Saving Cloud-Girl was the first story of mine which ever got published. Dark Moon Books put out a call for submissions for an anthology called, ‘Zombie Jesus and Other True Stories.’ Being an atheist, the title caught my attention. They wanted alternate history stories. I’d never written an alternate history before, but I’d just read Philip K. Dick’s novel ‘Ubik,’ and was intrigued with a particular character who could befuddle precogs by changing decisions on her own timeline. This character was, disappointingly, killed off in Dick’s novel right away. So, I thought, “I can do something better with that idea!” And I did. Dark Moon loved my take on the concept, setting it in World War II, and making her Jewish.
I wrote the draft in little more than a single day. I got out my book of German curse words and got completely lost in the narrative. The entire project took me right out of my comfort zone. But perhaps that was a good thing, because it worked.
The story was published in ‘Zombie Jesus and Other True Stories’ in November of 2012. Enjoy!
The stern Nazi Captain stood rigidly in his office as though he were cast in pewter, his uniform looking more crisp and rigid than a vacuum-sealed suit of armor. He was staring out his window with satisfaction at the troops who were scurrying about in preparation for inspection, as his base currently had more brass in it than a plumbing fixtures plant with a marching band parading through it. He was awaiting what was likely to be the most important staff meeting of his life. In less than an hour, he would be in conference with his superiors to learn of the situation in Ireland, and possibly, finally, receive the order to let loose his Panzer divisions for an all-out invasion of the Soviet Union. It would be about time. That beschissen Holzkopf, Josef Stalin, had been a blight upon Europe long enough. Ever since the Waffen SS had its role expanded from mere defensive guards to offensive division leaders, he knew that he, Captain Franz Karl Reichleitner, would help lead the charge into die Ukraine. People who shared German blood should rule Russland, like the Romanovs once did, and he would soon help put that right.
A knock came at his door, and in stepped his Oberscharführer (Staff Sergeant), Karl August Wilhelm Frenzel. “Excuse me, Hauptsturmführer,” he announced himself.
“Ah, Karl!” the Captain greeted him. You have that report on our unit’s readiness for the staff meeting? I expected it half an hour ago.”
“Yes, Mein Herr, it is ready, but something urgent has just come up.”
The Captain’s indignation lit up like the igniter of a flamethrower. The Staff Sergeant felt its heat. “More urgent than the meeting with General Manstein?!”
The blood drained from Frenzel’s face as though someone had unstoppered a wineskin. “I believe so, Mein Herr!” he dared reply.
The Captain paused at the hubris of his most trusted non-commissioned officer. Surely, he would not have made this a priority, now of all times, unless it were crucial. “Very well, what is it?”
In reply, the Staff Sergeant faced back out into the hall, where he gestured for someone to approach. Forthwith, a small, dusty woman with messy brown hair, her face as ashen as an edelweiss flower, was shoved into the office by an armed guard. The yellow star on her sordid dress told all, and more than the Captain wanted to know.
He brought his fist down onto his desk with the force of Donner’s hammer. “Himmel, Arsch und Zwirn! You waste precious time on this Jüdisheisse at this critical hour? Du Trottel!”
“Begging your pardon, Hauptsturmführer,” Frenzel desperately apologized, “but she is prepared to offer us something critical to the war!”
The Captain pondered this for a mere two seconds before coming out from behind his desk and brandishing his outstretched palm to the armed guard. “Your pistol, Sharführer!”
The Sergeant was startled, and made the mistake of hesitating for a moment.
“Do I need to repeat myself, soldier?!”
“No, Mein Herr!” he said as he nearly fumbled the pistol out of its holster and into the Captain’s hand.
He pointed it right at the Jewish woman’s head. “What item could some filthy little Flittchen like you have to offer the Reich that’s so valuable that you must come in here and soil these premises? Speak!”
She did not speak. Nor did she stare down the barrel of the Luger pistol which was trained on her. Rather, her eyes stared rigidly at the guard, who was still standing in the hallway. Were a python around his neck, he couldn’t have looked more choked.
