New Berlin City has had a magnificent skyline for the past forty years. It was rebuilt by the Reich Ministry for Reconstruction in the Occupied Territories where the beautiful Statue of Liberty stood on what was Liberty Island. Now, a massive statue of a well-built young man stands with his right arm extended in the Sieg Heil salute. A huge sculpture of a swastika sits at the statue’s base. The Reich Ministry of Interior building, once known as the Empire State Building, is lit up in the colors of the Deutschland flag: black, red, and yellow.
The city that used to be home to the most important stock markets in the world, a great center of capitalism, is now little more than ruins thanks to German bombing raids during the war. After the victors have rebuilt, the neoclassical style of the Third Reich reigns. European-styled outdoor cafés are commonplace. The automobiles parked on the streets are all Volkswagen Beetles, a car designed by Hitler himself, with the exception of a handful of Mercedes driven by important government officials. The signs are all printed in German.
On this crisp, clear spring day, a large procession of Nazi SS men dressed impeccably in full uniform and carrying brightly lit torches marched in disciplined columns to the blare of martial music. Citizens are perched on windowsills, while boys cling enthusiastically to iron fences like bunches of grapes, cheerfully waving their little swastika flags.
The procession proceeds down the Avenue of the Americas, now called “Kreuzung von Neu Deutschland” or the “Crossroads of New Germany,” toward what was once known as Times Square, but is now called “Gründer Platz,” Founder’s Square.
Adolf Hitler stands tall in the center of the square. The Führer is not around anymore, having died in 1965 at the age of 76, but statues such as this and his important writings like Mein Kampf have kept his spirit alive, and will continue to do so for eons to come.
Standing around the Hitler statue, packed in very tightly, are citizens of the Reich — men, women, and children — all very Aryan looking with their blond hair and blue eyes. Many of the men sport the always popular toothbrush mustache, as a tribute to the man who had led Germany to a height of conquests never before attained by a nation in man’s short history on Earth.
There is an excitement in the air, for today is a big holiday-Victory Day. This commemorates the anniversary of the end of the war, when Germany received an unconditional surrender from her last enemy she had not yet defeated, the United States.
Victory Day is one of many national holidays that the Reich uses as an excuse to stage huge rallies, parades, sentimental speeches, and all sorts of other propagandist means to remind the German masses of their own superiority, perfect bloodlines and, since most German citizens were not even alive at the time the war took place, that how their superiority led their people to such great heights. Besides Victory Day, other national Reich holidays include Hitler’s birthday (April 20), Party Day (January 30th-the day that Hitler became chancellor of Germany and thus the Nazis came to power) as well as many others.
Just as important a purpose for these national Reich holidays is to remind the slave peoples of the world (peoples of the many “inferior” countries whom has been allowed to live with the sole purpose of serving their Reich masters) just who is in charge. The slave peoples, including the natives not of a pure Germanic bloodline from the countries formerly known as France, Russia, Mexico, Holland, the United States, Greece, Iran, Tonga, Hungary, Poland, Canada, and Norway (just to name a few) are all required to observe these official functions. They, obviously, are banned from participating in them.
Gestapo headquarters, located in the heart of the city, is a towering structure. In front of the building, two flags hang from a flagpole. One flag is the German national flag. The other flag is the Party flag, which is comprised of the familiar red background with a large white circle in the middle and a black swastika in the white circle. Just the thought of being brought to this building is enough to instill fear into the citizens of this magnificent city.
The Gestapo’s importance and power has expanded significantly since the end of the war. This organization of secret state police is considered necessary to protect the existence of the Reich by tracking down and doing away with all complainers, dissenters, and opponents. It is official Gestapo policy that any individual, no matter what his status, is a potential suspect. In 1991, a top Gestapo official, Hans Säber, was accused of allegedly harboring anti-party feelings when he was overheard on the phone telling his wife that all the official functions and dinners he was obligated to attend on a regular basis were tiring him out. After a quick trial in the Volksgericht, the court was set up to render quick verdicts for accused traitors of the Third Reich. Säber was publicly hanged; his four young children were forced to watch.
A two-foot thick, steel entrance door opened to the cellblock. The prisoner, Wayne Goldberg, a young man with black hair and brown eyes, was dragged in by five guards. Blood is caked in Wayne’s hair and stains his torn rags. SS Captain Siegfried von Helldorf stepped in behind everyone.
