[What Might Have Been 03] Alternate Wars Read online

  Dawn comes up, binding the eastern clouds in crimson girdles. Helen leaves the citadel, tiptoes to the wall, and mounts the hundred granite steps to the battlements. She is not sure of her next move. She has some vague hope of addressing the infantrymen as they assemble at the gate. Her arguments have failed to impress the generals, but perhaps she can touch the heart of the common soldier.

  It is at this ambiguous point in her fortunes that Helen runs into herself.

  She blinks—once, twice. She swallows a sphere of air. Yes, it is she, herself, marching along the parapets. Herself? No, not exactly: an idealized rendition of herself, the Helen of ten years ago, svelte and smooth.

  As the troops march through the portal and head toward the plain, the strange incarnation calls down to them.

  “Onward, men!” it shouts, raising a creamy-white arm. “Fight for me!” Its movements are deliberate and jerky, as if sunbaked Troy has been magically transplanted to some frigid clime. “I’m worth it!”

  The soldiers turn, look up. “We’ll fight for you, Helen!” a bowman calls toward the parapets.

  “We love you!” a sword-wielder shouts.

  Awkwardly, the incarnation waves. Creakily, it blows an arid kiss. “Onward, men! Fight for me! I’m worth it!”

  “You’re beautiful, Helen!” a spear-thrower cries.

  Helen strides up to her doppelgänger and, seizing the left shoulder, pivots the creature toward her.

  “Onward, men!” it tells Helen. “Fight for me! I’m worth it!”

  “You’re beautiful,” the spear-thrower continues, “and so is your mother!”

  The eyes, Helen is not surprised to discover, are glass. The limbs are fashioned from wood, the head from marble, the teeth from ivory, the lips from wax, the tresses from the fleece of a darkling ram. Helen does not know for certain what forces power this creature, what magic moves its tongue, but she surmises that the genius of Athena is at work here, the witchery of ox-eyed Hera. Chop the creature open, she senses, and out will pour a thousand cogs and pistons from Hephaestus’s fiery workshop.

  Helen wastes no time. She hugs the creature, lifts it of its feet. Heavy, but not so heavy as to dampen her resolve.

  “Onward, men!” it screams as Helen throws it over her shoulder. “Fight for me! I’m worth it!”

  And so it comes to pass that, on a hot, sweaty, Asia Minor morning, fair Helen turns the tables on history, gleefully abducting herself from the lofty stone city of Troy.

  Paris is pulling a poisoned arrow from his quiver, intent on shooting a dollop of hemlock into the breast of an Achaian captain, when his brother’s chariot charges by.

  Paris nocks the arrow. He glances at the chariot.

  He aims.

  Glances again.

  Fires. Misses.

  Helen.

  Helen? Helen, by Apollo’s lyre, his Helen—no, two Helens, the true and the false, side by side, the true guiding the horses into the thick of the fight, her wooden twin staring dreamily into space. Paris is not sure which woman he is more astonished to see.

  “Soldiers of Troy!” cries the fleshly Helen. “Heroes of Argos! Behold how your leaders seek to dupe you! You are fighting for a fraud, a swindle, a thing of gears and glass!”

  A stillness envelops the battlefield. The men are stunned, not so much by the ravings of the charioteer as by the face of her companion, so pure and perfect despite the leather thong sealing her jaw shut. It is a face to sheath a thousand swords, a face to lower a thousand spears, a face to unnock a thousand arrows.

  Which is exactly what now happens. A thousand swords: sheathed. A thousand spears: lowered. A thousand arrows: unnocked.

  The soldiers crowd around the chariot, pawing at the ersatz Helen. They touch the wooden arms, caress the marble brow, stroke the ivory teeth, pat the waxen lips, squeeze the woolly hair, rub the glass eyes.

  “See what I mean?” cries the true Helen. “Your kings are diddling you…”

  Paris can’t help it: he’s proud of her, by Hermes’s wings. He’s puffing up with admiration. This woman has nerve, this woman has arete, this woman has chutzpah.

  This woman, Paris realizes as a fat, warm tear of nostalgia rolls down his cheek, is going to end the war.

  “The end,” I say.

  “And then what happened?” Damon asks.

  “Nothing. Finis. Go to sleep.”

  “You can’t fool us,” says Daphne. “All sorts of things happened after that. You went to live on the island of Lesbos.”