The Captain jerked his head to one side at the uselessly flummoxed guard. “Verpiss Dich,” he told him, essentially telling him to go urinate elsewhere. This he did, almost literally.
He jerked his Staff Sergeant into the room with him and shut the door. All right, du Schlampe. You have ten seconds before I blow your Jewish brains all over my nice, clean wall. What could you possibly offer that would interest us?”
Oddly, she looked right at him and gave him a light smile. Then answered him, in a voice so meek it could have been that of a mouse, “I can give you Adolf Hitler back.”
The Captain took that in, pulled back his pistol, and started to laugh. He laughed more and more, until he abruptly stopped and pointed the pistol back at the woman’s head.
“Und Du kannst mich mal am Arsch lecken!” he retorted, telling her what she could do with her tongue and his posterior. “Did you really think you could just waltz in here and sell some ridiculous nonsense about resurrecting the dead?! Hitler is gone! Killed in a bomb blast four years ago, and that’s that! You take me for a Dummkopf? I am an officer of the Schutzstaffel, and I will not let you make a mockery out of…”
First Lieutenant Reichleitner found himself pointing, not with a gun, but with his own finger, at a newspaper headline detailing the latest news from the British front. He found himself… confused… He wasn’t supposed to be here, he was… he was…
“Möchten Sie eine Zeitung kaufen, Mein Herr?” said the man at the newsstand, asking him if he’d like to buy a paper.
He pulled himself together, and handed the man two 50 Reichspfennig coins.
The newspaper had a puzzling headline: “Panzers Temporarily Halt Outside London.” He glanced over the article, which was peppered with assurances that London would soon fall. But that wasn’t right! London had already been taken! The front was in Ireland and Scotland! And his position in the SS was…
No, wait, he wasn’t in the SS. He was going to join the SS many years ago. It was in Berlin. He was on his way to apply when he bumped into some little girl. She threw a cup of coffee on his uniform and scampered off! That little Maus! He had to go and change, because he couldn’t apply to the elite guard looking like that! But then he was called away to France the next day, and…
He was in his office in Warsaw, holding a gun to a Jewish woman’s head. He slowly lowered it.
“Ach du meine Scheisse!”
“She did the same thing to me, Mein Herr,” said Staff Sergeant Frenzel. “That’s how I knew she could really do it. That she was serious.”
The Captain retreated behind his desk and took his seat, all the while never taking his eyes off this strange, little woman. “What did you just do to me?”
“Nothing,” she answered. “Just spilled coffee on you.”
Reichleitner’s eyes got wide as the realization dawned upon him. “You were that little girl in Berlin!”
“Yes. I remembered seeing you when I was a little girl. So I decided to spill coffee on you, just to show you what could have happened.” She smiled again. “When I decided not to spill coffee on you, you came back here.”
The Captain found himself tangled up in the wafts and wefts of the tapestry of his thoughts, and felt himself very likely to soon get skewered with a giant stitching needle at any moment. “Such power!” he marveled. “I don’t understand it. How can a Jewish woman have this ability and not a German?”
“I must have some German blood in me,” she curtly replied. She was being sarcastic, of course. The Captain could easily tell that. Still, she was a Süssholzraspler (sweet talker).
“It may be,” Frenzel proffered, “that many German women already have this ability. Such women would naturally be a State secret, of course, which is why we’ve never heard of them. This Jewish woman must be an anomaly, being the only one of her kind to develop such powers with such inferior genes. If this is what the lone Jewish woman can do, imagine how many more powerful women with even greater powers Heinrich Himmler must have at his disposal right now!”
Reichleitner had to admit, his Staff Sergeant knew how to put a favorable light on things. But certainly, her ability would explain why she was one of the only remaining Jewish women left, wouldn’t it?
“So,” he said, trying to re-orient himself, “You can travel back in time. That’s a pretty neat trick, I’ll admit. So why…”
“No,” she interrupted.
“What do you mean, ‘No?’” barked back the Captain.
“No, I don’t travel through time,” the woman corrected.
“But I just saw it. You altered history.”
“Yes. But I don’t travel through time. Only my memory does. If I remember doing something differently, then I did it differently. I can affect you, but only if I’ve met you in the past.”