Captain von Helldorf, a middle-aged mole-like man, nodded to one of his men, “Open the door.”
The cell stands empty except for one other prisoner cowering warily at the back; there’s not even a toilet. A guard shoved Wayne into the cell and locked it behind him.
Helldorf, stared menacingly at Wayne, “See you at your execution, my friend.” He laughed and then left with his men.
Wayne leaned his hurting body heavily against the concrete wall and spit out a mouthful of blood.
“Where’s the toilet in this God forsaken rat hole?” he asked wearily.
The other prisoner pointed down, “You’re standing in it.” Wayne looked down at his feet to see a puddle of urine.
In Grunder Platz was bubbling with a festive atmosphere. National German music played as children danced and ate cotton candy below the fluttering swastikas. The New Berlin branch of the Hitler Jugend was present. They were all dressed in their uniforms of black shoes, black ties, and swastika armbands. Behind them, the League of German Girls stood smiling in their matching dresses. When a child turns ten, they are required to register with the Reich Youth Headquarters. The Hitler Youth was exclusively for boys. The membership of the organization for girls, the League of German Girls, was also present, though its membership was not nearly as big as that of the Hitler Youth.
A speaker’s podium had been set up near a massive television screen. Reich Marshal Ulrich, a balding, heavyset man of about fifty stood at the podium with prominent Reich leaders, Gauleiters and, SS Security men behind him.
Reich Marshal Ulrich addressed the massive crowd, “Now, citizens of New Berlin City and of all the German Unified Territories, it is an honor for me to present to you — live from Berlin — our Führer!” The crowd reacted wildly, chanting, “Seig Heil” and raising their arms in salute.
On the big screen appeared Führer Karl Göring. He resembled his late father, Hermann Wilhelm Göring, who was Hitler’s second-in-command and the high military and economic leader before he came to power after Hitler’s death. Karl Göring was obese, loud, and had a full head of salt and pepper hair. He had inherited an overindulgence for the finer things in life. Göring had the most valuable art collection in the world, as well as the largest wine collection, not to mention his vast private hunting preserves around the planet.
Göring raised his right arm. The masses responded enthusiastically, “Heil, Göring.”
In his deep, powerful voice, the Führer started roaring out his speech, “As I stand here before you today, citizens, let us remember what we are celebrating, and let us look forward to the future. Many sacrifices have been made by our brave German warriors while accomplishing the short and long term goals of the Reich…”
Throughout the German Unified Territories, people were spellbound as they watched their Führer live on television.
A gathering of two hundred people listened intently to their Führer in the territory once called Arizona, with the majestic Grand Canyon in the background. The officials in the Reich Ministry of the Interior liked the name of this natural wonder — its name hasn’t been changed, though it’s typically spoken in German now Grandios Schlucht.
At UC Berkeley in the Bay Area, where rallies and political protests used to reign, the Führer has enraptured the student body. Swastika banners wave in the air held by idealistic college students.
A rally was also being held at the Oberkoblenz Military Base, located in upstate New York. Columns of German soldiers stood rigidly at full attention as they watched their Führer. Göring continued speaking, “…if land and resources were desired in Asia or South America, it could be obtained by and large at the expense of Japan. This means the Reich must again…”
A rally also occurred in South Dakota at Mount Rushmore. The once proud rock faces of four great American presidents had been recarved to bear the faces of four prominent figures in National Socialist history — Adolf Hitler, Hermann Göring, Heinrich Himmler, and Rudolf Hess.
Outside a farmhouse, a German flag flies proudly. The small Aryan family sits inside around an older television set watching the Führer speak. A copy of “Mein Kampf” sits on the table as the Ministry of Education says it should. They are the ideal family.
In New Berlin City, Göring continued his rhetoric, “…to secure for the German people the land and soil to which they are entitled.” The masses in Grunder Square roared their collective approval of his words.
In the Gestapo jail cell, Wayne sat uncomfortably on the filthy floor. The other prisoner in the cell approached Wayne.
“Erich,” he put out his right hand in a friendly gesture.
Wayne did not bother to shake his hand, but merely ignored the stranger.
“You have a name?”
“Wayne,” he mumbled.
“They roughed you up pretty bad, huh?”
Wayne just stared straight ahead.
“This is the third time I have been picked up,” Erich continues, “My crime this time was not giving the proper salute to an SS officer. Can you believe that shit?” he laughed. “Why did they pick you up?”
