True-Life Adventure

his coffee cup on the table. Coffee went everywhere. “You can’t put that in the story!”
    He looked like a cornered lion, I thought. He had the mane and the presence and even the sinews. It was very sad to see such a magnificent beast so distressed.
    I held up a hand to placate him. “Okay. I won’t. But I thought the reason you told me was because you wanted me to.”
    “Oh. No. I just wanted you to know why there isn’t much time. I have to have her back right away.”
    “I understand. I’m sure any father would feel that way.”
    “You don’t understand. I’m not just any father, don’t you see that?”
    “Well, of course, I—”
    “Terry is perfect. A genetically perfect child. She was meant to be perfect. Lindsay and I created her.” The terrible hurt in his eyes was replaced by something bright and excited— the kind of avid glint people get when they start on their favorite subject.
    I kept quiet and he kept talking.
    “The gene pool is in serious trouble, you know. All the wrong people are reproducing.”
    “The wrong people?”
    “Absolutely. The very people who ought to be eugenically sterilized.”
    “But who are they, exactly?”
    He looked as if he’d never encountered ignorance on such a massive scale. “The genetically inferior. Can’t you see that? All the brightest people, the ones who really ought to be reproducing, aren’t. They’re the very ones who get vasectomies or practice contraception.” He banged his fist on the table. “The irony of it! It’s incredible, isn’t it?”
    I nodded. I admit I was stringing him along a little. It was an argument I’d heard before— and not always from arch-conservatives, either. It’s amazing the number of otherwise decent people who believe in their own genetic superiority. But somehow I didn’t expect it to pop out of Jacob’s mouth. I wanted to see how far he’d go, so I pretended this was all virgin turf to me.
    “If something isn’t done, the next generation won’t be fit to cope with the world they’re going to inherit. We must breed a super-race, a race of genetically perfect specimens.”
    I said, “You’re Jewish, aren’t you, Dr. Koehler?”
    He nodded. “Yes, of course. But the Jews aren’t the only ones with good genes. Look at Lindsay. She—”
    “That isn’t what I was getting at. I was thinking that it was this kind of thinking that got six million Jews killed.”
    Again he pounded the table. The avid glint turned into a slightly mad one. “Don’t you see? Can’t you see? That’s a perfect example of what I’m talking about. It entirely proves my point. Can’t you understand that?”
    I spoke softly, hoping to defuse him a little. “I’m afraid you’re making a leap I can’t quite follow. Maybe there’s something wrong with my genes.”
    Of course there was. He’d forgotten that. He was a genetically superior specimen and sometimes he failed to allow for the poorer caliber of lesser brains.
    The realization showed in his face and in his softer, more professorial, and distinctly more condescending voice as he explained: “That’s what happens when knowledge and power fall into the wrong hands. There was nothing wrong with Hitler’s thesis except for one thing— the Germans are not the super-race. It’s that simple.”
    “Oh. Well, then, who is?”
    “I’m not saying they don’t have some good genes. Excellent in some areas. But they don’t have everything. Imagination, for instance. Creativity. Very lacking there. But excellent physical specimens. Excellent.” He shrugged. “Anyway, they got a good idea, and because they didn’t have the genetically coded ability to understand it, they wound up destroying some of the very finest genes in all the world. A terrific loss to the pool.” He spread his arms at the shoulders, like a professor making a point. “That’s what happens when inferior specimens get out of control.”
    “But who are the superior specimens? I mean, any particular group?”
    “Of course not. We need the best traits from all racial and ethnic groups. We need to breed like dogs.”
    Breed like dogs. That was not the cliché as I knew it. I was still struggling with it when he saw that again he’d failed to make himself clear to an inferior specimen.
    “I mean, we need to breed people like we breed dogs,” he said. “We need to establish breeds for specific purposes. Why not? We do it not only with dogs, but with other animals as well— cows,