The Third Twin: A Dark Psychological Thriller

by Darren Speegle

  “Okay,” I said. “Let’s give him the full treatment. Him. His third twin. His evolução.”

  ***

  Bridging the gulf. That’s what Installation Wolf’s Dr. Weiler had been looking to accomplish, and we’d decided that was at the heart of the elephant man’s mission. He had made strides in this direction already, with his ability to pass between the worlds of living and dead. Of this ability of his, we were certain, though we’d no concrete evidence to support the conclusion. Of the nature of this bridge, we were less certain, though it seemed reasonable—relatively speaking—to assume that his evolução also involved the erosion of the veil, or at least the exploitation of an already porous barrier.

  Concerning the what-ifs I’d proposed, the ones that centered on Dianna and I being part of a breeding program, they must have relieved us of every last shred of objectivity because we proceeded as though it was a sheer fact that this was what was going on and there had never been any question about it. Strangely, surreally, this brought the previously alluded to intimacy between Dianna and myself to new levels. From the moment of enlightenment forward, we spoke to each other as much through our eyes as our mouths, and every communication occurring within the context of the thing binding us together. Maya, as a result, became even more the stranger—a detectably jealous one though she would never have confessed to it–and the world outside our windowed vehicle, a separate entity, a movie set that happened to suit our journey. It never occurred to Dianna and me to simply get off at the next stop and wait for a train going back in the direction from which we’d come. That was a journey for passengers whose lives were still their own.

  The three of us were making certain leaps by suggesting that a catalyst had set the whole progression in motion, and that the catalyst might have been the work surrounding the pursuit of the Third Twin. Dianna, whose specialized training as a naturalist was in the field of botany, wasn’t the ideal evolutionary deferee, but she was all we had. And it was her opinion that while evolution was always a graduating process, it was often triggered by environmental changes. Our bridge was an environmental change. Not a textbook one, but it qualified. In such conditions, man would have to adapt, to come to physical terms with a metaphysical encroachment. Again, it was a reach, but it was what we settled on in what limited time we had.

  As to the original question of who the elephant man, or woman, was, we made little progress. Our exploration into where we found ourselves in the scheme of things seemed to know, of its own processes, that our concerns should rest more with the what than the who, and led us accordingly. This went only so far, however, as we drew physically nearer to our rendezvous with the rest of the party. We had to be prepared for the people we were about to meet. Or person, to be more specific. The fourth sign-on to the excursion was of less interest than the man whose ad had brought us to Bavaria. Was the operation owner and guide, Ritter, caught in the tide like the rest of us, or was his involvement more active? It did not escape us that he could in fact be the elephant man, or a host body to him, but we all agreed that if such was the case, the down-to-business man we’d made arrangements with on the phone was a damned convincing part.

  It was Maya who suggested we design a test for him. Nothing elaborate, she said. Just a simple reaction test. If he struck us as genuine, he passed. If he was false in his reaction, he didn’t. Pass or fail, at least then we had an idea as to his status. When she proposed that this test be based in candor, Dianna and I were initially skeptical. All we needed was for Ritter and the other member of our party to think us lunatics, but the more we thought about it, the more we saw the wisdom of it. This test couldn’t happen over lunch today, or even during the first couple days’ trek, but somewhere along the way, it would do to lay the bones of the thing out there so that no one would be caught by surprise when the path took strange and unexpected turns. And it would.

  Oh, it would.