Wayne gave Erich a long stare, “For trying to change history.”
“What?”
“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you anyway.”
“Why not?”
Wayne stood up, walked over to the cell door, and stared out.
“You’re about to die,” Erich said. “What have you got to lose?”
“My mind is going to be rotting in a field or burning in a fuckin’ crematorium with the rest of my body no matter what,” Wayne snapped back.
“Suit yourself,” Erich shrugged, then mumbled, “Asshole.”
Wayne thought it a bit odd that some other prisoner was taking such an active interest in him. It was also strange that he spoke with almost no detectable German accent. So many painful thoughts were going through his head; Wayne almost thought he was on the verge of a nervous breakdown.
“I just met you,” he said. “What makes me think I can trust you?”
“You ain’t got nobody else.”
Wayne paced the cell a few times. Then he stopped abruptly. The sound of the silence of the tiny jail cell was deafening to him. Maybe, he reasoned, talking to somebody would help ease his mind, even a slight amount. “Alright, I’ll tell you how I ended up here,” Wayne said with anger in his voice. “From the beginning. You want to hear it, I’ll tell you the whole fuckin’ story.”
“Go on.”
Wayne took a deep breath. “My story starts in New York City,” he started. “Not New Berlin City, but the Big Apple — the great city that was. A city where a person could get anything that he might desire at any time. There weren’t any curfews or
The average morning rush hour hustle and bustle of New York City had taken place on an average day as usual. Men and women dressed in conservative suits quickly walked to their offices and yellow cabs noisily honked civilian vehicles out of their way. On a corner, a dirty man dressed in old tattered rags who grasped a small paper bag in his hand, sang opera at the top of his lungs. No one paid any attention to him.
On Liberty Island, the Autumn morning was unusually cold — the type of weather that reminded a person that the full force of winter was just around the corner.
Wayne Benjamin Goldberg had been attending New York University, the well-respected school in Lower Manhattan. Wayne had wanted to go there as long as he could remember. It was sort of a family tradition. It was Wayne’s senior year as an undergraduate and he was excited about graduating next May.
That morning he said goodbye to his girlfriend. Lauren had been up in New York for the weekend from Penn State and was going to drive back that morning. Lauren was twenty, and very beautiful with her long, golden hair, hazel eyes, and warm smile.
Wayne gave Lauren a big hug and asked her, “Did you have fun this weekend?”
“It was the greatest,” Lauren said with a smile.
“So, I guess I’ll see you at Penn in two weeks.”
“I can’t wait. I’ll make reservations at that Italian restaurant that you like so much. You know, the one with the real dark atmosphere,” Lauren said brightly.
“You’ll call me tonight when you get in?”
Lauren nodded her head and gave her boyfriend a passionate kiss.
Doctor Lisa Hoffmann’s advanced physics class had been Wayne’s first class of the day. Most students, and even some of the other professors, considered Dr. Hoffmann something of an unfeeling kook.
Dr. Hoffmann is a small, frail woman who is fond of wearing outdated horn-rimmed spectacles and styling her hair into a beehive. She long ago decided to marry her career instead of any Mister Right that might have come along. It had been a good decision.
Wayne had enrolled in one of Dr. Hoffmann’s classes during the previous summer session and was surprised when she had once actually asked him to go out for a cup of coffee with her. Wayne joined her for a few hoursand thought that his professor was just lonely.
Dr. Hoffmann was known on campus for her offbeat lectures and some of her “far out” theories and she did not disappoint.
“That process will occur through the mediation of a particle called a muon.” She lectured to her class in her usual manner of standing behind her big metal laboratory desk in the front of the room and not moving from that spot until the end of class. “Negatively charged muons attract positively charged hydrogen nuclei close enough together so that they can fuse. Now let us imagine what it would mean to mankind if we could harness this power. It could mean space travel over vast distances. Or even time travel.”
Next to Wayne was Steve Gruber, one of the first friends that Wayne had met as a freshman at NYU and who, like Wayne, was also an engineering major. Steve whispered to Wayne, “Time travel? Who does Hoffmann think she is, H.G. Wells?”
“Maybe,” Wayne whispered back. “Rumor has it that she’s been building some weird project in her lab.”
“Want to know what I think? I think she’s building the world’s first nuclear powered vibrator; she actually cracked a smile this week. She probably found out she has a G-spot.”
