girl of his own who was never born. D-damn this job. It is ruthless toward one's personal life.


Nathan returned to the hall and placed a hand on Ezra’s shoulder with a paternal gesture: "What’s the status of the device, son?"


"I don't know, Chief. Kill me, but I haven't a clue. There’s no Wave. But that simply shouldn't be possible!"


"Perhaps a component has failed? Or a loose connection somewhere?"


"Every sensor shows total functionality."


"The batteries are dead!"


"Fully charged! They’re practically sparking..."


"Then what is the problem?"


"I DON'T KNOW!" Ezra clutched his hair.


"That is bad."


"It’s a catastrophe, Chief."


6.


At six in the morning, an emergency military briefing was convened. Dawn was already breaking. Goldie sat there bleary-eyed—or rather, sleep-deprived. Nathan and Kor-Beit, who hadn't caught a wink of sleep, had dark circles of exhaustion around their eyes. They ground coffee beans and drank cups of fragrant, extra-strong coffee.


The Chief opened the meeting. "So, the Wave is absent, and likely won't appear. Your thoughts? We’ll start with the junior rank. Kor-Beit."


Ezra pulled himself together and began to speak: "The Wave is a stigular field with chrono-diaplectic vortices. It’s also known as the Einstein-Mikota effect..."


"Cut to the chase, Einstein," Goldie said irritably. "Let's skip the theory and get to the practice."


"That’s what I’m saying... The field, you see, permeates the space-time continuum like a neutrino. This means there are no obstacles for the Wave. Not in space, not in time. If there is no Wave, it means the wave generator hasn't been turned on over THERE. Our signal is the same stigular field, just combined differently and less powerful. In essence, if our Wave matched the power of the Wave sent from the Center, we could return without outside help. Но then, instead of two relatively small batteries, we’d need a massive power station—preferably nuclear—of corresponding dimensions. Actually, because of the power supply issue, a truly autonomous time machine of reasonable size hasn't been created yet. That’s why we only have the chrono-transporter. It’s essentially a time machine, but consisting of two units: the base and the mobile. The main part of the installation is stationary, located... well, you know where. While the mobile platform..."


"Understood," Nathan interrupted this time. "The mobile platform travels through Time. Right. Are you finished? Goldie, the floor is yours."


"Perhaps a solar flare? That could cause equipment failure."


"Nonsense!" Ezra cut his wife off with relish. "You’re a good analyst, but you don't know jack about tech."


"I’m certain there’s an accident at the Center!" Goldie flared up.


"The government has three functioning stationary units at its disposal," Nathan reminded them. "Two of the old type, UZRA-SX, and one modernized unit—SHIMON-15, which we launched from. It’s highly unlikely all three are down. And any one of them can bring us back..."


"Terrorists blew up the nuclear plant in Al-Koba!" Lieutenant Darjan persisted.


"After the construction of the Palestinian-Israeli Wall?" Kor-Beit doubted.


"War has broken out!"


"Everything was calm when we left. You know yourself, we’ve had a stable peace with the Palestinians for years—touch wood. And with other nations, thank God, there are no major issues..."


"What about the UN debates regarding the ban on chrono-transporter testing?" Goldie countered with a professional tone. "The question was raised to strip national governments of the right to use TT technology arbitrarily. It was proposed to place the devices at the disposal of international organizations like the 'World Archaeological Society,' UNESCO, and other strictly peaceful groups. The European Union, Russia, China, Brazil, and the USA agreed to mutual inspections. Only Israel—our esteemed Prime Minister Esau Aaron and the War Party—refused to hear of any inspectors. They claim we have no time machine. But we do, and more than one. And we use them at our own discretion, perhaps to the detriment of humanity."


"To remove the most bloodthirsty piece of scum the world has ever known—you call that acting to the detriment of humanity?!" Ezra, as a more simply organized man, sincerely struggled to understand the nuanced Goldie. "You said yourself you’d dreamed of this moment since childhood!.."


"Emotions are one thing, life is another! 'It is not given to us to predict how our word will echo...' a poet once said. In our case, it's an action."


"I only know one thing," Ezra heated up. "Hitler meant war! Sixty million people died..."


"Sixty-five," the Chief corrected.


"Exactly... and among them, five million Jews! And we saved them. And perhaps we prevented a second global slaughter..."


"Alright, let's summarize," the head of the mission interrupted the debate. "It’s possible our government was faced with a hard choice and was forced to shut down the experiment... Calm down, friends. Shut it down temporarily. Perhaps in a year, when things settle..."


"No, I won't agree to live here for a whole year!" Kor-Beit protested. "I have my training, my diet... and finally, there isn't even a carbonated shower here..."


"Shh!" Nathan put a finger to his lips, and everyone went silent. "I think I hear gravel crunching," said the leader, who possessed keen hearing and a phenomenal instinct for danger.


Goldie darted to her observation post. Without lighting the lamp, she pressed against the glass at the windowsill. In the light of the garden lantern—lit specifically for such occasions—Goldie saw the simpleton from before hiding behind a bush. Only now he wasn't sluggish or drooling; on the contrary, he was focused and giving authoritative hand signals to someone. Clever devil, managing to get past the high fence!


From another window in the kitchen, Nathan saw two policemen in coats with flashlights in their hands standing behind the fence. The fog made their figures grey, flat, and somewhat surreal. But when one of them reached for the street button, the electric bell in the house's hallway shrieked sharply and quite tangibly, sending a nervous shiver through their bodies. The villa had been equipped by the previous owner with the "latest technology" of the early 20th century.


Like a tiger, Nathan bounded into the hall and ordered: "Ezra, quickly dismantle the apparatus and pack it into two boxes. Goldie, get the gear ready. I’ll meet them and stall. If anything happens—get to the attic and out through the skylight to the roof. Wait for me there."


"Chief, be careful; the moron is hiding nearby," Goldie said. "Though he’s no moron, but a cunning fed."


"Noted," Nathan Cassel replied, taking his chameleon coat from the rack and throwing it over his shoulders. I should put on the helmet, too, he thought with regret regarding the bowler hat—but oh well—and he opened the front door.


Standing on the porch, he asked the uninvited guests: "What is it you want, gentlemen?"


"We need the owner of the manor. We are from the Uffing Police Department. We wish to have a word..."


"I speak for the owner. What kind of talk is this at such an hour? You’ve raised me from my bed, damn you. I shall file a complaint." Knowing the blunt nature of Bavarians, Nathan didn't mince words.


"It is a quarter past six," one of the policemen replied, taking a watch from his pocket. "We are observing the law. After six in the morning, we have the right..."


"And do you have a warrant?"


"A warrant is not required for a passport check. You arrived in town recently and have not registered anywhere; this is not in order. We have every right to detain you, as well as your friends, and escort you to the station. Now, will you open up, or will we have to break down the gate?"


"Fine. I’ll open it now. Just let me find the keys to the fence. I can't guarantee I’ll find them quickly..."


Nathan intended to close the door, but the "fed" stepped out from the bushes. He said, smiling maliciously: "Allow me to help you find them."


"This is unheard-of insolence!" the owner feigned outrage. "Secretly trespassing on private property!.."


"I decided to drop by out of old friendship... We’re acquainted, aren't we? Remember, you gave me a whole heap of marks the other day—a clerk's salary for a full month. Are you a millionaire? Allow me to be curious—what is your name?"


The fed was already in the hallway, nudging the sluggish owner forward.


"And who are you, exactly? Yesterday you were a simpleton, today you're playing the spy?"


"Yesterday, the day before, and for five years now, I have been the Commissioner of the Uffing Criminal Police. And before that, I was a senior detective... hm... and even earlier, when I started, a simple policeman... In short, my dear sir, I was born here and, God willing, I shall die here. We don't care for foreign lands, and we don't like strangers without registration..."


"What registration? I come from a free country; I’ve never heard of any registration. This is unpardonable police control! A disgrace to your democracy!"


"On that, I agree with you. I don't much like this democracy myself," the Commissioner said, seeping into the hall without an invitation. "And as for the 'simpleton'—well, Sherlock Holmes wasn't the only one who could disguise himself. Often you don't even need costumes or wigs. Just let a little drool run—and suddenly people allow themselves to say things in your presence they wouldn't say under torture."


"In my opinion, I haven't said anything criminal to you."


"True, but the hidden meaning of your words was such that I thought: 'These people are afraid of something. My task is to find out what.' Psychology."


"You’re just like Hercule Poirot," Nathan blurted out without thinking.


"Which Poirot?"


"Well... the Hercule one."


"Never heard of him..."


"You will. If you live long enough."


"Now, now, no threats... By the way, where are your friends? Won't you introduce them to me, and yourself while you're at it?"


"I am Nathan Cassel, a businessman, a Swiss subject, here to visit an old friend. My daughter and son-in-law are with me. They are on their honeymoon... Goldie! Ezra! My children, come here... Here are our papers, Herr Commissioner..."


"Good, I’ll take a look. In the meantime, unlock the gate."


"Why invite a whole swarm of policemen into a decent house when you—such a perceptive man—can check the documents yourself..."


