The Asylum of Dr. Caligari Read online

  From the figure’s left cerebral hemisphere a rainbow emerged, opening like a coquette’s fan. The multicolored arch transmuted into a moth and fluttered away.

  “Tell me, Herr Major, are some of the soldiers under your command unusually fond of carnage?” asked Pochhammer. “Are they insane with Kriegslust?”

  “True enough. Can you shed some light on this mystery?”

  “An imbalanced mystic named Caligari did it to them. By a series of uncanny coincidences, we are well situated to sabotage his project with the help of your beautiful machine.”

  “Please don’t tell us that, after marching all the way from Loos to Neuve Chapelle, we’re not even allowed to see the Landschiff,” I said.

  Mueller frowned and clucked his tongue. “Follow me.”

  Throughout our twenty-minute hike to the Bois du Biez, Werner supplied the Major with a terse narrative of the present crisis: the infantry columns parading past Ecstatic Wisdom, Ilona’s heroic but short-lived antidote, our plan to incinerate the beast with ensorcelled oil, the political impossibility of a frank military assault. Although Mueller confessed that he found Werner’s story “less credible than the ravings of a shell-shock victim,” he nevertheless noted, “I am intrigued by the logistical challenges it poses,” and as we approached the Landschiff’s hiding place—a large windowless shed surrounded by oaks and elms—he announced that as his opening move he would arrange for General Dressler at the Ministerium für Experimentelle Waffen to receive “a disingenuous letter from his most experienced weapons tester—that is, myself.”

  “You would lie to a superior officer?” said Pochhammer.

  “I’ve had lots of practice,” said Mueller. “You must understand that Dressler and the whole M.E.W. hate any experimental weapon that doesn’t have wings. They believe this war and all future wars will be decided by Fliegende Festungen, flying fortresses. Dressler will be delighted to learn that the Landschiff has been so radically reimagined here in Neuve Chapelle that its civilian designers in Berlin recently reclassified it as an aeroplane.”

  “I thought it was a battleship on caterpillar treads,” I said.

  “Indeed,” said Mueller.

  “So it hasn’t been reclassified?”

  “Of course not. In his exhilaration over the weapon’s new identity, General Dressler will grant my request to fly the prototype four hundred kilometers to the southeast so I can test it during the imminent German attack on Verdun.”

  “Is a German attack on Verdun imminent?” asked Pochhammer.

  “It’s probably a year away, but Dressler will pretend he knows it’s about to happen, lest he lose face with his weapons tester.”

  “Won’t the designers in Berlin be angry at you for putting words in their mouths?” I asked.

  “They won’t know about my letter. Since when do civilian engineers and technologically illiterate generals talk to each other? This cabal of ours needs a leader, dear Günter.”

  “You outrank the rest of us, dear Albrecht,” said Pochhammer.

  Mueller swung back the shed door, admitting an eddy of dead leaves and a piercing shaft of sunlight. Slowly and solemnly, as if it entering the nave of a cathedral, we crossed the threshold. The gritty stink of petroleum pervaded the air. Bristling with rivets, plated with armor, an immense rhomboidal vehicle loomed out of the shadows like a lozenge devised to soothe Gargantua’s sore throat. The Landschiff’s most forbidding aspects were the fixed turrets bulging from her hull, two little castles equipped with three-inch guns, but her sine qua non was obviously the pair of segmented conveyor belts encircling her flanks like oval picture frames.

  Greasy engine parts lay scattered across the floor. Mechanics in stained overalls scurried about the shed gripping welding torches and adjustable wrenches. Suddenly a hatch atop the hull popped open, and a stringy little man in an oil-stained uniform emerged holding a screwdriver the size of a gladius. He offered Mueller a grandiloquent salute. The Major reciprocated succinctly, then introduced the noncommissioned officer as “Sergeant Görlitz, chief mechanic on the Landschiff crew” and presented us as an inspection committee from Nuremburg who wanted to know “if the weapon would stay in one piece during a test run from here to Kleinbrück.”

  “To Kleinbrück?” said Görlitz. “No, Herr Major. Right now it would fall apart during a test run from here to the privy.”

  “We’re taking it to Kleinbrück anyway—on a secret mission I can’t discuss with you,” said Mueller.

  “But Kleinbrück is in a neutral country.”

