The Devil's Sanctuary (33 page)

“I don’t understand how—,” Daniel attempted, but Fischer wasn’t about to let himself be interrupted and went on in the same excited tone of voice.

“Think about how much evil guilt has caused! You’re talking to a German, don’t forget.” He wagged his finger sternly. “We’re
experts
at guilt. After the First World War we were broken and humiliated. And as if that wasn’t enough, we had to pay vast reparations, we lost all our colonies and all of our armaments. Most humiliating of all, we were forced to sign an admission of guilt where we accepted responsibility for the war. So we were guilty of our own suffering! No one can handle that sort of guilt. That was what caused the greatest bitterness, and caused us to long for redress. In other words, another war. Guilt causes suffering, suffering causes more guilt. It’s a vicious circle. I say: Break it! Get rid of guilt!”

“I still don’t think I would want to have anything to do with someone who couldn’t feel guilt,” Daniel said quietly.

“But if everyone was the same? In my world there won’t be any oversensitive pedants like you. Don’t look so shocked. How much happiness have you ever gotten from being so sensitive? Your depression—did that make you happy?”

“How do you know I’ve ever been depressed?” Daniel exclaimed in surprise, but Karl Fischer ignored the question.

“You’re burdened with a Stone Age soul in a highly technological society, that’s your problem, Daniel. The world needs people who are ambitious, competitive, and tough. The unions and the state won’t take care of you any longer. You need to be able to fight for yourself. Most people aren’t capable of that. They become unemployed, confused wrecks, making profits for psychologists, liquor companies, and the pharmaceutical industry. Do you know, Daniel, I am so
utterly
sick of all the people who make money from suffering. Psychotherapists, pill pushers, faith healers. Priests, authors, artists. All the parasites living off people’s sensitive consciences, their suffering souls!”

Karl Fischer had worked himself into a state of ecstatic rage, and Daniel wanted to object but felt strangely hollow. He knew Fischer was wrong, but all of a sudden he couldn’t think of an argument. Maybe that was because of the pills he’d been given.

“I still don’t agree with you,” he said lamely.

Doctor Fischer smiled amiably and composed himself.

“Of course not. You’re part of all this and can’t see it from the outside the way I can. But believe me: Mankind’s exaggerated sensitivity is a remnant from a previous stage of development. Like body hair. There’s no longer any need for it, so it would do no harm to remove it.”

The notes of the
Trout Quintet
began to ring out from Doctor Fischer’s breast pocket. He interrupted himself and took the call.

“Excellent,” he said, and put the cell phone back. “That was Doctor Kalpak. Your blood test showed that everything is in order and that you’re in excellent health. There’s nothing to stop us proceeding with the treatment as soon as possible.”

“Treatment? What treatment?” Daniel asked anxiously.

“It would take too long to explain it to you now. In brief, you could say it’s like the Pinocchio Project, only in reverse.”

Daniel took a deep breath, then, in a voice that sounded considerably calmer than he felt, he said, “So you want to make a wooden puppet out of a human being?”

“I’m not sure I’d describe it quite like that. But evidently the puppet imagery appeals to you. ‘A puppet with someone else’s hand inside you.’ Wasn’t that how you described yourself?”

Daniel stiffened.

“Where did you hear that?”

“Apparently that’s what you told your psychiatrist. When you sought treatment for depression, I think it was?” Doctor Fischer said as he walked over to the bookcase and searched the row of files.

“I don’t understand how you managed to get hold of that sort of information.”

“I have an extensive network of contacts. And we doctors have to share our material if progress is ever going to be made.”

He returned with a file and made space for it on the table, pushing the teacups and saucers aside.

“Medical records are confidential,” Daniel objected.

“Sometimes the good of the many has to take precedence over the good of the individual,” Fischer muttered as he searched through the file. “At least that’s what your psychiatrist thought once I’d explained that I knew about the affair he was having with one of his female patients. Information that could do serious damage to his career and marriage if it got into the wrong hands. From your conversations with him it would appear that you…ah, here it is: You have ‘a weak sense of self and you have felt dominated by your brother throughout your life.’ Yes, you even seem to have regarded yourself as ‘a pale imitation of him.’ Very interesting. You’ve tried to find your own role in life, but without your brother you have always felt ‘empty and hollow, ready to be filled up by the first person who came along. Like a puppet.’ That was it.”

He closed the file noisily.

“When I read that I knew that you’d be of great value to me. You weren’t the sort I’d been hoping for. But there’s every chance that you will be.”

THE OPERATING
room gave the impression of being makeshift and primitive, as though it had been prepared in haste to take care of the victims of some catastrophe: unopened cardboard boxes, equipment shoved in a corner, a plastic bucket full of dirty cotton balls.

