The Great Altruist (18 page)

           
“I’m not mad at you,” Jadzia answered. “This is a good thing. It will give me one last chance.”

           
“Last chance? Have you gone mad?”

           
“I can’t move my body anymore,” she said. “And I don’t think I’ll ever be able to. What if I die?”

           
“That won’t happen!”

           
“I’m afraid it’s already happening, Genesis. You need to do one last thing for me.”

           
Genesis blocked her mind from her so that none of her emotions or thoughts could transmit across the thread to Jadzia. She was terrified to let her sister die. Fear, in its most potent form, engulfed every shred of her; no method of reasoning it away seemed to work. If these were to be Jadzia’s final hours, then Genesis felt that she needed to redeem herself, if only for Jadzia's own comfort. “Anything,” she said.

           
“Put me in the mind of Hitler’s mother just before she died. I have to try one last time to save my parents. What happens to me is no longer important.”

           
Genesis said nothing.

           
“I’m not taking ‘no’ for an answer. Do this, please,” she said. “For me.”

           
“Okay,” Genesis replied. “I owe you as much for taking so much from you.”

           
“You’ve taken nothing. All I have now comes from you - the life we’ve shared together all these years; I wouldn’t trade any of it.”

           
Genesis released the block between their minds and sensed the happiness and contentment within her friend; she was speaking sincerely. It now seemed that Jadzia’s death may be inevitable and that Genesis would be the cause of it. She needed to pay Jadzia back for cutting her life short. She searched through the stream and found Hitler’s mother still alive. “I found his mother. Are you ready?”

           
“Yes,” Jadzia said. “And thank you.”

           
Genesis said nothing more as no words could make anything right. In an instant, she disconnected from Jadzia and transferred her to a point in the stream. She emerged from the stream in the tree shelter alongside Jadzia’s lifeless body. “I’m so sorry,” she said.

Chapter 9

           
In the apartment of Adolf Hitler on the evening of December 20th, 1907, Klara Hitler lied dying of breast cancer. Edward Bloch, a Jewish doctor that earlier that year removed one of her breasts, had come by to apply another iodoform treatment on the cancerous ulcerations. For Jadzia, the Polish girl now operating within Klara’s body, the pain was beyond excruciating. The pungent smell of the iodoform filled every nook of the apartment. Adolf never left her alone. He would sometimes clean the floor or prepare meals, but he knew her death approached and the depression had weakened his spirits.

           
“Adolf,” Jadzia forced out, her breath drawing the foul smell into her lungs.

           
Hitler stopped his chores and sat beside his mother’s cot in the kitchen. “What is it, mother?”

           
“I won’t make it through the night,” she said. “And there’s something I need to tell you.”

           
“Don’t speak that way,” he said.

           
“Why have you been so sad?”

           
Adolf began to cry, but quickly brushed the tears away and straightened his posture.

           
“Don’t worry about your father anymore, Adolf. Cry if you need to.”

           
The tears started again but as before, he dried his eyes and changed his countenance. The long years of harsh discipline meted out by his father had left their mark and Adolf could not resist the inward pressure to conform - even if his father was dead.

           
“Tell me,” Jadzia said, “why have you been so depressed of late? It isn’t just me, is it?”

           
“No,” he said. “I didn’t leave Vienna because you took ill, but...” He stammered for right words. “I failed the academy’s examination.”

           
“After you worked so hard,” she said. “I’m sorry, Adolf.” Jadzia found it difficult to remain supportive of the man who would later take her parents’ lives, but she knew that the future may not yet be written in indelible ink, and perhaps this tragic event in his life could somehow alter what would otherwise be inevitable. Sadly, Jadzia feared she might not live long enough to see the results.

           
“I tried so hard,” he said. “I brought all I had to Vienna to train, and I failed.”

           
Jadzia reached out and took Adolf’s hand tenderly. “You’ve never disappointed me, son.” She said, realizing that Adolf was no less human than she was. Whatever drove him to take his own fate, perhaps this night – in the company of his mother – would provide the weight to change the stream’s momentum.

           
“Father would have been.”

           
“Your father was wrong about a great many thing,” she said. “His love for Austria blinded him. And you can learn from that.”

