by P. K. Tyler
Looking at her daughter breaks her attention. Reluctantly, Jessa releases her focus from her sister. Chelsea falls out of her chair, heaving.
Emma Jean rushes over and places her small hands on her aunt’s face. “Aunt Chel-Chel sick?”
Jessa goes into the kitchen and gets a glass of water, comes back and sets it on the desk. Her sister is sitting up against the bay windows looking wild-eyed, but the color in her face is normal.
Jessa lifts her daughter into her arms and adjusts her shoulder bag. Standing over her sister, she says. “Sign the papers, don’t sign the papers. Your heart is still going to be too small.”
As she walks toward the front door, Jessa notices that Emma Jean’s hair has formed six new long locks.
About the Author
Michele Tracy Berger is a professor, a writer, a creativity expert and a pug-lover. She’s passionate about all of these ways of being in the world and plays with the order in which she avidly pursues them.
Her creative writing has appeared in The Chapel Hill News, Glint, Flying South, Carolina Woman, Trivia: Voices of Feminism, Ms., Oracle: Fine Arts Review, The Feminist Wire, Western North Carolina Woman and various zines. She is at work on a collection of speculative fiction.
The Price
by Samuel Peralta
Summary: In the City’s old quarter, a Visitor to a shop selling wartime memorabilia meets its singular Proprietor, and his uncommon offering.
1
HAD IT ALL BEEN BY CHANCE? Business completed early over café-au-lait at Aux Deux Marie, so a foray down Rue Saint-Denis was called for, past the old-world embellishments shoehorned among the bustling crowds in Plateau Mont-Royal.
And there it was, unassuming, an old curiosity shop out of Dickens, window displays enticing pause, bars protecting militaria bric-à-brac—ribbons of war, medals, daggers.
A portentous fascination took hold, opened the door, drew the Visitor in.
2
February 19, 1946.
On the morning of the 62nd day of the proceedings at Nuremberg, Counsellor Smirnov rose to the Tribunal, resuming his evidence:
‘I have already pointed out that the principal method used to cover up their crimes was to burn the remains; but the same base, rational SS technical minds, which created gas chambers and murder vans, began devising other methods for complete annihilation of human bodies, which would not only conceal evidence, but serve another purpose.’
3
Foraging among the emblems, batons, and pistols, the Visitor was aware of someone watching quietly from the shadows; and as he hesitated in front of a simple walnut box, that someone cleared a throat.
The Proprietor approached, and with a "Je vous attendais," lifted the box onto the counter. A flick of the wrist and the lid was open.
Inside it, on a flat, wooden pedestal, was a yellowish ochre bar, imprinted with the angular swirl of a swastika. Beside it, a card, with the inscription
Pologne 1944
4
‘…such as the manufacture of certain products.
‘I submit to the Tribunal, Exhibit Number USSR-197, the testimony of one of the direct participants, Sigmund Mazur, who was a laboratory assistant at the Danzig Anatomic Institute.’
Q: Tell us how it was made.
A: In the courtyard of the Anatomic Institute, a one-story stone building of three rooms was built during the summer of 1943. This building was erected for the utilization of human bodies. During the winter of 1944, Professor Spanner ordered us to collect, and not to throw away, certain human material.
5
"Cet artefact," the Proprietor said. "It has been here since I started this boutique du collectionneur after the War."
He leaned forward.
"People should understand, people need to understand. Especially this."
A gesture around the ephemera of another age ranged oppressively around them.
"Bien, Monsieur, you see how it appears. The question is this: Do you know what it is you hold there, exactly?"
In the Visitor's hands, the Proprietor had placed the object.
Soap.
6
It was in February 1944 that Professor Spanner first gave me the recipe for the preparation of soap. According to this recipe, 5 kilos of human fat are mixed with 10 liters of water and 500 or 1,000 grams of caustic soda. All this is boiled 2 or 3 hours and then cooled.
The soap floats to the surface while the water and other sediment remain at the bottom. A bit of salt and soda is added to this mixture. Then fresh water is added, and the mixture again boiled 2 or 3 hours. After having cooled, the soap is poured into molds.
The soap has an unpleasant odor, and in order to destroy this odor, benzolaldehyde is added.
7
The Proprietor turned it over. "Verso, had it been inscribed R.I.F.," he said, "the initials for the Reichsstelle für Industrielle Fettversorgung, in charge of wartime production of washing products, it would likely have no suspect material.”
“But with unmarked artifacts from a Danzig institute, one laboratory undertook analysis and forged that final evidentiary chain missing from the trials: the human link."
Here, in Montreal, on the object the Proprietor held, there were—as in Nuremberg—no initials.
8
I boiled this compound from the bodies of both women and men. The process of boiling alone took several days - from three to seven. Over two manufacturing cycles, more than 25 kilograms of soap were produced. The amount of human fat necessary for these two cycles was 70 to 80 kilograms, collected from some 40 bodies.
The finished soap went to Professor Spanner, and to Reichert, Borkmann, Von Bargen. Spanner personally used this soap. For myself, I took 4 kilograms of this soap. For my personal needs, I also used this soap.
