Damien Broderick - Strange Attractors by Original (pdf) (no david read aloud txt) 📕

cool it cool it cool it. I heard the exchange is closing down.

No worries, say my sisters. We get by without the warehouse, which

we emptied.

I have done all I can.

It wasn’t my fault.

The sanctuary tree

©

JO H N PLAYFORD

Trudi turned away from him.

‘Don’t touch me like that,’ she whispered, glancing sideways.

‘To be is to do.’ How he loved her.

‘Save it for the Gauleiter.’

He laughed and turned again to the observation window. Far

below the Rommel the landscape slowly shifted. Air-conditioned,

the airship was pleasantly cool; by contrast, high summer ruled the

countryside beneath them.

‘Are you glad we came?’ Rudolf asked.

She hesitated. ‘Next year might have been better. Times are so

turbulent with the New Territories hardly established. Him mler’s

astrologer has noted inauspicious portents, you know — and the

Fiihrer’s dog died last month.’

‘How can you believe in that SS nonsense, darling? 1954 is a year

like any other. One might as well subscribe to Gypsy fortunetelling, or that mad Sturm bannfuhrer’s readings of goose entrails before the Ostland Arch.’

‘Rudolf! Don’t equate the two. The Party has accepted astrology

as an integral part of Folk gestalt — ’

He moved back to her and kissed her on the lips. The tightness of

her muscles eased; her mouth opened to him. She responded to his

lust as she could not to his words. It was better that they were here,

for a while. To remain in Berlin would have been too risky.

W hen his parents had died at the hands of Untermenschen

151

152

J o h n Play ford.

rebels in the Ukraine, Rudolf had taken Trudi with him to the

capital, against the wishes of her parents, rivals of his family. Her

father was a Wehrmacht officer who was rumoured to have been

implicated in a plot against Hitler. It was also said that his wife was

a quarter Slavic. Such stories had been promoted by Rudolfs

parents, and he knew that most of them, at the least, were fabricated. Luckily his inheritance and pure lineage had enabled him to overrule Trudi’s parents’ wishes.

Once he discharged his duties on attachment to the Gauleiter’s

Office there might be opportunities for advancement in this new

land. He required freedom, and the position, though temporary,

was too convenient to refuse. The price would be the stigma of

working outside his own organisation, however close an ally the

Party leader might be.

Incognito, he and his companion were dismissed by the other

passengers as young marrieds. H ad they known them for a H auptm ann of the SD and his lover, they might have been more attentive.

After a sufficient time he took his hand away from her breast and

whispered into her ear.

‘You’ll like Greater Barossa. The Australian sun will provide a

wonderful tan.’ So long as her pale, Aryan skin did not burn.

He leant back and put his arm around Trudi. The lounge room was

small, cozy in comparison to his old home in the Ukraine. The only

annoyance was the black and white television. He had become

accustomed to colour back in Germany.

Familiar scenes were being shown on the screen before them. His

lover was uneasy at the sight of the fighting, however glorious the

conclusion would inevitably be. Leni Riefenstahl’s film was brilliant, but here they were closer to the heart of the matter.

Trudi’s worries communicated themselves to him. The conflict

in the Pacifika Territories remained a problem for the New Order.

From Japan to Indonesia the remnants of Hirohito’s armed forces

fought on like maddened beasts, undeterred by the intensive

bombing of the Home Islands.

A helicopter appeared in the cinematic sky, moving quickly

above the treetops. He did not envy the Waffen SS their patrols

over the barren lands, encumbered by their whole body radiation

gear. As much as his fantasies might take him m arching in triumph

through the long-concluded War of Redemption, he had no wish to

The sanctuary tree

153

participate in the present campaign against the guerillas.

‘Turn it off,’ he said in English.

Their body servant moved away from his position at attention

beside the lamp and carried out his instruction. Trudi did not protest. Such reminders of the violence of the world summoned forth disturbing images from their shared past. The Untermensch was

shaking with fear, so close to an SD officer — the childish fear of

failure and the camps. He gestured to the blond Australian and the

servant