Save the Last Bullet for God (8 page)

“Is there a specific topic our doctor is
interested in?” Maria spoke with an insincerity that hurt me
deeply. How stupid I was? But I knew I would need to finish
learning this lesson.

“Actually, as a medical doctor, I’m open to
any kind of information or ideas that can help me understand human
nature and heal ailments.” I was saying whatever came into my mind
without thinking, trying to gain time and prolong the moment.

“Your delicate concern for the good of your
people has really impressed me.”

She was making fun of me again. I’d forgotten
how much of a weakness I’d had for her and that I could still be
that vulnerable. She’d reminded me.

“I hope you will stay for my trance tonight.
Perhaps I can take a moment to tell our friends on Aldebaran what a
good humanist you are.”

Maria ended the exchange with another phony
smile and moved on to converse with others. I realized that I still
had my hand wrapped around Hellen’s waist and Hellen was staring at
me with sparkling eyes.

“What do you think? She’s very beautiful,
isn’t she?”

I was hurt and confused, but relieved for
Hellen’s company. I decided to tell her what she wanted to
hear.

“Actually, she has a cold beauty, but she
pales beside you,” I said as convincingly as I could.

Hellen glowed and moved closer, but my mind
was somewhere else.

. . .

The few lighted candles couldn’t pierce the
darkness of the room. Everyone sat around the table, our hands
linked. A glass sphere emitting flickering sparks of thin, blue
lightning sat in the middle of the table, and I could smell the
heavy incense. Maria was deep into a trance. Her body convulsed and
her eyeballs turned upward. The look of the whites of her eyes
shocked and frightened me. The woman I had loved wasn’t there
anymore. Now, something else dwelt there, and it didn’t belong to
this world. Her voice was wheezy and menacing, coming from deep
inside her, and it filled the room with a foreboding that went
beyond my deepest fears.

My hands, and the hands they were holding,
were sweaty. I felt that eyes were staring at my back and I was
scared to look behind me. A young woman with an innocent face
sitting behind Maria was rapidly writing down the otherworldly
words she spoke. With the light squeaks of the pencil going across
the paper, I saw some symbols, scratches, and meaningless letters
appear. When I’d decided to come here, I had been in pursuit of
some excitement, hoping to satisfy my curiosity. This situation,
though, suggested the presence of things beyond my experience and
consciousness, and it scared me. I was paralyzed, but strangely, I
felt ready to believe.

When Maria came back to us, she was worn out
and weak. She was now the old, fragile Maria. Her eyes were blue
again. Her face was as beautiful as before. But she was a bit pale,
her voice was hoarse, and her trembling lips had turned slightly
blue.

To my surprise, she looked at me with the
same desperate gaze of that young girl in the hospital. My heart
leapt and sank at the same time. For a second, I thought of taking
her away from there, saving her, giving her one more chance despite
everything.

Collecting herself, she straightened up in
the chair, turned to one side and took the papers from the girl
behind her. The papers trembled in her shaky hands. She stepped
away from the circle and began to move toward the door before she
turned to me.

“Doctor, can I speak to you for a
moment?”

I looked at Hellen and the others before
following, confused about what she might want to say. My heart
began racing and I followed Maria into a smaller, darker room.

She looked at me with the same energy I
remember from the night of our escape. “Dear Doctor, they asked me
to speak to you.” She sounded weak.

I felt both disappointed and confused. Who
was she talking about?

“The Aldebarans. They spoke to me about
tonight, about the differences between the living and the
non-living, particularly an energy that gives life to living
beings. Do you know something of this?”

“I have read of such things in my research.
Go on.”

“Well, they spoke of a schema, of a device. A
device that can cure patients by restoring them with the energy
they’ve lost, like an energy collector. I apologize, but the terms
the Aldebarans use do not have any meaning here on Earth. I am just
describing the concept.”

“Are you saying they talked to you about this
because I was here? If I knew you’d suffer that much, I would have
never come.”

“No. It’s okay. It’s my job…or my curse. It
cannot be escaped.”

