The Asylum of Dr. Caligari Read online

“Private Jenkins, Second Bedfordshire Fusiliers, Quincunx Battalion,” said our visitor, emerging into visibility. He was a wide-eyed Tommy smartly equipped with new boots, a steel helmet, and a shiny bayonet.

  “You are addressing Hauptmann Pochhammer of the Fafnirdrachen Riflemen. Perhaps you would care to salute me.”

  Private Jenkins did as Pochhammer suggested, then pivoted toward Hans. “Korporal, sir, might I have the privilege of giving you another piece of chocolate?”

  “But of course,” said Hans, approaching the awestruck Tommy.

  As Private Jenkins bestowed a Cadbury bar on Ilona’s creation, a second Tommy materialized, a snare drum riding on his thigh. After identifying himself as Private Bartlett, he gestured toward Ilona with fluttering fingers.

  “Nigel, do you know who I think this is?” said Bartlett to Jenkins. “I think it’s the artist lady!”

  “Fräulein Wessels at your service,” said Ilona.

  “No, miss, we’re at your service,” said Bartlett.

  Now a third Tommy appeared, presenting himself as Private Mallory.

  “Alfie, you’ll never guess,” said Private Jenkins. “It’s the lady who painted Korporal Jedermann.”

  “Blimey,” gasped Private Mallory. He really said that.

  By now the sun had burned away large sections of the fog bank, revealing hundreds of Tommies and a score of corporals and sergeants.

  “And who might you be?” Private Jenkins asked me.

  “Fräulein Wessels’s art therapist.”

  “Therapist?” said Private Jenkins. “Why would she need a therapist?”

  “When not tampering with history, I’m the Spider Queen of Ogygia,” said Ilona.

  Pochhammer made an about-face and barked an order into the trench. “Herr Kohler! Herr Afflerbach! Have the men fall in!”

  In a matter of minutes all six hundred and eighty Fafnirdrachen Riflemen scrambled free of their muddy quarters, weapons in hand, spiked leather Pickelhauben on their heads. Thanks to the efforts of Sergeant Kohler and two dozen privates, four barrels of German beer (complete with spigots) went over the top along with the battalion, as did tin cups, sauce pans, shaving basins, and empty soup cans.

  “Lebenslust!” the German soldiers cried in a single voice, rushing pell-mell toward the British battalion.

  “Lebenslust!” the Tommies chorused back.

  “Vita brevis, ars longa!” cried Werner, emerging from the bastion.

  Now Conrad climbed to the surface, offering his translation of Werner’s Latin phrases—“Life is short, but art is eternal”—a saying I recognized as a garbled version (felicitously so, in my opinion) of a thought by Hippocrates.

  The next thing I knew, the two battalions had intermingled like fingers fused in prayer, an inspiring alignment of bodies and Weltanschauungs, soldier encountering soldier with the incandescent ardor of lovers too long deprived of one another. Embraces were solicited and passionately accepted. Weapons were discarded willy-nilly, the resulting metallic tableau rescued from Dickensian sentimentality by the manifestly savage agenda of a bayonet, grenade, flamethrower, or infantry rifle. Kisses flew everywhere like coins flung into Eros’s private pool, landing on cheeks, brows, necks, and, occasionally, lips.

  For the better part of an hour, a kind of village fair unfolded on the field of the battle that hadn’t happened. One could easily imagine Lorenzo the Hypnotist and Giacomo the Somnambulist pitching their tent in the vicinity. The soldiers exchanged cigarettes, toffee, and naughty French postcards. They learned each other’s songs and ribald limericks. Fafnirdrachen Riflemen toasted Second Bedfordshire Fusiliers, and vice versa, with frothy measures of warm beer.

  On orders from Sergeant Kohler, a platoon from the 4th Battalion climbed back into the trench and began dedicating the ladders and pallets to a new purpose. In less than an hour a network of makeshift footbridges spanned the German fortification, so that the beneficiaries of the improvised armistice could easily get from no-man’s-land to occupied northern France.

  “Defenders of Deutschland!” cried Pochhammer as he and Sergeant Kohler placed an empty beer barrel upright beside the widest bridge. “Guardians of Britain! A parting of the ways is upon us!” He climbed atop the barrel. “As a German Hauptmann and faithful soldier of Kaiser Wilhelm, I must stay here with Leutnant Afflerbach and the other commissioned officers! To the rest of you I say, ‘Viel Glück,’ as you go forth to God knows where!”

