Month: October 2012

Part four of eight (1 2 3)

Willem took a lukewarm shower, put on clean clothes, and then went back to the laboratory where he found Doktor Muething standing beside the staff car, the black satchel in his hand.

“You look better than you did an hour ago,” the Doktor said. “Come.” He climbed into the back of the staff car, and Willem followed. Inside there was a plate of pastries and a pot of coffee. The Doktor picked up the plate and offered it to Willem. “Are you hungry?”

Willem was indeed hungry, and he immediately grabbed one of the pastries and devoured it before the car even began moving. The Doktor lifted an eyebrow.

“Seeing you eat like that, I might take you for a prisoner.” He poured himself a cup of coffee and tapped the dividing window with his truncheon. “We will go now, driver!” he shouted. To Willem he added, “You may go to sleep, young Schliemann. We will drive a while.” The Doktor finished his coffee in one gulp and then pulled a book from his black satchel.

Willem tried to stay awake, but he dozed off anyway before they reached the main gates. He couldn’t remember the last time he had been this tired. Sleep was welcome….but the dreams he had were not. He dreamed of the dead Jew, reaching for him with long, bony fingers….

“Wake up!” Doktor Muething prodded Willem awake.

Willem groaned as he rubbed residue from his eyes. Looking out the window he saw that they were at the Hamerstadt Kirche, a great stone church with moss-covered walls that was at least five hundred years old. Willem followed Doktor Muething out of the car and down a wooded path, around the hulking building of dark stone to the church graveyard.

“Something doesn’t smell right,” Willem said.

“We’re away from the camp,” the Doktor replied. “You are smelling the normal air, absent of death.”

Strange words, given that they were entering a graveyard, but they were true nonetheless. The air smelled of wet earth, not ash; bodies here were interred and not stacked like cordwood, so there was no stench of rot. The two men traced a weaving path through the very old graves.

“I’ve been here before,” Willem said. “Some of Uncle Gunther’s patients were buried here. Not many, though.” Uncle Gunther had not treated many people who were rich enough to have been buried here. “Why have you brought me here, Herr Doktor?”

“A history lesson that you may find illuminating,” the Doktor said. They walked into an area dominated hy huge mausoleums. “Ah, here we are.” He led Willem to a very old mausoleum whose gray marble was worn very smooth by two centuries of wind and rain. There was a phrase in Latin carved above the door.

“What does that say?” Willem asked.

The Doktor shrugged. “Something about God, I suppose,” he replied as he produced a tarnished brass key, opened the lock, and pushed the heavy metal door open. “Latin was far from my best subject. Your Uncle couldn’t even tutor me to proficiency.”

Willem almost laughed at that, remembering many mornings when he had found Uncle Gunther still in his chair, asleep with a copy of Virgil or Ovid on his lap. Then Willem remembered where he was just then, and he shuddered. “Is this….legal?”

“This is my family tomb,” the Doktor said, “and therefore my property. Someday I may be laid here as well, though somehow I doubt it if the war goes as I expect it will.”

The only light in the mausoleum came from the sun shining through a dingy stained-glass window which depicted Christ on the Cross. The walls were lined with graves. “More than two hundred years’ worth of my ancestors are entombed here,” Doktor Muething said. “Here and in four other tombs in this very yard. I suppose that this is the final benefit of wealth: burial above the ground.”

Willem thought of Uncle Gunther’s grave in a tiny church graveyard fifty miles away. Uncle Gunther had died poor.

They arrived at the back of the tomb where an immense urn, made of stone with brass trim, sat on the floor. The side of the urn was engraved with a list of ten names followed by dates: 1694-1748, 1699-1740, 1742-1748, and so on. Beside the urn was a single wooden coffin that showed no sign at all of decay.

“Here we are,” the Doktor said. “In this urn are the ashes of ten of my ancestors. Of course, putting all their ashes in a single urn is unorthodox; such measures were necessary, though. And here, in this coffin, is my great-great-great-great grandfather, Waldemar. His body was burned as well, but his bones remained as did a peculiar artefact of his final death.”

“Final” death? Willem thought as the Doktor lifted the lid and gestured for Willem to look. Inside was a complete skeleton, the bones mostly smooth and white although tinged with charring. There was no hair at all, no remaining flesh of any kind – just the bones. There was also the “peculiar artifact”: a single wooden stake impaled through the skeleton’s chest cavity. The stake was also barely singed, and the wood was shiny as if purified by the flames. Willem let out a long breath.