Kor-Beit entered the hall carrying boxes, followed by Goldie with a bag and the Chief’s personal valise.


"Oh! It seems you’re preparing for a journey?" the Commissioner said, smirking. "How is it, Herr Cassel? You complained that we woke you, yet you’ve been up for a long time, ready to leave. You must admit, it’s not logical. Remember: a small lie gives birth to great distrust..."


"Forgive me, Commissioner, I was heated. Yes, we are already preparing to leave... so registration won't be necessary."


"And why so hastily?"


"Commercial matters forced our friend to depart urgently. In his absence, we intend to go to Berlin for a week, then return... and then we will register in full form."


"And in the boxes, I presume, are Munich souvenirs?" the Commissioner noted snidely. "By the way, where is your fancy car? Remember, back then you returned on foot..."


"Well, you see..." Nathan spread his hands—it was the signal: the situation was spiraling out of control; prepare for force.


"Perhaps your car was in an accident?" this devil of detection continued. "You see, when I saw you walking, I contacted the Munich Police Headquarters by telephone and found out that a car, described very similarly to yours, was wrecked in a traffic incident that happened near the site of another extraordinary event—namely, the murder of a certain Hitler..."


"What are you implying?!" Nathan Cassel growled, buttoning his coat.


"I’m not implying, sir. If I were implying, I’d say so. Well, then, they killed that lad quite brutally. Imagine—they cut off his head and took it with them. Such barbarism. The man had to be buried without a head; it's not proper."


"Are you charging us? Where is the evidence?"


"Fräulein, would you be so kind as to show me what’s in your bag? It’s very distinctive..."


"Have you no shame, Commissioner!" Herr Cassel feigned genuine outrage. "You intend to rummage through my daughter’s undergarments?!"


"There’s a frozen head of Austrian cabbage in there," Goldie answered defiantly. "Chief, you see he’s clocked everything."


"You hear that? Your subordinate is more sensible. Confess, you’re members of a combat group, aren't you? Ultra-right or ultra-left? They’ve been breeding like rabbits lately. Removing the competition. Not with clean hands, gentlemen. I am forced to arrest you all."


"You are a brave man, Commissioner," Nathan smiled unpleasantly.


"I’m no coward. I’ve had to run under bullets... but unlike those bandits who had a chance to escape, you have none. The house is surrounded, and my men will shoot. So, as we say, hände hoch and out you go."


The Commissioner drew a revolver—a good old-fashioned cylinder weapon that didn't need cocking—and aimed the deadly barrel at the leader. Kor-Beit and Goldie set their things on the floor. The Commissioner immediately turned the barrel toward Ezra, his most likely opponent, being young and healthy.


"You, young man, sit on the sofa. And you, Herr Cassel, too. You’ve lost. And if you twitch, I’ll put a hole in you without blinking. Fräulein, find the key and open the gate. Hurry up, my finger is trembling with impatience..."


Goldie complied. As she passed the Commissioner, she performed a graceful pirouette and, with a kick, sent the lawman's weapon flying from his hands. The Bavarian was stunned. He had expected anything but this. Where had it ever been seen that a woman could swing her legs like that!


And then Kor-Beit met him. "Allow me, dear, this is a man’s job," Ezra said and struck the Bavarian from the right with some clever hook. Perhaps too clever, because the Commissioner dodged and stayed on his feet. He was a worthy opponent.


"Chauvinist!" the woman cursed at her boyfriend and again kicked the opponent, right in the groin.


The man collapsed to his knees, his face a mask of desperate agony. One could imagine the "turmoil" that had started down there.


"Sorry, dear, my mistake," Kor-Beit replied and this time landed a precise blow.


The Commissioner’s heavy body slumped to the floor. However, the officer did not forget his duty. His hand reached for the revolver lying on the rug.


"My, what a persistent fellow," Kor-Beit marveled. He bent down, grabbed the Commissioner by the collar and the seat of his pants, and threw him head-first through the window. The window was closed, so there was much cracking and tinkling of glass.


Behind the fence, a clamor immediately broke out; they began to batter the gate door, which was made of thick metal bars. The combat group hurriedly dressed—coats, helmets in the shape of hats...


"Follow me!" Nathan Cassel ordered, grabbing the valise with the money and forged documents.


Kor-Beit grabbed the boxes containing the equipment parts; Goldie snatched the bag with the trophy—and they rushed to the attic stairs.


Stepping out onto the roof through the skylight, they saw that the policemen were already in the garden, running toward the house.


"Shoot!" the recovered Commissioner shouted to his men. "Shoot, you blockheads, or they’ll get away!"


The policemen opened disorganized fire at the roof and windows as they ran, not knowing the exact number of the gang. More glass shattered. A stray bullet smashed a brick on the chimney where Cassel was taking cover. Another bullet hit Kor-Beit but ricocheted with a whine. The coat was bulletproof.


"Ready?" the elder asked hoarsely, pulling his hat so low his face was hidden, the brim touching his coat collar as if fused.


"Ready," his subordinates replied, doing the same. Breathing and eye slits opened in the helmets.


Cassel, looking through the eyepieces of a night-vision device, fired downward without specifically aiming. This time, the weapon had no silencer. The burst thundered; bullets sheared through branches. The Commissioner’s men hit the dirt.


"Takeoff!" Nathan ordered and engaged the levitator drive.


In the sudden moment of silence, a whistle was heard, and three human figures soared above the roof. Were they human? The policemen looked up, stunned, not believing their eyes.


Only the Commissioner, snatching a revolver from a dazed subordinate, fired and fired and fired until the cylinder was empty and until the figures—now mere indistinct shadows—finally vanished into the morning, yet still dark, sky.


"Strike me dead!" one of the policemen said, rising from the ground. "How did they manage that?"


"Devils, no doubt!" another policeman said, dusting himself off. "Flew off on broomsticks."


Three more colleagues ran up from the other side of the house. "How are we going to write the report, Herr Senior Detective?" they asked the man who had just been firing so furiously at the sky and who now sat weakly on the ground. "The Old Man will just fire us if we write the truth—he'll fire us for sure."


"How can this be?" the local Sherlock Holmes wondered, ignoring his colleagues' question. "I had them in my hands, and I was almost a Commissioner."


Just then, the real Commissioner arrived in a car. He was old, heavy, and nearing retirement. "What’s all this shooting?" he asked breathlessly, lighting a cheap cigar. "Disturbing good citizens. Walter, get up off the cold ground, or you'll get hemorrhoids."


"Herr Commissioner," Senior Detective Walter said as his colleagues helped him up. "I report: as a result of investigative measures, I tracked down a dangerous political combat group..."


"But failed to take them," the Commissioner guessed. "Oh, you blockhead. Always showing off your independence. Instead of consulting with your superiors... I’ll have to find a different successor."


7.


They landed at the edge of a forest. No one was around; only the pines rustled in the wind. The sun was rising above the horizon.


They agreed on a plan: the group would temporarily split. Kor-Beit and Goldie would settle in France, in Paris. Nathan would head to Switzerland, or perhaps Belgium, and provide his address by sending a letter "poste restante" to the Central Post Office in the French capital. Kor-Beit would reassemble the apparatus and attempt to summon the Wave. If contact with the Center was established, Nathan would be notified in writing and would join them.


The Chief allocated ten thousand dollars to his comrades from their operational reserves. This should have been enough for the young couple to live comfortably for the next year or two. After that, they would see. Nathan intended to deposit a small reserve of gold coins into a Swiss bank to ensure a steady income.


"Well, that’s everything, my children," Nathan Cassel said. "Let’s wish each other luck. Until we meet again—and let's hope it’s soon."


The Chief took off first. Then Ezra and Goldie rose into the air and flew in the opposite direction.


Wassily Kandinsky, Franz Marc, and Paul Klee—denizens of bohemian Schwabing who had discovered new dimensions in painting—were guests at the country house of a wealthy patron. Toward dawn, the avant-garde artists crawled out onto the porch to breathe the fresh air. Amidst the rhythmic murmur of a foaming stream, Kandinsky, like all Russians, gazed dreamily into the sky. The stars were fading, the dawn of a new era was breaking, and like heralds of that era, two angels flew across the sky, holding hands. Wassily nudged Franz in the side.


"Look here, brother—a man and a woman flying through the sky. Just like a Marc Chagall painting..."


Franz nudged Paul so that he, too, could admire the miracle. Paul tumbled into the bushes.


"There it is—the prophetic power of art, eh, brother?" Kandinsky concluded. "And they scold us for being out of touch with life..."

8.


Nathan settled in Switzerland, near Lausanne. There, he bought a cottage on the shores of Lake Geneva—a well-situated, modest structure with a large living area and a veranda on the first floor, and three rooms on the second. The household was managed by a local woman—unmarried and still relatively young. At first, Nathan kept his distance, maintaining the professional boundary of a master and his employee, but, as often happens with bachelors and lonely women, their relationship became closer, more intimate. However, since this somber foreigner, who seemed eternally on guard, never offered the Swiss woman—who was also, incidentally, quite taciturn—a formal arrangement, she didn't consider binding him in marriage. Or perhaps she did, but out of natural modesty...