  “The Schwarzwald beckons!” yelled Sergeant Kohler.

  “To the Schwarzwald!” chorused the entire German battalion.

  “The Black Forest!” declared Private Jenkins.

  “The Black Forest!” shouted the British battalion.

  The Lebenslust troops collected their scattered guns (the better to hunt, poach, and persuade civilians to feed them) and assembled before the bridges. Not long after the soldiers began crossing over, the raw exhilaration of the moment possessed them, and they raised their voices in song.

  It’s a long way to Tipperary,

  It’s a long way to go.

  It’s a long way to Tipperary

  To the sweetest girl I know!

  “You’re not going with them?” Ilona asked Hans.

  “And leave my creator’s side? Never.”

  “Your devotion is touching,” said Ilona.

  “Touching—but also transient,” said Hans. “A Farbenmensch’s time on this plane of existence is ephemeral.”

  Goodbye, Piccadilly,

  Farewell, Leicester Square!

  It’s a long, long way to Tipperary,

  But my heart’s right there.

  Conrad said, “And beyond this plane of existence lies. . . ?”

  “I have no idea,” said Hans, “but I keep thinking of Herr Slevoght’s saying. How does it go? Ars brevis. . . ?”

  “Vita brevis, ars longa,” said Werner. “Life is short, butart is eternal.”

  “Yes, that’s it. I have no idea what eternity is, dear friends, but I’ll know the place when I get there.”

  I was hardly surprised when a shroud of melancholia descended on Hauptmann Pochhammer. While the rest of us enjoyed a fine lunch of pickled herring and hard cheese, he sat on his cot, drinking brandy from a flask and brooding about the abrupt disappearance of his purpose on earth. Gratified though he was that Lebenslust had triumphed over Kriegslust throughout his sector of the German line, he had no idea what to do next.

  “As a fellow officer, give me your opinion, Leutnant Slevoght,” said Pochhammer to Werner. “Shall I go to General Falkenhayn and tell him to court-martial me as an accessory to the mutiny that ended my command?”

  “I see no point in that,” said Werner. “I would rather you collaborated with us in destroying Ecstatic Wisdom.”

  “A laudable ambition,” said Pochhammer.

  “The flamethrower oil should work as the coup de grâce,” said Werner, “but first we need . . . how does it go, Herr Hauptmann?”

  “Some nonmilitary way to nullify Caligari’s mercenaries,” said Pochhammer, “lest we compromise Weizenstaat’s neutrality and violate the Hague Conventions.”

  True, I was a mere painting master, not a military strategist. I understood the art of pictorial representation but not the art of war. And yet, gradually, inexorably, a possible method for murdering Caligari’s magnum opus coalesced in my imagination.

  “Hans, can you tell me more about that secret motorized pillbox in the Bois du Biez?” I asked Korporal Jedermann.

  “I only know it was the main reason for the British attack on Neuve Chapelle.”

  “Ah, yes, the Landschiff,” said Pochhammer. “The crazy vehicle actually exists—a prototype, that is, unless it was blown to pieces in the fighting. I know about the thing because a second cousin on my mother’s side, Major Albrecht Mueller, was recently transferred to the Ministerium für Experimentelle Waffen as a combat-conditions weapons tester.”

  “Might I infer your cousin is in Neuve Chapelle right now?”
I asked.

  “Awaiting orders to drive the Landschiff into battle,” said Pochhammer, nodding. “Unless a British bullet got him.”

  “That could work to our advantage,” I said. “His proximity, I mean, not the bullet. Listen to my idea, everyone. Landschiff, meaning landship—right?—though in this case we’re taking about a land-battleship: exactly the sort of vehicle that might accidently crash into a neutral country’s art museum without violating the Hague Conventions, correct?”

  “I’m no international lawyer,” said Werner, “but that sounds right to me.”

  “Very clever, young Francis,” said Ilona.

  “Ja, except Albrecht and I aren’t on speaking terms,” said Pochhammer. “The blood we share is not thick—the same great-grandfather, a Prussian field marshal who fought Napoleon. To put it bluntly, we despise each other.”

  “Because he outranks you?” I asked.

  “No.”

  “Politics? Religion?”

