by Don Wilcox
We truly effeminate women who dwell in cultural clouds have driven out those cold, mannish women, such as Olga K. and Madam L., who would like to make men think our sex is cruel and unsentimental.
We have brought the world back to flowers and music and the appreciation of the classics.
As I sit here at this bright mahogany desk, basking in the glow of a desk light of pure gold, I can hear the slow, measured tramp, tramp, tramp, of one of my most unfortunate subjects, a creature who was once a proud Boche, but was made a wretch through the tortures of prison life.
This is our poor, aged Himmler-7-H. He has volunteered to keep guard over the prisoners living quarters.
As I listen to the slow, steady tread of his feet, I am reminded that he has a soul.
An old and withered soul, no doubt, scarred and toughened by the ravages of time. But nevertheless a soul that we women of this new era of culture believe is well worth saving.
I have made Himmler-7-H my confidential friend.
And—if I may breathe a personal secret into the lines of this confidential journal—he likes me.
Himmler-7-H is my own favorite of all these poor, misshapen, Godforsaken creatures for whom I have become the fairy godmother. I have talked with him. I think he understands what I mean to do for him and his poor, hunched, weatherbeaten, starved and naked brothers.
I am bringing them back to their rightful dignity as proud and noble human beings.
I love them. There, I have said it. I must love them, for I have such an overabundance of good will toward all of Nature’s unfortunate children that I cannot slight anyone, not even these poor creatures.
They were meant to be men. I am convinced of that from my study of the old pictures. Which reminds me of a little story about myself that I must tell.
About seven years ago my darling friend Minya V. spoke up in a meeting and said, “If we elect Katherine Z. as president of the Liberators of the Downtrodden, we shall soon see the most unfortunate people in the country rescued from their plight.”
The crowd applauded, and I took a drink of pink tea, not saying whether I would be willing to accept the presidency.
Then someone asked, “Just who are the most unfortunate people in the country?”
Just to be nasty, the retiring president said, “The Boche prisoners at the Ivanoff Laboratories. I’d like to see anyone liberate them.”
And then my friend Minya V. spoke up, “If anyone in the world can do it, Katherine can. Her sympathies are boundless.”
Some of them laughed. They didn’t think this could be a serious challenge, since these poor creatures have been called animals, not men.
But those who laughed have lived to see a lot of changes. In all modesty I state that I have surprised a lot of people in the past seven years by becoming director of what was once a laboratory prison—horrid word!—and by launching a program of kindness toward these poor creatures. Kindness and affection.
Now at last I have virtually achieved the impossible.
Tomorrow is the great day, a milestone among the turning centuries.
Tomorrow it will happen, and my success will be complete.
Tomorrow night when I enter this office, turn on this golden light, sit down to this mahogany desk, my heart will be filled to overflowing with the blessings of this victory.
Tomorrow night I shall record—
But first I must set down a few further notes about Minya and my staff and our restoration of the essence of Greek civilization. And I must explain what has been done during these past seven years for poor Himmler-7-H, and Hitler-2 2-E, and the twenty-three others who have survived the cruel years.
If you are going to rebuild the world’s most downtrodden creatures isn’t it logical that you must fill them with the best things that life has to offer? Elevating things, such as poetry.
At the outset I sent questionnaires to several of my societies, asking, in substance, “What are the finest things in all this life?”
The answers came back. I called Minya in and read them to her.
“Our classical music . . . Our classical art . . . Our beautiful ancient architecture, especially that of the Greeks . . . Poems in the classic tradition . . . Mythology . . . The ancient Greek ideals of beauty and goodness . . .”
Minya was at once enthusiastic.
“Of course those are the finest things. I should know. Didn’t I contribute twenty thousand international dollars to help build the replicas of Greek temples?”
“I am going to feed these good things to the unfortunate Bodies,” I said. “I’m going to remove them from their cells and give them a place in the Grecian Gardens. There, day after day, I am going to enrichen their lives with these things of culture.”
Minya looked at me with a half frightened stare. “Isn’t that casting pearls before swine?”
“Don’t talk that way,” I said. “Why are we the noble creatures we are? Because we have filled our lives with beauty.”
“But the Boches—after all the years they’ve gone the other way—”
“Have faith,” I said. “I have already laid plans to bring them the ideal environment. I’ll arrange for them to have one of the most beautiful Greek temples.”
“My twenty thousand international dollars!” Minya gasped.
“You’ll go down in history for this good deed. You’ll have helped to lift them out of a prison into a laboratory of beauty. There they will have the best of food, as much social life together as they wish for, the best of care—”
“Oh, that’s ideal!” Again she was enthusiastic.
“And all day long the guards, dressed like Grecian gods, will see to their comforts, and smile at them and talk to them. And someday when I’m sure they’re learning to appreciate these blessings, I myself will dress as a Grecian goddess and walk among them.”
“Oh, Katherine, do be careful,” Minya warned.
