The Devil's Sanctuary

by Marie Hermanson

  “That wasn’t intentional and I’m very sorry you were so badly hurt. You didn’t know about the zones, otherwise you wouldn’t have wandered off into them. You should have been told about the risks. I should have told you about them,” she corrected herself. “I should have been more alert, and I should have paid more attention to what you were saying when we spoke. It was unforgivable of me not to warn you.”

  “Warn me about what?”

  “As I said before, the area had to be completely cut off from the outside world. Obviously there’s a natural geographic boundary already in the form of the steep mountains surrounding the valley. But of course that isn’t enough; more barriers are needed. Walls and fences don’t fit the profile of the project. With Zone Two we’ve created an invisible but very effective barrier. The zone runs in a loop around the entire valley, and the ground is mined with electrically charged cables. The strength of the charge isn’t enough to be fatal, but it does make it impossible for anyone to get through.”

  “It was certainly enough for me, at any rate.”

  “You fell and were left lying in the live area. The guards were a bit too slow getting to you and didn’t manage to cut the current in time. No one’s supposed to suffer the sort of burns you were subjected to.”

  “So what is supposed to happen, then?”

  “That people are scared off. Stopped. Conditioned. And rendered unconscious if they carry on farther into the zone. The charge is weakest at the edge and stronger farther in.”

  “And Zone One?”

  “A warning zone. So that no one wanders into Zone Two by mistake. It runs in a loop between the authorized area and Zone Two. Zone One is full of cameras and motion sensors. If you ignore the warning signs and carry on into Zone Two regardless, you set off an alarm and one of the patrolling security vehicles will arrive shortly afterward to pick you up. With luck before you make it into Zone Two, but if the car’s some distance away when the alarm goes off, then what happened to you can be the result. Then of course there’s a Zone Three as well.”

  “Of course,” Daniel said sarcastically. “And a Zone Four, and a Zone Five.”

  “No, no. There are only three zones. Or three shells, as we usually say. Himmelstal is like an egg with three shells.”

  Gisela drew an oval shape in the air.

  “Zone Three is another warning zone. Facing outward, toward the rest of the world. So that no poor mountaineer or lost tourist wanders into Zone Two. Zone Three is a large area surrounding the other zones, and it consists mainly of inaccessible mountains. It’s not particularly likely that anyone would arrive that way, but we’ve still put up signs saying that this is a military area, out of bounds to the general public, and that trespassers risk life-threatening injury.”

  “A military area? Why bother to lie?”

  “Himmelstal is…well, not exactly a secret project, but not quite public either. We hope to become more open when we can demonstrate more research. If we went public today, we’d have to spend all our time and energy explaining and defending it. We can’t afford that. We have official bodies in every EU country behind us, so there’s nothing inappropriate going on. But for the time being we prefer to work with a certain degree of secrecy.”

  Daniel looked at Gisela Obermann. She was sitting upright now, and there was a feverish glow in her eyes. In an odd way she actually looked happy. As if she had just seen salvation. Of all the patients he had seen at the clinic, none of them had radiated as much madness as this woman. Was there any truth in what she was saying, or was it all her imagination? Maybe she was actually a patient who for some bizarre reason had managed to gain access to one of the doctors’ rooms?

  He looked out over the valley. Veils of cloud were drifting like smoke in front of the giant figures on the rock face to the south. That was where he had made his nocturnal escape attempt through the pale-green meadows and leafy woodland. That was where the guards had pursued him toward the mountain while their shouts and flashlights cut through the darkness. He knew all of this with absolute certainty. And he knew something else: There had been something terrible in among that vegetation. Something that had made him lose consciousness and had given him these burns.

  “These zones…,” he said, huddling up under the blanket.

  “Yes?”

  “You can get here along the road without any problem.”

