Experimental Film

by Gemma Files

  Dzéngast is fifty miles from here, if that, and she must face it with as much strength as possible in order to gain the answers she so desperately seeks (for all she declines to tell me, explicitly, what those answers might be). And thus, since it is my duty to assist her—she being my very flesh and blood, the living vessel my heart resides within—I will, by any means necessary. Dr. R— is well known for his mesmeric skills, and has assured me his methods are nigh-undetectable, even . . . or perhaps most especially . . . to their subject. As my father so rightly observed, in such delicate matters, it is sometimes easier to beg forgiveness after the fact than to ask permission before.

  If he can help her and enlighten me, he will; he has sworn so. I like to think he understands the consequences to both of us if he does not.

  “Megrims”—that would be headaches, I thought, flipping forwards. So . . . Mr. Whitcomb wanted to hook his wife up with a psychiatrist, basically, years before that term would come into common usage. Have him, what—hypnotize her? Analyze her dreams? All very Ann Radcliffe, and still more than a bit controversial at the time, which was probably why he’d left “Dr. R’s” name out of the journal: to protect the doctor’s privacy, or his wife’s, or both.

  The next page started abruptly: 13 June. Iris accepts Dr. R— at face value, or seems to; she says she finds him good company and they chatter away together, swapping fairy tales. Both keep mostly to English, no doubt out of politeness, but lapsing on occasion into the odd, guttural tongue of her birth. She continues to work, however, against my better judgement—claims it a salve against her sleeplessness, which persists, though Dr. R—’s drugs allow her to nap during the day or early evening. She sketches constantly, occasionally transferring the result onto a small canvas, which she fills at top speed then barely glances at afterwards. When they are dry she tends to burn them, unless I object strenuously. She left behind three in the last village alone.

  The images are similar, far too much so: a storm overhanging a field, clouds bright-lit from within; the noonday sun engulfed, all wings and eyes. They hurt the mind to contemplate. I recall that fellow Knauff, his hand lingering on her knee—and me nearby, the scoundrel!—as he leafed through her folio before raising his head to observe, sadly: “Ah, meine schöne Madame . . . I see you, too, labour under the direction of an angel.”

  At dawn we travel on. One more stop, perhaps two, before our destination.

  Dr. R— says he will begin tomorrow night.

  To be continued, I thought, flipping forward again.

  The next document in the stack was a sideways shift, in a number of ways. A letter this time, dated from November of the same year. I recognized the name at the top: Adelhart Whitcomb M.D.—the surgeon-cousin. Mr. Whitcomb’s writing was different, too—smaller and more cramped, obviously scrawled in haste yet somehow easier to read, perhaps because it was addressed to somebody other than Arthur M. himself.

  My dearest Adelhart, it began. Please do not let my lack of answer up till now imply reproof for your recommendation re Dr. R—, whose efforts have been unstinting, if not so fruitful as hoped. Nonetheless, things have happened in the interim that change everything, making him the least of my worries.

  You will note, for example, that my wife and I are no longer on the continent, having been forced to curtail our tour by circumstances beyond our—beyond anyone’s—control.

  Not long before we reached Dzéngast, Dr. R— used both medicines and counsel to establish a relationship of trust with Iris, such that when mesmerism was finally employed upon her it might yield its best result. As you prognosticated, when he judged conditions finally propitious, he placed my dearest into what he called the “monoideitic sleep,” a state of curious entrancement. It was deeply disquieting to hear my beloved, normally so sharp and animate, speak and respond in such a lethargic monotone, and to see her sit so lifeless. Yet within seconds of the experiment’s commencement both Dr. R— and she had lapsed into that foreign tongue they share. I could bear only some few minutes of that incomprehensible converse before excusing myself to the receiving room of our suite, attempting to read or scribe other letters, ever aware of that dull, unceasing murmur behind the not-quite-closed bedroom door.