To his astonishment, Daniel wasn’t especially worried. He assumed this was because of the injection Doctor Kalpak had just given him. The surgeon had whipped the syringe out quickly, without any warning, as if he’d had it up his coat sleeve, and in the middle of a gentle, lilting sentence he had plunged it into Daniel’s arm. It must have contained the same substance he had previously been given in tablet form, because once again he had a sense of swimming or treading water. He was docile and obedient and the two guards hardly had to use their muscle at all as they pushed him down into what looked like a modern dentist’s chair placed at the center of the operating room. It was covered with green paper, which didn’t seem to have been replaced since the last patient, because it had dark stains on it and was torn in a few places, as if the patient hadn’t been able to keep still.

Doctor Kalpak moved a buzzing object toward Daniel, who actually burst out laughing with relief when he saw it was just an ordinary electric shaver. Doctor Kalpak laughed too, revealing a snow-white row of teeth as he ran the shaver over Daniel’s scalp, sending tufts of his newly grown dark hair falling to the floor.

“Just like at the barber’s, eh?” he called out breezily.

Karl Fischer appeared on the other side of Daniel. Between his thumb and forefinger he was holding a small metal rod, about two inches long. Daniel looked at it in bemusement.

“What have you got there?” he asked.

Fischer twiddled the rod between his fingers as he appeared to think about a suitable response. Finally he said, “See it as the hand that’s about to fill you up.”

Daniel wasn’t happy with that answer, but before he had time to say anything else a rumble like thunder rolled through the ground, making the instruments and bottles rattle on the shelves.

“Dear God, they’re blasting again,” Doctor Kalpak cried. “We’ll have to wait. I can’t operate when everything’s shaking.”

“It’s already stopped. No problem,” Doctor Fischer said calmly.

“No vibrations! Absolutely no vibrations!” Doctor Kalpak insisted anxiously. “It mustn’t be out by even a millimeter!”

“And it won’t be. You’re going to put it in exactly the right place.”

The two doctors looked at each other from either side of the chair while they waited. The only sound was the hum of the air vent.

Fischer nodded in encouragement and Kalpak shaved the last of Daniel’s hair from his scalp. With a beelike buzz the backrest was lowered until he was lying flat, then the whole chair was raised to a comfortable working height.

Doctor Kalpak folded something down across Daniel’s forehead—a sort of metal frame that fixed his shaved head and kept him from turning it to either side.

The doctors looked at each other again. Fischer’s left eyelid flickered in an almost imperceptible wink.

“What are you planning to…?” Daniel began.

A moment later his head exploded in a shower of sparking pain. He heard a scream, possibly his own, and his consciousness was torn apart like a strip of burned film.

ABSOLUTE DARKNESS,
Daniel thought in alarm. Dense and compact, like a physical substance, it surrounded him on all sides, forcing its way into his mouth and nostrils. No hint of light anywhere, no nuances in the black. It was like finding himself inside a new element, with no idea of what was up or down. Like space. The fact that the North Pole is up and the South Pole is down is simply a prejudice, why do we say that? Up and down in relation to what?

Obviously he was dead. Up and down no longer existed. He had nothing from which to get his bearings. But if that were the case, how could he be thinking these thoughts? And there
was
actually something for him to get his bearings from. Something heavy and hard pressing on his right leg and hip in a distinctly real and painful way. He tried to move away from the weight, or push it away, but discovered that he couldn’t actually move very much at all. Where were Doctor Fischer and Doctor Kalpak?

Then he realized what must have happened. The blasting on the building site. Doctor Fischer’s underground research facility wasn’t part of Himmelstal’s official activities and wasn’t included on any of the plans. So they wouldn’t have taken it into account when they were working out what explosive charges to use. The room he was in, and possibly the whole underground research facility, had collapsed.

Buried alive! The thought was there even if he didn’t want to admit it.

He shouted out, but that just caused more pain than noise as his throat filled with concrete dust and forced him into a fit of agonizing coughing.

In the middle of coughing he heard something. A machine? A human voice? Drawn-out notes, vibrating and squeaking. He lay still and listened hard. He recognized the tune. Wasn’t that
The Star-Spangled Banner,
the American national anthem? But it sounded very odd. Like a human voice trying to imitate an electric guitar.

“Tom!” he called out. “Is that you?”

At an increasing rate, the peculiar voice switched between loud cries and a low bass rumble, and after a long crescendo it broke off with a click as a tiny flame flickered into life.

Tom appeared out of the darkness. He was holding a cigarette lighter in his hand, his skull-like face and shaved head glowing in its feeble light. His guitar imitation had evidently been tiring—he was breathless and had a dribble of saliva at the corner of his mouth—but he seemed completely uninjured.

“Can you help me, Tom? I seem to be stuck,” Daniel groaned.

“Yes, it’s far too cramped here,” Tom sighed, without moving a muscle.