“A vampire,” the Doktor said. “Yes, they exist, and there used to be many – although they now number very few.” He lowered the lid on the coffin. “Waldemar von Muething, by all accounts, was a horrid man and never moreso than in death. His passing was cause for actual celebration by the rest of the family and the entire town. Some, however, doubted that death itself could stop a man who had practiced certain forbidden arts.” He noted the expression on Willem’s face and shrugged. “Yes, the man was a dabbler of sorts. Some of his journals escaped being burned by the townsfolk, and those I have in my collection.”

Willem remembered the book in the Doktor’s satchel.

“He died eventually of a mysterious wasting disease, and the town was only too happy that he was gone. But then others began to suffer the same disease – first Waldemar’s family members, and others later on. All reported dreams of being visited in the night by a ghostly figure that stank of earth and drank their blood. Seven townspeople died, including Waldemar’s brother, sister, and two nephews. His niece, though, recognized him when he came for her and the next day she told the town Priest, who opened this very tomb and found Waldemar not dead and not alive. A stake – that stake – was put through his heart. The same was done to all the others who had died of the wasting, though it is not clear that any of those would have become what Waldemar became. All were burned in a great pyre and the ashes placed in that urn – except for Waldemar’s bones, which somehow the flames would not consume. So it ended – only to be remembered as a curious episode in the town’s history.” His voice became soft and finally trailed away. Willem resisted a sneeze from the dust in the crypt. “I see you don’t believe me,” the Doktor said suddenly.

“Vampires don’t exist,” Willem said. “They’re made up, for nighttime stories to scare children.”

“You’re not much more than a child yourself, young Schliemann. And you seem a bit unnerved. Are you realizing just what we are doing in the laboratory?”

Willem blinked. No, Doktor Muething couldn’t be trying to…. “The experiment?” Willem stammered. “I don’t understand.”

“Yes you do,” the Doktor said, sounding slightly exasperated. “You are smarter than this. Say it.”

Willem still said nothing.

“Say it,” the Doktor commanded.

Willem swallowed deeply. “You’re trying to create on of them,” he finally said. “You’re trying to create a vampire.” Willem nearly choked on the sheer absurdity of those words. Vampires didn’t exist. They didn’t exist, damn it!

“Perhaps we should go now,” the Doktor said.

Willem didn’t say a word as they walked back to the staff car, and Doktor Muething repsected that silence at least until they were in the car and driving back to the camp.

“You are disturbed,” Doktor Muething said. “Is it so difficult to believe?”

Willem glared at the Doktor. “I thought I was working for the good of Germany. Instead you give me ghosts.”

“Oh, they aren’t ghosts. They are very far from ghosts. As a scientist, you should use proper nomenclature. And as for the good of Germany, I suggest you put aside such notions. Again, you are too smart to believe in such nonsense.”

“You are a traitor, to speak this way.”

“Nonsense. Germany will survive. The Reich will not, and for that I am thankful. It has been a frightful business, perverting the minds of the people – the children, worst of all. I hear it in your words as you say things that I know you do not believe. But I know something of you, now. And I knew Gunther, perhaps even better than you ever did. Everything we’ve been told for the last twenty years is false, and you know it.”

Willem looked down at his hands. The Doktor laid a hand on his shoulder.

“Don’t be upset, young Schliemann. All I have done here is to unfetter you from a belief you never truly held. You’ve known it all along. Those poor devils we’re experimenting on? Innocents. They are no one’s enemy.”

“Then how can you kill them?”

“Kill them?” Doktor Muething shook his head, and a look of great sadness came over him. “I am trying to save them.”

Willem looked up, met the Doktor’s gaze. “How?”

The Doktor sighed heavily. “Ah, there are more things in Heaven and on Earth than your philsophy dreams of. Something like that, anyway. Tell me, young Schliemann: what is medicine?”

The answer came automatically. “Medicine is treating the malfunctions of the human body by learning about the body’s limitations,” Willem said.

“Gunther’s words, and mine. Well, not ours, exactly; they were told to us by our teachers just as they have been told to you. ‘We study the limits of the human body and the effects of the world upon it.’ And the ultimate limits are the boundaries of life and death. We constantly probe those boundaries, and seek to move them. But the vampires? Ah, the vampires – they straddle the boundary, existing between it. So often we describe life and death as the faces of a coin. But does a coin not also have an edge, between the two faces? And does that edge not define the faces of the coin?” His voice trailed off as they arrived back at the camp. The car moved through the gates, stopping once to allow an arriving train to cross the road. Minutes later they were back at the laboratory, and Willem stifled a yawn. The Doktor checked his pocket watch. “Nearly noon,” he said. “A long time to be awake, and a short time to see the things that you have seen today. Take the remainder to rest, and we will begin tomorrow at the same time.”

Willem looked up at the Doktor. “I don’t believe in vampires, Herr Doktor.”

“Gunther did.”

Willem felt as though his blood had gone to ice. Doktor Muething nodded.

