“No.”
“Oh, boy,” Wayne sighed.
“Wayne, tell me where you’re from. Please explain to me how you know who I am. Please explain how you are acquainted with the private things in my life,” Dr. Hoffmann begged more than asked.
“Where do I even start,” Wayne said. “Damn, my back is killing me.” Wayne tried to reposition his body in the small bug, but there was barely enough room to move. Wayne thought about the insanity of his situation and exhaled deeply. “Well, here goes,” he began, “You were teaching my advanced physics class at New York University when one day at the end of class you asked me…”
Wayne related to Dr. Hoffmann about how she had asked him to come to her laboratory on that day, about how she had put her time machine to use, about the Hindenburg incident, about what she had shared with him about her parent’s fate in Germany, and, of course, about how she had sent him back in time to kill Adolf Hitler to make the world a better place.
The one incident Wayne did not tell her of was the incident with her parents, Josef and Greta, in 1933 Nazi Germany. He was not sure how Dr. Hoffmann would have taken that news. After he finished talking, Dr. Hoffmann rebounded with a multitude of questions. She wanted to know about the world Wayne came from. What it was like to live in a democratic society. She was very interested in the politics of the major countries of the world and had been astonished when Wayne told her that in his world men had already walked on the moon. No programs existed or had ever existed in the Reich for such a superb accomplishment. With no history of a cold war between the German Unified Territories and any of the few independent countries in the world, the Reich had never deemed it essential to develop a space program. Germans did not have to travel to the moon to know they were a superior people.
“Fascinating,” was Dr. Hoffmann’s response to what Wayne had told her.
They approached the George Washington Bridge. It was a vaguely familiar sight; he used to drive over it to go from Manhattan to New Jersey when he and his friends would go to canoe down the Delaware River.
The Volkswagen pulled over to the side of the road and stopped in front of a small building that had a sign out front that read: INSPECTION.
“Why are we stopping?” Wayne asked.
“Inspection,” Dr. Hoffmann said. “Keep quiet. I have papers for you.”
An inspector — a youthful, Nordic appearing woman — sauntered up to the Beetle. “Work pass card.” she requested from Dr. Hoffmann, as she had a hundred times a day from other people as well.
“Here is my card,” Dr. Hoffmann said as she removed her pass card from her coat pocket and handed it to the inspector.
The inspector noted Wayne. “Pass card or papers for the passenger,” she requested of the professor.
Dr. Hoffmann removed official sealed papers from her breast pocket and gave them to the Reich Ministry of Road Travel employee. Dr. Hoffmann had forged the required travel papers on short notice and was proud of how authentic she had made them appear. She didn’t foresee any problems at the inspection site.
The inspector surveyed Dr. Hoffmann’s pass card and Wayne’s travel papers and then instructed Dr. Hoffmann, “Pop the trunk.”
The inspector who worked the shift when Dr. Hoffmann usually drove by, at an earlier time of day, would routinely wave Dr. Hoffmann through the inspection site without making her stop. She guessed, after he had been stopping her and checking her pass card for ten years, that the inspector finally trusted she was indeed authorized to travel out of the city.
Dr. Hoffmann popped the trunk of her rear-engine Volkswagen.
The female inspector took a quick view of the inside of the empty cavity, and then slammed the trunk shut. She walked around to Dr. Hoffmann’s side of the car and informed her, “Everything is in order. You may proceed.” She handed the professor’s pass card and Wayne’s travel papers back to Dr. Hoffmann.
Dr. Hoffmann thanked the inspector, shifted the car into gear, and stepped on the gas. As the car traveled onto the massive bridge, Wayne saw a sign that read: HERMANN GORING MEMORIAL BRIDGE.
“What was that all about?” Wayne inquired of Dr. Hoffmann.
“That was an inspection checkpoint. Not many people are permitted to commute beyond a certain distance to go to and from work,” Dr. Hoffmann told Wayne. “I am because my work is considered important.” Dr. Hoffmann had always been proud of the fact that she had an extra privilege that most other citizens did not. It made her feel as if she had more freedom than she actually did.
Wayne still had a whole bunch of important questions he needed to ask the professor. Most pressing, he wanted to find out what had gone wrong with Hitler’s assassination. “So I’m to understand that the United States is now a German territory and is run by Nazis,” he said.
“Correct,” the professor responded.
“Un-fuckin-believable.”
“Please, Mr. Goldberg. I do not like profanity used in my presence,” Dr. Hoffmann said.
“Well, in certain situations I think it’s appropriate,” Wayne retorted. “And I think this is definitely one of those situations.”
Dr. Hoffmann kept her eyes on the road and didn’t say a word.
“I’m sorry. Please, go on,” Wayne apologized, which he thought absurd since she was responsible for him being there.
Dr. Hoffmann spoke, “What was called the United States is now part of the German Unified Territories, a conglomeration of the countries once called France, England, the Soviet Union, Canada, Poland, Holland, Norway, Denmark, Czech—”
“Okay, okay, I get the idea,” Wayne interrupted. “But how? Hitler was killed in 1933, six years before the beginning of World War Two. Didn’t National Socialism die out?”
“No,” the professor replied. “After Adolf Hitler died, the party’s second-in-command, Hermann Goring, took over as leader of the National Socialist Party.”
“Then?”
“Hermann Goring was a ruthless leader. Under him, the Nazi Party continued to grow at a rapid pace. The Nazis soon began invading their neighboring countries, easily conquering them. In part, because of Goring’s push for technological innovations, we won the Battle of Britain early on. We beat the British out at developing radar. After England fell, the next country Germany invaded was the Soviet Union, which too fell to the Germans.”
“What about the Nazis not being able to withstand the Russian winter? What about that?” Wayne was anxious to know.
“No, when Germany invaded the Soviet Union,” Dr. Hoffman continued on, “with half a million troops, it was in the springtime. Moscow fell just a few months later — August 19th, I believe was the date. It would have been suicide to start a campaign against an enemy the size of the Soviet Union in the fall or winter.”
“Then what happened?” Wayne asked.
“Then it was time, Goring decided, to go after the good old United States of America. It was a long, bloody battle, but in winter, 1947, after Germany became the first nation to develop the atomic bomb… well, I do not have to tell you who won the war. Nazis thought so highly of themselves after that, that they started their new calendar then, with 1949 becoming year number one.”
Wayne was amazed at what she had said. “Germany developing the atomic bomb first, before the Americans! There’s no way. What about Albert Einstein?”
“Einstein?” Dr. Hoffmann said perplexed.
“The famous scientist,” Wayne tried to jog her memory. “You know, the one with the curly hair who developed the theory of relativity. E = MC2 and all that. He left Germany in the thirties because he was Jewish.”
“Oh, him,” Dr. Hoffmann remembered who the man was. “He was killed by German spies around 1940. Nothing was sacred to the Nazis. They found a way to murder many important American scientists.”
Wayne sat speechless for a minute as everything Dr. Hoffmann said sank into his brain. What had he done? He became irate and verbally lashed out at Dr. Hoffmann in a fury, “Goring, Goring, fuckin’ Goring! You didn’t take that into account, Dr. Hoffmann. You didn’t take that into account,” Wayne repeated. “How could you not have considered Hermann Goring taking over the Nazi party, being a great military leader, developing atomic bombs, not making the mistakes Hitler did, and winning the war,” he ranted with indignation. “YOU BLOODY WELL DIDN’T
