The pain was boundless. Not to be compared with, say, a toothache, which concentrated a person’s soul into a single point. It was more a back-and-forth surge, a theatrical piece taking place partly in his body and partly on the faces of the audience. The shrieking finger, dead legs, ax blows to the neck, the throbbing stone walls. Carl felt his heart muscle pushing against his chest. The headaches during the pauses didn’t seem to be just in his head but rather in his entire body and even the space around him. He lost consciousness for a long time and came to again. The seconds before he had passed out were the nicest he had experienced in a long time, the minutes after he awoke a half-dark room at dawn with the remains of a night-mare still lingering. Lying in sweaty sheets, the glaring sun on the shades of Helen’s bungalow, the screech of seabirds and the slow realization that he had not awoken from the nightmare. He tried to recall his psychological state just prior to losing consciousness and take himself back there, observing himself as if he were another person. But Cockcroft and the Syrian were watching him too, trying to hinder him from doing that very thing. They reduced the electric current and didn’t allow him to slip away again.
“… talk a little.”
“Like reasonable, civilized human beings.”
“Nothing more.”
“Here it is.”
“School children.”
“Seriously.”
“Your name.”
“And real psychology. Six semesters.”
Sentence fragments that made no sense.
Nothing happened for several minutes. It looked as if they were on a break. Thick cigarette smoke, three glowing tips. Cockcroft was talking. Carl tried to switch over from body to mind. Snippets of thoughts. He thought of Helen and the fact that she had left without leaving any message. He thought of the ocean and the fire in Tindirma. Of Helen’s pickup. Had she really left, or had they kidnapped her as well? Could he possibly get a sip of water? And did it make any sense to co-operate or did every attempt at answering just unnecessarily prolong this mortifying procedure? In his mind he saw himself lying in silk sheets, and suddenly he knew why they were here.
It was so easy that it hurt: he hadn’t been imagining the fact that he was being followed over the last few days. They had followed him—hadn’t Cockcroft even said so himself? They needed a remote location where they could interrogate him in peace. And since they had been following him the whole time and were thus hot on his heels when he and Helen made their trip here, they, too, had stumbled upon the old mine. An ideal spot for their purposes. They could just buy off Hakim or maybe they got rid of him altogether. “Or he wasn’t even here!” Carl inadvertently said out loud, brooding over whether this theory was sound. No counterarguments occurred to him, and therefore he concluded the pen must be what this was all about. Not the mine, clearly the pen. And the two things. The metal things.
“The things,” he said aloud.
Cockcroft leaned his head and looked at him.
“The things, the capsule things,” said Carl. “I have them.”
He had hardly uttered the words before he was 100 percent sure that he had hit the nail on the head. The capsule things, that was what this was all about, and they were interrogating him here because they’d come across the location while following him. He would have beamed with joy and confidence if it hadn’t occurred to him that the capsules, which he had lost, couldn’t help him in the slightest. And it never occurred to him that it would be impossible to follow someone in this barren landscape without being noticed.
57
The Stasi
A tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.
SHAKESPEARE
“THE CAPSULE THINGS,” said Cockcroft, smiling derisively. “You have the capsule things. Is it possible that we need to take a little break?”
He signaled to the Syrian and the bassist and they both left the room. Laughter could be heard out in the tunnel.
Cockcroft leaned toward the prisoner. He took a last drag on his cigarette and politely blew the smoke upward. He sat opposite Carl with a grim look on his face, his legs crossed. One foot was planted next to the black case, the other rocked in the air while Carl was totally preoccupied trying to concoct an acceptable location for the capsules. He didn’t want to give the impression that he was thinking about it and he blurted out: “I gave them to Adil Bassir.”