In the weak light Daniel could now make out collapsed blocks of concrete and jagged metal supports. He was lying on the floor with the upturned operating chair on top of him.

“Tom,” he groaned again.

Tom came closer and lit up his face with the lighter. He took a couple of steps back, inspecting him thoughtfully as he ran his hand over his bare head, then finally declared, “All that crap has to go. It’s blocking the view.”

“I completely agree with you,” Daniel hissed. “But I’m a bit stuck. Do you think you could help me?”

Tom moved closer again and took a look at the situation. He crouched down next to Daniel and handed him the lighter: “Hold this.”

He put his shoulder against the lump of concrete and pushed as hard as he could but failed to budge it at all.

“Can’t do it,” he declared. “You’ll have to keep it like this. But it doesn’t look nice.”

“Maybe if you tried to pull me out instead?” Daniel whispered.

Tom sighed, and it sounded like he was getting fed up, but he did at least take hold of Daniel’s arms and, with a hard, irritable jerk, managed to move him a short distance. Which meant that the whole weight ended up on Daniel’s shin instead of his hip. He roared with pain but somehow managed to crawl forward and pull himself completely free. He rolled over and clutched his ankle as he panted for air.

“You look much better without all that crap,” Tom said approvingly.

Daniel stood up and checked that nothing was broken, then looked around with the lighter. They were trapped in a small pocket, completely surrounded by collapsed concrete and reinforcing bars.

Tom whistled and pointed at something. From beneath the concrete an arm in a white coat sleeve was sticking out. The hand was dark skinned with a paler palm, the fingers long and slender, like flower stalks.

“Doctor Kalpak,” Tom said.

He leaned over, pulled gently at the long fingers, and tutted sadly.

“He could have been a great guitarist.”

“His sister plays first violin for the London Symphony Orchestra,” Daniel muttered as he tried to find a pulse in the still-warm wrist.

He looked at the pile of concrete that reached all the way to the ceiling. Doctor Fischer was probably somewhere under there.

“Where were you when the tunnel collapsed?” he asked Tom.

“In the waiting room. I was going to be operated on after you. I went to the bathroom and the guard waited outside. Then something happened when I flushed it. I must have pressed the wrong button. What about you? Were you in the middle of your operation?”

He pointed at Daniel’s freshly shaved head, and Daniel suddenly became aware of something warm and sticky running down his temple and onto his cheek. With a gasp of horror he put his hand to his scalp, then stopped and gently touched a sensitive area just above his right ear.

Tom grabbed the lighter and shone it close to Daniel’s head.

“Just a flesh wound. You probably got hit by a bit of concrete,” he said, then added apologetically, “Well, I must be going now.”

He turned around, leaving Daniel in darkness. Then, with the lighter in one hand, he began scrambling up the heap of collapsed concrete with surprising agility.

“Be careful it doesn’t collapse any more!” Daniel cried as Tom darted from piece to piece like a mountain goat.

Where did he think he was going?

“Too damn cramped here as well. This ought to go,” he snorted. “And this.”

Tom was standing at the top of the pile of concrete, holding out his hands as the little flame from the lighter flickered in the darkness.

“There’s a lot that ought to go, Tom.”

It got darker, and to his horror Daniel saw that Tom was about to disappear between the blocks of concrete.

“Wait, where are you going?” he called, terrified at the thought of being left alone in the darkness.

“That’s it. This is better,” Tom’s voice said from above Daniel.

Tom’s head and the hand holding the lighter stuck out from an opening between the concrete and the roof.

“Are you coming, or are you going to stay there?” he called.

“What’s on the other side?” Daniel asked anxiously as he scrambled up the collapsed concrete wall.

“I don’t know if you’re going to like it. But at least it’s not so fucking cramped,” Tom said.

“Is it a treatment room? Corridors?”

“Something like that.”

“Is there anyone there?”

Tom turned away, the hand holding the lighter vanished, and it went dark. His voice echoed strangely from the other side of the rubble: “No. Or yes. Sort of.”

“Hang on. Bring the lighter back!” Daniel said as he stumbled.

He groped for a foothold in the darkness. Tom reappeared with the lighter, and Daniel saw to his horror that he had almost slipped down between two great lumps of concrete.

“Could you hold the lighter there until I get up, please?” he asked.

Tom sighed impatiently but did as he was asked, filling in the time with a few electric guitar riffs.

Once Daniel had clambered over the last block, Tom pulled back so that he could get through the opening. It seemed impossible at first, but Tom had managed it. Even if Daniel wasn’t as skinny as Tom, he had to try at least. What other choice did he have?

He scraped his wounded head against the concrete and trickles of sticky blood ran down his face. With his teeth clenched against the pain he tumbled out on the other side.

The first thing that struck him was that it smelled completely different. The dry smell of concrete dust was overpowered by a cold, damp smell of earth and stone. It was just as dark as on the other side, but something told him they weren’t in an examination room or care center corridor. He had the feeling of being at the bottom of a deep well.

