by Pavel Kornev
The orderly began to feed me with a spoon so unskillfully, that my pillow was soon soaked through from the gruel that fell outside my mouth. Yesterday's fall hadn't been a mere coincidence. This degenerate just liked to mess with me. But... my ghastly headache was stopping me from reaching out to his fears!
After breakfast, I was brought back to the laboratory. It was just like yesterday, but now the room was filled with patients. The other nut-jobs were gulping down their hospital food in complete silence. Most of them had bandaged heads.
And then I realized, sooner or later, the professor would trepan my skull as well.
That realization made a lump of nausea roll up my throat, while my heart started beating faster and faster. It just kept pounding like a madman's the whole way to the laboratory. My feverish heartbeat only settled when Doctor Ergant attached a huge leather strap and metal plate contraption to my head. They weren't going to drill my skull now.
But I didn't know how long the professor would wait to perform a lobotomy, and I could never know. And the unknown scared me. There was a lot that scared me in this cursed place.
"The straps," Professor Berliger reminded his assistant, when he attached the wires to the electric generator.
The doctor thought better and deftly lashed down my wrists and ankles with firm knots. Then I saw the bruises.
They weren't making the straps too tight; just they alone couldn't be making marks on my skin in any way, which meant I must have been twitching. I was twitching from the electric current, as if I was not paralyzed...
I didn't manage to finish that thought, though: Doctor Ergant poured the same medicine from yesterday down my throat. My thoughts immediately began to get confused and my eyes started closing. Today, the concoction worked much faster than yesterday.
"Do you believe in the resurrection of the dead?" Professor Berliger asked with an unhidden smirk.
"With all my heart," I answered in spite, drifting into narcotic unconsciousness.
"Doctor Ergant, turn it on..." I heard from an unfathomable distance, and my dream was instantly filled with blinding flashes of lightning.
4
I WAS TAKEN IN for procedures twice a day, once in the morning and once in the evening. I was stuffed with medicines; my head was held down with leather straps and metal plates and they were given electric charge. My skull, unlike that of my poor neighbor, was still intact for now, and it had only come to burns a few times. I suppose that happened when the professor lost patience and ordered his assistant to increase the voltage to the limit.
Every time during the electroshock therapy, my muscles twitched and shook to the point that there were bruises and abrasions left on my wrists and ankles from the straps. The seizures usually lasted some time after the diabolic procedures. Then, I managed to clench and straighten out the pinky of my left hand.
Clench and straighten. Clench and straighten. Clench and straighten.
Soon, I could do it even after the seizures ended, and I spent the long and sleepless nights restoring my control over my own body.
Rinky, ring finger, middle.
Pointer and thumb.
Wrist.
Bit by bit, I managed to restore movement to my whole left arm, but progress was slow, and I didn't have any certainty that I would manage to finish my plan before I went mad or finally disappointed the professor. But I tried. I tried, tried and tried.
All the rest was bad. My innards were being gnawed away in pain. I totally lost the ability to sleep, and my soul was sorrowful and nasty. The redheaded orderly who'd chosen me as his victim was always thinking up new tricks, and I'm sure that only the professor's interest in me stopped Jack from giving me a thrashing. For now, it was limited to humiliating pinches and slaps. Also, that asshole would give me my pills not one at a time, but all at once, watching with a satisfied smile as I fitfully attempted to swallow them.
The worst was yet to come, I knew that for certain. Some people simply cannot stop themselves before it gets bad. As soon as they feel power over someone, they just push and push until they've destroyed their victim, crushed them and turned them to dust. Or they take a shank to the side but, in my case, the conclusion was obvious.
Not long ago, I would have easily broken all this scoundrel's bones and dug into his most hidden fears and crushed him morally but, to my horror, the professor’s treatment was bearing more and more fruit. I could no longer control my illustrious talent and couldn't even feel it. What was worse, I was becoming someone else bit by bit.
