"I cannot promise you anything. At least not until I thoroughly examining him, in order to determine how "intermediate" his body and his mind are."
"Going into Hirschfeldś office was one of the worst moments in my life," said Max. "The doctor asked me if I knew why my father had brought me there. I simply moved my head up and down, because I would not utter the ominous word... Hirschfeld would not let you use euphemisms.
"Your father, he said, suspects you are an invert and wants me to help you."
"It is not what you think, Sir, I replied. If I am here because of what happened at school, then I must tell you it was all an innocent affair."
I was paralyzed and no other words would come out of my mouth. For a number of years I have been living confused. The General had taken away my mother from me and every time he got mad he would start shouting that both she and I were a pair of degenerates. I never dared to cross that invisible barrier preventing me from further inquiries. On the other hand, I felt a special attraction towards boys, since I was seven, I think. This attraction induced me to engage in mutual masturbations with them and later to engage in 'more mature' practices..."
In contrast with Carlos, who as a youngster had never seen a Jew and who had developed a hatred for them adopting it from his father, Max was very close to Jewish people. His anti-Semitism was not nurtured by his father but developed from his hostility towards Hirschfeld. He was a Jew and he humiliated him. "I endured a real torture in his Institute and he made me hate all members of that race."
"Since I could not speak, paralyzed with fear, Hirschfeld asked me to undress. He wanted to study my body in order to discover hormonal anomalies. The chances for my recovery depended on the amount of feminine traits I had, he told me. He would not let me keep my underwear. The first thing he looked at and touched was my genitals.
"You have a member larger than the average," he said.
"Is that a defect, doctor?" I asked.
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"Not at all, boy. Instead, it is a good sign."
He then examined my pectorals, neck, arms and legs. He even measured the size of my feet.
I noticed his breathing becoming agitated, as if he could not hold back a desire. He finally asked me to turn and show him my ass. He asked if any man had fucked me.
"Never!" I replied with indignation.
"Are you sure you do not want to be possessed by a man?" he insisted.
"No, doctor! Not at all! I have never had such a desire."
At this point, Max had to stop his story. The marihuana made him fearful and the conversation had got hot. After all, he did not know how his friend would react to his confession.
"Do you think I am abusing your confidence with this sort of confessions?" he finally asked Carlos.
"Not at all, man. I do not have a problem with the topic. It must have been hard to go through that kind of examination. Believe me, I understand you because my father was also a man burdened by sexuality and I never liked how he always hid it. I think it is a topic that one must talk about and on which no one has the right to judge anyone else, if they are not wearing his shoes."
According to Max, the ensuing visits to Hirschfeld became a nightmare. The doctor would tell him stories of a number of inverts that wanted to become women. "Something that had never crossed my mind," said Max: "Once he told me he would like to do it. I could not believe it. He was an old man, in his mid fifties and respectable. I could not imagine him in woman's clothes.
"And why do you want to do that?" I asked.
"Well, because I believe I have more feminine hormones than you. Look at my waist and my hips. Do you not see them as lacking masculinity?"
I looked at them but all I could see were two fat and flaccid hips. I could not imagine any man wanting to make love to Hirschfeld."
"After several appointments, the specialist considered that I had a good chance of
'abandoning' my inversion. He had shown me pictures of naked men and women and had
'measured' the reaction of my member to these images. In a 'scientific' way he wrote down his observations and data on my clinical file."
"Like what?" asked Carlos. "Give me an example."
"Well, let me see. I remember one that said: Today the patient saw an attractive woman's body in a picture and the patient had a good erection..."
"But I received my biggest surprise when surreptitiously (while Hirschfeld talked on the phone) I read something else he had written on the sheet: 'The patient is the son of a female Uranian.' At that moment, I felt astonished and wanted to burn down the entire Institute with my doctor in it. I finally understood the reason why my parents had divorced, why my 133
father had completely separated from my mother, and why The General was obsessed with me. They all thought I had inherited the disease."
Because the young man got excited looking at pictures of nude women, Hirschfeld determined that he should visit the district's house of call. According to the physician's advice, Max should get initiated with a prostitute in order to leave behind his sexual inversion. I liked the whore; she was a mulatto girl from Algiers who had been living in the Rhine area for some time. Algerians had established themselves there during World War I."
Max deeply inhaled more of the excellent marihuana and began to describe his first sexual encounter with a woman. "She had enormous breasts and her hips were incredible. In that whorehouse they consumed opium, although not as good as that you may get at El Paso de la Vaca in San José. A tremendous horniness took hold of me once I was alone with her. I wanted to possess this woman, but I wanted to do it just like I used to do it with my classmates in school. I jumped upon her back and had my evil way with her, punching her from start to finish. It was an exciting night, her blood and her screams excited me more and more."
