“Fritz I hope you won’t take offence,” Judge Musil said one day out of the blue, “but surely you won’t allow a woman to drag you down in the same way Adam did. Whenever the old serpent rears its head I try to do the right thing. The Old Testament tells us that Eve gave birth to Cain and because of her desires she also suffered pain. As for the serpent men who play with snakes always get bitten. I speak from experience, however…”
Caught off guard Fritz cried, “We’ve all sinned! But what’s your point?”
“Maybe it’s pointless and cruel to go on,” said the elderly Judge. “It makes me shudder to think of the consequences of yielding to the forces around us. There’s eternity to worry about. There was once a young woman that I knew here in Vienna, a true vampire. She was a boyish, slender beauty, who made me forget all that I’d been taught about good and evil. She was terribly fond of me and spent as much time with me as possible. She made a wonderful companion, but she was Jewish. In the end she made a fool out of me. Yes, I sinned, and it became a death struggle. You see, as our relationship degenerated into lovemaking I knew what it meant. I can ill afford to talk about it now, except now I’m an old man. So what does it matter, really?”
“I’ve often had a cold and lascivious beauty in my life and someone obsessed with sex. What could I do? Do?”
“We lads are easily lured to our doom. Sure enough she was wild and sucked the life out of many men. Jewish girls tend to be that way. I was torn and clawed to pieces. I fell into a pit with a wildcat when I was weak. There was nothing I could do.”
“I brought her into my house. No one knew but my wife; and we tried to keep it that way.”
“Well, this vampire, before she died, confessed that she preferred other women to men. She had the predisposition of an independent thinker. Lesbians, you understand, are unnatural. Because they slipped they must pay for it with their lives.”
“How then was it she slipped?” asked Fritz. “Was it her fault?”
“Why you’ve turned pale,” observed the judge. “The vampire, to be sure, who else can we blame? People who resist the laws of nature generally fall. I’ve seen it often. We all have choices.”
Fritz drew a deep breath before asking, “But didn’t you know who she was before you got involved with her?”
“Sure I did. ut when she seduced me she became a vampire. I then knew what I hated most, so I pushed her away. I threw her out and in the process saved myself. Here, there, and everywhere I’ve seen men lose their way. My own behavior has kept me from being too critical of others. I can’t blame anyone because I’ve been there.”
“God protects Christians from Jews!” said the petty clerk crossing himself.”
“Did I then,” asked the judge, “make a pact with Satan?”
“Who am I to judge?” replied Fritz. “For it was written ‘judge not.’ But let things be how they are. It’s no small matter when some one brings down upon themselves the wrath of the God; for how does one justify it? Satan needs no prompting. He offers us pleasures. The devil is a wily fellow and always has his henchmen near who are ready to serve his purpose instead the Lord’s.”
At work Fritz threw himself into each task. The documents he reviewed each morning contained long lists of Jews. Aware of himself the frightened clerk held an old cartridge pen, a bloody reminder of his authority. As he signed his name, his hands shook because he knew what he was sacrificing for the Reich.
Thoroughness had long been an attribute Fritz valued, and his employer exploited his fear of imperfection. Fritz also recognized his predicament. It was his own fault insofar as he had succumbed to lust, while the threatening aspect of his relationship with Eva increased his desire for her.
Near the front edge of his desk he kept pictures of his family. He missed his boys: missed both of them the same amount. Earlier in his career he wouldn’t have had to explain why he hired a Jew for his sons’ nanny. Now he felt as if he had to take aim and fire a preemptive shot at her, and when he did immediately he regretted it. His betrayal hadn’t been calculated to hurt her either. Then came the guilt, which gave him another reason to hate himself. As soon as it came out of his mouth he knew he wouldn’t get a chance to keep her.
So he lived with guilt. But the Nazis hadn’t invented the murky phantoms that kept him awake at night. It was more ingrained than that. “Fool!” said he to himself. “Just because Jews are more dangerous and destructive than people of other races, does it mean all of them are? And what’s so abnormal about a man’s attraction to a beautiful woman?”
“We had no control over the brutes that were then in power. Why should we have fought a futile battle? By the same token, why should we have resisted the Nazis when making the Reich free of Jews seemed so noble? We thanked our Fuhrer! God worked in ways we didn’t understand. Who were we to trifle with the forces that brought the Fuhrer to us? Only a fool would’ve. I could no longer accept God but continued to work for the Fuhrer and the Reich. I was a soldier and had to do what I was told.”
Fritz had his position to maintain and, of course, had to enforce the Nuremberg Laws. But still it was a lonely spot to be in. Nobody could ever know how much he loved Eva. He made sure that he didn’t let his emotions show and left the dirty work to the Gestapo.
Randy Ford
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