by Marc Raabe
‘In any case, that’s probably what Dr Dressler thought. He thought that Gabriel was suffering from delusions and that he was schizophrenic. He also treated him with electroshock therapy at the beginning.
‘Electroshock?’ David asks, appalled.
‘Convulsive therapy is noted in the file.’
‘Oh my god.’
‘Today, the effects would be much less pronounced – those therapies are better than their reputation. That being said, it’s been very successful with manic-depressive patients, but seldom so with schizophrenia. Back then, people were less squeamish than now and would administer the shock therapy without even using anaesthesia.’
‘What was this torture meant to accomplish?’
‘Through the surges of electricity, certain stimuli are activated. The brain is essentially being shaken vigorously and then can reorganise itself, neural connections can be rebuilt. It also happens to have the side effect of calming the patients.’
‘Dr Dressler treated my brother’s delusions with electroshocks?’
‘Gabriel’s alleged delusions. No one thought that these delusions could be flashbacks. Flashes of memory from something that actually happened. From that perspective, Gabriel was neither paranoid nor delusional. He suffered a serious trauma that was so horrible he’d suppressed a large portion of that night. And a few years later, usually in situations with visual stimuli, the memories returned as flashbacks or intrusions.’
‘Intrusions?’ David furrows his brow.
‘Something like a flashback, but during a flashback, the images run through your head like a chaotic film, while intrusions evoke the same emotions you experienced during the traumatic event. You suffer through everything again and again very directly.’
‘That sounds awful,’ David says.
‘Oh, it is. It truly is. And now imagine that your brother was having such a flashback – or an intrusion – and then was treated with electroshock therapy.’
‘What do you think it did?’ David asks quietly.
‘I would say that it’s a prime example of negative conditioning. Gabriel has a flashback and then gets shocked. His brain saves it as: whenever I remember that time, I am punished with electric shocks. The mind reacts to that very pragmatically. It simply suppresses everything. In short: Gabriel doesn’t have delusions, he has memories. He needed help – and all he got were messages like: “you’re crazy”, “you’re dangerous”, “you’re wrong”. That’s a fail-safe way to drive someone insane. It probably cost him his last remaining memories of the events of that night.’
David stares at Irene Esser. ‘What . . . what does all of this mean?’
‘Well,’ Dr Esser says calmly, ‘it means that your brother is much more normal than everyone thinks. He is very sensitive, very intelligent and often notices things that other people don’t see, which might often seem strange to the people around him. If such a person behaves unusually and has difficulty with social contact – which is clearly the case with your brother – then it can easily seem like full-blown paranoia or, to be blunt, as if he were crazy.’
‘So, they were entirely wrong to institutionalise him?’
‘In the middle ages, women were burned at the stake as witches for much less. But, of course, it’s all relative. They just didn’t know what was happening with your brother. In any case, he was probably given the wrong treatment.’ Her cold brown eyes stay on David. ‘At least, if you look at the flashbacks as real memories.’
‘So, you would say that he did shoot our father?’ David asks, confused.
‘He shot someone. That is the only possible explanation for all of this. It’s just a question of whom he shot and why he did it.’
‘Then is there a chance that he could remember at some point? Or are the memories completely erased?’
Dr Esser tilts her head from side to side. ‘Yes and no. The brain functions sort of like a hard disk. The data is erased, but never overwritten; in a sense, it’s just invisible. So, in theory, it could also be reactivated.’
‘How?’
‘That’s precisely where the trouble begins.’
Chapter 38
Nowhere – 24 September
Val. The name floats through her brain like a pale ghost.
Don’t look in the corner. He’s staring at you.
Liz is lying on her back and trying to ignore the square panel just below the ceiling in the corner of her cell. As long as the light is on, he can see you.
