Exile
OPHELIA HAD SEEN A LOT OF DEATH; it had been familiar to her since she was eight years old, finding her neighborhood devastated and bodies flooding the streets of Budapest. The glory that once covered the German Empire evaporated, replaced by famines that claimed as many lives as a mustard gas bomb in a trench in France.
Twenty-three million dead was what the newspapers had reported at the end of the Great War, a number never seen before. As if that weren't enough, the economic consequences of Black Thursday in 1929, when the New York stock market crashed, should have been enough of a lesson for humankind to learn that taking up arms was never the solution, but as always, peace was an illusion.
Peace was the dream of the well-off and the philosophers who didn't allow themselves to see the real world, where only the strongest survive, those who are even capable of shooting before the other even thinks to look at them the wrong way.
"Violence is the universal language" her mentor had assured her, and Ophelia saw it become reality when a marginalized nation united its fury against sectors that had something they didn't. Wealth, jobs, families, history... They pointed their fingers and said: They are the problem, they make the nation sick and make us weak.
Ophelia knew that weakness came from those who were unable to recognize their own faults and correct them, instead blaming others because that was easier. Violation rather than healing, elimination rather than analysis, stealing rather than asking. Germany gave birth to a bloodthirsty son who promised to avenge his fallen father and restore lost glory. That was how the fascists gave birth to the Third Reich.
And where did Ophelia Sarkissian fit into the growing armed conflict? Right in the middle.
Johann Schmidt was part of Adolf Hitler's cabinet thanks to his closeness to Heinrich Himmler. The SS leader shared his mentor's passion for Nordic folklore, asserting that the future of the Aryan race lay in the knowledge given by the gods. So, under his mystical premise, claimed to be science, Himmler approved the creation of a branch of his organization: HYDRA.
And the Red Skull had once saved her. His stern teacher was the little that Ophelia considered that life had given her left in life after he had favored her in her training, but above all, he had given her a chance despite seeing her starving in the streets. He had seen something in her that made him believe giving her a little of his time could be worth it.
And Madame Hydra could be many deplorable things, but she was never ungrateful. In the fall of 1942, Ophelia would have followed Johann to hell itself if he had ordered her to march into the eternal flames to burn slowly to death, because she knew he would have a plan that would save them from a withered fate, one that would work.
Loyalty is not blindness, because the lack of questioning made an agent a slave. So, sitting in that room, she wondered: What was left now? Was it the end? Would they be accused of treason and sent to a concentration camp? Would they be another unfortunate Rudolf Hess?
"Switzerland?" Johann Schmidt's voice was filled with indignation. The superman felt like he was chewing glass with the resounding news he'd been summoned from Helsinki to deliver. "I've been in the party since it was founded, even when you went to prison, my Führer." He glared at the mustachioed man at the other end of the table, who had remained disturbingly silent since Joseph Goebbels explained that he was to retreat to his base in the Alps until further orders. "I've never refused an order! My men have marched across Europe and suffered the same bullets, mud, and hellish rain as the Wehrmacht or the SS to gather the brightest minds and prevent the enemy from obtaining their ideas. And this is what I get?"
Goebbels cleared his throat, trying to break the growing tension. "This cabinet owes you your services, Schmidt." We recognize your hard work, but the truth is that HYDRA...
"But?" he hissed contemptuously and squeezed the quill in his hand until it snapped in two. Ink splattered across the table and his uniform, a subtle threat of what he wanted to do to every man in the room. He felt betrayed. "Save your propaganda, Goebbels. My Führer?"
The Red Skull would only take orders from the chancellor, not from his dogs, and he couldn't just let him down, not after all he'd done for their cause.
"HYDRA is becoming a lousy joke, Schmidt," Adolf Hitler declared sharply as he leaned forward with his hands on the table. "They were meant to create groundbreaking science, not chase fantasy and legends." He waved his right hand in the air, swatting it away disdainfully. I cannot speak of the innate rights of our race if my high-ranking officers are searching for mystical relics. Their... search has become a problem if we are to continue maintaining the credibility of the German people.
"I am not looking for tales, but for artifacts that the gods left here for our use," he muttered through gritted teeth as he took a deep breath. Schmidt stood up and squinted at the high-ranking officers, but found only mockery and anguish; they didn't understand. "Can't you see? We can change the war, gentlemen. We can still..."
The Führer raised his hand to silence him and continued, his voice iron in its sanction. "You will depart with your division to the base in the Alps, Schmidt. I need weapons, and you will give them to me, or I will find someone who will deliver the results I seek."
The discussion continued; the next few minutes were filled with shouts, complaints, and reproaches among the governing cabinet of the Third Reich. Ophelia could smell defeat a mile away. Red Skull couldn't do anything when it was just one man against the chancellor and his pack of rabid wolves. She listened intently, staring at her tanned, green-tinged leather gloves. Sometimes she couldn't tell if she liked the green or kept wearing it because it felt familiar.
Familiarity was reliable, unlike the strange and adverse atmosphere surrounding her. The two Nazi soldiers with their elegant black uniforms, their Luger P08 pistols on their waists, and that suspicious look they gave her as she sat on the red velvet seats outside the meeting room. Luxurious and comfortable, like the rest of the hallway decor. There were even paintings adorning the walls; Ophelia didn't doubt they were stolen, as they looked expensive and definitely didn't comply with morally permissible painting. The closest one included Henri Matisse's "The Dance," which depicted five nude dancers against a blue background.
And the more she watched, Ophelia could admire the freedom emanating from the red bodies. She imagined them moving and dancing endlessly, not for the purpose of honor, but for pleasure. What would it feel like to do things for the sake of doing them? She had only experienced necessity. Obedience required her as much as survival, and Ophelia liked to breathe, even if it was the same air as hateful men.
The door opened with a bang and was closed with the same bang, causing both Ophelia and the two young soldiers to stand alert, each standing at attention, but not even daring to glance at the man when they realized it was the Red Skull. The apprentice approached the head of HYDRA with a cautious, yet firm, stride. She could see the anger emanating from her superior's body like lightning from a storm.
"We're leaving," Red Skull declared as he began to walk with long strides. Ophelia almost had to run to keep up. Fury was giving him an undeniable urgency to leave the place where he'd been snubbed, but when he had his red sights on, Ophelia, like her right hand, had to remind him to think.
"To Switzerland?" she asked skeptically. The man paused for a second to glance at her, his eyes reproaching her for eavesdropping, but the lack of admonitions at least signaled that he expected that of her.
The years at his side had helped her learn how to read him, but he had become more unpredictable since her experiment with Erskine.
"Before we freeze, we'll make a... brief stop, Fräulein Sarkissian," he assured her somberly as he replaced his military cap, a gesture Ophelia took as a promising sign.
It was the beginning of a cold exile, but when one door closes, another opens.