by Stevie Barry
She blinked. Of course he was trying to manipulate her, to kick off that Stockholm Syndrome he'd admitted was his goal, but there was genuine contrition in his words. And that troubled her. Contrition and apology were entirely against his nature, and they made him unpredictable. "You're right on that score," she said. "All right. I'll keep your secrets." It wasn't as though she had anyone to tell -- not yet, at least.
"Good," he said, rising. "I will have lunch sent to your apartment. Going through it all will take quite a while. Do you speak French or German?"
"A little French. No German."
"Then I will give you dictionaries. Go back to your apartment, and I will meet you there."
She went, more troubled than ever. This was an enormous amount of faith Von Ratched was placing with her, and why? He could just pick and choose what he wanted her to see, weed out all the terrible things, but if he did that he'd probably have precious little to show her. Why would he give her anything that would confirm what a monster he was? It was a terrible way to try to Stockholm her -- but then, Lorna would bet he'd never tried it before. For once in his life, he really didn't know what he was doing, and she could use that to her advantage, too. Somehow.
To her surprise, it took him two trips to bring her everything, stacking the boxes on her plain coffee-table, and he left her with a very strange look -- locking the door behind him, of course. Bastard.
The boxes themselves weren't what she had expected. Some were steel, but others were polished wood that looked very old. She picked the one that looked the oldest, and started to dig.
----
Von Ratched, being him, did indeed have ulterior motives for giving Lorna all those things. He really was entrusting her with some very personal aspects of his life, but he knew damn well that trust was misplaced. Some of what she would find in there would make her bolt, and he wanted to get her inevitable escape attempt out of the way.
But otherwise, he was truly being honest with her. The only thing he'd held back were the drawings and his journal, because he knew she wasn't ready to see those yet. Even he knew they would be far too creepy for her to handle at this point.
----
At first, Lorna had a difficult time believing what she was reading.
At the top of the first box was a birth certificate, intricately written in calligraphy and yellow with age. It was in German, so she couldn't read most of it, but only a little of it mattered: the name, Raoul Hermann von Ratched, and the date, 28 Dezember 1898.
What. The. Fuck.
She thought it must be for some ancestor, until she opened an envelope containing a stack of baby pictures. The first were very old, showing an infant in a frothy white christening gown, held by a Slavic-looking woman in a simple maid's uniform. In the next the child was old enough to sit up, a boy of maybe two in a formal suit. A fair-haired child with eyes that were eerily pale even for a black-and-white photograph -- she could have dismissed that as an ancestor, too, but even at such a young age, the kid's expression was pure Von Ratched. There was nothing childlike in it, none of the innocence a toddler ought to have. Those pale eyes stared at the camera with a very adult directness, and it was so creepy she turned it upside down when she put it aside.
There were more of the child as he grew progressively older, all stiff formal portraits, and the more Lorna saw, the less able she was to consider them pictures of Von Ratched's great-grandfather or something. Not only were the features too exact, the expression was identical, growing stronger as the boy's age progressed. It was precisely the one Von Ratched often had now -- arrogant, superior, regarding the world as though he owned it.
When the boy hit his teenage years, the portraits were replaced by candid shots of what was probably Berlin -- a post-World War I Berlin, with areas of grand architecture beside bombed-out rubble. They seemed ordinary enough, which was why the next one was even more appalling.
It was a woman, a middle-aged woman who bore a striking resemblance to Von Ratched -- and who was very obviously dead. Her features were slack, her eyes staring sightlessly, and her neck was bent at a horrible angle. Lorna flipped the snap over and read, in Von Ratched's tidy handwriting, Mutter, gestorben 30 Dezember 1916.
She didn't need to consult the dictionary to know what that meant. Good God, not only had he killed his mother, he'd taken pictures of her corpse. Lorna put the photo down and shuddered, fighting an urge to be sick. She had to take a break and get some water before she tackled the next box.
That appeared to be his medical school records, as well as journals he'd kept at the time. To her relief, most of them were in French and English, so she didn't have to waste time translating word by word. A lot of the entries were surprisingly ordinary, but in a way they fascinated her, for they were living history.
He wrote of his classes, made sardonic comments on professors and classmates, along with observations of Berlin's horrific winter weather. They painted a picture of the man she'd come to know -- arrogant, imperious, with a somewhat vicious and vindictive sense of humor. It certainly didn't improve her opinion of him, and she wondered if he'd thought it somehow would.
She came upon an entry from spring of 1917, one that was classic Von Ratched.
I do believe my cellular biology professor is an idiot. Without his notes the man is utterly adrift, and even with them half his information is outdated. When I raised the question of cells in relation to aging, he rather tartly inquired if he was teaching the course, or I. Given his intellectual inadequacy, perhaps I should be. I said so, too, whereupon he threw me out of his course.
I am no prognosticator, but I believe he will come to regret his rashness. Although not for long.
Unsurprisingly, an obituary was pasted to the other side of the page, and Lorna didn't bother translating it. How nice to know that even back then he'd been a murderous arsehole.