  “Let me worry about that. Sergeant, I bring peculiar news. The engineers in Berlin have reclassified our Landschiff as an aeroplane.”

  “As a what?”

  “Aeroplane.”

  “How ambitious of them. Will they be reclassifying our U-boats as field artillery?”

  “It’s a bizarre decision, I know,” said Mueller.

  “Entirely bizarre, Herr Major. Of course, if the engineers in Berlin wish to reclassify me as a war hero living in Tahiti on a generous pension, I would not object.”

  Although the Ministerium für Experimentelle Waffen took its own sweet time pondering Major Mueller’s letter, they reacted exactly as he’d predicted. General Dressler wrote that he was “extremely pleased” by the reclassification of the Landschiff, and he declared that Mueller was “hereby ordered to test the prototype during the imminent Verdun offensive.” The final paragraph of Dressler’s reply was particularly gratifying.

  Should you be forced to make an emergency landing between Neuve Chapelle and the fortresses on the Meuse, this letter will serve to alert French and Belgian citizens in the German-occupied areas of Champagne and the Ardennes that they must cooperate with you or risk reprisals. In closing, let me commend your on-site mechanics for recognizing that the new weapon should have been an aeroplane all along.

  Although Mueller had appointed himself our leader, it was Werner who now proceeded to impose a strict calendar on our mission. His reasoning was impeccable. The attack on the painting must occur on April the 4th, Easter Sunday, when Caligari would surely have suspended the usual procession, inadvertently enabling us to crash the Landschiff into the museum without the complication of new recruits arriving on the scene from Kleinbrück Station.

  As if to reassert his authority, Major Mueller made two tactical decisions of manifest brilliance. He ordered the three-inch guns removed from the turrets, “thus demonstrating our respect for Weizenstaat’s neutrality,” and he divided our party into two groups, “for it’s essential we send Leutnant Slevoght, Herr Röhrig, Fräulein Wessels, and Korporal Jedermann—Task Force One—ahead to Kleinbrück to reconnoiter the target.” The four would travel by motorcar along with the delicate and invaluable flamethrower, Mueller having requisitioned a Mercedes upon being seconded to the M.E.W. As for our eventual rendezvous, the Major suggested that we gather at the main hostelry (probably the only hostelry) in the Luxembourg village of Gheldaele near the Weizenstaat border, no later than 11:00 p.m. on April the 3rd, “a good seven hours before the sun rises on our Savior’s empty tomb.”

  At ten o’clock on the morning of March 31st, 1915, her fuel tank filled with petrol, her turrets stripped of their guns, and her cab crammed with Task Force Two, the Landschiff rolled out of the Bois du Biez and began traveling south through occupied France. Mueller and Pochhammer took turns steering the beast—a matter of watching the oncoming road through a forward window and swerving left or right by making one caterpillar tread spin faster than the other. Although our company comprised only Sergeant Görlitz, the cousins, and myself (the others having set off in the Mercedes two days earlier), the space was absurdly congested, and I found myself wishing the vehicle would break down just so I could escape my sardine circumstances and breathe some fresh air.

  We moved at a good fifteen kilometers per hour, getting all the way to Cambrai by late afternoon (despite a woefully flawed map). So formidable in appearance was our terrestrial battleship that every cat
egory of passerby—German reservists on the march, bergeres herding their flocks, bonnes femmes going to market, children riding their bicycles to school—accorded us a wide berth. The Landschiff owned the roads. The rattled citizens of Cambrai readily surrendered their petrol stores (no need to intimidate them with General Dressler’s letter). We filled the fuel tank and resumed our journey, reaching Le Cateau by nightfall. Although our vehicle boasted battery-powered headlamps, they kept conking out, and so instead of pressing on we bivouacked in a cow pasture.

  Day two brought a festival of disasters. Shortly before ten o’clock the left tread snapped, and Mueller and Görlitz spent two hours splicing it together with bolts and barbed wire. At one o’clock the right tread came apart, another delay, another improvised repair. As twilight stole over the outskirts of Guise, the vehicle began hemorrhaging oil, and it took Görlitz so long to replace the blown gasket that we could go no farther that evening.

  Against my expectations, the following day elapsed without a single catastrophe. On reaching Guise we turned abruptly east, then traveled halfway to Sedan on the Meuse before losing the light.

