The Nightwalker

by Sebastian Fitzek

  ‘In the subsequent conscious state, Herr Nader was unable to remember the events surrounding his wife’s departure. He awoke in an empty bed and thought that she had left as a consequence of weeks of intense marital crisis. While he slept, we closed the wardrobe again and tidied up all the disorder. Given that Natalie had left him a goodbye note on the kitchen door before her abrupt departure, Leon was upset but not incredibly worried about her well-being, and therefore numbed himself with work for the days that followed.’

  They had needed to remove the goodbye card in the first sleepwalking phases, of course, to ensure that Leon’s mental torment was greater and his sleepwalking state more stable.

  Volwarth smiled pensively.

  No wonder Leon’s friend and business partner was so confused. Sven Berger had experienced his friend in two different stages of consciousness, and according to whether Leon was awake or sleepwalking, the versions that he heard about Natalie’s disappearance were completely different. First it was that Natalie was just taking some time out. Then that she had been beaten by him in his sleep. Leon, in turn, was unable to remember in his conscious state either his injuries or the camera, while during his sleepwalking phases he couldn’t remember having taken his wedding ring to the jeweller’s, giving his parents a cruise or that his friend had picked up the architectural model.

  ‘It is really astounding how much we’ve learned about the sleepwalking phase,’ said Dr Kroeger, who had joined the team two years ago as a neurologist and who was already flicking further forwards in the file.

  ‘Just like when people are dreaming, a sleepwalker, too, remembers specific events from reality. But clearly, and this is the real sensation of our results, not everything. It seems that only intensely emotional events seep into the nocturnal memory.’

  Volwarth nodded. This was exactly his hypothesis.

  The miscarriage, Natalie’s disappearance, the enormous pressure of his work deadline – Leon had been able to remember all of this. Less significant experiences, on the other hand, he hadn’t.

  But perhaps the most interesting thing, as far as Volwarth was concerned, was the fact that the sleepwalking memory could structure information in building blocks. This had been proven by the (incredibly difficult) staging of the first ‘awakening’: when Leon thought he woke up wearing latex gloves and the camera on his head, while in reality he was sleepwalking. From the moment he put the camera on his head the first time to his first viewing of the video tapes, fourteen hours passed. But fourteen hours in which Leon hadn’t really slept, at least not exclusively. Firstly, with the camera on his head, he had fallen from the sleepwalking phase into an exhausted, almost comatose state, in which the researchers had been able to take the camera off him without any problems. Leon then slept four hours, woke up and worked on his model; a phase that he was unable to remember later when sleepwalking, and this was why he was so astonished when he realised during his phone conversation with Sven how much time had passed.

  In order to prepare Leon for the next test, they added a light sedative to his tea. He drank it while conscious, which was why he soon went back to bed with a growing headache. With Leon in this numbed state, they had been easily able to put the gloves on him, as well as the camera on his head. The only thing they forgot was the watch he had been wearing during his last sleepwalking phase and which he’d taken off while awake as he worked. A discrepancy that Leon later noticed, but which luckily had no impact on the continuation of the experiment. Leon thought he was waking up after fourteen hours of sleep, but in reality he had suppressed the conscious phase in between, and his sleep-waking memory latched on – as they had hoped – directly to the point when he had ended his last somnambulistic phase: he got out of bed, looked at the video and discovered the wardrobe.

  All the rest is history. They would become world-renowned in the history of medicine!

  ‘The fact that we’ve been able to prove that a sleepwalking memory exists is phenomenal,’ smiled Volwarth. ‘And we’ve also learned that a patient clearly reflects on his state while sleepwalking.’

  Volwarth was particularly proud of this result. Many of his colleagues – some of whom were here today – had doubted that it was possible to use external stimuli to penetrate the consciousness of the sleepwalker to the extent that he or she was aware of his situation but without freeing them from it. Yet this had been conclusively proven by the words and numbers Leon had noted on his hand in the experiment room.

