Hilde pulled her shirt up to expose her midriff. "You have stretch marks!" Adalbert exclaimed.
"Yes, I have borne six children." Hilde ran her hands over her stomach, tracing the faded lines. "These are badges of honor, Adalbert. They show that I am a woman who has fulfilled her duty as a German immigrant."
Adalbert hesitated for a moment, then reached out and gently touched Hilde's stomach. The faded lines stretched under his fingertips. They were warm, and they carried with them a history. "You're a strong woman," Adalbert murmured.
"Strength comes from Germany," Hilde replied softly, pulling her shirt down. "Do you think we came to the East, as Goebbels said on the radio, to save the various ethnic groups enslaved by the Jewish Bolsheviks? We came to underworld to run with death!"
Adalbert stroked his chin thoughtfully. "Hilde, why did you volunteer? As a woman and an immigrant mother, you should stay on German soil for the sake of the nation and the future of the German immigrants."
"The same reason I bore children," Hilde replied simply. "Because I have a duty."
"But... this is different. The age difference between us is too big."
Hilde stared at Adalbert with piercing eyes. "So you only want a pretty, young, and pure German wife, don't you?" Hilde said quietly, but her voice was not without contempt.
"No, it's not like that," Adalbert explained hastily, but Hilde held out her palm to him, interrupting.
"Adalbert, a woman marries a man because the two of them want and love each other. Everything else is just a shallow show or even hypocrisy. You can tell me frankly: is a middle-aged immigrant woman not pretty enough to your tastes?"
Adalbert blushed deeply under Hilde's gaze, a cold sweat soaked back. but the German words stuck in his throat like mud, unable to rise up from deep below the ground.
"If this is the case, you can find other women to love." Hilde got up and smoothed the wrinkles in shirt, without any hint of weakness in her expression. "It was pleasant talking to you, Adalbert."
Seeing Hilde about to leave, Adalbert hurriedly held out a hand and stopped Hilde from moving further away. Hilde stopped, turned around, met the youth's sincere, tender gaze. Adalbert hesitated for a moment for both angering Hilde and committing treason. However, Hilde did not despise Adalbert for what he was going to do. At least her calm expression at the moment did not indicate that. Adalbert finally made up his mind.
——
In the distance, an iron-cast loudspeaker erected beside the well played a moving German song.
Exhausted, Adalbert fell onto the pillow, feeling the fatigue and pain melt and dissolve into the spring water, which could heal all suffering and illnesses.
"If we had lived in the same age, maybe... We could have..." Hilde was quiet for a moment as though struggling with something inside. The wrinkles near her eyes twitched, then smiled tenderly: "if that happened, there will be one more young German."
"Maybe, do you have birth control pills?" Adalbert neither affirmed nor denied. This was Adalbert's twenty years of life experience, now that Gestapo informants account for one-tenth of the country's population.
"This is illegal," Hilde warned Adalbert as a legal immigrant. "It is forbidden by the Germans to consume birth control pills."
"Hilde, are you afraid?" Adalbert suddenly recalled his companions' derisive remarks. "However, non-Germans were allowed only one child per family. Is it fair?"
Hilde looked at Adalbert and said calmly: "Adalbert, I have always been willing to have seven children for the sake of the Fatherland."
Adalbert felt his scalp go numb, the warmth in his chest faded. "But the law clearly stated that one child per family..."
"I am not afraid to have more children," Hilde repeated her words slowly, and the wrinkles near her eyes deepened. "Those provisions were a moderate view of inferior peoples, who must be allowed to slowly reduce their population by at least half in one generation."
"Hilde... " Adalbert's voice was trembling, like a glass that was about to break.
"If this is not the case, why are the Germans so concerned about the fertility rate of ethnic groups?" Hilde stared at Adalbert, who had gone pale, with a serious look. "Adalbert, don't think about the future. Just look at the present. Don't think about what you will do in the future, but what you can do right now."
Adalbert opened his mouth but could not find any words to refute. "When will you move here?" Hilde asked him in a light tone.
"Not before the spring next year," Adalbert replied absently. Hilde smiled with satisfaction.
"Then we have one more year. I'll make you a set of winter clothes when it's colder."
Adalbert opened his mouth but no sound came out. Hilde reached out and stroked Adalbert's cheek. Her palm was as warm as a flame, but the wrinkles on it were like a waning moon. "What book are you reading?" Hilde asked.
"An imaginary historical novel." Adalbert replied, still feeling the warmth of Hilde's hand on his skin.
"What is the title?"
"It's called the Iron Helmet."
Hilde gently took Adalbert's hand, and a smile blossomed on her face. "Tell me about the book."
The song from the loudspeaker continued to play in the distance, and a beautiful, touching melody floated through the air, lingering in the hearts of the two people in the cabin.
"Well, it's about an iron helmet..." Adalbert swallowed. "The novel is based on the assumption that the Axis powers lost the war to win."
"How did the Germans lose?" Hilde asked, her eyes shining. "What does say?"