From time to time, Nathan wrote letters to Paris. Goldie replied to him. She wrote that Ezra had found work as an engineer at a radio factory and was earning good money, while she was working as a secretary for a firm, so they were living well. Try as he might, Ezra never found his wartime friend. The man had been a signalman, and the guys called him "The Wave" (Volna). Just like that—the Wave had vanished, gone. But Ezra did not resign himself; he intended to keep searching.


Two years later, Nathan received a letter, unexpectedly, from Berlin. Goldie wrote that she and her husband were on vacation; they had long wanted to visit Berlin, and only now had that dream come true. "Berlin lives a boisterous life. People revel and dance on the shimmering asphalt of Friedrichstrasse or the Kurfürstendamm. Provincials, however, dislike Berlin, calling it the Whore of Babylon, but we are delighted. Especially now, knowing that Germany is no longer under threat."


Nathan followed the political situation in Germany and knew that after the inglorious death of the "National Drummer," the NSDAP had returned to its original, pathetic state—a small circle of nostalgic romantics, fond of chatting over a mug of beer, having become entirely harmless to the world. Indeed, the chances for party agitation, which had fed almost exclusively on the complexes of social discontent, began to diminish when, starting in late 1923, the situation in the country stabilized significantly. Inflation was halted, and the history of the republic, which had begun so unhappily, entered a period of "Golden Years." This marked the end of the post-war era.


They came from Berlin to visit Nathan. Goldie, it seemed, had grown even more beautiful. Ezra had transformed even more. He dressed in the latest Berlin fashion—a sort of rubberized dandy on crepe soles, in "Charleston" trousers and with a "Shimmy" hairstyle, slicked straight back, which was, generally speaking, considered immoral by the broader public.


Nathan introduced his guests to the Swiss woman—whose name, by the way, was Zinarida—according to their cover story. Cassel was growing more and more into this legend, which the leadership of the Mossad special department had intended to serve as cover for only two or three days. Instead, its duration had stretched into years. And sometimes, with a chill in his chest, he realized—it might be forever.


Sitting on the veranda with a magnificent view of Lake Geneva, Nathan and Goldie drank homemade wine, while the athlete drank Baden mineral water. They discussed the problem vital to them: how to return home to their own time. Kor-Beit had not lost his optimism, flashing his magnificent teeth. Goldie pensively watched the distant white specks of sails. Nathan gnawed on the mouthpiece of his pipe like a horse gnawing on its bit. And what of it, truly? he thought. Did we not know what we were getting into? In carrying out the mission, we could have died. Let us be glad that everything has seemingly ended well. And one can live, after all, even in these times. God willing, there will be no war in Europe... Perhaps I'll just go ahead and marry Zinarida and stay here. Especially since Switzerland will remain neutral in any case. Thus, I shall end my Sabbaths in peace.


His hopes regarding the tranquility in Europe seemed to be coming true. Germany was admitted to the League of Nations, and the flow of American credit increased. Unemployment was substantially reduced. The centrist parties grew stronger. In the Reichstag elections, the völkisch movement managed to secure only three percent of the vote. This indicated that Germany had finally stepped onto a normal path.


Of course, it would have been naive to assume that everything would now proceed smoothly of its own accord. Heavy trials awaited everyone: the coming Great Depression of 1929, which would hit Germany hardest, and the subsequent government crisis of the early '30s.


With the infirm Hindenburg—in the absence of Hitler, whom he would have appointed Chancellor with a heavy heart—the new reality would offer an even narrower choice between political spiders. Either the "magnificent rider" Papen, or the "diabolical general" Schleicher. Or some other "horseradish that is no sweeter than a radish." Evidently, President Hindenburg would have no choice but to declare a state of emergency and, before passing away, hand over full power to a military dictator (a more or less civilized one). The Reichswehr dictatorship would last until the crisis passed, and then the military would have to—modus vivendi—hand power back to civilians.


If Stalin kept quiet (and, lacking the seductive example of Hitler with his brazen expansion, he would hardly dare to claim even the western territories of the former Russian Empire, to say nothing of a conflict with Finland), then war with the Soviet Union could likely be avoided, as the entire general staff, except for Hitler, considered invading Russia madness.


In turn, Stalin, in the absence of Hitlerism, would have no formal pretext to attack Europe.


What the new future of Germany would be, Nathan did not know, but he hoped it would not be as dark as the one that had once been.


* *


They met again in the summer of 1926. This time, Nathan traveled to Paris to visit the Kor-Beits. Indeed, Goldie had officially taken her husband’s surname and had finally given birth to a long-awaited child. It was a boy, a charming toddler of two years old—as clever as his mother and as sturdy as his father.


The Kor-Beits lived in a special district, Joinville, often called the Jewish quarter, on the Right Bank of the Seine, from where the towers of Notre-Dame Cathedral were visible. They occupied a seven-room apartment on the second floor and held an account at Credit Lyonnais. Ezra was now the director of his own firm, which produced electrical equipment or something of the sort; Nathan didn't press for details. Over dinner, as they once again analyzed why the Wave had vanished, Nathan asked Ezra if he knew the history of the temporal transporter’s invention.


"Of course, Chief," Ezra replied. "It was part of the theoretical course in my training."


"Is it possible that by thoroughly shaking up History, we inadvertently crushed the inventor of the time machine himself?"


"I follow you, Chief. You’re referring to the Bradbury Effect?"


"Precisely. And we didn't just squash a butterfly; we crushed a venomous viper."


"I don't think so, Chief. The discovery was made in Japan, so it’s unlikely the wave of change reached that far... Besides, the author of the temporal transporter wasn't a human, but an artificial intelligence named Mikota. In any case, no matter where the machine was invented, it would still end up with us in Israel."


"True," Nathan smirked. Then he frowned and concluded: "Unfortunately, we still can't explain the lack of contact with the Base. And even if, as Goldie claimed, the United Nations had pressured Israel, our people would still have found a way to pull us out."


"And what if they were forced to abandon us?" the Sergeant suggested gloomily. "The nature of special ops..."


"Never!" the Chief categorically rejected. "Not in this case. For their own safety. Can you imagine what a desperate agent could do while stuck in the Past? It’s like a man swallowing a grenade with the pin pulled. No, there’s some other reason here, something deeper..."


"And what do you think, bel ami?" Ezra asked his wife.


"About what?" Goldie responded distractedly, listening to something off in the distance, and whispered: "Ah, le pauvre petit." [Ah, the poor little one.]


"Well, about the Bradbury Effect and everything else... any ideas?.."


"Oh, to hell with you and your Bradbury Effects," Goldie waved him off and, without asking permission from her superior, left for the nursery because the baby was crying and fussing at the governess again.


Nathan suddenly felt insulted by this blatant disregard for subordination. Blood rushed to his face. He wanted to order Lieutenant Darjan to stand at attention... However, Major Cassel quickly cooled down. Did he still have the moral right to give orders in these circumstances? And to whom? It was obvious—Lieutenant Darjan no longer existed; there was only Madame Kor-Beit.


Ezra looked at the Chief sheepishly and said, apologetically: "Don't mind her, Chief. She’s a woman first and foremost." And for the sake of clarity, he explained: "She has a typical postpartum crise de nerfs."


"Yes, she's right..." Nathan sighed, relenting, and tried to joke. "In this devil of a situation, as the Russians say, 'you can't figure it out without a bottle...'"


The Sergeant gave a hollow chuckle.


The Chief couldn't help himself and lit his pipe. Ezra immediately hurried to usher him out onto the balcony. "The smoke is bad for the baby," the host said with embarrassment, nudging Nathan with his softening belly.


"Perhaps a small drink?" Ezra suggested to smooth over the awkwardness once they were on the balcony.


"What about your sports?"


"What sports," Ezra waved his hand hopelessly, much like his wife had. "I’m nearly thirty now. Look, a belly is already growing..."


Ezra went to get the alcohol, and Nathan leaned his elbows on the railing. Below, life flowed slowly—peaceful for now. A man dressed like a typical Jew emerged from a tavern on the opposite side of the street; swaying, he wandered off, likely heading home. Two wits standing nearby laughed. One of them began to sing in Yiddish: "Roboynov shel oylom..." [Our Rabbi has had a few.]


And suddenly, a terrifying realization struck Nathan like a thunderbolt, making his heart ache and his eyes grow dark. "Gottenu!" [My God!] He clutched his chest and nearly fell. Returning just in time, Kor-Beit supported the Chief, who was as white as chalk, and eased him into a wicker chair on the balcony.


"What’s wrong with you?" he asked his commander—now, likely, his former commander. "You look terrible..."


"It seems we didn't just cancel Hitler," Nathan rasped, "BUT THE STATE OF ISRAEL ITSELF..."


"What?!?" Ezra exhaled, barely holding onto the bottle, his tanned face turning pale as well.


