The Asylum of Dr. Caligari Read online

  “Thus to all forgeries!”

  He released the lever, and the shaft of flame vanished, even as the fire, bereft of fuel, went out. From the pocket of his trousers he produced his pistol, setting it on the stool.

  “Do I intend to incinerate the four of you as well? A tempting notion, but I believe I’ll shoot you instead, lest you think me some cruel ecclesiastic sending witches to die in agony at the stake. But first comes the main event, the long overdue immolation of . . . does your impertinent painting have a name, Fräulein?”

  “Totentanz,” said Ilona. “Be warned. It knows how to protect itself.”

  Was she bluffing? I wasn’t sure, but in any event Caligari’s next remark rendered the question moot.

  “If the oil in this cylinder were of an ordinary provenance, it would indeed be reckless of me to attack your picture. But I brewed it here in my laboratory, and you know what that means.”

  He inserted a fresh igniter into the nozzle (taking care not to burn his fingers on the hot steel), then lit the wick with a wooden match. He took aim, depressed the lever, and sent forth a spew of fiery vomit. It struck the upper left corner of Ilona’s painting, obliterating a vignette of a military dirigible floating over the battlefield.

  “Nein!” she cried.

  Caligari released the lever, then inserted and lit a fresh igniter. He fired his weapon. A lick of flame struck the lower right corner of the canvas, destroying a machine-gun nest.

  “No!” I screamed as the sickly sweet fragrance of burning pigment filled my nostrils.

  “Fick dich!” shouted Werner.

  The alienist released the lever.

  Slowly, inexorably, the ravenous fires inched toward the painting’s core, emitting orange embers and black smoke. Everyone coughed, including the alienist. The conflagration boasted an embarrassment of combustibles: pigment, hemp fiber, linseed oil, the wood of the stretcher frame.

  Caligari shrugged the flamethrower off his back and removed the pistol from the stool. I did not doubt that he intended to murder us.

  There now occurred an event that, even by the irrational norms of Träumenchen, could only be called uncanny. Ignoring the hungry flames devouring Totentanz, its central figure, Hans Jedermann, marched free of the burning canvas and strode into the museum cellar. Caligari, startled, jumped backward. The Korporal slid a hand under the strap of his rifle and levered it free of his shoulder. For a fleeting instant he considered shooting Caligari—I could read that intention in his grim lips and narrowed eyes—but instead he pursued a nobler purpose.

  “Stand aside!” he insisted in a voice barely accustomed to the timbre of manhood.

  With a single shot he blasted the lock off the cage, then yanked back the door. As my colleagues and I stumbled into the cellar, Hans Jedermann seized the abandoned flamethrower and delivered it into Werner’s keeping. The Leutnant shouldered the weapon, the cylinder protruding from his spine like Quasimodo’s hump. We all knew what must happen now. The Korporal took my hand, then I took Ilona’s hand, then Ilona took Conrad’s hand. Listing under the weight of the flamethrower, Werner brought up the rear of our procession.

  “My dear Fräulein Wessels, here you are in the flesh,” said Hans in reverent tones. “You can’t imagine the thrill.”

  “Where are we going?” she asked.

  “The Western Front.”

  “I’ve been there,” said Werner. “How about Barcelona instead?”

  “The painting is a portal, not a tram,” our John Everyman explained. “I must return whence I came.”

  As a dumbfounded Caligari escaped up the staircase to the gallery, I allowed Hans to lead me into the doomed painting, the smoke stinging my eyes, the flames singeing my clothes. I passed through the ring of fire, and then Totentanz with its final breath hurled me and my companions from Weizenstaat into northern France . . .

  Where we landed supine in a patch of snow beside a swamp. The Totentanz stretcher frame loomed over us like the charred and smoldering wall of a fire-gutted barn. Ducks navigated the muddy water in slow circles, unimpressed by our supernatural advent. Darkness crept over the cold March landscape.

  Gradually we four conspirators gained our feet, as did the miracle Korporal. I embraced Ilona and said, “I grieve for your great painting.”

  “I shall make another one day,” she said.

