Return of the Demi-Gods

by Rex Baron

  She thought of having sex with this beautiful Nordic man, whose features she would love to see on the face of a baby of her own, and she knew, deep down, that if that were to happen, it would be pleasing to him as well, and he would want to stay with her and maybe even make her his wife.

  Ilse stared at the meager choice of garments that hung in the narrow closet of the maid’s room… two skirts, five blouses and two sweaters, for colder weather. She reached for her prettiest blouse and, pulling it from the closet, held it at arm’s length and scowled at it for its lack of glamour. Suddenly, she had an idea. Even though she was alone in the apartment, she crept into Helen’s bedroom and threw open the wardrobe doors to display racks and racks of beautiful clothes. She spent long moments searching through the luxurious things, stroking the silks and fur trims. There was so much to choose from but she decided on a red and black, tight-fitting, sleeveless sheath, with a shiny Oriental motif that buttoned across one shoulder. Carefully, she slipped it on, mindful not to tear the silk fabric with her one good pair of high-heeled shoes.

  She stood inspecting her image in the mirror, and ran her palms down the flanks of her body to coax the clinging material into just the right shape. She added one of Helen’s bracelets and some earrings, but removed the earrings because she thought they made her look too theatrical. She wanted to look like a peasant from the exotic land of China. Perhaps, when Carl-Heinz saw how much she embraced the new doctrines, he might instantly fall in love with her. She decided that she would pile her straight, sand-colored hair on top of her head, to be more in keeping with the style of the Far East. She tucked the last wisp of hair into place and stood back to get a full impression. She was more than pleased with what she saw. She hated the color of her hair with this outfit, and longed to have the dark exotic coloring of her employer… But, then again, the fact that she had blonde hair and that Carl-Heinz’s hair was almost white would insure that any baby they might have would unquestionably have blonde hair, and that was what mattered most in the ideology of the new regime.

  At exactly eleven o’clock the doorbell rang, and Ilse scurried to answer the door. Carl-Heinz stood there smiling, exactly on time, dressed in a rumpled green Loden coat and carrying both his cap and a book in his hand. In a wild flight of fancy, Ilse had imagined that he might greet her at the door with flowers in hand, a romantic gesture of sorts that was, after all, completely in keeping with the manners of the agrarian customs that he so often spoke about. But instead, he held out his hand, offering a new paper volume of a book written by a Johannes Kirsch, entitled, “Die Ausgezeichnete Mutter”, The Excellent Mother.

  Ilse stared down at it with a look of bewilderment.

  “For your talk… to the girls of the BDM,” he said, jarring her memory as to the presumed purpose of his visit

  “Oh yes, thank you so much,” she replied with a nervous little giggle. “Have you read it yourself?”

  Cart-Heinz stepped inside the door to the apartment without being invited. He could see that his presence had a somewhat muddling effect on Ilse, as it seemed to on so many of the younger girls and boys he had in his charge, and he realized that she lacked the presence of mind to ask him in. He walked past her into the drawing room and stood there as if evaluating its contents.

  “Sehr Schon,” he said aloud, followed by a low whistle. “This place is loaded with beautiful, expensive things. Living like this is very decadent and selfish… totally against what we now believe.”

  “They are Americans,” Ilse explained hastily, as if to clarify her position. “My employer is an actress, and she lives here with a man who was a Schauspeiler… a moving picture star over there. They rented the apartment while she is here at the Opera.”

  Carl-Heinz nodded his head, almost approvingly, as he strolled around the room picking up objects, appraising them in his mind, then returning them to where he had found them.

  “You know many of these things would fetch a good price… money that would be very useful to our cause,” Carl-Heinz stated off-handedly. “I mean, some of these small things aren’t doing anyone any good just lying around… and would hardly be missed. You said yourself that your employer and this man don’t own any of this. So, how are you harming them or being disloyal? I’m sure a few small things wouldn’t even be noticed if they went astray. As to your employers… as the Americans say, they got nuthin to lose.”

  “Are you suggesting that I steal some of these things,” Ilse asked in amazement, surprised that anyone with the Youth Leader’s high ideals would even consider such a thing.

  “We all must do what we can to further the cause,” Carl-Heinz delivered his reply as if he had used it a thousand times before.

  “It is very good of you to give me the book for my study,” Ilse said, trying to draw his attention away from the objets d’art and establish some control over the purpose of his visit.

  “I only lend it to you,” he replied casually. “I will be wanting it back in a week.”

  He flopped down on one of the white silk sofas in front of the fireplace and involuntarily rubbed his palm against the smooth cool surface of its fabric.

  “When is your talk to the Madchen of the BDM, anyway?” he asked, looking up to engage Ilse.

  “Not until next month,” Ilse lied. “And so, what can you tell me about this book that I might not comprehend at first reading,” she asked, getting down to business, hoping her directness and enthusiasm would serve to mask her untruth. “Your opinion of what Herr Kirsch writes is very much of importance to me.”

  Carl-Heinz spread out on the white formal sofa, sliding down to rest his head on the ornate carving of its curved back, and opened his legs in a gesture of unconscious male dominance.