"In his novel, Instead of attacking the Soviet Union in March 1941, as in reality, we attacked the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941, and did not prepare winter clothing. The general mobilization time was also postponed to 1943." Adalbert smiled bitterly. "The novel described how our soldiers froze to death on the battlefield because they couldn't bear the cold.
Hilde's expression remained unchanged, as if she had heard a story about a faraway place. "Go on."
"Apart from this, there were a lot of details that were not very important." Adalbert thought for a moment and continued. "Japan fought a failed mini-campaign with the Soviet Union in 1939, which prevented the East Asian monkeys from attacking the Soviet Union at the beginning of Operation Barbarossa, as they would in real life."
"Is it?" Hilde tilted her head and listened carefully.
"In the book, Roosevelt, the wheelchair-bound President of the United States, violated the re-election rules and participated in the 1940 presidential election." Adalbert stopped for a moment. "The obvious reality is that Henry Wallace ran for the Democratic Party and lost to Wendell Willkie."
"What happened next?" Hilde asked curiously.
"Then, just like reality, Japan attacked Pearl Harbor; the difference was that neither aircraft carrier was destroyed. Italy was defeated in the Mediterranean and North Africa, and ultimately, the United States landed in Normandy to recapture France."
"Junk novel." Hilde leaned forward, "How did the Germans lose?"
"In the novel, our army's offensive failed to break through the winter line. Then the Russians launched a counter-offensive and broke through the German defensive line. By 1945, the Allies entered Germany and the former Führer committed suicide in a bunker. Alsace-Lorraine and Saarland were annexed to France, and Germany was destroyed and divided into the five republics of Hanover, Brandenburg, Bavaria, Austria, and the Rhineland."
"Interesting." Hilde smiled slightly. "But in reality, the Germans won the war."
"Yes, we did." Adalbert closed his eyes. "In the novel, Japan split into two Japans, North and South, and the United States and the Soviet Union engaged in a Cold War; in the end, the United States won, and the Soviet Union was disintegrated and destroyed by several presidents."
Hilde was silent for a moment, and her eyes gradually darkened. "What's the difference between the book and reality?"
Adalbert laughed dryly: "It's very simple. The reality is that the German Reich has never been destroyed."
"An anti-German novel, we should report the author of this book." Hilde's tone was serious, but her wrinkled face had a faint smile. "Adalbert, you said there were many details in the book that are not important. What is the most important thing?"
"It's the end of the book," Adalbert replied with a sigh. "The United States sent nuclear bombs to destroy Japan. In the end, Japan was forced to surrender."
"Oh?" Hilde stared at Adalbert curiously. "I remember in real life we gave Japan a nuclear bomb and dropped it on San Francisco?"
"That's true," Adalbert said bitterly. "I remember the nuclear bomb was called Erica or was it a little girl?"
"It's Erika," Hilde smile getting even warmer. "Erica was the name of one of my daughters."
"Oh, really?" Adalbert didn't know what to say. He had been so absorbed in reading this book that he hadn't even noticed that he had forgotten Hilde's real name. "I remember the name of the pilot who dropped the bomb was Erich Hartmann?"
Hilde's expression changed slightly. "Hartmann... I see."
"In the novel, the United States dropped the nuclear bomb on Japan." Adalbert paused for a moment. "The book also described in detail the destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki by nuclear bombs. But after that, there was no nuclear bomb in the book."
"Oh?" Hilde raised her eyebrows in surprise. "I didn't expect the author to be so insightful. Is it really not written in the book?"
"Who knows?" Adalbert closed the book. "Maybe there really is a world like this?"
"You should be at work." Hilde patted Adalbert's shoulder, and stood up from the bed. "Adalbert, you are still young, you still have a future. Don't waste time on such nonsense."
"Three days off." Adalbert looked up at Hilde, who was standing next to the bed, and suddenly felt something strange. As if she, as a Volga German, was more fanatical about Nazis than myself? "Hilde, don't tell anyone that I am reading this book."
"I won't." Hilde's tone was firm, her wrinkled face showed a strange smile. "It is our duty to report to the Party when we see enemies of the Reich, but this is not a duty."
——
The book was thrown into the well and sank to the bottom of the water. In the spring water, the book will slowly rot, becoming a fertilizer for the crops in the East.
Adalbert returned to the office, feeling a sense of emptiness in his chest. Hilde puts on her apron and prepares breakfast, the kitchen filled with the scent of food.
The lunch of bread and mashed potatoes will soon arrive. After that is another day of arduous work in a routine life in the East. "What did the National Socialists say? Blood And Soil?" Adalbert silently bowed his head in front of the framed picture of Hitler in the office and prayed silently in his heart.
"Work diligently, survive hardships, live life happily."
It was like an ink bottle was overturned, staining the blue sky and turning everything into an abysmal night. In the next instant, everything was restored, leaving only the memories that turned people's heads into blank canvases and shattered hearts into jigsaw puzzles.
"I like to call the Volga River the Blue Ribbon." Hilde was sitting by the river dam wearing a black ribbon with the swastika on it. "Not every day can you see a wide and clear river. Why can I see the bottom?"