“Gunther and I worked together in school. He was as interested in vampires as I, perhaps even moreso – although I am unaware of anything in your family history that is similar to mine. But Gunther was the genius. He made the first breakthroughs; I have merely been carrying on his work, and noble work it is. He set the work aside, though, after the first War.”

Willem’s head spun. Uncle Gunther? Working on vampires? How could kindly old Uncle Gunther have done anything remotely like what Willem and Doktor Muething had done that morning?

“I don’t believe you,” Willem said weakly.

“Believe Gunther, then.” And with that the Doktor reached into his satchel and pulled out the black book, the book Willem had seen the night before whose title he hadn’t been able to make out, and handed it to Willem. “He wrote this book, you see. It is the collection of the work he did – that he and I did.”

Willem glanced down at the book cover. A single letter ‘S’ was enscribed there, and the lettering on the spine read Der Vampyr. He opened the book to the title page. There was no indication of publisher or date; only the title Der Vampyr and the name: Gunther Schliemann.

“Are you getting out?”

Willem looked up at the Doktor, and only then did he notice that the driver had climbed out of the car and opened the rear door. He moved for the door.

“Tomorrow, five o’clock,” said the Doktor.

As Willem climbed out of the car a fresh breeze stirred, chilling him. He scrambled to button his coat, but it did no good. He was suddenly very, very cold.

Share This Post

Part three of eight (1 2)

Willem jumped back with a gasp. He tried to tear his eyes away from the dead Jew’s cold, bloodless stare but he could not. “Doktor?” His voice came out strangled. “Doktor?”

“Magnificent,” the Doktor said. He was now standing beside Willem and looking with wonder at the Jew. “Has the stilled heart starting beating again?” he stepped forward and probed the Jew’s chest with his stethoscope, shielding his eyes with his free hand from the icy gaze of the Jew. “No breath and no heartbeat,” the Doktor said. “No signs at all that this Jew is anything but dead.”

“That’s impossible!” Willem protested. “Look at him!” The dead Jew turned his gaze back to Willem, and Willem took a step backward. He had never before seen a gaze so….commanding, that held him and wouldn’t let go. The dead Jew opened his mouth and a sound came out, a breathless snarl of rage and malevolence. Willem felt himself being beckoned closer, pulled forward by some force. He took a step toward the dead Jew, and another, and another. The dead Jew bared his teeth. Had his canines been that long before? Had they been that sharp, tapering to needle-like points? The dead Jew opened his mouth wide as Willem leaned over him. A vein throbbed in Willem’s neck as he bent down toward the dead Jew’s waiting lips—

“STOP!”

Willem was suddenly grabbed from behind and torn away from the dead Jew. He sprawled across the floor and the room seemed to spin around him. He blinked his eyes clear and looked up at Doktor Muething, who now knelt beside him. Willem’s stomach heaved and he rapidly swallowed to keep from vomiting.

“Here,” the Doktor said as he pressed something into Willem’s hand. “Wear it around your neck. It will protect you.” Willem looked down at the object. It was a silver crucifix. “I’m sorry I didn’t think to give it to you before,” the Doktor went on. “I must be getting old, if such important details are escaping me.” Willem put the chain around his neck, and his stomach quieted almost immediately as he did so. Then he stood up and joined Doktor Muething beside the dead Jew. The Doktor wore a matching crucifix.

“Lord have mercy,” Willem said. The Doktor only nodded.

The dead Jew stared at them with wide eyes burning white. Its skin had gone the color of alabaster and those horrible canine teeth gleamed in the harsh light of the surgical lamps. The dead Jew slowly tested the restraints on each of his extremities and growled when it discovered its immobility.

“It worked,” the Doktor whispered. “More things on heaven and earth….”

“What have we done, Herr Doktor?”

“We have created.”

Willem tried to fathom just what they had created….and then the dead Jew let loose a smoldering cry of agony. Its body convulsed against the restraints, and its strength was such that they nearly broke. The dead Jew convulsed again and again, shrieking wildly each time. That scream reminded Willem of that of children receiving their first injections – but of course it was far, far worse. He winced and stepped back, but Doktor Muething stepped forward.

“What is happening?” the Doktor said. The dead Jew kept screaming, its convulsions becoming more and more violent. Willem stepped back up to the Doktor’s side and watched, his eyes wide in fascination and horror. Somehow this starved, weak, dead body was pushing the restraining straps to their absolute limits. It was inconceivable that it could be that strong.

“What if it breaks free?” Willem asked.

Doktor Muething glanced at the clock. “I have a way of dealing with that.”

