Sentence The Fivehundredandeightysixth

Which is how it came to be that Bernie Cohen learned the truth about The Intruder AKA Reichsmarshall Hermann Goering AKA Hamish MacDonald the After: for once he and Sadie Glenfinnan reached her apartment in a tenement hard by The Clansman, she told him her story, which she had told no other: "av only kent Jessie MacDonald an The Cabbage (sorry, thon's whit ah cry her hubby, cos it's the cabbage that lets him keep Jessie in style) fer twa years," she said, "since ah arrived here; ah wis a dancer in the KitKat Klub in Berlin, in 1938 an ah wiz raped an beaten up by a big muckle galoot in SS uniform, wha followed me into the Herren toilets whaur ah'd gone cos ah wis in a hurry an the Frauleine's wis a wee bit further awa, well this SS man ca'd Wolfgang wis a richt horny bastard, an he follered me in and thare's whaur he raped me an gied me a doin, but ah managed tae kickim in the goolies," she cackled with glee, "an rin oot afore he'da kilt me, o that am positive; weel ah opened the wrang door at the far end o the toilets an fund masel in a Hotel lavvy in
Glenfinnan, witch is hoo that's ma name, ma mither did genealogical research years ago an tho it's a long time ago, fact is a quinquennium this very year, yin o ma ancestors wis a lairdie there, Fergis Glenfinnan so mebbe that's why ah ended up therr; but ah'd nae British money in ma purse an yince a fund oot ah wis in 1943 – five years efter jist twa meenits afore, an there wis a bloody war oan atween Germany an Britain ah got rid o ma Reichsmarks doon the pan PDQ and bein a part-time whoor ah soon hustled up enuff spondulux ta get here in Glesca; ah've bin readin aboot it in Auld Bert Einstein's Theiry o Generals Relatives an ah consider masel related tae naebdy!" and Bernie understood her story, for he'd been thinking along the same lines – he knew there had to be portals at either end of a Wormhole but they may not necessarily always be constant and he was reminded of a game of Snakes and Ladders, not with the actual snakes and ladders printed and static on the board, but rather fluid and flexible and liable to change at any moment, and three-dimensions not two, and then the thought came that time added a fourth dimension and he realised that he wasn't an Einstein, just a Glasgow solicitor – but it had struck him as possible that the very same door Sadie used had also enabled The Intruder to arrive in the O'Hare flat; "but are you not German then. Sadie?" he asked and she laughed, "Hell no, bro, I'm a red, white and blue Yankee Doodle, but because I'd been in Berlin for about four years I was kinda scared about contacting any authorities – I'd no papers, they must've fallen out my purse in the Herren, they were the last thing I was bothered about when I made a dash for the door," and Bernie studied her, "so how did you find your way about here in wartime, all the direction signs, milestones and town names and even many street names were taken down in case of spies," and Sadie laughed, "my mom was a Clydebank girl, she met ma faither before the first war, he was in the Merchant Marine and his ship made regular runs across the Atlantic, after a crossing the
 
crew got a couple of days ashore while she was unloaded and reloaded, he made friends with one of the regular stevedores and later was invited to his home, where he met the daughter, who he married here - my Grampa Corrance was an old ILP man and he had a fondness for America. especially Tom Paine's roll in The Declaration of Independence and The Constitution and the fact that the political system is a laity so he and my dad, who was, is, I hope still is, who's a Union man got on well - and took across the Ocean, they settled in New Jersey, that's where my brothers and sisters and I were all
born, I'm the youngest, we had tartan carpets and a Saltire out on the front stoop, along with Old Glory, she had maps showin where Old Fergie's descendants dispersed to, in Scotland and abroad, Canada, The States, we were all familiar with Scotland - names, places, dates of battles and kings and queens, the only thing we didn't have was Scottish accents, even mom lost hers over the years, but my old Clydebank Grannie moved over to stay with us when I was five and she lived till I was
twelve, I spent hours talking with her but mostly listening to what she said and how she spoke, I've always had an ear for languages and that's how I went to Germany in the Thirties - it was a tour of European Capitals, American Vaudeville, a bit like your Music Hall, but slicker, we had musicians, singers, dancers, comics, everything, even jugglers and vents, anyway, in Warsaw I fell in love with a German Baron, Graf von Seersucker, threw in the show and moved in with him - it lasted six weeks and I caught him balling the cook," and Bernie had clocked that she had lost her broad Glasgow accent and was beginning to sound like the New Yorker she had been, he asked: "and you walked out?" – she laughed: "he threw me out, I hadn't a shekel, the show had moved on and probably forgotten all about me, so I learned how to hustle – the stage is a great schoolroom, if you can survive six weeks on Coney Island you can survive anywhere, and I did: I did pink-collar work in diners,
worked as a nurse in Prague – till they found out my uniform came from a theatrical costumier –
walked the streets in a few cities when I hadn't a Mark, a Yen, a Buck or a Pound, or whatever the currency is, but at the risk of turning this into somethin else, can I offer you a beer, or somethin more soporific? and Bernie was aware of her voice becoming softer, gentler, susurrating, as she continued
to talk about herself – that was the thing about women, he thought to himself, they love to talk about themselves, all you have to do is ask the odd question, nod and murmur vaguely, and they go on and on and on and . . . . . . . . . . Sadie smiled as she saw that he was fast asleep, laid a blanket over him and turned out the light.