"I felt cured. After that night I started a long chain of love affairs with different women. I was mainly attracted to dark skinned girls, exactly my opposites. You know, Carlos,‖ he continued with a laugh, ―opposites attract, as they say."
"For his part, Hirschfeld was convinced I was not an invert. He would say to The General:
'Your son is too virile a man to be an invert.' Still, he recommended that my father should not tempt fate by sending me to 'the army or to any all-male academies since this could be an obstacle to full recovery.' My return to a 'normal' sex drive had to be stimulated by a permanent exposure to women, the doctor said.
The General felt disappointed and did not know whether to feel relieved or betrayed. If I could not follow a career in the Army, what kind of healing had Hirchfield attained? From that moment on, my father lost all interest in my future. I was sent to complete high school far away from him in Munich. There I attended the Geisela High School where I considered that Hirschfeld had completely ruined my life."
"However, I had renewed relationships with men long before even I expected. In that High School, you see, one of my mentors was Peter Granniger. This teacher could not hide his predilection for me. He enrolled me in the Wandervogel, the German youth movement, similar to the Boy Scouts in England or the United States.
This organization had many things that I liked. In the first place, it was very similar to what I had experienced in my former boarding school, young men alone camping and sleeping together. There I found a homosexual world completely different to the one described by Hirschfeld. And finally, in 1922, at a party organized by Wilhelm Janzen, one of the Movement's patrons, I met Ernst Roehm. This man would teach me the other side of the coin..."
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"At 35 years old, besides being a passionate anti-Semite, Ernst was a misogynist. He believed women could not attempt to reach masculine intellectual development, since they lacked intelligence. Their single function was reproductive. He held the idea that Jews and other inferior races were "feminine," incomparable with the manliness and the valor of the Teutonic nation. The future leader of the German S.A. was very manly and hated affectation. For a number of years he had been a member of the "manly" homosexual movement associated with Benedict Friedlander and with Wilhelm Janzen himself. In 1902, these two men created the Gemeinschaft der Eigenen,71 an organization opposing Ulrichs and then also Hirschfeld, on the homosexual issue."
"In their view, homosexuality was not a gender inversion and those practicing it were more manly than heterosexual men. They wanted to return to the Greek times, where male lovers in Thebes, Crete and Sparta, were always together fighting and dying as members of their respective armies. Christians, with their 'infatuated and Jewish´ religion, had castrated and produced the degeneration of the Teutonic nations. By means of these youth organizations, Janzen hoped to recruit young men to his cause.‖
"Ernst Roehm was Peter Granning's lover. Soon the man would turn him into a procurer of new youths. Roehm was not attractive: he was overweight, with a small neck and tiny swinish eyes, and his face was pockmarked. Nonetheless, he had vast power and important connections. Ernst had been "recruited" and "sodomized" by no less a character than Gerhard Rossbach, the founding hero of the youth movement and the link between the Nazi Party and the Wandervogel. Rossbach helped Roehm create yet another youth organization, the Schilljugen. Its members, wearing kaki shirts, would become the famous assault troops Sturmabteilung, later known by the acronym 'S.A.'
Ernst joined the terrorist group Iron Fist and there he attempted a coup détat. For that reason, he would later be forced to flee to Bolivia. But, before running away, in 1921, he helped transform the German Workers' Party into the National Socialist Workers Party (the Nazi Party). At the same time, he discovered and promoted a young man called Adolph Hitler. According to Ernst, from 1907 to 1912, this Adolph was a prostitute in Vienna. Still, he could not present any evidence to prove this claim."
"The soldier would not confess his intimacies with Hitler, although he told Max he helped him because ´he was very attractive.Áfter all, the Nazi leader could not be a Uranian, since he also had relations with women, although they all ended in failure. Ernst believed Hitler was a cropophile and that he also enjoyed sadomasochism. But he needed a demagogue to attract the masses to the Nazi Party and Hitler not only knew how to talk in public, his speeches had the power to mesmerize an audience.
"In my opinion," said Max, "there were probably some other things, I am not sure."
"What do you mean?" asked Carlos.