9
"Les Catholiques, they have a word," said the Proprietor. "Transubstantiation: the changing of the essence of bread and wine into the body and blood of their redeemer."
In the light, the brown was splotched with white.
"What this is, Monsieur, is the transubstantiation of the essence of—not divinity—but humanity, into a form as unextraordinary as bread or wine, but which contains in its substance, in its essence, the distillation of l'âme humaine, the human soul."
10
‘Exhibit Number USSR-272, submitted to the Tribunal, the written testimony of a British citizen, William Anderson Neely, a corporal of the Royal Signals.'
The corpses arrived at an average rate of two to three per day. Most of them had been beheaded.
A machine for the manufacture of soap was completed sometime in March or April 1944. It consisted of an electrically heated tank in which bones of the corpses were mixed with some acid and melted down. This process of melting down took about 24 hours.
11
"And yet in many ways," the Proprietor continued, “this mystery surpasses even transubstantiation."
The Proprietor turned the soap back to the arrogant crucifix of the swastika.
"You understand, Monsieur, they would have you believe that the words spoken at la dernière cène—‘This is my body, this is my blood’—were statements of fact, to be accepted on Faith.
“But this artifact, it makes itself accessible to chemical reagent and spectrometer, the way the bread and wine cannot. What place is there, then, for Faith, when you can test for Truth?"
12
Some acid was also used in this process. I think it was caustic soda. When boiling had been completed, the mixture was allowed to cool and then cut into blocks for microscopic examination.
I cannot estimate the quantity produced, but I saw it used by Danzigers in cleaning tables in the dissecting rooms. They all told me it was excellent soap for this purpose.
The Counsellor rose.
'I submit some unfinished and finished materials, which from the exterior seem like nothing more than ordinary household soap. I submit this to the Tribunal as Exhibit USSR-393.'
13
The
Proprietor returned the bar to its casque, turned it around. On the rear, just below the rim of the lid, a small square of paper, a label.
"Voici, mon ami," the Proprietor said, and offered up the box so that the white tag's numbers burned level with the Visitor's eyes. "Is this not a fair price for a human soul?"
For a breath, as after a consecration bell, the abyss held the Visitor in its gaze—Kaliningrad, Bydgoszcz, Stutthof—for but a breath.
Then he fled, the door hinging against darkness, against darkness immeasurable and deep.
About the Author
Samuel Peralta is a physicist and storyteller. An Amazon bestselling author, he is the creator and driving force behind the #1 bestselling Future Chronicles series of speculative fiction anthologies. His own short story Hereafter was recently named to Best American Science Fiction.
Samuel is an award-winning poet, recognized by the BBC, the UK Poetry Society, and the Palanca Memorial Awards for Literature. As an award-winning PhD, he's designed nuclear robotic tools and co-founded several software and semiconductor start-ups. He is a producer and ardent supporter of independent film.
www.amazon.com/author/samuelperalta
Growing Simon
by Jo West
Summary: In a world in which she does not appear to belong, Jane is an ordinary woman driven to extraordinary lengths to achieve her dream.
Into what closely resembled a winemaker’s demijohn, Jane carefully poured a solution of salts and sugars via an intricate system of rubber tubing. A small, white parasol, as one might find attached to a pram, was tilted towards the sun, protecting the glass from excessive heat. “Hello, my darling,” she murmured as she gazed in at him. He had grown a lot during the past couple of months. As soon as he had opened his eyes she had begun talking to him. She did so now, her fingers flickering up and down through the air like dragonflies over a pond. After a few minutes, she paused, gently stroked the glass and motioned to herself, then to her heart, and finally to him. “I love you,” she said.
Last winter, she noticed that time, which had once slunk by unobserved, stealthy as a leopard, seemed to be gathering pace at an alarming rate with each successive season. She’d stared at the frosted window pane and caught glimpses of the future; as if she were peeking into a cracked looking glass, a dozen fractured images of herself reflected in the silver splinters. A decade later with no husband, no child; a pitiable shade hovering by school gates while other, real women collected their offspring in big, shiny cars. In a blink, twenty more winters sped by. Her skin bagging and faded, her knuckles swollen and red as the inherent arthritis began its relentless march throughout her body, forcing her bones to mutate into a grotesque parody of their former shapes. Thirty years hence unable to hold a trowel, she saw a snapshot of an overgrown garden. Perceived herself as a forlorn figure, forgotten and neglected, surrounded by weeds, a horticultural Miss Haversham.
A retirement home flickered into view; her back bent as a croquet hoop and she unable to feed herself, her beautiful garden, her lost vitality, another world away. The images rippled and quivered; their jagged edges scratched her soul.
Breathing hard onto the glass, the ghosts evaporated.
Was she somehow atoning for some abominable sin in a former life? Was her current existence playing out like some elaborate punishment? That sounded self-pitying, grandiose. She should be grateful. She had a steady job, a pension plan, and a lovely house with its spectacular garden upon which she had lavished so much attention.
