ADMISSIONS
The receiving nurse sat in the arched foyer of the Prefargier Sanatorium and made jagged little notations in tiny columns and rows. Number by number, abbreviation by abbreviation, she itemized the insanities and treatments of her inmates. For the old man with whooping cough, a dram of heroin. For the young man with sexual perversions, thirty minutes in the electric bath. For the young woman with violent episodes, an ice-pick leukotomy. The nurse etched notations like a mason chiseling gravestones.
Few folk sick enough to walk through the doors of Prefargier Sanatorium ever became well enough to walk out again.
The great walnut door swung wide, and in stepped a man leaning on a spike-tipped cane. He gripped the brass handle of his walking stick in a slender but strong hand. The man and his cane crept toward the nurse’s desk, and her eyes traveled up his long arm to his shoulder, his neck, his face.
She winced. The man’s flesh was lank, a mere veil over the skeleton beneath. His lips snarled perpetually, and above them hooked a great nose that must have been broken at least once. On either side of the nose were two dark eyes that gave back no light whatever, like the eyes of a shark.
“Dr. Gottlieb Burckhardt.”
The nurse stared, uncomprehending.
“Was ist?”
“Dr. Gottlieb Burckhardt.”
Blinking, the nurse said in German. “You are not Dr. Burckhardt.”
The man also spoke German, but with a strong English accent. “I want to see Dr. Burckhardt.”
“Do you have an appointment?”
The man lifted his walking stick horizontally, catching the spiked end of it in his left hand, and leaned his scarred knuckles on the desktop. “I do not need an appointment. Tell Dr. Burckhardt that Herr Schmidt has come to collect on an old, important debt.”
The nurse stared a moment longer at this gaunt apparition. “Debt collector,” she snorted, and then rose to stride to Dr. Burckhardt’s office. She tapped on the beveled-glass door and eased it open.
“Dr. Burckhardt, there’s a bill collector here.”
“Bill collector?” came the testy reply from within.
“A Herr Schmidt. An old bill. Very serious.”
At first, no answer came from the other side of the door except a deafening silence—answer enough. Then chair legs scraped on hardwood, leather-soled shoes scuffled across the floor, and a wheezing doctor trundled through the door. “Why didn’t you say so? I hope you’ve not left him waiting long.” Dr. Burckhardt’s jowls quirked in a smile. “Herr Schmidt, my friend—how good it is to see you!” He extended his hand, but the visitor did not take it.
Herr Schmidt instead lowered his cane to the floor and leaned on it, scratching the tiles. “I would like a word, in private.”
“Of course! Of course!” Dr. Burckhardt said, ushering the skeletal man through the doorway. Burckhardt pulled the door shut behind them, but not before the nurse glimpsed a fearful flash of his wide eyes.
Within the office, Burckhardt turned and spread his arms. “Make yourself at home.”
His guest already had, slouching in the chair, one boot lolling idly atop the paper-strewn desk. “I have no love of you, Burckhardt, as you know.”
“I know.”
“And so I will get right to the point. Two men will be arriving here today or tomorrow—a young man with a wispy goatee and a man a little younger than myself and about my build who will complain of amnesia.”
“Yes?” Burckhardt prompted as he circled around his desk and sat down. He templed his fingers before his face. “Go on.”
“You are to admit the older man,” Schmidt replied. “Do not fuss about money. He likely has none. Say that Switzerland provides charitable treatment for the elderly—whatever it takes to allay their suspicions and admit him.”
“Whatever it takes, I shall admit him,” Dr. Burckhardt replied dutifully.
“You are to do everything you can to heal your new patient, to return his mind to him and his health to him. But do not release him. I will call for him and dispose of him as I will.”
“What about the younger man?”
“Toss him out. Or if he insists on remaining with his friend—well, you have had accidents before, and there’s always the incinerator.”
“Herr Schmidt,” Burckhardt replied, affronted, “how could you ask me to—”
“You seem to forget our mutual friend, the one whom you killed, the one whom I have not spoken of but would, and the five others you treated and killed the same way. You seem to forget—”
“But they all were deeply psychotic. There was no other hope for them. Only the new procedure—experimental.”
“You murdered them, Doctor. Murdered them for science as other men murder for money. The courts will not see much difference. And now, if the young man insists upon staying, you will murder him, too.”
“But I … what if the police—?”
“Follow my directions to the letter, or I will expose you.” Suddenly, Herr Schmidt stood, eyes blazing. “No—worse than that. I will kill you myself.”
Lowering his gaze, the good doctor said, “I will do it, then. I will heal the old man and—if necessary—kill the young one.
CIVILIZATION
W
e don’t present a very noble picture, Thomas and I, loping into town like a pair of starving hyenas. It’s been two full days since either of us has eaten, since Thomas dragged me from the Reichenbach River. I’ve not eaten for even longer: I doubt the gunman and I were sharing cheese and baguettes at the top of the falls.
Needless to say, as we stagger into Bern, everything looks appetizing—the roasted almonds at a street vendor’s stall, the great sausages hanging trophylike in the butcher’s window, the Swiss chocolates that rise in a pyramid in the candy store, the little hunks of Edam in the fromagerie—even the red apples and orange carrots and shaggy cabbages at the greengrocer’s.
