Soon, after donning her new identity as the perfect Aryan specimen, Michele, Luc, and Kincaid embark on a fact finding mission to the Fourth Reich. However, soon after their arrival, the lovely Michele is kidnapped and is brought to a special place in the desert where she is introduced to the latest in high tech breeding machines called Der Fukingmaschine.
She was perfect: high forehead, wide-spaced eyes, discrete ears, determined chin, clearly defined lips, straight teeth, long, silky hair, more golden than a pretzel�
�Please open your eyes wide, Fr�ulein,� asked the doctor, bending over the young woman.
�Like that?�
She made a face like an owl, almost comical, rolling her eyes in their sockets. This grimace drew a smile from the man in the white blouse, even though better known for his austerity in work. But there was cause for joy here! Rarely had he seen such a gradation of cyan, turquoise, lapis-lazuli� Two amethysts, he thought, spreading the eyelid with his fingers to gauge its elasticity. The pregnant woman let him, like an animal in the hands of a veterinarian.
�And the father?� asked the doctor.
She shrugged her shoulders with a smile of helplessness, whereupon a nurse read an identification sheet to the doctor: �Ingelheim, Gawain. Twenty-two. Untersturmf�hrer. Top of his class at the Sonthofen Ordensburg. Has a certificate proving twelve generations of Aryans. �Met� Fr�ulein Greve in Halgad�m, the night of 12 May 1938��
�Do you confirm ?� the doctor asked the young woman, starting to palpate her belly.
She nodded and stammered: �I confirm the date� but you�ve just taught me his name, Herr Doktor� �
The doctor frowned. His fingers gently sunk into her round belly, running from the pubis to the navel. He then realized that he was mechanically tapping a Bach partita. The third�, he said to himself, not without pride: yesterday evening, for the first time, he had played it without a hitch! His children had applauded, and his wife flushed with contentment. He had finished this little family recital feeling a bit groggy. Those were his favorite moments: this intimacy between art and what was human; this symbiosis of the most perfect creation with the purest species! Soon his children would be grown. Soon these young Aryans would take over. They were the future�the future of the race!
Just like this one�, the doctor thought again, making out the head through the skin of the belly. He gently lifted the sheet, revealing the woman�s sex, even blonder, more golden than her hair.
Daughter of Eve, be strong! he recited to himself. He softly ran his fingers over the pubic hair as if he were smoothing or burnishing it. The nurse stiffened, surprised, but the future mother only smiled more. She looked deeply into the doctor�s eyes, like ice melting in fire. A telluric shock�the birth of a world.
�Are you ready, Fr�ulein Greve?�
�I� I�m ready,� she replied, her voice stuttering, not from fear but emotion.
The nurse stepped closer, rolling a table covered with metal instruments, then inclined the bed, turning it into an operating table.
�Then let us proceed,� the doctor said formally, pulling on sterilized gloves.
The delivery went like a dream. The mother thought she heard angels singing, but they were merely her own cries, her own moans, although she was so involved, so galvanized, that she no longer felt the pain. Her conscience won out over her nerves. Her belly felt ravaged, her flesh torn, but it was only joy� obvious� She gave herself over to it entirely, as immaculate as at her own birth.
She had never known another man, having remained pure for this soldier she had seen just one night, for an hour, barely the time of a kiss. But taking him in her arms, receiving him within her, letting him penetrate her, it was to the F�hrer that she was offering up her virginity�it was to the Reich that she was giving her purity, her innocence, her beauty. She had not been impregnated by a man but by the Fatherland. And that responsibility had guided her for nine months. Her brothers had spat on her, her father disowned her. Only her mother had had the true, healthy reaction: �You show us the way, Heidi. Don�t be angry with them�they�ll come around, too��
But she wasn�t angry with them. How could she be? Her life had taken on meaning, whereas they were living in darkness. Every day of her pregnancy, her faith had grown, as this little being, so rare, so true, had grown in her womb. A final shooting pain... A strident, abyssal cry� And the joy of the nurse.