"Perhaps esoteric, perhaps wild debauched sex, perhaps violent terrorist rampages against the inferiors, above all against the Jews and the Communists. Hitler thought the more 71 The Community of the Special Ones
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powerful Christians were also our enemies; after all, it is the religion of the slaves. In his opinion Jews, Communists and Christians currently hold World Power and are the archenemies of the superior German, Italian and Japanese nations. And then, there was probably something more between Hitler and Roehm and the other fellows, something related to lust and love."
"Again you are being inscrutable, dear Max," said Carlos.
"Hitler's private legal councilor, continued The General's son, Hans Frank, was homosexual, as well as Walter Funk, the current Minister of Economy and Herman Goering, second only to Hitler in the line of command. Ernst was crucial for Hitler's election to the presidency of the Nazi Party in 1921. He had the money and the contact with the industrialists, not Hitler, and this I fancy, is a major source of quarrels and jealousies."
"When I first met Ernst, I could not believe that a Captain of the army was 'interested' in me. He invited me to his apartment to talk about the future of Germany. We agreed to meet the next evening at around eight, when Ernst could leave his office. We drank a lot and took several doses of heroin. It did not take me a long time to realize there would be more, much more. Ernst got up from the chair he occupied and excused himself. 'Please, allow me to have a shower. I am all dirty from a long day of work. Besides, I must leave Berlin later tonight. And, most of all, added Ernst, I should not be near you smelling like a pig... Ha!
Ha! Ha!!'
"Sure, sure, Ernst,‖ I said. ―Take your time.‖ While he was gone, I looked around his weird place and then sat down again to have another brandy. At that moment he returned, wearing only a pair of tight shorts. I was an innocent lad in those days, indeed! I became somehow suspicious but continued drinking, unaltered. He sat at my side. Then I felt his hand caressing my sex.
"You know what I want, do you not?" he asked while rhythmically squeezing my virility.
"No, I do not know what is it that you want. Why do you not tell me?" I answered.
"I want to take you to my bed," was all he said.
He hugged and kissed me then. I had never done such things before... ―A man's kiss is a very powerful thing, Carlos,‖ said Max. ―The saliva is saltier, the weight and the size superior and the penetration is powerful."
"But the surprises were only starting. The bedroom was littered with Nazi paraphernalia and photos of nude Nazi comrades. I was surprised and impressed. Here there were all these well-known National Socialist leaders, smiling while posing without any clothing and showing their 'weapons' to the camera.
Each picture had an inscription, some written by the models themselves, some scribbled by Ernst. S.A. official Karl Ernst's picture read: 'May this rifle remind you our happy moments. I currently have a quarter of a million men at my disposal.' There were other pictures. Ernst called my attention to one portraying Captain Rohrbein. He said he was his former 'companion.' The picture depicted an insolent naked rogue and on his head Rohrbein had written: 'I shall never forget the bloodbath.' 'Sit on this chair, it will fit you nicely,' was written across Herman Goering's erect member. 'This one is dressed like a woman.' I said of 136
Goering. Then he showed me another one. 'Is he not Hitler's chauffeur?' I asked, astounded by a picture of a fellow with a huge member, smiling while another man practiced fellatio on it. 'Yes! Exactly! That is him!' said Ernst. There were still other pictures, showing party members engaging in group sex."
"From an old and tall armoire, Ernst produced a black leather whip, steel handcuffs and two small bags of pure cocaine. I had never tried Cocaine before. He put it on my tongue, asking me to note how it became numbed. He said: 'Imagine its retarding effects were I to rub it on what you have down there...' I did not answer. I had seen enough photos to know what was expected of me. Blinded by lust, I started whipping him endlessly. I could not stop, he moaned and begged for more, his blood poured from both his back and his buttocks."
Max stopped to see Carlos' reaction. They looked into each other's eyes; both were shocked but ready to continue.
"We went on and on until sunrise.... Maybe I have talked too much," said Max.
"No, no!" answered Carlos. "Tell me, what else did you do?" Then Max said, "You know nobody touches my ass, do you not, Carlos? That is all I can tell you, at this time, about that night. So, let us move on and let me tell you some other things."
"The homosexual world of Munich introduced me to a culture I never thought could exist, hyper masculine sadomasochism. Many times I went with Ernst to a bar called Bratwurstglock l. A table was always ready for him at the place. 'Queers,' the way to refer to a feminine homosexual, were not allowed. I felt Hirschfeld, that fucking Jew, had deceived me, making me believe all homosexuals were effeminate. From then on I would blame him for presenting me a false homosexual world. Side by side with those inverts who liked to dress like women and considered themselves 'feminine souls' trapped in men's bodies, there was a Paradise of virile men. They even published a journal, Der Eigene, with pictures of powerful and well-endowed men. Hirschfeld presented the homosexuals as soft inverts, because he wanted to win over the German population to his cause."