Wayne laughed.
“How’s your car holding up?” Steve asked.
“Typical American piece of shit,” Wayne answered. “One day I’m going to drive a high performance German machine, like a Porsche Nine Eleven Cabriolet.”
“I hear ya, man.”
Dr. Hoffmann quickly glanced up at the small clock hanging on the wall to notice the time. “Class dismissed,” she informed her students. “And make sure that you review chapter four in your laboratory work book by next class.”
As the students started to exit the classroom, Dr. Hoffmann approached Wayne. Stoically, she asked “Mr. Goldberg, can I see you in my laboratory today at three-thirty?”
“Sure,” Wayne responded.
Wayne thought he knew why she had wanted to see him. Wayne had let his grades slip a little — well, actually a lot. More than he should have. With the apprehension of graduating in a few months and the uncertainty of his future, plus the incredible workload of the past three years, Wayne simply figured that it was time to see less of the library and more of what Manhattan had to offer. After all, it was his senior year. He thought Dr. Hoffmann was disappointed in him and was going to tell him that.
The inside of Dr. Hoffmann’s laboratory was a mess. Flasks, books, soldering equipment, a rat cage, assorted power tools, and the dusty guts of a washing machine were randomly scattered about. It looked like a yard sale instead of someone’s office.
Dr. Hoffmann sat at a long table working with a metal tube of about one inch wide by ten inches long with wires sticking out of it. Wayne knocked.
“Enter,” Dr. Hoffmann called out.
“What’s up, Doc?”
“I just need another minute here,” she said still busy concentrating.
Wayne looked at the phallic shaped object in her hands and balked, “Doc… is that a…?”
“I just fixed this Geiger counter,” Dr. Hoffmann interrupted.
“A Geiger counter! Gotcha. That makes more sense,” Wayne said with a hint of embarrassment.
“What?” Dr. Hoffmann wanted to know.
“Oh, nothing.”
Dr. Hoffmann looked at her watch, “Mr. Goldberg, I requested your presence here at precisely three-thirty. You have arrived ten minutes late.”
“Sorry ‘bout that. I had to go get this part for my car and—”
Dr. Hoffmann wasn’t in the mood for any excuses. “Mr. Goldberg,” she lectured, “when I say three-thirty, I mean three-thirty. Not three-forty. Not three thirty-five. Not even three thirty-one. I need to know that you are a punctual person and that arriving late for appointments is not a habit of yours. Are you a punctual person?”
Wayne scoffed. What was the big deal? He couldn’t even remember even being late to her class.
“Yes, I’m a punctual person.”
“Good. I want to show you something.”
Wayne followed Dr. Hoffmann as she led him over to a corner of the messy lab. A dirty bed sheet covered a large square object. Dr. Hoffmann slowly removed it to reveal a washing machine, or at least the shell of one, with small circuit boards attached to the outside of the front side. There was a strange looking contraption with wires that led to a computer terminal on the shelf above it. Hanging on the wall nearby were two protective suits
“This is what I wanted to show you,” Dr. Hoffmann said proudly.
“And what a lovely washing machine it is,” Wayne retorted. “What did you do, turbocharge it?”
“What you are now viewing, Mr. Goldberg, is the world’s first working time machine.”
“TIME MACHINE!” Wayne started to laugh. “I didn’t know you had a sense of humor.”
“I do not,” Dr. Hoffmann said straight faced.
Wayne stopped laughing. He stared at his professor, searching for some sign that she was pulling a practical joke on him. Was she trying to prove that she wasn’t as straight-laced as everyone said she was?
“I have worked on this for the past eight years,” Dr. Hoffmann said. “I have spent every free moment that I had between teaching and publishing papers on this project.
“Come on, a time machine!” Wayne practically yelled at her. “That’s impossible.”
“It is not,” she counteracted.
Wayne did not want to insult her, but he felt he had to speak his mind. “I know you’re brilliant, Dr. Hoffmann. You have won a lot of awards and have published all sorts of articles in journals that nobody reads, but a time machine? That’s a little hard to swallow.”
“Time is just one plane on the three-dimensional sphere that we call Earth,” Dr. Hoffmann stated. “Now, I have devised a way to travel on that plane. Much like the way one would travel on a jet airliner.”
