Songs of the Dead (2 page)

On November 8, 1939, Georg Elser tried to kill Hitler. Elser knew that each year on that date, the Nazis commemorated their failed putsch of 1923 with speeches and a dinner. For several months prior to the 1939 gathering, Elser was able to spend the night unnoticed in the Löwenbräu restaurant in Munich, where the meeting would be held.

Elser's plans were meticulous. He had longsince taken a job in a quarry for the express purpose of stealing explosives. Task accomplished, for thirty-five nights he carved a hidden chamber into a concrete post next to which Hitler was to give his speech. A pair of timers would trigger the explosion not long before Hitler reached his crescendo.

I've often wondered how many times over the next six years—the last of his life, all spent in a concentration camp, perhaps noticing day-by-day his bones jut more from his skin, perhaps watching the white marks of malnutrition march down his fingernails—Elser must have asked himself why he chose to set the timers late and not early in Hitler's speech. Was he worried that Hitler would not be prompt, or that preliminary festivities— the playing of the Badenweiler march and the saluting of the Blood Banner—might take longer than anticipated? Or was there no good reason for the timing? Do you think that in the long years afterward he ever considered how many lives were lost because of that one simple and virtually meaningless—by itself—decision? Perhaps more to the point, do you think there was ever an hour in which he did not consider the unfortunate effects of his choice?

I don't ask this to blame Elser for his timing. At least he made the effort. And there was no way for him to know that fog—nothing more substantial than fine droplets of water hanging suspended in air, so unpredictable, an act of God—would save Hitler's life.

The assassination attempt nearly did not come off. Because Hitler had already brought the country to war, that year's service was to be abbreviated, with Rudolph Hess delivering the speech instead of Hitler. But on November 7, Hitler changed his mind and decided to fly down from Berlin to participate in the ceremonies.

Each year the speech began at 8:30, and lasted until 10:00. But this year was different. Because November in Munich frequently brings with it fog, Hitler faced a decision: should he spend the night in Munich, should he chance flying back and risk being delayed in the fog, or should he return by train? Hitler would have to finish early so he could catch his train at 9:31. Georg Elser did not know this.

By six o'clock that night, the hall was packed with the cream—such as it was—of Nazi society: Himmler, Rosenberg, Frank, Goebbels, Ribbentrop. A band played the Badenweiler march while the Blood Banner was brought in. Hitler arrived to massive applause, and began his speech at precisely 8:00.

His speech ended at 9:07, and he was out of the building by ten after. The bomb exploded at 9:20, causing the roof to collapse and killing nine people. Elser was later arrested trying to escape into Switzerland. He was sent to a concentration camp, and was murdered by the SS on April 5, 1945.

three

places we do not see

A couple of years ago I had a dream that wasn't so much a dream as it was a visitation, a conjuration of the sort I'd somehow thought only happened in books and movies, in which you speak some demon's name and the demon appears. I've since come to understand that these visitations—of demons and many others—are a part of life no more unusual, and normally no better perceived, than the stones on the ground, and the speaking of these stones.

In this dream that was and continues to be even more than a dream, I was fighting with rebels against corporations, against the forces I fight in waking reality, only this time I was using guns instead of words. In this dream we were losing horribly, just as we are in waking reality. We were, and the parallels continue, drastically outnumbered by the military and the police. Many on our side were being shot. I lay flat on my belly behind a lip of concrete. It was small cover, but with bullets ricocheting around me, it was far better than nothing. The firing of guns—mainly theirs, but a few of ours—merged into a constant roar. Then the roar lost its continuity, first to tiny gaps not yet filled with silence but still carrying echoes of the explosions, and then with silence in which I could hear my own gasping breaths. The firing became more and more sporadic, then stopped altogether.

I glanced to my right, to one of my fellow rebels, and I saw that the reason he no longer fired back was that he was dying. In this dream that is even more than a dream, that is a visitation or a conjuration, I saw a vampire fastened to the man's neck sucking out his blood and his guts. The vampire dropped the husk, looked, found someone else, attached himself. Then I looked at the enemy and I saw that there was not one vampire, or even a hundred, but thousands, and more than thousands. I saw, in this dream that is more than a dream, that these vampires were killing every human they could find. They were sucking out their blood and their guts. They were having a feed. The vampires—or demons, or whatever other name we may wish to put on these others whose real name I don't know—were neither angry nor evil nor in any way malevolent. They were famished, and they were eating. They began to chase me, as they were chasing everyone else. I evaded them, at least temporarily. I stopped. I looked through a glass window in a steel door. Thin metal mesh reinforced the window. Beyond the mesh, beyond the glass, beyond the steel, I saw a vampire who was not chasing, not feeding. He was standing. He was watching. He had pale skin, smooth scalp, grotesquely long fingers and a just as grotesquely long, curved nose. In this dream I knew he was the director. I did not and do not know what this means.

I woke up. I tried to convince myself that this dream was and is “no more” than a dream, and that these vampires represent those forces we are fighting against, that they represent those who are killing the planet, that they represent this culture as a whole, this culture of napalm, toxic wastes, deforestation, rape. No. I tried to convince myself that they represent something much more specific: the biotechnology industry, for example, and its creation of monsters. No. The dream, which really was and is even more than a dream, would not allow those interpretations. The vampires are vampires. And they're hungry. And they're waiting to be released, waiting to feed on humans.