           
“I’ll never be so misled,” he assured her.

           
“I believe you,” Jadzia said, now desperately trying to be a source of comfort to him. “And yet, many men before your father swore they would not let their love of God and country change them. It usually did. Promise me you won’t let that happen.”

           
“I promise,” Hitler said without hesitation.

           
Jadzia smiled and changed the subject. “What will do when I am gone?”

           
Adolf tried to rebuke her but he stopped when he saw her seriousness. “I’m not sure,” he said.

           
“You won’t continue pursuing art?”

           
“Why should I? Maybe the academy’s rejection is an omen - a sign that I should choose something else. Maybe I should become an architect like Father wanted.”

           
“But that won’t make you happy, Adolf. Your father was a difficult man, I know. But he loved you and he only wanted what he thought was best.” Jadzia dug deep into Klara’s mind for memories to make her ruse more believable. It took all her strength to draw those images from her subconscious; she had buried them away someplace deep, as though hoping to forget forever. “What’s best, though, is for you to find something to make you happy. If you truly believe you can become a great artist, then don’t let the ghost of your father stop you.”

           
“I’m scared of losing you,” he said.

           
“I know, son. I know.” She looked away from Adolf and strained to see the clock.
      
“What time is it?”

           
“Just after midnight,” he answered.

           
“You need to rest.”

           
“I’m not leaving you.”

           
She could tell by his demeanor that he meant his words and was there as long as she breathed. She said nothing more, and for the next hour and a half, mother and son sat in peace and quiet together, neither of them uttered a word.

           
“Why did it come to this?” he finally whispered.

           
“We all come to this point,” she said.

           
“But when I need you the most?”

           
“Life and death are rarely convenient, Adolf. You cannot let what happens to me decide who you become. You are still in control of your own destiny. Your father didn’t do this to me; nor did any man.”

           
“The doctor was careless!” he said in a raised voice.

           
“That isn’t true. He’s done all anyone can.”

           
“Maybe Father was right: perhaps we should have an Austrian examine you instead of a Jew!”

           
Jadzia’s self-control waned. “Adolf Hitler! You won’t speak that way again. Your father was never right about that. Even if Doctor Bloch erred, it had nothing to do with being a Jew!”

           
“I’m sorry, Mother,” he said. “I’m just so angry.”

           
“That sort of anger will not bring you joy in life. You need to accept my passing, and not be so quick to find someone to blame.”

           
“Yes, you’re right.”

           
Jadzia turned away and closed her eyes. Hitler reached for his mother’s hand and began to weep. She didn’t say anything else. She didn’t need to. For the next hour, she lied still and breathed shallow. Jadzia remained in Klara’s body and never called out for Genesis. She had nothing else to say. Moments later, she breathed her final breath - and in the body of Adolf Hitler’s mother. Their deaths
would
be ones Genesis and Hitler would carry for the rest of their lives.

           
Deep in the Canadian wilderness, in the tree shelter that Genesis and Jadzia shared together for a decade, she sat beside the body of her best friend and waited for Jadzia to call out to her from the stream. She never did.

           
She wondered how long she would be alone until Jadzia returned, but moments after that thought passed through her mind, she received her answer. Jadzia’s body gasped for air one last time and expired.

           
She stroked Jadzia’s cheek and kissed her forehead. She uttered no words as she lifted Jadzia’s body into her arms and brought her outside the shelter into the clearing. She placed her body on Jadzia’s favorite spot of grass where she would often sunbathe and listen to the creek trickle past.

           
The thought of turning away from Jadzia and disappearing far into the stream and never returning to the clearing entered her mind. But before she could, she turned her attention to the body and fell to the ground weeping. Rage and disappointment with herself built until it eventually released. She shot into the air screaming and turned toward the shelter. In a fit of anger, her fire shot from her hands and set the shelter ablaze. Birds in the tree scattered in all directions. Rage consumed her: fire destroyed the entire clearing as she created a bubble that surrounded the home she and Jadzia shared. Inside the bubble, she forced as much energy as she could gather from the sun into the bubble until she could sustain it no longer. In the smallest fraction of a second, the energy in the bubble vaporized everything within its walls - the grass, the brook, even the body of her friend. Nothing but dust remained.