I pluck an apple from a bin and lift it to my nose. It smells luscious, but I feign distaste and lower the fruit again. Instead of returning it to the bin, I slide the thing into my shirtsleeve. The greengrocer is none the wiser.
When at last Thomas and I step beyond the marketplace, I guide him to a dark alley and produce the apple from my sleeve. I take a bite and offer him some.
“Astonishing!” He snatches up the fruit and bites. Around chunks of half-chewed apple, he says, “Where’d you get the money?”
I swallow before replying. “Money is a crutch for crippled fingers.” To demonstrate, I lift a carrot from my vest pocket.
Thomas has munched halfway through the apple, but now he hands the sloppy thing back in favor of the carrot. We eat. It’s a quiet moment, a small feast in a dark alley in a foreign town. Still, it cheers us both.
“Maybe we don’t need the sanatorium,” Thomas says.
“Huh?”
“Your arm’s splinted; my wounds are dressed. We’ve got as much produce as you can shove up your shirt. Maybe we’re fine, then … . Fresh slate. New beginning. All that. You don’t know how many times I’ve landed just this way in a new city. Start again.”
There’s something hopeful and infectious in his voice, but I can’t give in to it. “I have a past whether I want one or not. The man with the gun is my past. Until I know who I am, I can’t be safe.”
Thomas’s young face clouds. “Then, my friend,” he says, dropping the carrot nub to the cobbles and flicking the apple core from my grip, “it’s off to hospital.”
SANATORIUM
B
y the time we marched up the steps of the sanatorium, I’d hatched a plan. “I know what our story should be.”
“Better fill me in,” Silence replied.
“It’s simple enough,” I said. “We’re obviously British—”
“The moment we open our mouths.”
“So, let’s be father and son—tourists who were beaten, shot, and robbed.”
“You? My son?” Silence said, studying my goatee and the greatcoat on my shoulders.
“I’m the black sheep.”
“I don’t know, Thomas. It’s not the best plan.” Silence opened the door before me, gesturing me in.
“Maybe not, but it’s the only one we’ve got.” I walked through the huge oak double doors into a high-vaulted space with walls of sterile white. A few patients sat slumped in a semicircle of chairs around the outer walls, and in the center of the room stood a great walnut desk with papers spread out across it. An elderly nurse sat there.
“Mademoiselle?” I began.
The woman looked up, her wrinkled face unfolded, and she coughed. “Frau.”
“Do you speak English, Frau?” I asked.
“Yes.”
“Oh, thank goodness. You must help us. My father and I are on tour from Britain, and we have been beaten, shot, and robbed.”
“Robbed?”
“
Beaten, shot
, and robbed,” I repeated. Silence nodded gravely as I went on. “We’d been hiking the Alps above the Reichenbach Falls and a man with a rifle held us up. Father surrendered his pocketbook, but I tried to be the hero and lunged for the man, which earned me this bullet in the shoulder.”
The nurse peered dubiously at my bandage. “The blood’s all in back. How did he shoot you in the back when you were lunging at him?”
I felt my face flush. “Well, all right, you caught me.” I approached the desk, leaning confidentially toward her. “I was running when he shot me. Shoulder and neck. That’s when Father jumped the man and got shoved off a cliff and broke his arm and hit his head. You see? Amnesia.”
The word
amnesia
made the nurse’s eyes jump to Silence, who was affecting a very convincing idiot stare. “All right. I’ll need your names.”
“My name is Thomas—” I broke off, amazed that I had almost blurted out my true name. “Er, James Thomas.”
“All right, and your father?”
“Harold Thomas.”
She noted both names. “And how do you plan to pay?”
“Pay?” I said, suddenly recognizing the limits of my plan. “Well, our pocketbooks have been stolen, and—”
“Switzerland provides charitable treatment for the elderly. Your father is covered, but you will have to pay for yourself.”
“Well, I, er—I’ll be fine. Just a bullet wound. Got the bullet out—Father did, I mean. And my neck—bandaged. I’ll be fine.”
“I’ll repack your bandages for you, out here, but that’s the best I can do. Please ask your father to sit there with the other new patients. Then seat yourself here so I can quickly tend your wounds.”
As I helped Silence to his seat, the nurse turned with chart in hand and headed for the surgical theater. I leaned over to Silence and whispered, “We’re in!”
“We’ll see.”
Not a moment later, the door to the surgical theater burst open, and out rushed a jowly doctor with eyes ablaze and fingers riling. “Where’s the amnesiac?”
The nurse strode out behind him and gestured to Silence. “Right here.”
“Excellent! Excellent!” The doctor gripped Silence’s good arm and levered him up from the chair. “Mr. Thomas, my name is Gottlieb Burckhardt.”
“Gottlieb …” Silence muttered. “That’s German for ‘God’s love.”’
“Come this way, Mr. Thomas. I have just what you need. Just the thing to restore your mind.”
