Hemd?"
When Karl only stammered out an apology in English, his rage only multiplied. "You have no mother tongue? God, boy, what is your name?"
"Karl Frederick Schweinfurter, sir."
"You're a race-traitor scrap of shit come to spy, aren't you, Karl?"
"No, sir, my—my parents sent me here."
"You're wearing a blasphemous rag on your body, Schweinhund," the man growled, to the gruff amusement of the assembled platoon of Jägers. "That is not the name of God."
Before Karl could offer further apologies, let alone explain that the shirt was a clever denunciation of evolution, Reuss tore the T-shirt clean off his body, leaving only the collar. "Strip, spy," he ordered, and urged all due haste by slapping him across the back of the neck with a hand as broad and hard as the blade of an oar. Karl staggered under the blows as he stripped down, sloughing his parka and his boots, his layered jeans and thermal underwear, and finally his boxer shorts, which were mercifully, and against all odds, still unsoiled. Shivering uncontrollably, he was struck again when he hugged himself for warmth. The only sound was the laughter of the Jägers and the crunch of the other new arrivals filing past him with eyes averted, until Grossvater Egil seized one by the hair and twisted him face to face with Karl. "Look at him, boy. He's not one of us. Er hat keinen Blut im Gesicht, keine Schade."
He steered Karl's pitiful nakedness to the edge of the lot, where brown, scabby snow had been bulldozed into a bank that came up to his waist. "Los, Kinder! All of you, look at this! Only the white man can blush, only the white man has shame, and can make blood in the face." He slapped Karl full force across his right cheek, sending him almost flying into the bank of snow. He crept slowly back to his feet, hesitating at every syllable spat from Grossvater's lips for another slap. "This—thing knows no shame! He brings blasphemy with the false Jewish name of God on a shirt, he backtalks in the face of right, and even in his nakedness and abasement, he cannot blush!"
Karl was sure that he was not only blushing, but probably openly bleeding, but said nothing. This was only the most extreme version of a situation with which he was very familiar, being made an example of. Perhaps it was because he always seemed to smirk from the deep, elliptical scar on his chin and lower lip where a pony at a petting zoo had bit him once when he'd tried to feed it a carrot mouth-to-mouth. Perhaps it was his hair, which hung in a shaggy, shoulder-length mullet that reminded older men how much of their own hair they'd left in the shower drain that morning. Or perhaps it was simply because he was forever destined to be the only one still screwing off when the teacher decided to crack the whip. For whatever reason, it was always Karl, so he stood as straight as he could in the freezing predawn cold, as the elder slapped him again and again until he'd proven to his own and the camp's satisfaction that Karl could, indeed, produce blood in the face.
"I will teach you shame, boy," the cleric roared in his ear. "From this day on, I am your Grossvater, and I will save you from the filth of the world and even from the filth that is within you, but you must cleanse yourself before God and this holy place."
And Karl had obeyed, scrubbing himself with snow until he had raised a glorious blush on every square inch of skin, as the population of Heilige Berg had watched and taken a lesson from his ablutions.
Heilige Berg was a religious retreat, and enjoyed the tax-free status and lack of federal oversight which the United States generally extended to all faith-based groups. In fact, it was a permanent settlement of two hundred trained fighting men and women, mostly kids whose almost exclusively Germanic or Scandinavian parents hoped to prepare them for the imminent racial holocaust they believed would herald the Last Days. But there were many whole families there, too, and after Karl had
When Karl only stammered out an apology in English, his rage only multiplied. "You have no mother tongue? God, boy, what is your name?"
"Karl Frederick Schweinfurter, sir."
"You're a race-traitor scrap of shit come to spy, aren't you, Karl?"
"No, sir, my—my parents sent me here."
"You're wearing a blasphemous rag on your body, Schweinhund," the man growled, to the gruff amusement of the assembled platoon of Jägers. "That is not the name of God."
Before Karl could offer further apologies, let alone explain that the shirt was a clever denunciation of evolution, Reuss tore the T-shirt clean off his body, leaving only the collar. "Strip, spy," he ordered, and urged all due haste by slapping him across the back of the neck with a hand as broad and hard as the blade of an oar. Karl staggered under the blows as he stripped down, sloughing his parka and his boots, his layered jeans and thermal underwear, and finally his boxer shorts, which were mercifully, and against all odds, still unsoiled. Shivering uncontrollably, he was struck again when he hugged himself for warmth. The only sound was the laughter of the Jägers and the crunch of the other new arrivals filing past him with eyes averted, until Grossvater Egil seized one by the hair and twisted him face to face with Karl. "Look at him, boy. He's not one of us. Er hat keinen Blut im Gesicht, keine Schade."
He steered Karl's pitiful nakedness to the edge of the lot, where brown, scabby snow had been bulldozed into a bank that came up to his waist. "Los, Kinder! All of you, look at this! Only the white man can blush, only the white man has shame, and can make blood in the face." He slapped Karl full force across his right cheek, sending him almost flying into the bank of snow. He crept slowly back to his feet, hesitating at every syllable spat from Grossvater's lips for another slap. "This—thing knows no shame! He brings blasphemy with the false Jewish name of God on a shirt, he backtalks in the face of right, and even in his nakedness and abasement, he cannot blush!"
Karl was sure that he was not only blushing, but probably openly bleeding, but said nothing. This was only the most extreme version of a situation with which he was very familiar, being made an example of. Perhaps it was because he always seemed to smirk from the deep, elliptical scar on his chin and lower lip where a pony at a petting zoo had bit him once when he'd tried to feed it a carrot mouth-to-mouth. Perhaps it was his hair, which hung in a shaggy, shoulder-length mullet that reminded older men how much of their own hair they'd left in the shower drain that morning. Or perhaps it was simply because he was forever destined to be the only one still screwing off when the teacher decided to crack the whip. For whatever reason, it was always Karl, so he stood as straight as he could in the freezing predawn cold, as the elder slapped him again and again until he'd proven to his own and the camp's satisfaction that Karl could, indeed, produce blood in the face.
"I will teach you shame, boy," the cleric roared in his ear. "From this day on, I am your Grossvater, and I will save you from the filth of the world and even from the filth that is within you, but you must cleanse yourself before God and this holy place."
And Karl had obeyed, scrubbing himself with snow until he had raised a glorious blush on every square inch of skin, as the population of Heilige Berg had watched and taken a lesson from his ablutions.
Heilige Berg was a religious retreat, and enjoyed the tax-free status and lack of federal oversight which the United States generally extended to all faith-based groups. In fact, it was a permanent settlement of two hundred trained fighting men and women, mostly kids whose almost exclusively Germanic or Scandinavian parents hoped to prepare them for the imminent racial holocaust they believed would herald the Last Days. But there were many whole families there, too, and after Karl had
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