Mack Reynolds - Once Departed

He spotted Albrecht Stroehlein standing alone. Somehow, the ex-Gestapo man found it difficult to draw companionship—not to speak of friendship.

Quint came up to him, and the other turned as though happy to have someone to talk to. He held a large glass of punch in his hand.

Quint said, in the way of greeting, “How was Berlin?”

The other’s eyes popped. “What! Vot did you say, eh?”

Quint sipped his drink and said easly, “Berlin. Don’t get so excited. Your accent gets worse. Mike Woolman was telling me the other day. You weren’t so prosperous before you went up there. Obviously, you were given some sort of job.”

The German blinked at him, moistly apprehensive.

Quint yawned as though it wasn’t important. “We figured that either Digby or Brett-Home had hired you to finger Bormann or Doktor Stahlecker for them. You knew them both, back in the old days, didn’t you, Herr Stroehlein?”

“ Ja . I knew them. From way back I knew them.” The German’s eyes shifted about the room, evidently not knowing whether to attempt to elude this prying American or not.

The columnist nodded, as though they were in mutual agreement. “We figured that was why the Dempsey party was set up. Brett-Home and Digby thought that with Nicolas Ferencsik attending, Doktor Stahlecker would show up. You’d be present and recognize him.”

The German had begun to frown. Quint quickly reviewed his words. Had something come out wrong? He was making a pretense to the other to be knowledgeable about the whole thing. He didn’t want to scare the weepy ex-Nazi off.

Stroehlein said cautiously, “Suppose you are right, eh? What are you coming to, eh?”

Quint shifted his shoulders. “I just wondered if you could have been fooled. Perhaps Doktor Stahlecker was there the other night. And possibly here tonight.”

The plump German at least had the gumption to be irritated at the suggestion that he was incompetent to play his role. He said, “Neinl If Doktor Stahlecker had been there at the other party, I would have recognized her. If she were here tonight, I would recognize her!”

The creature that had once been a man, squatted, huddled, in its hiding place. It was cramped, but not overly conscious of being uncomfortable. He — or it — had already lost the capacity for discomfort in such situation as this .

It waited. Knowing faintly, distantly, that before long it would be called up. The master would unleash its strength. At the dim thought it mewled pleasure deep in its throat. Tonight it would feel the good feeling again. It had been several days since it had felt the good feeling. It liked the good feeling. To feel its clawed hands sink deep …

It squatted in its hiding place and waited, and through its mind, so far away as to be all but gone, traced memories of yesteryear which it could not quite understand.

The packed hordes of brownshirted men in the Konigsplatz, shouting, shouting. And over and over again, that same word, that same cheer. Vaguely he tried to place it, and could not.

The birds flying over, endless and endless and endless flights. And something there was about them to fear, though that was hard to know now, and the creature shook its head. It no longer knew fear. Perhaps they were not birds that flew overhead.

The ruins of the cities. And through them, the men in dark strange uniforms. Not the field gray of the Wehrmacht— what was the Wehrmacht? it couldn’t quite remember — but a darker color. And the helmets too were strange. The men ran, bent almost double, short weapons, with large circular clips, in their hands, as they ran, ran through the ruins. He hated them, but his dim mind did not know why he hated them .

The living in the deep cement bunker. And the noise. The always booming noise that went on above. And day in and day out. The noise. He could remember then knowing fear. Though he couldn’t remember now how fear was.

He stirred. Soon the master would come and tell him what he must do.

He mewled deep in his throat again.

It was pleasant to do things for the master.

Quint was staring at the other man. “You’ve got your genders mixed,” he told him. “He, not she.” Albrecht Stroehlein mustered sufficient courage to sneer in superiority. “Ah, my American friend, you are not so knowledgeable as you would pretend, eh? You do not even know that Doktor Grete Stahlecker is a woman, eh?” He tapped himself, on the upper part of his belly.

“I have known Grete Stahlecker since 1921, eh? It was I who introduced her to the Führer. I, Albrecht Stroehlein. No one else, nicht? Even then she was noted in her field. Even then, a great scientist. If she had been a younger woman, Hitler himself might have taken her to bed, eh? Instead of finally that wishy-washy, as the British say, Eva Braun. I tell you, if Grete Stahlecker was here tonight, I would know Grete Stahlecker.” He snapped pudgy fingers. “Like that.”

Quint Jones felt dazed. He didn’t know why. It had just never occurred to him that the misty doctor was a woman. There was no particular reason. He muttered some excuse to the German, and went seeking Mike Woolman.

Mike was standing, glass in hand, listening to Ferd Dempsey and some American air force officer who were arguing bullfighting. Neither of them knew what they were talking about. Quint, come to think of it, had never met an American who knew anything about bullfighting with the possible exception of Johnny Short, who was a novittero .

The American columnist took Mike aside. “Listen,” he said. “This Doktor Stahlecker is a woman.”

Mike looked at him as though he had slipped his clutch. “So what?”

Quint stared at him. “I thought she was a man. I mean, that he was.”

Mike patted him on the arm. “Look, friend. Why don’t you go easy on the sauce? Of course, Doctor Grete Stahlecker was, or is, as the case may be, a woman. She was Adolf’s personal surgeon. She saved his life.”

“Okay,” Quint said. “Forget it. Nobody bothered to tell me.”

Mike shrugged hugely and went off for another drink, saying over his shoulder, “This whole idea flopped. The party’s beginning to break up. How long should we stick around?” But he was gone before the columnist could answer.

Quint looked down into his own glass, knocked the drink back and decided to get another. The idea had flopped was right. He had half a mind to hang one on.

Marty Dempsey wavered up to him, her glass so full that she was spilling the drink on Marylyn’s carpet. Quint winced. The Dempsey’s didn’t give a damn about spilling drinks on carpets. Either their own, or anyone else’s. The difference was they could afford to buy new ones. He doubted if Marylyn could.

Quint said disgustedly, “Pet, you aren’t Grete Stahlecker, are you?”

Marty closed one eye carefully. “Dahling, I’ve never seen you so stoned. Never. Look real close. I’m… don’t tell me. I’m Martha. Martha McCarthy. That’s who.”

“Don’t look now,” Quint said. “But you’re Martha Dempsey. Remember? You married Ferdinand about twenty or thirty years ago.”

“Oh, yeah,” Marty said vaguely. She took him in suspiciously. “You’re not as stoned as you act.” She concentrated for a moment then said, “I gotta go to the little girl’s,” and wandered off.

Quint looked after her, wondering why he associated with these people. What in the hell could the likes of Ferd and Marty Dempsey possibly do for him?

Some of the guests were leaving. It never had developed into much of a party, in spite of Marylyn’s shining-bright efforts. She just wasn’t cut out to be hostess for this type of a gang. Besides, they had all evidently come expecting some sort of excitement. That had been the rumor Mike and Quint had spread around. On the face of it, the excitement hadn’t developed. The party was melting.