The Best of Lucius Shepard (52 page)

“I....”
The doctor came a step toward him, contempt, and pity vying for control of his
expression. “I’m sorry. It’s just....”

The
eviscerated flesh, the severed organs, the blood.

“I
understand, Doctor,” he said. “It’s quite all right.” He spun on his heel and
walked back to the lodge alone, back to despair. It was, he knew, no less than
he deserved. But he could not help feeling betrayed.

*
* * *

His seventieth birthday passed,
his seventy-fifth, and with the decline of his flesh, it seemed his menace also
declined, for his family stopped sending doctors and he came to believe the men
who cared for him were no longer warders but merely servants. This slackening
of concern unsettled him, and like a good madman he continued to take his drugs
and sleep in a bed with leather restraints. He had hoped senility would erode
his memories, but he retained an uncommon clarity of mind and his body remained
hale, albeit prone to aches and pains. It was, he thought, his demon that kept
him strong, that refused to permit a collapse into peaceful decay. He still
felt the violent urges that had destroyed his life and others, and to quell
them he would spend hours each day maintaining a surgical sharpness to the
edges of the kitchen knives, thinking that this pretense would convince the
demon that its bloodlust would soon be sated.

Not
long after his eightieth birthday, he received a visitor from the town: a
doddering priest older than himself, who had come to warn him of imminent
danger. The Nazis were massing on the border, and rumor had it an invasion was
near. He invited the priest into the main hall, a high-ceilinged room centered
by a long table and lorded over by a chandelier of iron and crystal, and he
asked who these Nazis were, explaining that it had been years since he had paid
any attention to politics.

“Evil
men,” the priest told him. “An army of monsters ruled by a madman.”

Intrigued,
he asked to hear more and listened intently to tales of outrage and excess, of
Hitler and his bloody friends. He thought it would be interesting to meet these
men, to learn if their demons were akin to his.

“I
sense in you a troubled soul,” said the priest as he made to leave. “If you
wish I will hear your confession.”

“Thank
you, Father,” he said. “But I have spent these past fifty years in confession
and it has served no good purpose.”

“Is
there anything else I might do?”

He
considered asking for the rite of exorcism, but the notion of this frail old
man contending with the fierce horror inhabiting his flesh was ludicrous in the
extreme. “No, Father,” he said. “I fear my sins are beyond your precinct. I’m
more likely to receive comfort from the Nazis.”

One
morning a month or so after the priest’s visit, he waked to find himself alone.
He went through the house, calling the names of his servants, to no avail;
then, more puzzled than alarmed, he walked to his hilltop vantage and looked
east. Dozens and dozens of tanks were cutting dusty swaths across the fields,
rumbling, clanking, at that distance resembling toys run wild on a golden game
board. Black smoke billowed from the little town, and the church steeple was no
longer in evidence. When dusk began to gather, he returned to the lodge, half
expecting to find it reduced to rubble. But it was intact, and though he waited
up most of the night to greet them, no soldiers came to disrupt the peace and
quiet.

The
next afternoon, however, a touring car pulled up to the lodge and disgorged
seven young men, all wearing shiny boots and black uniforms with silver emblems
on the collars shaped like twin lightning bolts. They were suspicious of him at
first, but on seeing his proof of German citizenship, they treated him as if he
were a fine old gentleman, addressing him as “Herr Steigler” and asking
permission to billet in the lodge. “My home is yours,” he told them, and he set
before them his finest wines, which they proceeded to swill down with not the
least appreciation for their nose or bouquet.

They
propped their feet on the table, scarring its varnish, and they told crude
jokes, hooting and slapping their thighs, spilling the wines and breaking
glasses, offering profane toasts to their venerable host. Watching them, he
found it difficult to believe that these louts were creatures of evil; if they
were possessed, it must be by demons of the lowest order, ones that would quail
before his own. Still, he withheld final judgment, partly because their
captain, who remained aloof from the carousing, was of a different cut. He was
a thin, black-haired man with pale, pocked skin and a slit of a mouth....
Indeed, all his features seemed products of a minimalist creator, being barely
raised upon his face, lending it an aspect both cruel and disinterested. His
behavior, too, was governed by this minimalism. He sipped his wine, conversed
in a monotone, and displayed an economy of gesture that—to his host’s
mind—appeared to signal a pathological measure of self-discipline.

“What
do you de here, Herr Steigler?” he asked at one point. “I assume, of course, that
you are retired, but I have seen no evidence of previous occupation.”

“Poor
health,” said the old man, “has precluded my taking up a profession. I read, I
walk in the woods and meditate.”

“And
what do you meditate upon?”

“The
past, mostly. That, and the nature of evil.”

The
rigor of the captain’s expression was disordered by a tick of a smile. “Evil,”
he said, savoring the word. “And have you arrived at any conclusions?”

The
old man gave thought to bringing up the subject of demons, but instead said,
“No, only that it exists.”

“Perhaps,”
said the captain, with a superior smile, “you believe we are evil.”

“Are
you?”

“If
I were, I would hardly admit to it.”

“Why
not? Even were I disposed against evil, I am old and feeble. I could do nothing
to menace you.”

“True,”
said the captain, running his finger around the mouth of his glass. “Then I
will tell you that I may well be evil. Evil is a judgment made by history, and
history may judge us as such.”