Willem heard trucks rolling by outside and the distant whistle of an arriving train; the camp would now be coming to life for the day – but his attention was riveted to the dead Jew who thrashed violently against its bonds. A musty and pungent odor of rot and decay filled the laboratory. Willem remembered that smell from when he had accompanied Uncle Gunther to a village that had been stricken by influenza. It had been the smell of unburied dead bodies.

Then the dead Jew’s skin sank as though its body was aging forty years in minutes, and still it threw its weight against the bonds and glared at Willem and the Doktor with blazing eyes. His shrieks became even more horrible, and Willem covered his ears; and then the restraints finally buckled and gave way. The dead Jew’s arm was free. A giant lump formed in Willem’s throat as the dead Jew reached up with his free hand and tore the head restraint aside; after freeing its other hand the dead Jew rose to a sitting position and glared at Willem. It ripped its ankles free and leaned forward, as though preparing to spring.

Willem froze, utterly unable to move. The veins in his neck pulsated and a warm wetness trickled down his leg as he realized that Doktor Muething was no longer beside him. The dead Jew approached, baring those awful teeth. All the while its skin sank farther, taking on the mottled appearance of a person three days dead. The dead Jew circled Willem, shrieking again and again, coming no closer than a few feet as the crucifix became hot around Willem’s neck. Willem wanted to run, but the creature’s eyes kept him rooted to that spot as if his legs were no longer his own. The crucifix grew hotter and hotter, and Willem wanted nothing more than to tear it from his neck. The vein in his neck throbbed, his hand moved toward the crucifix that seared his flesh – and then the dead Jew was suddenly bathed in brilliant yellow light. It threw up its hands in front of its eyes and screamed anew, but this time in horror and agony. Willem looked to his left and saw that Doktor Muething had opened the shutters, allowing the light of the rising sun to stream into the laboratory. The dead Jew wailed and writhed upon the floor, and as Willem watched its skin turned gray, its eyes sank into its skull, its lips shriveled and its teeth turned black. Less than a minute later the dead Jew truly was dead; the corpse was a dried, desiccated thing that looked human only in its roughest shape. Quiet settled over the laboratory again, and Doktor Muething’s cuckoo clock signaled seven. Just like that it was all over. From outside could be heard loudspeakers blaring announcements, truck horns and engines, and the regular commotion of morning at Hamerstadt Concentration Camp. Willem looked at Doktor Muething, who was wiping his hands on a towel. He suddenly felt quite weak.

“You knew that would happen?” he asked. His voice felt very small.

“Not entirely.” The Doktor shook his head. “Something went wrong, that much is certain. He clearly suffered an adverse reaction to the drug.”

“An adverse reaction,” Willem echoed, not quite believing the Doktor’s choice of words.

“Quite adverse, wouldn’t you say?” The Doktor smiled. “I am so close, so very close….” His voice trailed off, and he rubbed his forehead before speaking again. “You should go clean yourself, Young Schliemann. Then I will take you to a place where you may find explanation. Be ready in one hour.”

Suddenly aware again of his damp undergarments, Willem nodded and headed outside. He had to stop before crossing the street. A column of prisoners was being marched by, single-file. All were Jews. Willem remembered the defiance, the grim determination that he had seen on Jewish faces when it had all begun, years before. Now there was no determination; there was only waiting, waiting for the end. The last of the prisoners, an emaciated old man, glanced at Willem, and for some reason Willem looked away. They weren’t human, so why should any of this matter? Finally they had all gone by, and Willem crossed the street and returned to his dormitory. He felt a strange sense of calm, so it was completely to his surprise that he vomited when he got to the washroom.

Share This Post

Part two of eight (1)

Willem arrived at precisely 4:53. He found Doktor Muething sleeping on a folding cot in the corner with a book in his hand. There were more open books and papers piled atop the Doktor’s desk, and the only light came from the desk lamp. In that dim light the surgical table cast an eerie shadow over half the room and the far wall. The place was quiet except for the Doktor’s light snoring.

Willem drew toward the glass cabinet with the formaldehyde-preserved specimens inside. There was a fetal pig, a cow’s eyeball, a partially vivisected frog. He had seen all of these things before, so he turned his attention to the desk and the books that lay there. Instead of medical journals and texts, he found books of European folklore. Some of the titles were familiar; Uncle Gunther had owned copies for his pleasure reading. Why were they here?

He glanced down then at the floor beside the desk. Sitting open there was a black medicine bag, also just like Uncle Gunthers although Willem supposed that all medicine bags looked alike. He peered into the bag without touching it. There were various medical instruments – scalpels, forceps, a stethoscope – neatly secured in leather pouches. There was a small book in the bag. In the shadows he could not quite make out the lettering on the spine, but he could see that the title started with ‘V’. And there were two vials, each stoppered and labeled. Willem wondered what was in those vials, and he extended a hand down to draw one of them out….

