Striking the Balance (26 page)

As Nieh drew nearer the picture machine, the foreign devil, who had had his head lowered for a while so he could tease the woman’s nipple with his tongue, raised it again. Nieh stopped in his tracks, so suddenly that a laborer behind him carrying two buckets on a shoulder pole almost ran into him and shouted angrily. Nieh ignored the fellow. He recognized the foreign devil. It was Bobby Fiore, the man who had put Liu Han’s baby into her.

Then the woman whose straining thighs clenched Bobby Fiore’s flanks turned her face toward Nieh, and he saw that she was Liu Han. He bit his lip. Her features were slack with lust. The pictures had sound accompanying them. He listened to her little gasps of pleasure, just as he had when he held her in his arms.

In the pictures, Liu Han moaned. Bobby Fiore grunted like a stuck pig. Both of them glistened with sweat. A Chinese man—a running dog for the little scaly devils—spoke over their ecstatic noises, explaining to the crowd what it was watching: “Here we see the famous people’s revolutionary Liu Han as she relaxes between her murders. Aren’t you proud to have this kind of person claiming to represent you? Don’t you hope she gets everything she wants?”

“Eee,”
said one of the men around the picture machine, “I think she is getting everything she wants. That foreign devil, he’s made like a donkey.” Everyone who heard him laughed—including Nieh Ho-T’ing, though stretching his mouth into the proper shape and making the right sounds come out of his throat hurt as if he were being flayed with knives.

The machine started a new film of Liu Han—with a different man this time. “Here is true Communism,” the narrator said. “From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs.”

The crowd of loafers guffawed at that, too. Again, Nieh Ho-T’ing made himself join the men around him. The first rule was not to look conspicuous. As he laughed, though, he noted that the narrator was probably a Kuomintang man—you had to be familiar with Marxist rhetoric to use it so effectively in burlesque form. He also noted that man down for assassination. If he could find out who he was.

After Nieh had stood around for a couple of minutes, he went on to the mosque. He was looking for a man named Su Shun-Ch’in, and found him sweeping the prayer area clean. That bespoke sincerity and dedication. Had Su Shun-Ch’in been at his trade merely for profit, he would have had an underling do the unpleasant parts of the job.

He looked at Nieh with something less than perfect liking. “How can you expect us to work with folk who are not only godless but who put sluts in positions of authority?” he demanded. “The scaly devils are right to scorn you for that.”

Nieh did not mention that he and Liu Han were lovers. Instead, he said, “This poor woman was captured by the little scaly devils and forced to give her body to these men or be starved. Is it any wonder that now she burns for revenge against them? They seek to discredit her, to lower her effectiveness as a revolutionary leader.”

“I have seen some of these pictures the little devils show,” Su Shun-Ch’in answered. “In one or two, the woman Liu Han looks to be forced, yes. In others, though—the ones with the foreign devil with the fuzzy back and chest—she is doing nothing but enjoying herself. This is very plain.”

Liu Han had fallen in love with Bobby Fiore. At first, maybe, it had been nothing more than two miserable people thrown together in a situation where they had no relief save each other, but it had grown to more than that. Nieh knew it. He also knew, from his time with Bobby Fiore on the road and in Shanghai, that the foreign devil had loved her, too, even if he hadn’t bothered being faithful to her.

No matter how true all that was, none of it would matter to the
qadi.
Nieh tried a different tack: “Whatever she did in the past that the little devils show, she did only because without doing it she would have been starved to death. Possibly she did not hate all of it; possibly this foreign devil was decent to her in a place where anything decent was hard to find. But whatever she did, it is the scaly devils’ fault, not hers, and she repents of having done it.”

“Maybe,” Su Shun-Ch’in said. By Chinese standards, his face was long and craggy; he might have had a foreign devil or two in his distant ancestry. His features lent themselves to stern disapproval.

“Do you know what else the scaly devils did to the woman Liu Han?” Nieh said. When the
qadi
shook his head, he went on. “They photographed her giving birth to a child, and photographed that child coming forth from between her legs. Then they stole it, to use it for their own purposes as if it were a beast of burden. You will not see them showing pictures of that, I would wager.”

“This is so?” Su Shun-Ch’in said. “You Communists, you are good at inventing lies to advance your cause.”

Nieh reckoned all religion a lie to advance a cause, but did not say so. “This
is
so,” he answered quietly.

The
qadi
studied him. “You are not lying to me now, I do not think,” he said at last.

“No, I am not lying to you now,” Nieh agreed. He wished he had not tacked on the last word. Then he saw Su Shun-Ch’in nodding soberly, perhaps pleased he was acknowledging he did sometimes lie. He went on, “In truth, the woman Liu Han gains face from these pictures the scaly devils show; she does not lose it. They prove that the little devils fear her so much, they need to discredit her by whatever means they can.”