  “Not immediately,” I note. “I wandered the world for seven years, having many fine and fabulous adventures. Good night.”

  “And then you went to Lesbos,” Daphne insists.

  “And then we came into the world,” Damon asserts.

  “True,” I say. The twins are always interested in how they came into the world. They never tire of hearing about it.

  “The women of Lesbos import over a thousand liters of frozen semen annually,” Damon explains to Daphne.

  “From Thrace,” Daphne explains to Damon.

  “In exchange for olives.”

  “A thriving trade.”

  “Right, honey,” I say. “Bedtime.”

  “And so you got pregnant,” says Daphne.

  “And had us,” says Damon.

  “And brought us to Egypt.” Daphne tugs at my sleeve as if operating a bell rope. “I came out first, didn’t I?” she says. “I’m the oldest.”

  “Yes, dear.”

  “Is that why I’m smarter than Damon?”

  “You’re both equally smart. I’m going to blow out the candle now.”

  Daphne hugs her cornhusk doll and says, “Did you really end the war?”

  “The treaty was signed the day after I fled from Troy. Of course, peace didn’t bring the dead back to life, but at least Troy was never sacked and burned. Now go to sleep—both of you.”

  Damon says, “Not before we’ve…”

  “What?”

  “You know.”

  “All right,” I say. “One look. One, quick peek, and then you’re off to the land of Morpheus.”

  I saunter over to the closet and, drawing back the linen curtain, reveal my stalwart twin standing upright amid Daphne’s dresses and Damon’s robes. She smiles through the gloom. She’s a tireless smiler, this woman.

  “Hi, Aunt Helen!” says Damon as I throw the bronze toggle protruding from the nape of my sister’s neck.

  She waves to my children and says, “Onward, men! Fight for me!”

  “You bet, Aunt Helen!” says Daphne.

  “I’m worth it!” says my sister.

  “You sure are!” says Damon.

  “Onward, men! Fight for me! I’m worth it!”

  I switch her off and close the curtain. Tucking in the twins, I give each a big soupy kiss on the cheek. “Love you, Daphne. Love you, Damon.”

  I start to douse the candle—stop. As long as it’s on my mind, I should get the chore done. Returning to the closet, I push the curtain aside, lift the penknife from my robe, and pry open the blade. And then, as the Egyptian night grows moist and thick, I carefully etch yet another wrinkle across my sister’s brow right beneath her salt-and-pepper bangs.

  It’s important, after all, to keep up appearances.

  READY FOR THE FATHERLAND

  Harry Turtledove

  19 February 1943—Zaporozhye, German-occupied USSR

  Field Marshal Erich von Manstein looked up from the map table. Was that the distant rumble of Soviet artillery? No, he decided after a moment. The Russians were in Sinelnikovo today, yes, but Sinelnikovo was still fifty-five kilometers north of his headquarters. Of course, there were no German troops to speak of between there and here, but that would not matter—if he could make Hitler listen to him.

  Hitler, however, was not listening. He was talking. He always talked more than he listened—if he’d listened just once, Manstein thought, the Sixth Army might have gotten out of Stalingrad, in which case the Russians
would not be anywhere near Sinelnikovo. They’d come more than six hundred kilometers since November.

  “No, not one more step back!” Hitler shouted. The Führer had shouted that when the Russians broke through around Stalingrad, too. Couldn’t he remember from one month to the next what worked and what didn’t? Behind him, Generals Jodl and Keitel nodded like the brainless puppets they were.

  Manstein glanced over at Field Marshal von Kleist. Kleist was a real soldier; surely he would tell the Führer what had to be said. But Kleist just stood there. Against the Russians, he was fearless. Hitler, though, Hitler made him afraid.

  On my shoulders, Manstein thought. Why, ever since Stalingrad, has everything—everything save gratitude—landed on my shoulders? Had it not been for him, the whole German southern front in Russia would have come crashing down . Without false modesty, he knew that. Sometimes—not nearly often enough—Hitler glimpsed it, too.

  One more try at talking sense into the Führer then. Manstein bent

  over the map, pointed. “We need to let the Soviets advance, sir. Soon, soon they will overextend themselves. Then we strike.”

  “No, damn it, damn you! Move on Kharkov now, I tell you!”