CUCKOO!!!

Willem jumped back with a startled gasp. He hadn’t noticed the tiny cuckoo clock that hung on the wall above the door. The clock sounded five, and Doktor Muething awoke.

“Is that you, Young Schliemann? Ah, good!” The Doktor stood up. “And you are on time. Wonderful.” He strode past Willem and stuck his head out the door. “Bring the subject in, please,” he said to whomever was out there. Willem heard a muffled “Yes, sir” as Doktor Muething closed the door and turned back inside. “So, what new rumors about me today? I’m sure you’ve heard some whisperings by now. At dinner, perhaps?”

Willem considered being politic and denying it, but he chose otherwise. “You’re trying to cross a Jew with a monkey.”

“At the expense of the monkey, I assume,” the Doktor said with a scowl. “I’ve heard that one before. Not one of my favorites.” At that moment there was some commotion from outside. The door swung open, admitting two soldiers who dragged an unconscious prisoner between them. It was one of the six Jews from earlier. The Jew had been recently beaten; his face was heavily bruised and he was bleeding from several cuts.

“I’m sure the beating was justified,” the Doktor said.

“Inflicting punishment on the enemies of the Fatherland is always justified.” This came from Commandant Reger, who had just stepped in behind the two soldiers. His jacket was unbuttoned, his shirt collar loose – he had just risen himself.

“Put him on the table,” Doktor Muething said to the two soldiers. “Restrain him, also. Young Schliemann, in the bottom drawer of that bureau you will find a selection of appropriate clothing. Now, Commandant” – he turned to glare at Reger – “I seem to recall making clear that their blood was not to be spilled and their teeth were to be intact. Will you be ignoring all of my directives?”

Willem opened the drawer and selected a smock and gloves, trying not to appear as if he was listening.

“I believe you will find that my men left his canines undamaged.”

“And that,” the Doktor snapped, “is the most of my worries.”

Willem put on the smock as the two soldiers finished restraining the unconscious Jew. Then they returned to the door, behind the Commandant.

“Shall I stay and watch the proceedings,” Reger said.

“I doubt very much that you want to stay and watch the proceedings,” the Doktor said as he pulled on his own smock.

“Touche,” Reger said. “Good luck then, Herr Doktor.” He escorted the two soldiers outside, closing the door behind him.

“Contemptible man,” the Doktor muttered. “Jew or otherwise, death is not a plaything.” He pulled on a pair of gloves and turned to the unconscious Jew, who had been carefully restrained with wire-and-leather straps at the wrists, ankles, waist, and forehead. “Take a closer look. Tell me what you see.”

Willem stepped closer to the Jew and looked the man over. “What I see?” he asked.

“What you see,” Doktor Muething repeated. He was filling a syringe from a large glass bottle of clear fluid. “Describe him, as you would any patient.”

Willem nodded. He had done this for his uncle many times, after all. “This is an adult male, middle aged. There are beginning symptoms of malnutrition. His skin appears to be infected in places – there are lesions which have not received proper attention. A number of bruises and wounds around his upper head and torso indicate that he was recently beaten. He has suffered direct injury to his jaws; examination of his teeth—”

“That won’t be necessary,” Doktor Muething said as he came over, the syringe in his hand. “Will you please administer this? In the arm will do.” He held the syringe out to Willem.

“What is it?” Willem asked as he took it.

“A soporific. I want to see your technique.”

Willem had administered injections before, under Uncle Gunther’s watchful eye. He bent over the Jew and saw that the man’s gaunt condition made his veins easily visible. He pinched a fold of skin on the inside of the Jew’s elbow, and just like that a blue vein appeared. He slid the needle into the vein and depressed the plunger.

“Well done,” Doktor Muething said as Willem withdrew the needle. “Now, monitor him,” the Doktor said. “It won’t take long.” He handed Willem the stethoscope from around his neck.

Willem felt again the pinch of realization. “That drug will kill him, won’t it?”

Doktor Muething nodded. “I found that drug in Africa – frightful place, I’m glad it only took a few months – and I spent a great deal of time and effort at Trilenska refining it.” Trilenska was another concentration camp. “It will slowly halt his respiration. When that happens death will follow within seconds, and at that moment you must alert me. There is a moment, you see, between life and death when he will be both and neither.” He turned away then, back to the desk and the black satchel. Reaching in, he pulled out one of the flasks of dark liquid. Willem monitored the Jew’s slowing heartbeat as the Doktor filled another syringe from the flask. The heartbeat became slower, slower, slower….

“I think he will be gone soon.” The words caught in Willem’s throat. Uncle Gunther had said so many times: “Our work is preserving life if it is possible, or making it bearable if it is not.” And yet he had just ended a life – a Jewish life, but a life nonetheless. He felt sick.