"Just like that. It was Hitler and his circle who 'resolved the Jewish question.' But if there is no Hitlerian war—and I emphasize, specifically Hitler’s—then the Jews will not be subjected to mass extermination. Which means the world community will not develop a guilt complex toward a 'wretched nation,' because the nation won't be wretched at all. At least, no more wretched than any other. Do you understand?"


Ezra nodded dumbly, swigging the liquor straight from the bottle.


"And that means," Nathan Cassel pronounced the verdict, "the question of providing territory for the creation of a Jewish state will never be raised with any urgency in 1945–46. All our petitions will remain buried under bureaucratic red tape—first in the League of Nations, then in the UN... We won't get the territory in '48, and we won't recreate the State of Israel... At least, not in the timeframe and the place that we know."


"But that’s terrible!" Ezra slammed a heavy fist onto the balcony railing.


"It’s a catastrophe," agreed a visibly aged Nathan, hanging his head. "But this stays between us—entre nous, as they say here in France. There’s no need to tell Goldie. I have no one, you are an orphan by nature, but she has a host of relatives back in Israel. What will become of their fates? She would think of it and suffer..."


"Go figure: where is the good and where is the evil? Two sides of the same coin," the now-wiser Kor-Beit concluded and, in a fit of frustration, hurled the empty bottle downward.


Curses drifted up from the pavement: "Merde!" and something else.


9.


Nathan was leaving for Switzerland—likely forever. It was late April, and the heat was almost like summer. Thus, it was not surprising that he forgot his bowler-helmet at the Kor-Beits’. It didn't matter anymore, anyway. It was unlikely that—six years later—he would ever again find himself running across rooftops under a hail of bullets. From now on, he would live like everyone else. Like one of them.


The decision to leave as soon as possible had struck Nathan when he suddenly felt that he was no longer needed by this young family. They had reconciled with their fate, settled in perfectly, and would likely be happy in their own way. Embarrassed and exchanging glances, they handed him written resignations, citing the "prevailing circumstances." Nathan signed the papers and tucked the documents into his pocket.


"As the sole representative of the Secret Service, the Army Command, and the State of Israel, I accept your resignations and declare you demobilized..."


"Nathan, what should we do with the Head?" Ezra asked in the casual tone of a now-civilian man.


"Have you not destroyed it yet?"


"You never gave us the corresponding order," Goldie replied.


"Actually, I’ve already... repurposed it," Ezra said in a guilty voice, scratching the back of his head. "Would you like to see?"


The master of the house led his superior to the private lavatory and unlocked the door. Amidst the tiles and porcelain shimmering with ideal cleanliness, a sconce hung on the wall. The base of the lamp was Hitler’s head, encased in transparent plastic. On the forehead of this lover of stamps, a purple ink imprint had been pressed—the Seal of Solomon: four small crosses between the bars of a large one. The symbols vaguely resembled a swastika. Nathan grunted.


"I like to sit here sometimes, read a bit..." the owner of the lavatory commented.


"Are we not becoming too much like the SS, with their handbags and lampshades made of human skin... eh?"


"An eye for an eye," Ezra muttered through his teeth. "The Bible."


"Fine, I authorize you to keep the trophy," the former Chief agreed. "This is exactly where it belongs."


And so ended Operation Goliath.

10.


With his coat unbuttoned, he walked past the marble tables of sidewalk cafes, past bustling bistros, through the crowd gathered at a "cinema," and did not immediately notice that people were paying attention to him. Some looked with a smile, others with confusion, and some with concern. This irritated Nathan. He stopped and examined his reflection in the plate glass of an antique shop. Everything seemed in order, so why the hell was that elderly Parisian couple staring at him?


"Do I have patterns on me, or what?" Nathan asked the elderly pair irritably.


"Are you unwell? Are you in trouble?" they asked in turn.


"What makes you think that?"


"Well... you look so lost... walking about without a head covering..."


Someone else approached and asked, "Do you need help?"


Ah, so that's what it is! Nathan realized.


Only now did he notice that every passerby, from the smallest child to the oldest man, wore a hat. Nathan remembered that the ancient custom of covering the head—originating from animal life to appear taller and thus stronger—had gradually, along with utilitarian necessity, also become a symbol of prestige and an indicator of social status. Only a slave or a commoner bared their head. From this came the privilege of distinguished nobles—not to remove one's hat in the presence of the king.


The habit of wearing headgear would fade by the mid-1960s under the pressure of the slogan of human equality, but in these times, the custom still held power. Therefore, he would have to submit to it if he did not want to look like a black sheep.


Thanking the people for their concern and care, Nathan entered the nearest hat shop. There, he bought himself a stiff, bourgeois bowler hat, which the French call a melon. When he stepped out of the shop wearing the hat, no one paid him any attention anymore. No one at all.


Summer 2004


OPERATION GOLIATH


By Lev (2004)

Chapter 4


They ate lunch sitting at a long table, once mahogany but now thoroughly riddled by woodworms. The chandelier remained unlit; only a lamp on the fireplace mantle glowed, casting a gentle warmth.


"And what’s for the second course?" asked Ezra, who was noisily finishing his second bowl of soup.


"Gefilte fish," the domestic-minded Nathan replied. "But don't count on seconds, my friend. I couldn't find a large frying pan in the house, so I had to cook with a small one and cut the portions. I’m not your scullery maid."


"Everything is delicious, Chief!" said a clean, rosy-cheeked Goldie, using her fork to separate the white fish meat from the bones. "It seems I made a grave mistake in my choice of a husband."


Ezra Kor-Beit choked on his food.


"Now, now," Nathan grumbled, "don't go dragging me into your marital games. I’m a confirmed bachelor. And that's how I'll die. I’m perfectly content with a girlfriend who visits once a week... Though, lately, she’s been grumbling louder and louder... Apparently, she thinks I’m an egoist too. But there’s no fixing that now. You can't remake yourself."


Nathan stood up and walked over to the crystal radio set sitting on a nightstand.


"I wonder how you turn on this dinosaur?" he said, tossing a dusty doily off the polished wooden lid of the receiver.


"Plug it in and turn the dial—the one on the bottom left," offered Kor-Beit, the electronics expert. "The right dial is for tuning the heterodyne to the wave."


"The Wave?" Goldie asked, surprised.


"No, not that Wave. He means primitive radio waves."


Nathan turned the knob until it clicked; immediately, hoarse, barking voices burst into the room. Nathan winced and pushed the tuning slider further. The scale was primitive, without even a backlight. Finding music, the Chief lowered the volume and returned to the table. Berlin Radio was broadcasting light music.


"I love retro," Nathan admitted. "If it weren't associated with the Hitler era, my nostalgia would be entirely bittersweet."


"You can consider his era over before it even began," Ezra said. "That’s why we were sent here... Chief, do you think we can count on the Golden Star of David? It would really help me when they’re drafting the list of athletes for the Olympics."


"I expect so. We have every chance of receiving the highest honor."


"I was just thinking," Goldie said, wrinkling her smooth forehead, "by clearing the stage of the raving Führer, aren't we just opening the way for an even more predatory beast? What do you think?"


"How much worse could it get!" Ezra Kor-Beit threw up his hands.


"I agree with Ezra," Nathan supported him. "Hitler was the most odious figure of Fascism. Mussolini and Franco are choirboys compared to him. Only Hitler wanted, as he put it, to 'remake the world fundamentally and in all its details.' In that sense, he truly was an Übermensch."


After the dance music, the classics began. It seemed to be Spring Waters by the Russian composer Rachmaninoff, who was living in America at the time. Goldie must have recognized the divine music too, for she said:


"It’s the height of spring back home now. Nisan—the month of flowers..."


Lunch ended. Rachmaninoff’s "waters" faded away. Kor-Beit immediately went back to the apparatus to double-check the settings. Goldie packed her things for the journey. Nathan packed the cash, placing it in his valise, then checked in on Ezra.


"Sergeant, what about the Wave? Has it arrived yet?"


"No signal yet," a worried Kor-Beit reported.


"Fine. I’m going to lie down. Wake me when it’s ready."


Nathan was woken by light hitting his eyes. The morning was sunny and joyful, but the Chief’s heart sank with a bad premonition. Nathan got out of bed; there was no need to dress, as he had slept in his clothes.


In the dining room, the Sergeant and the Lieutenant greeted the Major with grim faces. Breakfast was European-style. Goldie set a plate of fried eggs, jam, coffee, and toast before the Chief.


"I try to avoid fried foods," Nathan said, pushing the toast aside. He took plain bread and dipped it into the yellow eye of the fried egg. The eye burst and ran.


"Well, report," the Chief ordered, breaking the eerie silence.


"The signal didn't come," Kor-Beit reported, hanging his head.


The coffee scalded Nathan’s throat, and tears welled in his eyes.


"God, I don't know what’s wrong," the Sergeant said, spreading his hands in confusion. "I’m going to take the device apart bolt by bolt and put it back together again..."


After noon, Nathan risked leaving the house for a brief scouting mission, the main goal of which was to buy a fresh newspaper—preferably a Munich one. He bought Der Morgenstern, its headline jumping out at him immediately. Like a screaming animal, the blaring headline throttled him as he pressed the paper against his side with his elbow: "BRUTAL MURDER IN BASEMENT!" He hurried back, trying not to attract any attention.