“I don’t know what you mean by capsule things,” said Cockcroft, “but as long as we’re conversing here so nicely, I would like to draw your attention to a little fact that seems important to me and that you must not be aware of. And I don’t mean the fact that Mr Adil Bassir and his three henchmen would hardly have been chasing you with guns blazing and flags waving if you had already handed over to him what you described as the capsule things. No, I mean the fact that I spoke for two hours yesterday with Professor Martinez, an expert in this area. The expert. It’s not easy to get international calls through from here, and it costs a fortune, but Professor Martinez is, at the risk of sounding immodest, in complete agreement with me. Global amnesia is out of the question. As much as it pains me to have to tell you, your skills are wholly inadequate to fake global amnesia. And when my two colleagues return in a minute, we will demonstrate that by somewhat more painful means. You can look forward to a new master of ceremonies. Because unfortunately I am too sensitive for what is on the way. But we still have a few minutes, just the two of us, and if you want to tell me something at the last minute after all… No? All right, suit yourself. It would have looked good in my personnel file. But it’s up to you. So we’ll just wait for the return of the specialists. Silently if you want. Or shall I tell you a joke?”
“Is it part of the torture?”
“Ascertaining the truth. You’re doing splendidly.”
Cockcroft leaned both arms on the cushion behind him, looked somewhat inscrutably at the prisoner, and finally said: “The CIA.”
Carl closed his eyes.
“The CIA, the KGB and the Stasi make a bet. The Stasi is the Ministry of State Security, in case you don’t know. The German intelligence service. Did you know that? Ah, you’re not speaking to me. Doesn’t matter. So, the CIA, the KGB and the Stasi make a bet. There is a prehistoric skeleton in a cave, and whoever can come closest to finding out the exact age of the skeleton will be the undisputed winner. The CIA man goes in first. After a few hours he comes back out and says that the skeleton is about six thousand years old. The judges are amazed. That’s damn good, how did you manage to make such a precise estimate? The American says: chemical analysis. The KGB man is up next. He re-emerges from the cave after ten hours: the skeleton is approximately six thousand, one hundred years old. The judges: excellent, you are even closer! How did you do it? The Russian says: carbon-dating. The Stasi man is the last to go. He stays in the cave for two days. He crawls out completely exhausted: six thousand, one hundred and twenty-four years old! The judges’ jaws drop. That is the exact age, how did you figure it out? The Stasi man shrugs: he confessed. Don’t you think that’s funny? I think it’s funny. Or another joke that you will like for sure. A high-ranking Israeli military officer is looking for a secretary.”
“I don’t want to hear it.”
“What can you do to stop me? He is looking for a secretary.”
“I don’t want to hear it.”
“And he asks the first applicant: how many characters can you type per minute?”
Carl closed his eyes, turned his head from side to side and hummed “La la la”.
The bassist and the Syrian returned. The bassist had a Tupperware container in his hand. He painstakingly opened it and pulled a sandwich that he handed Cockcroft over his shoulder. Cockcroft took a bite and said with his mouth full: “I’ve been telling this joke for years, and it’s one of the best I know. Pardon me.” He brushed some crumbs from Carl’s pants. “Everyone I’ve ever told has laughed, and you will be no exception. Listen to it closely, and when the punchline comes, lau
gh as a sign of your mental maturity. So he is looking for a secretary.”
Two or three jokes later, Carl no longer knew whether he was still conscious or dreaming. Through his gummy eyelids he thought he saw motion by the metal door. The handle slowly moved and the door opened a crack. Or had it been like that the whole time? No, it had just opened. And it opened wider, millimeter by millimeter. Carl tore his eyes away and looked Cockcroft in the eyes.
Cockcroft and the bassist were sitting with their backs to the door. The Syrian had sat down on the gray metal case, looked at his feet, which were playing with the blue and yellow cables, and then a sluggish, smug, droning female voice said: “Sorry to interrupt. Can you tell me where to find the tourist information?”
58
The Vanderbilt System
Many areas of the human brain are not used, which points to the fact that our evolution is based on a long-term plan, the fulfillment of which lies far ahead of us.