ELECTROCUTION
M
y misgivings only deepen as I clap eyes on Dr. Gottlieb Burckhardt. The man’s wide eyes, florid cheeks, and slack mouth show that he believes he has just found his salvation. But why would I be this man’s salvation? What doctor ever greets a patient this way? “Gottlieb,” I say wonderingly. “That’s German for ‘God’s love.”’
He practically hauls me out of my seat and across the floor to the surgical theater. I glance back at Thomas, but he only nods, proud of the little deceit he has pulled off.
But who is deceiving whom?
Dr. Burckhardt ushers me into the surgical theater. The room hosts two examination tables surrounded by tiers of benches. Dr. Burckhardt guides me to one of the tables, arranged in a star shape with separate sections for head and body and legs and feet.
“Guten Morgen. Sprechen Sie Deutsch?”
“Ah—English, actually.”
“Sit here, sir,” he says, patting the middle of the table.
I do sit.
The doctor goes to a closet, where he plucks out a strange contraption—a machine about the size of a breadbox, with a crank jutting out one end and thick black wires emerging from both sides. The wires are woven copper with a coating of black rubber over them, and each wire ends in a metal alligator clip.
“What’s that?” I ask.
The doctor crooks a look my way and says, “You’re an amnesiac, yes?”
“Yes.”
“Then I imagine you do not know of the Austrian inventor named Nikola Tesla.”
“I imagine I do not,” I respond.
“Nikola Tesla and scientists on both sides of the Atlantic,” begins Dr. Burckhardt with a professorial air, “have developed the therapeutic form of electricity—‘alternating current.’ Unlike the dangerously powerful ‘direct current’—which can slay an elephant—alternating current is as safe and therapeutic as bath water. This contraption—called an AC generator—has proved the most powerful device imaginable for restoring memory.”
I nod nervously, seeing the six black wires reach out spiderlike, each tipped in a steel pincer. “How does it work?”
“Well.” He lifts one of the clips and lets the jagged metal jaws slap shut again. “It’s very simple. I dip each of these clamps in a solution of lamp oil—yes, the same harmless spermaceti that lights your home—and clamp it to your flesh.”
“Where?” I ask.
He shrugs. “Ears, fingertips, and toes—the outer extremities. Your body completes the circuit.”
“You’re going to electrocute me?”
The doctor’s hands spread defensively before him. “Not electrocute.
Electrify
. This isn’t a lightning bolt, but alternating current—the very kind your brain uses day in and out. The alternating current will help sort out your own confused brain patterns, will help align them.”
It all seems to make sense—the science of it. I still have to wonder about that eager face, though, those smiling jowls. “All right. I’m ready.”
“Excellent,” says the doctor, pushing me to lie down on the segmented table and slipping my shoes off. The doctor seems to relish the preparations. He lifts one alligator clip, dips it into a jar of spermaceti, and fastens the thing to my right ear. He does the same with more clips—for the left ear, and the fingertips, and the toes. Then he retreats to the box and positions one hand on top and the other on the crank.
“What should I expect?” I ask.
“Health,” the doctor responds, and he begins to furiously crank the crank.
Electricity surges into my ears, my hands, my feet. At first, the energy feels like bees swarming me and stinging my skin. Then the voltage sinks deeper. It stands nerves on end and makes every muscle turn to metal. It delves deeper still, past muscle and into mind, into soul.
I see visions. It is like that twilight place between waking and sleeping, when your conscious mind gazes on the panoply of the unconscious … .
I see an upstairs study with books lining the walls and a cabinet filled with little cross-referenced cards: a murder, a theft, a rape, a betrayal. Names of the perpetrators and names of the crimes, lists of evidence, of tools used, of ways of using them.
And then, there are more visions—of a pipe at my lips, a bowl filled with fragrant tobacco and spewing blue smoke and smoldering with red embers. A breath moves through those embers, and one leaps free to fall on my palm and burn it—one of many little freckle scars on my right hand.
But something else is in my left hand now—the finely wrought, finely curved neck of a violin caught between thumb and forefinger, nestled in the soft couch of the palm, with fingers ambling languidly over the strings. There is a long song in the air, a long, low, melancholy song, a melody
by Beethoven, pulsing slowly through the air, a sonata for piano that I have learned for violin—
Moonlight.
And there is a listener beside me. He is a stocky man with an intelligent face and sensitive eyes. His skin is sallow, as if he had spent years beneath the Middle Eastern sun only to return for years beneath an English fog. He has a reddish mustache, this man, and a square jaw, and trained hands. I look upon this slumping figure, who takes in my violin playing as a drunkard takes in gin, and I see greatness in him. Greatness and friendship.
But then, the pain is too powerful.
I feel my body transfixed, like a Sioux brave pinioned to the prairie earth and waiting for the warriors to ride past and hurl their spears down into me. I feel stretched out, like the man on the cross to demonstrate the power of Roman rule over Jewish mysticism. I feel like the wicker man, deformed or demented or perverse, wrapped in a cage of reeds and entombed in fire by the Celts.
My every cell is on fire. They burst and burst and burst, giving up the water in them and turning the rest to fire—to burn and burn and burn.