Tomáš Zmeškal - A Love Letter in Cuneiform

“‘And what about Martha?’ I asked.

“‘Ehm-er,’ the man said, clearing his throat. He shifted his weight several times, cleared his throat again, unscrewed the cap on the bottle of mineral water in front of him, screwed it back on without pouring any into his glass, and said, ‘Naturally, all of us here feel a certain sympathy for you. We aren’t insensitive people, or monsters, in spite of our using the … how shall we put it … unorthodox procedures of the Office for the Protection of the Constitution, Freedom, and Democracy.’

“‘So, what about Martha?’ I asked again.

“‘Martha is a valuable collaborator of ours, having undergone not only a strenuous competition but an equally strenuous program of education and physical training.’ My throat went bone dry.

“‘What do you mean, collaborator?’ I asked.

“‘Well, she kept the hidden cameras in operation, wrote a detailed report every week, kept us advised on unforeseeable issues … and so on.’

“‘What sort of issues?’ I asked.

“‘Hmm … well, for example, your efforts to study botany. It took no small effort on our part to sway the results of the entrance exams so you wouldn’t be accepted. Several times. Once, even in spite of our efforts, you nearly got in. When it came to your thirst for education, we had to leverage every bit of influence we had. People began to ask questions. And although she wasn’t successful, Martha also tried to sway you on that … hmm … errh … to avoid any damage to the experiment.’

Martha was still staring about ten feet in front of the table where she sat.

“‘So why can’t I talk to her alone?’ I said.

“‘That would be against rule number six, Mr. Hegel,’ the director interjected. ‘Rule six prohibits it.’

“‘I don’t give a shit about your rules,’ I said.

“‘We really do sympathize, Mr. Hegel, but unfortunately we can’t comply with your request,’ said the director. ‘I know it’s frustrating, but please try to accept it.’

“‘Just to finish what I was saying,’ Réti went on. ‘Everything around you has been monitored since you were born. You were placed in a standard and specifically modified average environment. Your father and mother were also part of the project. However, your mother had to withdraw prematurely, as a result of her forming too strong an emotional bond with you.’

“‘So my mom isn’t dead?’ I said.

“‘No, of course not. She was a member of the experiment.’

“‘And I can’t see her either, huh?’

“‘No, I’m afraid that, again, this is strictly a rule six situation. I’m sorry. As for the rest … all of your books, videos, any electronic media you listened to, all that was monitored. Who you met with, your journals, your feelings, intimate relations with Martha, all of it. The things you were attached to as a child — toys, books, postcards, souvenirs, even the smallest items were recorded and evaluated by a team of experts on an ongoing basis.’

“‘You’re a bunch of maniacs,’ I screamed.

“‘Mr. Hegel, no one expects you to understand a project intended to elucidate the essence of evil. With all due respect, it isn’t as though you’re an expert.’ Réti paused, and suddenly the director announced:

“‘Let’s have a half-hour break.’

“Everyone, including Martha, got up and walked out of the room, leaving me alone with the doctor and the guards. I’d had enough.

“‘I want to go home,’ I said. The doctor answered, but I wasn’t listening anymore. I rose to my feet, feeling tired, unbelievably tired, tired all the way to my core, in the innermost part of my body. I was tired and wanted to go home. The doctor walked out and a few minutes later returned with some papers, which he shoved into my hand. I took them without looking. He offered to fly me home in the helicopter. I refused, so he said if I wanted, we could drive home in my jeep instead. I nodded. It was the longest trip home of my life. One of the soldiers drove, with another military vehicle behind us. In the car the doctor told me the cameras had been disconnected and removed from my house. I asked him why I should believe him. He said it was all there in the documents he had given me, which I was supposed to sign. I refused and he didn’t insist. After they drove me home and parked my jeep in front of the garage, I looked at the fender again, the one Martha had scraped when she was parking it after our trip out to the military base. I decided to ask the doctor whether Stephen, the owner of the garden center, was also one of them.

“‘I don’t think so,’ he said. ‘Definitely not. You can find everything there in those documents.’ The doctor and the driver got in the car that had followed us and drove away. I went inside. Hallway. Kitchen. Living room. Bedroom. Not a trace of Martha’s things anywhere. They had cleaned it all out. Completely. I took a beer from the fridge and set it on the table. Then I took out two bottles of mineral water and drank them one after the other. I put the beer back in the fridge. I didn’t want to be drunk. I walked around the house and the flower beds. The irrigation was working. I just made a slight adjustment, then went into the bedroom. I looked under the pillows. Her things weren’t there either. No nightgown. No handkerchief. They had been thorough. Didn’t miss a thing. I fell asleep and woke up around six in the morning. I thought the whole thing had been a nightmare and I could tell Martha about it. I was even looking forward to it, until then I realized she wasn’t lying next to me. She wasn’t outside or in the living room. She was gone. Terror: sheer, pure, snow-white. On the table in the living room I found the folder of documents I had dreamed about. They were there. I went into the storeroom, took out some things left behind by my parents, who actually weren’t my parents. I had to search through a few boxes before I found what I was looking for: my old textbooks. I pulled out the one on history and flipped to the section on World War II. I felt a tingling in my left index finger. I don’t know why. I went to wash up. Then I went into the room where I stored my seeds, fertilizers, and chemicals. I took some of the chemicals with me into the kitchen and made a cocktail out of them, adding in a little bourbon and vodka. It tasted awful. I made about a pint of the stuff and drank every drop. Then I lay down on the bed and lost consciousness. The last thing that went through my mind was that Socrates must have died something like this, or at least that’s what they wrote in one of those textbooks.

“And so I died, brother doctor, I died. I lost all consciousness. And all of a sudden I see a helicopter appear, landing right on one of my flower beds, like they didn’t care one bit that I had my peonies there. And they don’t. Kind of pisses me off, but what can I do, I’m dead, right, Doc? But you be quiet, don’t say a thing. And I see them carrying my body out of the house, totally dead, and putting my body in the helicopter. And then I see it in the morgue, open wide, like swinging doors thrown wide open. I see my heart and lungs and stomach, and they’re taking samples. Too bad I’m not made of glass, I think, then they wouldn’t have to whittle away at me with their scalpels. So they stick everything in all these devices, I have no idea what they’re for, and then I read: ‘Results: The genetic material of the stem cells extracted for testing from the body of Mr. Albert Hegel is not identical with the genetic material of Adolf Hitler; on the contrary, there are clear and convincing indications that he is a Slav of Russian origin,’ and so on and so forth … and at the end they write: ‘Our conclusion is as follows: Mr. Albert Hegel is in actuality a clone of Russian soldier Alexander Ivanovich Babel, entrusted with the collection of Hitler’s remains as part of the first unit to enter Berlin after the fall of Hitler’s regime. There was undoubtedly genetic contamination of the material, most likely a hair or flake of dandruff from Alexander Ivanovich. Therefore we declare the material, along with the entire experiment, to be totally useless. Mr. Hegel was a genetic duplicate of Mr. Alexander Ivanovich Babel.’ And so on, brother doctor, and so on. And the world cruelly goes on spinning without so much as a blush. And at the very end of the report, ‘P.S.: Experiment must be repeated. Evil must be defeated .’ Without so much as a blush, brother, without a single blush!”