  “He speaks mainly of the role of women in the New Order. He says that women and men should respect the differences between their genders in the same way that we must recognize the differences between the races. Everyone is different with a different role to play. He states that the role of women is to have children and maintain the order and discipline of domestic life. The jobs of business and government should be left to the men... and women have no place there. That is what you need tell your girls in the BDM… to make them understand their new role.”

  “But women have a strong voice in politics,” Ilse replied earnestly. “German women had the right to vote before the Netherlands or even America, and our women have run businesses and schools for decades.”

  Carl-Heinz, sighed, as if disinterested in her attempt at debate.

  “Ah, but you see… that is not what the New Order needs, and that is not what Herr Hitler wants. He said in a speech, only weeks ago, that women have a new and exciting role in the new Germany. Let me see… I tried to memorize a line that I found particularly compelling as a message that all women today must hear and heed.

  It went… ‘It is particularly pleasing to us men in the new government that families with many children should be given special attention, and that it is the duty of the German women to rescue the nation from its decline by repopulating a new Germany with a superior, educated and beautiful race of youth that will serve the world and rule it with justice and strength.’ I love the phrase… rescue the nation from decline.”

  Carl-Heinz sat back after he had delivered the last words of the leader’s message, and watched Ilse to determine what effect his words had on her. She sat with her head bowed in a kind of reverence, as if in prayer. Carl-Heinz smiled at the desired effect.

  “It is beautiful… is it not?” he asked. “So, you see, no one is trying to rob women of their independence or disempower them, but rather to extol the supreme virtue of motherhood and its necessity for the success of the new government. Hitler says that the dream of a new Germany cannot be achieved without women… these brave and strong women that are willing to surrender their selfish ways and offer their bodies up to be the very vessels that will create Das Neues Duetschland.”

  The subtle smile on Carl-Heinz’s face broa
dened to an irresistible boyish grin, as Ilse raised her eyes, now filled with a glowing passion for his cause, and an intensity that seemed to stare off into a future world of pastoral perfection that only true devotees of the New Reich might see. He did not hesitate to move from the sofa across from her and sit down next to her, taking her hand in his. He brought his perfect Aryan features close to hers and lifted her chin with his fingertip so that he might hold her in his ice blue gaze.

  “How old are you?” he asked in a low voice that seemed to resonate inside her solar plexus.

  “I will be seventeen soon… in three months.”

  “You are very beautiful,” he whispered the words, warming the air between them with his breath. “You are exactly what the new Germany needs… Did you hear in our leader’s speech that women like those he described are the most powerful and desirable women? These are the women who sacrifice for the cause… women who surrender their bodies to the cause to be pleasing to men?”

  Carl-Heinz had slowly pulled Ilse from her position, seated on the silk sofa, an inch lower with every word, until she found herself lying on the drawing room carpet with the man she desired on top of her. She could feel him kissing her throat, issuing his hot breath in short audible gasps as his mouth made its way along her shoulder toward her breasts. He picked at the pins that held her hair in place and pulled the tangle of golden strands, raking them with his fingers and stroking her head.

  “You do want to please me, like our leader says you must… don’t you?” she heard him whisper close to her ear, as he reached up and tugged at her underclothes.

  Ilse drew in a short gasp of air and spoke through the waves of passion that engulfed her.

  “You know the money I gave you… that I said I earned as a reward. I gave it to you for the cause… but it was not a reward. I stole it, so that I could help… so that I could give you something.”

  Ilse heard a faint snort of laughter as the beautiful man grabbed her sandy hair and pulled her mouth toward his.

  “You’re a good girl,” he whispered close to her ear. “You are a good and obedient girl.”

  Ilse remained silent, not because she was frightened or unsure, but out of a kind of reverence for the solemnity of the moment. She was not only losing her virginity to the most beautiful boy she had ever met, but was, in some profound way, being sanctified and made holy, blessed by a High Priest of the New Order and ordained a sacred vessel.

  A sharp pain resonated through her body as Carl-Heinz thrust himself inside her. She lifted her hips ever so slightly, not in pleasure or reaction to his lovemaking, but to pull her dress up above her hips in order to avoid getting blood on Helen’s expensive Chinese frock.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Die Wiesse Kreuz café

  Helen and Claxton sat outside Die Wiesse Kreuz café in the Leopoldstrasse, waiting for the Prince and his entourage, as well as the critics from the local papers. Claxton had insisted that they be the first to arrive so that there would be absolutely no criticism possible of the visiting Americans, who he knew were thought of as crude, ill-mannered and vulgar. Helen stretched her body out into what she determined was an elegant and relaxed posture that would show her off in her best light. She turned her chair slightly so that the aggressive morning sunlight would not pierce her veil and reveal the mild puffiness of her face from the excesses of the night before. She eyed Claxton’s muted yellow vest and questioned to herself his wisdom in choosing such a garish garment. If they were looking for something to reinforce their opinion of the vulgar foreigners, then that would certainly give them something to write about, she thought. She sipped her coffee and waited.

