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| That's von, Schleischer. |
Louis Shalako
Gilles,
Andre and Margot, along with Alphonse and Doctor Poirier, stood around the
pull-out drawer containing the corpse. The doctor picked one—
“Andre.
Is your gender important to you?”
“I
never leave home without it.”
The
doctor grinned.
It was
all very mystifying, but he’d insisted that they come down, anyone, really, and
have a look for themselves. He wasn’t going to tell them otherwise, and he
might not even send them a report…the pictures would be lurid indeed, as he had
said on the phone. It had been enough, curiosity being what it was.
Piling
into the car, they’d headed for the morgue.
The
photos also required some interpretation.
The
young doctor reached for the white shroud of the cotton sheet, bleached this
one too many times, oddly, pulling it up feet-first in some aberration from
accepted tropes…
“Ah.”
They
stared.
“This
individual has not been circumcised.”
Poirier
pulled it off the rest of the way.
“Well.
There you have it, then.” He cleared his throat, eyes magnified by the thick glasses
as he stood regarding his attentive audience. “It is extremely unusual, at
least according to the literature, to have such a full and complete development
of…well, of both sets of sexual organs.”
He’d
never seen one before, although apparently there was a certain small percentage
of the human race born with the condition.
“There
is even some vestigial development of the mammaries, which tells us something
about the glands and the, ah, hormones…you have to understand the hormones and
all of that sort of thing.” They stared. “Also, the body is relatively
hairless. This includes facial hair, not so much pubic hair or in the armpits.
Bearing all of this in mind, it is indeed quite possible, with the aid of wigs
and makeup, for this person to have passed as a woman. I mean, let’s face it. A
man, clean-shaven, with minimal makeup, dressed as a woman, might very well be
able to walk into the ladies room, sit in a cubicle, and urinate or defecate,
and no one would ever be the wiser. There are plenty of ugly women in the
world. This might be quite handy under certain circumstances, that ability to
bend their gender and go almost anywhere at will. And then there is poor old
Gilles, looking in the wrong bathroom.”
Then,
according to him, as they all stood there open-mouthed, there were the
psychological aspects of such a person, engaged in such-and-such an enterprise,
or almost any enterprise.
“Statistically,
one-point-seven percent or so of all human beings have some sort of intersex
trait, and half a percent have a clinically observable, physical, sexual or
reproductive variation. I mean that in the sense that it is quite different
from classic homosexuality, which as we know nowadays is more of a
psychological manifestation.”
He
looked up happily.
“I’ve
never even seen one, myself, although Doctor Auger said he’s seen two or three.
I’ve seen diagrams in a textbook and that’s about it. Quite frankly, I’m taking
lots and lots of pictures, and dissecting very carefully. I’m thinking of
writing a little monograph on the subject…”
The
doctor cleared his throat and went on.
“Daily
living might have been very different for such a person. Difficult, even.
Knowing from a very young age, that they were somehow, shamefully different.
Keeping it a secret, from friends, in school, from the neighbours and the
church and the employers, and finally, the political party. To experience the
shame of one’s parents and siblings. That look in grandpa’s eyes…when you
walked into the room.”
He
had a captive audience, that was for sure.
“This
person would have wanted to be accepted, above all else—”
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| "...just trying to stay out of a camp, when you think of it..." |
There
weren’t too many ways to do that, except to be more ignorant, more cruel,
more vicious than the next Nazi.
“They
would have wanted to be loved, more than anything, and yet. I would bet, that
this person could not love themself…”
All
of those youth groups. All of those regimented activities—regimented by the
state. To have such a secret, in such an environment, well, it might have
warped them pretty badly, as the good doctor put it. More than anything, just
trying to please, maybe even just trying to get ahead. Just trying to survive,
dignity intact, a lot of the time. Just trying to stay out of a camp, in the
final analysis, what with the euthanization of what the Nazis saw as cretins and
cripples and deviants. What kind of relationships this person might have had,
were anyone’s guess.
“It
would be extremely difficult, to have any kind of really close, physical
relationship, one that was not abusive or exploitative…”
Someone,
with an otherwise pretty good mind, tall, athletic, good-looking. The perfect ubermenschen, if only they hadn’t been
so very, very imperfect. Imperfect in the sexual
sense.
“That’s
right, ladies and gentlemen: poor old Schleischer was a Nazi hermaphrodite.”
He
cleared his throat.
“Sorry,
ladies and gentlemen…von,
Schleischer, that is…”
They
broke up in laughs, as he had expected that they would.
He
stood there, oblivious to the pink stains on his white apron, and he took a
moment to pull off the surgical gloves.
All
of this would be in the written report.
End.
Louis Shalako is the founder of Long Cool One Books and the author
of novels, novellas and short stories. Louis studied Radio, Television and
Journalism Arts at Lambton College of Applied Arts and Technology, later going
on to study fine art. He began writing for community newspapers and industrial
magazines over thirty years ago. His stories appear in publications including
Perihelion Science Fiction, Bewildering Stories, New Myths, Aurora Wolf, Ennea,
Wonderwaan, Algernon, Nova Fantasia, and Danse Macabre. He lives in southern
Ontario and writes full time. Louis enjoys cycling, swimming and good books.
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| Poor old Louis has been watching too many old movies. |
Louis
has books
and stories on Smashwords.
See his
art on ArtPal.
Check
out this
other story here. Temple of the
Jaguar God, by Zach Neal.
Thank
you for reading.
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