  “Romance,” said Pochhammer. “We’re in love with the same woman.”

  “In France that would make you the best of friends,” I said.

  Pochhammer slid a tiny picture frame from his coat. “Would you like to see my true love’s photograph? Dagmar Eschbach of Heidelberg. She is very beautiful. Last month Albrecht and I nearly resorted to pistols at dawn.”

  He passed the little portrait to me. Fräulein Eschbach was indeed beautiful, with extravagant blonde hair and ripe cheeks, though she also looked like a woman who enjoyed having men fight duels over her.

  “Does Dagmar herself have an opinion in the matter?” asked Ilona.

  “She loves us both equally and plans to marry a wealthy industrialist from Cologne named Horst.”

  “And how do you feel about the situation?” asked Ilona.

  “It breaks my heart,” said Pochhammer.

  “Scoundrels are always named Horst,” said Werner.

  “Forgive my presumption, mein Herr,” said Conrad to Pochhammer, “but I think I can end your pain and reconcile you with your cousin—a simple matter of freeing you from this fruitless preoccupation with Dagmar. Years ago Caligari and I were itinerant actors performing at village fairs. In the course of perfecting our show, we learned a great deal about the theory and practice of hypnotism.”

  “I can personally attest to Herr Röhrig’s skill,” said Ilona.

  “I should explain that the method does not work in all cases,” said Conrad, facing Pochhammer. “Only the most noble and rarefied souls are susceptible.”

  “Merde de taureau.”

  “What?” said Werner.

  “My mother speaks French,” said Pochhammer.

  “Please do this, mein Herr,” said Ilona.

  Flask in hand, Pochhammer rose from his cot and paced back and forth in the trench, absently soiling his boots with mud while lubricating his meditations with brandy.

  “Very well,” he said at last, “for the sake of Lebenslust, I shall submit to your technique. But after the war, Herr Röhrig, you and I must meet in my favorite Munich beer garden, and then, if I so request, you will give my pain back to me.”

  Thus it happened that on the 13th of March, 1915, shortly after noon, the Battle of Neuve Chapelle having ended in the usual Western Front stalemate, six would-be saboteurs set off northward from Loos along the German line, a party that included a congenial Korporal from an inaccessible dimension and a recently hypnotized Hauptmann no longer in love with a beauty named Dagmar. Werner and I took turns carrying the flamethrower. Every so often a Schütze on sentry duty would appear in our path, straightaway summoning a superior officer, but in every case Pochhammer convinced the officer that we should be allowed to pursue our mission of “bringing to General Falkenhayn this experimental Flammenwerfer, capable of destroying an entire platoon in a single blast.”

  Shortly before dusk we reached Neuve Chapelle, recently reoccupied by units from Kaiser Wilhelm’s Third Army. Evidence of the artillery barrages was everywhere on view: black craters, charred timbers, scattered bricks, walls that now resembled cross-sections of mountain ranges. We proceeded to the solitary inn, La Pucelle d’Orléans. Despite our muddy clothes and disheveled demeanors, the morose and elderly landlord, M. Laux, phlegmatically provided Hauptmann Pochhammer with a key to the one remaining room (our host’s mood was doubtless soured by our leader’s German uniform). Questioned by Pochhammer, M. Laux disclosed that a dozen officers from Falkenhayn’s VII Corps were living at the inn, including a Major Albrecht Mueller—though Mueller had made it clear that no one, whether German, Austrian, or Entente, should be told the location of his room.

  Pochhammer commandeered from M. Laux a sheet of paper and a stubby wooden pencil. He composed a message, then instructed the landlord’s grandson (a skinny, gap-toothed waif) to deliver it posthaste.

  Dear Cousin Albrecht,

  For reasons that elude me, my heart no longer belongs to Dagmar. From this moment on, your courtship of her will proceed with my blessing. I may even join with you in trying to discourage the odious Horst.

  Owing to the vicissitudes of war, I am presently in Neuve Chapelle, staying at this very inn. It is imperative that my associates and I meet with you, at a time and place of your choosing, to discuss a strategic necessity involving the Landschiff.

