Preston Child - The Fountain of Youth

“Not an altogether unpleasant notion to my mind, for one,” the landlord said, smiling as he marveled at the graceful beauty on stage. “But while you were in Britain, you must have had some immense discomfort performing with the Blitz on and all.”

“You have no idea, my friend,” Lammas sighed, finally facing the Norwegian man he’d once shared a library office with. In London they’d studied Art and Literature together, moonlighting as librarians to supplement their income. “Some nights we’d be getting ready for a performance and just wait for the alarms, positively anticipating the shattering of windows and dying a slow death trapped under a burning beam. It’s funny, actually. Here we are behind enemy lines in the very presence of the biggest wolves among them…and it’s the safest place in the world!”

Ami’s solo piece was due. Lamma was elated to see her flourish flawlessly, as he knew she would. What both disturbed and intrigued him was the way in which Adolf Hitler and his men regarded her. It wasn’t so much a look of lust, but their blackened eyes appeared to be savoring her every move, the lines of her body, and how she used it to a point of irresistible allure. They sat just in front of the stage, their banquet table dotted with half-finished dishes on elaborate porcelain plates lined with bottles of the best liquor. Their heads were tilted back in frozen admiration of the stunning young woman adorned in virgin white feather and lace.

For a moment Lamma’s eyes met Ami’s as she executed a perfect leap, her body in a smooth arch, her front leg kicking upward with astonishing dexterity. Like a swan landing from flight she touched down with little more impact than a feather. With a swift wink at Lamma, Ami prepared for her grand finale, complete with a marvelous set of thirteen fouettés she had mastered months before.

“My God, she is amazing,” the landlord smiled again.

“Wait, watch this final spin and tell me she isn’t destined for greatness. Without even breaking a sweat Ami executes moves other ballerinas only wish they could.” Lamma was boasting like a proud father.

“Are you sure?” the building owner asked, somewhat dampened in his enthusiasm. “She just winced like she is in pain or…uncomfortable?”

“I doubt that,” Lamma snapped. His faith in Ami’s abilities was unshakable. But that faith was tested a moment later when Ami’s ankle gave way during her sixth fouette and snapped like a twig under her meager weight. With the force of her spin her body propelled forward, sending her plummeting from the edge of the stage. Lamma watched as his principal dancer crashed into the glass bottles and plates on the table of the Nazi High Command with an ungodly din that had him certain she’d be executed for it.

The officers jumped up amongst laughter, panic, and sympathy. Collecting the unfortunate Ami’s unconscious body, some of the subordinates of the visiting SS called for medics to attend to the injured ballerina.

“Get some proper medical help in here!” Hitler shouted, sending soldiers hastening in all directions. The Nazi leader and two of his men gathered around the girl.

“Fallen swan,” one of them said as Lamma rushed to her side. He wasn’t sure if it had been said, in fact, by the demonic leader himself, but at that moment he couldn’t care less. All he cared about was Ami.

Her ankle joint had broken off completely inside her flesh, leaving her foot dangling on purple, swollen tissue. From her fall, her body had sustained severe lacerations and she’d bled her white raiment to crimson.

“The glass has ravaged her body, but her face seems to be unscathed, no?” Lamma said to nobody in particular, wondering if cruel men even heard the words of a good man. “Right?”

The tyrant with the toothbrush moustache stepped in front of Lamma, barring him from the wounded ballerina. Laying his hand on Lamma’s shoulder, he looked him straight in the eye and said, “She will stay beautiful. Of that I will make sure.”

Nina took a deep breath, drawing the soothing nicotine from her cigarette down her throat, where it burned delightfully into her chest. She held it there for a moment, before blowing out the weak tuft that remained. On her lips a naughty smile appeared, and her dark eyes stared into space as she partook in her vile rebellion against the spreading cancer that slept in her cells like the secret she had made of it. It wasn’t a secret borne out of some hopeful notion that she might defeat the illness without having to burden her friends with the awful truth, nor was it kept from them out of some noble self-pity. Nina merely didn’t care anymore.

She still resented Purdue, even though he’d been doing everything in his power to accommodate her need for space from him. She appreciated it to an extent, but she couldn’t help but feel that it was his fault that she’d fallen prey to the radiation of Chernobyl’s Reactor 4. Apart from this, she’d been gradually growing indignant with his constant excursions, especially his masterful manipulation of Sam and herself to assist in his dangerous pursuits. This just happened to be the last straw. She’d had countless fallings out with Purdue before over always putting her life in danger, but now it was literally causing her a slow death.

The search for the Amber Room had indirectly been to blame for her radiation sickness and subsequent cancer. And the search for the Amber Room was yet another of Purdue’s happy perils, in her opinion. As a result, he was at fault for it all.

Sam had no idea that she was sicker than the radiation poisoning, since her cancer exhibited similar signs. He thought she was on the mend, as did Purdue, and she intended to keep them in the dark. Subsequently, she’d become quite indifferent to her condition and elected to carry on as best she could in the same way she always had. After all, there was no need to wither. Her life had been a strong and adventurous journey, and she had attained most of her goals, casting aside those aims that had become redundant, such as being a tenured professor in Edinburgh.

That dream was meaningless now, because Nina had learned so much about the practical application of her knowledge. She realized early on that her knowledge would feel wasted in the dusty lecture halls of small institutions. The notion of wasted knowledge in musty classrooms faded as she extinguished the butt just short of a pile of papers. Nina sighed. Two towers of paper, folders, and cardboard drowned her small frame, flanking her workspace where she was marking term papers.

“Phase two,” she groaned as she discarded the dead fag in the tainted glass ashtray. “Let’s see if any of you can cogently explain implications of the First World War hell syndrome on the social structure of welfare systems.”

Nina was working under a weak bulb crowned by an old iron cover that was suspended from the ceiling. The beam of light fell almost exclusively on her and her desk, giving the effect of some divine light illuminating Nina’s head like a halo. Around her the dark swallowed up everything else, save for the floating dust particles lit up by the bulb.

“Almost done, I see,” a female voice chimed from somewhere ahead in the dark. “Good God Dr. Gould! You look like the subject of a military interrogation in here.”

“Gertrud!” Nina said quickly, but it was too late. The friendly assistant switched on the overhead lights, practically blinding Nina while the pain in her ocular cavities devastated her. “Jesus! What did I tell you about the lights?” Instantly Gertrud killed the lights, having forgotten the special circumstances of the visiting fellow.