Arriving home, the Chief impatiently unfolded the fresh sheets of the Morning Star, which smelled of kerosene. A chill ran down his spine as he read the front page to the end. This is what was printed:


"Yesterday, at approximately three o'clock in the afternoon, a brutal murder occurred in the basement of the Sterneckerbräu beer hall, the headquarters of the so-called 'National Socialist German Workers' Party.' Found at the crime scene was the decapitated corpse of the notoriously scandalous orator who spoke in the völkisch spirit—Adolf Hitler, born 1889, an Austrian German from Braunau am Inn.


From a meager police dossier, it is known that Hitler, who held the military rank of corporal, was as recently as a month ago a 'confidential informant' for the liquidation department of the Reichswehr’s 2nd Infantry Regiment, under the General Staff’s section for propaganda and surveillance of political groups.


Shortly before his tragic demise, the deceased had joined a right-wing radical party founded by Messrs. Harrer and Drexler.


This information was obtained from his party comrades, who discovered the body and helped the police identify it. Found in the pockets of the deceased was party membership card number 555."


(Strange it wasn't 666, Nathan thought).


"In the opinion of the NSDAP members, Party Comrade Hitler—this outstanding orator and organizer, the 'national drummer' as he called himself—fell victim to the enemies of the party. It was not specified whom the deceased's colleagues had in mind. However, the descriptions of the perpetrators of this act, monstrous in its cruelty, are known..."


There followed a fairly accurate description of the appearance, age, and sex of the suspects. It reported three MEN! Presumably foreigners.


"It’s a good thing we dressed Goldie in a man’s suit," Nathan thought. "They’ll be looking for three men, not two men and a woman. 'And He said that it was very good.' However, we need to get out of here quickly."


"Do you understand now why we declined the maid?" Nathan said after his colleagues had also read the report. "By now, like a true German woman, she would have already been running to the police station to report suspicious foreigners..."

Chapter 5


They had been living in 1920 for three days now. In the evenings, Ezra and Goldie would go out into the garden to breathe the fresh air, while Nathan went out every noon to get the newspapers.


Hitler was buried in a closed casket so as not to shock the public with the absence of his head. One passerby asked: "Was this Hitler fellow truly just some guy from the street corner?"


The Völkischer Beobachter printed a memorial article about the slain man. All in all, the obituary stated that he had died young and that "surely the German gods loved him."


One circumstance troubled Nathan. During the day, glancing out the window by chance, he saw two policemen walking slowly past the fence of their house. They were stealing glances at the windows. Nathan ducked behind the curtain. About two hours later, the policemen passed by again, casting the same sidelong looks at the house. Nathan decided this was no coincidence. Still, there were no grounds for panic yet. Perhaps it was just a fluke. After all, it was a policeman's duty to patrol the streets. However, he decided to heighten their vigilance. His anxiety spread to his subordinates.


Goldie paced the room nervously, her fingers interlaced behind her head. Her neck bowed under the weight of the gesture, her hair falling over her face.


"Stop drifting back and forth!" Ezra barked at Goldie. "You’re creating interference..."


"Don't be rude to a superior officer," Lieutenant Darjan snapped back.


"I have the right; you’re my wife."


"We aren't wedded. Only when I take your surname..."


"Silence!" Nathan bellowed. "Lieutenant Darjan, go to your room and watch the street from the window. Do not turn on the light. If a car stops near the house or if you notice any covert movement—report it."


"And if they come for an open inspection?"


"Stop talking. March to your post!"


"Chief, we need to clear out of here," Kor-Beit said three hours later. "We were totally exposed back on the tram; the conductor remembers us. Yesterday, some woman from the house next door saw Goldie and me in the yard and gave us a suspicious look. We might have left a trail elsewhere, too. And that’s on top of Schüssler’s testimony. Soon they’ll piece together all the scattered facts and..."


"I know," Nathan snapped. "I’ve specifically studied the methods of the German police. Even the Soviets couldn't dismantle the old mechanism. Nevertheless, I maintain: there are no grounds for panic. Not yet..."


He looked at his watch; it was half-past two in the morning. He peeked into Goldie’s room. She was asleep, sitting on a chair by the window, leaning against the sill with her elbows spread touchingly wide. Nathan’s heart ached; she looked so defenseless at that moment. He loved her like a daughter—like the girl of his own who was never born. D-damn this job. It is ruthless toward one's personal life.


Nathan returned to the hall and placed a hand on Ezra’s shoulder with a paternal gesture: "What’s the status of the device, son?"


"I don't know, Chief. Kill me, but I haven't a clue. There’s no Wave. But that simply shouldn't be possible!"


"Perhaps a component has failed? Or a loose connection somewhere?"


"Every sensor shows total functionality."


"The batteries are dead!"


"Fully charged! They’re practically sparking..."


"Then what is the problem?"


"I DON'T KNOW!" Ezra clutched his hair.


"That is bad."


"It’s a catastrophe, Chief."

Chapter 6


At six in the morning, an emergency military briefing was convened. Dawn was already breaking. Goldie sat there bleary-eyed—or rather, sleep-deprived. Nathan and Kor-Beit, who hadn't caught a wink of sleep, had dark circles of exhaustion around their eyes. They ground coffee beans and drank cups of fragrant, extra-strong coffee.


The Chief opened the meeting. "So, the Wave is absent, and likely won't appear. Your thoughts? We’ll start with the junior rank. Kor-Beit."


Ezra pulled himself together and began to speak: "The Wave is a stigular field with chrono-diaplectic vortices. It’s also known as the Einstein-Mikota effect..."


"Cut to the chase, Einstein," Goldie said irritably. "Let's skip the theory and get to the practice."


"That’s what I’m saying... The field, you see, permeates the space-time continuum like a neutrino. This means there are no obstacles for the Wave. Not in space, not in time. If there is no Wave, it means the wave generator hasn't been turned on over THERE. Our signal is the same stigular field, just combined differently and less powerful. In essence, if our Wave matched the power of the Wave sent from the Center, we could return without outside help. But then, instead of two relatively small batteries, we’d need a massive power station—preferably nuclear—of corresponding dimensions. Actually, because of the power supply issue, a truly autonomous time machine of reasonable size hasn't been created yet. That’s why we only have the chrono-transporter. It’s essentially a time machine, but consisting of two units: the base and the mobile. The main part of the installation is stationary, located... well, you know where. While the mobile platform..."


"Understood," Nathan interrupted this time. "The mobile platform travels through Time. Right. Are you finished? Goldie, the floor is yours."


"Perhaps a solar flare? That could cause equipment failure."


"Nonsense!" Ezra cut his wife off with relish. "You’re a good analyst, but you don't know jack about tech."


"I’m certain there’s an accident at the Center!" Goldie flared up.


"The government has three functioning stationary units at its disposal," Nathan reminded them. "Two of the old type, UZRA-SX, and one modernized unit—SHIMON-15, which we launched from. It’s highly unlikely all three are down. And any one of them can bring us back..."


"Terrorists blew up the nuclear plant in Al-Koba!" Lieutenant Darjan persisted.


"After the construction of the Palestinian-Israeli Wall?" Kor-Beit doubted.


"War has broken out!"


"Everything was calm when we left. You know yourself, we’ve had a stable peace with the Palestinians for years—touch wood. And with other nations, thank God, there are no major issues..."


"What about the UN debates regarding the ban on chrono-transporter testing?" Goldie countered with a professional tone. "The question was raised to strip national governments of the right to use TT technology arbitrarily. It was proposed to place the devices at the disposal of international organizations like the 'World Archaeological Society,' UNESCO, and other strictly peaceful groups. The European Union, Russia, China, Brazil, and the USA agreed to mutual inspections. Only Israel—our esteemed Prime Minister Esau Aaron and the War Party—refused to hear of any inspectors. They claim we have no time machine. But we do, and more than one. And we use them at our own discretion, perhaps to the detriment of humanity."


"To remove the most bloodthirsty piece of scum the world has ever known—you call that acting to the detriment of humanity?!" Ezra, as a more simply organized man, sincerely struggled to understand the nuanced Goldie. "You said yourself you’d dreamed of this moment since childhood!.."


"Emotions are one thing, life is another! 'It is not given to us to predict how our word will echo...' a poet once said. In our case, it's an action."


"I only know one thing," Ezra heated up. "Hitler meant war! Sixty million people died..."


"Sixty-five," the Chief corrected.


"Exactly... and among them, five million Jews! And we saved them. And perhaps we prevented a second global slaughter..."


"Alright, let's summarize," the head of the mission interrupted the debate. "It’s possible our government was faced with a hard choice and was forced to shut down the experiment... Calm down, friends. Shut it down temporarily. Perhaps in a year, when things settle..."


"No, I won't agree to live here for a whole year!" Kor-Beit protested. "I have my training, my diet... and finally, there isn't even a carbonated shower here..."


