Nostradamus Ate My Hamster

19 Back to The Führer III

“So you know what it means?” said Julie as they walked towards the mall.

“Oh yes,” said Russell. “It all makes perfect sense.”

“Well, I understand that you’re the traveller.”

“Oh no, I’m not the traveller, I’m the stone.”

“But the stone was a fake, it didn’t do anything.”

“It was a symbol,” said Russell. “It represents the individual, the individual as a catalyst for change.”

“And the cauldron?”

“The cauldron is the world.”

“And the vegetables and suchlike?”

“Society,” said Russell.

“That sounds about right.”

“You see the stone couldn’t make the soup on its own, but without the stone the soup would never have been made.”

“I thought the cook made the soup.”

“The cook is an aspect of society. He represents society’s greed and its ultimate gullibility.”

“And the traveller?”

“The traveller is time.”

“A time traveller, then the traveller is you.”

“No, I’m definitely the stone.”

“And the boiling water?”

“Change,” said Russell. “Water represents change, because water can be changed into steam or into ice.”

“Water represents permanence,” said Julie. “You can change its form, but you can’t get rid of it. So perhaps the water represents society.”

“Society is the sum of its parts,” said Russell. “The soup is society.”

“You said the vegetables were society.”

“Yes, I meant the vegetables.”

“But you just said the soup.”

“The soup is made out of the vegetables.”

“So they can’t both be society, the soup and the vegetables.”

“They’re aspects.”

“You said the cook was aspects.”

“He is.”

“But he put the soup together, so he can’t be society too.”

“Perhaps it’s the castle,” said Russell.

“What do you mean, perhaps? I thought you knew.”

“I do know.”

“What’s the wasteland, then?”

“Time,” said Russell.

“The traveller is time, you said.”

“The traveller came out of the wasteland. The wasteland is an aspect of time. Endless you see, like an endless wasteland.”

“The stone came out of the wasteland. So the stone must be an aspect of an aspect of time.”

“In a manner of speaking.”

“What a load of old rubbish.”

“It is not.”

“What’s the kitchen, then?”

“Stop it,” said Russell. “You’re giving me a headache.”

By now they had reached the Schauberger Memorial Mall.

“Right,” said Russell. “So this is the plan.”

“You have a plan?”

“Of course. Now what I want you to do is this: go into one of the gift shops and buy a box to put the programmer in. Write out a note to go with it telling me to take the programmer to Hangar 18. Oh, and I’ll be in The Bricklayer’s Arms eating a stale ham sandwich when I read the note, so mention that, I recall it giving me a shock.”

“And while the little woman is attending to her chores what will her big bold man be doing?”

“There’s no need for that,” said Russell. “I have to acquire the means for us to travel back in time. Meet me in an hour outside the electrical shop.”

“Oh, you’ll have got that sorted in an hour, will you?”

“I very much doubt it, but if it takes me a month to get it sorted, and I will get it sorted, I’ll set the controls on the time device to an hour from now and I’ll meet you outside the electrical shop.”

“That’s very clever, Russell.”

“Thank you. Do I get a kiss?”

“I’ll give you one in an hour.”

Julie gave Russell a wonderful smile, then turned and walked off into the mall.

Russell watched until she was out of sight and then he returned to The Flying Swan.

Pooley and Omally still sat at the window seat, each with a pint glass in hand. A third pint, freshly pulled, stood upon the table.

Russell sat down, raised it to his lips and said, “Cheers.”

“Cheers,” agreed Pooley and Omally.

Russell drained off half a perfect pint, then placed his glass upon the table.

“You knew I’d come back,” he said.

“Hoped,” said Omally.

“So you know that I’ve reasoned it out.”

“About the metaphor?”

Russell nodded. “Julie was the traveller and I was the cook. She’s working for them, isn’t she? For the bad guys. I’ve been had.”

“Very good,” said Omally. “But how did you reason it out.”