  14

  The five of us sat as a group for the first time at an outdoor table at Berchtesgaden’s Café Strasbourg. The views from the terrace were grand, Herr Ritter having obviously selected the location that would speak most eloquently for the element in which his party would be spending the next two weeks. The restaurant was situated on the side of a hill, and from where I sat, Dianna to my left, Ritter to my right, I had a dead-on look at Germany’s third highest mountain, Mount Watzmann. Against the backdrop of an isolated cloud cluster in an otherwise clear sky, its twin snow-capped peaks looked like the hooks of a nasty vise that was as likely to shear its victim in two as to clamp it in place. Conspicuously out of the view was Mount Kehlstein, on a spur of which rested Hitler’s Eagle’s Nest, a visit not for another day as I’d have thought, but one which, unbeknownst to us, had been written into our itinerary. When I heard this, I’d been instantly suspicious. As I thought about it further, the surprise detour could as easily have been a benign token on our guide’s part, a thanks for shopping Ritter High Country and we swear this little lagniappe wasn’t tacked onto the price. A hired van, already loaded with our gear, would be taking us to Obersalzberg after lunch to catch a bus up to the point where an elevator rose through the mountain to the Kehlsteinhaus. After a special guided tour of the rooms below the restaurant that now occupied the building, we would be heading to our trailhead, which was located somewhere beyond the Berchtesgaden National Park, whose sprawling expanse of mountain, valley, and forest encompassed the better part of the view we currently enjoyed.

  Ritter was a man’s man, German through and through—not to the extent of being rigid and regimental, but he was certainly in disciplined conformity with the task before him, however great or small. In his mid-forties, he was a ruggedly handsome man, chiseled out of these same granite mountains that served his excursions. The knuckly fist that held the handle of his beer mug was scarred from the four to six treks through his rocky domain that he put himself through each year. His Aryan blue eyes gauged you even after they’d burned your measurements into memory three times over. It was hard to imagine him, for all his hardness, as a man who cavorted with dark forces. Then again, neither did elephant-headed carnival costumes conjure images of brutality. Not, that was, before the world had turned inside out.

  By his own admission, Ritter had not been prepared for such a diverse group of suitable applicants, nor for half the show to be female. The typical fare, he’d told us, weighed toward thick-bearded outdoorsmen of ‘the conqueror variety’. This was a consequence, he said, of the selection process. If you could hug a tree or write a poem while balancing on a razor-edge lip of rock above a thousand-foot abyss, then by all means, welcome aboard. We forgave him his biases even as he tried to hide them in the open—not because we thought he deserved it, but because his forthrightness was exactly what you wanted in a man with whom you were essentially entrusting your life. Indeed, there was the sense about him, and this before we’d even hit the trail, that in a life or death situation, he’d fight to the latter to give you the former.

  Higgins, our fellow paying customer, was an altogether different creature. A lean, graying wildlife documenter from Scotland, he was as quick to a wry or sharp-witted joke as he was to his digital camera, which his hand seemed to be perpetually creeping toward even when the expensive-looking device wasn’t in sight. His specialty in the recreational realm was mountain climbing. Annapurna, McKinley, and the Eiger were among his accomplishments, and one of these days, he claimed, he was going to get around to Everest and K-2. Like yours truly, perhaps, he was conspicuously overqualified for the business at hand, which led three sets of genes at the table to wonder. To wonder about the prevailing winds, not a more sinister involvement. If the discovery that Ritter was tainted would have surprised me, then learning such of Higgins would have shocked me. He was far too busy with his wonderment, a fresh-eyed curiosity most people had lost to cynicism by his age.

  He commanded our attention now as he did duties one might have expected of the host. Whoever had died and made him the Eagle’s
Nest expert, they had left the part in capable hands. Without bothering to check Ritter’s temperature first, he’d embarked on a somewhat detailed explanation of how Nazi leader Martin Bormann, who had presented Hitler with the gift of the Kehlsteinhaus for his fiftieth birthday, had spared no expense in commissioning its construction. He’d marveled for us in his classical accent on the engineering feat that was the six and a half kilometer road (“four tunnels but only one hairpin turn”) that led up the mountain to the elevator; and then on the elevator itself (“lined in brass, green leather, and mirrors”), which had been bored straight down through the granite and was accessed by a separate horizontal tunnel through the rock. Higgins had visited the Eagle’s Nest before, but it was with a buff’s fascination and knowledge that he spoke of both it and the Nazi complex of which it had once been a part. While he did so, Dianna, Maya, and I sat back gazing on the scenery, empty plates awaiting pick up in front of us. Ritter wasn’t so relaxed. He stared with not a little coldness at the speaker as the lesson in Nazi history kept unfolding like an encyclopedic travel brochure.