“That
is a fool’s definition,” said the old man. “To think that evil is not
self-aware is foolish to the point of being evil. But you are not evil.
Captain. You merely wish to be.”

The
captain dismissed this comment with a haughty laugh. “I am a soldier, Herr
Steigler. A good one, I believe. This may call for a repression of one’s
conscience at times, but I would scarcely deem that evil. And as for my wishing
to be so, my only wish is to win the war. Nothing more.”

The
old man made a gesture that directed the captain’s attention toward his
uniform. “Black cloth and patent leather and silver arcana. These are not the
lineaments of a good soldier, Captain. They are designed to inspire dread. But
apart from being psychological weapons, they are ritual expressions.
Invocations of evil. You had best beware. Your invocations may prove effective
and allow evil to possess you. Should that occur, you will have no joy in it.
Take my word.”

For
an instant the captain’s neutral mask dissolved, as if the old man’s words had
disconcerted him, and the old man could see the symptoms of insecurity: parted
lips and twitching nerves and flicking tongue. But then the mask re-formed, and
the captain said coldly, “I fear your long solitude has deluded you, Herr
Steigler. You speak with the confidence of expertise, yet by your own admission
you have little knowledge of the world beyond these hills. How can you be
expert upon anything other than, say, regional wildlife?”

The
old man was weary of the conversation and merely said that being widely
traveled was no prerequisite to wisdom.

Later
that afternoon a second touring car containing five women under guard arrived
at the lodge. They were all young and lovely, with dusky complexions and doe
eyes, and seeing them, the old man felt a dissolute warmth in his groin, a
joyous rage in his heart.

“Jews,”
said the captain by way of explanation, and the old man nodded sagely as if he
understood.

That
night the house echoed with the women’s screams, and the old man sat in his
room ablaze with arousal, fevered with anger, his knees jittering, hands
clenching and unclenching. He was barely able to restrain himself from taking a
knife and hunting through the dark corridors of the lodge. Though wantonness
had been imposed upon the women, it was in their nature to be wanton, alluring,
and oh how he wanted to fall prey to their allure! Perhaps, he thought, he
would ask the soldiers to give him one. No, no! He would
demand
one. As
payment in lieu of rent. It was only fair.

The
following morning, after the soldiers had locked the women in the basement and
gone about their business, the old man crept down the stairs and peered through
the barred window of the basement door. When they saw him, the women pressed
themselves against the bars, pleading for his help. They were bruised, their
dresses ripped, and they stank of sex. The sight of their breasts and nipples
and ripely curved bellies made him faint. He would have liked to batter down
the door and flash among them, drawing secret designs of blood across their
soiled flesh.

“I
cannot help you,” he said. “They have taken the key.”

They
intensified their pleading, reaching through the bars, and he jumped back from
their touch, fearing that it would further inflame him. “Perhaps there is a
way,” he said, his voice thick with urgency. “I will think on it.”

He
went back up the stairs and returned with wine, bread, and cheese. As they ate,
he asked them about their lives; he felt a childlike curiosity about them, just
as he had with the five women in Whitechapel. Three were farm wives, the fourth
a butcher’s daughter. The fifth, whom he thought the most beautiful—tall, with
high cheekbones and full breasts—was the local schoolteacher. Her eyes were
penetrating, and it was those eyes, their look of stern accusation, as if she
knew his guilty soul, that made him aware of the magical opportunity with which
he had been presented.

There
were
five
!

Just
as in Whitechapel, there were five, and one would be handy with a knife.

Here
was the perfect resolution, the arc that would complete his mad journey and
release him from his demon’s grasp.

“I
have a plan,” he said. “But should it succeed, you must do something for me.”

There
was a chorus of eager assent from four of the women, but the schoolteacher
stared at him with distaste and said, “If you wish to sleep with us, why not
take your turn with the Germans?”

“It’s
not that, not that at all,” he said, trying to inject a wealth of sincerity
into his voice. “I promise you, you will not be harmed.”

Again
a chorus of assent, and again the schoolteacher favored him with a disdainful
stare.

“You
must swear you will do as I ask,” he said to her. “No matter how repellent the
task.”

“Tell
me what you want,” she said.

“I
will tell you afterward,” he said. “Now swear!”

“Very
well,” she said, following a lengthy pause. “I swear.”

Excited
beyond measure, he hurried up the stairs, went to his desk, and wrote page
after page of explicit instructions. Then he busied himself in the kitchen,
preparing a feast for the soldiers. There would be veal and chicken, artichokes
and asparagus, home-baked bread, and a delicate soup. And wine! Oh, yes. The
wine would be the soul of the meal. As he went about these preparations, he
whistled and sang, gleeful to the point of hysteria. His limbs trembled with
anticipation, his heart pounded. Glasses and cutlery and china seemed to shine
with unnatural brilliance as if they were registering and, indeed, sharing in
his joy. Once the pots had been set to simmer, he returned to his room,
stripped off his clothes, and, with his best pen, traced the mystic designs
upon his groin and abdomen. He set half a dozen candelabra about the bed,
and—satisfied with these arrangements—he opened his medicine chest and emptied
his vials of the drugs with which he would treat the wine.