"But a problem soon developed in my relation with Ernst. I fell in love with him, but he was not faithful to me. He argued there were too many men ready to be enjoyed and, besides, life was too short a miracle and may end at any moment. In the twenties, Berlin was a homosexual paradise, including numerous bars such as one called Eldorado, where every night you could find a new sexual partner. Those were years of absolute and mad lust, thousands of men paraded through my bed."
"However, things got difficult in 1923. On May first, Ernst used the S.A. troops in Bavaria against the workers. The army defeated him and he was forced to resign. If Ernst remained in Germany, Hitler feared the Nazis would not be supported by the army's right wing. Thus he suggested Ernst to go to Bolivia and to take me to Costa Rica, a meaningless country for the German diplomacy, but a good springboard for my future. When I arrived in San José in 1925, it only had about 50,000 people, but nonetheless I found a secret underworld to satisfy my many appetites."
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"One of them was my addiction to heroin. In order to obtain it, I helped several German pharmaceutical businesses bring it into the country. I came to supply 23 pharmacies, mostly in the working neighborhoods of Barrio Mexico and Hospital San Juan de Dios. I also exported large quantities to Panama. Notwithstanding several campaigns to reduce its use, the business prospered thanks to the presence of other importers and pharmacists. A bag containing a quarter of a gram would cost one colón, whereas the worker's daily wage was four colones. It was expensive, but my customers amounted to about 10 per cent of the working class in San José."
"And what about women?" Carlos, whose interests leaned that way, asked.
"In Puerto Limón,‖ replied Max, ―I was able to find an almost perfect replica of my first relation. Lady was her name. She was a mulatto woman with huge boobies and buttocks.
She was my lover during my first period in Costa Rica. She was also my partner in the drug trade. Unfortunately one day I found out she had been robbing me in order to run away with a black lover. I, thus, kicked her out of my house. I then got a job to hide my drug dealings, working with the Costa Rican government in the Secretary of Transportation, on matters related to road construction and maintenance. That is what brought me here to Colonia Miraflores."
"Tell me more about your homosexual life in Costa Rica," said Carlos. "I am curious to know what goes on here."
"Costa Rica is not as backward as one might think. I have found some bars in the Paso de la Vaca area, a working class section of the town. But here most homosexuals belong to the inverted type. It is difficult to find manly men, as I like to call them. Only effeminate homosexuals openly display themselves around here. At these bars you may find office clerks, hairdressers, make-up assistants, warehouse clerks. All of them use female nicknames. Once the doors are closed, they dress like women. There I started a relation with a homosexual man nicknamed Susanita. He was of the kind Hirschfeld would love to meet. She is a real lady and I treat her like a woman because I do believe these guys indeed suffer from hormonal disorders. Although this social life is important in San José, it, of course, never compares with that of Germany. That is why I try to visit Berlin from time to time."
"But are not you afraid of being seen in such dens of iniquity?" asked Carlos.
"Actually and honestly? No," said Max. "Many people belonging to the high society may be found there. In those bars I have encountered governmental officials, including the assistant to the Secretary of Foreign Affairs. When the police raid the place, they "tip" the cops and the harassment instantly stops. Some other authorities are also frequent customers."
When Max concluded his story, Carlos was ecstatic. He never imagined the intrigues of the most powerful nation over the planet could reach this remote place in the midst of the tropical jungles. He smoked a final marihuana joint and told his friend, "I wish you the best, man. But be very careful."
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Their paths would separate the next morning. Carlos went to ask for a loan and Max returned to the German legation in San José.
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XVI
One sunny morning Carlos showed up at Marco Mikausòffices, a wealthy German that made his fortune exporting sugar. By 1920, the small group of German merchants controlled about half of the national sugar production. Mikaus also owned coffee farms and a bank. Carlos requested a loan of 500 dollars, an important amount during those days.
"I know you will not be disappointed with me. I am telling you sincerely, don Marco. I am the son of a Lutheran minister and I am an honest and laborious man. My problem is very simple. Neither the Government nor the company fulfilled their commitments," Carlos said beggarly, while anxiously looking into the eyes of the sugar cane baron.
"I am very sorry, Carlos, but many fellow countrymen have come to ask for loans and not even one of them has paid me back. Now I no longer have enough resources to continue with such charities, even though, of course, I realize you are not like them. Concerning these other fellows, I have heard rumors they drank it all! I realize this land is not like ours; it is terribly hot, but that is not a reasonable excuse to end up drinking like the Latino men,"
Marcos answered.
