I am an old man but I am not too old to forget their scent. I am being sought by a race that stole its sense of community from my homeland. While at home what they call a nation is an assortment of thieves. Thieves and cutthroats who sell our country at the market to the highest bidder. Every day the federal republic is torn apart by the warring of differing interests. Conflicting interests eating away at the center of Europe. Separated from the democratic republic by a wall put up by the red Jews who want to take the rest. They want to eat Germany and fill their bellies. There were no conflicting interests when we ran affairs. They were kept under control. Didn't we warn everybody that the Jewish filth wanted Germany for itself? They sent us to war. We were only defending ourselves from their slavery.
Now they sit there waiting for the other half to fall apart altogether. How many years did we spend cleaning up the mess to have them return and take the prize? They have even stolen our sense as a nation and turned it to their own use. How the Israelis mirror us. They have learnt well their lesson. Now they treat Palestinian like pariahs and want to seek a final solution to the Palestinian problem. They hunt and cut them down. Their intelligence is perfect. Now they seek me. I am alone here without a knot to tie. I cannot touch another hand. Another hand will not seek mine. I am isolated in a country that was born and that will die in ruin. Why do they seek me? I am one man amongst others. I did my work. They asked for it. It was war. They cannot be blind to that. They group together to seek me out. They will not rest until they have me hanging by a rope. What do they want me to tell them? They have conquered us and they will not let me go.
I still see him. Eckstein. He is still with us. I know that. It's Eckstein's sons who seek me here. They will look everywhere. They will crack a few heads and pay back debts on their way. These are a brand of Jews whom I know little. I am in a railway station. In Vienna. It is thirty-eight or thirty-nine. I have just visited at their Council of Elders with Eckstein. He stands by me. We have had a very long and difficult meeting. They will not listen to us even though we are poised at their throats. They are trying to deal with me. Who do these longnoses think they are? Demanding that certain arrangements should be met before they will even consider an emigration for payment scheme. How quickly I will finish them off. These babblers who treated me with deference while hiding their contempt and treating me like a contractible disease. Eckstein had persuaded them that the force I was speaking of was actual and he told them there was no doubt that a machine of terror would be put in use against them. He discussed it in a frank yet still diplomatic manner. One Jew got up on his feet and like some strange animal started bleating out very loudly that Eckstein was a traitor to his people. That he was working with monsters and would suck their blood dry. He accused him of being a criminal who would pay for his crimes. Crimes against his own people. This went on for about five minutes. I said nothing. I thought that they are so violent with each other then my work will be made easy. The man was forced into silence by his colleagues. The meeting went on.
We left the meeting and walked to the railway station. Eckstein had said nothing to me on our walk. We stood there waiting for the train to take us to Berlin. I mentioned some small matter related to the meeting. He looked at me. In a moment he had slapped his hand hard across my cheeks. So hard it left a red marking. He was unafraid. I looked at him and said nothing. I have been alone for so long. All this time. I have expected them. When the political winds change. I know they will not forget Heimmann. There have been times when I have expected them to pluck me out. To take me to their sanctuary. To examine me. Like some specimen. They want to hold me up. Hold me up to the world like some ventriloquist's doll.
Heimmann will not do that. He will show this good for nothing scum what he is made of. They will think they have a prize in their hands. No. No. They will have a bomb. A bomb that will explode into their money lending hands. That is certain. I know they follow me. Do they think for one moment that it is possible to fool the man who controlled Europe with an intelligence network the like which had never and has never been seen in human history. In the same hour I could have a man picked up in Lodz. Another in Brussels. A woman in Prague. A teenager in Paris. They could all end up in my office the next day. They could be dead the day after that. That is power. That is strength. Every morning at my desk I would have reports from each of the occupied countries. From their cities. From their towns. From their villages. I had compromised. I had corrupted. I had debased key individuals. If I wanted information it was on my desk. The next morning. The next hour. Looking back it seems I had half of Europe in my debt one way or another. I had corrupted them. They had corrupted themselves.
