Fraulein Frankenstein

by Stephen Woodworth

  “Victor’s creature frightened me because of my own ignorance,” I protested. “I couldn’t understand his desire for me. I’ll surround Raphael in my love at once, and he will have no reason to fear me.”

  “So it’s ‘Raphael,’ is it?”

  My face warmed under Ernst’s glare, and I bent my head over my work so I wouldn’t have to look at him. “Everyone needs a name.”

  I yanked the final stitch tight with such force that I accidentally stabbed my thumb with the needle. A pearl of blood dripped from the puncture and landed on Raphael’s gray mouth. The fluid colored the ridges of his cold lips until they appeared to bloom with red life.

  Ernst grunted, as if he had expected just such a mishap. “I sincerely hope that is the only pain your Raphael causes you.”

  He stalked out of the laboratory without admiring the completion of our handiwork. Irked at him for spoiling what ought to have been a moment of triumph, I stanched my bleeding thumb with a bit of gauze, then snipped the excess thread from Raphael’s neck. I started to wipe the blood from his mouth with the gauze, but my hand slowed as I dabbed at the unfolded petals of those lips. He lay there before me, naked, complete, and perfect but for the pallor of his marble skin. A hero petrified, as if Perseus had dared to stare at the Medusa. I leaned down to whisper in his ear of stone.

  “Soon, my Raphael.”

  And I kissed his frigid lips.

  #

  With the body whole and the veins sealed, we pumped fresh blood into the vessels in preparation for when that succulent plum of a heart began to beat. All we needed was the sacred fire of electricity to surge life into the shell we’d made for it.

  Perversely, though it was the middle of November, when rain and thunder ordinarily bombarded the Bavarian countryside, the skies remained obstinately blue and cloudless, the days maddeningly sunny. Incensed to the point of distraction, I began to wonder if God was deliberately withholding His thunderbolts to prevent our blasphemy.

  To keep from going mad with aggravation, I concentrated on preserving Raphael as best I could. With the aid of a pump, I circulated the blood several times a day to keep it from coagulating, and Ernst and I would rotate the body as if basting a boar on a spit so that the fluids would not settle in the flesh. Nevertheless, I despaired whenever I noticed even the faintest purpling of his pure skin. To have him before me, waiting to be born, only to watch him decay to corruption . . . it would be more than I could bear.

  I packed ice close around the body when I wasn’t attending to it, and I rearranged the laboratory in anticipation of the electrical storm I had faith would come at any moment. Yet each day broke with a sunrise of infuriating radiance, and Raphael’s body turned as blue as the damnably clear sky above.

  I roamed the house in impotent frustration, peering out of one window after another—east, west, north, and south—scanning the horizons for any sign of coalescing thunderheads. Ernst paced the floor as well, but with the wary slowness of a zookeeper afraid of rousing a sleeping tiger.

  For a week we hardly spoke to each other. Then, as I lifted the curtains aside for the hundredth time to gaze out at the appallingly pleasant weather outside, Ernst softly cleared his throat behind me. “Perhaps it’s for the best—”

  “No! No! I refuse to accept that.” I wheeled on him. At last, my wrath had a target. “And you shouldn’t look so pleased, for Raphael shall have life.”

  If any apologies or arguments came out of Ernst’s stammering mouth, I couldn’t hear them over the pounding of the blood in my head. I stomped upstairs, into the laboratory, and slammed the door. The heat of my fury burned so intensely I felt as if I would melt the remaining ice in the room. I looked at Raphael’s ghastly lividity and saw not an angel, but a corpse.

  I sank down on a stool beside the slab and spread my hands over my crumpling face. Almost immediately, though, I balled my hands into fists and gulped deep breaths to stop my tears. Anger was better than sorrow.

  I remained at Raphael’s side the rest of that afternoon and into the night, rocking back and forth on the stool and muttering unholy prayers.

  #

  As if in sympathy, the weather darkened with my mood. By noon the following day, nimbus clouds had turned the heavens to soot, claws of lightning raked the sky.

  In manic ecstasy, I flitted about the laboratory yanking the remaining ice away from the body and snapping the manacles about Raphael’s wrists and ankles. Iron chains led from the cuffs toward a hole in the ceiling. There, the strands linked to one master chain that rose upward to connect with a row of half a dozen lightning rods on the roof of the house.