Wayne ran his hand through his short hair, not sure what she was really up to. One thing he knew for sure was that he had more important things to do at the moment then listen to Hoffmann blab on about the impossible. “That sounds good, but what proof do you have?”
Dr. Hoffmann picked up a newspaper that appeared to be no more than a day old. “Look at the date on this newspaper,” she instructed Wayne as she handed the newspaper to him.
“October 27th, 1922,” he read out loud. Then he viewed the headline. “CAPONE’S GANG SUSPECTED IN HIGHLAND PARK SLAYING.” Wayne put the paper down. “That’s cute. Where did you get it printed up?”
“I sent a dog that I had trained to fetch a newspaper, back to the point on the time plane October 27th, 1922,” Dr. Hoffmann said, “and that is exactly what the canine did when he arrived there. Then he was transported back to our point on the time plane, 1995.”
“You’re trying to tell me that you sent a dog back to 1922 just so it could go fetch a newspaper for you? And that you did this with this turbo-charged washing machine?” Wayne asked incredulously.
“Yes. Precisely.”
“And what does this time machine of yours run on?” Wayne asked. “Gas? Oil? Batteries?”
“A special radioactive material that the army has developed for atomic weapons that is made up primarily of Gadolinium and Iridium.”
“And where do you get this material — at the local Seven Eleven?” Wayne said sardonically.
“A colleague of mine at the defense department has been able to supply me with the minute quantity necessary to run it.”
“Look, Dr. Hoffmann, I value your scientific opinions very much, but this is really hard to accept. I mean, come on, a time machine?”
“Precisely why I have summoned you here. I want you to be the first human being that I transport back in time. That is, if you do not mind acting as a guinea pig.”
Wayne studied Dr. Hoffmann’s face hard for some sign that she was about to get to the punch line of the joke that she had been playing on him. He couldn’t detect anything. And as far as Dr. Hoffmann’s proposition was concerned, what could be the worst thing that would happen? Dr. Hoffmann would be embarrassed when nothing transpired with her “time machine”.
“Oink, oink. I’m your pig.”
“Excellent.”
Dr. Hoffmann opened the lid of the alleged time machine.
“Mister Goldberg, step-.”
“Please, Doc, call me Wayne. We might actually be making history together.”
“Okay. Wayne, please step inside here.”
Wayne stepped up unto a small stool, then into the “time machine” so that only his body from the waist up was visible. He looked around uncomfortably and hoped no one saw him.
Dr. Hoffmann started to type instructions into the computer terminal. “I have only been able to garner enough energy through the reactor to go as far back as the year 1915,” she said.
“While I’m here, I’ll take my whites washed in cold water, the colors in warm water, and go easy on the starch,” Wayne joked, “I hate that cardboard feel.”
Dr. Hoffmann busied herself by adjusting various controls. “I am sending you to 1937,” she explained. “You will be there for a few minutes. Make the best of it.” Dr. Hoffmann hesitated. “And…”
“And what?” Wayne asked.
Dr. Hoffmann looked somewhat nervous and apprehensive to Wayne, which he attributed to her about to be embarrassed by her silly experiment. “And, I should warn you,” she continued, “there is some risk involved.”
“That’s part of life,” Wayne responded. “Let’s do it.”
“Mr. Goldberg, excuse me, Wayne,” Dr. Hoffmann paused briefly, “thank you.”
Wayne closed his eyes and laughed to himself.
Dr. Hoffmann pulled up on a lever and a crackling noise rang out, much like that of dry twigs breaking. And all of a sudden, in a flash, Wayne vanished.
“I still don’t feel anything…” Wayne started to say as he opened his eyes. He gazed around, his jaw dropping open. He now appeared to be in some kind of sumptuous dining room area, like the ballroom of a swank hotel. A piano player played as the diners enjoyed their lavish meals. The guests here, wherever it was, seemed to be an older, well-moneyed crowd and the ladies wore impressive jewelry.
An elderly couple drinking wine turned to Wayne. “Have a couple of these and you sure will, young fella,” the old gentleman said to Wayne.
“What?” Wayne mumbled, barely able to get the word out.
The old man raised his glass of wine to Wayne’s face.
“You tell him, George,” the woman giggled.
Wayne looked around and blinked slowly. He was sure this had to be some sort of hypnotic suggestion or hallucination.
Wayne went over to the piano player, “What are you doing here?” he asked him.