Doktor Muething came over and listened to the Jew’s chest. “Yes, he is almost gone,” the Doktor said in a very low voice. He stood back up and came around the table, to stand next to Willem. There they stood looking on the dead Jew.

Willem had seen old people dead of age, adults dead of accidents, children dead of things in the water. Again he heard his uncle’s voice: “You must always accept death, but if you ever become accustomed to it, you must put aside your instruments for your useful days as a doktor are over.” Willem blinked. How could he ever become accustomed to this?

“Death is the last phase of life, young Schliemann,” Doktor Muething said. “Always think of it thus, and it will never defeat you.” With that, he took the dead Jew’s arm, found a vein, and injected the body with the dark fluid in the syringe. Then he handed the spent syringe to Willem and began administering compressions to the dead Jew’s chest.

Willem stared, confused. “Are you bringing him back?”

The Doktor paused compressions as he considered the question. “No,” he said. “Diverting him on his journey.” Satisfied at his own answer he resumed the compressions. “Move around the other side, young Schliemann. You won’t be able to see from where you are now.”

Willem came around to the opposite side of the table. He was struck just then by the Jew’s pallid coloration. This man had been dying for years, as had thousands of his brothers.

“That should be enough,” the Doktor said suddenly as he stopped compressions and stepped away from the body. “Now time will tell.” He walked around the laboratory and closed the shutters on all the windows, completely obscuring any light from outside.

Precautions for what? And why the secrecy of shuttering the windows? Willem wondered as he leaned over the dead Jew and studied the man’s features. He had learned long ago that every person died with a different expression. Some looked serene when they died, others looked frightened. How could he describe the expression on the Jew’s face? It certainly wasn’t serenity that he saw there. Anger? Fear? Resignation? Defiance? Willem couldn’t tell at all.

And then the dead Jew opened his eyes and met Willem’s gaze.

Share This Post

This is a long story that I wrote a number of years ago, and which I serialized on this blog four years ago. Since it’s still my favorite of the horror stories that I’ve written, I figured I’d repost it over the eight days leading up to Halloween. I wrote this, by the way, well before someone decided that what vampires needed to be was ‘sparkly’.

Willem Schliemann extends a shaking hand toward one of his six remaining African violets. This plant hasn’t blossomed in months, and he wonders why. The truth is that he isn’t very good at this. He whispers an expletive as he hears the truck engine outside. He grabs his cane and heads for the door.

“Good morning, Senor,” Miguel says as Willem walks out onto the porch. Miguel goes around back of the pickup truck and begins unloading Willem’s weekly supplies. He puts two crates on the porch and stops to wipe his brow. “Senor, how can you wear long sleeves today?”

“The warmth appeals to me,” Willem Schliemann says with a shrug. “Though I admit that I will never truly be used to sun and heat in December.”

“You’ve been here fifty years.”

“Fifty-four,” Willem says. Fifty-four years since he last saw the Fatherland, though no one calls it that now.

“Perhaps that is why your flowers do not bloom.” Miguel grins and wipes his brow again. “I’ll see you next week, Senor Schliemann. Oh, your mail.” He hands Willem a pack of mail tied with a string, and then he gets back in the dusty old pickup and drives away down the narrow dirt road. Willem breathes in the warm breeze from the Atlantic. He thumbs through his correspondence. A few bills, letters he exchanges with people around the world – none bearing his real name, of course. Argentines don’t question such things. He finds a letter from a particularly engaging correspondent, and he smiles. Then he sees the postcard on the bottom of the stack.

The card shows a place Willem remembers with perfect clarity through fifty-four years, a lifetime, of memories. The front gates of the concentration camp at Hamerstadt. There on the left is the spot where he stood at attention that morning. The grass is green, the paint on the buildings is flaking – but it is the same place. He waits for the chill to run through him, but nothing comes. Has it been too long? He turns the card over and reads where a feminine hand has written in German, “I have finally found you.” There is no signature. One is not needed.

Old Willem Schliemann looks up at the bright morning sky. He knows that she will be here tonight. Willem sighs, puts the mail aside, and goes about putting his supplies away. As he does so he glances at his stubborn violets.

Some blossoms are more delicate than others….

***
Willem Schliemann stood at attention near the front gate. His new uniform, stiff and scratchy and at least a size too big, hung loosely on his slight frame. His head still itched from being shaved three days before. Thirty other new conscripts stood with him, waiting in the cold April air for….something. Flecks of ash fluttered down from the sky like snowflakes, ash from the great smokestack that towered above the giant foundry building that was not really a foundry. Somewhere behind them Willem could hear a train arriving.

“Attention!”