  The windows and walls of the laboratory shimmered with the ghost-light of another lightning flash as I fastened the iron bands over Raphael’s forehead and across his heart. I realized then that, if I had contact with the metal, the very bolt that I hoped would give Raphael life might strike me dead. What a grand joke that would be: the Lord taking away what He had never given.

  Someone rapped on the door, and I nearly screamed at the interruption. I yanked open the portal to find Minna shivering in the hall, a silver tray with hot soup and cold meats in her hands. “Yes? What is it?”

  She jumped as thunder rattled the rafters and torrents of rain lashed the roof. “Forgive me, fräulein, but are you sure it’s quite safe here . . . ?”

  “No. It’s extremely dangerous.” I grabbed the tray from her. “Now send Herr Dr. Waldman up at once.”

  I slammed the door. Although I hadn’t eaten in over a day, I shoved the food aside. There was no time for that. Instead, I drank in the electricity that even now prickled along my skin and floated the fine strands of my hair.

  I pumped the blood to circulate it through the body again. Peals of thunder began coming closer together, almost on top of one another—so loud that I didn’t hear Ernst enter the room.

  “Where have you been?” I demanded the moment I saw him standing next to me. “I had to do everything myself, and we’ve nearly missed the storm!”

  His face tightened with sour reluctance. “I thought you’d given up.”

  “Thought, or hoped?” I threw down the pump, shouting to be heard over the thunderclaps, and the more I shouted, the angrier I became. “Do you care nothing about all our work? About your father’s reputation? About your own?”

  “And what about you?” he yelled back. “Seems to me your only concern is your new plaything and his . . . equipment.”

  “Indeed! Well, if all I wanted were the perfect man, I would have sewn his mouth shut. Then I wouldn’t have to—”

  A bone-shattering boom severed the thought. The chains that dangled from the ceiling rattled and swayed, the ropes of iron limned in a bluish phosphorescence like St. Elmo’s Fire. The glowing fog of charged air enveloped the cadaver on the slab, and the corpse convulsed so violently I thought the seizing muscles would rip loose the stitched limbs.

  Ernst and I could do nothing but stare at the body as it thrashed and contorted, banging against the bonds of its metal straps until it began to tear free the bolts that fastened the hinges to the wood. Certain that Raphael must be writhing in pain, I started forward to free him. Ernst blocked my way, for the irons crackled and spit sparks that would surely have killed me.

  Then the light dimmed and the body slumped flat again. I fancied I could see the massive chest heaving in the sudden darkness, but I could hear nothing over the ringing in my ears. Again, I moved to release Raphael, yet Ernst tightened his arms around me.

  “What are you doing?” I tried to shrug him off. “Let me go!”

  “No, Anna!” He still shouted, like a deaf man who can’t hear the volume of his own voice. “Don’t you understand? The storm is right overhead.”

  As if to drive the point home, another lightning stroke caused the room to flare with phantasmal luminescence. Another jolt racked Raphael, whose quivering skin began to sizzle and smoke.

  “It’s killing him! Let me go!” I flung Ernst off me with the fu
ll force of my freakish strength, crashing him into a shelf of glass beakers and alembics. I didn’t even look to see whether I’d hurt him. Raphael needed me.

  The popping sparks spooked me. I waited until they stopped for an instant, then lunged to unfasten the iron straps from his chest and forehead. Without the lifeblood of electricity coursing through him, Raphael flopped, moribund, onto the slab, still as a stone once more. The stench of singed hair and smoldering flesh wafted off his slack face.

  I scrabbled to release the shackles from his wrists, but my agitation made it impossible for me to hold the turnscrew steady. The tool slipped off the bolt head, and Raphael’s arm slithered from my grasp like a lifeless eel. I shrieked in anguish.

  “He’s dead! He’s dead! I’ve failed, and he’s dead!”

  I slumped over the hard mountain of his chest, hardly caring that another thunderbolt could sear us both at any moment.

  Then the mountain heaved beneath me.