Carlos was about to leave the premises when a young lady came into the small office carrying two cups of coffee.
"Let me introduce you to Yadira Sanchez; she is my partner's daughter," Marco said.
Carlos felt a pair of eyes staring at him just like those hungry female eyes had regarded him through the mirrors on board of the Colombia. Since living in the agricultural colony, he had reduced his sexual activities to sporadic encounters with peasant women. The Germans owned a bar attended by the community members; there they would share some beers, good music and some conversation. Occasionally there would be something more. Carlos had barely time for fun or flirting. Still, many girls in the colony did not hide their desires to marry him. Moreover, during the first year of his stay, a line of children with clear eyes and blond hair were born in the colony. "The Lord is blessing us, sending here his heavenly angels," claimed the local priest. The town's physician, for his part, was more pessimistic:
"The Devil is transforming all our girls into whores!"
Don José Sanchez's daughter manifested an intense interest through her tiny eyes. She was white, with black hair, small and coquettish. "A woman like her will not call anyone's attention in the street," thought Carlos.
"Pleased to meet you, Carlos. What are you doing here?" she asked slyly.
"I have come from Miraflores," he answered, looking directly into her eyes.
"I have heard it is a very ― guarero‖ place, where you people drink a lot, according to my sources at the local grapevine..." she said, smiling broadly.
"Please do not believe those stories..." he answered in excellent Spanish: We are hard workers but unfortunately lacking good luck."
"And what may be the reason of your visit here?" she wondered, interested.
"I have come to request a loan," Carlos said, lowering his eyes.
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"Well, don Marco is not a moneylender and I do not know what he said about your request.
But let me invite you to visit my dad and me before you leave. I know daddy will like to meet you. In any case, it was my pleasure to find you here..." declared Yadira while, at the same time saying goodbye and leaving the small room.
"As I was telling you," continued don Marco, "we do not lend money. My advice to you is to go and meet with my partner, as his daughter suggests. He is a much more daring businessman." At the same time, he got up from his chair and showed him the door.
"I did not even have time enough to drink that coffee!" thought Carlos.
At Yadiraś home things would be different. She was interested in Carlos and he was interested in her money. In turn, her father was interested in having her married.
"Mommy, I like that man, he is so handsome!" exclaimed Yadira when Carlos knocked at the door.
"Remedios, please go and see who it is and then let me know. Take him to the living room,"
said Yadira to the maid.
"Do you really think he would like me?" she asked Lupita, her mother. "Oh, certainly, dear daughter. You are a lovely girl from an excellent family. How could he not like you?"
Yadira was running around the room, looking for the best clothes to wear. She put on a white cotton dress and a small hat made with the same fabric and of the same color. She looked at the mirror, painted her lips using a stronger red color and added some more rouge to her cheeks. The maid returned to announce her visitor had arrived and waited in the living room.
"Oh, my lady, he resembles a beautiful angel," the maid said. "I had never seen such a handsome man in my entire life. How lucky you are!"
"Do not say nonsense, Remedios, you are behaving like a broody hen. Get me that perfume from that small table and the shawl that is under the bed, below the mosquito net," Yadira said impatiently.
The maid did as requested and then left to tell the cook, the gardener and the other two maids, that Archangel Gabriel had arrived to visit the young missus.
Carlos only felt a light and almost weightless attraction for Yadira. Notwithstanding her lineage, she seemed to be an uncultured woman. He was irritated by the easy way she had to express her feelings, both happy and sad. In a matter of seconds she could pass, from the most beautiful to the most horrible mood.
"Do you think, Remedios, this man loves me?" Yadira asked her maid, insecure.
"Most surely, ma'am. Who would not fall in love with such a good señorita?" was the answer. Meanwhile, the maid thought: "Oh, what a dumb bitch! Does she not realize this man is too much for her? He is going to be unfaithful to her with every woman in the world!"
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For his part, Carlos remembered the last words his father had told him. "Do not mix your blood with any Indian blood." But his needs and his interests were more powerful. Carlos and Yadira married at the Cathedral in San José, on January 24, 1927.
Carlos looked impressive in his black smoking suit, with a gray tie around his neck and a shiny black top hat, strongly contrasting with his blond hair, bright like the morning sun.
Those passing by the nearby park could not stop looking at him. When he smiled, the girls elbowed and pinched each other like fools. "The one marrying that stud is really going to be happy!" could be heard among the invited guests cramming the church. Then Yadira appeared, wearing a