"Shh!" Nathan put a finger to his lips, and everyone went silent. "I think I hear gravel crunching," said the leader, who possessed keen hearing and a phenomenal instinct for danger.


Goldie darted to her observation post. Without lighting the lamp, she pressed against the glass at the windowsill. In the light of the garden lantern—lit specifically for such occasions—Goldie saw the simpleton from before hiding behind a bush. Only now he wasn't sluggish or drooling; on the contrary, he was focused and giving authoritative hand signals to someone. Clever devil, managing to get past the high fence!


From another window in the kitchen, Nathan saw two policemen in coats with flashlights in their hands standing behind the fence. The fog made their figures grey, flat, and somewhat surreal. But when one of them reached for the street button, the electric bell in the house's hallway shrieked sharply and quite tangibly, sending a nervous shiver through their bodies. The villa had been equipped by the previous owner with the "latest technology" of the early 20th century.


Like a tiger, Nathan bounded into the hall and ordered: "Ezra, quickly dismantle the apparatus and pack it into two boxes. Goldie, get the gear ready. I’ll meet them and stall. If anything happens—get to the attic and out through the skylight to the roof. Wait for me there."


"Chief, be careful; the moron is hiding nearby," Goldie said. "Though he’s no moron, but a cunning fed."


"Noted," Nathan Cassel replied, taking his chameleon coat from the rack and throwing it over his shoulders. I should put on the helmet, too, he thought with regret regarding the bowler hat—but oh well—and he opened the front door.


Standing on the porch, he asked the uninvited guests: "What is it you want, gentlemen?"


"We need the owner of the manor. We are from the Uffing Police Department. We wish to have a word..."


"I speak for the owner. What kind of talk is this at such an hour? You’ve raised me from my bed, damn you. I shall file a complaint." Knowing the blunt nature of Bavarians, Nathan didn't mince words.


"It is a quarter past six," one of the policemen replied, taking a watch from his pocket. "We are observing the law. After six in the morning, we have the right..."


"And do you have a warrant?"


"A warrant is not required for a passport check. You arrived in town recently and have not registered anywhere; this is not in order. We have every right to detain you, as well as your friends, and escort you to the station. Now, will you open up, or will we have to break down the gate?"


"Fine. I’ll open it now. Just let me find the keys to the fence. I can't guarantee I’ll find them quickly..."


Nathan intended to close the door, but the "fed" stepped out from the bushes. He said, smiling maliciously: "Allow me to help you find them."


"This is unheard-of insolence!" the owner feigned outrage. "Secretly trespassing on private property!.."


"I decided to drop by out of old friendship... We’re acquainted, aren't we? Remember, you gave me a whole heap of marks the other day—a clerk's salary for a full month. Are you a millionaire? Allow me to be curious—what is your name?"


The fed was already in the hallway, nudging the sluggish owner forward.


"And who are you, exactly? Yesterday you were a simpleton, today you're playing the spy?"


"Yesterday, the day before, and for five years now, I have been the Commissioner of the Uffing Criminal Police. And before that, I was a senior detective... hm... and even earlier, when I started, a simple policeman... In short, my dear sir, I was born here and, God willing, I shall die here. We don't care for foreign lands, and we don't like strangers without registration..."


"What registration? I come from a free country; I’ve never heard of any registration. This is unpardonable police control! A disgrace to your democracy!"


"On that, I agree with you. I don't much like this democracy myself," the Commissioner said, seeping into the hall without an invitation. "And as for the 'simpleton'—well, Sherlock Holmes wasn't the only one who could disguise himself. Often you don't even need costumes or wigs. Just let a little drool run—and suddenly people allow themselves to say things in your presence they wouldn't say under torture."


"In my opinion, I haven't said anything criminal to you."


"True, but the hidden meaning of your words was such that I thought: 'These people are afraid of something. My task is to find out what.' Psychology."


"You’re just like Hercule Poirot," Nathan blurted out without thinking.


"Which Poirot?"


"Well... the Hercule one."


"Never heard of him..."


"You will. If you live long enough."


"Now, now, no threats... By the way, where are your friends? Won't you introduce them to me, and yourself while you're at it?"


"I am Nathan Cassel, a businessman, a Swiss subject, here to visit an old friend. My daughter and son-in-law are with me. They are on their honeymoon... Goldie! Ezra! My children, come here... Here are our papers, Herr Commissioner..."


"Good, I’ll take a look. In the meantime, unlock the gate."


"Why invite a whole swarm of policemen into a decent house when you—such a perceptive man—can check the documents yourself..."


Kor-Beit entered the hall carrying boxes, followed by Goldie with a bag and the Chief’s personal valise.


"Oh! It seems you’re preparing for a journey?" the Commissioner said, smirking. "How is it, Herr Cassel? You complained that we woke you, yet you’ve been up for a long time, ready to leave. You must admit, it’s not logical. Remember: a small lie gives birth to great distrust..."


"Forgive me, Commissioner, I was heated. Yes, we are already preparing to leave... so registration won't be necessary."


"And why so hastily?"


"Commercial matters forced our friend to depart urgently. In his absence, we intend to go to Berlin for a week, then return... and then we will register in full form."


"And in the boxes, I presume, are Munich souvenirs?" the Commissioner noted snidely. "By the way, where is your fancy car? Remember, back then you returned on foot..."


"Well, you see..." Nathan spread his hands—it was the signal: the situation was spiraling out of control; prepare for force.


"Perhaps your car was in an accident?" this devil of detection continued. "You see, when I saw you walking, I contacted the Munich Police Headquarters by telephone and found out that a car, described very similarly to yours, was wrecked in a traffic incident that happened near the site of another extraordinary event—namely, the murder of a certain Hitler..."


"What are you implying?!" Nathan Cassel growled, buttoning his coat.


"I’m not implying, sir. If I were implying, I’d say so. Well, then, they killed that lad quite brutally. Imagine—they cut off his head and took it with them. Such barbarism. The man had to be buried without a head; it's not proper."


"Are you charging us? Where is the evidence?"


"Fräulein, would you be so kind as to show me what’s in your bag? It’s very distinctive..."


"Have you no shame, Commissioner!" Herr Cassel feigned genuine outrage. "You intend to rummage through my daughter’s undergarments?!"


"There’s a frozen head of Austrian cabbage in there," Goldie answered defiantly. "Chief, you see he’s clocked everything."


"You hear that? Your subordinate is more sensible. Confess, you’re members of a combat group, aren't you? Ultra-right or ultra-left? They’ve been breeding like rabbits lately. Removing the competition. Not with clean hands, gentlemen. I am forced to arrest you all."


"You are a brave man, Commissioner," Nathan smiled unpleasantly.


"I’m no coward. I’ve had to run under bullets... but unlike those bandits who had a chance to escape, you have none. The house is surrounded, and my men will shoot. So, as we say, hände hoch and out you go."


The Commissioner drew a revolver—a good old-fashioned cylinder weapon that didn't need cocking—and aimed the deadly barrel at the leader. Kor-Beit and Goldie set their things on the floor. The Commissioner immediately turned the barrel toward Ezra, his most likely opponent, being young and healthy.


"You, young man, sit on the sofa. And you, Herr Cassel, too. You’ve lost. And if you twitch, I’ll put a hole in you without blinking. Fräulein, find the key and open the gate. Hurry up, my finger is trembling with impatience..."


Goldie complied. As she passed the Commissioner, she performed a graceful pirouette and, with a kick, sent the lawman's weapon flying from his hands. The Bavarian was stunned. He had expected anything but this. Where had it ever been seen that a woman could swing her legs like that!


And then Kor-Beit met him. "Allow me, dear, this is a man’s job," Ezra said and struck the Bavarian from the right with some clever hook. Perhaps too clever, because the Commissioner dodged and stayed on his feet. He was a worthy opponent.


"Chauvinist!" the woman cursed at her boyfriend and again kicked the opponent, right in the groin.


The man collapsed to his knees, his face a mask of desperate agony. One could imagine the "turmoil" that had started down there.


"Sorry, dear, my mistake," Kor-Beit replied and this time landed a precise blow.


The Commissioner’s heavy body slumped to the floor. However, the officer did not forget his duty. His hand reached for the revolver lying on the rug.


"My, what a persistent fellow," Kor-Beit marveled. He bent down, grabbed the Commissioner by the collar and the seat of his pants, and threw him head-first through the window. The window was closed, so there was much cracking and tinkling of glass.


Behind the fence, a clamor immediately broke out; they began to batter the gate door, which was made of thick metal bars. The combat group hurriedly dressed—coats, helmets in the shape of hats...


"Follow me!" Nathan Cassel ordered, grabbing the valise with the money and forged documents.


Kor-Beit grabbed the boxes containing the equipment parts; Goldie snatched the bag with the trophy—and they rushed to the attic stairs.


Stepping out onto the roof through the skylight, they saw that the policemen were already in the garden, running toward the house.


"Shoot!" the recovered Commissioner shouted to his men. "Shoot, you blockheads, or they’ll get away!"