“She fits the part too well. I had my suspicions the moment she took the controls of the Flügelrad. Then she spun me the intricate story and I wasn’t sure. But she knew too much. In her eagerness to prove she was on my side she told me too much. And she wasn’t really surprised when we saw Bobby Boy in the mall and she wasn’t really surprised when we met you. And the one thing that she must know, she won’t tell me. And that’s the end of the movie. But what clinched it, was when I told her just now to buy a box to put the programmer in and write out the note. She didn’t even flinch at the thought or try to convince me otherwise, it’s what she intended, it’s why she landed the craft at the exact time she did. So that I would pick up the programmer Bobby Boy forgot to take.”

“You really have reasoned it out,” Omally raised his glass in salute. “Any more?”

“Yes. I don’t think she’s Fudgepacker’s stepdaughter at all.”

“You don’t?”

“No, I think she’s his wife.”

“Give the man a big cigar,” said Jim Pooley. “How did you work that one out?”

“Something she said about Hitler being a friend of the family. It wouldn’t have been her family then, she hadn’t even been born. And the fact that she was sheltering Hitler at the Bricklayer’s. No young woman of the nineteen nineties would do a thing like that.”

“So why is she still so young?” asked Omally.

“Ah, I’ve reasoned that out too. She’s still the same age she was in 1945. Because she came with Hitler on the Flügelrad, that’s how she knew how to fly it, you see.”

“But if she was Fudgepacker’s wife, why would she be on the Flügelrad with Hitler?”

“Think about it,” said Russell. “The war’s almost lost. Hitler has the opportunity to go into the future and step out as some kind of new Messiah. He may only have one ball, but would he have passed up the opportunity to nick his chief engineer’s beautiful wife and offer her a voyage into the future to be Mrs Messiah? I think it was the offer she couldn’t refuse. She fits the bill, doesn’t she? The Aryan type, tall, blond, blue-eyed. Hitler’s ideal woman.”

“Has he only got one ball?” Jim Pooley asked.

“I’ll ask him the next time I see him.” Russell finished his third perfect pint of the day. “So am I right, or am I right?”

“Right as the now-legendary ninepence,” said Omally. “In old money, of course.”

“But of course.”

“So what are you going to do now?”

“You know what I’m going to do now.”

“And that is?”

“He’s going to the Emporium,” said Jim Pooley.

“Thank you, Jim,” said Russell. “That’s just what I’m going to do.”

The Kew Road was little more than a track. No grey cars moved along it now. Cars that fly have little need for roads[33]. The Emporium stood all alone in a scrubby field, a bit like a castle, rising from the waste. Russell paused before the Gothic door. He didn’t have a magic stone about his person, but then he wasn’t the traveller, was he? No, he was certain that he wasn’t.

But did he have a plan?

Yes, he was certain that he did.

He knew what was going to happen. He’d seen it on the video cassette, with Bobby Boy playing him and being led through the secret door down into the boiler room to meet the thing. He was asking for more time. Could that be the means to travel back in time? Russell couldn’t remember precisely how the words went, but if he mucked up the script a bit and got a few words wrong, would it actually matter?

“This calls for a bit of method acting,” said Russell to himself and he knocked upon the door.

After what seemed an age, but was probably less than a minute, the door creaked open a crack and Viktor Schauberger, alias Ernest Fudgepacker, looked out at Russell.

He hadn’t changed a bit. He was still the same old clapped-out wizened wreck of a man he’d been back in the nineties. But just a little bit more so.

As he swung wide the door and waved Russell in, Russell noticed the way that he moved, stiffly, like an automaton. Russell smiled and said, “Hello.”

The ancient man inclined his turtle neck. “So it’s that day already, is it?” he asked, his voice a death-rattle cough. “I did look at the calendar, but one day is much like another and this year like the last.”

“Are you well?” Russell asked.

The magnified eyes stared at Russell. They were the eyes of a corpse.