  “While the rest of the Obersalzberg complex was destroyed either by bombing or post-war demolition,” Higgins informed, “the Eagle’s Nest was left intact. This was probably because Hitler rarely actually visited the building except for special events or to receive important guests, which made it harmless. The complex in general, to include the Chancellor’s mountain home, the Berghof, did not receive such a fate. Near the end of the war, the Allied forces feared that Nazi leadership might turn the complex—which was militarily equipped with SS installations, bunkers, air raid shelters, support staff, so forth—into its center of operations, and bombed it. There are some who believe it served a vital purpose already, that the Party used the remote compound as a headquarters for its more secretive activities. You know, the more experimental ones? Like those that went on at Auschwitz under Mengele’s direction? Some believe the Nazis had at least one ‘special facility’ in these very mountains surrounding us.”

  Ritter had heard enough. “By ‘some’, you mean Neo-Nazis? Conspiracy theorists? Where exactly are you getting your information, Mr. Higgins?”

  If the situation was awkward, then reason said it was at least in part due to the fact that Higgins was British and Ritter, German. And yet, I couldn’t help but study Higgins with a mind toward the more elusive matter. Was I gullible to accept his innocence at face value? In spite of my initial take on him, it seemed awfully coincidental that he should be talking about experimental activities and the Angel of Death himself, Josef Mengele. My fears waned somewhat as his less than dubious response came.

  “Research, Mr. Ritter. World War II’s a hobby of mine, but why are you upset?”

  Ritter humphed. “I don’t like the spread of misinformation, Mr. Higgins. The Bavarian government went to great pains to rid this area of what stains were removable. The last thing Berchtesgaden needs—the last thing I need—is an influx of Nazi-happies scouring the area for a ‘special facility’. That is why, sir.”

  The waitress appeared, partially blocking Higgins’s dismissive gesture, but not the words that accompanied it. Spoken under his breath, they caught a ride out of obscuredom on a gentle alpine breeze. “Right. So there is a facility and you just won’t admit it.”

  “Entschuldigung?” Ritter said, on the verge of coming out of his chair.

  “You’re familiar with these mountains. If anyone would know the whereabouts of—”

  “Let me make this perfectly clear for you, Mr. Higgins. If it’s Nazi hunting you’re up to, you can collect your gear right now and head back in the direction you came from. This excursion is about high-terrain backpacking. I don’t want any distractions. None, do you understand me? I don’t care how many mountains you’ve climbed, it’s extremely dangerous up there. The weather can change in a heartbeat, and as you well know, when you’re above the sub-alpine line, you’re naked. Every member of my party will be focused. I’ve turned excursions back before. I will do it again if need be. Got it? Are we on the same page?”

  If somebody had asked me in advance to guess Higgins’s next move, not in a million years would I have said the nutty bastard would pick up his camera and shoot a picture of Ritter, but by God, that’s what he did. And leaving Ritter so utterly stunned by the action, so comically overtaken with incredulity, that Dianna, Maya, and I had to forcibly hold back our amusement. Surprisingly enough, it was Ritter—as his photographer eyed him and the called-up digital image of him in equal measure—who finally let his mouth spread into a handsome, no doubt rare smile. Whether there was any real humor in it was a question for better judges of such moments than I.

  “Do the two of you know each other?” Maya inserted. “Is that it?”

  Ritter said, “Mr. Higgins arrived in Berchtesgaden last night. I drank with the fool.”

  “Fool, is it?” Higgins intoned. “What, pray, does that make you then?”

  “Let me think . . . a sufferer of one?”

  Higgins held the camera out to his reciprocal tormentor. “Look at yourself, Mr. Ritter. You’re so unabashedly obvious, it makes my teeth hurt.”

  “Take your camera, Henry Higgins, and shove it straight up your bony ass.”

  Higgins looked at me, shrugging. “Ours is a love affair built on mutual disgust.”

  “One notices,” I said.

  “Does one also notice,” said Higgins, “how fortunate I am that certain subjects have only arisen in the light of day and in broader company? There’s no telling what Herr Brute would have done to me had I talked history to him while he was tossing back his pear schnapps.”

  Is nothing sacred or taboo with this curious bird? I thought.

