He tried to change gears. “So, Carsten goes to Prague to buy a book with the carriage driver and has Ava take care of Uli.”
Karin and Greta both nodded, Greta trying to start laughing again. “Yes, Wilhelm, isn’t it all just so mad?”
Wilhelm ignored Greta. “Well, good for Carsten, I guess… how did little Ava turn out? Is she an acceptable slave girl for our bookworm?”
Karin nodded and Greta rolled her eyes. “The maid, really? He could have almost any girl, and he ignores them for the maid.”
Karin shrugged. “He could do worse. She’s really beautiful.”
Greta scoffed. “She’s a maid.”
Wilhelm didn’t care about any of this. “So Uli got sick and started drinking laudanum and absinthe. Now he’s a shut-in mad painter. Is that really such a bad thing?”
Neither of the sisters answered.
When Carsten opened the door, Wilhelm recognized the form of his younger brother, but something was visibly altered. His eyes were hard and calculating. They were not the eyes of a predator or thug. They were the eyes of a hanging judge.
Wilhelm said, “My little brother! It’s been so long! I heard about your little hideaway and wanted to come and see you. How are you?”
Carsten stood with the door halfway open. “It’s good to see you, Wilhelm. I’m good. Studying hard, trying to finish my preparatory studies so that I can enroll in university early.”
Wilhelm suddenly felt nervous, intimidated even. “That’s fantastic, little brother! I’m so proud of you. Karin writes and tells me how dedicated you are, always out here studying.”
Carsten just looked at him. And for the first time in a long time, Wilhelm felt boring, completely outclassed. “So, are you going to show me your little place here, or are we going to stand here in the doorway all night?”
Carsten sighed. “Of course, come in.”
Wilhelm followed his brother into the small house. It wasn’t lit with electricity, only candles and lanterns. There was a large worktable covered with tools, and even a microscope, which wouldn’t have been cheap. But mostly, it was a place of books—tomes in Latin, Greek, French, English, German. There seemed to be volumes in every language that actually had a written alphabet. Then there was the desk, also heaped with texts, mainly on the subject of translation of one language to another, but in the center of the desk was one book of particular age…
Carsten had a seat at the desk, and Wilhelm sat across from him. There was a bottle of wine uncorked on the table, and Wilhelm asked, “May I?”
Carsten nodded.
Wilhelm looked at the bottle grandly and said, “Ah, a Riesling, but I suppose you would want to avoid the hard stuff while studying, eh?”
Carsten smiled weakly, obviously not caring for this trespass. “Precisely.”
Wilhelm felt even more unnerved by his brother’s cool demeanor and said, “Ah, well, so… What are we studying here? Ancient language?”
“Yes… I’m considering studying ancient languages at the university.”
Wilhelm asked, “So, is this book here your, er, inspiration?”
“Yes, it’s a good example of medieval alchemical and astrological thought—at the time they didn’t have science.”
“May I see?”
Carsten said nothing for a moment, his skin flushing scarlet. He was having trouble containing some kind of weird fury. He gritted, “Yes, please be careful, it’s absolutely priceless.”
Wilhelm took the book, appraising his brother curiously. Something was clearly amiss with Carsten.
It was similar to texts of the sort that he had seen in the great museums, but as he carefully turned the pages, he noticed the lack of familiar symbols. He saw the standard triangles and stars and circles, but there were other symbols, some dizzyingly geometrical, some inexplicably asymmetrical.
He must have been staring longer than he thought because he heard Carsten’s cautious voice. “Wilhelm… Wilhelm, hand me the book, please.”
Without thinking, Wilhelm handed the big, heavy old thing back. He felt confused, almost dizzy. He heard Carsten say, “It’s been a long day for you; you look tired. Let’s walk inside, and you can get some sleep.”
Wilhelm, whom no one ever mistook for an agreeable person, found himself being led by the hand to the house and not resisting, not even questioning. He was stunned. Carsten’s transformation into frightening brilliance, combined with the sheer alienness of the symbols in that book have made me tired, he thought. It’s all a bit much, and I just need to get some rest.
