“Someday you will live again, my darlings,” he promised them. He sighed with pleasure. But no, he must go slowly. He must study a great deal before attempting anything so daring. Felix turned to his collection of large and secret books on alchemy, cell biology, and necromancy. There was something to be found in them all. He was not ready yet to synthesize his knowledge. He must study more.
Felix knew he also was a genius, perhaps the most important one of all. He had taken the precaution of preserving a bit from his scrotum, just in case. There it lay, in its own jar, winking at him merrily. Felix remembered the courage it had taken to operate on himself. It had been minor in the end — injecting himself with the novocaine and then, with a surprisingly steady hand, slicing off just the surface layer, a little patch. It had hurt afterward, he remembered. Nevertheless, Felix knew that if his experiments in regeneration were a success, his tissue would be of foremost interest, especially to future generations. After all, he had no child of his own to carry his amazing genetic makeup. But he knew he could produce, once he had discovered the secret, a man-child of his own makeup, springing forth, as it were, from his own loins. Felix was proud of his practical foresight.
He touched the jar containing his own tissue with reverence and love. Felix believed in talking to his specimens. He approached each bit of tissue with love and respect. Reverence for life — he believed in that.
Before leaving his laboratory, after having fed all his jars, Felix caressed his newest acquisition, a larger, round-bellied mason jar, wherein swam the four little fingers of the musicians of the Vienna Tolstoi Quartet. Felix thought of the wonderful music they would make together once he had done his work with them. He remembered the music the Quartet had made in the past. How he loved their Brahms and Beethoven and Schubert. He would make sure the fingers played together once again; not that horrible modern stuff, but the dear old music he and Marthe had enjoyed so much. “Hello, fellows,” Felix whispered to the jar’s cold, rounded side. He could hardly believe his good fortune.
Felix closed the door. Schatzie, patient as ever, wagged her tail, rising to her feet. “Good girl,” said Felix, bending down and scratching her silken ears. Schatzie followed him down the long hall toward the bed behind the screen.
Felix undressed and, reaching into the large wardrobe, drew out a picture of his beloved Führer and set it on the mantel. Then he pulled a corset and some stockings out of the closet and quickly put these on over his short legs. Carefully he applied the lipstick, and then a brassiere followed upon his squeezed chest. “Lie down, girl,” he exhorted Schatzie, who obediently bowed her head. Felix fell to his knees before the picture. “Mein beloved Führer,” he whispered. It seemed to him that the image of the Führer looked down at him, only him, poor humble servant that he was, with tenderness and approval in his eyes. “My faithful servant,” the picture seemed to say back.
Felix writhed in his constricting woman’s clothes, the black lace lingerie straining over his crotch, pinching him cruelly, the whalebone brassiere digging into his body. His “broken leg” throbbed.
He took out “Little Hänschen” from between the garter belt and the top of his stockings. He began to stroke it tenderly, crooning, “Ja.” It was small and velvety; then, as he caressed it, it grew in his hands. Little Hänschen liked to be free; he grew big and strong with pride.
“My Führer, my beloved.” Felix sobbed, giving himself to the overarching ecstasy. To whom was he crooning? The hot come began to spurt into his hand, and suddenly he felt ashamed. Delicious shame, the most delectable emotion of all. He stroked more quickly now.
“Forgive me, my father, for I have sinned,” he gasped. The familiar litany of his childhood prayers soothed him. Before he knew it, he was crying. The warm tears coursed down his cheeks, and he felt the relief of confessing to his Führer all his sins. The picture forgave him. “I know you are doing your best,” the picture seemed to say. “My son, you are indeed my true son.”
Felix wept in a luxury of self-abnegation. “Pray for me, Father,” he sobbed.
“You are my faithful servant,” the glass-covered picture said. Felix straightened his stockings, his makeup smeared. He bent over tenderly and kissed the Führer’s lips. He buried his head against the warm side of his faithful dog. “Oh, Schatzie, my dearest,” he sobbed, overcome with the emotion. The dachshund licked Felix’s hand. Felix thought he could sleep now.
Chapter 8 NIGHT
Snores punctuated the drab air of the room above the city where Maria lay in a half sleep. Beyond the blanket partition, Herbert coughed once, lying on his narrow cot in his own little area of the room. Maria’s mother, sleeping on the couch, did not move at all, lying as if she had suddenly fallen, startled, amid a heap of sheets.
In the first circle of the orchestra at the Vienna State Opera, Herbert regarded his wife’s sleek shoulders beside him, her smooth hair as she bent her head to the program in her lap. The lights shone about them like beacons, shedding amber on the red velvet interior. All was muted and golden. Onstage, the musicians were tuning up behind their curtain: the crisp sounds of the A from the concertmaster, a spark in the thin air, and then the answering calls of the other instruments as they responded to the tuning note of A taken up from the first violin section. The instruments mooed and lowed in their preparations.
Herbert put his hand on his wife’s, and she looked up at him and smiled. “Are you happy, my dear?” he asked her.
“Yes, my darling,” she replied, squeezing his hand in return. She leaned her head briefly against his shoulder.
Herbert had heard that Adeline was in love with Herr Mahler, who would be conducting tonight. But he discarded that rumor. Mahler was, of course, a genius. Who wouldn’t be attracted to his eccentric power? Herbert himself was one of Mahler’s benefactors, even though he found that actually listening to Mahler’s music was an ordeal. There was too much pain in that strange music, too much the outraged groan of the outsider. Yes, thought Herbert, too much pain.
He looked at Adeline fondly.
“The children, they were wonderful tonight, weren’t they?” she said to him, smiling.
“Yes, but, my dear, you really favor Michael too much,” Herbert replied, thinking of the little imp. “You let him stay up too long. He got much too excited.”
“But he wants so much to be like his brother. Anyway, what’s the harm in letting him stay up with us?”
Herbert sighed. The evening meal had ended with Michael’s protesting shrieks as their nursemaid ushered the two boys upstairs.
“No, Mama!” Michael howled, flinging himself against Adeline’s knees and holding on. Herbert and David regarded the scene with quiet eyes, though they exchanged a hidden smile. David was prim and full of virtue next to his younger brother.
“Hush,” said Adeline, patting the younger boy. “I’ll come up and say good night before we go out.”
“I want you to stay with me,” protested the child, clinging to his mother even more forcefully.
“Come, Michael,” exhorted David. “We’ll play with the soldiers.” At the thought of being allowed to touch David’s precious toy soldier collection, Michael disengaged himself in a hurry.