Kathleen Spivack - Unspeakable Things

Felix began to throb. “Little Hänschen” reared up in pride. This went beyond all his dreams. “Thank you, my Führer,” he thought. Never had he been asked to perform such an act of mercy. “An honor, dearest Countess, an honor. May I address you by name?” He hardly dared such familiarity.

Anna’s body began to vibrate and glow, and from her cells also came the tone of A, a faint hum growing louder. Felix, encircling Anna’s shoulders, felt his body vibrate in answer. A, like the violin sections of an orchestra tuning up. He picked up the tone and echoed it. “Alive!” He could have stayed like that forever.

Faintly, Anna recalled something. “Wait. I must tell you this before we go too far,” she whispered, and she put her hand on Felix’s. “They know. My friend, I have come to tell you we must be quick. They know.”

“What?” Felix lifted his head sharply.

“Yes.” And quickly, in a whisper, Anna told him what she had heard from Herbert.

“Herbert? David?” In an instant, Felix understood. “Of course, that is why I have had no response from Helmut these many months. My letters have been intercepted.” Quickly, he tried to recall what it was he had written. Had he been elliptical enough? “Wait!”

He refilled the crystal decanter — why hoard this precious wine? — and came back with it. “Now, my dear lady, tell me again.”

The Rat did not know too much, but while she murmured again the little she had overheard, Felix was mentally packing. He had been ready for this always, of course. The sulfur odor from the Rat’s body, warmed by the steady passage of intoxicating wine, rose and filled the room. Felix’s nostrils quivered with delight. There would be time for everything, he knew. He put his glass aside, took hers from her hand, and set it down. Now! It was time to act immediately. They looked at each other. “Everyone needs a master,” Felix said, “even Rasputin. Even”—he straightened Anna’s skirt—“even you, my dear lady.” His chest swelled with pride. “Isn’t that so, my dear Schatzie, hmm?”

The dog, hearing her name, raised her head and her tail thumped twice before she fell back asleep.

“So it is Rasputin who has branded you so,” Felix murmured softly to the Rat. “Do you still love him? Is that it?”

In answer, Anna took the doctor’s large head in her two small hands. “That was the past,” she whispered. “Today I have come here to give myself to you. In the interests of science, of course,” she added. “And in the interests of love. Take me. One last time.”

“Is it true?”

“Yes. But we must be quick.” The stench of sulfur rose around them both. She gathered her wits about her, though the light was fading from her eyes.

Felix kept his hands on her thighs, and the embers of the enormous heat of Rasputin’s fingerprints glowed under his.

“You see,” said the Rat, “I have found out — don’t ask me my sources — that our war is almost over. Soon I shall be just another old lady, boring everyone with my stories, dependent on everyone, a bother. I want to be free to meet my Maker unspoiled, to forget all the troubles, just to be peaceful.” She paused, then continued. “Here I am, dependent on Herbert’s family, and for what? I see how hard Ilse works, I see the children growing up, and I ask myself, ‘Anna, why do you go on living?’ ”

The doctor stared intently into her face.

“And I answer myself,” she said. “ ‘There is no reason to go on.’ ”

“What is it you would like from me?” Felix was nervous. “You know I am at your service always.”

“I want”—the Rat leaned forward and took both his hands in hers—“I want to give Rasputin to you for your experiments. I want you to take him from my body.”

Felix held his breath.

“And I want you to take me, too. For I know one is impossible without the other.”

Felix started to protest.

Anna stopped him. “Do not say you can never accept. Do not say you can never find the way. For I have seen your work now. And I know you can.”

Felix’s mind was racing. It was true, he knew; he could and would accept. He could do it. His final proof. The final experiment he needed to prove the validity of all his experiments.

“You see,” said Anna, as if reading his thoughts. “I came here today to give myself, my entire self, to you.” She looked into his eyes significantly. “My entire self,” she repeated.

Felix whimpered.

“Do not be afraid, my friend,” she said. “Do you not see that this is what we both want?”

Felix nodded, pressing his lips once again to her lap. Anna took his head in her hands and raised it so that Felix’s gaze met hers. “It shall be so. But, my dear Doktor,” she said slowly, clearly, “I ask only one thing in return.”

“Anything,” Felix replied.

“In return,” said Anna clearly, “I ask only for the Tolstoi Quartet musicians’ fingers.”

“The fingers?” They looked at each other, astonished.

“Yes,” Anna repeated. “The fingers of the Tolstoi Quartet.”

Felix did not hesitate. For these were troublemakers, and the fact of being offered a whole living person — no, two persons, already regenerated, in exchange for mere body parts — well, there was simply no choice.

“Done, my dear lady.” He raised his wineglass. “You see how Felix answers you. Just name your price. You shall have it. I shall do just as you wish.”

Anna fixed her eyes on his and, while he watched, began to undo the brooch at her throat. “Come to me, my Liebchen, ” she whispered. “Come to me now. While there is still time.”

In one quick gesture, Felix flung himself onto the floor beside the couch and Anna’s feet. In a kneeling position, he clasped her body and pressed his large oily head into her lap. He reached up and caressed her, the whole length of her little bent body.

Rasputin gathered the forces of his old rage, and Anna’s body grew hot where once he had touched her. The odor rose in the room. Anna quivered.

Felix kissed Anna’s body through her skirt and petticoat. And as he did so, intoxication overcame him. “My darling,” he murmured. “My darling little Countess. My Anna.” Familiarity permitted.

With a voluptuous sigh, forced out of her unwillingly, the Rat gave in to pleasure. She had not been called “my darling” for such a long time. She closed her eyes, and her left whisker thrummed. Felix stroked her body gently. In a swoon of pleasure, they vibrated together.

Gently, Felix slid his hands over Anna’s hump again. He trembled, and his entire body, not only the sexual location of feelings, became aware of itself and the sensation of love. He stroked her. The handprints, stimulated, also began to caress the Rat, sliding themselves into her secret places. “Oh,” the Rat moaned, for they burned her. They probed, fingers of fire.

“Does it hurt? Tell me where it hurts.”

The handprints, which could not bear to be touched, which had never, not since those fateful evenings, felt the presence of a man near them, began to sizzle and hiss in warning.

In a resolute gesture, Felix raised Anna’s skirt and petticoat and forced himself to look. “Rasputin.” Anna opened her body to Felix’s hands.

Each place the Monk’s hands had touched the Rat, her body flared red, like a hot coal, then ash white, and then, around the edges, a blackened mark appeared. There was the smell of cinders. The long, bony fingers still clasped her thighs, twisting like ivy or mistletoe. They had grown into her, yet one could see their own imprints dancing crazily as they wound. At Felix’s approach, they burned themselves in deeper, holding on for dear life.

Felix made himself look with clinical interest. “I must write Helmut of this,” he thought. Then, in an instinctive healing gesture, he leaned forward and put his lips on the hand marks. There was a sizzle of heat as the wet surface of his lips was seared by the molten passion of the prints. But where he kissed, the dance of fire subsided. He kissed her everywhere. And when he was done, the handprints lay still on her body, subdued, and the flesh began to resume its color again. But Anna herself was unconscious.