Yet in comparison with other people, she felt isolated, disconnected. As if she were the one piece that didn’t fit into a world which otherwise slotted effortlessly together. This living jigsaw constantly surrounded her, seemingly taunting her loneliness. In the supermarket: young mothers, one hand pushing the pram, the other jamming a mobile against an ear; one unit interlocking tightly with another. Pensioners parked on benches by the canal, arm in arm in their comfortable companionship. Dog-walkers, bright-eyed and brisk, nodded and acknowledged each other as furry charges snuffled at their feet. Leads and lives entangled, intertwined. Belonging.
* * *
The garden was her sanctuary. It was wonderful, magical even, with its eight-foot hollyhocks and giant delphiniums that made her feel like Alice. But in Wonderland, Alice had companions. What use was paradise with no one to share it?
Relationships with men had unravelled. Jane watched each of her friends marry in swift succession as she began drifting ever further towards the desert island that spelt spinsterhood. Uproarious nights out when they had all been far from sober, swapped drunken secrets, and sworn eternal friendship were a distant memory.
Last summer solstice, Jane had initiated a rare reunion. She dressed in brand new, tight, leather trousers that flattered her tiny waist. Champagne lay chilling in the fridge along with fresh bagels smothered in cream cheese and caviar. The garden was at its most enchanting, with all the fragrant roses in full bloom.
But the Champagne remained uncorked and the cream cheese was shunned as the would-be mothers danced into the garden, one after another. Odd how pregnancy appeared to be contagious. Sat in a ring, resplendent in flowery smocks, they nursed their mugs of herbal tea and recumbent bumps. Jane twirled uncertainly among them.
“I love your trousers, Jane,” remarked one. “How sexy and slim you look.”
“There’s no way I could get into anything like that, now,” enjoined another, gently rubbing her stomach.
“Me neither,” agreed a third.
A short silence, then, “Happy birthday, Jane!” they chorused, raising their mugs. They all smiled in unison, conspiratorially; coven complete.
Jane, dipped out of the circle and, with hand on leather-clad hip, defiantly raised the bottle of Moet to her lips.
Shortly after this, she decided to have some of her eggs harvested. She found this expression truly bizarre, reminding her of childhood harvest festivals at church with their mounds of fresh produce.
She could almost hear the vicar’s wife exclaiming, “Look everybody! Jane’s brought in some of her eggs. How thoughtful.”
By the following spring, several attempts at artificial insemination had been unfruitful. After the last time of hoping and praying was rewarded by blood leaking down her legs, clutching her stomach as her womb expunged all traces of creation, she decided there had to be another way.
“It’s highly irregular.” The doctor peered dispassionately at Jane through rimless spectacles. “Why would you want it? The egg was fertilised, but remained dormant. It may contain abnormalities. It is certainly non-viable. Of what use could it possibly be?”
“Well, it would only be flushed down the pan anyway, wouldn’t it? So what’s the harm?” Jane demanded.
“Our policy is to destroy all obsolete ova. We made that clear from the outset. We pride ourselves on our professionalism.” He frowned.
Jane glanced at the photograph on his desk: an attractive brunette, her arm draped around a miniature version of herself.
As if protecting his family, the doctor’s hand flew to the picture, shielding it from Jane’s prying eyes; bubble inviolate.
“It’s mine and I want it,” Jane insisted. She snatched the lone phial with its chrome stopper from the desk and left the room.
* * *
Visitors were fascinated by the strange contraption residing on the kitchen window sill.
“What is it?” Carrie had asked. “An underwater plant?”
It was tiny, barely visible to the naked eye; but with a powerful magnifying glass it might be possible to detect microscopic fins.
“It’s a weird type of tropical fish!” pronounced David, Carrie’s husband “Look—gills!”
“Rubbish!” retorted Carrie. “It’s a plant. An anemone, perhaps?”
“Why all the tubes?”
“I need to keep the environment well-oxygenated, clean, and ensure that there is a steady stream of nutrients.”
“It’s a fish, isn’t it,
Jane? I’m right, aren’t I?” David looked like an eager schoolboy greedy for approbation.
“We’ll see,” smiled Jane. “It’s doing well. Summer’s the growing season.”
“Definitely a plant,” Carrie stubbornly reiterated. “Jane’s marvellous at cultivation. She’s amazingly green-fingered. I’m useless. I can kill a potted plant with a single glance. I really can’t grow a thing.”
“Oh, I think there are one or two things you’re rather good at growing, eh Jane?” He grabbed Carrie to him, leaning over to kiss the top of her head, his hands clasped around her fecund belly. His eyes met Jane’s, proud, proprietorial, primeval. Carrie giggled and turned towards him; they kissed briefly but passionately before turning to Jane, mouths still wet. We are beautiful, healthy animals; we are fertile and we breed.
Jane stared impassively at their blatant display and asked, “When is it due, Carrie?”
“September.”
Me too, thought Jane wistfully, with any luck, before she became aware that Carrie was still talking:
“… but I am feeling fit to burst already. I’m hoping it’s a girl this time. Three boys are really more than enough. Well, four with David.”
The doorbell chimed just as Jane felt her lips crack, straining over her teeth. Are these people really my friends? Why does everything they say make me want to scream?
Diana was at the door. Diana, at forty-five, was a feisty, flame-haired Fury and proud owner of a precocious nine-year-old called Holly.