While they were walking hand in hand back to Wilhelm’s room, he asked Carsten, “Have you seen Uli’s paintings?”
“Yes.”
“What do you think of them?”
Carsten paused for a moment. “I think they’re brilliant.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
The next morning, Wilhelm woke earlier than he had in years, and he didn’t have a hangover, also for the first time in years. He felt good. He hadn’t drunk himself to sleep the night before; somehow, he just fell asleep. This was completely unnatural for him.
Unknown to his compatriots in Paris, Wilhelm was distressed about his drinking, distressed about his inability to sleep without drinking, distressed because his hands shook when he didn’t drink. Distressed about his life in general.
Wilhelm raised his right hand and looked at it. Yes, it was shaking, and that would get worse with time.
He thought about the night before, about the letter from Greta and Karin that brought him back to Munich.
The letter provided him with an excuse to get out of Paris. Truthfully, he didn’t care about whatever pretentiousness Uli was indulging in. Karin and Greta were just too thick to understand; he was getting into the spirit of artistic rebellion. He was just doing it in Munich, where such things were verboten.
Frankly, he was a bit jealous. After taking the bad reviews of his own art as a badge of honor, Wilhelm became an authority on art of ill repute. Most of it was garbage. Most of its producers were like him, persons with no talent and a misanthropic worldview.
But occasionally, he saw something real. When he found such pieces, he quietly bought them. He did this because he didn’t want anyone to see them, lest the quality of his own art be shown as truly worthless as it was.
There was one painting in particular, just a scene of an alley with a young boy peering through a keyhole. A prosaic enough scene, but in shades and colors only a diseased mind could spit out onto the canvas. The colors were wrong, the angles were wrong. Wilhelm bought it, rolled it up, and never unrolled it again.
Wilhelm walked down to the kitchen and asked for breakfast from the maid. It made him smile to remember she was Ava’s mother.
Almost as soon as the smile crossed his lips, it faded away. He remembered visiting Carsten in his odd little study the night before. It had been so very unnerving. Carsten seemed too intelligent, too focused, too… hard for a young man of his age.
He was translating an old text from Latin. Who ever heard of such a thing? What young man of his station in life even thought of doing such a thing? While it was commendable and noble, it was just unlikely.
Carsten had jealously allowed him to view the text… and that’s where things became very hazy. He remembered paging through the book. It was some kind of alchemical text, or was it? He had seen plenty of occult silliness in Paris—he knew his Dee from his Levy—but this seemed different. He looked at the symbols and lost all focus. He remembered walking hand in hand with Carsten back to his room and Carsten steering him to the bed, and then… nothing.
Wilhelm stood at the counter of the kitchen eating a breakfast of fruit and cheese, a habit that he picked up in Paris. The cheese was not French—it was German—but he devoured it nevertheless. The kitchen maid stood nearby, preparing a goose while bread of some sort baked. The smell of the baking bread was maddening.
When he had walked into the kitchen, she’d said nothing, just awaited his request
. He had asked for the fruit and cheese, and she had put the meal together with German efficiency.
He found himself completely unfocused, staring at her.
“Herr Ernst? May I get you something else?”
He stared at her glassily for a moment then shook his head.
“Perhaps you would like some ham and a slice of the cake from last night?”
At the mention of this he blurted, “Yes! Yes… um, yes, yes, thank you.”
“My pleasure, Herr Ernst. This evening we will be having the goose, and—”
Wilhelm interrupted and said, “Thank you…”, clearly fishing for her name.
“Helga, sir.”
“Ah, yes, yes, I remember, you are little Ava’s mother.”
As she was preparing his food she answered him. “Yes.”
“She was Carsten’s playmate when she wasn’t helping you in the kitchen. She still works here, yes?”
“Yes, sir.”
“They are still friends?”
“Yes.”
She warmed the ham up on the stove and took the cake from the icebox and set them on plates in front of Wilhelm.
“Milk?”
“Yes, thank you…”
She smiled and nodded her head in a way that suggested she was rarely thanked for anything.