  “If your arrival is expected, yes. But not otherwise. The road is well guarded where it passes through the three zones. If an unwelcome visitor fails to heed the warning signs and makes it to the final zone, a patrol car will soon be there to warn him off. It happens sometimes with tourists who’ve taken a wrong turn.”

  “So what about welcome visitors, then?”

  “Anyone who has a legitimate reason to visit Himmelstal—staff, supply trucks, visiting researchers, and relatives—has to inform us of his visit in advance. His approach is picked up in good time by the surveillance cameras, and he’s stopped by the guards before he reaches Zone Two.”

  Daniel recalled his arrival in the valley. The dark-blue van. The men in uniform who had searched him with a metal detector and gone through his bag.

  “If everything’s okay, the current and alarms along the road are switched off so that the vehicle can enter,” Gisela went on. “As soon as it’s through, the current is switched on again and the ring around the area is complete once more.”

  “An electric gate opening and closing,” Daniel said quietly.

  Gisela nodded and stubbed her cigarillo out on the railing.

  “Exactly. Invisible, but effective. Like the system of zones as a whole: invisible, but effective.”

  She took out the little case again and put the remains of the cigarillo in beside the fresh ones.

  “Himmelstal’s inhabitants don’t have to look at an ugly fence. But they know that the barrier is there, and they respect it. Quite a few have wandered into Zone One, either by mistake or out of some spirit of adventure, and have been stopped there. A few have gotten through the net and made it into Zone Two. But no one who has ever been in Zone Two goes on to repeat the experience! That’s what’s so remarkable. Here I’m talking about people prone to taking huge risks, people governed by instinct, the way most psychopaths are. People who quickly forget an unpleasant experience and are utterly incapable of learning from the past. But no one has ever entered Zone Two more than once.”

  Gisela paused and waited for Daniel’s response. He looked at her questioningly. She leaned forward and went on.

  “An electric shock is the sort of thing that goes straight into the body’s memory.”

  She was staring intently at Daniel to make sure he was listening. She was so close he could feel her quick, shallow breathing.

  “That’s the most effective conditioning there is, as any researcher working with animal testing knows. You can be the most deluded person in the world, rearranging your past as much as you like and therefore making the same mistakes time and time again. But you can’t erase an electric shock. It’s etched into your memory for the rest of your life. And this is exactly what we need, in order to set limits for psychopaths: an unambiguous message that speaks directly to the body, ignoring the manipulative nature of consciousness. An experience that a psychopath can never forget or pretend never happened. It’s the sort of thing that isn’t susceptible to that sort of process. It’s a primitive sort of awareness that embeds itself very deeply.”

  “Once bitten, twice shy,” Daniel muttered. “A reliable old pedagogical strategy. I have to confess, it’s an experience I could easily have done without. But every cloud has a silver lining. Since I got that electric shock your attitude toward me has changed. You’re explaining things to me, you’re calling me by my real name. It actually looks as though you’ve finally realized who I am.”

  She put her hand on Daniel’s blanket in the place where she thought his hand was.

  “I’m sorry I didn’t realize before,” she said, with genuine regret in
her voice. “I had my suspicions, but I wasn’t sure.”

  “So what was it that convinced you?”

  She laughed.

  “I just told you. No one ever goes into Zone Two more than once. Max went into Zone Two. Then you did. That proves that you’re two different personalities.”

  Her choice of words confused him.

  “Max went into Zone Two as well?”

  “Sorry, of course you wouldn’t know that. It was sometime last summer. He tried to escape through a culvert by the rapids. He picked a time when the water level was low, sawed through the grating, and crawled in. He must have assumed that the zone was only active above ground. But there’s another grate farther inside the drain. There are several more, actually, but he only reached the first because that one’s electrified. The patrol car happened to be nearby and they got him out immediately.”

  Gisela Obermann paused and looked at Daniel with sudden anxiety.

  “How does it feel when I tell you this?”

  “I’m surprised.” Daniel gulped to clear the lump that had come to his throat. “And this happened last summer? I didn’t know Max had been here that long. I thought…”

  “What did you think?”