“Okay,” the officer began again. “You can travel back in time, in your mind…”
The woman nodded, indicating he’d gotten it right.
He took the prompt, “…so why would you want to help the Reich by bringing back Adolf Hitler?”
“I’m offering to bring back Adolf Hitler,” she corrected again. “Whether or not I want to is irrelevant.”
“You know what I mean!” His indignation was coming back. “Why would a Jewish woman offer to bring back the Jewish people’s greatest enemy?”
“I offer it in exchange for my sister.”
“Your sister?” he repeated.
“Yes. Wilhelmina Ginsburg. I am Giselda Ginsburg.”
The captain pulled out a piece of note paper and started to write down, ‘Wilhelmina Ginsburg.’ “This sister of yours doesn’t have powers like you, does she?” he grumbled.
“No,” she flatly stated.
“Good.”
“She moves clouds.”
He paused in mid pen-stroke. Moves clouds? He could not help but be amazed. There were two of them! He then shook off those thoughts. Not much of an ability, moving clouds around, is it? “When and where did you last see your sister?” he asked.
“She was arrested and taken to Sobibor.”
Reichleitner did not write anything further down. His eyes went to Klaus Frenzel, whose facial expression looked as though someone had just stuck his keester with a pin, and he was trying not to cry out.
“I see,” said the Captain, putting his pen back in its holder. “Fraulein Ginsburg, I must tell you…”
“I already know she’s dead,” she interrupted him a third time. “So spare me the lies of how difficult it will be to find her. When I give you Hitler back, you both will be in a position to rescue her. And you will. That’s my offer.”
The senior officer narrowed his eyes on her. “If your sister is dead, how can we…”
“Adolf Hitler is dead, yet I can, in effect, resurrect him for you,” she replied. “In like manner, you will, in effect, resurrect her for me.”
Frenzel seemed to have extracted said pin and regained his composure. “If you know that you can rescue your sister by restoring Hitler, then why don’t you simply do so?” he demanded to know. “Why do you need us?”
“Because you must agree,” she snapped back at him. “I have tried it, and it has failed. But it will succeed if you agree to my bargain.”
“Why?” bellowed the Captain.
She crossed her arms. She did this only because she was slightly cold, but it came off as pique. “You felt the slight hint of memory from your former surroundings when I changed your history before. That’s an echo. It’s small, but it’s always there. You will feel that echo, and some little part of you will remember this deal. You will then honor it.”
The Captain thought for a moment, scratching the back of his hand. Turning to his Staff Sergeant, he asked, “What do you think?”
“I’m not sure, but the benefits to the Reich could well be worth it.”
“Worth it?” he replied, incredulously. “She’s a Jew! Whatever her true motives, I don’t trust her! It’s all Quatsch, (baloney) and I sense a trap.”
“But think of it, Mein Herr!” pleaded Frenzel. “Adolf Hitler! Was there ever so mighty a leader? No disrespect to Der Führer, Heinrich Himmler, but he is a fox. Not the mighty lion Hitler was. In four years, we have not fully taken the British Isles, and Ireland keeps getting supplied by the Americans. We have seen how Stalin expects us to attack, and he has spent many years fortifying his defenses. Imagine what Hitler would have done! We would likely already have invaded the Soviets! We would have taken the whole of Britain. America would be ripe for the taking having its hands full with the Japanese!”
“Perhaps. But what if it is a trap?”
“A trap? To give us back Hitler? Who is really trapping who here?”
The Captain pondered this, then said to Giselda, “Well, kleine Zeitmaus [little time-mouse], you must surely realize that if you give us Hitler back, your people will very likely all be wiped out. Are you sure you want that? Just for your sister?”
“They will be wiped out, anyway,” she answered back. “But I’ll at least have my sister. What have I got to lose?”
Reichleitner sighed. Then asked Frenzel, “How long before our meeting with Manstein?”
Karl checked his armbandühr. “Ten minutes, Mein Herr!”