  Hans directed us toward a gravel road turned silver by the moonlight. For the next half-hour our weary band of wayfarers marched steadily west, Werner stoically carrying the flamethrower. On all sides marsh birds whooped and trilled. Artillery thundered in the distance. Occasionally a flare arced across the sky like a diminutive comet, illuminating the white plain.

  “Thus ends day two of the Battle of Neuve Chapelle,” said Hans, bringing our little parade to a halt. He unbuckled his canteen, then allowed each of us a swig. “Yesterday morning the British stormed into the village as planned, but God knows if they got as far as the Bois du Biez and the secret weapon. I gather it’s a kind of pillbox on motorized treads. There’s a good chance the Germans recaptured Neuve Chapelle today, which means we could conceivably spend the night in a warm hostelry.”

  “If the Tommies and Falkenhayn’s troops are really fighting over some dreadful new killing technology,” said Werner, “we should probably stay clear of the village.”

  “I recommend that we proceed directly to the German line,” said Hans. “The sector overseen by my Hauptmann—my captain—near Loos is only one trench deep, but we’ll be safe there. He’ll receive us graciously, especially when he realizes our party includes the woman who painted Totentanz.” The Korporal strapped the canteen about his waist. “So what sort of man is Hauptmann Pochhammer? The instant I told him I sensed my creator was in trouble, he gave me permission to leave the trenches and rescue you.”

  Hans went on to explain that, while he was himself “a mere Farbenmensch, a paint person,” Pochhammer had made him an honorary member of the VII Corps, 2nd Regiment, 4th Battalion: the Fafnirdrachen Riflemen. Though hardly a pacifist—no commissioned officer of the German Imperial Army could possibly answer to that description—Pochhammer was “an intellectual and contrarian sort of soldier, given to reading poetry and sometimes writing it.” So great was his disgust with the way the leaders on all sides “were treating peace feelers like vectors of the plague,” Pochhammer had come to regard Totentanz as “philosophically superior to Ecstatic Wisdom.”

  “Take us where you will,” said Conrad.

  “We all owe you our lives,” said Ilona.

  “True, but I owe you my whole existence, Fräulein,” said Hans. “Herr Leutnant, you also played a part in my nativity, as did you, Herr Röhrig, and you, Mr. Wyndham. I know you’ve had a difficult day, but you must try to stay on your feet for another five kilometers.”

  We resumed our trek. Within twenty minutes the road disappeared, superseded by an expanse of melting snow spangled with red and yellow wildflowers. We slogged forward. After an hour, we reached the German fortifications. Beyond stretched the scorched and torn earth of no-man’s-land, which the periodic flares revealed in all its distressing textures: shell craters, dead horses, black skeletal trees, ferocious matrices of barbed wire. The sentry, an ursine Schütze with a rifle, commanded us to halt.

  “At ease, Siegfried,” said Hans.

  “Did your mission succeed, Herr Korporal?”

  Hans gestured toward Ilona. “I saved Fräulein Wessels and, less intentionally, three of her friends.”

  Entering the trench proved a matter of negotiating a wooden ladder—a skewed and rickety affair, but I was happy to transfer my jeopardized flesh to a subterranean place. Hauptmann Pochhammer personally supervised our descent.

  “Fräulein Wessels, I am honored to welcome you to the world of the Fafnirdrachen Riflemen.” Pochhammer was a cheery young man with a flourishing moustache and a tightly belted paunch. “Your Totentanz has saved many lives.”

  “It no longer exists,” said Ilona.


  “How tragic.”

  “Caligari incinerated it using the enchanted oil in this Flammenwerfer,” said Werner, unshouldering the cylinder.

  Illuminated by an array of kerosene lanterns, our mudpacked, sandbagged surroundings exuded a peculiar congeniality. The zone occupied by the Fafnirdrachen Riflemen, six hundred and eighty strong, featured three Dutch ovens, a dining area appointed with milking stools and a rectory table, and an elongated dormitory comprising scores of cots and sleeping bags resting on pinewood pallets, but the most refined touch was a private latrine screened by a blanket and well stocked with materials for burying solid waste.

  “Let me tell you my idea,” said Werner, running his hand along the flamethrower cylinder. “Even though Caligari will never again be careless enough to let anyone mount a pacifist masterpiece in the museum, I can imagine us using this alchemical elixir to cleanse the world of Verzückte Weisheit itself.”