  “Never mind. The important thing is that you finally realize that I’m not Max. It’s been horrible, being mistaken for him the whole time. Being accused of lying and manipulating. For a while I actually thought it was going to drive me mad.”

  To his own surprise he found himself letting out a dry, croaky laugh, and at the same moment he felt a tear running down his cheek. He quickly pulled one hand out from under the blanket and wiped it away.

  Gisela smiled at him sympathetically.

  “You’re much nicer than Max,” she said.

  “But Max is your patient. It must be a problem for you that he’s finally managed to escape.”

  “That’s nothing you need to worry about. Leave that to us. How are you feeling? Are you tired? Burn injuries take a lot out of the body, even if they are relatively superficial. And what I’ve just told you must be fairly disconcerting. Would you like to go back to your room?”

  Daniel shook his head firmly. He had no desire at all to go back to the little room in the care center where he had spent the past few days. He would have liked to believe he was dreaming. But the air was so fresh that every breath felt like drinking a mouthful of cool water. Surely you couldn’t experience air that way in dreams? The burned skin on his leg and shoulder ached and stung. He was more awake than he had ever been before.

  Gisela Obermann glanced at her watch.

  “It’s high time for lunch. Shall I order some food to be brought up for us?”

  31

  WITH THE help of two crutches Daniel left the balcony, hopping through the sliding doors on his uninjured leg into Gisela Obermann’s spacious room. Lunch had been set out for them on the table: two plates of lamb fillet and mashed root vegetables, and a bottle of red wine. A silver-colored serving cart was parked alongside. Daniel realized that lunch had been delivered from the restaurant, not the patients’ cafeteria.

  Gisela pulled out a chair for him and helped him sit down.

  “Do the doctors here usually invite their patients to lunch in their offices?” he asked, cutting a piece of pink, thyme-scented meat. The knife sank through it as easily as if it were butter.

  “Not usually, no.”

  “Did you and Max used to eat lunch here?”

  Gisela Obermann laughed and put down the wineglass she had just picked up.

  “Max? No. He hardly ever wanted to come up here. He hated talking to me. You’re completely different, Daniel. The evening after you were last here I stayed up late looking through recordings of previous meetings with Max. I compared them with the film of our conversation. And I could see immediately that everything was different with you. The same body. But still different.”

  “Haven’t you ever heard of twins, Gisela?”

  “But according to our records Max doesn’t have a twin brother. Then there were those incidents with the fire and Tom. You risked your life to save other people. Max would never have done that. That reinforced what I was thinking. My colleagues didn’t believe me. They assumed you were manipulating me. But once you went into Zone Two, there was no denying the facts anymore. That was the proof.”

  She smiled triumphantly.

  “Proof of what?” Daniel asked.

  “That your personality is genuine. It’s all encompassing. If there had been the slightest trace of Max left in you, you wouldn’t have been able to go into Zone Two. But you’ve erased him completely. I don’t know how it happened. It probably has something to do with your first electric shock—”

  “My first?”

  “Last summer.”

  “But that happened to Max,” he protested.

  Gisela nodded quickly.

  “Exactly. That was when you were still Max. You lost consciousness on that occasion as well, lost your memory for a short while. You soon recovered, but something had happened to you. You were quieter, more withdrawn. When your brother came to see you, you adopted his personality. Absorbed his whole body language and open manner. And when he left, you believed you were him. You became Daniel. A pleasant, empathetic, selfless man. It might only be temporary, but it’s still wonderful.”

  She smiled, her eyes twinkling.

  “This is the first time we’ve been able to observe a change in any of our residents. A positive change, no less. This is incredibly hopeful for our research.”

  Daniel felt dizzy. He put his knife and fork down.

  “And that’s what you think?” he exclaimed. “That I’m suffering from multiple personalities?”