When a person loses faith, they don’t go out into a crowded intersection and shout to the Creator that he doesn't exist. They simply begin to think how dumb and pointless it is for an enlightened man to believe in something that cannot be detected either by the newest measuring instruments or human sense organs.
Thomas the Apostle couldn't stick his fingers in Christ's wounds and still overcame his doubts. But the fallen once darkened the skies up above him with their wings. I meanwhile, had nothing but childhood memories.
And they did help me hold out on the very edge. My grandfather and father had read me the New and Old Testaments, told me the stories, explained me their example of what is good and what is bad. If I were to deny my faith, would that not be a kind of betrayal?
I did not want to be a traitor.
And that tiny factor stopped me from falling into despair. The tinder of old memories lit the fire of my faith time and again. And so I would go away from the edge of the abyss but, after the electroshock therapy, I would find myself standing in the same place every time, staring into the chasm.
I was sure that my eyes had also become totally transparent like those of my neighbor, that prisoner of the electric devil. There just was no mirror to make certain of that.
That said, my roommate had given in quicker than me. I do not know what experiments the professor had conducted on him but, with time, all that was left of the poor man was a bone frame covered with skin.
"Electricity is the devil!" he would repeat over and over, as if the electrodes implanted in his head didn't allow him to think about anything else.
I tried not to draw his attention. Meanwhile, when I forgot myself and started saying something aloud, the nutjob would fly into a rage and flail in hysterics. Just like he flailed in hysterics any time the orderlies dragged him off for procedures.
One day I asked him:
"What color is electricity?"
"Devil!" the nutjob called back habitually.
"Color! Did you see its color?"
"Devil! Devil! Devil!"
And although my illustrious talent had left me, I could sense my roommate’s phobia.
"Did you see lightning flashing in the sky? Bright flourishes on a dark background? Lightning is electricity. Electricity is the color of lightning," I said penetratingly. "It's fiery yellow, amber red. Electricity has the luster of molten copper. That's its color."
"Devil..." the nutjob exhaled quietly.
Ever since then, I told him about electricity every night.
I had almost stopped sleeping. I couldn't even drift off into a half-dream for more than a couple minutes, so I normally spent all the time until morning moving my left arm, which was obeying me more and more, and also talking with my cellmate. Soon, he would know for certain what his devil looked like. I was totally fine with that.
IT WAS HARDEST of all to not give myself up to the orderlies. Not moving when you're unceremoniously heaved onto a gurney, not grabbing the bed as you fall to the floor yet again, and not wrenching your hand to protect yourself from the strong stream of cold water.
But I managed. I was not planning to die in Gottlieb Burckhardt.
I had great things ahead of me. I believed in that with all my willpower.
And I still remembered Liliana and guessed how she had taken my disappearance. She may have decided I had left her and run away from our marriage. Or had she understood that something bad had happened? I was hoping for the second opti
on. Sometimes, sorrow poured down with such a force that my heart stopped but, time and again, it started back up and, every time, it seemed it was precisely Liliana's faith that was supporting my life force.
And that's probably what was happening...
SUCCESS SMILED totally at random. That day began even worse than the rest–around morning, I was drifting in a half-sleep, then I couldn't understand for a long time who I was or where. My heart was beating with long breaks. It seemed as if the left side of my chest under my ribs had nothing in it but emptiness. And even the light touch of Liliana's faith could no longer warm me.
"Our man with ties is all burned out," redheaded Jack said, noting my state.
"Easier for us," was all Lucien could snort out.
Together, they set me on the cart and, as soon as they rolled me out of the cell, the basement was filled with the metallic clang of an alarm. Squeezing their electric clubs in their hands, two guardsmen walked past us but, almost immediately, they came back unhurriedly.
"Everything is fine," one of them told Lucien. "You can go."
I was rolled into the laboratory and, very soon, saw unfamiliar orderlies, who were dragging a gurney with a body covered by a sheet. The unevenly slashed wrist peeking out from under the material gave a lifeless wag every step they took.