The policemen opened disorganized fire at the roof and windows as they ran, not knowing the exact number of the gang. More glass shattered. A stray bullet smashed a brick on the chimney where Cassel was taking cover. Another bullet hit Kor-Beit but ricocheted with a whine. The coat was bulletproof.


"Ready?" the elder asked hoarsely, pulling his hat so low his face was hidden, the brim touching his coat collar as if fused.


"Ready," his subordinates replied, doing the same. Breathing and eye slits opened in the helmets.


Cassel, looking through the eyepieces of a night-vision device, fired downward without specifically aiming. This time, the weapon had no silencer. The burst thundered; bullets sheared through branches. The Commissioner’s men hit the dirt.


"Takeoff!" Nathan ordered and engaged the levitator drive.


In the sudden moment of silence, a whistle was heard, and three human figures soared above the roof. Were they human? The policemen looked up, stunned, not believing their eyes.


Only the Commissioner, snatching a revolver from a dazed subordinate, fired and fired and fired until the cylinder was empty and until the figures—now mere indistinct shadows—finally vanished into the morning, yet still dark, sky.


"Strike me dead!" one of the policemen said, rising from the ground. "How did they manage that?"


"Devils, no doubt!" another policeman said, dusting himself off. "Flew off on broomsticks."


Three more colleagues ran up from the other side of the house. "How are we going to write the report, Herr Senior Detective?" they asked the man who had just been firing so furiously at the sky and who now sat weakly on the ground. "The Old Man will just fire us if we write the truth—he'll fire us for sure."


"How can this be?" the local Sherlock Holmes wondered, ignoring his colleagues' question. "I had them in my hands, and I was almost a Commissioner."


Just then, the real Commissioner arrived in a car. He was old, heavy, and nearing retirement. "What’s all this shooting?" he asked breathlessly, lighting a cheap cigar. "Disturbing good citizens. Walter, get up off the cold ground, or you'll get hemorrhoids."


"Herr Commissioner," Senior Detective Walter said as his colleagues helped him up. "I report: as a result of investigative measures, I tracked down a dangerous political combat group..."


"But failed to take them," the Commissioner guessed. "Oh, you blockhead. Always showing off your independence. Instead of consulting with your superiors... I’ll have to find a different successor."

Chapter 7


They landed at the edge of a forest. No one was around; only the pines rustled in the wind. The sun was rising above the horizon.


They agreed on a plan: the group would temporarily split. Kor-Beit and Goldie would settle in France, in Paris. Nathan would head to Switzerland, or perhaps Belgium, and provide his address by sending a letter "poste restante" to the Central Post Office in the French capital. Kor-Beit would reassemble the apparatus and attempt to summon the Wave. If contact with the Center was established, Nathan would be notified in writing and would join them.


The Chief allocated ten thousand dollars to his comrades from their operational reserves. This should have been enough for the young couple to live comfortably for the next year or two. After that, they would see. Nathan intended to deposit a small reserve of gold coins into a Swiss bank to ensure a steady income.


"Well, that’s everything, my children," Nathan Cassel said. "Let’s wish each other luck. Until we meet again—and let's hope it’s soon."


The Chief took off first. Then Ezra and Goldie rose into the air and flew in the opposite direction.


Wassily Kandinsky, Franz Marc, and Paul Klee—denizens of bohemian Schwabing who had discovered new dimensions in painting—were guests at the country house of a wealthy patron. Toward dawn, the avant-garde artists crawled out onto the porch to breathe the fresh air. Amidst the rhythmic murmur of a foaming stream, Kandinsky, like all Russians, gazed dreamily into the sky. The stars were fading, the dawn of a new era was breaking, and like heralds of that era, two angels flew across the sky, holding hands. Wassily nudged Franz in the side.


"Look here, brother—a man and a woman flying through the sky. Just like a Marc Chagall painting..."


Franz nudged Paul so that he, too, could admire the miracle. Paul tumbled into the bushes.


"There it is—the prophetic power of art, eh, brother?" Kandinsky concluded. "And they scold us for being out of touch with life..."

Chapter 8


Nathan settled in Switzerland, near Lausanne. There, he bought a cottage on the shores of Lake Geneva—a well-situated, modest structure with a large living area and a veranda on the first floor, and three rooms on the second. The household was managed by a local woman—unmarried and still relatively young. At first, Nathan kept his distance, maintaining the professional boundary of a master and his employee, but, as often happens with bachelors and lonely women, their relationship became closer, more intimate. However, since this somber foreigner, who seemed eternally on guard, never offered the Swiss woman—who was also, incidentally, quite taciturn—a formal arrangement, she didn't consider binding him in marriage. Or perhaps she did, but out of natural modesty...


From time to time, Nathan wrote letters to Paris. Goldie replied to him. She wrote that Ezra had found work as an engineer at a radio factory and was earning good money, while she was working as a secretary for a firm, so they were living well. Try as he might, Ezra never found his wartime friend. The man had been a signalman, and the guys called him "The Wave" (Volna). Just like that—the Wave had vanished, gone. But Ezra did not resign himself; he intended to keep searching.


Two years later, Nathan received a letter, unexpectedly, from Berlin. Goldie wrote that she and her husband were on vacation; they had long wanted to visit Berlin, and only now had that dream come true. "Berlin lives a boisterous life. People revel and dance on the shimmering asphalt of Friedrichstrasse or the Kurfürstendamm. Provincials, however, dislike Berlin, calling it the Whore of Babylon, but we are delighted. Especially now, knowing that Germany is no longer under threat."


Nathan followed the political situation in Germany and knew that after the inglorious death of the "National Drummer," the NSDAP had returned to its original, pathetic state—a small circle of nostalgic romantics, fond of chatting over a mug of beer, having become entirely harmless to the world. Indeed, the chances for party agitation, which had fed almost exclusively on the complexes of social discontent, began to diminish when, starting in late 1923, the situation in the country stabilized significantly. Inflation was halted, and the history of the republic, which had begun so unhappily, entered a period of "Golden Years." This marked the end of the post-war era.


They came from Berlin to visit Nathan. Goldie, it seemed, had grown even more beautiful. Ezra had transformed even more. He dressed in the latest Berlin fashion—a sort of rubberized dandy on crepe soles, in "Charleston" trousers and with a "Shimmy" hairstyle, slicked straight back, which was, generally speaking, considered immoral by the broader public.


Nathan introduced his guests to the Swiss woman—whose name, by the way, was Zinarida—according to their cover story. Cassel was growing more and more into this legend, which the leadership of the Mossad special department had intended to serve as cover for only two or three days. Instead, its duration had stretched into years. And sometimes, with a chill in his chest, he realized—it might be forever.


Sitting on the veranda with a magnificent view of Lake Geneva, Nathan and Goldie drank homemade wine, while the athlete drank Baden mineral water. They discussed the problem vital to them: how to return home to their own time. Kor-Beit had not lost his optimism, flashing his magnificent teeth. Goldie pensively watched the distant white specks of sails. Nathan gnawed on the mouthpiece of his pipe like a horse gnawing on its bit. And what of it, truly? he thought. Did we not know what we were getting into? In carrying out the mission, we could have died. Let us be glad that everything has seemingly ended well. And one can live, after all, even in these times. God willing, there will be no war in Europe... Perhaps I'll just go ahead and marry Zinarida and stay here. Especially since Switzerland will remain neutral in any case. Thus, I shall end my Sabbaths in peace.


His hopes regarding the tranquility in Europe seemed to be coming true. Germany was admitted to the League of Nations, and the flow of American credit increased. Unemployment was substantially reduced. The centrist parties grew stronger. In the Reichstag elections, the völkisch movement managed to secure only three percent of the vote. This indicated that Germany had finally stepped onto a normal path.


Of course, it would have been naive to assume that everything would now proceed smoothly of its own accord. Heavy trials awaited everyone: the coming Great Depression of 1929, which would hit Germany hardest, and the subsequent government crisis of the early '30s.


With the infirm Hindenburg—in the absence of Hitler, whom he would have appointed Chancellor with a heavy heart—the new reality would offer an even narrower choice between political spiders. Either the "magnificent rider" Papen, or the "diabolical general" Schleicher. Or some other "horseradish that is no sweeter than a radish." Evidently, President Hindenburg would have no choice but to declare a state of emergency and, before passing away, hand over full power to a military dictator (a more or less civilized one). The Reichswehr dictatorship would last until the crisis passed, and then the military would have to—modus vivendi—hand power back to civilians.


If Stalin kept quiet (and, lacking the seductive example of Hitler with his brazen expansion, he would hardly dare to claim even the western territories of the former Russian Empire, to say nothing of a conflict with Finland), then war with the Soviet Union could likely be avoided, as the entire general staff, except for Hitler, considered invading Russia madness.


In turn, Stalin, in the absence of Hitlerism, would have no formal pretext to attack Europe.


What the new future of Germany would be, Nathan did not know, but he hoped it would not be as dark as the one that had once been.


They met again in the summer of 1926. This time, Nathan traveled to Paris to visit the Kor-Beits. Indeed, Goldie had officially taken her husband’s surname and had finally given birth to a long-awaited child. It was a boy, a charming toddler of two years old—as clever as his mother and as sturdy as his father.