  As the clock in the café’s dining room chimed the hour, they were besieged by first the three reporters, then, a moment or two later, by Prince Henry and two of his aides. Everyone rose to their feet as the Prince approached, and he hurriedly took a seat so as not to attract undue attention to his presence in the small café.

  He appeared to Helen to be almost a different person entirely from the elegant aristocrat she had danced with the night before, with his impeccably tailored uniform and his medals and sashes. In spite of his age, he had risen to the occasion and stood for an hour in the receiving line, with a ramrod posture, a perpetual smile and perfectly groomed moustache and beard. In the light of morning, he looked very much like any ordinary German man of his age, in a tweed country suit and a grey homburg hat.

  She watched him carefully as he sat there, being fawned over by the gentlemen of the press. She noticed that he never extended his hand in greeting to any of them, nor did he accept theirs. He was dressed as an ordinary German man on the street, but it was more than obvious to all present that his rank and his bloodline prohibited him from breaking down the invisible barrier between them. As he listened to the flattering comments from his subordinates, he glanced playfully at Helen and his mouth turned up into the faintest of smiles. He interrupted one of the critics in mid-sentence.

  “You look lovely this morning, my dear,” he said in a clear voice that silenced the chattering of the reporter. “Let me tell you… You are simply radiant sitting there in the morning sunlight… so fresh… so young.”

  Helen was glad that she had thought to wear the green-veiled hat that covered a multitude of sins. She raised her eyes to engage him from under the veil and smiled demurely, a smile that she could imagine on Lucy’s face, a smile that would ensure that the Prince’s interest and his patronage would continue.

  The next twenty minutes were spent in what would later be referred to in the press as a coffee interview with the Prince and his beautiful and talented protégé. They discussed the Opera season in Bayreuth and possible plans for Helen to appear in the entire Ring Cycle of Herr Wagner. Helen continued with her demure disguise and had convinced the newspaper critics that hung on her every word that she was not only beautiful and talented but humble and genuine as well.

  It was an extraordinary thing that Prince Henry would attach himself to a performer of any kind, Claxton overheard one of the people at a nearby table confide in his companion. After all, it was hardly the place of an ex-royal, a Hohenzollern, to align with a lowly actress… a simple Shauspielerin that sings.

  “She had better be brilliant or the Prince will look like an old fool,” Claxton overheard the friend reply in a low whisper.

  “Let me pose a question to Miss Liluth,” one of the critics said, turning his conversation away from courting the Prince. “What would you say is your vocal range… and where did you study?”

  “I studied at a conservatory in New York when I was young,” Helen invented her own back-story on the spot, knowing what kind of training would be expected of her in order for her to be seen as legitimate.

  “I see, you attended the prestigious New York Conservatory of Music,” the critic repeated with enthusiasm, as he scribbled in a small notepad he held in his hand.

  It would take weeks to verify the fact that the school had never even heard of Helen Liluth, and by that time, she would already have had her debut in Tristan and Isolde , and hopefully, would have won them all over with her performance. She nodded her head in confirmation of what he assumed to be the truth.

  “Other than that… I was the protégé of Mister David Montague, the Impresario of the New York Opera. He taught me so many things about staging and acting on stage.”

  “But I thought you were already an actress in the moving picture business in America,” one of the other critics stated, as if questioning her answer.

  Helen laughed a bright young laugh that she had conjured up to deflect the insult of what the critic’s comment implied.

  “Oh yes, that. It was a whim… a caprice… nothing more,” she answered gaily.

  “Yes, that’s true,” Claxton broke in, attempting to shore up Helen’s credibility and diffuse even the faintest idea that she had been nothing but a cheap little American moving picture actress, and not a real star of Grand Opera. “Jesse Lasky contacted us in New
York and insisted that Helen rush out and make a film for him. He was very insistent and wouldn’t take no for an answer. It was quite the experience,” Claxton added, emphasizing the word “quite.” “I must say they were very extravagant… but then you know how Americans can be.”

  Claxton shot a conspiratorial glance at the Prince, but was met with a stony stare of mild contempt that Claxton understood as not particularly personal, but simply a parrying reaction that was reserved for anyone who tried to thrust their way in and penetrate the barrier of class and position that stood between them.

  “It was a very exciting and amusing experience for me,” Helen added, “but then, I must say… I hardly understand why they would pay to bring a singer all the way across the country to California just so that people might be able to look at them on moving film and not hear a note they sing.”

  Helen punctuated her last commentary with another bright laugh that she hoped would put the whole subject of the movie business in perspective.

  Prince Henry came to her aid.

  “You must remember that even a singer as gifted as our own Lucy von Dorfen has appeared in the moving pictures. And I am certain that many people would never have been able to see the lovely child if it had not been for that special new technology.”

  Each of the three critics simultaneously muttered some words of reverence in relation to the dear departed, as the Prince nodded his head in remembrance.

  “As I mentioned before, Miss Liluth, we would like to know what is the range of your voice?” one of the critics struggled to get the interview back on track.

  “I am told my voice can travel from a C2 to D6,” Helen answered, with what she hoped was a hint of humility at the suitably wide range of notes that she claimed she could manage.