“The old place looks the same,” Russell said and he glanced about the vestibule. But the old place didn’t look the same, the walls were charred, the glossy floor tiles dull and cracked. Above, blackened roof timbers gave access to the sky.

“No customers now,” coughed Mr Fudgepacker. “No-one. Just me and Him.”

“You know that I’ve come to see Him?”

“I don’t allow Him visitors. I’ve never allowed Him visitors. But you are special, Russell, you gave Him to me.”

I’m losing this, thought Russell. But just play along.

“Is He well?” Russell asked.

“He doesn’t change. He can never change.”

“That’s nice for Him.”

“What?” Mr Fudgepacker’s eyes took life. “Nothing is nice for Him. I see to that.”

Lost it completely, thought Russell. Him and me both, by the sound of it.

“Come with me.” Mr Fudgepacker took Russell by the arm. His fingers were hard, wooden, they dug into Russell’s flesh.

As they walked slowly along the aisle, Russell looked around at the stock. It was all going to pieces. The stuffed beasts worm-eaten and green with growing mould. Precious things that Russell had cared for on lunch-times long ago were now corroded, worthless junk. It broke Russell’s heart to see them so. One of the catwalks had collapsed, smashing sarcophagi and ancient urns. A rank smell filled the air. The perfume of decay.

Russell recalled some of the words that Bobby Boy had spoken. “How long? How long has He been with you?”

“For all these years. I am His guardian. All this, all this in the Emporium. His doing. You can’t capture time, Russell. It won’t be caught. Try and hold it in your hands and it runs through your fingers, like sand.” The old man cackled. “Like the sands of time, eh, Russell?”

Russell nodded helplessly. None of that was right, surely? That wasn’t what Peter Cushing had said on the video.

They reached the small Gothic door at the end of the aisle. Russell pressed it open and the two men passed through the narrow opening, down an ill-lit flight of steps and into the boiler room.

“This way.” Mr Fudgepacker led Russell between piles of ancient luggage, old portmanteaus, Gladstone bags, towards a curtained-off corner of the room.

Russell knew what lay in wait behind that curtain. He had seen the horror, he knew what to expect.

But it didn’t help. It didn’t help to know. Russell hesitated. It was very strong that thing. Could it be reasoned with? Russell felt that it could not. He would have to offer something. The stone that promised magic? The Judas kiss? He would have to lie, he’d come prepared to lie. But how convincing would he be? And how much did it know?

Russell felt afraid. His knees began to sag, yet at the same time prepared themselves to run.

“Part the curtain,” said Mr Fudgepacker. “But avert your gaze.”

Russell reached out to the curtain. There was still time to run. Still time to escape. He didn’t have to do this.

But he would. He knew that he would.

Russell took the curtain, it was cold and damp, it clung to his fingers. Russell pulled at the curtain and it fell away like shredded sodden tissue.

Russell turned down his eyes. But his hand came up to cover his nose. The smell was appalling. Sickening. Russell gagged into his hand and dared a glance.

And then he started back and stared with eyes quite round.

It sat upon the throne-like chair. All twisted to one side. A leg tucked up beneath itself, the other dangling down, the foot the wrong way round. The hands were shrunken claws with long yellow nails. The face. Russell stared at the face.

The face was that of Adolf Hitler.

Hitler’s head lolled onto his left shoulder. The eyes were open, but unfocused, crossed. Lines of congealed slime ran from the nose and open mouth, caked the chest, hung in stalactites depending to a crust upon the floor.

“Hitler,” Russell gasped. “He’s dead.”

“He is not.” Ernest set up another high cackle. “He just smells dead. The filthy fucker, he’s shat himself again.”

Russell took a step forward, but the stench forced him back. The once proud Reich Führer was now a shrivelled mummy, festering in his own filth. Paralyzed and helpless.

“What happened to him?” Russell asked. “How did he get this way?”