  When Dr. R— emerged, I confess I quite leapt to my feet, and only his hasty gesture silenced me till he had closed the door, joining me near the window. “Your wife, Mr. Whitcomb,” he began, “is neither deluded nor deluding. She is as sane as any woman I have known.”

  The relief of this near finished me; I am not ashamed to say that I very nearly wept. Dr. R— proceeded to the liquor cabinet and decanted generously of the local brandy for us both before resuming. “I have placed her in a full natural sleep, from which I expect her to awake in an hour or so, hopefully much refreshed.”

  “Will she remember the experience?”

  “Oh indeed, all of it; it would be a waste if she did not.” The doctor smiled wearily. “I trust you shall not take it as a slight if I tell you I thought your wife’s narrative an invention, though not a wholly conscious one—a scrim concocted by what Herr Freud calls the ‘subconscious,’ to shield her from the trauma of witnessing her father’s death—or, perhaps, of having contributed to it. After all, the evidence in the case speaks volumes toward such an assumption, for was it not your own fear that this might be true that caused you to solicit my assistance to begin with?”

  I could not but acknowledge it. “I would be a fool if I closed my eyes to the facts, since murder is a crime without limit. Yet still, it seemed so ludicrous—a nine-year-old girl, alone against a grown man, her own father. And then to do all that was done thereafter, the burial of his head, and such . . .”

  “A madman weak with hunger and exposure, while she was terrified to near-madness herself? I have consulted in stranger cases. But for all her perturbations, sir, your wife has no guilt in this—not mentally, at any rate, leading me to suspect she is innocent physically of any crime as well.”

  I felt a great urge to sit down, and fought it back by finishing my brandy. “You are certain?”

  “Very much so. She is, as you know, a woman of capacity, forever at the mercy of her own intelligence, her sympathies, and her imagination. Indeed, it is that very imagination which may prove our greatest concern. For though I may state with near-certainty that nothing criminal was done on your wife’s part, that does not mean events can possibly have proceeded as she recalls them.”

  “Explain, sir.”

  Dr. R— hesitated, long enough that the fear within me grew intolerable, before replying. “The details are of little import,” he said at last. “What matters is the sincerity of your wife’s conviction, her firm belief she experienced something—numinous, if I may lapse into Spiritualist terminology; something wholly outside her experience, to all intents and purposes not of this world. But she does not now recall what it was, and that lacuna has become a void her fantasy struggles to fill, conjuring up all the contents of her dreaming mind. Until she can confront that missing memory, there will be no peace for her.”

  “So taking her here, to Lusatia—to Dzéngast—was the correct decision.”

  “The necessary one, yes. It may be that when she visits the fields outside her parents’ village, so reminiscent of where her family died, she will remember only an ugly, mundane truth. But truth, however ugly or mundane, is the only thing that will heal her.” And here he sighed, concluding: “The mind is full of mysteries, sir. As full in its way as the earth itself, or more so.”

  You may be tempted, from the detail I have employed, to think that perhaps I have been fanciful or inventive in my recounting. I assure you I have not. The events of that afternoon are etched upon my brain as if engraved, and I greatly doubt that they shall ever fade, especially when placed in conjunction with what followed.

  Three days later, our journey was complete. We reached that damnable hen-scratch of a village in early evening, ju
st in time for Iris to alight from our carriage and collapse, right there in what passed for a street. She was put to bed, where she lay like a dead woman, a wet cloth across her eyes, too much in pain even to moan. And I confess I was beside myself, since Dr. R— could apparently do nothing for her. Just as the sun sank, however, a young girl (perhaps twelve years of age, no more) appeared at our host’s door, petitioning to be allowed entrance to my wife’s chamber, to whom she referred by her maiden name—her original name: Giscelia Wróbl.

  “The Kantorka sends her greetings,” she told me, through Dr. R—, “and begs to be remembered to the sparrow-child, daughter of Handrij, daughter of Liska. She will attend her in the morning and have speech with her. In the meantime, she has sent this potion to aid with her sickness.”