Suddenly an image of a child throwing a
starfish into the sea came into my mind. Instinctively, I held her
hand and placed a little kiss on it. I thought about her pain and
who’d take responsibility for it.

Maria gave me a slight crooked smile before
going on. “It will take some time to make a clear copy of the
Sumerian texts,” she said. “There are schemas that need to be
translated into German. But they want me to give them to you.”

“Me?”

“Yes. They believe you will know what to do
with the information. If you stop by tomorrow or the next day, I
think it will be ready. Now, I must ask you to excuse me, as I am
very tired.”

With a touch to my shoulder, she turned away.
I saw Hellen standing in the doorway and Maria touched Hellen’s
cheek as she passed and went back into the main room. Hellen smiled
at me. “Are you ready to go?” she asked.

. . .

“Where are we going?” I asked. We were
sitting in the back of a cab, and the driver was staring at us,
waiting for the answer to his question.

“Actually, it’s early,” Hellen said, “and I
really don’t want to go to my cousin’s. Let’s go to your place and
talk and have a few drinks.”

There was a short, tense silence.

“On one condition,” I said.

She was getting ready to say seven or eight
sentences one after another, but I touched her lips with my index
finger. I felt a little kiss on that finger as her two blue eyes
dove under her eyelids in an expression that simply said “yes”.

. . .

That night, I awoke with a start. The room
was dark and I was covered in sweat. I turned to look next to me.
Hellen was there. Her flowing hair blanketed her dry, soft
shoulders. She was fast asleep. I quietly got out of bed to go get
cool by the window. I shivered when I looked out and saw two men
wearing brown shirts get out of a pitch-black car and approach the
door of my house.

I got dressed as their knocking persisted.
Reluctantly, I finally opened the door. They pressed an envelope
into my hand and went away without a word. I opened the envelope
with hands shaking from a mix of fear and relief. Inside, was a
letter addressed to me along with a few official, signed documents.
The documents consisted of a single permission to leave the
country, including the proper supporting papers. The letter
addressed to me was a single page and topped by a letterhead
featuring an eagle holding a swastika in its claws.

Dear Lieutenant,

You asked me to pay you what I owed. As I
have erased everything that belonged to my previous life, I would
love to include you in this. You might have already realized how
rapidly I moved on to do what I said I would after the war.
Gathering information in order to build my strength, I have
followed your life after the war quite closely, and I have learned
much about your past, including your childhood. Of course, your old
tutor, who now works for me, contributed a lot. I am sorry for what
happened to your mother, and I assure you, after the process of
taking advantage of him is over, your tutor will be punished as a
little favor from me.

I politely insist that you leave the country
so that you will not be affected by what is coming nor risk
conflict with me over your political views. Please note that this
request, and the concession, are one-time offers only. The
necessary documents and permission are attached.

Signature: The Nationalist Socialist German
Workers Party and the Chancellor of Germany,

Adolf Hitler

When I turned the page over with my
still-shaking hands, I found a pencil drawing. An old tree; in its
trunk, a tiny, open cavity; a lake beside the tree; and a
pitch-black forest encircling them all.The memory returned of a
blind soldier drawing—using my eyes.

“Who is it, dear?”

Shuddering, I turned to see Hellen emerging
from the bedroom. She was barefoot and held my sheet over her naked
body with one hand. With the other hand, she touched my shoulder
and looked with curiosity at the papers in my hand.

“It’s not important,” I said. “Official
things.”

“But you seem shaken, and the document
says…”

“What about our agreement? Long talks are
forbidden, and we won’t say everything that comes into our minds,
right?”

“But I said nothing in bed, and you don’t
know how difficult that is…,” Hellen purred as she embraced me.

“Let’s go out a little,” I murmured into her
ear. “We can eat something and walk around.”

“Can’t we stay here?”

“For tonight, I thought we could go somewhere
full of music, dancing, and alcohol. What do you think?”

“Okay,” she said, her face lighting up.

. . .