He paused, then stood up. “Very well, Mädchen. I agree to your terms. If you are right, and we get Hitler back, so much the better, although I doubt you can really do it. If it’s a trap, well, then you’ve swindled your sister back, and I can live with a mistake that small.” He paused, then added to Frenzel, “Ah, let’s just make sure to get her out of here quietly? I’d hate to have to explain to Manstein why there are Jüden roaming the halls of my headquarters.”
Giselda spoke up and stepped forward. “Hold out your hands, please,” she requested.
Both officers exchanged odd looks of confusion mixed with indignation. The Captain, especially, was miffed that a Jewish woman would dare make bold requests of him. Yet he, and his Staff Sergeant remembered that they had struck a bargain, and assumed she meant to shake on it. They were simultaneously reluctant to touch what they considered to be Jewish filth, but they were Germans, after all, and an agreement must be honored. They both slowly extended their hands to shake with.
Without warning, she reached out and grasped them both.
And then everything changed.
#
Two teenaged sisters were strolling the back alleyways of Berlin. They liked keeping to the shadows so that nobody would notice two Jewish girls who were out on the streets in the dead of night.
“I wish we could walk more freely, Mina,” said the older girl. “It’s such a hassle, always worrying about being seen.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” the younger one said. “I rather like the darkness.”
“I just worry about some mean boys jumping out and raping us.”
“They won’t!” Mina said, emphatically. “Not if you’re here!”
The sweetness and innocence of her little sister’s trust overwhelmed the elder. She would never, ever let her down. But to do that, her memory of the future told her, she needed to ask a favor. “Mina, can you fill the city with fog?”
“Oh, Zelda,” she protested, “you know I hate doing that.”
“I know,” Zelda tried to sound comforting. “But it’s important.”
Her younger sister sighed. “You always say that.”
Zelda pleaded. “Please? For me? At least we’ll be able to walk around with more freedom.”
“So that’s what you’re up to.” she elbowed her sister as she said so. “Okay, fine. Hang on…” She stopped walking, and concentrated for a moment.
Soon, a billowing fog descended upon the streets, as though the gods had decided to throw a cigar-smoking party and had forgotten to turn on the air-filter. Into the middle of the street, arm-in-arm and without fear, the two girls sallied forth into the mist.
Meanwhile, many miles away in Münich, a report reached the ears of Adolf Hitler as he was about to give his speech at the Bürgerbräukeller in commemoration of the 1923 Biersaal Putsch.
“Mein Führer?” Herr Himmler whispered to him, trying not to disturb the preliminary speeches and ceremonies.
“What is it?” replied Adolf.
“Report from Berlin, Mein Herr,” he said. “A fog has rolled in. All air traffic has been stopped at the airport.”
Hitler turned to look at him. “A fog? I don’t recall the weather service saying anything about a fog.”
“Nevertheless, there is fog. We cannot fly tonight.”
“Hmmm,” the Führer thought aloud. “We’ll have to take the train, then.”
“Mein Herr, the train leaves shortly before twenty-two hundred.”
He nodded. “So be it. I’ll have to cut my speech a little short, tonight.”
He did cut short his speech, and left the building at several minutes past nine.
At twenty minutes past nine, the timer of the bomb which had been intended for him exploded. Adolf Hitler had survived, thanks to a fog in Berlin.
#
At the Sobibor labor camp, October 14, 1943, the prisoners were planning an escape. Everything was in place. All they needed was a little luck.
Commandant Franz Karl Reichleitner was not sure why he decided to take leave that particular week. Something simply told him that it was the right time to do so. Of course, not being there, he was unable to prevent his SS officers being systematically killed one by one in preparation for the uprising and escape attempt. The conspiracy was eventually brought to light, however, and the alarm was sounded. Hundreds of panicked Jews, Poles, Russians and P.O.W.’s desperately stormed the front gate from the inside.
Guards opened fire, shooting at anything that moved. The gate was breeched, however, and prisoners fled out into the woods. Seeing this, the Sergeant of the Watch, Karl Frenzel, took position on the North tower and began sniping. Other officers followed his lead. He had dropped more than a dozen when he took aim at one particular brown-haired woman. He recognized her through the scope. Wilhelmina, they’d called her. He aimed…
…and then lowered his barrel. He wasn’t sure why he did it. He simply knew, somehow, he was obeying some kind of order. He simply watched as she ran away, until a knoll obscured her.