  S.S. Panzer Division Totenkopf, the force with which he wanted Kharkov recaptured, was stuck in the mud outside Poltava, a hundred fifty kilometers away. Manstein said as much. He’d been saying it, over and over for the past forty-eight hours. Calmly, rationally, he tried once more: “I am sorry, my Führer, but we simply lack the resources to carry out the attack as you desire. A little more patience, a little more caution, and we may yet achieve satisfactory results. Move too soon and we run the risk of—”

  “I did not fly to this godforsaken Russian excuse for a factory town to listen to the whining of your cowardly Jewish heart, Field Marshal.” Hitler invested the proud title with withering scorn. “And from now on you will keep your gross, disgusting Jewish nose out of strategic planning and simply obey. Do you understand me?”

  Manstein’s right hand went to the organ Hitler had mentioned. It was indeed of impressive proportions and impressively hooked. But to bring it up, to insult it, in what should have been a serious council of war was—insane was the word Manstein found. As insane as most of the decisions Hitler had made, most of the orders he had given, ever since he’d taken all power into his own hands at the end of 1941, and especially since things began to go wrong at Stalingrad.

  Insane …Of itself, Manstein’s hand slid down from his nose to the holster that held his Walther P-38 pistol. Of itself, it unsnapped the holster flap. And of itself, it raised the pistol and fired three shots into Adolf Hitler’s chest. Wearing a look of horrified disbelief, the Führer crumpled to the floor.

  Generals Jodi and Keitel looked almost as appalled as Hitler had. So did Field Marshal von Kleist, but he recovered faster. He snatched out his own pistol, covered Hitler’s toadies.

  Manstein still felt as if he were moving in a dream, but even in a dream he was a General Staff-taught officer, trained to deduce what needed doing. “Excellent, Paul,” he said. “First we must dispose of the carrion there, then devise a story to account for it in suitably heroic style”

  Kleist nodded. “Very good. And then—”

  “And then…” Manstein cocked his head. Yes, by God, he did hear Russian artillery. “This campaign has been botched beyond belief. Given the present state of affairs, I see no reasonable hope of our winning the war against the Russians. Do you agree?”

  Kleist nodded again.

  “Very good,” Manstein said. “In that case, let us make certain we do not lose it.…”

  27 July 1979—Rijeka, Independent State of Croatia

  The little fishing boat putt-putted its way toward the harbor. The man who called himself Giorgio Ferrero already wore a black wool fisherman’s cap. He used his hand to shield his eyes further. Seen through the clear Adriatic air, the rugged Croatian coastline seemed almost unnaturally sharp, as if he were wearing a new pair of spectacles that were a little too strong.

  “Pretty country,” Ferrero said. He spoke Italian with the accent of Ancona.

  So did Pietro Bevacqua, to whom he’d addressed the remark: “That it is.” Bevacqua and Ferrero were both medium-sized, medium-dark men who would not have seemed out of place anywhere in the Mediterranean. Around a big pipe full of vile Italian tobacco, Bevacqua added, “No matter how pretty, though, me, I wish I were back home.” He took both hands off the boat’s wheel to show by gesture just how much he wished that.

  Ferrero chuckled. He went up to the bow. Bevacqua guided the boat to a pier. Ferrero sprang up onto the dock, rope in hand. He tied the boat fast. Before he could finish, a pair of Croatian customs men were heading his way.

  Their neatly creased khaki uniforms, high-crowned caps, gleaming jackboots, and businesslike assault rifles all bespoke their nation’s German alliance. The faces under those caps, long, lined, dark, with the deep-set eyes of icons, were older than anything Germany dreamed of. “Show me your papers,” one of them said.

  “Here you are, sir.” Ferrero’s Croatian was halting, accented, but understandable. He dug the documents out of the back pocket of his baggy wool pants.

  The customs man studied them, passed them to his comrade. “You are from the Social Republic, eh?” the second man said. He grinned nastily. “Not from Sicily?”

  Ferrero crossed himself. “Mother of God, no!” he exclaimed in Italian. Sicily was a British puppet regime; admitting one came from there was as good as admitting one was a spy. One did not want to admit to spying, not in Croatia. The Ustashi had a reputation for savagery that even the Gestapo envied. Ferrero went on, in Croatian again, “From Ancona, like you see. Got a load of eels on ice to sell here, my partner and I.”