They are still here. Some of them doing very well. Key people. I cannot touch them. In this world who would believe Heimmann. He is not to be believed I can hear them saying. I'll tell them many things they don't want to hear. I'll not end up on the scaffold praying to smaller gods than I am myself. I'll not tell them I was only following orders. I am not frightened by their puny justice. They'll try to shut me up but I will speak until I have no more to say. They want to know how such a man is made. I'll tell them. They needn't ask. I'll tell them at once. I'm a man they can only imagine. They all live in my shadow. I know them already. I will know their faces. I will have known their fathers. Mothers. Uncles. Sisters. Brothers. I will have known their relatives. Their friends. I will have taken whole families on my train to their final departures. They do not frighten me. Where are they now? I can hear them. I have seen them. I am sitting here alone waiting for them. When will they come? I am not going to run anymore.
When we left the railway station Eckstein made no attempt to speak to me. To explain his action. I made no attempt to speak to him. My mind was rushing with many thoughts. There were moments when I felt like I wanted to pull out my pistol and end it there and then. I wanted him. He was simply one more man that I had control over. That was the truth of the matter. He could expect no grace from me. He sat in the carriage as if nothing had happened. He passed me some papers that I had given him earlier in the day. This man. His sons will try to do business with me but they have another thing coming. I am not an old man they can intimidate like they would an Arab in the desert. I'm no savage they can beat into submission. They will feel the sharp whip of my tongue crack them across the face. Who do these assassins of Christ think they are dealing with? They are not dealing with some flunked doctor now. In a forest. Somewhere on the outskirts of Paris. My men gathered up the entire staff of a particular Lycée in Paris that we knew to be the center of resistance against us. They were gathered up in the middle of the day when they least expected it. It was in full view of the locals. Everybody pretended not to notice. We gathered them on a truck. The entire staff. There were Israelites amongst them. I am certain. They had changed their names but the Lycée would have been a natural home for them. Packed off into a truck and driven to the outskirts of Paris. In a forest. They pleaded with us. Demanding to know why they had been taken. From their beloved Lycée. An old man - a professor came up to me. A Jew of long standing I would have thought. He came to talk to me. He wanted to know why they were here. I told him. Because you serve no purpose. I pushed him back into the throng and my men fired upon them until no one was left standing. An officer. A middle-aged man who was not involved in the shooting came up to me and asked brusquely why we had shot these people. I pulled out my pistol and shot him point blank. I told him - that's because you don't understand our purpose. He fell on his knees as if in prayer. We got back in the truck leaving this mess.
They think they know why they want me. I am a sinister man - they say. Do they think people have long memories? People were forgetting as soon as we had done these actions. After the war people's memories got very distorted. Some of the young do not even know there was a war. They do not want to know. No one wants to remember. I remember everything. People want to move towards a future. What a future we left those we conquered. No sooner had the war finished than the French were in Vietnam. Then in Algeria. Employing the same methods that we had taught them. They were unflinching in their brutality. The English were no sooner out of the Blitz and they were putting the boot into the colonies and giving their own population some punishment. The Americans were in anywhere they could get a fight going so that they may profit. By brutality Israel was founded and by brutality it was maintained. A litany of the occupied becoming the occupier. Their methods were no different except they were less efficient. They followed our rule book as if they had written it. Yet they presented this mimicry as if they alone were saving civilization. The Russians never pretended civilization and they renewed their savagery with a fervor with their new satellites.
Living here. Watching the globe. I have laughed until my sides split to think that these men think they can judge me. By what laws? We are the ones that developed those laws. They mirror our every action. They sit on high and tell me Heimmann this world cannot live with a man like you in its midst. Humanity has to rehabilitate itself - they will say. Humanity has to do away with people like you. They will insist. These liars. These frauds. Any one of these countries including Israel would benefit with the service of a Heimmann working for them. Ministering to their needs. No doubts about that. They would do well to employ me. They could not secrete me behind a door in some office. They know they would have to show others their naked face. This they cannot afford. They hide their face behind two penny brutes that they keep on a chain in countries like these. They keep their hands clean. They forever wash them. That's your trouble Heimmann - they would say — you got your hands too dirty with your tasks. We cannot be contaminated by you they would claim. They are drowned in their own filth. They cannot clean up the filth they have accumulated. They want the benefit of my methods but they do not want to pay the price. Perhaps they think they can make a public spectacle of me then they can go about their business without reference to my deeds. To do away with me is to pretend to do away with the deed. This is the thinking that made America. They will not forget Heimmann and his deeds. They will live on. In both books and life. This world cannot forget Heimmann. He is the door through which they constructed the post-war world. It is to him that they owe a debt. While they destroy town after town. City after city. Country after country. They can always point to the misdeeds of Heimmann to detract from their own deeds. They are without culture. They are without intelligence. Their reign will not last.
