"Fräulein Loewenstein," Schlacht shouted back, "you have
been assigned to this project by Dr. Mengele with the
approval of
Reichsführer
Himmler! Here you are and, until I say otherwise, here you will stay!"
Petra
heard the door open and turned to see Weyrauch and Louisa walk into the room. She went to Weyrauch and grabbed his arm desperately as if he were somehow to be her ally and
salvation. "Please, Dr. Weyrauch, please speak to him, please
make him let me go back to
Auschwitz
! Any chemist can do what I've been doing, any chemist at all, he doesn't need me
here!"
"
Petra
," Weyrauch said gently, "I really don't have
anything to say about it, really, I don't. Now we are all
perfectly safe here, you know that..."
"She doesn't know anything of the sort," Louisa snapped, "and neither do I." She looked at her cousin. "Helmuth, I am a civilian, and so is Fräulein Loewenstein. Neither of us is under any obligation to remain here, shivering in our beds
while we wait for a werewolf to break into our rooms and
murder us."
Schlacht rose up slowly from behind his desk and
glowered at her. "Now listen to me, Louisa, and pay careful attention to what I am saying to you.
Germany
is at war, and
when a nation is at war there is no such thing as a civilian.
You and Fräulein Loewenstein and Gottfried and everyone else under my command will do exactly as they are told, without argument, without dissent and without giving me any more of the incessant headaches which I have been having ever since I have been seeing you again!" She started to say something
but he cut her off. "Louisa, one more word, and so help me God it will be
you
who finds herself on the train to
Auschwitz
!"
A few moments of tense silence ensued. What had been
apparent to Weyrauch from the outset, and what had been
axiomatic with
Petra
, was becoming frighteningly clear to
Louisa: Helmuth Schlacht, despite the ties of blood that
connected her with him, was perfectly capable of killing anyone who opposed him, herself included. That a Colonel of
the Nazi S.S. would not be reluctant to spill innocent blood
was an idea which would have surprised no one other than
Louisa, for part of her still thought of Schlacht as the
blond-haired little boy with whom she had played in
childhood, and the clear-eyed youth with whom she had so often argued during their teenage years. In that moment of silence following Schlacht's threat, she finally accepted in her heart what she had always known in her mind, that her cousin, her Aunt Gertrude's son, was a murderer, that he had murdered political prisoners in Dachau, that he had murdered Jews in Slovenia, that he was murdering Gypsies right now in Hungary and Romania, that he was quite prepared to murder
her if need be.
Louisa sat slowly down into one of the chairs and did not speak further. She tried to ignore the amused, smug,
self-satisfied grin on her husband's face.
"Colonel,"
Petra
began somewhat hesitantly, "might I at least receive permission to find my own lodgings in the city? I... I really don't want to be in the Palace at night."
"Why not?" Schlacht asked, sitting back down, inwardly pleased at his cousin's silence. "We have an ample supply of wolfsbane here. Kaldy is confined and controlled, and if the
other creature tries to free him we will be able to capture
her as easily as we captured him."
"Yes, but..."
Petra
paused, choosing her words carefully, not wishing to anger this mercurial, potentially deadly man. "If the other werewolf is in the area, it is reasonable to assume that she is here, as you say, to attempt to free Kaldy, which means that she will most likely
enter the Palace at some point. Colonel, I am not a soldier.
I am a chemist. I would be of no use to you dead, and even alive I cannot be of help in capturing the other creature." She waited for Schlacht to respond, and the pensive, reflective look on his face encouraged her to continue. "I am serving the Führer and the Fatherland, and I have no
wish to stop doing so. I am a loyal German. I am dedicated
to our common cause. But my presence in the Palace at night serves no purpose, and subjects me to unnecessary and
purposeless danger."
"Why you, as opposed to anyone else?" Schlacht asked.
"Because I am the researcher here," she said earnestly. "I am the one milking Kaldy of his saliva, I am the one
trying to find out what causes him to change and what can be
done to hurt or kill him. That makes me the enemy, more so
anyone else, even you."
Schlacht laughed. "I doubt that Kaldy would agree with your assessment, but your point is well taken anyway. Very
well, Fräulein Loewenstein, I shall have someone from my
staff find you lodgings in the city."
"I... ah... I already have, Colonel," she said meekly, and
then added, "Knowing as I did that you would make a logical
and appropriate decision..."
Schlacht found her impertinence somehow oddly amusing,
and he struggled to repress a laugh. She seemed to sense
this, and she blushed and smiled at him shyly. Schlacht
began to respond to her statement, but then looked to the
door as Festhaller opened it and entered the room. "Herr Professor," Schlacht greeted him, "have the preparations
been made?"
"Yes, everything is ready," Festhaller said, seating himself in a chair beside
Petra
.
Weyrauch turned from Festhaller to Schlacht. "What is
ready, if I may ask?"
"An experiment, Gottfried," Schlacht replied. "Fräulein,
perhaps you can bring the good Doctor up to date."
"Certainly, Colonel," she said and then turned in her seat to face Weyrauch. "You recall that we were able to
isolate an enzyme in Kaldy's saliva which we were unable to
identify?"
"Yes, of course."
"Well, while you were subjecting Kaldy to hypnosis this morning, I was continuing my attempts to analyze the substance. I have made some headway." She reached into the file folder which she was carrying and took out a sheet of paper. As she handed it to Weyrauch she said, "As far as I can tell, this is the chemical formula of the enzyme. Additionally, I have determined what I believe to be the two constituent chemicals of which the enzyme is composed."
