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    The Vanishing Kind
    The Vanishing Kind
    The Vanishing Kind
    Ebook84 pages52 minutes

    The Vanishing Kind

    By Lavie Tidhar

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    About this ebook

    LONGLISTED FOR THE HUGO AWARD FOR BEST NOVELLA

    “Perhaps the best novella of the year” –Locus
    “Pretty close to perfect –SFcrowsnest

    YEAR’S BEST SF SELECTION (GARDNER DOZOIS)
    YEAR’S BEST SF&F SELECTION (RICH HORTON)
    YEAR’S TOP SHORT SF NOVELS SELECTION (ALLEN KASTER)

    “London after the war wasn’t a place you went to on holiday…”

    Gunther Sloam comes to Nazi-occupied London in search of an old flame. But when she turns up dead, Gunther is accused of the crime...

    Moving through the dark streets of London, pursued by the enigmatic Everly of the British Gestapo, Gunther is in way over his head. London after the Nazi occupation is a place haunted by shadows, and everyone he meets is lying to him. As Gunther gets drawn into a deadly web of conspiracy, illicit drug dealing, prostitution and blackmail, the only question is: can he stay alive long enough to find answers?

    A new alternate history noir masterpiece from the multiple award winning author of A Man Lies Dreaming and Unholy Land!
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherJabberwocky Literary Agency, Inc.
    Release dateDec 3, 2018
    ISBN9781625674135
    The Vanishing Kind
    Author

    Lavie Tidhar

    Lavie Tidhar's work encompasses literary fiction (Maror, Adama and the forthcoming Six Lives), cross-genre classics such as Jerwood Prize winner A Man Lies Dreaming (2014) and World Fantasy Award winner Osama (2011) and genre works like the Campbell and Neukom prize winner Central Station (2016). He has also written comics (Adler, 2020) and children's books such as Candy (2018) and the forthcoming A Child's Book of the Future (2024). He is a former columnist for the Washington Post and a current honorary Visiting Professor and Writer in Residence at the American International University in London.

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      Book preview

      The Vanishing Kind - Lavie Tidhar

      Tidhar

      1

      DURING THE REBUILDING OF LONDON in the 1950s they had erected a large Ferris wheel on the south bank of the Thames. When it was opened, it cost 2 Reichsmarks for a ride, but it was seldom busy. London after the war wasn’t a place you went to on holiday.

      Gunther Sloam came to London in the autumn, which is when I first became acquainted with him. He was neither too tall nor too short, but an unassuming man in a good suit and a worn fedora. He could have been a shopkeeper or a traveling salesman, though he was neither. Before the war he had been a screenwriter in Berlin.

      He came following a woman, which is how this kind of story usually starts. She had written to him two weeks earlier, c/o the Tobis Film Syndikat in Berlin, and a friend who was still working there eventually passed him her note. It read:

      My dear Gunther,

      I am in London and I think I am in trouble. I fear my life is in danger. Please, if you continue to remember me fondly, come at once. I am residing at 47 Dean Street, Soho. If I am not there, ask for the dwarf.

      Yours, ever,

      Ulla.

      The note had been smudged with a red lipstick kiss.

      It was a week from the time the letter was sent, to Gunther receiving it. It was another week before he finally departed Berlin, on board a Luftwaffe transport plane carrying with it the famed soprano, Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, and her entourage. She was to perform in London’s newly rebuilt Opera House. Gunther spent the short flight making notes in his pocket book, for a screenplay he was vaguely thinking to write. He was not unduly concerned about Ulla. His view of women in general, and of actresses in particular, was that they were prone to exaggeration. No doubt Ulla’s trouble would prove such as they’d always been—usually, he thought with a sigh, something to do with money. In that he was both right and wrong.

      He was flattered, and glad, that she wanted to see him again. They had carried on a passionate love affair for several months, in Berlin in ’43, before Gunther was sent to the Eastern Front, and Ulla went on to star in several well-received patriotic films, the pinnacle of which was Die große Liebe, for a time the highest-grossing film in all of Germany. Gunther had watched it in the hospital camp, while recovering from the wound which, even now, made him walk with a slight, almost unnoticeable limp. He only really felt it on very cold days, and the pangs in his leg brought with them memories of the hell that was the Eastern Front. He had never known such cold.

      Don’t you see? he said to me, much later. He was pacing my office, his hair unkempt for once, his eyes ringed black by lack of sleep. He’d lost much of his cool amused air by then. "Because we did it, we beat the Russians, and Ulla went on to star in Stalingrad, that Stemmle picture, but it was the last big film she did. I don’t know what happened after that. We lost touch, though there’d always been rumors, you see."

      He’d told me quite a lot by then but I was happy to let him talk. I knew some of the story by then and, of course, I’d known Miss Ulla Blau. We had been taking an interest in her activities for some time.

      The plane landed at Northolt. There was no one there to welcome him and the soprano and her entourage were whisked away by my superior, Group Leader Pohl. I saw Gunther emerge into the terminal with that somewhat bewildered look that afflicts the visitor. He saw me and came over. Where can a man get a taxi around here? he said, in German.

      I’m afraid I don’t . . . I said, in English.

      His eyes, surprisingly, lit up. You are British? he said.

      Yes. You speak English?

      But of course. His accent was atrocious. I learn to speak English in the cinema, he explained. Do you know the works of Alfred Hitchcock?

      His films are prohibited nowadays, I said, kindly. He frowned. I was not in uniform and he did not know what I was until later.

      Yes, yes, he said. His death was most regrettable. He was a great maker of movies. I’m sorry, he said, I have not introduced myself. Gunther Sloam. He extended his hand and I shook it.

      Name’s Everly, I said. I was in fact on my way back into town now. Can I give you a ride? My jeep was outside.

      That would be most kind, he said. I am here to see an old friend, you see. A woman. Yes, I have not seen her since the war. he laughed, a little sadly I thought. I am older, perhaps she is older too, no? But not in my memory, never.

      You’re a romantic, I said.

      I suppose, he said, dubiously. Yes, I suppose I am.

      There is not much call for romantics in London, I said. We English have become pragmatists, since the war ended.

      He said nothing to that; perhaps he never even heard me. He sat beside me in the jeep as we went past the ruined buildings left over from the bombings, but I don’t think he saw them, either.

      Where do you need to go? I said.

      Soho.

      Are you sure? That is not a very good area.

      I think I can manage, Mr. Everly, he said. He lit a cigarette and passed one to me.

      "Danke, I said. Then again in German, And who is this mystery lady you’re visiting, if you don’t mind

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