Adalbert and his companion watched the swirling muddy water below the bridge, which was in no way different from the dirt brought by the current. "How many acres of land do you have?" Adalbert asked.
"They only allow me to have six acres." Hilde's gaze stayed on the waters under the bridge, as though something very important was hidden there. "I want to give you three acres to marry in the spring. I already wrote down that I have an heir."
Adalbert wanted to reject the offer, but his mind could not produce a word of protest. "I can't refuse, who will plow the land?" A group of Ukrainian women are planting seedlings in the black soil farmland on this plain. The soil and people are the granaries and bread baskets under German rule. The grain of the Volga immigrants are stored in the Volga soils for the winter. The Bolshevik war, the sandstorms of Central Asia, and even the Germans have no chance of touching the granary.
"Just find some willing brides." Hilde laughed. "Maybe they will be born with their faces so much rounder."
"But..."
"I am old. Before my death, I just want to see the new blood." Hilde took Adalbert's hand. "You can sow German seeds to those Ukrainian women. The Führer also said that they may have Aryan ancestry."
Adalbert looked at the Ukrainian peasant women or the Russians planting seedlings, a phenomenon that was not uncommon throughout the East. "Does this count as rape?"
"If we lose this East, the German race will cease to exist." Hilde looked at the sunset slowly melting into the river surface, and her wrinkled face seemed a little melancholy. "You know a lot of illegitimate children are born, I don't mind."
"This is slavery, they are not agricultural workers. It is no different from Africa or the Americas." Adalbert found his mind become numb.
"Slavery? Where? They don't seem to have chains, and they can live their lives without having to sell or buy anything in the slave market." Hilde looked up at the clear sky and breathed a deep sigh. "Adalbert, just look at them and they are as happy as children. You just need to trade with them, Mark, 1 mark is 10 karbowanez, and you also have food that they can't get under the rationing system."
Adalbert remained silent. The sky is always so clear, and the spring waters always flow with no impurities, unlike the murky and muddy rivers back home. "I'm not a Stud, why are you so weird?" Adalbert thought, but his words were blocked by the air in his throat.
Hilde looked at the golden sunlight falling from the horizon. "After the war, the Germans will need a lot of land for the nation to expand, and these women who can give birth to a German will have a higher social status, maybe even have German blood flowing in their veins."
The words seemed to have hit Adalbert's face. "Did the SS give you a mission?"
Hilde didn't speak for a while. Adalbert stared at her, but couldn't find the answer on the wrinkled face. Finally, Hilde said quietly: "No, I am just a mother and a woman, who wants her children and her country to be happy."
As Adalbert was trying to retort, something emerged from the muddy river water, something that could not be identified at a glance. Hilde stood up, her black skirt and the hem of her sleeves fluttering in the wind. Adalbert stood up, the mud under his feet squishing under the pressure of his foot.
Hilde walked down the stairs leading to the river and went down to the bottom of the dam to find out what was in the river water. Adalbert, who could see better, stopped. "Do not come." The warning echoed in Hilde's ear. "A dead dog, not worth the effort to pull it out."
"I've never seen a drowned dog," Hilde replied, walking to the water's edge. A bunch of humans floating on the water. Hilde had a bad feeling about this. She went to the shore to get a better look, only to discover that they were not floating dead dogs.
The river water stinking with an unspeakable rotten smell. The black uniform is full of mud, the blue armband on the uniform is already stained by the dirty river water, but the skull on the armband can still be clearly seen. "This..."
A man's head came to the surface and hit the ground in front of Hilde's feet.
The corpse's face is too dirty to see clearly. Hilde suddenly leaned back, her wrinkles on her face were distorted for a moment. Adalbert immediately helped to support the old woman. "Are you okay?"
The blackened skull is lying on the shore of the river. Hilde could clearly see the faint smile on the face of the corpse. The eyes of the corpse seemed to be looking at the woman in front of him. Hilde felt a chill crawl from the soles of her feet. The corpse suddenly opened his mouth, and a rotten stench spread out.
The sound of the iron-cast loudspeaker nearby was still playing the same music, which had no connection to what was going on in front of Hilde.
"Hilde? Is there anything wrong with your body?" Adalbert shook her body to attract the attention of the old woman. "Do you want to go home to rest?"
"No... We need to call the police, why are there... corpses in the Volga river."
"Coming from upstream, something must have happened over there." Adalbert asked the woman to turn around. "Damn! Where does your morning water come from?"
"Is there a problem?" Hilde stared at Adalbert who had turned pale and looked around, not daring to speak.
"This... this... The water was contaminated before these bodies floated here. In other words, the water used here may be..." Adalbert suddenly turned to the group of Ukrainian women, who were still working hard to sow seedlings. "Where did the water come from?"
"Volga," said a blonde peasant girl with blue eyes, looking at Adalbert with a little surprise.
"Go to the police and call the hospital! There are dead bodies in the river!" Adalbert turned his head back. The group of women immediately understood and stopped what they were doing, leaving the fields to make room for the authorities.