Outside Sobibor, escapees made their way through the forests. Many were lost to the surrounding minefields. Many were shot. In little more than a day, the Nazis had established a perimeter, and began closing the dragnet. A band of escapees found themselves moving Eastward, but saw the German line closing in rapidly from the Northeast. Then, blessedly, unexplainably, a fog came in from out of nowhere, and hid them. Wilhelmina Ginsberg and the fifty-odd prisoners who were with her, escaped to Soviet-held territory, and to freedom.
#
Zelda and Mina were reunited as refugees in France. Zelda had, of course, lied to the Nazis about the Jews being wiped out in every case. She saw many scenarios where Jews disappeared almost entirely, but this one, the one she helped engineer, had only several million Jews killed, and not tens of millions. She knew that Hitler, in his greed and paranoia, would order one tactical error after another, allowing the Allies to eventually win by sheer strength of overproduction. She knew the Nazis would be too blind to realize he was doing this. Yes, Hitler was evil, and his madness brought much harm, but his threat also resulted in much good: The cultural dominance of democracy, the beginnings of a Cold War that would put men on the Moon and eventually make the Soviet Union self-destruct, the rebuilding of the Nation of Israel due to the guilt and shame over Western anti-Semitism, and the peaceful unification of Europe under one rule, and one currency. She saw all this, and more, in Adolf Hitler. There was now only one more thing to do.
On a cloudy day, the latest of many, she asked her sister to make the clouds go away over their refugee camp in France. “We need some sunshine,” she said. “It’s been snowy for so long.”
“Oh, Zelda,” she protested, “you know I hate doing that.”
“I know,” Zelda pleaded with her. “But it’s important.”
Her younger sister sighed. “You always say that.”
And she always got her way. Her sister already knew that it was inadvisable to ignore her Zelda’s pleadings. She knew of her power to see how time unfolds. So she cleared the skies, and Paris was filled with sunshine. In Bastogne, the sudden and unpredicted weather change allowed the pleasantly surprised American forces to send in air cover to break the German final advance, which would, in turn, allow the Allies to race towards Berlin so fast that the Nazis would have little time to hide their crimes.
The sisters lived long lives, happy and reasonably safe. And no one ever learned of the terrifying powers they held as the Time-Mouse and the Cloud-Girl.
Author’s Note:
There are many historical facts that make up this short story. Hitler did, in fact, narrowly escape assassination during a speech he gave in Munich on November 8, 1939 due to Berlin being fogged in, and the airport shut down as a result. Had Hitler not been forced to take the train, he would likely have done his full-length speech, and been killed. Also, there was indeed a prison revolt on October 14, 1943, at the death-camp at Sobibor, in occupied Poland. About half of the 600 or so prisoners, mostly Jews, escaped. Most who got out were killed, but a few managed to make it to safety. Perhaps not as many went into Soviet territory as I’ve implied in this story.
There was indeed a Captain Franz Karl Reichleitner, who was Commandant of Sobibor at the time of the uprising, and who was, in fact, on leave at the time it happened. He later served in Fiume, Italy, where he was killed by anti-government radicals. Karl August Wilhelm Frenzel was a Section Commandant at Sobibor. He was tried and sentenced to life imprisonment for his war crimes.
In December, 1944, during the Battle of the Bulge, the Allies prepared for a counter-offensive against the German attack in order to secure Bastogne. General Patton and the other leaders of the Allied Forces knew that they needed clear weather if they were to have the air cover they needed for a successful push. Yet all the weather forecasts predicted cloudy skies. Patton had Army Chaplain, Col. James O’Neill, compose a special prayer for favorable weather. When the skies unexpectedly cleared the next day, Patton awarded O’Neill the Bronze Star.
Giselda Ginsburg and her sister, Wilhelmina, are fictional. The name of Ginsburg was chosen in honor of beat-writer Irwin Allen Ginsberg, with a slight spelling difference. Any resemblance, real or imagined, to any real-life member of the Ginsburg family is unintentional.