Commandant Gerhard Reger looked over his conscripts with a disgusted expression as a staff car pulled up in front of the phalanx. A man climbed out of the car’s back seat, and the Commandant turned to face him. “Herr Doktor,” Reger said. “A pleasure.”

“I’m sure,” the man said. Willem leaned slightly to one side to get a better look at this man. He was short, shorter than Willem. His black hair was slicked straight back and his thin lips were set in a tight frown. He wore a thick black overcoat with a sable collar, and a swastika-shaped lapel pin. He placed a pince-nez on his nose and looked over the conscripts. “Such a fine crop, Commandant. Our thousand-year Empire is now in the hands of sixteen-year-old boys.” He ignored the look of disgust on Reger’s face as he returned the pince-nez to his pocket and pulled out a slip of paper, which he handed to the Commandant. “This is the one I require,” he said. “I trust I have not picked a boy to whom you have formed….an attachment?”

Willem watched as Commandant Reger met the man’s gaze. He was close to the front and could hear what was being said, but even the soldiers in the very back row could not have missed the look of utter loathing in the Commandant’s eye. Reger faced the conscripts again and yelled out the name on the paper.

“WILLEM SCHLIEMANN! STEP FORWARD!”

Swallowing, Willem stepped forward and walked to the front of the line, where he returned to attention as the man, this Doktor, came down and looked him over. He smelled faintly of lavender.

“An honor,” the man said. “Please, come along.” He gestured for Willem to come with him. “You are assigned to me now.”

Willem glanced at the Commandant, who gave a single, curt nod. Willem joined the Doktor and climbed into the warmth of the staff car as a young soldier who was not much older than himself held the door open. When the driver was back behind the wheel the Doktor rapped twice on the forward window with his truncheon. The driver nodded, put the car in gear, and drove. Willem looked out the windows as they passed through the camp. There were many guards presiding over the comings and goings of hundreds of emaciated, prisoners. More than once he saw two soldiers dragging a dead body between them. The Doktor sipped from a flask and shook his head.

“Somehow I suspect our solution is not so final after all,” he said. “In the end, there are still more Jews than Nazis.”

“In the end?” Willem asked, surprising himself by speaking.

The Doktor nodded. “Italy is no longer with us. The Russians failed to oblige us by simply giving up. We have already lost France, and Hirohito hasn’t been able to command the total attention of the Americans. And, of course, the British….well, there it is.”

“There is still hope,” Willem said.

The Doktor eyed Willem suspiciously. “Fill an empty bag with hope, and you have an empty bag.” He capped the flask and returned it to his pocket. “My name is Wolf Muething. I am a physician by trade, although in recent years my work has gone in other directions.” He sighed. “I chose you because of your experience working with your uncle.”

Willem glanced sharply at the Doktor. “How do you know that?”

“He was my friend,” Doktor Muething said. “We were in school together, many years ago. I was very sad to hear of his passing.”

Willem nodded and looked away, mostly to hide the fresh tears welling up. He had been five years old when his father died and he’d gone to live and work with Uncle Gunther. Since then he had spent his days traveling with his uncle to the villages and farms all around the region. Willem had helped deliver babies, set broken bones, and tend to the dying. He had done everything that a country doktor would, and he had always supposed that he would become a physician himself.

Then, just six weeks before today, he had been at Uncle Gunther’s side, treating an elderly woman with rickets. Gunther complained of chest pains, and hours later he was dead. Uncle Gunther had been old, but he had never been sick for more than a day or two. The shock of his passing was compounded two weeks later by his conscription into the Army….and now he was apparently assigned to another physician. Looking at Doktor Muething, with his black hair and severe look that was the complete opposite of Uncle Gunther’s, Willem suspected somehow that he would not be delivering babies or setting broken bones.

Minutes later they arrived at their destination. Willem looked out the window at the small, low building. “Here we are,” Doktor Muething said. “Your new quarters will be over there.” He pointed to the dormitories across the street. These looked somewhat better than the mass quarters he had shared with the several hundred other new conscripts – if any housing in such a setting could ever be described as nice. “Come,” the Doktor said. “I would have a look at what they have built for us.” He waited for the driver to come open the door and then he climbed out, followed by Willem. He led the way up five stairs and inside.

It was a small medical laboratory. Clean, Willem noticed, definitely clean. The place still smelled like fresh paint, plywood and plaster; the stainless steel examination table in the center of the room gleamed in the sunlight that streamed in through the large windows. But as Willem looked closer he could see spots where the paint was too thick or too thin, where the wall panels didn’t fit together quite correctly, where electrical wiring was exposed. Another disposable building.

“Not bad for construction performed at gunpoint,” Doktor Muething said. “It won’t take me long to put things in order.”