The piano man gave Wayne a funny look and responded, “Sir?”
Wayne turned around and bumped into a waiter holding a full tray of food. The tray tumbled out of his hands.
The waiter hurriedly cleaned everything up as Wayne fled.
Just outside the dining area, Wayne noticed a sign. It read: MARLO HENDERSON, 1937’S NEWEST SINGING SENSATION, WILL BE THE FEATURED PERFORMER ON THE NEXT VOYAGE OF THE HINDENBURG.
“Hindenburg!” Wayne exclaimed in shock. He ran over to a small round window and surveyed the view. There was nothing but water 10,000 feet below him. “I can’t fuckin’ believe this.”
A loudspeaker crackled, “This is Captain Moore speaking,” he said in a deep voice that most airline captains seem to possess. “Our estimated arrival time is ten minutes,” the captain continued. “We are ninety miles east of our landing site in beautiful Lakehurst, New Jersey. I’ll try and make it as smooth a landing as possible. Thank you for traveling on the Hindenburg.”
“Landing! The Hindenburg about to land!” Wayne was getting frantic. “This can’t be. Don’t they know this blimp’s going to explode? I’ve got to warn them.”
Noticing a steward, Wayne ran over to him.
“Look, man, this ship can't land,” Wayne ranted hysterically. “If it does, it’ll blow up. There’s a leak of hydrogen.”
The steward eyed Wayne from top to bottom and then asked him, “Sir, have you been drinking?”
“No, I have not been drinking,” Wayne snapped back. “Did you hear what I said? This. Ship. Must. Not. Land,” he panicked.
“There is nothing to worry about,” the steward countered. “Airship travel is the safest form of travel that there is.”
Wayne grabbed the steward and shook him, “Tell the captain. NOW! There is a hydrogen leak!”
“Sir, if you are not able to restrain yourself, I will have to call security.”
Wayne went to the window again and peered out. Land was fast approaching as the airship rapidly descended. Wayne started to sweat.
Wayne started to shake; he wasn’t ready to die.
He ran back over to the steward and yelled at him, “You must listen! Time is running out…this ship…”
A very powerful explosion rocked the ship. An instant later, a thin crackling noise sounded out and Wayne disappeared from where he was standing. As a spectacular fireball engulfed the airship, the Hindenburg faded into history.
Inside Dr. Hoffmann’s laboratory, Wayne reappeared in the time machine. “…THEY MUST NOT LAND…” Wayne yelled, but closed his mouth as he looked around and realized that he was not on the Hindenburg anymore.
“Ah, it worked exactly as I had planned,” Dr. Hoffmann exclaimed.
Wayne took a slow, long look around at his current surroundings, and wiped the dripping sweat off his face with his shirt. “I can’t get over what just happened,” he said wearily. “I thought I was on the Hindenburg and we, I mean, they, were about to land, and…”
“I know. The experiment was a success. A complete success,” Dr. Hoffmann stated.
Wayne climbed out of the time machine, feeling totally sapped of all his energy, as if he just run the New York City Marathon in record time. “Was that an hallucination?” he asked. “Or was I really there?”
Dr. Hoffmann started to write notes in her journal. “You were most certainly there. I purposely sent you back to that doomed airship to prove to you that, yes indeed, this is a time machine.”
“You had to send me to the Hindenburg? Couldn’t you have sent me to a ball game or something a little less dangerous? You know, if I was sitting in Yankee Stadium watching Babe Ruth hitting home runs out of the ballpark, I might have gotten the message.
Dr. Hoffmann put down her journal, “I did not think of that.”
“This is abso-fucking-lutley amazing, though,” Wayne said, getting some of his natural energy back. “You’re a genius, Dr. Hoffmann. Do you realize what this could mean? We could go back in time and meet some of the greatest minds of out time — Lincoln, Socrates, Julius Caesar, even Jimi Hendrix.”
“I have thought about that. Though not exactly those particular individuals.”
Wayne started to pace. “Hell, we could get rich, too. Go back and buy real estate at a fraction of what it’s worth today. The same thing with stocks,” Wayne said with a glow in his eyes.
“Wayne…”
“No, no, no, you didn’t merely build a time machine, what you really built was a money machine. This is better!”
“Wayne,” Dr. Hoffmann interrupted him.
“Yes?”
“It will not be used for that purpose.”
“It won’t?”