Someone had kicked the bucket...
In the end, we were late to the procedure, and Professor Berliger didn't fail to give the orderlies a tongue lashing. They jumped out into the corridor like they'd been scalded.
"No responsibility!" the head of the department was outraged, directing the beam of his electric torch into my eyes.
Doctor Ergant, reading a newspaper, uttered out an incomprehensible agreement, then said:
"Ever since her Highness fainted during a reception two weeks ago, she hasn't been seen in public. There are rumors that the Princess is still in an unconscious state."
"Yes, her Highness's health leaves something to be desired," the Professor confirmed.
"Coma?"
"Most likely. But I'll refrain from making any diagnoses on the basis of newspaper articles and untested rumors. And I'd like you to do the same."
"Naturally, Professor. Naturally," Doctor Ergant was embarrassed.
If someone had asked me, I'd have said this was no coma at all, that the heart transplanted into the Princess had stopped beating. My imaginary heart.
Due to the electroshock therapy, my illustrious talent was impossibly weak, and I no longer had the ability to manifest things from my head in reality with the power of my imagination. And so, those who depended entirely on me, would now have some fearsome things happen to them. Crown Princess Anna, Elizabeth-Maria, that leprechaun...
"We need a regent, a new government, changes! The Empire only stands to gain from this!" the professor declared weightily, turning to me and smiling, but not nicely, skeptically and with an unpleasant smirk. "And you? Do you still believe in those Judean fairy-tales?"
I kept silent, but Berliger didn't need any answers. At each of our meetings, the first thing he did was evaluate the state of my eyes and take down the results in his notepad.
I could retain my faith out of pure stubbornness, but it was not in my power to continue being illustrious. The electroshock therapy was turning me day by day into a normal person, and there was nothing to be done with that.
"We need to increase the active ingredient content! The additional effect on his brain will eliminate his natural defenses and speed up the electromagnetic treatment," the professor declared and looked at his assistant, distracted with reading. "Doctor Ergant, where is the medicine? Have you prepared it?"
The doctor hurriedly set the newspaper aside, and embarrassment flickered up on his broad face.
"Yes-yes, right away..."
But Professor Berliger was a man of action, and the delay made him lose his mind. With a vexed snort, he grabbed a glass cup from the table and started measuring some powders in it by hand. After that, he poured water from a decanter, dripped in some opium infusion and started fervently mixing the resulting suspension with a measuring spoon. The solution quickly turned light, acquiring its usual transparency.
All that time, Doctor Ergant was watching his manipulations with the look of a beaten dog. He didn't even have the courage to tell the professor that he was using his glass to prepare the formula. The doctor himself always used an iron mug.
After evaluating the transparency of the mixture, Berliger threw the measuring spoon on the table and leaned over the gurney.
"The taste might seem a bit unusual," he warned, placing the cup to my lips.
And it really was. The sharp bitterness burned my tongue and the roof of my mouth, and I didn't even have to fake the attack of nausea. My teeth gritted all on their own. The thin glass crunched and broke to pieces. The professor pulled back his hand, but it was too late: my mouth was already full of sharp glass. Lifting my head, I coughed and spit the shards onto my chest; a spot of bloody spit spread out on my hospital gown.
"Ergant!" the professor turned to his assistant, and that short minute of general confusion was enough for me to pull my hand from the wide leather strap, hide the largest piece of glass between my fingers and return my hand to its place.
The bloodied glass pieces quickly were swept onto the floor and down the sewer drain with a bucket of water, then my mouth was carefully checked, and they dressed my lacerated lip. After that, a new dose of the concoction was prepared, and everything took its turn, with one small exception: my fingers were clenching a piece of glass. And that fact changed everything. Or to be more accurate, it would.