�It�s a boy!� she exulted, while the doctor cut the umbilical cord. Heidi was weeping with happiness. Glancing at the clock in the operating room, she realized that she had been in labor nearly five hours. When her eyes met the doctor�s, all joy seemed to have deserted him. Teeth clenched and brows knit, he ripped off his gloves with a look of disgust. The young mother understood there was something wrong�
�Wha� what�s happening?� she stammered.
But they were not listening to her. The nurse handed the child to the doctor, who took it in his arms despite his disgusted look. He grabbed it by the nape and held it out for its mother to see. Neck twisted, the child howled.
Heidi could no longer speak. This baby was part of her. She felt as if someone was yanking her hair or trying to prevent her from breathing. The baby was getting redder and redder, struggling as if it was going to explode. The doctor had just gone from despondency to dreadful neutrality. Nothing more filtered through his steely gaze. Heidi was paralyzed. The words, the hatred, the fear� everything surged into her consciousness, but she was no longer able to speak. Only tears ravaged her face. The face. Precisely� The doctor affected austerity, like a policeman announcing bad news. He came over to sit down next to Heidi on the bed and placed the baby against her breast. Instinctively, the baby stretched its panting lips towards its mother�s pink breast, but she no longer dared touch the child, as if she were too afraid of becoming attached to it, never wanting to let it go. She settled for staring at the face of the baby, who seemed frightened by the pain, the noise, the light� The world was opening up to it in so atrocious a way. Above all, there was this monstrous, livid wound in the middle of its face.
�Equarta labia,� the doctor stated curtly.
The mother remained speechless.
�Cleft palate or, vulgarly speaking, it�s called a harelip,� explained the doctor in an even more neutral voice, as if teaching a class. �Division of the roof of the mouth, absence of the uvula� Classic, right?�
Heidi didn�t know what to respond. Her body slowly relaxed, and she was again able to move. She managed to turn her hand as far as the baby but was then surprised by the nurse�s gesture.
With a concentrated look, she was filling a syringe. Without even daring ask the question, Heidi had understood� Her hand brushed the child, but the doctor moved back, holding the baby against him. _ The nurse held out the syringe.
�Thank you, Schwester,� he said. �Take the child in your arms�I wouldn�t want it to struggle.�
�NOOOOOOOOO!!!!� screamed the mother, unable to sit up, as if she were being held prisoner in a plaster body cast. With one hand, the doctor caressed the child�s head, as if he was going to plant a kiss, so gentle and tender was this gesture. With the other hand, he brought the syringe to the top of the skull. The mother�s mouth gaped, her lips forming silent cries. She saw the needle come to rest on the fontanel. The child stopped crying. The whole room was filled with a deafening silence. The great calm before death. When the needle penetrated the skull, the child only started. Its eyes grew round and, instinctively, they turned towards the mother. The doctor plunged it in further then pressed the syringe. Even the nurse had to prevent herself from trembling. She felt the tiny being let go in her arms. But the baby remained petrified, frozen in an attempt to look hard at its mother� to recognize her? Heidi tried to cut herself off, to forget, to not understand. But the child�s eyes were so large, so avid�
The same as mine�
It shot her a look of combined reproach and relief.
�The first generation must be healthy,� said the doctor lifelessly, with exhausted resignation, as he pulled out the syringe.
�Give it to her now,� he told the nurse.
�Jawohl, Doktor Schw�ll!�
She placed the baby in its mother�s arms. Despite the disfigured face, despite the thin rivulet of blood trickling down its forehead, a strange calm shrouded the infant. Heidi took it, like a piece of porcelain. Again, their gazes crossed. The child�s eyes were now veiled with beige. Its gaze withdrew, going back to where it had come from. There was a convulsive movement, a sort of little hiccup, then its head lolled backwards. The mother was wiped out and didn�t even feel the hands of the nurse taking the baby away again. _ She barely heard the doctor�s voice, gentle but firm.
�After a month of convalescence, you�ll be transferred back to the maternity center in Halgad�m. There you�ll meet superb young officers who will make you forget this little� setback��
The doctor stroked Heidi�s cheek with the grin of a shady dealer, adding: �You�re young, Fr�ulein Greve, and the Reich still has need of you!