  ‘Look at this.’ Kroeger held up a photo in which he was handing Leon a mobile phone in his living room. ‘Nader was in the third stage here too. During our conversation he seemed absent-minded, as though under the influence of drugs, but he still appeared to take in everything I said to him. He could hardly look me in the eye, but he studied the photos we took of Natalie on the mobile phone in great detail. His speech was a little blurred, but he seemed stable otherwise.’

  Volwarth nodded in agreement.

  He had experienced at first hand how lasting Leon’s imprisonment within the third stage had been.

  At first the head camera had not been a planned component of their experiment. They had actually wanted to test with the prescription Volwarth made out to him whether Leon would leave the house during his sleepwalking phase. But by this point, he was already so convinced of his own guilt that he decided to hook himself up again of his own volition. As they hadn’t been sure how precise his technical dexterity would be while sleepwalking, they had exchanged the camera he ordered for another, one that was easier to put together and install. In addition, this meant they could upload the manipulated videos on to his computer with the help of the switched USB sticks, without even having to enter the apartment.

  Surprised by how adept their patient was, they had then tried out different levels of difficulty to test how strongly Leon was caught in the third stage and what physical and psychological achievements he was capable of during sleepwalking. From simple tasks like looking at pictures on a phone to the discovery of a combination of numbers on the thumbnail – in the course of the experiment, Volwarth had become more and more euphoric about Leon’s abilities. He had even been able to solve the a-Moll puzzle.

  ‘Sometimes I think our patient was clearer in the head than our team,’ complained Tareski.

  Volwarth nodded regretfully. ‘I understand your chagrin, Professor, and I promise I’ll be more careful next time with the selection of our assistants.’

  ‘You certainly should be. It just wasn’t possible to control Siegfried after a while, and he simply played out his own sadistic desires.’ Tareski instinctively touched his neck. ‘You shouldn’t ever trust an amateur again with such an important task as the creation of the trigger footage.’

  Volwarth sighed.

  In truth they had wanted to find someone more reliable as bait for Natalie, but it had been difficult enough as it was to convince even one daring researcher to take part in their projects. And this time they had been searching for someone with relevant experience in a scene that was too hardcore for even S&M enthusiasts. When von Boyten Jr. unexpectedly offered himself for the task, they were incautious enough to accept due to desperation. It was clear to everyone that Siegfried just wanted to satisfy his own brutal desires, but didn’t that make him pre-destined to provoke the kind of psychotic stress in Leon that they so urgently needed for their experiment to succeed?

  And so it was von Boyten who offered the apartment to Natalie to reinforce their sexual relationship. It was the catalyst they needed to increase Leon’s fear of loss to such an extent that he fell back into his old pattern of consciousness.

  ‘The house belonged to him,’ explained Volwarth. ‘As you know, he threatened to expose the whole thing if we pulled him out of the experiment. I wish I’d had another option. He was our only weak point.’

  They had given von Boyten a certain amount of freedom when it came to the contents of the tapes they played on Leon’s laptop. The primary function of these recordings was
to examine how defined the I-consciousness of the test individual was in the third stage, similar to the consciousness test carried out with animals to check whether they recognise themselves in the mirror or see their reflections as another creature. At the same time the recordings were intended to help discover to what extent the patient could draw logical conclusions from what he had seen.

  The fact that von Boyten had climbed unauthorised into Tareski’s apartment and almost strangled him to death with a shoelace had been neither planned nor foreseen. And especially not on a day when Volwarth was delayed, due to a presentation that could not be postponed, and therefore unable to step in.

  ‘Even though you were the affected party, Professor, there was a positive outcome to the attack. The fact that Leon rescued you proved there’s a sleepwalking conscience.’

  Tareski didn’t seem too convinced, but everyone else in the room nodded in agreement.