  Dr. R— examined the mixture, declaring it wholesome. I brought it up to my darling myself, watched as she drank it down, and was amazed by the effect.

  “I feel almost well,” she told me, sitting up. “Who was that, downstairs?”

  “She said she came from the Kantorka, whoever that might be.”

  “My grandmother knew the term . . . a singer, and leader in songs. She keeps the village’s memory, its stories.”

  “Its fairy tales?” She nodded. I conjured a smile, no doubt forced, but intended only to cheer. “Perfect for you, then, my love.”

  The look she gave me in return was odd, however. “One might think so,” was all she said.

  From then on things progressed quickly, or at least seemed so, from where I stood—out of the compass of the action, wholly dependent on Dr. R— for any sense of what might be happening, or why.

  We were received the next morning by the Kantorka herself, a withered and feeble old woman with a great pile of embroidered cloth on her blind, nodding head, ensconced in a veritable witch’s cottage at the edge of town. The same girl as before attended her, continually simmering something vile-smelling in an iron pot over a smoking fire, watching as her mistress and Iris conversed while Dr. R— translated for me, careful to keep his voice to a polite whisper.

  “You are troubled by the Noon-Witch’s touch,” this wretch of a peasant mountebank told my darling, “and you will be troubled always, for those She has set her eye upon” . . . and yes, I heard the capital letter used here, blasphemous and awful . . . “will never again be free from her influence, except that they find their true vocation and keep to it. Do you do the work you are intended for, my girl?”

  “I do the only work I can do, old mother.”

  “Well, then.”

  “But is there nothing else to say? We have come a long way, my husband and I.”

  The old woman seemed to assess me, shrewdly. “I can see he loves you dearly, daughter, and that his intentions are good, but these are matters only women should deal with, not men, or outsiders. As to the other, only She can say. Yet if you make an offering at the procession tomorrow, She may yet consider your case favourably.”

  “Ah, and now comes the request for cash, which—luckily enough—I have in ready supply,” I muttered to Dr. R—, who hushed me, quickly.

  The procession they spoke of is an annual event, apparently, aimed at placating this aforementioned “Noon-Witch,” some spectre or pagan goddess, said to haunt the fields at harvest-time. The crop in this case is rye, winter-planted, which reaches full growth at the summer solstice; this ceremony must be performed before they start to reap, or dire consequences will result. Dr. R— told me that before Christianity took hold, the fields in question were known as the Place of Burying, where (rumour has it) Sorbians were once wont to entomb decrepit family members alive, “feeding” the earth, so as to keep it fertile.

  (I recall how my darling told me a similar tale during our courtship days, having learned it at her own beloved grandmother’s knee, along with many more: of the Wodny Muz or water-man, who tempts bathers into his lake, where he pulls them down to the bottom to drown; of the Dusiolek or Forest Strangler; the Zmora, a female creature who kills people in their sleep; the Strzyga, a flying monster that swoops down on people and carries them off, dropping their half-devoured parts from a great height, and the Cmeter, who digs up people’s corpses from graveyards, and eats them.)

  Such terrible things to tell a child, or anyone. Was that venerable unfortunate of the same lineage as this Kantorka, or are such horrible fables what all Wendish children receive with their mother’s milk, thus explaining from where her father’s seemingly unnatural bloodthirstiness truly stemmed?

  But no, I cannot think that, and so risk tarring my Iris with the same foul brush. Not when she is so dear, so tender, so terribly feeling, always—for others, if not for herself.

  I will forbid her to participate in such folly, and she will obey, I thought to myself, knowing in my heart both statements to be a lie, since I have never exerted my husbandly prerogative over her in such a fashion, nor will I ever. So to Dr. R— I said instead, “I cannot let her go there alone, unprotected, amongst these people . . . they are hardly trustworthy, with their strange beliefs; I will not have it. Yet gold cures all things, as the old saying goes, and marriage makes my blood hers, as hers is mine. Surely, if I offer to pay my way—given their obvious poverty—they cannot seek to bar me access.”