ULLA BERKÉWICZ
THE CELTIC CROSS wasn’t working. Because of the simple fact that the folding tray-table in the back of the seat in front of her was too small. No more than six cards could fit on it, and then only if they were laid out in a rectangle. Even as she was riding out the jet’s take-off with intense gulps, closing her eyes and thinking of childhood memories, she had already hit upon the idea of spreading the cards out on the carpeted floor toward the rear of the 727. But they hadn’t been in the air for even fifteen minutes before businessmen in double-breasted suits, tourists in comfy pants and mothers with children began to block the aisle to the bathrooms. If she had laid out the cross there, she would have to have begged the pardon of all those people, justified her activity, answered beginner’s questions and put up with attention or incomprehension. Ed Fowler would have managed it. And if Ed had been there, Michelle would have felt strong enough to manage it, too. But some days—and this was one of those days—just looking in the eyes of a stranger was enough to unsettle her.
She rubbed the tray-table clean with the heel of her hand. She ignored the fat, wheezing man to her left and didn’t take so much as a glance out of the window at the white clouds beneath which yawned the abyss. But she didn’t close the shade either, so as not to disturb the flow of energy. She concentrated entirely on the tray-table. Two times three cards; there was no more space. In a pinch she could have used a small cross, but Michelle hadn’t had good experiences with small spreads. Small spreads—for small problems. When it came to major opening questions you needed more than four cards, otherwise the results were too vague. At the commune she had always used an expanded Celtic cross with thirteen cards when making any important decisions, but that was impossible here even if she used the armrests, her thighs and the little patch of open seat between her legs. She pushed the shaky tray-table up to its closed position and then lowered it again. A smaller deck of cards would have been helpful, she thought, a sort of travel deck. Cards the size of a matchbook, with miniaturized versions of the images. With a little business savvy you could probably get rich off an idea like that. You could sell the decks at train stations and bus stations, on ships, at airports or duty-free shops, anyplace where space was tight. Or supply them directly to the airlines! Then the cards could be distributed to open-minded passengers during boarding, along with newspapers, fruit and wet-wipes. The stewardesses could demonstrate the Celtic cross along with the emergency procedures. Michelle closed her eyes and pictured herself in a blue uniform, demonstrating use of the cards. When the cart with food and drinks clattered past her she ordered a coffee. The fat man beside her ordered two whiskies, downed them both, glanced at Michelle and then fell back into a wheezing half-slumber. Spittle dangled from his slightly open mouth.
Michelle’s urge to find out something about the future grew ever more intense. What if she did try a small cross? She looked around. Most of the passengers were busy with newspapers or books. A stewardess was collecting plastic cups at the back. Suddenly Michelle had an idea.
She stretched her back, straightened her hair and then shook awake the man next to her, whose head was almost leaning on her shoulder by this point. Would he mind if she used his tray-table? The man looked at her dumbfounded. The spittle tottered on his chin. Then he turned away with a grunt.
When Michelle was sure he was asleep again, she carefully laid six cards on his tray-table and six on her own. She thought for a while and then placed a card on the armrest between the two seats. Her eyelids flitted. What was she to make of the pattern?
The two cards at the far left were clearly recognizable as the layers of consciousness, the past, above the male, no the female principle, beneath that the father. The next pairing was childhood and youth, the internal and external perspectives, environment and self, hopes and wishes, future mental and physical development. And the lone card on the armrest? It had to be the neuralgic connection between everything, the current state of the self, the nexus… the opening question.
For a long time Michelle held the rest of the deck in her lap. She pressed her back into the seat and let the spread of cards sink in, like an artist stepping back to size up her work. It was nice. But would it perform its function? She decided first to ask the question about the Boeing 727, as a performance test so to speak.