As Wilhelm bolted the ham he said, “Carsten is translating a book written in Latin from the 1300s into German.”
Helga nodded.
He continued, “He has set up the old servants’ quarters as a study… I think he only leaves there to sleep.”
Helga said nothing. Wilhelm was speaking to himself anyway.
After eating, Wilhelm walked back to his room and bathed, then shaved. Because he hadn’t drunk the night before, he was awake before noon, unlike his sisters and Uli and his poor father. Carsten was out on an errand. This provided him with an opportunity to do a little investigation without his sisters’ unhelpful commentary.
Down the corridor, past the front door, then down the next corridor to Uli’s room, he put his ear to the door. Uli snored quietly. He tried the doorknob. It turned. Wilhelm realized that Uli simply didn’t care to hide anything.
Heavy curtains were drawn to block out the sun, it being the enemy of the drunkard in his hangover. They did a good job; the room was very dark, so it took a moment for his eyes to adjust.
Uli had produced a large work, big enough to fit over a substantial mantel. It was a city scene, eerily reminiscent of the one Wilhelm bought from the strange little man in Paris of the boy in the alley peering through a keyhole. It wasn’t painted by that other man. This was definitely Uli’s work, but the thematic resemblance was breathtaking. It was as if a patron had commissioned two artists to do a series together.
Wilhelm would have continued staring, but it was just plain hard to look at. The subject wasn’t controversial at all, just a boy and a man walking out of the back door of a building on fire. Perhaps the subjects were escaping from the fire, but that wasn’t the problem. The problem was the city. It was a conflagration of geometries resembling symbols he had seen… somewhere. Buildings twisted into people that twisted into machinery that twisted into other buildings. It was a vision of a hell on earth, a hell that existed only for the artist and the viewer.
But there was something more. There was a bad, bad smell in this room.
“Tell me the truth, Wilhelm. What do you see?”
Wilhelm whirled quickly to see his brother on the bed. He had uncovered himself and was only wearing a filthy nightshirt that reached his knees. He was cadaverous.
Uli sat up slowly in his bed, stretched over to his bedside stand and opened up his cigarette case. He put one to his lips and lit it, inhaling deeply. He proffered the case to Wilhelm.
Wilhelm took one. “Did Greta and Karin write you, telling of the pathetic life of Uli Ernst?”
Wilhelm sat in a chair facing the bed, crossed his legs, and blew out a cloud of smoke. “Yes. And you simply stopped writing me. You used to write me about once a week to tell of your adventures with the ladies of society.”
Uli laughed and nodded his head. “Yes, I’m not the person you used to know. I’ve changed.”
“You and me both, apparently.”
“What happened to you?”
“I’m a fraud.”
“The mighty Wilhelm Ernst, a fraud? What would the daring ladies of Munich society say to that?”
“The same thing that the liberated artists of Paris would say: Of course he’s a fraud, but he’s got money and he’s the center of attention, so he’s fantastic.”
Uli chuckled. Wilhelm continued, “Well, you’ve had quite the transformation. I’d love to say you’d go over well in Paris… but even there, this may be too much.”
Uli was unfazed by this. “I’m not going to Paris, I’m staying right here.”
“You’re going to show this art in Munich? You can’t be serious.”
“I’m not going to show it. I couldn’t care less if anyone sees it. You can burn it all. It really doesn’t matter.”
Wilhelm just looked at him. “I’m a terrible artist. You’re an incredible artist. You have a distinctive talent. It’s your content. It’s beyond merely unsettling, it’s repulsive.”
Uli shrugged and said nothing.
Wilhelm gazed around the room. There must have been a hundred canvasses in there, all covered with Uli’s horrid nightmare world.
“When did you start these paintings? How much laudanum are you drinking?”
“I was… sick about a year ago. I started after I got better. If I don’t drink the laudanum, I go mad.”
“Is that what this is, these paintings, is this your madness?”
Uli shook his head. “No, it’s the madness; my madness is caused by the madness. They are two separate things.”
