by Pavel Kornev
I had never before found myself in a psychiatric clinic, but I had no doubt that I now found myself in precisely such a terrifying institution. Where else could they put a person with my diagnosis?
When I heard a broken recitative plea for a speedy death from behind one of the doors, I couldn't hold back and turned to the orderlies.
"Boys, how does a hundred a piece sound to you?" I asked them, wanting to test the waters. "Just give news to my people. They'll pay. And as soon as I'm dragged out of here, you'll get a thousand. How does that sound, huh? That's a whole a heap of money!"
"When you're dragged out of here?" redheaded Jack cracked up. "Freak, this is Gottlieb Burckhardt, no one is gonna drag you out of here! People only leave here in body bags!"
That struck me. When it had been built, this clinic had been euphemistically described by the press as the height of humanism. After all, in many private hospitals of the time, the mentally ill were subjected to truly monstrous conditions. Any murderer would be glad to go to the work camp, because being sent to forced treatment was, at its very basis, a veiled death sentence.
It was thought that the Gottlieb Burckhardt Psychiatric Hospital would be lacking the egregious flaws of such facilities but, in the end, it became the culmination of them all. At the very least, this place had a certain infamy. And that was in no small measure because of how harsh the staff was.
After casting off the consternation brought on by the unpleasant news, I spent some time gathering my decisiveness, then said penetratingly:
"I have connections. I will be helped. And you'll get..."
"Shut your mouth!" Lucien demanded quietly and even somewhat languidly, but it was such that I instantly stopped wanting to contradict him. "Shut up or I'll shut you up. And believe me, you aren't gonna like it. I have a lot of practice!"
I believed him and went silent.
I had no way of resisting the raw power of the orderlies, while my intuition, common sense, life experience and ability to understand people, which I had perfected over my years with the police, were now saying all together: "This man is not joking, and you should not joke with him."
So, I didn't try to rush things, deciding instead of artless and direct bribery to try and find a weak link among the staff. People everywhere are the same. Sooner or later, success would smile on me. As long as I wasn't the weak link myself...
THE NEW ROOM–or maybe cell? –was smaller than the last and reminded me of an elongated pencil case with bare stone walls. The orderlies pushed the gurney into the narrow door, totally blocking off passage to the second patient's bed and set me on a bed at the side wall, not forgetting to place a bedpan under it.
As soon as the orderlies appeared, my neighbor jumped up from the bed, cowered in the corner and started whispering something disconnected under his breath. He was hiding his face in his hands, all that was visible was his shaved head.
"Don't be afraid, he's quiet," redheaded Jack laughed, patting me on the cheek and following his partner out into the hallway. The door slammed shut, the lock clanked.
I was left one on one with a psycho, but I wasn't exactly troubled by that, because my neighbor's ankle was attached to the wall with a steel chain, which looked strong and short.
He could never get to me, and that was nice. As soon as the orderlies left the room, his whispering became louder and started forming totally distinct words:
"Electricity is the devil. Electricity is the devil. Electricity is the devil."
And so on without end, not shutting up for a minute or even a second.
The skin on his cleanshaven head was covered with inflamed scabs, and his hospital robe looked dirty and worn. And it smelled. It smelled disgusting in this cell, and I was not at all sure that the only source of the reek was the open sewer drain.
My neighbor, meanwhile, wouldn't calm down and just kept muttering:
"Electricity is the devil..."
The measured recitative was keeping me from calming down or falling asleep: I couldn't hold back and cursed out in a fit of anger:
"Just shut up!"
Then the psycho took his hands from his pale and sunken face and looked at me as if he was seeing me for the first time. He looked at me, and I at him. He immediately turned away, but all it took was that short moment for shivers to run across my skin.
The problem was his eyes. His eyes were totally transparent, as if they were carved from two identical pieces of glass. It seemed, when looking at them, I could see straight into his brain.
That was wrong. Totally wrong. The illustrious have colorless gray eyes that sometimes glow slightly in the dark, but I had never before seen such crystal-clear pupils, lacking even a hint of coloration.
I didn't know if this deformity was from his mental disorder or had arisen during treatment, and I could only hope that such a thing wouldn't happen to me.
Quite a meager hope...
3
IN THE MORNING, the orderlies woke me up. To be more accurate, they didn't even wake me up, they just grabbed me by the arms and legs and moved me from the bed onto the gurney. The redhead was clenching my wrist so hard that his fingers left bruises on my skin.
It wasn't painful. I could actually barely feel my body, so I didn't protest. As I didn't repeat my attempt to bribe the orderlies like yesterday. That no longer seemed like a good idea.
"Where are you taking me?" I asked instead.
"Where you need to go," Lucien threw out shortly, locking the cell door.
"You'll like it," redheaded Jack asserted, assuring me of the opposite with an unkind smile.
This time, the cart was rolled not into Professor Berliger's office, but in the opposite direction. Soon, the corridor led to a small hall with a few tables and benches screwed into the floor. There was either a hired worker or a patient in there sweeping up dust. I couldn't see. The orderlies were pushing the gurney too hard, not at all worried that any random collision would certainly turn it on its side.
