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with typhus, then spread it to people, why not try an in utero cure? Try using fetuses of typhus-infected ~ 92 ~ Escape From Myself victims and see if the virus lasts longer than the life of the victim. Of course! Her idea was startlingly clever. Tests for yellow fever were conducted in the same way until it was deemed too strong for a fetus. The disease could be made passive through the child s natural immunities. My excitement matched hers, and we both stood up and congratulated each other. Therein lay the path to the cure! You must come to work with me. I need your input for this fetal attempt. Should we use humans or work with animal fetuses first? Animals would be best. A human fetus would die much too soon. Brilliant! Let s go, I shouted as I grabbed her arm and headed toward the car. We drove into the camp talking endlessly about how to direct this project adequately. Science saved our marriage. We ripped the signed papers and we reunited our attention to each other. What would we do once the war was over? How long would they keep us in that camp? ~ 93 ~ Fifteen he lice project was halted in favor of an in T utero approach. We used pregnant pigs and chickens to determine whether the bacterial strain would survive from mother to child. By infecting the subject, we of course infected anything it touched, and by leaving the specimens at camp, we actually endangered everyone. Two weeks after the project started, two pigs were somehow released from their pens and scampered throughout the camp until caught by some guards. The next day, almost every one of those guards became sick, showing signs of typhus. We made them rest, slowly cured them, and learned our lesson. For most of the period of these projects, my ~ 94 ~ Escape From Myself attention to the ills of the camp were somewhat dimmed. I rarely treated guards or prisoners, and when I did it was usually because I was bribed. Our goods were no longer being shipped to the camp properly, so everyone used a barter system for better treatment that mostly relied on the inmates surrendering whatever they managed to hide. Whenever I an inmate came into my office, the conversation always began with, What have you in your pockets today? Chocolates, gold, even paper were becoming more valuable to us. We were desperate people, but I was busy with typhus, so I no longer really saw it. Days were busy with research. Nights were for the city. Sophie and I ventured out every night like we did before we were married. But the city became desperate too. The operas were closed and the artists were in hiding. It was 1941 and the nation looked altered. All the two of us could do was sit on the hood of the car and watch the city from the steep hills surrounding it. Lights flashed on and then quickly shut off while cars bustled by in clogging motions through thin streets. As vigorous as the city was, it was devoid of content or action. The city was dying; its bright opera lights were flickering and the colorful houses all melding into various shades of grey. Is this the lost generation? Sophie pondered loudly, breaking a silence that had encroached upon us since we parked. Are we lost? I don t know. I just don t know anymore. What ~ 95 ~ Chris Valentin should we have expected in war? Not this. Everything is gone. The least they could have done was remove the opera house instead of just shutting it down completely. And the noises! What happened to the noises we used to hear in town? No one laughs anymore. The people are lost and in search of an answer. Whatever that is, it isn t Hitler anymore. What do we do? Survive as best we can. The silence returned and we continued staring deeply into the cityscape as night transformed into dawn. * * * The typhus experiment did not last long. We failed again, except now our records were marked and sent to the SS head office. Our new assignment was given three days later; we were to castrate a group of Spaniards who were captured. Our mission was not veiled or elaborate. We took fifteen men and removed their reproductive organs with haste. The Spaniards were hot-blooded things, though; they did not take it lying down. A few actually rebelled, some struck us, and one nearly stabbed me. He was detained so I could punish him. Hours after the attack, I had finished the rest of the men and entered the small new barrack made for physical punishments. The small, no-longer-proud ~ 96 ~ Escape From Myself figure of the Spaniard was tied quietly to a chair. What is your name? Emmanuel. Emmanuel Martinez. You are not going to live long here. You know that, Emmanuel? I will not allow it. You could have seriously injured me. Do you even care? You know, I am just a small town physician. I m not one of those frightfully dumb guards who escorted you here. Do you understand? He remained silent, nodding his head in affirmation. Well, I just want you to understand how I feel about what you were doing. I have a family, you know. What would happen to my wife if your attack had succeeded in its aim? I do not know. We can t have a society that allows people to stab others when they reject medical procedures. That would be a society of chaos, wouldn t it? And thank goodness we don t live in such a world, eh? Well& I stopped to chuckle to myself. I bet you won t be so thankful, because, as I said, you surely will not survive here. In fact, I can guarantee you won t survive to see another twenty-four hours. A pity, then. I wonder what your wife will do. Will you bore me to death? Is that how you criminals do it? Oh, is that your Spanish bravado I m seeing? Amazing, but hardly effective. No, I will not bore you. That doesn t really work, you know. But what I will do is very efficient. You see, beside the fact ~ 97 ~ Chris Valentin that you tried to kill me, you interrupted my work on your little friends. I had to pass right by you to make up time. I took out my cleaned scalpel and wiped it on a sheet of alcohol. Now stay very still; this will not be a second. From the vantage point I had, I could easy relish his suddenly miserable appearance and tears. The operation was a success, but I purposely left him without bandaging. Now that wasn t so hard, eh? You see, now you look like all your other friends. I circled the [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ] |
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