There's a fire somewhere. I can smell more than see it, but my eyes trick me, with a slight sting, into pretending that I see the smoke. I don't, of course, except when I do, and even then, like all of us, I'm never sure if what I see is what I see.

There
is
a haze in the distance, but it's just the sky settling back to earth at the end of the day. It's July, and it's hot. I'm sweaty, wet beneath my arms, on my lower back where my shirt touches my skin, and under the elastic band of my underwear.

I'm in Hangman Valley, in the western part of Spokane. I'm walking, as I often do, near Hangman Creek, which used to be Latah Creek before any of this began, and certainly long before any of it began with me.

Or maybe not. That's one of the things I often have difficulty with. Before. During. After. Sometimes I don't understand what any of it means.

But it's hot. I understand that. It's hot enough that the leaves on the trees hang limp, except when a hot breeze makes the air quake with their paper rattling. Edges of these leaves are turning brown, and the grasses beneath have long since died or gone dormant, used up for and by the summer, and dry as tinder. Even the needles of the pine trees seem to have lost their strength and their shine.

It's cooler by the creek, though not as much cooler as I'm sure it once was, back when the creek was a creek, deeper, wider, stronger. I go there often. It's a reasonably long walk from my home—probably a couple of hours—and a longer walk back since I have to go so much uphill.

I sit by the creek, take off my shoes and socks, roll up my pants, and put my feet in. I lean forward to search for tiny fish. None. I close my eyes, then open them again quickly, just to see if this will make the salmon appear. I know that's not how it works, but it's never stopped me from hoping. And sometimes I do see them. They haven't been here since the Grand Coulee Dam was built back in the thirties, but sometimes I still do see them.

Every fire has a life of its own. I've known this as long as I can remember, since long before any of this began. The flames speak, not so much to me as to each other. Sometimes they do speak to me, although I never can be sure what they are saying. But I do know that each flame is alive, individual, as much as any other being.

There is a woman. She takes a shortcut through an alley. She is thinking, or not thinking, but seeing inside of her what she saw that morning, which was a puppy she gave her son for his birthday four days before. When the puppy wagged his tail he did not so much wag his tail as wag his whole body when he squirmed toward her son, who in turn did not smile so much with his lips and teeth as he, too, smiled with his whole body. This is what she is seeing when she hears the sound that is not a sound but the movement of a sound throughout her whole body, the sharp cracking of lightning as it strikes inside her brain, but does not stop after the bolt has gone; it keeps expanding outward until there is nothing left of her skull and of what was inside her skull, and she is flying, having been struck, and there is nothing but the sound that keeps expanding, and no longer can she see the puppy or her son or anything but the sound that is no longer a sound, but everything she knows.

That is what I hear. When I walk where the car struck her, that is what I hear.

Not every time. But often. And if the truth is that while I see salmon not nearly often enough, this I see far too often.

I haven't always seen like this, and even now I often do not. I used to not see anything more than anyone else, or maybe I should say not more than any of my neighbors, or maybe I should be even more precise and say not more than any of my human neighbors. I think nonhumans—and some humans—see this all the time.

For example, just a few days ago a huge submarine earthquake caused a tsunami that rocked parts of Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Malaysia, and India, killing more than a hundred thousand humans. Just today I read a news report saying, “Wildlife officials in Sri Lanka expressed surprise Wednesday that they found no evidence of large-scale animal deaths from the weekend's massive tsunami—indicating that animals may have sensed the wave coming and fled to higher ground. An Associated Press photographer who flew over Sri Lanka's Yala National Park in an air force helicopter saw abundant wildlife, including elephants, buffalo, deer, and not a single animal corpse.” The response by one person was, “Maybe what we think is true, that animals have a sixth sense.”

I'm not saying I have a sixth sense. Sometimes I'm not even sure about the other five, and my girlfriend Allison will tell you I sure don't have much of the common one. But I see things, and hear things. No, I see places, and I hear places. Places where I'm standing. Places where I'm sitting. Places where I'm sleeping. Sometimes I hear what the place says to me.

It's not something I can force, by any means. It just happens. It used to scare me more than it does now, but even now I do not understand it, and even now sometimes it terrifies me.

The first time was in a forest. It was a couple of years ago. I was driving our old yellow pickup, and Allison was in the passenger seat. We were going to collect firewood from slash piles in clearcuts left over from logging in the national forest. We did this often. I wasn't particularly tired, but somehow with no discernable transition I fell asleep behind the wheel. I've done that a few times driving late at night, only to jerk awake as I slip onto the shoulder, but this time there was no sliding onto the shoulder, and no jerking awake. This time I didn't even close my eyes. But I was asleep, and I began to dream with my eyes open. I saw a logging truck come down the road toward us, and I pulled over slightly to let it pass. I saw Allison shift and start to ask something, but then stop. I saw my hands turn the wheel to the right to maneuver around a corner, and then bring themselves back to ten and two o'clock for the straightaway. Another logging truck, and again I pulled slightly over. Again Allison shifted, and this time she asked, “Are you all right?”