The silence of the clinic was suddenly cut through by a prolonged shriek, but no one paid any mind to the rebellious patient’s screams. Jack calmly threw open a door with a plaque reading "Laboratory," while Lucien pushed the gurney into a room flooded with the bright luster of electric bulbs and asked:
"Where should we put him, doctor?"
"Right next to the generator," Ergant pointed at the massive device in the corner of the room. "And strap the patient down."
The orderlies complied and left the laboratory, then the doctor approached the gurney and shook his head with a heavy sigh.
"Bribing the staff, that is bad, very bad," he said judgmentally.
"Bad?" I bared my teeth. "I just want to get in touch with my relatives! Is that not allowed?"
"Communication with the outside world is possible only with the sanction of department administrator, but Professor Berliger thinks that would not be to your benefit now."
"Complete nonsense!"
"Rules are rules. Next time, it won't be limited to a simple warning."
I chuckled.
"And what will you do? Make me skip dessert?"
"We don't have such a tolerant view on breaking discipline!" Doctor Ergant answered weightily and filled a chipped-enameled iron mug with a sharply anise-scented liquid. "You need to take this medicine!"
"What is that trash?" I asked, but the doctor didn't consider it necessary to answer.
With a calculated movement, he poured the contents of the mug into my mouth, and I nearly choked swallowing the bitter liquid.
Then Doctor Ergant glanced at the watch he took from his pocket, walked away to the table and started writing something. Clearly, he was filling out a medical chart.
"Why did you restrain me?" I shouted out to him. "I mean, I'm paralyzed!"
"Everything in its time," the doctor answered, not looking away from his activity, and not saying anything more. He was in no mood to converse with a patient.
Slightly raising my head, I started loo
king at the equipment-filled laboratory, and my eyes immediately caught on jars of formaldehyde and internal organs on the shelves and a surgeon's table in the corner with glazed-tile walls and floor. For a second, it seemed I had landed in the lair of some crazed vivisectionists from a pulp novel but no, this laboratory was not the lair of mad scientists. This was Gottlieb Burckhardt.
The windowless room was lit by electric bulbs. That concoction was causing a buzz in my head and, the noisier it grew, the brighter and more piercing the luster of the bulbs became. I squinted, trying to look at the implements on the opposite wall, but the unmoving arrows behind glass, many switches, coils of cable and circuits of electric jars didn't tell me anything.
Then the door flew open and we were joined by Professor Berliger.
"Is the patient ready?" he asked in the doorway.
"Yes, professor."
"Has he been given the formula?"
Doctor Ergant glanced at his watch and said:
"Four minutes ago. Orally."
"On an empty stomach? Then, let's not waste time!"
Professor Berliger removed his jacket and hung it on a hook, throwing a white frock over his shoulders in its place. After that, he cracked the bones of his long thin fingers and finally, addressed me:
"You must be horribly afraid right now, but I assure you, there's really nothing to fear. This treatment is in your best interest."
I went silent. I had great doubts in the professor's sincerity.
He was entirely fine with my silence.
"You are deeply ill," he said, continuing his monolog. "You have been ill since your very birth, but you weren't aware of it, and you still aren't fully. Your consciousness has been infected with a severe mental disorder, and it is my duty to restore your clarity of thought and sobriety of mind. Not only yours, but those of all the illustrious!"
"What are you talking about?!" I asked, startled.
"It is traditionally thought that the root of the illustrious' troubles lies in their blood. As if there is a poison dissolved in it that gives people unnatural abilities. However, that is not the case! There have been experiments that completely replaced the blood of illustrious individuals with that of normal people, and they have not met with success. Just as the reverse procedure has not led to any results. And there isn't a single laboratory, nor a single naturalist that has yet managed to detect any unique component in the blood of the illustrious! And why is that? The answer is simple: that is just not the issue!"
The professor's cheeks went red, making him look like a university teacher yearning for lectures. And Berliger was saying unthinkable, simply outrageous things, yet he wasn't in the least bit embarrassed at how mad his words sounded.
"But if not blood, then what?" the professor continued. "The answer can only be one thing: the brain! It is rooted in the human brain, that depository of all the most unbelievable riddles! That is precisely where the curse of the illustrious is hidden!"
Here I couldn't resist, slightly lifted my head and broke off his diabolic monolog:
"It is no curse! Leave me in peace!"
Doctor Ergant took the watch off the edge of the table and made a laconic note in the medical chart.
Professor Berliger just shook his head.
"You are damaged and don't even know it. The illustrious are a rudiment of a bygone era, the quintessence of everything antiscientific in this world. The illustrious poison our society and slow our march toward progress. Just the fact of their existence confuses weak minds and pushes them down the path of mysticism."
"If it got out you were saying things like that, you wouldn’t even stay long in prison. Department Three..."
"All people with common sense share these views on one level or another!" the professor cut me off sharply. "We have plenty of likeminded individuals even in the police! And there's no reason to threaten me with Department Three. Unlike many others, I am categorically opposed to the idea of exterminating the illustrious. And it isn't some false humanism, but recognizing the necessity of finding a scientific way to solve this problem. Killing is easy. But killing won't help us find the truth, nor give us the key to the mysteries of creation! It is primitive, at the end of the day!" Berliger pulled on his rubber gloves and sighed. "Your role in my scientific works will one day be judged worthy, no doubt about that. That must flatter you. When I'm given the Nobel Prize for this research, you can be sure that I will not forget to mention your name from the high podium."