“But first they must be lifted to our cultural plane. I will install radio speakers throughout the grounds, so that all day long they may listen to the most beautiful poetry—”
“Well, not too much poetry, Katherine, you know—”
“And philosophies and symphonies—”
“Don’t misunderstand me, Katherine. I appreciate good poetry—”
“And lectures on classical art and architecture.”
“I mean, too much poetry is too much poetry. And lectures, they can be overdone—”
“We’ll give them the best, Minya, and have the pleasure of watching them blossom out into the handsome, highly civilized, highly cultural men that Nature must have intended them to be.” That was my boast, and I have gone through with it in these past seven years to make it good.
The results have been most wonderful to see. Not perfect, oh, no. These creatures have been supercharged with terrors for so long that they have hardly begun to outgrow their timidity when I call to them through the microphone.
It is true that they are so very shy they always run and hide when I walk along the outside of the high steel fence. And I have never yet quite dared to walk into the pen among them. But this must be done.
It must be done to convince them they have nothing to fear from me.
I wish that I could have talked with each one before tomorrow. If each could have listened to the beauty of my voice, and looked unafraid upon the beauty of my face and Grecian-goddess costume—in which I have been told that the loveliness of my form is most innocently but strikingly displayed—then I would feel perfectly confident in this event that is about to take place.
For tomorrow, at high noon, I shall enter the gates of their garden, unescorted and unarmed. I shall walk down the temple steps, speaking to them fearlessly, as one human being to another.
They know that this is going to happen. Through the loud speakers I have talked with them hour after hour, gently, sweetly, sympathetically. I have counselled with them not to be afraid of me. With me to lead them, they will never again have cause to fear.
How do I know that they are ready for this momentous occasion? Because I have talked with two of them—my friend Himmler-7-H, and his very good friend Hitler-22-E.
These two have given me such wonderful cooperation that my entire program of uplift has progressed much faster than I could have hoped.
They are my messengers from the twenty-three silent ones. Through their willingness to talk in quiet, confident whispers with each of the twenty-three, day after day, they have brought back every reassurance that all of these unfortunate creatures are beginning to trust me. Perhaps even to love me, just a little.
For only today, as I stood near the fence, Himmler hopped over to me on his crooked legs. His tortured yellow face looked up at me, and his wry wrinkled mouth spoke these words:
“We are ready for you.”
AN ADDITIONAL NOTE CONCERNING THE ABOVE ENTRY IN THE SERIES OF ANNUAL REPORTS:
Ivanoff Laboratories, June 10, 3100.—The tragic death of Katherine Z., beloved idealist and famous social worker, occurred at sixteen minutes past twelve, noon, June 2nd.
A crowd of several thousand persons watched her walk through the gate and into the open temple, to descend, with the confident step and striking poise and dignity that have always been characteristically hers.
At first it appeared that the shrunken, yellow creatures were filled with shame that one so innocent and beautiful should walk into their evil presence. Their arms flew back in terror, their fingers distended, their faces were wrenched with the pain of the Devil’s own workings. In agony of warped and twisted brains and bones and muscles they crawled away. They hopped and bounded and ran out of sight, as only guilty creatures could do.
Katherine Z. followed, calling to them gently. Heedless of the protests of many persons outside the fence, she followed them around to the farther side of the temple. Then the people could no longer see her.
But they heard her scream . . . and they knew!
A fire truck, waiting at a little distance, sirened through the crowd, plunged through the fence, and raced around the side of the temple. We thousands of spectators started in through the break.
But even as the truck roared around the white stone portico, we of the crowd fell back with one awful gasp of horror. Two of the Nazi beasts came running up between the pillars—Himmler-7-H and Hitler-22-E. One of them held the bloody, nail-clawed mass of Katherine’s head in his hands. The other had an arm.
Others of the demon mob followed. The scene was too awful to be described. Suffice it to say that their deepest instincts, kept dormant for more than eleven centuries, had suddenly galvanized into action . . . Whether automatically or by their leaders’ plan, no one may ever know. It had been so long—so long since they had had a chance to kill an innocent person.
Some observers declared that one creature, Hitler-30-E, seized the helmet Katherine had worn, and succeeded in chasing down and killing Hitler-22-E, before he himself fell victim to the gases.
The gas attack from the first police car that followed the fire siren was highly effective. Within a matter of ten minutes after the four police cars closed in on the scene, every last one of the Devil’s own pigs went down.
The Ivanoff Laboratories did not hesitate to sign the prisoners over to the state.
As a matter of formal legal procedure, a brief court action ensued. The sentence imposed back in the year 1945 upon all twenty-five of the beasts—together with fifty-five others who had fallen by the wayside—was invoked.
Executions took place within the hour.
Many and sundry were the excited comments and suggestions that have come in from all parts of the world. Even after more than eleven centuries of imprisonment, that these deathless old criminals should finally be erased with painless death gas has seemed much too humane to many historians and civic leaders the world over.
In the provinces around Ivanoff there is now a growing political revolt, entirely peaceful but nevertheless momentous, against the women’s remaining in power. The next elections are certain to see the men’s party back at the helm. Some of the cultural reconstructions may suffer from this revolt. Even such dyed-in-the-classics socialites as Minya V., who helped to buy the temple for the Boche inmates, was quoted as saying the women have carried culture programs too far.