Depending on how she turns her head, she can even see the faint shine of the lens on the surveillance camera behind the grille. Maybe he’s even recording everything. Then he can always see you, every second. She imagines him pushing fast forward or rewind until he reaches something he finds interesting. She doesn’t know what’s worse – that he could walk through the door at any moment and do anything he wants with her; or that he owns and can watch every intimate second: when Yvette helps her wash, when she cries in desperation or when she strokes her stomach and wonders how it looks inside, how her baby is doing.
Please let it be dark! Please!
But it’s not dark. Instead, the door opens. She can already tell by the way the door opens that it’s not Yvette. She feels the draught on her skin like the hot breath of a predator. Everything closes in around her. Now she knows what’s worse. It’s worse when he walks through the door and can do anything he wants with her.
Liz’s eyes look to the ceiling for support, clinging to the fluorescent tubes.
‘Hello, Liz,’ he says. ‘Let’s take a look at you.’
Liz does not move.
He slowly pulls away her covers. ‘The gown.’
He doesn’t need to say any more. Her hands move automatically and she even manages to make sure they are moving slowly, as if she were still too weak.
Val breathes loudly.
She can feel his breath on her naked body. She hates what happens next so much that everything contracts, her nipples, all of her pores, everything, right before his eyes.
Val’s prosthetic hand reaches her between her legs, stroking upwards through the furrow of her vagina, through her pubic hair, in a terrifying straight line, purposefully continuing across her abdomen, over her baby, all the way up to the valley between her breasts.
‘You’re doing better,’ Val mutters. ‘Good. The skin must be unscathed, smooth and white and pink. Not full of bruises.’
The skin must be unscathed? Why? The frightening question permeates the farthest corners of Liz’s consciousness.
‘I’ve chosen a dress for you, for the thirteenth. It will be beautiful on you. You will look like a queen.’ Val lets out a cackle. It sounds like icicles being smashed on the floor. ‘Like a film star. I look forward to seeing his face.’
Whose face?
‘You want to know what I have planned for you, right?’
Liz nods silently.
‘I can hardly wait for it myself, if I’m being honest. But that’s why I visit you so rarely, so that I’m not tempted. You know, it would be a shame to betray it all, the fear, the uncertainty in your eyes, the trembling. You’re like a flame with no knowledge of how much candle wax remains beneath it. It’s beautiful to behold.’
Tiny beads of sweat crystallise on Liz’s face. Her mouth is a desert.
‘I admit, I had to give him a bit of a leg up. A bit of knowledge. A bit of fear.’
‘Who?’ Liz asks, almost unable to breathe.
‘Him, of course, your little Luke. Your Luke, Princess.’
Gabriel. He means Gabriel.
‘You know, I’m unhappy. I can’t see the fear in his eyes the way I see it in yours. He is still not here, I can only speak with him, hear him. But seeing fear is much more powerful than just hearing it. That’s why I had to tell him something, so that I could at least hear his fear.’
Val leans forward over Liz. She sees his split face, the scarred grimace and the angelic smile, as his nose touches her shoulder and the tip of his ton
gue reaches into her armpit.
‘I can even smell your fear,’ he whispers. Liz feels like his hot breath is crawling under her skin. ‘And taste it, too. If I could, I would put that flavour into an envelope and mail it to him.’
‘Why . . . why are you doing this?’
‘What he did to me,’ Val’s mouth is still on her shoulder, talking into it like an outer ear, ‘was monstrous. I was free. For one night, I was free and could try, feel, smell, taste. It was phenomenal. It was the beginning of something big that should have gone on for ever. And then came along your little Luke.’
Val breathes hot air into her armpit. Liz winces as if she has been given an electric shock.
‘Enough talk,’ Val suddenly says, as if he has to tear himself away from the memory, and then stands upright. He quickly turns around. On his way out, he says: ‘Think of me. I will think of you.’
The key grinds in the lock. Twenty minutes later, the light goes out and Liz is mercifully surrounded by darkness. The fact that Val will be blind for a few hours feels like a small victory in the midst of a long, losing battle.
Chapter 39
Nowhere – 25 September
Liz knows that bright light will soon fill the room. She waits for it with her eyes closed. Her mind is clear and quick, except for the bottomless fatigue. She has not reconnected the drip.