  Day four proved equally felicitous, Pochhammer piloting us efficiently along a network of logging roads through the Belgian Ardennes, then across Luxembourg to within a kilometer of the border village of Gheldaele. I glanced at my pocket watch. Seven forty-five p.m. We had beaten the eleven o’clock deadline with over three hours to spare.

  Upon assuming the controls, Major Mueller steered the Landschiff into a sheltering grove of maples and braked it to a full stop. He shut off the engine. Leaving Görlitz in charge, the Major led Pochhammer and myself into the village, where we soon spotted the Mercedes parked in front of a hostelry called Der Bettler zu Pferd—the Beggar on Horseback.

  Whistling insouciantly, sabotage being the last thing on our minds (oh, yes), we entered the cramped and shabby dining room. Werner, Conrad, Hans, and Ilona sat at a booth, contemplating blue ceramic steins. My beloved looked ravishing in her gabardine trench coat and cloche hat. We embraced and kissed.

  “We’ve secured lodgings for everyone,” said Ilona.

  “The first step in defeating immoral magic is to get a good night’s sleep,” noted Werner.

  The cousins took hold of an unoccupied table and appended it to the booth. Mueller ordered a round for our entire party. The tankards arrived promptly, crested with Bavarian spindrift.

  “In recent days Conrad has proven adept at espionage,” said Ilona.

  “I have become a creature of the shadows, slinking around without Caligari’s knowledge,” said Conrad. “All the signs bode well for tomorrow’s raid. Herr Direktor has decided to give most of his janissaries an Easter vacation. Only two will be on duty, stationed on the steps outside the museum. A regular Träumenchen sentry will guard the interior passageway to the gallery.”

  From his shirt pocket Werner retrieved a sheet of paper, spreading it open on the table. Rendered with Cubist élan, the drawing offered an overhead view of the museum.

  “While Task Force Two was enjoying a motor tour through northern France, the rest of us collaborated on a scenario,” said Werner.

  “I’m still our leader, Leutnant,” noted Mueller.

  “Of course, Herr Major,” said Werner. “Here’s what’s going to happen. Tomorrow morning I’ll drive Conrad and Hauptmann Pochhammer over the Moselle River to Kleinbrück. We’ll leave the Mercedes in the village, then cross the footbridge. Conrad will enter the asylum through the main gate, slip into the château, and approach the sentry guarding the gallery.”

  “Herr Jerabek has always detested Caligari,” noted Conrad. “I’ll convince him he has nothing to gain by trying to prevent Herr Direktor’s overthrow. If necessary, Jerabek and I will raise the elevator platform.”

  “At precisely seven o’clock, zero hour, Hauptmann Pochhammer and I will unholster our Mausers and surprise the janissaries on the steps outside the museum,” said Werner. “We’ll order them to throw down their arms—and then we’ll point to the runaway Landschiff and suggest they flee. A few minutes later, Major Mueller will crash his vehicle into the south wall of the museum, knocking it down and—”

  “And destroying my spiders,” said Ilona drily. “Also Gaston’s chess pieces.”

  “It can’t be helped,” said Werner. “Next Major Mueller will drive across the elevator platform and ram Ecstatic Wisdom head on, so the entire west wall collapses and the traumatized painting lands face up on the ruins. An instant later somebody will rush onto the scene with the flamethrower—”

  “I could be that person,” said Ilona.

  “I won’t allow it,” I said.

  “Fräulein, it’s out of the question,” said Werner.

  “It’s absolutely out of the question, O my creator,” said Hans. “I would volunteer, but as a Farbenmensch I might be torn from this plane at any moment.”

  Werner continued, “Somebody will rush onto the scene—”

  “Sergeant Görlitz loves daredevil missions,” said Mueller.

  “Sergeant Görlitz will rush onto the scene—”

  “No, I want to do it,” I blurted out, my words running recklessly ahead of my rational faculties. The sleep of reason breeds martyrs. “I must do it. Seven months ago Caligari’s magic almost burned me alive.”

  “Young Francis, you’ve never operated a flamethrower,” protested Ilona.

  “It’s easier to use than a flush toilet,” said Pochhammer.

  “Mr. Wyndham will rush onto the scene and incinerate the painting,” said Werner, “and then we’ll all escape in the Landschiff and the motorcar.”

  “This is a good plan,” said Mueller.