He was still a student when the influenza pandemic of 1918 began. She wasn't surprised to find he'd been fascinated rather than afraid -- a fascination that soon turned to annoyance.
Damn medical ethics to hell. What fool will treat the symptoms without attempting to discern their source? If a patient is to die anyway, why can we not use them to discover the cause of this hellish disease? Either way they die; we might at least glean something useful from them. But no, we are restricted to endless, useless samples of blood and sputum.
Medicine claims to have come so far in the last century, and yet we still know next to nothing about our own bodies, which remain at the mercy of invaders too small to be seen. This influenza is laying waste to much of the world, and for all our bright modern equipment and techniques we are all but helpless. I see the fear in their minds, even the minds of the greatest; that one day soon it will not be a nameless patient coughing up pieces of their lungs, but they themselves. They know -- none better -- that we have no real method of containing this pestilence; that, but for the grace of God or chance, it could be them. And yet they cling to Hippocrates like an anchor, mouthing platitudes about the sanctity of human life. ‘First do no harm’, indeed.
It sickens me. We are doctors; few in the world know better than we how cheap, how precarious life is. Why should we hold the life of the individual sacred? Nothing else does, not disease nor nature nor even, I suspect, God himself, assuming such a being even exists. The world is filled with mysteries men dare not unravel, and all because they are afraid. Fear, not pride, is the besetting sin of much of humanity; what we could accomplish, if it were not for that weakness.
It is a weakness I refuse to indulge in. One day I swear that others will see as I do, and then we shall see what greatness the human mind is capable of. I should not be surprised if we someday conquer Death itself.
Lorna stared at this entry for quite some time, more than a little chilled. She knew Von Ratched had precious little regard for his patients, beyond their experimental usefulness, but to read those words -- he was not yet twenty when he had written them. There was something almost inhuman in h
is writing, a combination of cold detachment and fervent, passionate conviction. His words held the arrogance of youth, but Lorna knew well what formidable intelligence lay behind them.
She also wasn't surprised to find he'd joined the Nazis, but she was startled to find he'd had no use for them as people.
I am curious to see how long this so-called Third Reich can sustain itself. Hitler is a deeply unstable man, far more than I think even he knows, and his ideas of a 'master race' are patent nonsense. For now, however, their patronage makes my life easier, so I will allow them to go to hell in their own fashion, unaided by myself.
A list of names followed, none of which she recognized, with dates beside them. A consultation of the dictionary told her they were all the names of assassins he'd killed. At least someone in Nazi Germany had realized how dangerous he was.
On March 17, 1944, he wrote,
I am fed up with these fools who would own the world at the expense of my work, and I will tolerate their idiocy no longer. The Allies are about to find a great deal of information, and dear Hitler will lose what little sanity he still possesses. They have crossed me one time too many.
That made Lorna pause for a very long time, staring out the window. She knew now why Von Ratched had given her all this, or part of why. He was telling her indirectly that she stood no chance against him -- that she would be going up against the man who had toppled the Third Reich, so she shouldn't bother trying. In other words, it was yet another threat.
The thought infuriated her. Oh, he was one arrogant son of a bitch, and if anything was to be his downfall, that was it. She'd make sure of it.
But there was a great deal more, and she forced herself to read it. There might be something useful.
He'd found asylum in America once he'd fled Germany, and his correspondence told her the biggest thing she'd been wondering about: why the hell he was still alive.
I have done a great deal of research on cell decay and its relation to the aging process. Thus far I have managed to slow it in myself, though I have not halted it. I believe that in time I can produce those results in other subjects, and there is much else I could do if given the proper tools.
Someone in the U.S. government had given Von Ratched sanctuary, so that he could try to find a way to live forever. Knowing what she did of him, Lorna wondered how many people he'd telepathically strong-armed to get what he wanted. For Christ's sake, he'd spent over seventy years experimenting on people in secret, under auspices of the American government.
She'd be lying if she said this didn't daunt her. Of course it did -- she was neither crazy nor stupid, and now she really knew what she was dealing with. This was a man who had destroyed a government for annoying him, and she was…her. It would be fair to say she hadn't really accomplished anything in her life. Yes, she was daunted, all right, but she was also severely pissed off.
And there was more still, some much more recent. She pried a black leather notebook from the bottom of the fourth box, not sure she wanted to know what was in it. The paper was heavy, expensive, and filled with neat lines written in black ink.
Lorna continues to confound me. This is a woman who could be near my equal, yet she fights me at every turn.
What the--? Had Von Ratched meant to leave this with her? Probably, although she couldn't begin to guess why.
She steadfastly refuses to acknowledge her own unpleasant side, the root of her temper, even while she embraces using it. She would never, I think, acknowledge our similarities, small though they are. Never in my life have I met anyone so stubborn, nor so damaged. I have known since we met that there is something wrong with her; that strange blankness that steals away all thought and reason, and yet it is more than that.
There are things I would say to her, but I do not know how. For once in my life, eloquence fails me, and it grows ever more maddening. If there is some method of communicating all that I would say that she will actually believe, I have yet to divine it.