  To this, however, he simply shook his head, replying, “My friend, in some places money truly is no object, especially where faith is involved . . . this being one, as you may well find yourself forced to realize.”

  I paused for a minute, feeling light-headed and pukey, only to realize that was because I must’ve actually stopped breathing some time back, caught up in poor old Mr. Whitcomb’s narrative. I made myself take a long, measured sip of air, which immediately improved everything, before continuing on.

  He had the right of it, of course. I would have followed her into that nodding thicket of stalks, but they held me back. I am unashamed to say it took several of them to do so effectively; I fought them with all the strength at my disposal, for which not a few of the bastards commended me, in their way. My ultimate overthrow, I lay at the feet of the last man to join their number, my height but far wider, a veritable upright bull who so expertly slipped his arm around my collar and choked me into unconsciousness like some slaughterhouse ram drove mad by fright, yet gently enough that I woke with barely a bruise in the aftermath.

  I remember seeing the Kantorka leading my Iris by one sleeve, her latest canvas tucked beneath her other arm, with the old wretch herself piloted by that assistant of hers as the hot morning sun turned the tops of the rye to gold. The procession—made up entirely of girls and women of all ages, similarly dressed in crossed-front blouses, long, flounced skirts, and high-piled headdresses of fringed, bright-stitched scarves—was led by a looming creature who might have been either one masked mummer propped up on stilts or a puppet manipulated by several revellers concealed beneath its train, like some Chinese New Year’s dragon or pantomime horse.

  The face of this thing was no doubt intended to seem feminine, fashioned with horrid skill from a dried, painted lattice of braided husks and other vegetable matter; its hair was a pelt or hide, falling to graze the shoulders of its cloak, whose panels were pinned all over with brass or silver tokens, glass beads, any manner of mirror or tinsel, throwing back the light in such a way as to look almost on fire.

  One naked human hand I saw upraised claw-like, while the other hung down, slim fingers white-gripped around the hilt of a sword much like the one my darling’s accursed father supposedly beat out of ploughshares—almost a full three feet in length and so heavy it dragged behind, carving a furrow through the crop-dusted earth below.

  I watched as they took her into the fields, those witches, my sight fading, even as I waited in vain for her return.

  Here I paused again, the same weird feeling mounting, like bile in my mouth.

  Because here it was, wasn’t it? At last. The image that’d haunted Mrs. Wh
itcomb the rest of her life, become the centrepiece of paintings, murals, movies alike: Lady Midday, Poludnice, the Noontime Spectre herself, shouldering her way through the crops to inquire of some unlucky farmer whether or not he was comfortable with his given task, whether or not he wished himself elsewhere. Whether or not he could feel his attention . . . slipping.

  That blazing cloak, that great, sharp sword, that hidden face. And the sun staring down overtop it all, hot and pitiless, a naked white eye in an equally naked sky.

  But now Mr. Whitcomb was “talking” once more.

  Dr. R— cautions me to control myself, if only for her sake—set an example, as a man must, for his helpmeet’s support—but I find it

  (Here came another smear, perhaps two piled on top of each other and violently abraded, the paper beneath creased or possibly torn.)

  When I came to, it was late afternoon, with both of us—all three, in fact—already delivered once more to our lodgings. Dr. R— stepped in from the next room, where he had been tending to my Iris; he caught me by the arm, attempting to calm me, then told me she was still in a species of fit, having fallen down in the very midst of that bloody pagan ceremony of theirs. Felled by sunstroke, or so he maintains. In Dzéngast, I later learned, they say of one to whom this happens, “he—or she—has been crowned by the Witch, forever fixed between the minute and the hour.”