Then Uli started laughing; it was not pretty. Wilhelm cringed and endured it. For some reason, as soon as he got back to Munich, his ability to fly into a rage had evaporated. He wanted to be mad. As far as he was concerned, Uli deserved his anger, it might even set him straight, but he just didn’t have it in him.
So he sat there. “Did being sick make you into a madman? Was it a fever that addled your brain?”
Uli smiled. “No, I was suspended, I was held captive mid-air, upside down, I was burned, I was pierced, like St. Peter…”
His eyes glazed over in detachment, a wan smile on his face.
He continued, “I was judged, and I was found lacking. I had denied Christ, and his angel was sent to instruct me. Now, every day I listen for his call, I feel his words upon the air, and I tell his message.”
Wilhelm closed his eyes. This was bad. Uli had gone religious. That, combined with his perversion and a dose of laudanum, had made him into… whatever this was.
Wilhelm had had enough for the day. This conversation was going nowhere. Uli was mad, and on some kind of religious tirade. “Uli, are you dangerous? Are you going to hurt anyone or hurt yourself?”
Uli shook his head and Wilhelm believed him. Uli was only interested in painting his horrible thoughts and drinking laudanum.
Wilhelm took a deep breath and exhaled. “Uli, what is that smell? Should I have the maids come and… clean this room?”
Uli laughed and said no.
“OK, then what is that smell? Did you shit yourself?”
“No, but I gave life to this last work. Can’t you feel it? It lives, it breathes. The angel told me to plant the seed in fertile soil and water it with my life. The soil is shit. The seed is semen. The water is my blood.”
Wilhelm closed his eyes tightly. He was smelling the painting. Uli had painted it with shit, blood, and ejaculate. Wilhelm stood up and closed the door behind him.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Wilhelm stood outside his brother’s door and closed his eyes, trying not to vomit. He expected to hear a cacophony of laughter from his deranged brother. But he heard nothing. He wasn’t sure what was worse.
Uli wasn’t likely to hurt himself or anyone else, unless you counted drinking laudanum and painting with his own blood. Uli would continue splashing his hellish world onto canvases and Wilhelm was convinced this may be worse than actually hurting someone.
Wilhelm hadn’t ever been this confused in his life. He was never hesitant or indecisive. He prided himself on this, pontificating loudly on these virtues, as people shielded from the consequences of their own actions are likely to do.
His brother really was in trouble. He wouldn’t get committed to an asylum because he wouldn’t do anything to attract the attention of anyone who could commit him. But Wilhelm was very, very convinced there was something fundamentally wrong with his paintings. Not wrong because they were ugly or offensive, not wrong because he was jealous of his brother’s talent, but wrong because they were dangerous. Wilhelm suspected they could injure the viewer or cause them to injure others. They were maddening.
He thought about putting them all up on a wall and sitting in front of them, letting the visions wash over him. Yes, it would be maddening, but the madness would be liberating, it would show him truth, it would show him reality, it would show him…
He shook his head. Just a few moments before they were hard to look at, now he wanted to hang them up and see if they did anything to his mind. What the hell was going on here? Suddenly, Wilhelm knew the answer. He must get a drink. He must go to his bedroom and open the bottle of whiskey and pour it straight.
His mind was back in the hall, considering, confused, trying to put the pieces together, but his feet were carrying him to his room, to the liquor cabinet.
When he got there, he slammed the door behind him with a bang, and put his back up against it as if he were being chased. He exhaled, inhaled, closed his eyes. He didn’t like the fact that his first instinct was to run and drink. He looked at his right hand. It was shaking badly now.
He would have to drink, but needed to moderate. If he hit the hard stuff now… the results could be catastrophic. He laughed. Carsten was right. Just drink table wine. He ran to his liquor cabinet and searched madly through the bottles. Yes, here was one, unopened. He pulled out the cork and poured himself a tall glass and swallowed half in one gulp. He set the glass on top of the dresser and sat on the bed. He would pace himself. He needed that first drink to calm the jitters. And now he needed to wait for it to warm his blood.
The Singularity Cycle 02 Song of the Death God Page 8