Rod Rees - The Demi-Monde - Winter

‘I must congratulate you, Herr Obergruppenfuhrer,’ said the Professor in a ridiculously conversational tone, ‘on your recent promotion to Reichsprotektor.’

The Dupe nodded his appreciation of the compliment.

‘Perhaps,’ the Professor continued, ‘you would be so kind as to describe your career for my young friend here? She is quite an admirer of yours.’

The dead eyes of the German settled upon Ella and a contemptuous smile flickered over his full, fleshy lips. ‘I am wondering why I should be obliged to discuss my career with one such as her.’

‘One such as me?’ asked Ella, unable to keep the tremor out of her voice.

‘A black… a negro… a member of a more primitive race.’

Ella was jolted back in her seat by the scorn in the Dupe’s voice. Struggling to remember that Heydrich was just digital make-believe, she did her best to hide how upset she was by what the bastard had just said. Taking a deep, calming breath she continued the conversation in as equable a manner as she was able.

‘I am student president at my high school. I have achieved a SAT score which places me in the top one per cent of all students in the USA. I am intent on reading genetics at university. I am a skilled musician. Surely that gives the lie to your proposition that I am a member of an inferior race?’

Heydrich slid a silver cigarette case from his jacket pocket and with infuriating slowness went through the pantomime of selecting and lighting a cigarette. He drew heavily on the cigarette then breathed out, snaking a stream of perfectly imitated virtual smoke into the room. A miasma of malevolent vapour, ashen and feathered, settled around his head like a diabolical halo. ‘That you are capable of rote learning merely confirms the inferiority of your race. You are the exception that proves the rule. And anyway, I have seen chimpanzees performing in the circus. Even apes can, through diligent training, be made to perform tricks surprisingly well.’ He sneered. ‘Perhaps that is what you are: a trained ape.’

If this guy had been for real Ella would have given him a real mouthful. But he wasn’t for real: he was just a Dupe imitating the attitudes of a racist who had died almost eighty years ago.

Stay cool, Ella. Try to get yourself into this jerk’s mindset. Play the psychologist.

‘I understand you are an officer, Herr Heydrich. Then surely your duty as an officer is to help those of lesser ability? If you scorn me as an African-American, perhaps you can assist me as a woman… as one of the weaker sex?’

The feminist in Ella almost gagged when she uttered this last phrase.

She felt those terrible eyes studying her, Heydrich slowly sliding his gaze over her body. She had the distinct impression that the Nazi liked what he saw… more than liked what he saw. In fact the way he was looking at Ella persuaded her to pull the hem of her short skirt further down her long legs. Heydrich’s crystal-cold eyes watched her as she did so, a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. She shivered again; there was something infinitely unsettling about the man… about the Dupe, she quickly reminded herself.

‘Very well. As you are not a pure black, there being something of the Mischling – a person of mixed race – in your appearance, I am prepared to speak with you. May I be permitted to know the name of my interrogator?’

Ella looked to Professor Bole, who merely shrugged his assent.

‘My name is Ella Thomas.’

‘And you are intent on becoming a geneticist?’

‘That’s correct.’

‘Ah, most apt, the study of genetics is much favoured by the Untermenschen, by the lesser races, by the Jews.’ He paused to enjoy his cigarette, all the time watching Ella as a cat might watch a mouse.

Eventually he deigned to continue. ‘Yes, the explanation must be that you wish to study genetics in order to appreciate why your race is so inferior to mine. I am told that self-knowledge can lead to improvement.’ He sniggered dismissively: he obviously found the idea of blacks being capable of improving themselves risible. ‘Regarding my career, I have recently been elevated to the position of Reichsprotektor of Bohemia and Moravia. This I take as a signal from the Fuhrer that he holds me and my talents in high regard.’

‘So you are well thought of by Adolf Hitler?’

‘Whilst I am loath to discuss the thought processes of the Fuhrer with one such as you, Miss Thomas, I will say that this is an asinine question. I have served both the Fuhrer and my immediate superior, Reichsfuhrer Himmler, to the very limits of my abilities and would say with no little pride that these efforts have contributed mightily to the success the Vaterland has enjoyed in its struggle to bring order to the lesser nations of the world.’

‘And which of these successes has given you the most satisfaction, Herr Obergruppenfuhrer?’ asked Ella, slightly perplexed to be having such a free-wheeling question-and-answer session with what was, after all, just a computer-driven Dupe.

Another sneer from Heydrich and another arrogant puff on his cigarette. ‘There have been so many. In the early days of my career I would cite the snuffing out of the protests planned by enemies of the Nazi Party at the time of the Berlin Olympics of 1936 as a signal achievement. Later I took a great deal of satisfaction in organising the forging of the documentation which persuaded that animal Josef Stalin to liquidate so many of his most able officers on the eve of war.’

‘Heydrich speaks fluent Russian,’ Professor Bole added as an aside to Ella.

‘You will not speak until you are spoken to!’ snarled Heydrich and smashed his fist hard against the wooden lectern. The sound of the blow caused Ella to flinch back in alarm.

Jesus! How the hell did they program that?

‘And I am to be addressed by my titles and rank, not simply as “Heydrich”. Do you understand?’ His gaze flickered around the room, touching on each of the three members of his audience in turn. ‘Do you all understand?’ The hatred and the contempt were redolent in every word the German uttered.

In the midst of the stunned silence an almost beatific calm drifted across Heydrich’s face. ‘Now, what were we discussing, young lady? Ah, yes, my achievements. Another major success was my bringing of the Czech workers back to full production and the gaining of their support for the war against the Bolsheviks.’ A self-satisfied grin tugged at the corners of his mouth. ‘But I suppose my lasting memorial will be the freeing of Europe from the pernicious contamination of the Jews.’

‘It was you who organised the extermination of the Jews?’ asked Ella incredulously, stunned by how casually Heydrich could talk about his involvement with the Holocaust.

‘No, I am organising their transportation to the east, where they will contribute to the success of the German Reich by building roads and laying railway tracks. The work will be… exacting and certainly many will die, but it is not my intention to “exterminate” them as you so crudely put it. It would be too expensive of bullets to shoot, what, ten million people. In my opinion, bullets would serve a greater use if they were employed to kill Russians and other enemies of the Reich rather than being squandered in the dispatching of Jewish offal.’

‘You should realise, Miss Thomas,’ explained the Professor, ‘that the Heydrich you are speaking with is the Heydrich of February 1942. He has no perception of what will be the future course of the war. At that moment everything in the Nazi garden was coming up roses: they had rolled back the Soviet armies and seemed to be on the brink of conquering Russia as easily as they had conquered mainland Europe. The “Final Solution” to the Jewish problem as Heydrich perceives it is the shipping of every single Jew east and working them to death creating a German Garden of Eden in the lands of Belarus and the Ukraine. The mass execution of Jews in gas chambers hadn’t yet been adopted as Nazi policy, though Heydrich had already set up gas chambers in Poland and Czechoslovakia. He had already initiated the Holocaust.’