  As I fell back in surprise, hands groped at my head, thick fingers knotting themselves in my long hair to pull me back. I yelped and tugged myself free, my scalp stinging as if the strands had been yanked out by the roots.

  With a crack of splintering wood, the demigod on the slab wrenched loose the iron straps across his brow and chest, which clattered onto the stone floor. Remembering the terror of confinement I’d felt at my own birth, I’d chosen not to bind him with leather straps; I had not counted on his Herculean strength.

  All that secured him now were the chains that connected him to the lightning rods above. The links rattled and snapped taut as he reared upright on the slab. Held fast by the manacles, his hands lunged at me like leashed mastiffs. I pressed myself to the floor, the grasping fingers inches from my face.

  Raphael sprang forward with such force that he slipped off the edge of the slab. Supported only by the shackles on his wrists and ankles, he swung in the air above me, whipsawing the chains around him in a frenzy, like a puppet frantic to shake loose from its strings. He let out a simian roar, and my heart ached.

  Is this my artist-angel? Have I succeeded only in producing a mindless brute?

  I had no chance to consider the consequences. Spectral white light flickered over Raphael’s suspended form as another thunderclap boomed above our heads. At any second another lethal bolt could strike the rods atop the house.

  Yet there was an even more dire threat. For in the momentary glimmer, I saw Ernst creeping close, a long dissection knife in his fist.

  “No!” I yelled as Ernst plunged the blade toward Raphael’s back. I jumped up and caught Ernst’s wrist so hard he cried out. The knife fell from Ernst’s hand just as its tip grazed Raphael’s skin. Raphael snarled and shook his chains like a captive gorilla.

  “He’s nothing more than a beast!” Ernst snapped, echoing my own fears. “Worse than your brother.”

  “No. No, he’s not. I’ll prove it to you.” I wasn’t sure whether I could prove anything. Nevertheless, I stooped to collect the turnscrew and inched closer to Raphael, cooing as if to calm a stray dog. “It’s all right, Raphael. I won’t hurt you.”

  Thunder pealed again, and Raphael howled and writhed in his fetters so violently I was afraid the lightning had pierced him after all.

  Despite the danger, I reached to stroke his cheek. “Shh, shh, Raphael. Anna is here to help you.”

  The giant ceased struggling, and the pendulous swinging of his body slowed. Trembling, he peeked down at me, eyes wide and white through the tangles of his tousled hair.

  “Na-na?”

  I nodded and beamed at his halting syllables. “Yes! Yes! Anna.” I touched my breast.

  “Na-na!” He pawed the air, and I took his hand and pressed it to my face.

  “Yes! Yes!” I smiled at Ernst over my shoulder. “You see? He understands.”

  Ernst did not return my smile. Indeed, he frowned more than ever as he rubbed his injured wrist.

  I looked back at Raphael, lifted the turnscrew. “Just hold still. I’m going to release you.”

  A tremor shuddered through him, but he did not resist when I bent to unbolt the shackles on his ankles. Breathing evenly to steady my hand, I unscrewed the manacles on Raphael’s legs. His feet swung free, his toes sweeping back and forth a mere inch from the floor.

  As I started to unfasten the cuff of his right wrist, another thunderclap pounded, louder than all the rest, and my hands shook as if I could already feel electricity coursing through them. I managed to hold onto the tool, however, and when I’d freed Raphael’s right arm, the balls of his feet touched the stone beneath them.

  With a few final twists, the remaining screw in the left manacle popped loose. As Raphael’s arm dropped loose, he fell forward onto me, his weight toppling us onto the floor in an accidental embrace. Another crash of thunder rocked the room, and blinding claws of electricity sparked between the swinging chains where Raphael had hung an instant before.

  He curled closer to me, his muscled immensity shivering against my breast like a frightened kitten. “Nana! Nana!”

  I clasped him, my fingers spread over the rippled smoothness of his bare back. “Shh, shh, Raphael. Everything will be all right now.”

  I glanced up in time to see Ernst stomping out of the laboratory.

  CHAPTER 19

  THE NEWBORN

  I had hoped for Ernst’s help in handling our newborn, but I was soon disappointed. He did not return to the laboratory within the first few minutes, and I didn’t have the patience to remain sprawled on the floor with Raphael until my colleague recovered from his fit of pique.

