was counterattacking against my tanks.
âItâs in the water, itâs in one piece.â
Sorry, I have to runâa client is here.
***
A few days later
The Informer has come from a distance. Weâre sitting in a bar at the bus station, Iâm drinking something akin to coffee. The tank has been found, everything is OK, but thereâs one little problem. The Informer wants money for the information. He has seen somewhere that money is paid for such things. The âboyâ is visibly excitedânow heâd earn some money, now heâd be rich! I ask the Communicator whether he knows anyone who has received money for such information. The Communicator replies that it is foolishnessâhe doesnât know of any such case, and youâd have to be a fool to pay money for something you have not seen.
Something has to change here.
***
May 7, 2000
With a happy heart, Iâm driving to the Communicatorâs hometown. Today is the day that my soldiers will be buried in a proper ceremony. My whole family is with me.
My mood worsens a bit. The reburial turns into a little political process. A grotesque former Communist leader spews out a speech that heâs tried out in front of the mirror five times: âFascism! Never here!â I lean over to my wife and whisper, âHeâs talking about the Italiansâthe Germans werenât mentioned there. Italy was a Fascist country.â The education of the politician? âFascist Germany,â he says. My God! Germany was a Nazi country!
The nicest thing that I rememberâthe Russian ambassador. A smart, educated and diplomatic man. A nice guy. The only thing that the Classicist and I concluded was that the Communicator had done good work. He dug a deep hole. How odd. We dug them up, and now weâre burying them. The Classicist went to Moscow to look at tanks in a museum. The Communicator and I decided to dig up Marioâs bunkers.
The caskets in the center contain two aviators found and excavated by the Communicator.
Here I have to write about a fairly unpleasant subject. I have to do it, otherwise someone might get the wrong idea about us. Iâll write childishly, but justly. We hate any organization, society or policy that is aimed at humiliating, destroying or conquering other nations or races. Why are we looking for the items of war? I do not know any other army that had as vivid, tasteful and stylish equipment, armament, insignia, order and discipline as the army of Nazi Germany. Today the armies of every large country in the world have borrowed something from the German soldier. In opposition to one army we put an ideology as stupid and worn out as Communism, with its army. The propaganda turned the men of the two armies in the right direction. Mercilessness and mercilessness. The Russian man. First of all, it is a Russian soldier, a warrior who deserves admiration. There is the old saying that a Russian soldier can cross in locations where a mountain goat would not tread. An outstanding and courageous soldier. His tanks put the fear of God into experienced German soldiers. What do you think? Can equipment that has been in a swamp for 50 years come back to live and drive in a modern parade? Iâm sure about Russian equipment. The Communicator did itâhe exchanged the oil, he charged the batteries, he turned on the giant machine and drove around in a circle.
Thanks to the sea of information that is crashing over society, there is increased interest in the Nazis, the Fascists and the Communists. People want to know who they were, where they began. Once again! Battlefields, mines, shrapnel, weaponsâthey all are witnesses to a terrible war, and they are becoming artworks of a very new kind. Theyâre art that was created by war. Donât laugh. One cannot conceive of the things that happened to people and land that were torn apart by artillery and grenade explosions, but the stupidest thing that