“No. I have other plans for its use. Can you be at my house tonight at eight o’clock?”
“Yeah, sure. But why?”
Dr. Hoffmann handed Wayne a piece of paper. “Here is the address.”
Dr. Hoffmann’s two-story brick house was in dire need of a paint job in a very middle class neighborhood. At five minutes of eight, Wayne knocked on the door. A few seconds later, he was invited inside.
The interior of the house was a mess. The furnishings, or what passed for furnishings, were so well worn and so outdated that they looked like they might have come from the set of a 1950’s television sitcom.
“Thank you for coming, Wayne. Please sit down,” Dr. Hoffmann instructed him.
Wayne was about to sit down in an easy chair when he noticed a thin, greenish substance on the seat. He carefully picked it up with his fingertips and saw what it really was-a moldy piece of salami. Wayne dropped the moldy piece of meat on the floor and sat down. “Nice place you’ve got here.”
“Did you know that I am German?” Dr. Hoffmann asked.
“You don’t have an accent.”
“I came to the United States when I was a small child.”
“Is this what you wanted to tell me?” Wayne said annoyed.
“Let me say what I have to.”
Dr. Hoffmann sat down on the couch across from Wayne silently for a few moments, deep in thought. “I was born in 1933 in a small village near Frankfurt,” she said softly. “By the time I was four, Adolf Hitler was in full control of Germany,” she continued, “ He controlled the government, the media, everything. My parents, being Jewish, had virtually no rights. My father was still able to run his small food market, though. He thought Hitler was simply another phase that Germany was going through and that he would soon be overthrown. He thought that Hitler’s talk of ridding Europe of all Jews was just posturing. But, just in case, he sent my brother and I here to live with our aunt. That was in 1937.”
Dr. Hoffmann picked up an old scrapbook that was laying on a small coffee table in front of her and started to flip through the yellowed pages.
She removed an aged looking letter from the scrapbook. “This is a letter that my father wrote to me shortly before my brother and I left Germany,” she said. “Dear Lisa,” she read from the letter, “You and your brother, Arnold, are about to embark on a journey. This journey will take the two of you to America, where you will be able to get a good education and live happily with your Aunt Rose until we can send for you. If something should ever happen to your mother and me, I want you to remember that we will always love you. Please try to understand why we did this. Goodbye. Your father, Josef Hoffmann.” Dr. Hoffmann put the letter down. “Three years later, after a raid on our village by the Gestapo, both my mother and father were sent to Dachau.” Dr. Hoffmann’s eyes teared up. “I never saw them again.”
Wayne had never seen his professor so emotional before. He understood now where most, if not all, of her emotional and inner pain had come from. Maybe, Wayne figured, that is why she had never gotten married and had never let herself get close to anybody in her life, even as far as simply having a close friend or two as people normally do. Her parents left her very early in her life. In a sense abandoned her. Lisa Hoffmann, at a young age, had decided that she’d be damned if anybody would ever hurt her that way again. No, it was better as a kid to throw herself into her hobbies in a fanatical way, as she had done with her stamp and butterfly collections. Then, in college, neither dating nor having any fun, but rather compulsively working at maintaining her perfect 4.0 average. And, for the past 27 years, working on her research and experiments. Her work would never leave her, never abandon her, the way her parents had so long ago.
Wayne gave her a supportive hug. “I am very sorry to hear that.”
Dr. Hoffmann cleared her throat and collected herself. “Thank you,” she said. “I want to use the time machine to send you back in time to kill Adolf Hitler before he has the chance to destroy millions of lives.”
“Kill Hitler! Adolf Hitler?” Wayne could not grasp what he had heard.
“That is correct.”
“I couldn’t kill anyone, even a psychopath like Hitler.”
Dr. Hoffmann stood up and started to pace around the room. “Think about it,” she said convincingly, “you would be eliminating one man to save twenty million others, including nine million innocent victims who perished in the camps. You would also save dozens, hundreds, of European towns from having been destroyed during the war.”
“Why me?”
Dr. Hoffmann remained silent and looked away from Wayne. Finally, after a minute, she talked, “You are a level headed person. That will be important. I feel that you can keep your calm in what might be a tough situation. I also feel that you can get the job done quickly, without arousing suspicion. For those reasons, I feel I can entrust this very important task, the culmination of a lifetime’s work, to you.”