  I rose and grasped Raphael’s hands, urging him to stand as I did. He squatted before me with the gape of a perplexed baboon, and again I fretted that I’d brought a body to life with no mind inside it.

  “Like this, Raphael.” I bent my knees and mimed standing several times, tugging on his arms and smiling encouragement.

  He timidly aped my movement, as if unsure whether he could remain upright. When he straightened at last, I let out a small gasp, for he towered before me like a Nordic deity, massive and male and nude. While he lay lifeless on the slab, I had been able to maintain a certain academic detachment from that mass of tissue and bone. Now his flesh was warm, the complexion flush with flowing blood, the skin supple and exuding a masculine musk I could not ignore. It seemed that my own pulse throbbed in time with the beating of the heart in that leonine chest.

  “Good, Raphael.” With his hands still in mine, I tugged him forward as I stepped back, as if conducting a dance lesson.

  He took a lumbering first step, heavy and graceless, then a smoother second one. I smiled and nodded, and he did the same, pleased with himself for having pleased me.

  Then another thunderclap cracked sparks between the chains behind him, and he stumbled forward to cling to me, shuddering. For the first time, the flickering light illumined the deep wells of shadow beneath his brow, and I saw I had not entirely succeeded in making Raphael appear a normal human. Perhaps too much blood had drained from his eyes, or perhaps some chemical degradation had blanched them, but the irises were the color of lightning—stark, almost luminous, white rings around the ebony pellets of his pupils. They were eyes that should have been blind, should have been dead, yet they stared at me with an uncanny intensity.

  I resisted the impulse to recoil from him in fright and instead moved to comfort him. His girth was such that I could barely reach my arms around his shoulders. “It’s all right, Raphael. You’re safe now.”

  I herded him toward the laboratory door, my arm still around him, both of us hobbling together like one hybrid creature. Just when I thought Raphael had calmed enough to walk on his own, we exited into the hall beyond and nearly collided with Minna. The matron gasped and came close to dropping the tray of stew and bread she carried.

  “F-forgive me, fräulein! I thought you might need some supper.” She blushed and averted her gaze from Raphael’s exposed manhood. “I did not know you were . . . bus
y.”

  Now I flushed with embarrassment. To add to my discomfort, Raphael grabbed me about the waist, cowering behind me as if for protection from the older woman. His loins pushed against the seat of my dress.

  “This is Raphael, a patient of mine.” I strived to make the introduction sound detached, professional. “He has suffered a severe brain injury, and Dr. Waldman and I shall be treating him for the next several weeks. I ask that you attend to him with all the deference and patience you can. Now be so good as to prepare a guest bedroom for him.”

  “Of course, fräulein.” She curtsied without looking at Raphael and hurried off.

  Her eagerness to avoid our unclothed guest made her even more efficient than usual. By the time I coaxed Raphael to the third-floor room I’d requested, Minna had already turned down the bed and brought a washbasin, chamber pot, and towels.

  In the wan light of the single candle the maid had left burning, Raphael blinked at every item in the chamber with a mixture of apprehension and bafflement. While his back was turned, I locked the door and hung the key around my neck. I knew that, with his tremendous strength, the door would not stop him if he wanted to burst through it. I only hoped locking it would discourage him from leaving the room until I was ready to let him out.

  Raphael happened to be standing near the chamber’s dressing table when another thunderbolt flickered outside the window. A black slate in darkness, the table’s mirror abruptly shimmered with Raphael’s silvered image, menacing him with his own reflection. Startled, he crossed his forearms in front of his face, as if to shield himself from the phantom figure’s expected blows. When he saw the reflection move as well, he swung one mallet fist toward the attacking mirage in front of him.

  I caught hold of his arm before it could strike the glass. Strong though I was, Raphael nearly hurtled me through the mirror with the force of his punch.

  I caressed his clenched hand to soothe him. “No, no! You shouldn’t be afraid. See?”

  I snatched the candle from the sconce by the door and held it in front of the two of us, so that the flame gilded the perfect proportions of Raphael’s face and frame in his mirrored reflection. I vowed that he would never detest his own image the way my brother had.