Damien Broderick - Strange Attractors Original (pdf) (novels to read in english .TXT) 📖

efficient. Most of those sanctions had

been easy to order, since there was an established flow, an ongoing

process. Normally there was no single point at which one had to

proclaim life or death. Once one had bathed in the Styx one

emerged changed, aware of the inevitability of death, purified.

‘ We are barbarians!’ the Fiihrer had said. ‘Barbarians with technical skill!

The sanctuary tree

161

The gritty realism of the camera; it had been an in-house film,

unlike D r Goebbel’s propaganda features.

He walked to their bedroom, putting on his gloves and unbuttoning his holster.

The body servant had already been summoned to a camp, to join

several thousand Australians in the search for medical knowledge

and the promotion of the sciences. Perhaps it was better that way.

Duty and pleasure were already synonymous within his mind.

A National Socialist is a man of action. In sharing this conviction, Mussolini’s Fascism had been admirable.

7 o be is to do.

He reached the door and opened it.

She lay asleep on their bed, in her night-dress. The cover was of

white silk, the colour of her skin. He did not want to have to think.

Don’t touch me like that, please, Rudolf, not in public, later, I feel dirty.

He approached her and took out the pistol, cocking it and placing the muzzle against her temple.

Several times he believed he had pulled the trigger, only to

realise that she still breathed.

He had beaten his parents to death with an axe-shaft. They had

arrived home early to find him engaged in sex with Trudi. That

had been different. Their hatred would have driven them to disgrace her and her family. She had already shown difficulty in accepting one of the SD as her lover. He could not stand his

parents’ knowledge of his best-kept secret, and had taken out his

agony on the Slav rebels. Both pasts, real and professed, had

merged over the last year.

‘Trudi?’

She awoke and yawned.

‘You’re home early, darling — ’

She was still. He had not moved the muzzle away.

‘Did you ever sleep with our body servant?’

‘No.’ The lie made her sin more awful.

‘Do you love me?’

‘We’re . . . bound by our passions. Forever.’

‘You’re ashamed of me in the open! W here’s the proof of our love?

This past month or two you’ve grown ever colder to me.’

She shook her head slightly. ‘We’re above the norms of civilisation, but it’s just that in public, the crowds — your parents looked like that when you . . . held the club, when they didn’t run.’ He

lowered the pistol. ‘The stars foretold death today,’ she whispered.

162

John Playford

He could not kill her. She was his link between past and present,

his goal, his success. If she did not exist he could only hate himself,

and his purpose. Rudolf knelt on the bed, straddling her. If they

had a future, they would share it. To hell with the Gauleiter. He

kissed her, grasped her night-dress, tore it apart.

It came to him, too late.

The m irror was opening.

Before he could reach the pistol they were upon them.

The officer forced the gun into Rudolfs hand; the H auptm ann

resisted and it was several moments before the weapon fired. The

camera focused on Trudi’s face.

‘H ardly useful,’ said the SS Sturmbannfuhrer. A little of his

blond hair remained. His blue eyes did not blink very often. ‘The

SD itself is not an inexperienced agent, to be deceived by a stand-in

and splicing. Nor can we always rely on the Fiihrer’s . . . problems,

to work in our favour. We were lucky that she revealed his crime.

Lucky that you investigated her reference to it.’

The Gauleiter ordered the film stopped.

‘The fates work for us. His m urder of his parents will have to be

enough for you.’

‘It is.’

The two men left the cinema.

‘Heydrich will be enraged,’ said the Sturmbannfuhrer, perm itting himself a smile. ‘Sympathy with disloyal Party members, a crime of passion, and now this. His parents! Him mler is already

preparing a guest editorial for the Volkischer Beobachter. This is the

first step towards victory. The Castle System will come to Greater

Barossa, not the weaker Shires plan. Let the Party try to expel you.

You’ll administer the Pacifika Territories in due