There is something oddly... weird about going through the things your father left behind. As if you are doing something wrong, yet still right. Like you are putting the past to rest while dragging every last piece up. The time you spoke your first word commemorated in a small plaque side by side with his disapproval when you broke your leg while trying to climb a tree. When you tried to sneak out, and he caught you with your mother, both thinking that you had a lover you were ashamed of while trying to hide the squirrel you were trying to get out. When he beat you over a disagreement, when you screamed at each other, the day you discovered he had bought the sweets you loved from the mainland.
A thousand and one memories come forth, each trying to vie for your attention as you lay them to rest, both the few good and the many bad. And as you do, his diary catches your attention, the neat little black book with tiny characters inviting you with a single sentence on its front: "My Exile."
Curiosity burns and you open the small little booklet, eyes flying over column after column of characters as you devour the life of a man that once held nothing to his name but the clothes on his back, a single pence, and a 19cm long flounder. You cannot help but feel angry as he describes his exile from the now-defunct Queendom by the British over a tiny transgression, though it is tempered by the knowledge of what that action would bring the "ambassador" from the English crown. Laughter echoes within your private room (once his bedroom, now yours almost fully refurbished) as you read his trading of the flounder into a full fishing boat. There is irony in the founder and leader of a communist revolution being a capitalist in their early days. Yet, you remain riveted by his descriptions of life and living within post-war Europe. A bitter note springs over your tongue as he talks about the failed Spartacist revolution and the single letter he exchanged with Rosa Luxemburg over possible help for his people. The letter would send him to various communist clubs and cliques within London, where he would become a true believer and plan his return. It is also how you found out that the brick numbered "1" was the first, and last, part of his brilliant plan of stealing the actual tomb of Karl Marx. You had to take a minute at the sheer idiocy, ludicrousness, and disappointment you felt that he actually tried, failed and got booted out of England straight into Germany.
And into the open arms of the Institute of Sexual Science. Magnus Hirschfeld and Arthur Kronfeld delighted at the chance to talk with a person from the elusive Ghangchou, picking his brain for any pieces of information about sexuality, gender identity, and every other topic they could come up with. His time within Germany is one of both joy and dread, as he writes at length about the beauty of the country, the culture, and the arts and science, yet the growing radicalization and hatred against anything foreign begin to bleed through. Ultimately, on the 4th May 1933, the pages are stained with blood, and you read about him discovering a plot by the Nazies to destroy the Institute. He evacuated everything they had, at the cost of a shot into his body, a missing eye for Arthur, and Magnus being murdered by a SS officer. Some days pass as he tries to dodge the SS and officials while keeping the knowledge and materials rescued secure before the date springs six months and fifteen days into the future.
The day he arrived on your home with a large shipment of German guns, the saved materials of the Institute, several of the workers that once held jobs there, and the burning desire to bring the Queendom to its knees. A dream he would chip at for five long years, where he would see the Ghangchou Institute of Sexual Science flourish under the attention of foreign experts, and the revolution grow both within your (finally reborn) navy and the people.
And then, over three days, the people rose, and the Queen fell.
That day is where the diary ends, and you are left emotionally and physically exhausted, having read the life of a man you still despised yet loved. Perhaps not in equal measure, but not enough to wish him ill. Laying the booklet down, you see that there is only one thing left to read through and decide to do so before going to bed. Better have it all squared away than be upset in the morning, and with that resolution made up in your mind, you reach out and pick up the manilla folder.
Though why is the header in German?
[] Operation Walküre
[] Sonderkommando Untermensch
[] Projekt Laufpanzer