Tom was fascinated by woman's make up sometimes. Before Ruttheimer had thrown him into the basement and had tried to beat out the world from him, Tom would go to dive bars near the pier and see the pale faces of the cabaret ladies, clownish with their purple eyes and bright red lipstick. Fraulein Morgendorffer, sitting in his car, was a picture of plainness, simple strokes of eyeliner, and clean naked lips. It had been so long since Tom had seen a woman wear her lips without anything on them. It seemed almost scandalous.
She said, "Please keep the car running."
He was focused on her lips, but he tried not to focus too much. The uniform said it all to him, warned him the danger of getting too close. The pedant in him wanted to comment on her insignia, wanted to ask why the symbol was the simple symmetrical form of two lines parallel, white on black. The word fascist came, after all, from the word fascii, a bundle of twigs held together. If one of the twigs snapped, the rest would stay together. This was the ideal of the fascist, and Fraulein Morgendorffer, in her plain grey military jacket and skirt, and her military cap, minimalist and faintly fetishistic, like all uniforms, made her look the epitome of the fascist officer. Even the seats of car, black and plain, fit with her aesthetic. When she would step out, she would seem almost out of place, the modern military woman in front of the decadent old artful buildings of the city of Loundallen.
Furtively opening her black, single-issue purse, and gazing down into it through her small, black-rimmed glasses, she yanked on a pair of gloves and told him she'd only be a moment. When she looked up at him, he found himself hoping he looked all right. Tom had once been a rich kid, and was now a young fascist driver, dressed like a chauffeur, the weight of his sidearm digging into his side. He could see something in her eyes, shimmering there. He looked closer, knowing this scrutiny was dangerous but wanting to see what it was, and a car drove past too fast, splashing last night's rain against the side of the window, drawing his attention.
"A moment," she repeated, staring out at the sidewalk. "I'll just be a moment."
He wanted to reassure her, to show the cul de sac ahead of them, asking her where she thought he'd go, but he decided against it. She continued to stare, obviously thinking to herself, so he left her to it, instead looking up and watching an elegant older couple walk by behind the car. No deviants there, he thought, the usual fascist thinking coming to his head. Just a couple of good citizens wandering down the cobblestone roads to a cafe or to a breakfast or to wherever elegant older couples did together this early in the morning. Especially when it looked like it would rain again.
A walk would be nice, however. He looked beyond, towards the decadent, spicy old buildings Headquarters were always shouting about. In his glove compartment he had an old book talking about the architecture of ancient Loundallen, the sharp, colourful brick buildings, the red-shingled rooves, the gargoyles, the gables, the statuary, and all the old churches, all of it evidence of civilization much older than Tom Sloane or Fraulein Morgendorffer or her finely ironed uniform.
She still hadn't left the car. Gingerly, he leaned forwards, and touched her knee. "Daria," he said.
Breathless: "Yes, Tom?"
"I can do this, if you want."
Control washed over her features. He shouldn't have said that.
In the tightness in which she turned to look at him, Tom saw his future, his next-week or his tomorrow, saw operatives step out of dark cars like his own and empty small firearms through the fine glass on either side of his seats until his life broke apart in the sound of thunderous roars. Consistency and efficiency were the watchwords of Headquarters, and Daria could find all sorts of reasons to cast Tom down into the mire of suspicion. Instead, however, she looked up beyond him and said, "It's raining."
It was amazing how time worked. Even as he turned to admire the drizzle coming down his windshield, in the future he lay in a small room in a dirty hostel at the far end of town. His future-self had crawled there from the toilet, leaving a trail of blood from the bullet wound that had entered and lodged just under his heart. His future-self was gasping, hoping to God Frau Landon would reach him in time to get him to a hospital.
Time moved. There, Daria sat next to Tom, watching the rain sparkle and roll down the glass; in the past there was a similar rain, washing over the top of a garden, rattling against the white walls of a shed. A young girl also named Daria was pressed down into the mud, bubbles of brown liquid burbling next to her, getting into her hair, making her laugh. There was another girl, named Jane, kissing her with a cold mouth. There was no fascism then to tell them what they were doing was going against unity, no one to tell them that without unity there would only be hungry poor and horrible, deviant rich.