  “Where is the diabolical painting at present?” asked Pochhammer.

  “Back on the wall in Kleinbrück,” said Werner. “By now Caligari has a gang of mercenaries guarding it. Perhaps, Herr Hauptmann, you would care to donate a platoon to our cause?”

  “Ach, there’s no way to assault the thing in a military action,” said Pochhammer. “To do so would violate Weizenstaat’s neutrality and make hash of the Hague Conventions.”

  “So Caligari wins again?” said Ilona, heaving a sigh.

  “Don’t be sad, Fräulein,” said Pochhammer. “For more than ten weeks you and your friends outmaneuvered the sorcerer. The name of Ilona Wessels will appear in all the chronicles of this war.”

  “I won’t be the only lunatic to enjoy such fame,” said Ilona. “The men who responded to an isolated act of Slavic terrorism by setting the world on fire will receive a lot of ink as well.”

  On Pochhammer’s invitation we arrayed ourselves around the rectory table. The 4th Battalion’s mess officer served us knockwurst on chipped plates, plus Liebfraumilch in tin cups. Our host apologized for the lack of glassware.

  “These are impressive accommodations,” I remarked.

  “Civilization is where you find it,” noted Pochhammer. “Sad to say, last week our white linen tablecloth was commandeered for bandages.” From his coat pocket he pulled a slender volume of verse by Friedrich Hölderlin. “I find that poetry soothes the digestion.”

  “Herr Hauptmann, if you would, read us the one about the snakes,” said the sandy-haired, loose-limbed Leutnant Afflerbach, and Pochhammer proceeded to oblige him.

  The fruits are ripe, dipped in fire,

  Cooked and sampled on earth.

  And there’s a law,

  That things crawl off in the manner of snakes,

  Prophetically, dreaming on the hills of heaven.

  And there is much that needs ts to be retained,

  Like a load of wood on the shoulders.

  But the pathways are dangerous.

  Whereupon Werner impressed everyone by supplying the next stanza.

  But what about things that we love?

  We see sun shining on the ground,

  and the dry dust

  And at home the forests deep

  with shadows,

  And smoke flowering from the rooftops,

  Peacefully, near the ancient

  crowning towers.

  These signs of daily life are good,

  Even when by contrast something divine

  Has injured the soul.

  “I don’t think of divine things as injurious,” I said.

  “I don’t think of them as anything else,” said Ilona.

  “Ah, the rooftops of home,” said Sergeant Kohler, a plump and ruddy turnip of a man. “I’ve heard that the French trenches are pigsties, and the British are even worse.”

  “Of course, we do have our rats, but unlike the vermin in the Tommies’ trenches they have no taste for human toes,” said Leutnant Afflerbach with a slanted smile. “The form of dysentery you get here is far milder than the version the British are contracting. And unlike English lice, ours are edible.”

  “Herr Kohler, I must ask you not to speak ill of the British, or at least not of the Quincunx Battalion of the Second Bedfordshire Fusiliers,” said Pochhammer. “For it happens we have orders to destroy that unit at dawn, part of the Neuve Chapelle counterattack dreamed up earlier today by Crown Prince Rupprecht.”

  “You’re planning to annihilate the Quincunx Battalion, but you won’t allow anyone to speak ill of them?” said a bewildered Werner.

  “Leutnant Slevoght, allow me to educate you concerning class distinctions on the Western Front,” said Pochhammer. “Thanks to a pair of paintings with which you are excruciatingly familiar, three categories of soldier occupy the trenches on both sides of no-man’s-land. First we have the avatars of Kriegslust, zealous fighters seduced by Caligari’s magnum opus. Then there are those who, having absorbed Fräulein Wessels’s epic, embrace Lebenslust, love of life. Finally there are the Wehmutsvolk, the nostalgia infected, conscripts who never saw either painting and simply want to go home.”

  Conrad asked, “And this battalion—?”

