THE NINETY-SIX-YEAR-OLD MAN sat in his comfy armchair enjoying a book on Joseph Stalin. No mainstream publisher would touch the delusion-filled manuscript
since the author had been unfailingly complimentary about the sadistic Soviet leader. Yet the self-published book’s positive
opinion of Stalin appealed greatly to the old man. He’d purchased it directly from the writer not long before the latter was
committed to a mental institution.
No stars could be seen hovering over the elderly man’s large estate because of a storm moving inland from the nearby ocean.
Though he was wealthy and living in great luxury, his personal needs were relatively simple. He wore a decades-old faded sweater,
his shirt collar secured all the way to his fleshy neck, which was thick with wattles. His cheap pants lay loose over his
skeletal and useless legs. The hypnotic drum of rain on the roof had begun and he settled farther back in his chair, content
to delve into the mind and career of a madman who had killed tens of millions of people unlucky enough to live under his cruel
fist.
The old man occasionally laughed at something he read, at least the particularly gruesome parts, and nodded his head in agreement
over passages where disciples of Stalin explained his graphic methods for the destruction of all civil liberties. In the Soviet
dictator he clearly saw the leadership qualities necessary to drive a country to greatness while also causing the world to
shake with terror. He tilted down his thick spectacles and glanced at his watch. Nearly eleven o’clock. The security system
went on promptly at nine, with every door and window professionally monitored. His fortress was secure.
A crack of thunder seemed to cause the lights to flicker. They sputtered twice more and fluttered out. In the lower-level
electronics room the battery backup in the security system had been removed, causing it to cease functioning when the power
supply was interrupted. Each door and window was instantly disarmed. Ten seconds later the massive backup generators kicked
in and brought the electrical flow back to full power, returning the security system to online status. However, within that
ten-second span a window had opened and a hand had darted out and caught the digital camera that had been tossed from ground
level. The window closed and was locked a second before the system armed once more.
Oblivious to this, the old man idly rubbed his hairless head; it was mottled over with scabs and patches of sun-damaged skin.
His face had collapsed long ago into a pile of gravity-ravaged tissue that pulled his eyes, nose, and mouth downward into
a permanent scowl. His body, what was left of it, had followed a similar route of degradation. He relied on others to help
him perform the simplest tasks now. But at least he was still alive, when so many of his brothers in arms, indeed perhaps
all of them, were dead, many by violent means. This made him angry. History showed that inferiors were perpetually jealous
of those greater than them.
He finally put down his book. At his age three or four hours’ sleep at a time was all that was required, but it was now that
he required it. He called for his attendant by pushing the blue button on the small circular device he always wore around
his neck. It had three buttons, one for the attendant, one for his doctor, and one for security. He had enemies and ailments,
but the attendant was mostly for pleasure.
The woman entered. Barbara had blonde hair and was dressed in a hip-hugging white miniskirt and tank-top blouse that allowed
him a liberal view of her breasts as she bent down to help him up into his wheelchair. He had insisted on her wearing revealing
clothing as a condition of employment. Old, rich, perverted men could do what they pleased. His wrinkled face nestled against
her soft cleavage and lingered there. As her strong arms slid him onto the wide seat, his hand slipped under her skirt. His
fingers glided along the backs of her firm thighs until they touched her buttocks. Then he gave each cheek a hard squeeze.
He let out a small moan of appreciation. Barbara made no reaction because she was well paid to endure his groping.
She wheeled him to the elevator and they rode in the car together to his bedroom. She helped him undress, averting her eyes
from his collapsed body. Even with all his fortune he could not force her to look at his nakedness. Decades ago she would
have certainly looked at him, and also done so much more for him. If she wanted to live. Now he was simply helped on with
his pajamas like an infant. In the morning he would be washed and fed, again like a baby instead of a man. The cycle was complete.
From cradle back to cradle and then the grave.
“Sit with me, Barbara,” he commanded. “I want to look at you.” He said all this in German. That was the other reason he had
hired her; she spoke his native language. There were few left around here who could.
She sat, crossed her long, tanned legs, and kept her hands in her lap, occasionally smiling at him because she was paid to.
She should be thankful to him, he felt, because she could either work for him in this grand house where the tasks were easy
and the time in between long, or else go whore herself on the streets of nearby Buenos Aires for what amounted to pennies
a day.
He finally waved his hand and she immediately rose and closed the door behind her. He leaned back on the pillows. She would
probably go to her room, strip off her clothes, leap in the shower, and scrub hard enough to rub the filth of his touch off
her. He quietly chuckled at this image. Even as a shrunken old man he could have some effect on people.
He vividly remembered the glorious days when he would walk into a room, the heels of his knee-high officer’s boots clicking
on the concrete floor. That sound alone would send ripples of terror throughout the entire camp. Now that was power. Every day he was given the privilege of feeling that sense of invincibility. His every command was carried out
with no hesitation. His men would line up the vermin, long columns of them in their filthy clothes, their heads bowed, but
still they eyed the shine of his magnificent boots, the power of his uniform. Playing God, he would decide which ones would
die and which ones would live. The living hardly got the better of it, for their reward was a hell on earth, as painful and
miserable and degrading as he could possibly make it.
He shifted to the left and pushed against a rectangle of paneling on his headboard. The piece of wood swung outward and his
hand shakily punched in the combination on the safe door revealed there. He slid his hand in and pulled out the photo, then
settled back on his pillow and looked down at it. He calculated that it was taken sixty-eight years ago to the day. His mind
was still all there, even if his body had deserted him.
He was only in his late twenties in the picture, but he’d been given great responsibility because of his brains and ruthlessness.
Tall and slender, he had light blond hair that was striking against his tanned, square-jawed face. He looked so fine in his
full uniform with all his medals, though he had to concede that hardly any of them were actually earned. He had never seen
combat since he had never been able to muster much personal courage. The talentless masses could fire the guns and die in
the trenches. His skills had allowed him to seek safer ground. His eyes filled with tears at the sight of what he had once
been; and next to him of course stood the man himself. He was small in stature, but colossal in every other way. His black
mustache was frozen for all time over the expressive mouth.
He kissed his younger self in the photo and then did the same to the cheek of his magnificent Führer, completing his nighttime
ritual. He returned the photo to its hiding place and thought about the years since he’d fled Germany months before the Allies
marched in and Berlin fell. He’d come here by prearrangement because he’d seen the inevitable outcome of the war, perhaps
before his superiors had. He’d spent decades in hiding but once more used his “talents” to build an empire of wealth from
mineral and timber exports in his new homeland, ruthlessly crushing all competition. Yet he longed for the old days, when
the life and death of another human being was solely in his hands.
He would sleep comfortably tonight as he did every night, his conscience clear. He felt his eyelids growing heavy when he
was surprised to hear the door opening again. He looked across the gloom of the chamber. She stood there silhouetted against
the darkness.
