Kathleen Spivack - Unspeakable Things

To regenerate Rasputin. And after that, who knew? Felix’s mind swam at the possibilities. “Let me be worthy,” he prayed aloud. “Let me be worthy.”

But how to convince Anna to allow him to try? It would mean taking a bit, just a bit, from her thigh. Felix thought rapidly. Yes, if his laws of cellular multiplication were to be proved correct, one bit would be all he would need. Provided that Rasputin had indeed placed his imprint there. One cell, that is all it takes, one human cell. Felix thought with excitement of the specimens he had already collected. He had watched the Schatzie tail specimen now for nearly three months, and the particle showed every sign of wanting to regenerate itself. A supertail of a superdog. And the fingers of the Quartet. Felix planned to regenerate from them an entire quartet, better than the Tolstoi, less interested in modern cacophony, more interested, as in the past, in the classical compositions of his beloved composers. And his own sexual parts — was he not in the process of creating from that part of himself a supersex, a man of beauty and passion and supreme sexual confidence? In time, mankind would be able to create the exact shape and form of the most desired human attributes. Meanwhile, Felix had before him the possibility of working on this most cherished project, of re-creating the dead genius of the past from scraps that had been left on the flesh of others. For it was only through the dead genius that hope lay.

Felix thought of the troubles in the world, those that had led to mass exodus, displacement. Even he, Felix, servant of the Führer, had been forced to relocate himself. A victim of mankind’s folly. Now there was a chance to call upon the past with the aid of Rasputin. Maybe he wouldn’t have been Felix’s first choice. But the man had, after all, been the adviser to Tsars. And his hands lay almost beneath those of Felix.

The doctor realized that he had been working all his life just for this moment of revelation. “Schatzie,” whispered Felix, stroking the dog, who lay beside him on the couch. “We will see great things, you and I. It is not too late, hmm?” He shook the scruff of Schatzie’s neck affectionately back and forth, and Schatzie looked up at her master adoringly. “Great things lie ahead, my little one.” Schatzie thumped her tail sympathetically.

It was dusk. Time for milk, time for bedtimes and clean hair and the minty toothpaste kisses of tired children. Time for Ilse to stretch out and rest her sore legs on the sofa. Time for David to bend once more to the microfilm, trying to forget the scratching pain of his eyes. Time for Herbert to walk tiredly home. No, time for Herbert to visit his wife. Tonight belonged to rest. Perhaps he would prefer a simple supper — tea and toast — with his old friend Anna. But he would not let himself think about that.

For once, Anna was not sharing anyone else’s sadness. Even her own had been forgotten. It was dusk. It was Sunday. And she had been invited to dinner.

She crawled naked under the blanket and patted lotion all over her body. Her hands caressed the handprints of Rasputin.

In her best dress, her brooch at her neck and her little coat of mouse fur drawn tightly about her, she stood on Felix’s doorstep as the doorbell sounded somewhere far away in the reaches of his rooms.

“My dearest lady.” Felix beamed as he opened the door, an apron about his waist, and Schatzie, a welcoming little sausage, at his feet. He ushered the Rat inside.

Anna’s beautiful eyes gleamed. As Felix took the coat from the Rat’s shoulders, his eyes strayed furtively to her curved spine. He longed to see it, to touch it. “Come in.”

The table was already set, and flowers stood in a large vase next to Felix’s examining table. “Tonight we do not eat in the kitchen,” Felix said. “Tonight Schatzie and I welcome you, my good lady, with our very best.”

Anna looked around appreciatively. Felix quickly darted into the kitchen. “Quiet, be quiet!” he hissed as he opened the refrigerator. The Tolstoi Quartet was making a silent racket — nothing Felix could hear, but the agitation was visible. The fingers continued to play their one-note parts. “Quiet, children!” hissed Felix once again. “Do you want me to silence you, hmm?”

At this threat, the fingers stopped their restlessness, waiting until Felix closed the icebox before resuming their mad music.

“Yes,” hissed Felix. “If you are not good tonight, Uncle Felix will have to make sure you behave.” He thought of the vial of chloroform, wondering vaguely how much would silence, but not deaden, a specimen. It could be an interesting experiment. Perhaps he would write Helmut about it. An inquiry. Helmut would be interested.

Felix prepared the little plate of sliced rutabaga, poured the vinegar over it, and carried it into the next room. The wine stood ready on his desk, precious wine smuggled out of Europe. Courtesy of Helmut. An exchange of favors.

From the cut-glass decanter the doctor carefully poured the elixir into glasses. The two raised their glasses to their lips. As the wine entered Anna’s mouth, her eyes filled with tears. She swallowed; an inexpressible sweetness rose through her little body. She looked at Felix, a misty nearsighted gaze. “What is this?” her eyes seemed to ask.

“A present, my dearest lady. I have saved it just for this evening with you.” “Ah, thank you, my dear Helmut,” he thought. For was this not indeed the elixir of life? Felix spoke his thoughts aloud. “It is the elixir of life, is it not?”

Anna nodded. At the first sweet swallow, her body, arced, sang like a bow for its arrow.

Felix’s narrow chest swelled, too. “Ah, my dear lady.” He sighed. “We must try to be happy.”

“In spite of everything,” the Rat murmured, looking at her host significantly.

“Yes, exactly. In spite of everything. We must try to create happiness.”

“I had thought…,” Anna began tentatively in her melodious voice.

“That happiness was forever lost to the world?” asked Felix, finishing her sentence.

“Yes…” The two old people lifted their glasses again to their lips. The evening began. The candles, which Felix had set upon what had been, in daytime life, his examining table, shimmered, casting their shadow on the sheet that covered it. In the mouths of the dinner companions, the wine transformed itself.

“Please, dear lady.” Felix offered the first course. Anna politely took a piece of bread, a slice of turnip. Felix liked root vegetables. Anna did not. She waited for him to begin.

“It is we who are the guardians of happiness, is that not so?” Felix broke a piece of his bread.

“This wine…,” Anna murmured. “I had forgotten.”

“The blood of Tsars,” Felix explained as he refilled her glass.

“Ah, yes,” murmured the Rat. Nothing would surprise her tonight.

Felix returned to the kitchen for the next course. “My children,” he whispered quickly. Hastily, he poured a few drops of wine from his glass into Schatzie’s dish. The dog lapped and lay down quietly, sighing with pleasure. “Be still tonight, I beg of you,” Felix murmured into his laboratory shelves. He opened the refrigerator, where his most recent acquisitions, the fingers, were still playing like mad. “My children, the night is mine,” he crooned. He opened the top of their large jar with delicately probing fingers. “Share my happiness!” he whispered. Felix poured another few precious drops into the Tolstoi fingers’ brine. The fingers thrummed softly, then curled and relaxed.

“I shall be with you in just a moment, my dearest lady,” Felix sang out from the kitchen. Felix slid two lamb chops, his precious ration, into the pan. He turned the meat and took out the potatoes he had boiled that afternoon. “I’m coming.”