  “I’m not sure I’d say suffering. In your case it’s a purely positive development. Even if Max comes back, you’ll have Daniel inside you, and he’s the one we need to focus on and try to draw out. This could be the breakthrough we’ve been waiting for.”

  “So you don’t believe anything I’ve told you? You don’t believe Max has escaped and that I’m his twin brother?”

  Daniel was so upset that he tried to stand up, but the pain in his leg made him slump back down again.

  Gisela Obermann dabbed carefully at her mouth with her linen napkin.

  “I believe that story is real for you, Daniel,” she said diplomatically. “You don’t remember anything of your life as Max. Memory loss is more the rule than the exception in cases of dissociative identity disorders.”

  Daniel was close to tears of despair.

  “But you are going to let me leave, aren’t you?”

  “Leave?” Gisela Obermann studied him with a shocked expression. “No, I’m afraid not. Definitely not. You’re the golden egg. Our first evidence of progress. We’re going to watch over you day and night and make sure you feel absolutely fine. Would you like coffee?”

  She reached for a carafe and two cups on the cart.

  Daniel shook his head. As she poured herself a cup she said, “I’m going to be having a meeting with my colleagues tomorrow, and that’s when I’m going to present my theory about your case. And this time they’re going to believe me.”

  She smiled momentarily down into her cup of coffee. Her cheeks were glowing and her voice had risen with excitement.

  “I hope I won’t have to attend this meeting.”

  “Attend? Daniel, you’re going to be the star attraction!”

  She held out a plate of little chocolate macaroons. He ignored it.

  “So when will I be able to leave?”

  “When we’ve solved this mystery,” Gisela said, quickly popping a macaroon in her mouth before putting the plate back on the cart. “You could become our first fully treated case. The first cured psychopath. When we no longer need you for our research, then…” She shrugged. “Well, it’s perfectly conceivable that you would be the first person in history to be discharged from this clinic.”

  She paused, as though she were listening to what she had j
ust said and found it so remarkable that she scarcely believed it. Then she lit up.

  “Discharged? Yes. Why not? Why not?”

  “When?”

  “Oh.” Her smile became more subdued. “Not for the next few years, of course. Serious research takes time, as you know. But we’re going to take very good care of you here, you can be sure of that.”

  She reached across the table and patted him gently on the cheek. Daniel twisted his head away.

  She is mad, he thought. I don’t have to pay attention to anything she says. He had noticed it the first time he saw her. Little glimpses of something dark and broken in her eyes. Like a face appearing briefly in a window, then pulling back as soon as you noticed it.

  Then a different thought occurred to him.

  “You keep talking about psychopaths. Do you mean that Max is a psychopath?”

  “He wouldn’t have ended up here in Himmelstal otherwise, would he?”

  “But there’s no real evidence for that diagnosis, is there? He’s burned out. Manic-depressive. A bit crazy sometimes. But that doesn’t make someone a psychopath, does it?”

  Gisela Obermann burst out laughing.

  “Manic-depressive and a bit crazy? Maybe. But that’s not why you’re sitting here, my dear Max-Daniel. Wait a moment, I’ll show you something.”

  Gisela got up and went over to a small filing cabinet behind her desk. She opened one of the drawers and returned with a bundle of photographs that she laid on the table in front of Daniel.

  “Do these pictures mean anything to you?”

  He looked at the top picture. A half-naked man, lying in a pool of blood on a bathroom floor. The next one: a close-up of the dead man’s face, half of which had been smashed in. A solitary eye stared up blankly from the mess of congealed blood. Horrified and disgusted, Daniel looked up to see Gisela observing him closely.

  The next picture showed a woman with the top half of her body bare. She wasn’t dead, but she had been badly beaten. She was facing away from the camera, showing a back and upper arm that were covered with cuts and bruises. A hand reached into the picture, holding up her long dark hair so that her injuries were visible. There was also a full-frontal picture of her, and a close-up of her beaten face. Police pictures.