The Kor-Beits lived in a special district, Joinville, often called the Jewish quarter, on the Right Bank of the Seine, from where the towers of Notre-Dame Cathedral were visible. They occupied a seven-room apartment on the second floor and held an account at Credit Lyonnais. Ezra was now the director of his own firm, which produced electrical equipment or something of the sort; Nathan didn't press for details. Over dinner, as they once again analyzed why the Wave had vanished, Nathan asked Ezra if he knew the history of the temporal transporter’s invention.


"Of course, Chief," Ezra replied. "It was part of the theoretical course in my training."


"Is it possible that by thoroughly shaking up History, we inadvertently crushed the inventor of the time machine himself?"


"I follow you, Chief. You’re referring to the Bradbury Effect?"


"Precisely. And we didn't just squash a butterfly; we crushed a venomous viper."


"I don't think so, Chief. The discovery was made in Japan, so it’s unlikely the wave of change reached that far... Besides, the author of the temporal transporter wasn't a human, but an artificial intelligence named Mikota. In any case, no matter where the machine was invented, it would still end up with us in Israel."


"True," Nathan smirked. Then he frowned and concluded: "Unfortunately, we still can't explain the lack of contact with the Base. And even if, as Goldie claimed, the United Nations had pressured Israel, our people would still have found a way to pull us out."


"And what if they were forced to abandon us?" the Sergeant suggested gloomily. "The nature of special ops..."


"Never!" the Chief categorically rejected. "Not in this case. For their own safety. Can you imagine what a desperate agent could do while stuck in the Past? It’s like a man swallowing a grenade with the pin pulled. No, there’s some other reason here, something deeper..."


"And what do you think, bel ami?" Ezra asked his wife.


"About what?" Goldie responded distractedly, listening to something off in the distance, and whispered: "Ah, le pauvre petit." [Ah, the poor little one.]


"Well, about the Bradbury Effect and everything else... any ideas?.."


"Oh, to hell with you and your Bradbury Effects," Goldie waved him off and, without asking permission from her superior, left for the nursery because the baby was crying and fussing at the governess again.


Nathan suddenly felt insulted by this blatant disregard for subordination. Blood rushed to his face. He wanted to order Lieutenant Darjan to stand at attention... However, Major Cassel quickly cooled down. Did he still have the moral right to give orders in these circumstances? And to whom? It was obvious—Lieutenant Darjan no longer existed; there was only Madame Kor-Beit.


Ezra looked at the Chief sheepishly and said, apologetically: "Don't mind her, Chief. She’s a woman first and foremost." And for the sake of clarity, he explained: "She has a typical postpartum crise de nerfs."


"Yes, she's right..." Nathan sighed, relenting, and tried to joke. "In this devil of a situation, as the Russians say, 'you can't figure it out without a bottle...'"


The Sergeant gave a hollow chuckle.


The Chief couldn't help himself and lit his pipe. Ezra immediately hurried to usher him out onto the balcony. "The smoke is bad for the baby," the host said with embarrassment, nudging Nathan with his softening belly.


"Perhaps a small drink?" Ezra suggested to smooth over the awkwardness once they were on the balcony.


"What about your sports?"


"What sports," Ezra waved his hand hopelessly, much like his wife had. "I’m nearly thirty now. Look, a belly is already growing..."


Ezra went to get the alcohol, and Nathan leaned his elbows on the railing. Below, life flowed slowly—peaceful for now. A man dressed like a typical Jew emerged from a tavern on the opposite side of the street; swaying, he wandered off, likely heading home. Two wits standing nearby laughed. One of them began to sing in Yiddish: "Roboynov shel oylom..." [Our Rabbi has had a few.]


And suddenly, a terrifying realization struck Nathan like a thunderbolt, making his heart ache and his eyes grow dark. "Gottenu!" [My God!] He clutched his chest and nearly fell. Returning just in time, Kor-Beit supported the Chief, who was as white as chalk, and eased him into a wicker chair on the balcony.


"What’s wrong with you?" he asked his commander—now, likely, his former commander. "You look terrible..."


"It seems we didn't just cancel Hitler," Nathan rasped, "BUT THE STATE OF ISRAEL ITSELF..."


"What?!?" Ezra exhaled, barely holding onto the bottle, his tanned face turning pale as well.


"Just like that. It was Hitler and his circle who 'resolved the Jewish question.' But if there is no Hitlerian war—and I emphasize, specifically Hitler’s—then the Jews will not be subjected to mass extermination. Which means the world community will not develop a guilt complex toward a 'wretched nation,' because the nation won't be wretched at all. At least, no more wretched than any other. Do you understand?"


Ezra nodded dumbly, swigging the liquor straight from the bottle.


"And that means," Nathan Cassel pronounced the verdict, "the question of providing territory for the creation of a Jewish state will never be raised with any urgency in 1945–46. All our petitions will remain buried under bureaucratic red tape—first in the League of Nations, then in the UN... We won't get the territory in '48, and we won't recreate the State of Israel... At least, not in the timeframe and the place that we know."


"But that’s terrible!" Ezra slammed a heavy fist onto the balcony railing.


"It’s a catastrophe," agreed a visibly aged Nathan, hanging his head. "But this stays between us—entre nous, as they say here in France. There’s no need to tell Goldie. I have no one, you are an orphan by nature, but she has a host of relatives back in Israel. What will become of their fates? She would think of it and suffer..."


"Go figure: where is the good and where is the evil? Two sides of the same coin," the now-wiser Kor-Beit concluded and, in a fit of frustration, hurled the empty bottle downward.


Curses drifted up from the pavement: "Merde!" and something else.

Chapter 9


Nathan was leaving for Switzerland—likely forever. It was late April, and the heat was almost like summer. Thus, it was not surprising that he forgot his bowler-helmet at the Kor-Beits’. It didn't matter anymore, anyway. It was unlikely that—six years later—he would ever again find himself running across rooftops under a hail of bullets. From now on, he would live like everyone else. Like one of them.


The decision to leave as soon as possible had struck Nathan when he suddenly felt that he was no longer needed by this young family. They had reconciled with their fate, settled in perfectly, and would likely be happy in their own way. Embarrassed and exchanging glances, they handed him written resignations, citing the "prevailing circumstances." Nathan signed the papers and tucked the documents into his pocket.


"As the sole representative of the Secret Service, the Army Command, and the State of Israel, I accept your resignations and declare you demobilized..."


"Nathan, what should we do with the Head?" Ezra asked in the casual tone of a now-civilian man.


"Have you not destroyed it yet?"


"You never gave us the corresponding order," Goldie replied.


"Actually, I’ve already... repurposed it," Ezra said in a guilty voice, scratching the back of his head. "Would you like to see?"


The master of the house led his superior to the private lavatory and unlocked the door. Amidst the tiles and porcelain shimmering with ideal cleanliness, a sconce hung on the wall. The base of the lamp was Hitler’s head, encased in transparent plastic. On the forehead of this lover of stamps, a purple ink imprint had been pressed—the Seal of Solomon: four small crosses between the bars of a large one. The symbols vaguely resembled a swastika. Nathan grunted.


"I like to sit here sometimes, read a bit..." the owner of the lavatory commented.


"Are we not becoming too much like the SS, with their handbags and lampshades made of human skin... eh?"


"An eye for an eye," Ezra muttered through his teeth. "The Bible."


"Fine, I authorize you to keep the trophy," the former Chief agreed. "This is exactly where it belongs."


And so ended Operation Goliath.

Chapter 10


With his coat unbuttoned, he walked past the marble tables of sidewalk cafes, past bustling bistros, through the crowd gathered at a "cinema," and did not immediately notice that people were paying attention to him. Some looked with a smile, others with confusion, and some with concern. This irritated Nathan. He stopped and examined his reflection in the plate glass of an antique shop. Everything seemed in order, so why the hell was that elderly Parisian couple staring at him?


"Do I have patterns on me, or what?" Nathan asked the elderly pair irritably.


"Are you unwell? Are you in trouble?" they asked in turn.


"What makes you think that?"


"Well... you look so lost... walking about without a head covering..."


Someone else approached and asked, "Do you need help?"


Ah, so that's what it is! Nathan realized.


Only now did he notice that every passerby, from the smallest child to the oldest man, wore a hat. Nathan remembered that the ancient custom of covering the head—originating from animal life to appear taller and thus stronger—had gradually, along with utilitarian necessity, also become a symbol of prestige and an indicator of social status. Only a slave or a commoner bared their head. From this came the privilege of distinguished nobles—not to remove one's hat in the presence of the king.


The habit of wearing headgear would fade by the mid-1960s under the pressure of the slogan of human equality, but in these times, the custom still held power. Therefore, he would have to submit to it if he did not want to look like a black sheep.


Thanking the people for their concern and care, Nathan entered the nearest hat shop. There, he bought himself a stiff, bourgeois bowler hat, which the French call a melon. When he stepped out of the shop wearing the hat, no one paid him any attention anymore. No one at all.


Summer 2004