"And for my drink, I'll just have some pep, please," Donald said to the garcon, not quite grasping the scale of the restaurant to which his Uncles had brought him. The waiter replied something unintelligible in an obscene french accent and snatched Donald's menu before walking inside, toward the kitchen. Sitting around a small, tastefully crafted table on the enclosed deck of the Paradis Perdu, Scrooge, Donald and the Professor each looked out-of-place, in their own ways. Von Drake, though he knew little and cared less about Scrooge and Donald's relationship, was fairly certain they'd only invited him on this little jaunt so they wouldn't have to directly speak to one another. The more frightening prospect, however, was that (knowing he possessed a degree in psychology) they were expecting him to mediate some reconciliation of theirs. This seemed less-and-less to be the case, however, as an uncomfortable silence descended after the garcon left with their orders.
Von Drake's high powered ears picked up the sound of footfalls on the sidewalk below the deck, on the quiet saturday afternoon. Eager extricate himself from viewing the awkward scene, if even only for a moment, he turned to look at the source of the steps. He saw a decrepit old bearded vulture (probably around his own age, chronologically), happily strolling down the path and holding what must have been his grandson's hand; probably having a nice little day on the town after temple. Turning back to the table, he saw not much had changed between Scrooge and Donald.
"I don't suppose you can frequent establishments like this very often, eh, Donald? Not with those hellion nephews of yours," prodded Von Drake, trying to banish the silence with what he assumed a normal person might say.
Donald was leaning back in his seat, smirking as though he were about to retort, but just as he opened his mouth Scrooge chimed in, "They're your nephews, too, Ludwig."
Von Drake's face was emotionless for a moment, then he grinned and started to mumble a reply, but he stopped short before any words could be formed. Then he shook his head and chuckled nervously. He and Matilda had been divorced years before Donald was even born, but the McDuck clan still treated him like family.
"You can't get out that easily, Uncle Ludwig," teased Donald, knowing what Von Drake was going to say.
Von Drake, still smiling, took off his glasses and held them aloft. "I know your games; you just think you can get me to babysit."
They each laughed, though Von Drake couldn't tell if he'd actually made a joke or if they were only doing so out of courtesy. Soon after, though, the table again descended into a pregnant silence. After a certain amount of time passed, both Scrooge and Donald reached for their glasses of water (as if to excuse themselves from speaking), but having done so contemporaneously, they could only stare awkwardly at one another. This amused Von Drake a great deal more than it would have an ordinary person, but he was adept at hiding that sort of thing.
After a second, they both seemed to have decided that Donald should be the one to drink, and as he did so Scrooge turned to Von Drake, saying, "You know, Ludwig, there's going to be a halloween party at the money bin, R&D and everyone; I'm sure they'd get a kick out of your attendance." Scrooge quickly added, "The festivities will be coming out of their pockets of course, so you'll have to chip-in."
The Professor politely shook his head, not being a fan of intimate social gatherings. Donald, setting down his glass, said, "We're going to bring the boys, too."
"Aye, the lads," Scrooge affirmed. It occurred to Von Drake that their joined efforts to convince him to do something (that he didn't want to do) was probably a front to divert their attention from one another, but then something else occurred to him.
"And the little fraulein, Webbigail?" queried Von Drake, and both other ducks confirmed his suspicion. "Ah, that is good," Von Drake continued, "Otherwise, you know, a lonely holiday might remind a child about their, uh, parentage—or lack thereof."
Von Drake didn't realize how tone deaf the statement was until he saw both Scrooge and Donald's faces contort into something resembling severe discomfort. Donald took another long swig of water, in an attempt to drown the rising emotion, but Scrooge inwardly pondered how his former brother-in-law could have learned that Webby didn't know her parents.
The faux pas itself was bad enough, but Von Drake internally despaired when he realized it was ushering in a third era of interminable silence at the table. Unable to stand it, he looked away (very casually, though) and tried to focus on the events of the street below. It was desert, devoid of any intelligent life and incurably boring—until he saw a familiar model of car turn onto the street.