Su Shun-Ch’in chewed on that like a man working meat from a chunk of pork that was mostly gristle. “Perhaps there is some truth in this,” he said after a long pause. Nieh had to work hard not to show the relief he felt as the
qadi
continued, “I will present your interpretation of these pictures to the men who believe as I do, at any rate.”

“That will be very fine,” Nieh said. “If we stand together in a popular front, we may yet defeat the little scaly devils.”

“Perhaps there is some truth in this,” Su repeated, “but here, only some. When you say a popular front, you mean a front you will lead. You do not believe in equal partnerships.”

Nieh Ho-T’ing put as much indignation as he could into his voice: “You are wrong. That is not true.”

To his surprise, Su Shun-Ch’in started to laugh. He waggled a finger in Nieh’s face. “Ah, now you are lying to me again,” he said. Nieh started to deny it, but the
qadi
waved him to silence. “Never mind. I understand you have to say what you have to say to support your cause. Even if I know it is wrong, you think it is right. Go now, and may God, the Compassionate, the Merciful, someday put wisdom into your heart.”

Sanctimonious old fool,
Nieh thought. But Su Shun-Ch’in had shown he wasn’t a fool, and he was going to work with the Communists to fight the little devils’ propaganda. And he was right about one thing: if the People’s Liberation Army was part of a popular front, that front would come to reflect the views of the Communist Party.

After Nieh left the mosque, he went wandering through the streets and narrow
hutungs
of Peking. The scaly devils had set up a lot of their picture machines. Liu Han’s images floated above every one of them, coupling with one man or another: usually Bobby Fiore, but not always. The little scaly devils turned up the sound at the moments when she neared and reached the Clouds and Rain, and also for the unctuous commentary of their Chinese lackey.

The propaganda piece did some of what the scaly devils wanted it to do. A lot of the men watching Liu Han being penetrated called her a bitch and a whore (just as Hsia Shou-Tao had, from what she’d said) and mocked the People’s Liberation Army for having raised her to a position of leadership. “I know what position I’d like to raise her to,” one wit cracked, and raised a loud laugh around that particular picture machine.

Not all the men reacted that way, though. Some did sympathize with her plight, and said so out loud. And Nieh found most interesting the reactions of the women who watched the record of Liu Han’s degradation. Almost without exception, they used the same words: “Ohh, poor thing.”

They would use those words not only among themselves, but also to their husbands and brothers and sons. The Chinese way of life shoved women into the background, but that didn’t mean they had no way of making their opinions felt. If they thought the little scaly devils were oppressing Liu Han, they would let their men know about it—and, sooner or later, the opinions those men held would start to change, too.

The Party’s counterpropaganda wouldn’t hurt there, either.

Nieh smiled. With any luck at all, the little scaly devils had wounded themselves in a way the Party couldn’t have managed. And, he vowed, he’d give luck a hand.

VII

“All right, God damn it, where the hell is he?” That booming bad-tone, that look-out-world-here-I-am arrogance, could only have belonged to one man of Heinrich Jäger’s acquaintance. He had not expected to hear from that one man while campaigning against the Lizards in western Poland.

He got to his feet, careful not to overturn the little aluminum stove on which his supper simmered. “Skorzeny!” he called. “What the devil are you doing here?”

“The devil’s work, my lad; the devil’s work,” SS
Standartenführer
Otto Skorzeny answered, folding Jäger into a rib-crunching bearhug. Skorzeny towered over Jäger by fifteen centimeters, but dominated most men not because of his size but by sheer physical presence. When you fell under his spell, you wanted to charge out to do whatever he told you to, no matter how impossible the rational part of your brain knew it was.

Jäger had been on several missions with Skorzeny: in Russia, in Croatia, in France. He marveled that he remained in one piece after them. He marveled even more that Skorzeny did. He also set himself to resist whatever blandishments Skorzeny hurled his way. If you stood up to the SS man, you got respect. If you didn’t, you got run over.

Skorzeny thumped his belly. The scar that furrowed his left cheek pulled up the corner of his mouth as he asked, “Got any food around these parts, or do you aim to starve me to death?”

“You’re not wasting away,” Jäger said, looking him over with a critical eye. “We have some stew—pork and turnips—and some ersatz coffee. Will they suit your majesty?”

“No truffled pheasant, eh? Well, stew will do. But fuck ersatz coffee and the dying horse that pissed it out.” Skorzeny pulled a canteen off his belt, undid the stopper, and passed the canteen to Jäger. “Have a snort.”

Jäger drank warily. With Skorzeny’s sense of humor, you had to be wary. “Jesus,” he whispered. “Where did you come by this?”

