among them works? Do any work at all? Who among them has an iota of ideal? Who has a dream, an ambition— beyond getting over a hangover so he can start hanging a new one on? I think I’m a little disgusted with myself for remaining in this atmosphere as long as I have.”
She said, urgently, “That’s what I’ve been telling you, Quentin. You’re a man of destiny. I knew it from the first time I met you. Even before, when I read some of your columns. I don’t agree with all of them, of course. Perhaps not even most. But you haven’t
Quint looked at her ruefully from the side of his eyes, then stared unseeing into a corner of the room. “I got a letter today from a new political party starting up in the States. They call themselves the Liberal Party.”
“Liberal Party.” Marylyn made a face.
He looked at her. “What ever happened to the liberals in the States? Back when I was a kid, during the depression, everybody was a liberal. There were darn few brave enough to call themselves conservatives, and to be a reactionary was like being in cahoots with the devil.”
He thought about it. “Today, the term is rapidly disappearing in the States. To say you’re a liberal now means you’re a wide-eyed do-gooder. A wooly-head who signs petitions for peace, and marches in anti-segregation parades. I remember a speech Roosevelt once made…”
Marylyn made a face again, but moved slightly nearer to him, listening.
“… in which he defined reactionary, radical, liberal and conservative. For an example, he took an old bridge crossing a stream. The radical comes along and says the bridge is no longer safe, it should be torn down and a new one built utilizing the most modern methods. The conservative comes along and says, the bridge is fine, just the way it is, don’t touch it. The liberal comes along and suggests various repairs to patch it up so that it can continue to be used. And the reactionary comes along and says tear it down, and we’ll cross the stream the old way, jumping from rock to rock.”
Marylyn laughed hesitantly, after looking into his face and seeing she was expected to.
Quint said, “Actually, there’s little meaning to be found in the name of political parties nowadays. There’s hardly a country in Europe that doesn’t have parties that work the word Christian into their names. The Christian Democrats, the Christian Socialists, the Christian Republicans, and so on and so forth.” He chuckled sarcastically. “Have you ever heard of a political party really based on Christian principles?”
Marylyn said, “I see what you mean. In Germany in the early 1920s the people liked the word socialist. They weren’t too clear what it meant, but they liked the idea. So when Hitler’s movement began to develop he called it National Socialism, although, of course, the Fuhrer had no sympathy with socialism at all.”
He put an arm around her, and drew her nearer. She looked up at him suddenly. “Quint! That’s it. This is your chance. What difference does it make what the name of the party is? This is your opportunity to get in on the ground floor.”
He pursed his lips and chuckled wryly. “They wanted me to run for Senator from my state.”
“Quint! It’s your chance! Why, in six months you’d be head of the party.”
Still chuckling, he drew her closer, and ran a finger down along a slight scar near her temple. He scowled and said, “How did you get this?”
“What? Oh. An auto accident when I was a little girl.”
He murmured, astonished by it all, “But that’s the whole thing, isn’t it? The effort to stay on. The effort to return, though it all should have ended.”
She frowned up at him. “I… I don’t know what you mean, Quentin.”
“Ann Asian and her H3 vitamin,” he murmured. “She’s probably a comparative amateur.”
“Quentin,” she said.
He looked at her strangely, “You’ve obviously had your face lifted, probably more than once. How old are you, really, Grete?”
She drew back from him,
He said, “How long did you really live in Border, Nebraska? Just long enough to establish a phoney identity?”
“Quentin! Don’t attempt to judge me… not yet. You don’t understand. I lived many years in the United States. For a time I attended school there.”
He was nodding. “Back before the first World War, I imagine. How old are you, Grete Stahlecker?”
Her face went strange. She had removed herself from his enveloping arm, but now she seized his hand tightly. “I am seventy-two years old, Quentin!”
Quentin Jones stared at her, unbelieving, even though at long last he knew.
“Quentin, don’t you see what that means? You too can be all but immortal. You are a man of destiny, like the Fuhrer was a man of destiny. We… Herr Ferencsik and I… can search out such weaknesses as your present body might have. Seek them out, and eliminate them. Is your heart potentially that organ of your body which will first fail? We will find you a strong heart, Quentin. Any weakness we can change.”
He looked into her face, and through it, into her all. Into the deepest recesses of the psyche.
“So,” he said softly. “Professor Ferencsik is with you. And together you are to create your superman.”
“Yes, yes,” she hurried. “He is with me. Here, here in this house.”
“And he believes in this same dream you have?”
“Yes, of course,” her eyes shifted only slightly. “A superman to lead the world to a single government To make all earth one strong State. It was Fuhrer’s dream, and Alfred Rosenberg’s. It is only that Herr Ferencsik is impractical. He doesn’t realize that there must be a master race, we Teutons and Anglo-Saxons. The inferior races will serve us.”
Her grip on his arm tightened urgently. Her face had a fey quality, a wild quality.
Quint said, almost gently, “So, you would make a superman of me?” His face twisted grimly. “As you did Martin Bormann, Grete?”
“Bormann, he is nothing! A clod. True, at first I thought I could make him the new Fuhrer. But there was still much for me to learn, and now, with my new knowledge, and with the help of Herr Professor Ferencsik…”
Quint said, “Grete, this question keeps coming up. Why was it necessary to burn Hitler’s body, there outside the Reich Chancellery, after he had committed suicide?”
Her eyes went strange, shifted strangely, but her voice came, as though reciting. “It was necessary that we burn it so that the Fuhrer’s enemies would never know that the body had been mutilated, that the brain had been removed.”
The cold went through Quentin Jones as never before in all his life. The next words were hard to keep level. “And whose brain would be in this renovated body of mine? My jazzed up new superman body which would last a few hundred years?”
She shook her head, and again her hand tightened urgently on his arm, and her eyes bore into his in complete earnestness. “Quentin, you need not fear. Do not be silly. It would be your own brain. Your personality. A simple operation or two, a simple grafting…”
“To… what… extent… would… you… replace… my… own… brain… with… that… of… your… once… Fuhrer…”
“But just a little bit. The very seat of his genius. The phyche, the ego…”
A new voice from one of the rear doors said wealdy, “She’s mad, of course. Doktor Stahlecker is mad. A genius, perhaps, but mad. She has showed me the portions of the brain she thinks possible to replace in your skull. They are nothing, after all these years, but mush. Organic, meaningless mush. If she is allowed to operate on you, Quentin Jones, you will become as Martin Bormann has become.”
Marylyn Worth—Doktor Grete Stohlecker—was on her feet, glaring at the intruder. She spun back to Quint. “But you can see! Look, I am younger than twenty years ago. Look at my face! My body! Now I am even beautiful, as I was never beautiful before, my Fuhrer! Yes, yes! Now you understand. You will be the new Fuhrer, and I will be your bride. All these years, my Fuhrer, I have kept myself for you.?”
His horror must have reflected in his face.