"Oh, look."
Mass-produced halloween decorations whizzed by the window of the studebaker sedan as it lazily coasted down the roads of the Huntsville suburb. The sour warmth of that morning's sacramental wine clung to Ludwig's throat as he gripped the steering wheel, and a radio presenter loudly croaked the statistical aftermath of the Korean War's latest slaughter. Some meaningless struggle over a scrap of land on a hill, melancholically labelled Heartbreak Ridge . Matilda reached over from the passenger seat and adjusted the frequency, and a different but equally grating news presenter started to prattle off headlines. She and Ludwig had been wed only a year and a half—the ceremony having taken place in a little adobe chapel in El Paso—and the honeymoon period had more-or-less ended. They were both content in their quiet domestic situation, and life in the middle-class Alabama neighborhood was much preferable to the quonset huts to which they'd been relegated in Fort Bliss.
The radio's volume vacillated momentarily, with the sound of rustling paper and unintelligible mumbles emanating from the device before the newscaster's voice returned louder than before. He said, "And in news a little closer to home, Huntsville's own Redstone Arsenal continues to be the site of the United States' most exciting advances in rocketry-"
"Ludwig, they're talking about where you work," chirped Matilda, in case her husband was lost in thought (as he often tended to be).
The broadcast continued, "Thanks to the prodigious, almost superhuman abilities of Physicist Wernher von Braun and the two-hundred scientists and engineers under him."
"Aw, sweetie," Matilda placed a hand on Ludwig's back, smiling as he raised an inquisitive brow at the broadcaster's words.
"B-but, it is on the wishes of the station's ownership that we would like to remind the listening public… that Doctor Bra- Doctor von Braun," the broadcaster's faux-midwest accent slipped into his (presumably) native Southern at the misread, and Matilda, a little nervous, slid her hand off Ludwig. "That Doctor von Braun and the majority of his German scientists were at one time members of the Nazi Party-" Matilda reached for the radio, but Ludwig's hand shot over the dial, blocking her. "And were each high ranking members of the Waffen SS, p… Probably complicit in the mass extermination of millions of ethnic vultures," Ludwig turned off the radio.
The remainder of the drive home proceeded in silence. Matilda, a normally very confident and outgoing woman, kept her hands on her lap and fixed her gaze out of the passenger-side window. For her own sanity, whenever this thing came up, she'd silently assure herself that her Ludwig was not capable of such inhumanity. He was too sweet, too kind, too pacifistic and quick to acquiesce—and then she'd think to herself that, if he were complicit in these acts, then the real perpetrators had taken advantage of him. However, this came with a slew of fallacies, not the least of which was that everyGerman scientist brought to America had said they were 'being taken advantage of' or something to that effect. But Matilda banished these thoughts, as quickly as she could. Ludwig was a good husband; a good man.
She tried to focus her thoughts on the halloween party she was planning to throw, but this led her to recall Ludwig's timid protests whenever she brought it up to him; and this in turn lead her back to the subject broached by the broadcast. Ludwig disliked social events, from upscale galas to informal get-togethers on the block; he couldn't stand them. He was always (ever since she knew him, anyway) a quiet and reserved man. Only speaking if spoken to, and even then limiting his responses to single sentences, if he couldn't reduce it to a monosyllabic answer. Sometimes, though, if the subject of conversation were something he considered especially high and lofty, like philosophy or mathematics, he could be coerced into elaborate lectures and dissertations on the spot, sometimes going on for hours. And if they went on long enough, he could even become boisterous and extroverted.
During such rare occasions, Matilda would incite him to perform feats of the intellect before whatever assembly they were entertaining. With an eidetic memory, Ludwig would memorize the pages of phone directories and, having someone call out a number, recite the contents of that page perfectly. One of their friends, who was a very skilled accountant, once brought in an adding machine and was astounded that Ludwig could mentally calculate complex arithmetic problems faster than the device. Though he could very seldom be impelled to these displays, they had made him an adored member of whatever community in which he and Matilda lived. Everyone agreed that he was a genius, and it made his wife proud.