LAST NIGHT, I had sat up in bed for the first time. Not all the way, just braced with my left hand behind my back, applied some force and pushed myself up. And even though I immediately fell onto my side and hit my shoulder on the cold stone wall, that didn't darken my joy one bit. Not too long ago, I couldn't even do something that small. However, now, it was as if my body was made of cotton. My legs wouldn't obey, and my right hand could just barely move.
"Devil..." I heard from my cellmate.
My lips started to bleed. I spit the red saliva on the floor and exhaled loudly.
"Yes! Today I'll tell you about the devil. About the devil and how to kill him..."
At night, the electricity in the rooms was turned off, and the only lighting we had was a very narrow little strip that came in from the corridor under the door. In my former days, that would have been more than enough, but I didn't see very well in the dark anymore, so I spent a long time leading my fingers along the wooden side of the bed, searching for an appropriate crack.
"Devil!" my neighbor reminded me of his presence.
"Yes, yes!" I reassured him. "Soon!"
I started digging the piece of glass into the wood and widened the hole until I could grab a sharp ten-centimeter long splinter from the bed and pull it out. Any nervous twitch of the glass could cut me, so I had to maintain the greatest caution, and work was going slowly. But I had the whole night ahead of me. The whole night and a conversation about the devil.
THE NEXT DAY passed as usual. Procedure in the morning, incomprehensible drudgery until the evening's electroshock therapy, then lockdown.
Breakfast, lunch, dinner.
Pills. Bedpan gets removed.
Disgust.
And in the evening, when the light was shut off, I couldn't force myself out of bed, even though I was intending to test my strength before my final burst. I was just lying with my eyes open and staring into the darkness without a thought in my head.
Depression and melancholy is normal. Any person will fall into a depressed state of mind sooner or later, and most overcome such a state without any help from someone else.
Another matter entirely is apathy, when one doesn't simply not want to do anything, but one cannot see any reason to even move from place, and just lies around waiting for God knows what. And doesn't even think. The thoughts just spin about in your head all on
their own.
Tomorrow will be just another day, in no way different from today. And the day after tomorrow. And the day after the day after tomorrow. And so on. And so on. And then you die, and you're not around anymore. Not in the slightest.
So then, why all the fuss?
It's very scary to just not want anything at all. It’s somewhat worse than when one cannot get what one wants. That's a short path to madness.
Or is that getting better and becoming normal?
Believing only in things one can touch and submitting one's self to the primacy of science?
Is that really so bad in the end?
"Devil!" my mad roommate said. "Devil! Devil! Devil!"
I kept silent. I was in no mood to talk about the devil tonight. And there really wasn't anything to talk about.
"The devil got to you," my cellmate suddenly shot out a surprisingly connected sentence.
And that really was true. The devil had gotten to me.
Electricity is the devil!
I laughed so hard from that thought that my ribs contracted in pain.
It's often said that madness is catching, but losing faith doesn't make a person better, just makes room for more phobias and fears.
"A holy place is never empty," as my father had taught me, and he knew the truth in such matters.
I didn't want to lose my mind, nor become a puppet in another's hands. I wasn't intending to be burned up in the crematorium of the Gottlieb Burckhardt. The simple thought that my brain would be placed in a vat of formaldehyde and displayed to students gave me a wave of truly authentic rage.
And it wasn't a desire to achieve something that made me move, but elementary stubbornness. Sometimes that is enough.
"Devil!" I said, getting up from the bed. "The devil dies tomorrow..."
5
ALL NIGHT, I didn't shut my eyes.
And the problem wasn't mymisgivings that I might lose my nerve and again give in to apathy, I simply couldn't fall asleep. I don't know what exactly served as the reason for the punishing insomnia–the effect of electroshock therapy on my brain or the narcotic component in my medicine but, since the very beginning of treatment, I was able to fall asleep only at procedures. At night, I would most often drift into an unquiet half-sleep, so I was madly tired all the time, but I couldn't do anything with that.