When I was a young man. After the First World War. I would look at maps and know that what was there today might not be there tomorrow. That empires were doomed to collapse. That one country would become another. That whole continents would be transformed. I drew on these maps. I imagined new boundaries. The creation of new borders. I imagined this then. Behind every change I saw the chosen ones or some other inferior race that needed to be extinguished. Now every day the world is faced with this reality. It was in the last days of the war that I visited the camp where Eckstein was held. He was still working in the chamber commando. Many of those he might have called colleagues in his task had already gone to join their number. Not Eckstein. He was skin and bone with a sack on top but he was still there. He would go soon. He had been a lucky man. He had seen day turn into night. He had seen the future. I went up to him in the camp. He did not seem to recognize me. I tapped him hard on his arms. He looked up for a moment. Continued with his task except now he was almost unconsciously mimicking me. He was following my every movement and gesture. The look on my face he mirrored. It was as if he was passing through me. I spoke to him but he could not answer. The man in charge of the camp was about to strike him but I fended off the attack. The weather will finish him off I said. They are the last words I spoke to him. We walked away from him but as I went into the main block I could still see him mimicking me. That's the last I saw of him.
I am alone sitting in my office. I have been told the Red Army are nearing Berlin. They are not far away. I can hear them. In the distance. The others are in a frenzy. There are already some who have deserted and others who have gone to Switzerland to make a peace. There are orders going everywhere. Orders are not being followed. This very day I have seen full uniforms left in piles all over the place. Left there. As if the owners had stripped off and just walked naked from the uniform. Ghosts. This city is a madhouse. I cannot believe this is happening. All the shops are either closed or ransacked. My men are staying loyal. They at least give this appearance. I do not know. The means of communication are nearly all gone. Fourteen year old boys travel the city with messages from one leader to another.
These boys carry news of what is happening on the front. Without them it would be impossible to get information from one place to another. The leadership seems to be everywhere and nowhere. The radio has gone and rumor has become the deadline. You hear everything. Men I have known throughout our struggle run pass me in the street. No one greets one another anymore. Fear within the nation is greater than I have ever felt. Those who have their wits about them still fear me though they do their best to bypass me. I am not being noticed. Who are these orders for? Who am I issuing them to? An order has a short lifespan here if you can find someone to delegate it to. All around me. They all want to save their skins. That's the politics of our days and nights. We have night no longer. Every night we are being bombarded and light fills what is left of the sky. You cannot believe what I am seeing. Yesterday after the Russians had hit the zoo with mortar fire you could see wild animals prowling through the city. Wild animals. I am situated in the middle of a nightmare. It is happening so fast. There doesn't seem enough time anymore. I cannot breathe. I need air. The cage is closing in. Why can't I breathe? My body feels as if it is in convulsion. I go through my files searching out names. I pore over schedules. I seek out names and numbers. Places. It's falling apart. I'm looking at reports I made in 1934. They are detailed and precise. They speak to me now. My memory serves me well. The whole city is falling apart. These are my people. This is my country. What are we doing? The camps should be burnt to the ground. Lock stock and barrel. I have sent the order. I don't know whether it's been acknowledged. Whether there is anybody to acknowledge the order. Our cities look like a collection of rubble. Few buildings are left standing. They're pummeling our city to ash. We who have brought culture to the world now see that culture smashed to pieces. Opera houses. Theatres. Cathedrals. Galleries. Museums. Rubble.
Eckstein and his sons have followed my scent though I will smell them first. They are very close. I hear and see. I am not imagining them. I can hear them. I can see them. They are close. So close. I will know them. They will listen to me. I have a story to tell these stamp collectors. They will hear more than their ears can bare. They will hear a word or two that they may have not thought possible to utter. I will utter them. Eckstein will have told his side of the story. That's certain. A sob story. I would be a large figure in that landscape. No doubt about that. Eckstein will have his lists. My name will be at the top of them. I'll not hide that fact. That's what they expect me to do. Hide the facts.
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