  “Ah.” Both customs men looked interested. The one with the nasty grin said, “Maybe our wives will buy some for pies, if they get to market.”

  “Take some now” Ferrero urged. If he hadn’t urged it, the eels would not have got to market. He knew that. The pair of fifty-dinar notes folded in with his papers had disappeared now, too. The Croatian fascists were only cheap imitations of their German prototypes, who would have cost much more to bribe.

  Once they had the eels in a couple of sacks, the customs men gave only a cursory glance at Bevacqua’s papers (though they did not fail to pocket his pair of fifty-dinar notes, either) and at the rest of the ship’s cargo. They plied rubber stamps with vigor and then strode back down the dock, obviously well pleased with themselves.

  The fishermen followed them. The fish market was, sensibly, close to the wharves. Another uniformed official demanded papers before he let Ferrero and Bevacqua by. The sight of the customs men’s stamps impressed him enough that he didn’t even have to be paid off.

  “Eels!” Ferrero shouted in his bad but loud Croatian. “Eels from Italian waters! Eels!” A crowd soon formed around him. Eels went one way, dinars another. While Ferrero cried the wares and took money, Bevacqua kept trotting back and forth between market and boat, always bringing more eels.

  A beefy man pushed his way to the front of the crowd. He bought three hundred dinars’ worth of eels, shoving a fat wad of bills into Ferrero’s hand. “For my restaurant,” he explained. “You wouldn’t happen to have any squid, would you?”

  Ferrero shook his head. “We sell those at home. Not many like them here.”

  “Too bad. I serve calamari when I can.” The beefy man slung his sack of eels over his shoulder, elbowed himself away from Ferrero as rudely as he’d approached. Ferrero rubbed his chin, stuck the three hundred dinars in a pocket different from the one he used for the rest of the money he was making.

  The eels went fast. Anything new for sale went fast in Rijeka; Croatia had never been a fortunate country. By the time all the fish were gone from the hold of the little boat, Ferrero and Bevacqua had made three times as much as they would have by selling them in Ancona.

  “We’ll have to make many more trips here,” B
evacqua said enthusiastically, back in the fishing boat’s cramped cabin. “We’ll get rich.”

  “Sounds good to me,” Ferrero said. He took out the wad of bills the fellow from the restaurant had given him. Stern and unsmiling, the face of Ante Pavelic, the first Croatian Poglavnik, glared at him from every twenty-dinar note he peeled off. Pavelic hadn’t invented fascism, but he’d done even more unpleasant things with it than the Germans, and his successors weren’t any nicer than he had been.

  In the middle of the notes was a scrap of paper. On it was scrawled a note, in English: The Church of Our Lady of Lourdes. Tomorrow 1700. George Smith passed it to Peter Drinkwater, who read it, nodded, and tore it into very small pieces.

  Still speaking Italian, Drinkwater said, “We ought to give thanks to Our Lady for blessing us with such a fine catch. Maybe she will reward us with another one.”

  “She has a fine church here, I’ve heard,” Smith answered in the same tongue. The odds the customs men had planted ears aboard the boat were small, but neither of them believed in taking chances. The Germans made the best and most compact ears in the world, and shared them freely with their allies.

  “May Our Lady let us catch the fish we seek,” Drinkwater said piously. He crossed himself. Smith automatically followed suit, as any real fisherman would have. If he ever wanted to see Sicily—or England—again, he had to be a real fisherman, not just act like one.

  Of course, Smith thought, if he’d really wanted to work toward living to a ripe old age, he would have been a carpenter like his father instead of going into Military Intelligence. But even a carpenter’s career would have been no guarantee of collecting a pension, not with fascist Germany, the Soviet Union, the U.S.A., and Britain all ready to throw sunbombs about like cricket balls. He sighed. No one was safe in today’s world—his own danger was merely a little more obvious than most.

  Not counting Serbian slave laborers (and one oughtn’t to have counted them, as they seldom lasted long), Rijeka held about 150,000 people. The older part of the city was a mixture of medieval and Austro-Hungarian architecture; the city hall, a masterpiece of gingerbread, would not have looked out of place in old Vienna. The newer buildings, as was true from the Atlantic to the fascist half of the Ukraine, were in the style critics in free countries sneered at as Albert Speer Gothic: huge colonnades and great vertical masses, all intended to show the individual what an ant he was when set against the immense power of the state.