It was the rich and deviance Daria could remember, and it split her childhood into two. It split her childhood into colours: the cold-blue of the rain drizzling against the white shed next to the green grass, the brown of Jane's tanned skin. There was, also, the mottled reds and browns of the Morgendorffer estate, the diseased house set in against the vines and tattered trees of her family. Mottled hues, and the ragged clothes of her mother, mouth open with all sorts of vile lipsticks, hands moving in and out of young men's shirts, their faces made up with powders and eyeliners, and clutter, and clutter, and clutter.
There had been the clean, uncluttered building of Headquarters, and the tight, clipped, intelligent way the Major spoke to her, shaking her hand, telling her there were many things fascism could do to clean up this world, make things neater, tidier. And while Tom envisioned his death in a spattering of broken glass and punctured skin and noise, Daria envisioned hers in a clean room, with a nice tidy husband, and tidy children, all of whom would be neat and tidy and intelligent, like her, and not deviant at all.
"Wait for me," she said, getting out of the car and stepping out into the rain, ignoring the wet. She walked, not ran, to the door and opened it.
As Tom watched, he caught the hint of a cigarette lighting outside, reflected in the side mirror. He looked back and saw a tall shape standing underneath a doorframe, all features and details obliterated by the downpour. It was another operative, someone from Headquarters, someone obviously making sure Daria was doing her job. This mission, then, was a test.
The silhouette was large, someone obviously muscular, and Tom could feel, in his memory, the cold wet impact of the two-by-four crashing into his side and knocking him into the cold stone basement floor. A wheedling, insinuating voice, coming from Ruttheimer, standing over him next to the two brusiers: "We could do this all night if we want to, Sloane. So what's it gonna be? What's it gonna be?"
Fascists could turn their intense focus to persuasion with excellence, when they wanted to. Only two of Tom's ribs had to be cracked before he gave in. Ruttheimer had nodded; he liked it when people agreed with him. They would have started to work on Tom's face, after all, and Tom knew philosophies didn't have to last forever: a face, however, was largely a permanent fixture for its owner.
Daria hadn't needed to be persuaded. Her entrance to Headquarters had been accompanied by the soft clicks of her shoes against the marble floors, walking along the narrow hallway to the front desk. She had signed up herself. She hadn't thought of her possible death when she had, despite the way the fascists made it easy for you. Tom could imagine it well enough for her: a single bullet in the basement of the debriefing hall. Deaths for operatives could be simple; they tended not to run as much.
Inside the building, Daria climbed the musty set of stairs, removing the small semi-automatic from her purse and sliding back the hammer. No silencer: things didn't need to be quiet during -- Headquarters liked to be heard.
It was amazing the way some people liked to sign themselves up for funerals: this one hadn't attempted to disguise her door at all. There were torn-out pages from queer literature on the door, pieces of German "modern" plays, the kind of decadence that rotted a society from the inside. Daria, feeling crisp and clean and intelligent, knocked on the door and waited for the answer.
After ten silent seconds she kicked the door in.
Of course they ran. It only took the first second or so of charging into the small apartment to see it: an open window looking out onto rainy rooftops, a crumpled blanket on a small bed, books strewn on the floor, a pot of something still cooking in the kitchen. It was brave of them to try the slick shingles outside -- perhaps Daria wouldn't even need to do the job herself --
A small from behind, and Daria was already trying to turn, already calling herself an idiot for not realizing --
It was a woman, and then it was a blur, and something clipped across Daria's forehead. No time to figure out the damage. Daria moved back into the kitchen, trying to gain some ground. Her gun only had time to go off once before something hit her wrist hard enough to make her drop it.
Daria found herself laughing, and told herself to stop.
The woman was obviously a martyr, a revolutionary, out for blood and combat. She ran forwards, wearing a plain, dirty dress, snatching up something from the floor -- oh, a plate -- and throwing it--
Daria moved to the side, and the plate shattered against the wall. She leapt for her gun, and she heard the woman pick up the pot of boiling water. This girl was playing rough, absolutely rough; Daria twisted, took aim, and the blood from the cut in her forehead hit her eyes and she couldn't see.
Roll, roll-- Boiling liquid splattered against the tile next to her. She got to her feet, wiping the blood from her eyes.
Her opponent was an ice-cold one, really into it, not shouting or saying anything, just grabbing something from the kitchen counter -- probably a knife. Daria got her gun up in time, managed to see something.
It hadn't been a knife, it'd been another gun. There they were, in a haze of violence and melodrama, aiming at each other in silence. The woman was wearing earrings, and they sparkled. She was breathing heavily, and her eyes were dark and angry.
"Oh good god," Daria said.
It was Jane.