Weyrauch squinted at the writing on the page. The first formula which
Petra
had written down in her precise handwriting was
C
37
-H
38
-N
2
-0
4
.
Below this she had written
C
16
-H
16
-N
2
-0
2
,
and below that
C
21
-H
22
-N
2
-0
2
.
"The first two formulae are not known to me, but the third one looks familiar. I can't quite place it..."
"The chemical structure of that constituent of the
enzyme seems to be identical to that of the poison
strychnine,"
Petra
said, pointing to the third formula.
"Ah, yes, yes, that's it," Weyrauch nodded. "But I hardly think that strychnine..."
"But look, here," she said, pointing to the second formula. "This combination of elements is not present in strychnine. It is, however, very similar to a substance which can be derived from the North American mushroom,
psilocybe mexicana
. Like strychnine, it is a toxin, though in small amounts it is a non-lethal hallucinogenic."
"And can the combination, the enzyme itself, be
synthesized?" Weyrauch asked.
"I've tried to do just that,"
Petra
replied, "but I'm uncertain of the chemical ratios of the constituents
."
Schlacht raised his eyebrows. "You didn't mention that in your report, Fräulein."
She shrugged. "I preferred to explain it to you in person, knowing how impatient you become when reading the
reports we prepare for your examination." Having won at least part of her argument with Schlacht, something of her customary wryness was returning. "The problem, you see, is that there are minute amounts of blood present in saliva, and the enzyme is actually present in the blood. I first had
to isolate the blood element, then isolate the enzyme in the
blood element, and then chemically analyze the enzyme. So many successive steps of isolation and analysis reduce the
accuracy of the resultant data. I am reasonably certain of
the chemicals involved, but less than certain of their relative amounts or the nature of their bonding,"
Schlacht seemed annoyed. "Fräulein Loewenstein, I was
under the impression that you had made a breakthrough."
She seemed surprised at his reaction. "Herr Colonel, this
is
a breakthrough! We have discovered the existence of an enzyme in Kaldy's blood which does not exist in human blood, and we have isolated its components. All we need do now is ascertain the ratios involved, and we are well on our way to discovering the fundamental nature of the process of transformation."
"And how do you propose to determine the ratios?" Weyrauch asked.
Petra
seemed irritated at the question. "By the
application of the scientific method, of course, Herr Doctor.
We shall experiment with various ratios. After all, I have a general idea of the ratios of chemical to chemical...my data cannot be
that
inaccurate!...so what I need to do now is to establish them accurately, by experimentation."
"Which, of course, is what I have been busy preparing," Festhaller broke in. "I have had an experimental animal brought to Fräulein Loewenstein's laboratory. And, as I said when I entered a few moments ago, everything is ready."
"Good," Schlacht responded, rising from his seat. "I shall accompany you, Fräulein, and observe the results of
the experiment. I will be meeting
with Reichsführer
Himmler
later this week, and I would like to be able to give him a firsthand account of what happens." Schlacht preceded
Petra
and Festhaller out the door and Weyrauch made to follow them. He turned to his wife and asked, "Louisa? You can come along if you wish." She shook
her head silently and remained where she was, not looking at
him. Weyrauch shrugged and then left the room.
He caught up to the others in the hallway and as he approached them he said, "Helmuth, I feel obliged to point
out that experiments conducted upon animals are not always accurate in what they indicate about human beings.
Differences in metabolism, body weight, genetic structure,
all make it often
difficult..."
"What are you prattling on about, Gottfried?" Schlacht asked brusquely.
"Well, I am merely reminding you that whatever results
we obtain from experimenting on a rat or a dog, even a
monkey, may not..."
"You may put your mind at ease, Gottfried," Schlacht said. "The experimental animal is a Jew." Weyrauch stopped walking, startled by Schlacht's words, and watched as the Colonel, Festhaller and
Petra
continued on down the hall toward the laboratory. After a moment's hesitation, he followed after them.
The door of Schlacht's office opened and Louisa von Weyrauch walked slowly out into the hall, her head bowed slightly and her eyes red. As she walked in the direction
opposite the one the others had taken, every movement of her
body bespoke resignation and despair. She was neither stopped nor questioned by the guards as she proceeded down the stairs to the dungeons of the Ragoczy Palace, for they had all grown accustomed to seeing her and her husband going down to visit with the two prisoners who, for reasons to which the guards were not privy, had been kept at the Palace rather than sent off to the camps with the others of
their kind.
Kaldy and Blasko were in the same cell, and would remain together until an hour or so before sunset, at which time the younger Gypsy would be removed to another cell where he would be bound with the wolfsbane-laden chains. Tonight was the second night of the full moon, and after tomorrow
morning Kaldy would once again be afforded a four-week
respite from his agony.
The guard unlocked the cell door and held it open for Louisa. He locked it behind her and stood back and watched
carefully as Louisa said in Italian, "I don't know what to
do, Blasko, I just don't know what to do." She began to
weep.
Blasko stifled the instinct to reach out and pat her hand comfortingly, knowing that the guard would react
immediately to a Gypsy touching a German woman. He smiled at
her and said in Romansch, "What can anyone do, Donna? You
are not alone in your helplessness."