Whenever she saw Ludwig speak to a child, and he was fond of children so he went out of his way to converse with them whenever a parent brought their progeny to a get-together, Matilda noticed that he could speak to the little boy or girl as if he were their equal. Like a god lowering himself to a mortal plane. She often wondered if he applied this ability when speaking to everyone else.
It was incontrovertible: her husband, Doctor Ludwig Von Drake, really was a genius. But with this rumination came a deeper, more frightening truth; at least within the overall context of this train of thought.
She glanced over at him, his hands very calmly wrapped around the steering wheel, wearing that same blank expression, that same thousand-yard stare. Whenever he'd walk into a room, or come to bed, or really at any time, Matilda would ask him why he looked that way. He'd look at her for a moment, as if he didn't understand, then he'd smile and say he forgot to put on a different face. Then, for a while, he'd make sure to emote cartoonishly whenever she was around. Matilda wanted to believe this was some intricate joke he liked to play, but deep down she knew he really had to put effort into looking like a normal person.
Matilda couldn't stop herself; no amount of protest could halt her mind racing toward the truth. It all sounded like some surreal nightmare, or a distasteful piece of science fiction when she first heard of it, but the proof sat beside her. Ludwig's preternatural intelligence, his supreme comprehension and total recall—his pervasive lack of emotion (or at least any ability to display it); it truly was as if he were a member of some higher species, some new breed of beings superior. It all amounted to complete lucidity, a mind nearing omniscience. Ludwig's involvement with what happened, over there was no coincidence, no cosmic accident.
Ludwig was the übermensch. The emotionless superman, the first generation of the new Anatid master race.
Matilda was starting to frighten herself.
But this was all just ridiculous. Matilda chastised her subversive thoughts, mentally flagellating herself for even considering that this sweet, timid man could have possibly taken part in such a cruel, heinous crime. She did her best to herself that this baseless speculation was symptomatic of a deeper, psychological issue she must have had—some self-destructive complex (that's what she figured Ludwig would think, anyway).
Matilda glanced back over Ludwig, now again starting to very much resemble a mere mortal man; a regular, suburban working stiff—maybe a little brainier than the rest. She wondered what she must've looked like, this battle raging in her psyche, but saw in the side view mirror that she was still just an ordinary housewife. Matilda really hated it when she did this. She just wanted so desperately to be happy.
It never occurred to her to try and talk about it to her husband.
Finally, Ludwig carefully careened the sedan onto the Von Drakes' driveway. The house had been recently built, like most in the neighborhood, in a mock usonian architectural style. It was two stories, but modest for the average physicist's salary. As soon as the car stopped, Ludwig put on the parking brake and turned off the engine. They both sat there, just for a moment, before he unstrapped his seatbelt and stepped out of the sedan. Shutting the door with a metallic thud, he sauntered around the front and over to the passenger door; opening it for his wife. Matilda stepped out, herself, and together they walked to the front door. After a short excursion back to the car, Ludwig returned with his keys and unlocked it. Matilda pecked his cheek and they stepped inside.
As his wife made her way to the upstairs master bedroom, so she could change from her sunday best into something more suburban, Ludwig stood in the living room adjacent to the vestibule, staring out of the window and pacing with his arms akimbo. After some contemplation, he called up to her, "Matilda?"
"Yes, dear?" her voice echoed down the stairway.
"I, uh, I think I'm going to go visit Wilhelm," Ludwig had already started for the door.
"Alright, be back for lunch," Matilda called back, just before she heard the door clack shut.
Ludwig stepped out onto the paved path from his stoop to the sidewalk, and stood there for awhile, putting his hands back on his hips. Then, glancing up at the sky, which was surprisingly blue for the time of year, he put his hands in his trouser pockets and started walking. Matilda slipped off her cardigan and looked out of the bedroom window to spy him waddling down the sidewalk, still wearing that blank, emotionless expression.