“Your doing, Russell. All your doing.”

“My doing? No.”

“It’s better than he deserves. The irony of it, Russell. The man who wanted the whole world for his own, now has this for his whole world. I must get a new curtain, it’s months since I’ve been down here, the old one’s all rotted away.”

“Months?” Russell asked. “Don’t you feed him? Wash him?”

“He doesn’t need feeding. I spray him with insecticide once in a while. Bluebottles lay their eggs in him. The maggots eat out through the skin. See, his left ear’s gone and some of the back of his head.”

Russell felt vomit rising in his throat. “This is inhuman,” he gasped. “Why? Tell me why?”

“You know why. He took my wife, my beautiful wife. Left me to grow old alone. But I’m converted now. Good for another four hundred years at least. And I’ll spend them with him. He’ll have time to muse upon his evil.”

Russell turned his face away. No man deserved such a terrible fate, not even one so vile as Hitler.

“Go upstairs,” said Russell. “Go upstairs now.”

“You can poke him with my pointy stick if you want. But don’t trouble yourself to have a go at his ball. I had that off years ago. I’ve got it upstairs in a jar.”

“Go,” said Russell. “As quick as you can now.”

Mr Fudgepacker spat towards the cripple in the chair, then slowly turned and hobbled from the room.

Russell listened to the shuffling footsteps on the stairs and then the creaking of the floorboards overhead.

With a pounding heart and popping ears, Russell sought a means towards an end. He selected a length of iron pipe that lay against the wall and tested its weight on his palm. And then he walked back over to the figure in the chair.

Russell looked into the unfocused eyes. He saw there the flicker of life. He saw the slime-caked lips begin to part and the dry tongue move within. And Russell knew the words that would come.

“Help me. Help me.”

Russell spoke a prayer and asked forgiveness. Then he swung the heavy pipe and put Adolf Hitler out of his misery.

Upstairs in the vestibule, Ernest Fudgepacker stood, nodding his head stiffly to a rhythm only he heard. Russell’s knees were almost giving out, but he forced himself to walk as naturally as he could.

“Did you give him a bit of a poke?” asked Ernest.

“A bit of a poke. Yes.”

“Will you come back again?”

“I don’t think so. Goodbye.”

“Not so fast,” said the ancient. “I haven’t given you what you came for.”

Russell’s brain was all fogged up. All he wanted was to get out. To get away from this place. “What I came for?” he asked.

“You came for these, didn’t you?” Mr Fudgepacker produced two black leather belts with complicated dials set into the buckles.

“What are those?”

“For your journey home. To get you back safely.”

“The time devices.”

“Modern technology,” said Mr Fudgepacker. “An improvement on the old Flügelrad. I designed them myself.”

With whose, or what’s, help? thought Russell. As if I didn’t know.

“Just set the time and press the button,” said Mr Fudgepacker. “But they’ll only work the one way and that’s backwards. Time isn’t for fooling about with, Russell. It’s best left alone.”

“Goodbye then, Mr Fudgepacker.”

“Goodbye, Russell.”

It is often the case that after experiencing unspeakable horror, people unaccountably burst into laughter. It happens in wartime and my father told me that when he served as a fireman during the blitz, he often came upon people sitting beside the burned-out shells of their houses, laughing hysterically. He said that he was never certain whether it was simply through shock, or something more. A burst of awareness, perhaps, that they were alive. That they had survived and were aware of their survival, probably aware of their own existence for the first time ever.

As Russell left the Emporium and walked back along the track that had once been the Kew Road, he began to laugh. It started as small coughs that he tried to keep back but it broke from him again and again until tears ran down his face and his belly ached.

Russell had this image in his mind. An image both farcical and absurd. But he couldn’t shake it free. It was a newspaper headline, splashed across a Sunday tabloid.

It read:

ASSASSIN CONFESSES:

“I SHAGGED HITLER’S GIRLFRIEND”