Except for a minor irritation on the right side, the results were comforting. The plane had been developed and built by the company Boeing in adherence with all specifications for aircraft construction and drawing upon the highest engineering practices, it had a considerable number of failure-free flight hours under its belt and almost as many ahead of it, and in between, as the pilot so to speak, on the armrest between the seats—the Emperor. The prospects for a transatlantic flight couldn’t have been better. The irritation on the right side signaled at most some sort of minor repair in the distant future, maybe a loose screw in some unimportant part of the plane. Maybe on the exterior surface… or more likely a cosmetic repair on the interior. A defective seatback perhaps. Nothing to worry about, Michelle tried to tell her fellow passengers with the strength of her thoughts. She looked around. Most of them were asleep or burrowed behind their newspapers.
Next she laid cards out for Helen, for which she reintroduced the Hanged Man into the deck, though it did not make an appearance. Here, too, the spread pointed to good results. Equipped with the best assets, Helen Gliese developed her ambivalent character in her earliest youth. The grotesque face of her cynicism peaked out between the Fool and the Devil. Severity, coldness, resolve. Qualities that, annoyingly, never put men off, indeed they seemed to attract them.
Michelle searched for signs of a new life partner with Arabic roots, but to her relief was unable to find him. Not that she begrudged her friend for Carl, but their connection was star-crossed. That was clearly noticeable. On the armrest the High Priestess, and to the right Michelle barely dared look: all six cards there were reversed.
The fat man snorted himself awake, threw a glance at the mess on his tray-table and slumped back to sleep. Now Michelle laid out the cards for herself, then for Edgar Fowler. Then for her mother, for her dead father. For Sharon, for Jimi, Janis and finally, over the middle of the Atlantic, for Richard Nixon, too. Everything that emerged was tremendously telling, far more telling than the usual pronouncements of the Celtic cross. Michelle’s enthusiasm over the results was such that she nearly woke the man next to her a second time. She needed someone to talk to. In her imagination she saw members of the media approaching her. She gave interviews. Professional journals in America snapped her up. A young man with eyes as black as coal, brown hair falling over his brow, and rimless glasses, with a recording device with a leather strap thrown over his muscular shoulder, his facial expression filled with sympathetic pain. As with most of the other interviews that Michelle had already given, his first question is also about the great suffering that forever marked her life back in the Sahara. But, with her eyes closed and shaking her head, Michelle made it clear that she didn’t want or wasn’t able to talk
about it. Even after all this time. It ran too deep.
“Then, Miss Vanderbilt, on to the question that will probably excite our readers most. How does one—or to put it another way—what circumstances led to the discovery of the six-card spread that among insiders has in the Western world nearly displaced the Celtic cross, with its weaknesses in interpreting congruence?”
She thought for a long time, glanced at the air vents above her, and finally corrected the likable young man. Even though it was referred to by nearly everyone as the six-card system these days, it was actually the 727 system. Many people also called it the Vanderbilt system, or the V system for short, but she herself, as the inventor of the system, preferred the original name. Even though the cards were basically laid out in a 6-1-6 spread. But the original name conveyed the place of discovery aboard the airplane as well as the spread, plus one, the plus one because of the higher power working at high altitude, symbolically speaking, hence 7-2-7… a cold chill ran down Michelle’s spine as she suddenly remembered that 616 was the number of the beast in the Codex Ephraemi. It was incorrectly given as 666 in the Bible, but older writings and palimpsests contained the original number that, veiled for the ignorant and falsified by the powerful, was changed to the comparatively more harmless six. She felt dizzy. There it was again, the numen that seemed to make its own way out of the depths and reveal itself if one was just a little open to these sorts of phenomena. Michelle hadn’t quite finished answering the first interview question when the stewardess served their meal.
Plastic containers abutting one another, wrapped in plastic, on a plastic tray. While eating, the fat man made remarks of a profane sort that Michelle was unable to follow. Minutes later he fell asleep again, and her gaze fell on a loose screw on the bottom right of her seat. She smiled. She wasn’t the slightest bit surprised.
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