  “Mr. Higgins may yet find himself,” Ritter said, still smiling, “at the unhappy end of a cliff.”

  “Let’s bloody go together,” Ritter said. “Like lovers into eternity—oh, here’s the lovely lassie with the check. Smile, dear!”—click.

  ***

  We did the Eagle’s Nest. We did the long ascending road, its tunnels, its single hairpin turn. We did the elevator rising straight up through the mountain to the building perched on its ridge overlooking a sweeping, artist’s landscape that incorporated the crystal blue Königsee glimmering between mountainous banks. We did coffee with the tourists in the Biergarten before taking our tour below, where we experienced the vistas as Adolf himself, with Eva perhaps at his side, had experienced them, though we peered out of the building’s windows on other than Aryan dreams.

  As we did it all, there were no revelatory moments, no paralyzing déjà vus, no sudden epiphanic coalescence of the glimpses and glimmers that had toyed with Dianna, Maya, and me since the three of us had come into each other’s company. Even the sense of history, which doubtless resounded for the site’s other visitors, couldn’t penetrate the common sentiment that we’d wasted enough time on attractions. We simply weren’t there. Ritter, I think, recognized our unrest, that we were anxious to leave all the umbrellas and tourists and Bavarian charm behind and be on with our excursion. Yet he didn’t seem to question our anxiety.

  Or so I thought then.

  When we were finally back in the van, finished with detours and heading toward our dreaded true destination, he asked me something which generated a shadow that had naught to do with the maples and beeches we happened to be driving through at the time. The ladies were engaged in conversation with Higgins, providing the window Ritter had perhaps been looking for.

  “Does the name Cunhedo mean anything to you?”

  For a second, the memory of asking him that very same question eluded me. When it had been posed over the telephone, I’d been in the spiral of my descent and enjoying the intoxicating breath rising through oblivion’s cavernous throat. How strange of him, now that the imprint surfaced, to pose his question in the same way. How eerie the nonchalance with which he did so, as though it was only a query, and not soggy with meaning. I’d thought my question added dimension to me.


  “Only if the name means anything to you, Mr. Ritter.”

  “Just Ritter, please. You know, Mr. O—”

  “Barry.”

  “Barry, I’ve led a lot of people through these mountains, but I can’t remember ever having anyone in my party whose reasons for being on the excursion were anything other than what you would think they were. Oh, they’re always looking for something—adventure, danger, harmony, God, their souls—but it’s always as predictable and, more importantly, discernible as it is intangible. There are never ulteriors. Now suddenly I find myself feeling more like a passenger than the pilot. Can you tell me why that is, Barry?”

  “Because you have a Nazi happy in your group?”

  “No, my Nazi happy has been relatively open about his business. Not from the beginning of course but at least previous to our embarking on the excursion itself. You, on the other hand, drop names, codes. You bait.”

  “What are you talking about?” The nerve, the one in the back of my neck that liked to do periodic self-tests, it had become a barb in my flesh again.

  “I think you remember our conversation,” he said.

  “Actually, I don’t remember the details. Refresh me.”

  “Let’s see. Does the scintillatingly poetic expression elephantine shadows ring a bell? You made reference to Der Schwarzwald—the Black Forest. You said the only backpacking excursion of any length you’d done in Germany had been there, and you’d felt at times like you were ensnarled—fine word, that—in elephantine shadows. With just that much emphasis. What else? Oh yes, hang gliding with new state-of-the-art equipment in Bulgaria . . . there, you felt part of an evolution in the sport. Shall I go on?”

  Jesus. Had I done that? And been so obvious about it? The easy answer, even the reasonable one, was obviously so. The complicated one cast the floodlight back on him. Told on him for a player of dark games. A cavorter. A manipulator. Shedding what self-consciousness the first instance, elephantine shadows, may have exposed, I searched his Aryan eyes directly, as Dianna had searched mine when other codes had been dropped. He did not shy from the probe; indeed, seemed to take something from it. Maybe the knowledge that I was complex after all, that what had followed the initial question, ‘Does the name Cunhedo mean anything to you?’ had been designed to be obvious, a naked hook with a bit of scent on it.