  Throughout the remainder of the evening much beer was consumed and few words were exchanged. Saboteurs are a quiet fellowship. Shortly after midnight Mueller announced that he intended to sleep in the vehicle, guarding it along with Görlitz. I followed him into an April night as sticky as gesso.

  We proceeded to the Mercedes and obtained the flamethrower. Mueller showed me how to install an igniter in the nozzle—naturally Task Force One hadn’t traveled all the way to Luxembourg with an armed flamethrower bouncing around in the trunk—and light the wick with an ordinary wooden match. For our dress rehearsal we hiked a full kilometer into a soggy, fallow field studded with brown stalks. An unemployed scarecrow rose before us. I aimed the nozzle and vaporized the effigy in a single blast. Briefly the stalks became a morass of flames, sparks, and smoke, but then the blaze died, smothered by the damp earth.

  “Whatever happens tomorrow, don’t release the lever, or you’ll have to stop and insert a fresh igniter,” said Mueller, taking the flamethrower in hand. “Keep on firing. Never let the enemy regroup.”

  “You’d rather see Sergeant Görlitz fight the painting, wouldn’t you?” I said, surveying the scarecrow’s charred remains. “You don’t think I can do the job.”

  “It’s after midnight,” said the Major, glancing at his pocket watch. “Happy Easter, Mr. Wyndham. You’re going to be sensational, fantastic, wunderbar. And when the battle’s won, we’ll decorate a bunch of eggs and stick them up Dr. Caligari’s ass.”

  While cocks cried the astonishing news called dawn, and milk cows lowed their sisters awake, Ilona and I stood outside Der Bettler zu Pferd and watched as the Mercedes left Gheldaele, bound for Kleinbrück. We took each other’s hands and walked to the maple grove through the sacrosanct air of Easter morning. Naturally I wished Ilona had been willing to stay in the hostelry with Hans, but she wouldn’t hear of it. “This time around,” she told me, “I must be by your side when you enter the arena.”

  I scurried up the stern ladder to the roof of the Landschiff and rapped on the hatch. Sergeant Görlitz appeared, chomping on an apple, and admitted us.

  “We weren’t expecting the witch,” said Mueller.

  “Fuck you,” said Ilona.

  The Major started the engine, put it in gear, and backed the vehicle out of the grove. Ten minutes la
ter, we lumbered without incident past a sign reading Willkommen in Weizenstaat. On reaching the outskirts of Kleinbrück, Mueller pivoted north and followed the west bank of the Moselle toward the museum. He brought us to within thirty meters of the south wall, then applied the brakes and set the engine to idling.

  Six-forty a.m. Twenty minutes to zero hour. I opened the hatch, then lifted the flamethrower, armed with a fresh igniter, through the aperture and laid it on the roof. As I climbed out of the hot cab, a soft rain moistened my brow and cheeks. I welcomed the cool droplets. They did not portend a storm, and even if they did, what storm could be ferocious enough to extinguish the fire I meant to hurl against Ecstatic Wisdom?

  Ilona appeared on the roof bearing a carpetbag filled with spare igniters. I scrambled down the stern ladder. She lowered the flamethrower into my grasp, then descended.

  Abruptly a human figure appeared beside the Landschiff, our dear Korporal Jedermann, breathless and sweating, his rifle strapped to his shoulder. Apparently he’d run all the way from the hostelry.

  “O my creator,” he said.

  I understood immediately why he’d come. My throat constricted. Sorrow flooded my flesh.

  “I can’t be with you anymore.” Hans’s tears mingled with the raindrops on his face. “A Farbenmensch is not a mensch at all. What a wretched advertisement I am for eternity.”

  “My poor child,” said Ilona, kissing the Korporal’s cheek.

  “Goodbye, Piccadilly,” he said.

  “Farewell, Leicester Square,” she said.

  “We love you,” I said.

  “You are truly a mensch,” she said.

  Hans became filmy and blurred. Gradually, brushstroke by magical brushstroke, particle by mystic particle, he lost his purchase on the world, devolving toward the status of an unpainted oil, an unwritten poem, an uncarved statue, an unwoven tapestry.

  “It’s a long, long way to Tipperary,” he said, melding with the morning air.

  “But my heart’s right there,” said Ilona.

  “Your greatest work,” I told her.

  “Better than my spiderwebs, certainly. But don’t all artists believe their greatest work is still to come?”