  ‘And last but not least,’ said Volwarth, trying to bring his summary to a conclusion, ‘we almost succeeded, as a side benefit, in curing Leon Nader of his hypnophobia.’

  The faked video footage had been designed to lure Leon into a labyrinth that seemed to lead down into the darkest passageways of his subconscious.

  ‘For the whole of his life, our patient was afraid of falling asleep because he thought it turned him into a violent monster. The fact that he was able to overpower Siegfried von Boyten in the end meant that he overcame the trauma of his childhood. Now he knows that he doesn’t hurt anyone when he sleepwalks, neither his loved ones, like Natalie, nor strangers like Professor Tareski.’

  Volwarth smiled modestly and waited until his colleagues had stopped clapping.

  ‘Before I ask you to turn to the last page in the file, I would like to take this opportunity to thank our generous donors. Without the Falconis, it wouldn’t have been possible to finance our projects.’

  The pot-bellied man of the couple that had inhabited the first floor of the old sleep laboratory smiled smugly, and yet Volwarth knew it was actually the elegant woman by his side who deserved the recognition. She was the wealthy one. For her husband, the experiment had been nothing more than cheap snuff-theatre, and if it was down to him he would have turned off the money tap early on, as soon as he became bored of it.

  Volwarth sighed discreetly.

  It was a shame that it was necessary to collaborate with such objectionable subjects, but there wasn’t much he wouldn’t do in the name of science. At least his donors had made an undisputable contribution to the success of the experiment by stopping Natalie’s lift on the first floor and coaxing the young woman into their apartment, which was why Leon was so confused when she didn’t come out of the lift on the ground floor. But this act and their money had been the Falconis’ only noteworthy achievements, and even their financial means hadn’t been enough to cover all the expenses. Volwarth had even let Ivana talk him into flogging some of their research recordings to buyers on the internet. It made Volwarth feel sick when he thought about it, but with the money the project swallowed up there’d been no other option. Of course, he was neither able nor willing to lower himself to conversing with such questionable individuals, so he had left it to Ivana to send them the packages containing the tapes.

  ‘I’m very pleased you’re with us again today,’ said Volwarth to the Falconis, gritting his teeth. Then he asked for the attention of all those present.

  ‘Just like all of you, I regretted the fact that we had to leave our last laboratory in such a hasty manner. But with Leon managing to break free so unexpectedly, we were unfortunately left with no choice.’

  Volwarth pulled four security keys, furnished with numbered bands, from his trouser pocket. ‘Ladies and gentlemen, these are the keys to your new apartments. As always, you can choose the floor yourselves.’

  He beckoned for his colleagues and sponsors to stand up and come closer.

  The windowless room in which their meeting was taking place had a low ceiling, and Dr Kroeger had to lower his head as he went to stand beside Volwarth.

  ‘On the last page of your files, you’ll find a list with your new identities, as well as a rough overview of the planned series of tests.’

  With these words, he pulled a black, opaque curtain from the wall, and a murmur went through the group.

  ‘As I said, it’s a shame we’re no longer able to use our old space. But here we’ve been able to find even better conditions. And we’ll still be able to act incognito.’

  He had begun to whisper, which was silly given that the walls were adequately insulated. Noises could only penetrate into the laboratory space if they really wanted them to.

  ‘Excellent,’ said Kroeger in awe.

  ‘Unbelievable,’ Ivana agreed.

  ‘Fantastic,’ enthused Mr Falconi, for the wrong reasons.

  The rest were silent, staring transfixed through the two-way mirror into the bedroom of the couple who were in the process of moving into their new apartment.

  43

  ‘It’s unbelievable,’ said the young man, putting a removal box down next to the bed.

  ‘Isn’t it, darling?’ The woman, even younger, let herself fall back on to the bed with a suggestive smile. Her boyfriend followed her lead and kissed her full lips.

  ‘I still can’t believe we got our dream apartment.’

  ‘Neither can I.’