Not today.
The tube from the IV hangs down from the frame and leads under the covers as usual. Only, this time, the end is lying loose beside her hand, along with the tube that is normally inserted into her vein, which she removed herself in the night.
The night before last, she took the seven steps from one wall to the other 1,400 times; last night, she saved her strength and only made the journey 800 times.
With her eyes closed, she goes over everything in her head again and again to distract herself and prevent herself from being paralysed by fear and doubt.
Bzzt.
With an electronic buzz, the fluorescent lights are on. The backs of her eyelids go from black to red. Still about five minutes until breakfast. She goes over everything again, repeats it like a mantra. He fingers close around the syringe in her hand. Every part of her is concentrated on the one moment. She knows that she has no more than three or four seconds and listens in the dead silence. Her eardrums are almost bursting in expectation. The blood is rushing so loudly through her head that she’s afraid she could miss the crucial moment. She steps outside of herself, sees herself lying in the bed, like in a film, almost naked, the thin syringe in her fist, desperate, almost grotesque.
Then she hears the steps. Liz jumps up and throws the covers aside. Her feet touch the floor, the thin hospital gown flutters.
From the door, she hears the metallic staccato of each notch of the key sliding into the lock.
She leaps into the middle of the room, reaches out her arm with the syringe pointing upwards, focuses on the grating over the fluorescent ceiling light and jumps up. Luckily, the ceiling is low. The plastic syringe pokes through the grating and hits the delicate neon tube. The glass bursts and shards rain down. It is instantaneously dark.
The door swings open and Yvette stops in the doorway, bewildered. She is a black shadow and stands illuminated in a bright rectangle with a disgusting breakfast in hand. The key dangles from a link on her waistband. Liz’s fingers close around the metal IV stand. Before Yvette can reorientate herself in the dark, Liz rams the metal rod into her stomach like a blunt lance.
Yvette groans and staggers back two steps. The bowl of porridge lands on the floor with a clatter. Instinctively, Yvette grabs the rod with both hands. Liz holds the other end firmly and braces herself, trying to push Yvette aside, as she is still blocking the door.
‘Damn bitch,’ Yvette gasps. Her strength is scary and Liz feels like she’s losing ground. Centimetre by centimetre, Yvette pushes her back into the dark cell with the metal rod, over the shards of glass from the fluorescent bulb. Liz is overcome with panic. And at the same time, she has only one desperate thought.
I want to get out of here!
With all of her strength, she braces herself against the rod, and then she suddenly turns to the side and lets go. Yvette stumbles forward into the room, the metal pole crashes on the concrete floor and Yvette finally loses her balance. For a fraction of a second, Liz’s impulse to flee takes over and she just wants to run out of there. But she knows she has to stay and render Yvette harmless.
She staggers towards the door and, just as Yvette pulls herself together against the opposite wall, Liz slams it shut. Suddenly, it’s pitch black. As dark as all of the previous nights when she walked back and forth between the walls.
Welcome home.
Welcome to my turf, Yvette.
Liz knows exactly where Yvette is. Two steps, a hop over the shards of glass, then another two steps and she’s on top of her, straddling her, frantically groping around for Yvette’s hands. But there are no hands. An angry hiss behind her makes her neck hair stand on end. Wrong way. I’m sitting on Yvette the wrong way! In that very moment, a fist drives into Liz’s side from behind. The pain makes it hard for Liz to breathe. At the same time, she feels a vast anger rise up in her like a flame. In one bound, half sliding, half jumping, she throws herself back. Her bottom lands in the middle of Yvette’s face. Liz’s hands feel something soft, narrow and round beneath her. Yvette’s neck. Her fingers close around it like claws and she strangles Yvette with all her strength. Yvette rears up, writhes like a woman possessed, her hands thrashing about blindly, and then she pulls on Liz’s arms and tries to loosen her grip. Liz makes herself as heavy as she can, squatting with the whole weight of her body on Yvette’s face. She feels Yvette’s open mouth beneath her pelvis struggling for air, desperately snapping her teeth like a dog and then actually biting her pubic area.