“Not a bad cognac, eh?” Skorzeny answered smugly. “Courvoisier VSOP five-star, smoother than the inside of a virgin’s twat.”

Jäger took another sip, this one with appropriate reverence, then handed the felt-covered aluminum flask back to Skorzeny. “I’ve changed my mind. I don’t want to know where you found it. If you tell me, I’ll desert and go there myself. Wherever it is, it’s a nicer place than this.”

“Which isn’t saying one hell of a lot, when you get down to it,” Skorzeny said. “Now, where’s that stew?” When he’d filled the metal bowl from his own mess kit, he gulped the stuff down, then sent a shot of cognac after it. “Shame to chase anything so vile, but the hooch doesn’t do me any good if I don’t drink it, eh?” He gave Jäger a shot in the ribs with his elbow.

“Whatever you say,” Jäger answered. If you let the SS man sweep you away, you were in trouble—he kept reminding himself of that. Of course, since Skorzeny was here, he was going to find himself in trouble anyway; Skorzeny brought it with him, along with heavenly cognac. What sort of trouble, now, that varied from mission to mission. Jäger got up and stretched as lazily as he could, then said, “Let’s go for a little walk, shall we?”

“Oh, you just want to get me alone,” Skorzeny said in a shrill, arch falsetto. The panzer crewmen still eating their suppers guffawed in delight. Gunther Grillparzer swallowed wrong and started to choke; somebody had to pound him on the back before he could breathe straight again.

“If I were that desperate, you big ugly lunk, I think I’d shoot myself first,” Jäger retorted. The troopers laughed again. So did Skorzeny. He dished it out, but he could take it, too.

He and Jäger strode away from the encampment: not far enough to get lost, but out of earshot of the soldiers. Their boots squelched in mud. The spring thaw had done as much as the Lizards to slow the German advance. Off in a pond not far away, one of the first frogs of the new year let out a loud, mournful croak.

“He’ll be sorry,” Skorzeny said. “An owl will get him, or a heron.” He sounded as if he thought the frog had it coming.

Jäger didn’t care about frogs one way or the other. “The devil’s work, you said. What sort of deviltry have you got in mind, and where do I fit into it?”

“Don’t even know if you do or not,” Skorzeny answered. “Have to see how things go. But as long as I was in the neighborhood, I thought I’d drop by and say hello.” He bowed from the waist. “Hello.”

“You’re impossible,” Jäger said with a snort. By the way Skorzeny beamed, he took that for a compliment. Holding onto his patience with both hands, Jäger went on, “Let’s try it again. Why are you in the neighborhood?”

“I’m going to deliver a present, as soon as I figure out the best way to do it,” the SS man said.

“Knowing the kind of presents you deliver, I’m sure the Lizards will be delighted to have this one,” Jäger told him. “Anything I can do to tie a bow on the package, you know you have only to ask.” There. He’d gone and said it. One way or another, odds were it would get him killed.

He waited for the SS
Standartenführer
to go into extravagant, probably obscene detail about the latest plan for making the Lizards’ lives miserable. Skorzeny took a childish delight in his murderous schemes (Jäger got a sudden mental image of him as a child of six in
Lederhosen,
opening a package of tin soldiers; somehow the child Skorzeny in his mind had a scarred face, too). Now, though, he sent Jäger a hooded look before answering, “It’s not for the Lizards.”

“No?” Jäger raised an eyebrow. “Well. If it’s for me, what are you doing giving me fair warning?” He suddenly sobered; officers who displeased the High Command had been known to disappear from the face of the earth as if they had never been. What had he done to displease anyone save the foe? “If you’re carrying a pistol with one bullet in it, you’d better tell me why.”

“Is
that
what you’re thinking?
Gott im Himmel,
no!” Skorzeny held up his right hand as if taking an oath. “Nothing like that, I swear. Not you, not anybody you command or who commands you—no Germans at all, as a matter of fact.”

“Well, all right, then,” Jäger said in considerable relief. “So what are you getting all coy with me for? The enemies of the
Reich
are the enemies of the
Reich.
We’ll smash them and go on.”

Skorzeny’s face grew unreadable again. “You say that now, but it’s not the song you’ve always sung. Jews are enemies of the
Reich, nicht wahr?”

“If they weren’t beforehand, we’ve certainly done enough to make them so,” Jäger said. “Even so, we’ve had good cooperation from the ones in Lodz, keeping the Lizards from using the city as a staging point against us. When you get down to it, they’re human beings,
ja
?”

“We’ve had cooperation from them?” Skorzeny said, not answering Jäger’s question. “I’ll tell you who’s had cooperation from them: the Lizards, that’s who. If the Jews hadn’t stabbed us in the back, we’d hold a lot more of Poland than we do.”

Jäger made a tired gesture. “Why do we need to get into all of that? You know what we were doing to the Jews in Poland and Russia. Is it any wonder they don’t love us for the good Christians we are?”