On the way to the nightclub, I asked the
driver to take us back to the old stone building. Hellen and I
entered the Vril headquarters and passed rapidly through the hall
with the archeological photographs before entering the living
room.

Maria was there with another girl and a tall
military officer with a well-tailored uniform. Hellen whispered in
my ear, “That man is Otto Reinhardt. He is married to one of the
Vril girls. He is a soldier to the core. Be careful.”

Their faces turned to us, and Hellen, warmly
greeted Maria and the other girl.

I was introduced to the officer, and we
chatted formally. I caught Maria’s eyes and she smiled.

“You look very well,” I said to her. “You
really scared me yesterday.”

“In the session? Or afterward?” Maria
laughed.

“Hmmm . . .” I said with a wink.

“We have already finished the translation. We
have it here for you.”

“Thank you,” I smiled. “And no. You never
scared me,” I added with a smile before Maria laughed.

I felt a pinch on the back of my arm and a
sarcastic cough from Hellen. She was jealous, and her jealousy made
me realize how obviously I was flirting.

“Here it is, Dr. Reich,” Maria said and
handed a thin file to me.

“
Thank you for doing this so soon. I
don’t know how to pay back the favor. Actually, we’re going
somewhere for some music and dancing. Would you like to join
us?”

“Aww, that would be great, really. How
considerate you are, darling?” Hellen said enthusiastically before
giving me another pinch.

“Thank you,” Maria answered, “but there is no
need, and Berton is not here yet. I wonder what’s keeping him,” she
said before moving toward the door.

I turned to Hellen with a questioning
look.

“
Maria’s boyfriend, Robert Johann
Koldewey. He’s the son of the famous Sumeriologist. They met a long
time ago when she was receiving lessons in the Sumerian language
from his father. Now they’re just crazy love birds.”

“Welcome, darling! We’ve been talking about
you,” Maria said.

“About me?” I turned around at the familiar
rough, confident sound of the man’s voice, and I began to fill up
with rage.

When you come across a man with the potential
to get the women in your life, such rage isn’t far behind.

He was past middle age, with sharp facial
lines, abundant black hair carefully combed back, and a small wound
pulling his eyebrow up slightly. I must confess, he was really
handsome and had a unique aura. If we’d met somewhere else in other
circumstances…No, I would have still hated him.

“Are you okay?” Hellen whispered.

I realized I was holding her hand a bit too
tightly in my anger. Taking a deep breath and trying to count to
ten, I whispered to her, “Yes, I’m fine,” before speaking louder to
address the group.

“Yes, we were talking about you. I owe Maria
a favor, and I was just offering to take you all out to a
nightclub. If you agree, we can go now.”

Berton smiled.

“Drinks, music, and a night out: it sounds
good, so why not?” he said.

Maria caught sight of my eyes, fiery with
desire. Before she could object, Berton silenced her with a
kiss.

. . .

The underground pub was crowded. The sounds
of jazz and the swirl of heavy cigarette smoke filled the room. The
women wore fancy, exaggerated outfits, while the men as the night
wore on loosened their ties.

Beyond the din of enthusiastic conversations
and laughter, we found a quiet back table. There, we caught up with
the crowd, and before we knew it, we were sipping our third drinks.
Burying myself in the leather sofa, I shook the ice cubes in my
whisky glass and snuggled up with Hellen.

With her head on Berton’s shoulder, Maria
seemed lost in the sultry voice of the black girl on stage. I was
completely distracted, thinking about whether this would be the
last or best day of my life. I was drunk with Maria’s presence and
anxious from the expectations of so many long years.

The young officer asked the girl to dance and
Berton stood up as well and tried to convince Maria to go out on
the floor. Maria said she didn’t feel like dancing, so, feeling
disappointed, Berton did what was expected of him and asked the
woman by my side to dance. Hellen went with him, though
reluctantly.

Maria and I were now alone for the first time
in years. She leaned back slightly and moved closer to me, with her
eyes on the stage. I had a lot to say, and I was in a big hurry,
doubtful I’d have another chance to talk like this again.