A burning pain fills Liz’s body, she lets out a pained cry, lets go of Yvette’s throat, brings her hands up above her head, squeezes them together and hammers down on Yvette’s stomach like a wrecking ball.
Yvette’s teeth immediately let go; she doubles over, writhing in pain.
Liz loses her balance and tilts to the side onto the floor. She feels an object directly beside her right hand and grabs the smooth cold metal. Yvette sits up, gasping for air, and then it is suddenly silent. Silent as the grave and pitch-black. Liz tries to hold her breath, but her lungs are screaming for oxygen. Without a sound, she kneels down and tries to estimate the distance between Yvette and herself. Two metres? Three metres? Or less? The metal pole in her hand rattles softly. If anything, it’s about one and a half metres long. Liz strikes without knowing where she should be hitting.
Everything is still silent. That is, if you can call the rushing and pumping in her body silence.
Breathe, you bitch.
But Yvette doesn’t oblige.
Liz continues holding her breath. The exertion drives sweat out of every pore. She stands there with the smooth rod in her sweaty hands as if she’s holding a double-edged sword. To the left is the door, halfway to the left is the centre of the room, four steps straight ahead is the bed.
She wants to go to the door! shoots through her head.
At that very moment, she hears the crunching of broken glass. It’s as if Liz can see through the dark. As if she can see Yvette standing in the middle of the room with her outstretched arms fumbling about, her head lowered and her back hunched forward.
Liz plunges the rod with all of her strength horizontally through the air. The impact on contact is so strong that it tears the pole from her hands and is accompanied by what sounds like a heavy copper pipe hitting a watermelon. Then the metal crashes across the floor. Wild triumph breaks out in Liz and she jumps in the direction she expects to find her opponent. She feels the warm body and throws herself at it to finish what she began. Her hands claw at Yvette’s throat again. It’s sticky and moist.
Blood!
Liz only just notices that Yvette is no longer moving. S
he lets go of her and waits to see if anything happens. Nothing. Is she dead?
With one blow, her triumph has turned into something disgusting and dirty.
The key. Pull yourself together, you need the key.
Liz feels around for the spring clip on Yvette’s waistband, removes the key and rolls away from the warm body. Trembling like a leaf, she crawls to the door. She supports herself against the wall and stands up, and then she opens the door.
A broad strip of light falls into the dark room, shining directly on her opponent. Blood is gushing from under her hair, down her ear and across her neck. Her eyes are closed. At least I don’t have to look her in the eye!
She takes several deep breaths to calm herself, but it doesn’t work; she can’t stop thinking about Val.
At some point, he will notice that something is wrong. A single glance at the security camera and he’ll know.
So, keep moving!
Liz steps into the bright rectangle, places one foot in the doorway – and then two. Her heart is pounding wildly like it wants to betray her.
She closes the door, uses both hands to put Yvette’s key in the lock and locks the door.
Then she turns around and squints. The corridor in front of her is roughly six metres long and ends in a ninety-degree turn. The brick walls are painted over in a dirty-looking grey. To the left and the right, there is one door on either side of the hallway. A bare light bulb hangs from a rusty socket in the ceiling.
Liz’s feet tap on the stained concrete. She walks under the light bulb and her shadow overtakes her, growing on her path. She cautiously approaches the turn, peers around the corner with one eye – and gasps.
No. Please, no!
Ten steps ahead, a heavy barred door is blocking her way.
She looks down at Yvette’s key. Hands shaking, she tries to fit the thin, silver key bit into the cylinder lock. No luck. It doesn’t fit.
She turns around, scurries back to the two other doors and pushes on the left. A cell like her own, but larger and more comfortable. Blankets, pillows, a scuffed light-brown leather sofa, well-read books, an unmade bed, a sink and toilet, crude drawings of flowers on the walls, no windows, no exit. A cellar.