“Tom!” he called out. “Where are we?”

His voice was thrown back at him off stone walls. In the distance he could hear the echo of water dripping slowly.

“If it wasn’t so cold, I’d say we were in the Vietcong’s underground tunnel system,” Tom said from somewhere in the darkness.

“You sound like you’re a long way away. I can’t see anything. Have you got the lighter there?” Daniel called.

There was a click and the flame flared up with a hiss as it hit the damp air. Tom was standing some thirty feet away from him in a narrow passageway with an arched stone roof. His breath was clouding.

“Didn’t you say you saw people here?” Daniel reminded him.

Tom shrugged.

“I saw
those,
” he said, holding the lighter closer to the wall.

Daniel realized that the stone wall contained horizontal niches, almost like pigeonholes. He moved slowly closer to the niche that was lit up by Tom’s outstretched lighter.

He had a fair idea of what he was about to encounter, since he had seen something similar in Rome and Paris, but the sight of the brown cranium and empty eye sockets still made him gasp. It was too dark for him to see inside the other niches, but he knew that they too would be full of skeletons, lying there on their built-in bunk beds.

“The Catacombs,” he whispered. “So they really do exist.”

“Looks that way,” Tom said, then added in a sudden burst of rational thinking, “We need to save the fuel. Have a quick look. Then we’ll go on in darkness.”

Daniel grabbed a couple of broken reinforcing rods from the heap of concrete. If they were going to go on through the darkness they’d need sticks to test the way. He didn’t want to stumble over anything without warning.

The lighter went out and they headed off through pitch-black darkness, Tom first, then Daniel. With one hand Daniel kept a firm grasp of Tom’s tracksuit, and with the other he ran the metal rod against the walls where the skeletons lay in their open graves just a foot away from him.

There was a clatter as Tom’s pole struck stone.

“What is it? Have we reached the end?” Daniel asked from close behind him.

Tom took out the lighter and they saw that the tunnel continued beyond a right-angled corner. It became narrower and lower.

The lighter went out again and they carried on through the darkness, crouching down as Tom kept his spirits up with a frenetic electric guitar solo. Daniel hit his head on the roof several times. He yelled out whenever the stones scraped against his wounded scalp, and the blood poured down his face. Tom took no notice of him and just carried on, making his weird electronic noises.

Suddenly he stopped in the middle of a long, reverberating note.

“Another wall?” Daniel asked.

Without getting the lighter out he moved aside and Daniel saw why he had stopped. A short distance ahead of them they could see a thin sliver of light.

“I knew it had to come out somewhere,” Daniel exclaimed. “It’s some sort of door.”

But when they reached the strip of light it was no door but a solid brick wall, with a vertical crack at the corner.

“Well, at least it’s an outside wall,” Daniel said.

He tried to peer through the crack. The light was so bright that it blinded him at first. Was that really ordinary daylight? He waited a moment, let his eyes get used to it, then looked again. But the crack was too narrow and the light still too bright. He couldn’t see anything but white emptiness out there. A room? An empty examination room with white tiled walls and fluorescent lighting?

No, the cold draft coming through the crack wasn’t from a room. And the smell, the wonderful, fresh smell of outdoors! That was the valley out there. Freedom.

He realized how ironic his situation was: The valley he had previously thought of as his prison now felt like freedom. And the way out was a crack a quarter inch wide. What a joke. He’d die in there together with crazy Tom, and they’d end up sharing their grave with the other skeletons.

He put his mouth to the crack and shouted for help. It was like shouting at a wall. The sound came back at him and he doubted anyone would be able to hear him, even if he happened to be standing right outside. The crack was far too small to let much sound out.

“You look fucking awful,” Tom said in disgust, pointing at Daniel’s blood-streaked face.

“Sorry about that,” Daniel said.

To his amazement Tom unzipped his tracksuit top and took it off. Then he took off his undershirt, baring his scrawny, hairy chest.

“What are you doing?” Daniel asked. “You’ll freeze to death.”

With a few quick tugs Tom tore his undershirt into shreds. Daniel stared at him. For a moment he was struck by the touching notion that his comrade was going to bandage his wounds. But instead Tom rather roughly rubbed the blood from his head and face.

“That’ll do,” he nodded, staring with satisfaction at the bloody rag he was holding up.

Daniel slumped down by the wall. He held his hand up to the sliver of daylight that fell on the darkness like a narrow thread. He brought his thumb and forefinger together as though he could grab hold of it.

He went on with this pointless game for hours until he was so cold he could hardly feel his body anymore.

Tom walked up and down in the darkness, muttering nonsense and practicing his guitar solos. Daniel tried not to listen to him. He was concentrating on the strip of light as it grew steadily paler and thinner.