  He pushed his hand beneath her blouse and she giggled.

  ‘It’s wonderful,’ he said, leaning towards her with a loving look.

  ‘I know, isn’t it?’

  ‘I didn’t mean the apartment.’

  ‘Then what?’

  ‘It’s wonderful that you’re smiling again at last.’

  He kissed her, then said in a hopeful voice:

  ‘I think everything’s going to be OK again here.’

  Epilogue

  It was impossible to make anything out through the material. Sven had tied the blindfold much too tightly. As soon as Leon took it off he would look like he had just woken up, with tired eyes and sleep creases on his face.

  ‘Where are you taking me?’

  He was holding on with both hands to the shoulders of his best friend, who in the last months had become his closest confidant. Numerous doctors had approached him, including prominent personalities, offering to work through the traumatic experiences of his recent past with him, but for obvious reasons Leon didn’t want to have anything more to do with psychiatrists for the rest of his life.

  ‘How much longer?’ he asked impatiently. It was straining his nerves to stumble along blindly like this. Just a few weeks ago it would have been unthinkable to put himself in someone else’s hands like this, but since they had moved into the new apartment he was making advances day by day.

  ‘We’re almost there.’

  You said that five minutes ago, when we got out of the car.

  The path sloped up gradually but steadily. Leon felt the sun on his face and heard music from the radio of a car driving past. His nose was itching, a sure sign the pavement was lined by blooming chestnut trees. The scent of warm asphalt was in the air.

  ‘I hate surprises.’

  ‘Then you’d better avoid your birthday,’ replied Sven drily.

  Leon thought about what they must look like. Some passers-by stopped their conversations, giggled and made silly comments (‘What a lovely couple’, ‘Have fun, you two’), or whispered behind their backs as soon as they had passed.

  Once Sven had led him around two more corners and then straight on for a long stretch, it seemed they had reached their destination, for they came to a halt.

  ‘Finally.’

  Leon moved to loosen the tight knot behind his head, but Sven took him by the arm.

  ‘Stop, first I need to tell you something important.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You won’t like my present.’

  ‘Excuse me?’

  Leon blinked beneath the blindfold. Even more worrying than Sven’s s
ecretive behaviour was the fact that his friend had started to stutter again, albeit barely noticeably.

  ‘They said it’s too early, but I’m afraid it might already be too late.’

  With these words, Sven pressed something into his hand that felt like a glass of hot water. Leon held it with the tips of his fingers so as not to burn himself.

  ‘What the hell . . .?’ He ripped the blindfold from his head and gaped at the object flickering in his hand. ‘You’re giving me a tea light?’

  Sven shook his head. ‘No. I’m giving you a vision.’

  ‘Of what?’

  ‘The truth.’

  Leon obeyed the order to turn round, and almost let the glass fall.

  A sea of lights danced in front of his eyes, fuelled by the numerous candles and tea lights that were arranged on a flight of steps.

  ‘Is this supposed to be a joke?’ asked Leon, wishing he had never taken off the blindfold.

  The collection of letters, cuddly toys, flowers and pictures – some framed, but mostly wrapped in clear film – looked completely out of place. This was not the side of a street where some accident had taken place. They were not standing at the entrance to the home of some celebrity whose unexpected death was being mourned by their fans. Such a manifestation of collective grief belonged in the evening news and not at the entrance to the building from which Leon had fled, naked, on to the street, a few months ago.

  ‘Why are you doing this to me, Sven?’

  Some of the flames were extinguished and many of the flowers had wilted, which was no wonder considering the warm temperatures, but the wreath on the lowest step had been watered just recently. Drops pearled from the fir boughs, and the embroidered sash gleamed like new in the glistening sunlight.

  In deepest sorrow.

  Leon turned back.

  Even his friend’s eyes had filled with tears. ‘I’m so sorry, Leon. But I think it’s time you face up to the truth.’