  Sincerely,

  Günter Pochhammer

  Hauptmann, Deutsches Heer

  Not surprisingly, Major Mueller’s return communiqué accused his correspondent of being an imposter looking to steal information about the experimental weapon for the Entente. In his next message Pochhammer cleverly allayed that suspicion by enclosing his photograph of Dagmar (on the back of which he’d written, “All’s fair in love and war, but I give her to you anyway”). Mueller responded with a note proposing a 10:00 a.m. meeting by the fountain in the village square.

  Over the next two hours we bestowed on ourselves, serially and sybaritically, the pleasures of a warm bath, languidly soaking the Western Front out of our flesh—the mud, the lice, the stench, the rat droppings. By unanimous agreement Ilona received the bed, while the remainder of our party, after hunting up stray blankets throughout the inn, collapsed on the floor in improvised sleeping bags.

  “Young Francis, I am having a revolution,” said Ilona.

  “A revelation.”

  “Herr Hauptmann, I would like to borrow the second note from your cousin, also the landlord’s pencil,” Ilona told Pochhammer. He obliged her without comment. She promptly drew a numeral 8 on the back of the sheet, then displayed it to her fellow saboteurs. “Meine Herren, what does this number mean to you?”

  “Eight planets,” said Pochhammer.

  “Eight arms on an octopus,” said Conrad.

  “Eight pawns to a rank,” said Werner.

  “Seven dwarves plus a princess,” said Hans.

  “Naturally I think of you,” I told Ilona. “I think of my four-eyed, eight-legged Spider Queen of Ogygia.”

  “Exactly—now watch what happens when I rotate the page ninety degrees,” she said, turning her drawing. “What do we get?”

  “A fallen eight,” said Hans.

  “A pince-nez,” said Conrad.

  “We get the symbol for infinity,” said Ilona. “We get the emblem of my father.”

  “Most ingenious,” I said. “And to you this suggests. . . ?”

  “That I did not hate him after all,” she said. “That he had good reasons for being himself. That I loved him as much as I love my spiders.”

  “Bien joué, Ilona,” I said evenly.

  “A great burden has been lifted from me,” said Ilona. “Arachnophilia. Filial affection. It’s all the same.”

  “Indubitably,” I said, though not fully convinced.

  “Sleep is also therapeutic,” noted Pochhammer.

  “I can tell you with some confidence that Freud would greatly appreciate your self-analysis,” Werner said to Ilona, “and Caligari would detest it.”

  “And I intend to shar
e my discovery with neither gentleman,” said Ilona.

  The following morning, after coffee and rolls at the inn, we betook ourselves to the village fountain, a baroque marble sculpture that had somehow survived the shelling. Major Mueller awaited us beside a pair of sculpted dolphins spewing water from their mouths. A well-favored man with spectacles and a neatly trimmed moustache, he was taller, rangier, and more hirsute than his second cousin. For a full minute the two young officers silently inspected each other, then shook hands, then embraced.

  “It is most gallant of you to cede Dagmar to me,” said Mueller.

  “Gallant with only a soupçon of resentment,” said Pochhammer. “And now you will kindly show us the Landschiff.”

  “It’s a beautiful machine.”

  “Take us to it.”

  “That is quite impossible.”

  “Herr Major, I present to you Leutnant Slevoght, veteran of the Marne; Mr. Wyndham, painting master at Träumenchen Asylum; Korporal Jedermann, a conscript in a phantom army; and Fräulein Wessels, a sorceress from Kleinbrück.”

  “On the day I left the nursery, I stopped believing in ghosts and witches,” said Mueller. “I suggest we take this conversation in a different direction.”

  “Herr Hauptmann, I must once again ask for your cousin’s second note and the landlord’s pencil,” said Ilona. “Also your Hölderlin.”

  Pochhammer complied. Using the poetry volume as a drawing board, Ilona sketched a hasty but uncannily accurate portrait of Major Mueller, cleverly incorporating the infinity sign by turning it into his spectacles. She fixed intently on her creation.

  A full minute elapsed—a second minute—and then the cranium of the illustrated Major flipped back like the lid of a waffle iron, revealing his naked brain. A bright yellow canary popped out of the right hemisphere, flew to the edge of the sheet, and disappeared.

  “A conjurer’s illusion,” said Mueller with forced nonchalance. Sweat trickled down his temples. “Though extremely persuasive.”

  “Cousin Albrecht,” said Pochhammer, “you must believe me when I say that the quantity of immoral magic corrupting this war is far greater than the generals will admit.”