Willem looked around at the rest of the laboratory, which wasn’t much bigger than the room where Uncle Gunther had based his practice. He now saw that the examination table was outfitted for surgical procedures as well. A cabinet on the right was stocked with chemicals and specimens preserved in formaldehyde. There was a packed bookcase, and between the bookcase and the cabinet there was a roll-top desk. Willem approached the surgical table. It was not as pristine as it had first appeared. Its surface was dull and scratched, and although it had been meticulously cleaned since its last use no amount of scrubbing could remove all the traces of blood from the collection grooves.

“You probably didn’t use a table like this, working for Gunther,” Doktor Muething observed.

“No,” Willem said.

“It should make you proud, having such an opportunity to help the Fatherland.” He took off his overcoat and hung it on the back of the chair in front of the roll-top desk. He was wearing a double-breasted charcoal-gray suit, and now he wore no swastika pin.

“I am honored to work for the glory of Germany,” Willem said.

The Doktor laughed, and Willem’s cheeks turned a bright crimson. What had he said that was funny?

“Forgive me,” the Doktor said. “I am an old man, and I have seen the Might of Germany plowed under twice in one lifetime.” He settled into the chair, the legs of which squeaked. “What we do here is not for Germany. What we do here, is for the betterment of Man. Out there”—he made a sweeping gesture—“the masses will not approve of what we do. They will hate it, condemn it, and some will try even to deny it. But they will benefit. We must learn what we can. Do you understand?”

Willem drew himself up straight. “You speak treason, Herr Doktor.”

“Hardly. Germany will survive; I merely question the form in which it shall be. Perhaps on that day we will be a wiser people.” He pushed himself up from the chair, walked over to the surgical table, and ran a finger down one of the blood-grooves. “Tell me, young Schliemann – are you a man of science?”

Willem shifted on his feet as he considered the question. Doktor Muething smiled.

“You are thinking,” he said. “Good. We haven’t driven you totally to automatic sentiments and easy platitudes.”

“I don’t understand the question, Herr Doktor.”

“And that, young Schliemann, is the beginning of wisdom.” Doktor Muething smiled. “There was a time, once, when the standard treatment for disease was prayer. It was thought that all maladies were caused by evil spirits, and that only God could restore health to an afflicted body. But centuries of science have taught us otherwise. What God would afflict, we can now put right.” He leaned against the table. “So much of what we have learned has come at the expense of the dead. What does this tell you, young Schliemann? What question should arise now, if you are truly of science?”

Willem thought for a moment. “Is there a limit to what the dead can teach us.”

Doktor Muething nodded. “And if the answer to that question is ‘yes’?”

The answer came as quickly as before, but Willem hesitated before saying it. “Then I would ask what we may learn from the living.”

“Precisely,” the Doktor said, and then he addressed someone behind Willem. “Are they here, Commandant?”

“Yes, Herr Doktor.”

Willem hadn’t heard Commandant Reger enter, but there he stood, waiting patiently in the doorway.

“Good,” Doktor Muething said. “Let us see them.”

Willem and the Doktor followed Commandant Reger outside, where six prisoners stood at attention under the watchful eye of eight rifle-wielding guards. Two guards would be enough, Willem thought, judging by the look of the prisoners. Doktor Muething stepped up and looked over each prisoner. There were four men and two women. Each had that sunken look of hunger, and each wore the yellow Star of David stitched to their ratty prison clothes.

“All Jews?” the Doktor asked. “No Gypsies or other undesirables?”

“All Jews,” the Commandant replied icily. “You were quite specific.”

Doktor Muething bid one of the male prisoners to open his mouth, and then he examined the man’s teeth. “Healthy enough, I suppose.”

He has a strange idea of health, Willem thought as the Doktor moved on to the two women. He very briefly looked over the older of the two, but he lingered on the younger. “Might I see your eyes, child?” the Doktor said as he lifted her chin with a single finger. As her head rose, her gaze flicked ever so briefly to Willem’s. There was no fear in her eyes, only quiet resignation. In health she would have been lovely, Willem thought. Even for a Jew.

The Doktor stepped away from the prisoners. “These will do.”

“You are truly a charitable man, Herr Doktor,” the Commandant said, making no effort to look at Doktor Muething as he addressed him.

Doktor Muething waved a hand. “Charity is hostility with an open hand,” he said. “Young Schliemann, we will begin tomorrow morning at precisely five o’clock. I assume that Gunther taught you punctuality?”

Willem nodded. Uncle Gunther had always carried three watches to ensure that he would never be late for anything. One of those watches was now Willem’s; he had inherited it along with Uncle Gunther’s stethoscope, the last proud artifacts from the life of a poor country doktor.

End Part One

Share This Post