  “To a man they’re of the Lebenslust persuasion,” said Pochhammer. “They’ll have great difficulty hating the Tommies they’re expected to butcher tomorrow. Naturally I hope the Second Bedfordshire Fusiliers belong to the Lebenslust camp, or at least the Wehmutsvolk, but German Intelligence has thus far failed to answer that question.” The Hauptmann bowed his head deferentially before the surrogate mother of his pacifist troops. “Fräulein, I would have you know we practice the art of hospitality around here. Our trench is your trench. Tonight you will sleep on my cot. Your companions, meanwhile, will enjoy the largesse of Korporal Jedermann, Sergeant Kohler, and Leutnant Afflerbach. You are welcome to observe tomorrow’s engagement, as are Mr. Wyndham and Herr Röhrig, but until we ascertain the Weltanschauung of the enemy you should probably watch from the safety of this redoubt.”

  “Inarguably sage advice,” I said.

  “As for you, Leutnant,” said Pochhammer to Werner, “perhaps you would like to second yourself to our battalion and participate in the engagement?”

  “I no longer practice patriotism. It’s bad for my health.”

  “‘The fruits are ripe, dipped in fire, cooked and sampled on earth,’ ” said Pochhammer. “I wish you all a good night’s sleep.”

  Friday the 12th of March, day three of the Battle of Neuve Chapelle, began with the usual horrific cadence of the Western Front. Salvo after salvo of artillery shells roared from the maws of howitzers and long-range cannons, whistled through the soft air of dawn, and exploded on contact with either the earth of no-man’s-land (thereby eliminating barbed-wire entanglements) or a mud-and-sandbag barricade against which enemy soldiers were huddled (thereby eliminating undesirable human beings). Just then I couldn’t tell which side had launched the barrage and which was enduring it, but I felt grateful that the bombs were bursting elsewhere than the 4th Battalion’s trench.

  I abandoned my mattress and by the light of the ascendant sun surveyed the sodden groove in which I’d spent the night. Werner and Conrad were sitting up in their cots, drinking coffee and exhibiting no ambition to rise, exit the trench, and observe current geopolitical events in no-man’s-land. Like butterflies emerging from their chrysalises, Sergeant Kohler and Leutnant Afflerbach lay partially enveloped in two tattered sleeping bags, playing piquet. They did not remotely suggest soldiers about to participate in the great Neuve Chapelle counterattack, and neither did the rest of the battalion. Ilona was nowhere to be seen. Hauptmann Pochhammer and Korporal Jedermann were also gone, perhaps doing reconnaissance prior to the coming engagement.

  I sought out the nearest ladder, then scurried to the topmost rung. Field glasses pressed against his gaze, Pochhammer crouched near the edge of the trench, flanked by Hans and—my heart sank—Ilona.

  “Darling, please return to safety,” I told her.

  “Guten Morgen, young F
rancis. Something remarkable is about to occur.”

  A dense layer of restless fog blanketed no-man’s-land, its wisps fingering the tree stumps and equine carcasses, its tendrils weaving amid the ungodly spirals of wire. The sound of tramping boots reached my ears, the footfalls of approaching soldiers, accompanied by the ratta-tat-tat of a snare drum. Suddenly a Quincunx Battalion flag (patterned to evoke the five dimples on a die) appeared above the fog bank, cutting through the sea of vapor like the dorsal fin of a shark, and then a second spotted flag emerged, then a third.

  “They’re marching out to meet us,” noted Pochhammer.

  “So their commander ordered a preemptive assault?” I asked.

  “Not an assault exactly, but you could call it preemptive.”

  “How did they learn of Prince Rupprecht’s intentions? Did a spy tell them?”

  “This morning I disclosed my orders to Major Kemp on the far side of no-man’s-land,” said Pochhammer.

  “You showed your orders to the enemy?”

  “Not in person. Korporal Jedermann volunteered for the mission.”

  “As you might imagine, Kemp was grateful to learn of a potential threat to the Bedfordshire Fusiliers,” said Hans. “The Tommies gave me tea and a Cadbury bar. They said I looked just like my portrait in Kleinbrück. I hadn’t the heart to tell them the painting was burned.”

  “Pardon me, but do you chaps happen to know where they put the German Fourth?” cried a voice from deep within the fog bank (I couldn’t say to which region of Britain his accent attested). “This bloody pea-souper has put us a bit off course!”

  “You’re in the right place!” Pochhammer shouted back.

  “Jolly good! Lebenslust?”

  “Lebenslust!” Pochhammer replied.