The doctors will take their time about examining the bodies of these long-lived creatures. But when they are through, the final disposition of the bodies is a settled matter.
The numberless freak offers are being ignored, of course: as for example the one which came in today from a fertilizer company offering a fair price per pound for the job lot. Our committee answered in kind, stating that these bodies must never be used for fertilizer for fear of polluting the soil.
The bodies are to be burned, the ashes are to be locked in a steel chest and dropped down into the deepest crevice in the deepest sea.—Temporary Director, Ivanoff Laboratories, June 10, 3100.
[*] The accompanying excerpts have been selected from a series of journals extending over a period of more than eleven centuries, preserved by the Ivanoff Laboratory of Human Experimentation. These papers present to the public, for the first time, the story of eighty high German officials who escaped execution, following the Second World War of the 20th Century, and became prisoners, viz., laboratory subjects, of the Department of Longevity in the Laboratories of Ivanoff, Soviet Russia.
TAGGART’S TERRIBLE TURBAN
First published in Fantastic Adventures, January 1945
What mystery and terror could there be in a mere turban that could send its wearers into strange antics?
CHAPTER I
When Joe and I left the ranch and came to the big city with our guitars, I knew we were in for excitement—but I never reckoned it would hit so quick.
Here it came this first night in the concert hall, we sitting in the third row alongside our playboy pal, Walter Montzingo.
Constanza was singing again, thrilling some terrible high notes, the kind only a highbrow concert will stand for. The old dame could yodel, all right, you had to give her credit.
But was she mad! Everyone in the house knew it. She was sore about that flashy turban on her head.
“I’ve got a five,” Joe whispered to me, “that says she won’t wear it to the end of the show.”
This was her third song. For the first one she’d worn it; the second, she hadn’t; and now she’d come back with it on again. But it didn’t agree with her; you could tell that by the way she made faces.
There was something mighty lively about that turban when you stopped to look at it—a sort of sparkly, wavy effect like a Christmas tree at a New Year’s party.
“It’s slippin’ round on her head,” Joe whispered.
Someone in front of us pointed at it, and all at once Constanza flew off the handle.
She was singing “O-le-la! O-le-la! O-le-la!” and the flute was going “Woo-wee-wa” keeping right along with her, when suddenly she yelled out.
“Yeeeeeek!”
She snatched the turban off her head and threw it. A gasp went over the house that might have bent the walls in. That turban sailed right over the front row, and you’d have thought the Yankees had knocked a foul into the grandstand the way we jumped for it.
Joe jumped clear off his seat. His long arms and skinny fingers pulled it down.
A ripple of laughter went through the audience, and then, by jingo, the house quieted down and Constanza coasted through the rest of her song like a freight train on a down grade.
Joe chucked the shiny turban inside his coat, so the folks who craned around at him couldn’t see anything, and Joe can look as innocent as a hungry calf.
But the darned thing must have had a pin in it or something. Joe began to scratch.
“It tickles,” he whispered.
Walter Montzingo, this rich play-boy who had brought us here, nudged me and pointed to something at the bottom of the printed program:
Costumes by Taggart
Between numbers he muttered. “That’s the cheapest publicity stunt they’ve ever pulled. Let’s get out of here. Ten to one Taggart will have camera men lined up for pictures, and tomorrow he’ll sell two thousand turbans.”
Maybe Montzingo knew what he was talking about. We tried to sneak out, but a little crowd at the door had seen everything. They followed us out to the street, and three or four photographers were among them.
“Give us a look, big boy!” they yelled. “Hold the turban up!” “Pretend you’re catching it out of the air!” “Let’s have a close-up—”
Smack! Joe lost his temper all at once. He’d had enough. He was too flabbergasted to say anything, so he showed them with his fists. Two reporters and a camera man nibbled the concrete. And those long skinny arms of his were still whipping up a breeze when some big men in blue uniforms led him away.
“I’ll see you in jail, Steve,” Joe yelled. “Bring my guitar when you come.”
If you ever get jailed in this city, it’s a good idea to know Walter Montzingo, because he knows the right people to get you out. But don’t depend on any help before morning. Monty’s influential friends are either awful sound sleepers or they all go. to night clubs. Come one o’clock, Monty tossed the telephone book back in the slot, mopped his forehead, and said it was time to quit and get some sleep.
“Your pal is in for the night, Steve,” he said, leading the way to the bar.
“Just so he’s safe,” I said. “If they’ll keep him back of stout bars so he won’t go picking fights with the cops—”
“Does he have such a mean disposition?”
“He’s a reformed horse thief,” I said. “I taught him to play the guitar to keep him out of trouble. But he still believes it’s every man’s right to steal horses—and to fight.”
“Better take his guitar to him,” said Monty. “I want him to be peaceable. If we can turn this deal into useful publicity, okay. I want you boys to do a special radio program this next week, and you’ll need a good press.”
“A press and a shine,” I said. “And we’ll get our spurs polished.”