"Go to hell!"
The professor covered his polished face with a gauze wrap and gave a quiet laugh.
"That was a joke. But you have nothing to worry about. My goal is to heal, not to harm."
"Find other guinea pigs!"
"In your case, I'd say rats!" Berliger threw out sharply in response. "Just what's got you so alarmed? You believe in the immortality of the soul, after all, isn't that right?"
"I do," I confirmed, overcoming the sudden onset of sleepiness.
"Then what do you care about mortal flesh? Your fabled soul won't be harmed by electromagnetic radiation, isn't that right?"
"It's hard to harm that which doesn't exist," Doctor Ergant smiled unpleasantly, getting up from the table.
The Professor threatened him with a finger and turned back to me:
"Do you also believe in the Creator? Heaven and Hell? The heavenly angels and the Savior?"
"I do," I answered stubbornly.
"What an untroubled conscience!" Berliger shook his head and warned his colleague: "You must note this in your medical chart. We must evaluate how quickly the treatment effects a patient with such a grave critical thinking disorder."
"I'll note it right away, professor," the doctor promised, taking a comb and scissors and starting to cut my hair.
"What the devil are you doing?!" I objected, but my shout was simply ignored.
"What method will we use this time, professor?" Ergant enquired.
Berliger stopped fidgeting with elastic cords with iron contacts attached by long rolls of isolated wire to a generator, thought briefly and decided:
"Electric stimulation doesn't give the proper effect, let's try magnetic radiation this time."
"Shall we concentrate on the back part of the midfrontal cortex, as before?"
"Yes, let's see what results are given by suppressing activity in that section in a patient with more severe medical issues."
My eyes stuck together. The laboratory started vibrating and was drowned in a gray haze but, before sinking into a deep sleep, I could feel the contraption of elastic bands and iron plates being clipped onto my head.
A moment later, I fell into a dream and suddenly found myself in the middle of a steppe burned by sulfur rain once again. The familiar faceless silhouette appeared nearby, as the reality of the dream grew jerky, rolling up and turning into a void of electric shocks.
They were curing me of my very self...
I WOKE UP to the squeaking of the broken hospital gurney wheel. But it wasn't that nasty sound that woke me up, it was a strong shiver. While I had been unconscious, they'd tried to wash me, and now the hospital shirt was sticking to my wet body. It was cold and unpleasant.
What exactly had served as the reason for the washing procedures, I did not know, but electric shocks could easily cause evacuation of the bladder or colon.
Shocks! I remembered the compulsory treatment and gave a loud exhale. Devil in hell!
Devil! Devil! Devil!
I would be cured to death if this went on too long! And if not to death, they certainly wouldn't let me out of the clinic, regardless of whether the mad professor’s experiment ended successfully or not.
I needed to do something. I had to...
But for now, all I could do was lie on the gurney. I could also breathe and blink, speak and listen. Think. What I couldn't do was stand up and walk. And I wasn't even in the right state to use my own talent: the morphine and other medicine deprived me of clarity of thought. It was as if there was a de
nse fog hanging in my head.
In the room, the orderlies picked me up to set me on the bed as usual but, this time, Jack's fingers suddenly unclenched, and my back and head slammed down on the stone floor at full speed. It wasn't painful, but air expelled noisily from my lungs.
Lucien let go of my legs in a fit of anger and stared gloomily at his redheaded partner.
"Stop messing around!" he demanded.
"What?"
"Don’t involve me. Got it?"
"If you say so..."
The orderlies picked me up by the arms and legs again and set me on the bed, then pushed the gurney into the corridor and moved to the second patient.
"No!" he screamed, jumping out of bed, cowering in the far corner and covering himself with his hands. "No! Electricity is the devil!"
The boys easily pinned the nut-job on the floor, packed him into a straightjacket and, only after that, removed his ankle shackles. My roommate resisted desperately, but he didn't stand a single chance against the two brawny orderlies, and soon he was dragged to the exit.
And then I noticed something I hadn't seen before: there were metallic electrodes implanted in the poor bastard's shaved head. The skin around them was red and festering.
"Electricity is the devil!" strained out the psycho, who had once been illustrious, and I understood with a shudder that he was not really so far from the truth.
In my case, there was no sense in waiting for mercy from electricity.
Sublime? More like divine retribution...
The door slammed shut, the lock clanked, and I was left all alone. A bulb under the ceiling, covered with a cage, suddenly started to flicker, as if the electric system was overloaded by something very powerful. The electric demon must have reached my neighbor as well...
THE NEXT DAY, I woke up with a humming head, a ghastly pain in my whole body and a no less ghastly hunger. I woke up not from my neighbor’s already usual muttering, but from the stinking smoke of a papirosa cigarette.
"Here's some smoke for our man with ties," redheaded Jack smiled kind-heartedly, but his eyes remained evil and cold. "It’s time for breakfast."