“Are there any other reasons?” Wayne’s gut instinct told him she was keeping something from him.
“No.”
Wayne was reluctant to press the issue. “I wonder,” he questioned, “if it’s right for the past to be tinkered with. We don’t really know what we’re dealing with here.”
Dr. Hoffmann sat down beside Wayne. “I think, that for the good of humanity, it would be wrong not to change the past. Do you not agree?”
“Yes. And no. I mean, maybe things in history happened for a purpose. Maybe they were lessons for mankind.”
“I doubt it. Have we learned anything since the war? One only has to look at what has occurred in Cambodia, Vietnam, Bosnia, and many other places of war and mass murder to see that nothing has changed since Hitler’s era. The mistakes of history keep repeating themselves.” Dr. Hoffmann saw she would have to talk him on a more personal basis. “Wayne, you’re Jewish. Was your family in any way affected by the Holocaust?”
“Well, sure, I lost family. My grandparents came from Europe. There were a lot of people who waited too long to flee; they didn’t make it. .”
“Tell me, what one good thing for humanity came from Nazism?”
“What if something goes wrong?”
“I have been planning this for many years. Nothing can go wrong.” “Will you do it, Wayne? Will you be the one to erase the saddest chapter in the history of the human race?”
“You’ll have to get somebody else.”
“I really need your help, Wayne. Please?”
“I’m sorry, Dr. Hoffmann.”
Wayne got up and left her house without another word. Asking someone to lend you a few dollars till your next paycheck or to go to the market and pick up a quart of milk for you is one thing, but asking someone to commit murder? That’s too much.
Wayne wandered down toward the main road. He turned the corner and looked back at Dr. Hoffman’s house. He shook his head and headed into the convenience store.
Still stuck in his thoughts he headed to the back of the store and grabbed a can of beer out of the refrigerated display. He looked around and saw no one.
“Hello,” he called out. Nothing. Wayne walked over to the counter and tugged his cash out of his wallet. As he dumped it on the counter, he saw a pool of blood. He leaned over and saw the Korean cashier sprawled out on the floor beaten to a pulp with a massive knife wound in his abdomen in the shape of a swastika.
“Oh shit!” Wayne exclaimed. He knelt down and checked for a pulse — nothing. The blood around the man had begun to congeal.
“I’m sorry, buddy.” Wayne swallowed hard against the rising bile in his throat and reached for the phone on the floor.
The paramedics arrived on the scene within five minutes. The New York Police Department took an additional seven minutes to get there. The paramedics checked for a pulse and breathing before taking note of the bruises, contusions, and brutal stab wound on the victim.
Officers Duncan and Hall threw the customary questions at Wayne (why was he there? Did he see anything? Did he live in the area? Etc.). He told them what he knew, which wasn’t much.
As the paramedics wheeled out the stretcher with the body in a bag out of the market, Wayne asked, “Has anyone told his family?”
The paramedic nodded his head no and said, “Not yet. That’s a social worker’s job. They’ll contact the family soon. Did you know him?” Wayne shook his head and the paramedics left without the sound of a siren. Another homicide in the city was added to a record year.
“Okay, thank you very much for your time. I have your statement taken down. You can go now, but someone might contact you with additional questions,” Officer Duncan said.
Wayne was still feeling queasy from all of the blood. “Do you have any idea who did this?” he asked.
“Nothing’s really missing and the cash register wasn’t emptied. That’s all that I can say,” Duncan said.
“Has this been happening a lot?”
“Swastikas? Uh…”
“I’d call it a hate crime,” Officer Hall chimed in.
“You think so?” Wayne asked.
“As sure as shit,” Officer Hall responded. “Racial violence is running rampant in this city. Blacks hate the Orientals, whites hate the Irish, everyone hates the gays, and so on.”
“Then you have these white supremacy groups that influence kids minds. Put all this weird shit in their heads,” Officer Duncan shrugged sadly.
“It’s pretty bad, huh?”
“Why don’t you go get some sleep?” Duncan said.
The officers got into their squad car and drove off into the night.
Wayne ran his hands through his hair. He noticed a tiny amount of blood, sticky and cold, on the sleeve of his denim jacket. He touched a finger to it and looked at it closely.
Racial hate and violence-it never ends. Fifty years after the Nazis, twenty-five years after the civil rights movement in the South, nothing has changed. The cop was wrong about not being able to do anything about it.