“No, it’s probably no wonder,” Skorzeny said without any rancor Jäger could hear. “But if they want to play that game with us, they’re going to have to pay the price. Now—do you want me to go on with what I have to say, or would you sooner not listen so you don’t have to know a thing?”

“Go ahead,” Jäger said. “I’m not an ostrich, to stick my head in the sand.”

Skorzeny grinned at him. The scar on his cheek pulled half his face into a grimace that might have come from a gargoyle sitting somewhere high on a medieval cathedral—or maybe that was just Jäger’s mind, pulling horror from the SS man’s words: “I’m going to set off the biggest damned nerve-gas bomb the world has ever seen, and I’m going to do it right in the middle of the Lodz ghetto. So what do you think of that? Are you a colonel, or just a scoutmaster in the wrong uniform?”

“Fuck you, Skorzeny,” Jäger said evenly. As the words came out of his mouth, he remembered a Jewish partisan who’d used that invitation about every other sentence. SS men had shot the Jew—Max, his name was—at a place called Babi Yar, outside of Kiev. They’d botched the job, or Max wouldn’t have had the chance to tell his story. God only knew how many they hadn’t botched.

“That’s not an answer,” Skorzeny said, as immune to insult as a Lizard panzer was to machine-gun bullets. “Tell me what you think.”

“I think it’s stupid,” Jäger answered. “The Jews in Lodz have been helping us. If you start killing off the people who do that, you run out of friends in a hurry.”

“Ahh, those bastards are playing both ends against the middle, and you know it as well as I do,” Skorzeny said. “They kiss whichever ass is closest to them. It doesn’t matter one way or the other, anyhow. I’ve got my orders, and I’m going to carry them out.”

Jäger came to attention and flipped up his right arm.
“Heil Hitler!”
he said.

He had to give Skorzeny credit: the big bruiser recognized it was sarcasm, not acquiescence. Not only that, he thought it was funny. “Come on, don’t be a wet blanket,” he said. “We’ve been through a lot together, you and I. You can give me a lot of help this time, too.”

“Yes, I’d make a splendid Jew,” Jäger said, deadpan. “How long do you suppose a circumcision takes to heal up?”

“You didn’t used to be such a smartmouth,” Skorzeny said, rocking back on his heels and sticking thumbs into trouser pockets so he looked like a young lout on a streetcorner. “Must be senility coming on, eh?”

“If you say so. How am I supposed to help, though? I’ve never been inside Lodz. In fact, the offensive steered wide around it so we wouldn’t get bogged down in street fighting there. We can’t afford to go losing panzers to Molotov cocktails and things like that; we lose too many of them to the Lizards as is.”

“Yeah, that’s the line you sent back to division, and division sent it back to army group headquarters, and the High Command bought it,” Skorzeny said with a nod. “Bully for you. Maybe you’ll get red stripes on your trousers like a General Staff officer.”

“And it’s worked, too,” Jäger said. “I saw more street fighting in Russia than I ever wanted. Nothing in the world chews up men and machines like that, and we don’t have them to waste.”

“Ja, ja, ja,”
Skorzeny said with exaggerated patience. He leaned forward and glared at Jäger. “And I also happen to know that one of the reasons we swung around Lodz in two prongs is that you cut a deal with the Jewish partisans there. What do you have to say to that, Mr. General Staff Officer?”

It might have stopped snowing, but it was anything but warm. All the same, Jäger felt his face heat. If Skorzeny knew that, it was in an SS dossier somewhere . . . which did not bode well for his long-term survival, let alone his career. Even so, he answered as calmly as he could: “I say it was military necessity. This way, we have the partisans on our side and driving the Lizards crazy instead of the other way round. It’s worked out damned well, so you can take your ‘I also happen to know’ and flush it down the WC.”

“Why? What does Winston Churchill want with it?” Skorzeny said with a leer. The joke would have been funnier if the Germans hadn’t been making it on the radio from the day Churchill became prime minister to the night the Lizards arrived. The SS man went on, “You have to understand, I don’t really give a damn. But it does mean you have connections with the Jews. You ought to be able to use those to help me get my little toy right to the center of town.”

Jäger stared at him. “And you pay me thirty pieces of silver afterwards, don’t you? I don’t throw away connections like that. I don’t murder them, either. Why not ask me to betray my own men while you’re at it?”

“Thirty pieces of silver? That’s pretty good. Christ was a damn kike, too, remember. And a whole fat lot of good it did him. So.” Skorzeny studied Jäger. “The more help we get from your little chums, the easier the job will be, and I’m in favor of easy jobs whenever I can get ’em. They pay me to risk my neck, but they don’t pay me to stick it out when I don’t have to.”