And I know that my time runs ever shorter. It is only her wounds that have kept her here, only her morals that have prevented her from killing half my Institute. Should I fail to bring her to me by then, I will have no further chance. I cannot forever keep her drugged, but neither can I release her.
Lorna slammed the book shut, and actually growled. Oh, she knew what he was up to. It was half a threat, yes, but he was also trying to convince her he was some tortured soul unable to express his feelings. Just how stupid did he think she was? The idea that he expected her to buy it was beyond insulting. Never in her life had she wanted to hit anyone as much as she did in that moment. And as for that fucking threat at the end...gah.
Not yet. Save it for when you can use it. He expected her to run, so she wouldn't. Otherwise, she was sure he'd think she would either fear him or feel sorry for him, because evidently he thought she was a complete moron. Her total indignation kept her from fearing him as much as she might have done. What an absolute twat.
He'd expect some reaction out of her come dinner time, so she'd best figure out how to disappoint him. She was so offended she might not be able to feign anything else -- the big challenge was going to be avoiding breaking something over his head. She'd learned something today, all right -- when she did take the son of a bitch out, she'd be doing the world a bigger favor than she'd thought.
Chapter Nineteen
To Von Ratched's surprise, the Institute remained quiet. He'd been so sure Lorna would try some kind of flashy, destructive escape attempt, but there was nothing. And that worried him a little. Until recently her temper had made her somewhat predictable, even when she'd reined it in, but in the last fortnight she'd confounded him utterly. He'd thought her simple in one way, that she was a creature of impulse who could not maintain calculation for long, but she was shaping up to be more devious than he'd expected -- and certainly more than he liked.
He was curious almost to distraction as he assembled dinner -- roast chicken and rosemary, with a side of salad. The produce had been frozen, unfortunately, but it would be decent enough. By now he ought to be able to give her some wine, but Lorna didn't seem like a wine drinker. Perhaps he'd make her a Tequila Sunrise for dessert.
When he went to fetch her, he found his boxes in total disarray, papers spread out across the carpet. Lorna sat on the couch, a book open on her lap, her expression unreadable. No disgust, as he might have expected, no disbelief or fear. There was just…blankness, a carefully-cultivated poker face. Interesting. Troubling, but interesting.
She set the book aside, and used her crutch to pull herself to her feet. "You've certainly given me some food for thought," she said, hobbling toward the door. "And answered a few things I'd wondered about."
Von Ratched stared at her. Where was the Lorna he thought he knew? It was dawning on him, very belatedly, that he didn't really know her at all. Those unnaturally green eyes stared up at him with a kind of forced calm that was somewhat disturbing. He wondered how right she'd been, when she'd told him he was more interested in molding her into his own creature than he was in learning about her as a person. "Come along," he said. "You must be hungry."
She followed him in silence, leaning her crutch against the table when she sat. Her injuries had to be paining her, but she gave little sign of it -- only a slight wince when she scooted her chair in. And she remained silent when he brought the food.
"It's all true, isn't it?" she asked, once he'd sat down himself. "All your history."
"It is," he said, picking up his fork. "I thought it only fair you know where I have come from."
"And where you're going," she said, taking a bite. "See, I think I've figured something out about you."
He arched an eyebrow. "Oh?"
"You're a bloody genius, but I already knew that. Christ, you might be the smartest man on the planet, but your life, your interests -- they're very narrow. And you'll never change, because you can't. Oh, you also think I'm an idiot."
Her words had been flat up until that l
ast sentence, which practically dripped venom. Where had she gotten that idea? He would never have entrusted her with all that if he thought her a fool. The rest of her assessment was unflattering, but it was her last statement that rankled. He could address the rest later.
Lorna gulped some tea, and glowered at him. "One, I recognize a silent threat when I see it, and two, that bloody black book'v yours. Did you really think I'd buy it for a second?"
For the first time in his life, Von Ratched truly froze. Black book…good God, had he really left that in there? Like the drawings, she hadn't been ready to see that yet. "You read it?" he asked quietly, suddenly and irrationally angry.
"'Course I did," she snorted. "You gave it to me. Did you really expect me to fall for that tripe? Just how stupid d'you think I am, you twat? You must be used to dealing with some total eejits, if you think for one moment I'd buy it."
He gripped his fork so hard his knuckles went white. "You were not meant to see that," he said. "Not now and not ever." It was alarming, how very angry he was. It was his own fault, but that only infuriated him even more.
She rolled her eyes. "Then maybe you shouldn't have given it to me. But you did it on purpose, didn't you? You think I'm moron enough to think I'm seeing the real you, or some shite like that. I have to say I'm disappointed, Von Ratched. I'd credited you with a little more subtlety than that."
Her words were bad enough, but it was the tone that got to him. Biting, sarcastic, dryly vicious -- she sounded a lot like him. What was he turning her into?
He forced his anger down, locked it away in the chilly part of his mind that could examine it later, in private. "I would never have shown you that on purpose, Lorna," he said. "Its contents are things I never meant to tell you, precisely because you would not believe me. You say I am trying to manipulate you, and to an extent you are right -- just not in this."
