The Devil and the Red Ribbon

by Theo Rion

“You’re going to boil me?” Kurt could not hold it back.

  “Not yet.” John smiled, and turned to Kurt. “Take off your clothes.”

  “What?”

  “You’re used to bathing in your clothes, are you?”

  Kurt was silent and looked at John with mixed feelings. John reached out and loosened Kurt’s tie. Then he began to unbutton his shirt. Kurt felt as if the room had become unusually quiet; only the fire occasionally crackled. John looked at Kurt, as if he saw the white skin on the chest and abdomen for the first time. He touched it gently, even tenderly. Kurt froze, only his heart accelerated.

  When Kurt was left undressed, John took a step back and looked at him, Kurt was confused. A smile touched John’s lips, and he threw Kurt’s clothes in one of the vats. Kurt wanted to say something, but John spoke first. “You won’t need your clothes. Now you,” John said firmly, “take off my clothes,”

  Kurt turned a surprised look on John. He paused a moment before approaching John and began to unbutton his shirt. He could not understand why his hands were shaking. He’d like to say it was because of the cold, but he knew it was a lie. Kurt wasn’t looking at John’s face, but he knew that contented smile of his had to be reflected in his eyes. When Kurt finished, he pulled himself together and looked John in the face. He hoped his eyes didn’t show his embarrassment. John smiled. In front of Kurt he placed a wooden bucket, with which he had scooped water from the vat. He sat on a bench nearby.

  “Lave.” John nodded at the bucket at his feet. Kurt walked over to him and sat down. He dipped John’s foot into the water and began to massage it gently. This was something he would not have imagined himself doing before this moment, and he was riddled with incredible confusion over it.

  When Kurt had washed the other foot, John handed him a small ladle. Lights were playing in his eyes and Kurt had no idea what to expect from him next.

  “Now scoop and drink.” John ordered.

  “From where?”

  “From the bucket.”

  “Where I have just washed your feet?” Kurt could not believe his ears. John nodded calmly. “Why would you want me to do that?”

  “Leave the questions, Kurt. You agreed to my terms. Now, drink.”

  Kurt hesitantly scooped water from the bucket, and again looked to John, as if rechecking his resolve in the matter.

  “Drink,” John repeated, his voice impatient, outright mockery in his eyes.

  Kurt could not keep up with his feelings. In the darkness of his secret world something gleamed, and he could not understand what. His heart was filled with a new sense, and Kurt thought he saw the edge of a black dress flashing in the darkness of his soul and fleeing. Kurt got to his feet, and now he looked downward at John.

  “I said, drink!” John snarled.

  At that moment, Kurt lashed John with the water from the bucket, and the ladle flew after.

  “You haven’t lasted long.” John grinned and wiped his face, pulled something out of a pocket of his pants, lying within reach. “I warned you,” John said and jumped up. He pushed Kurt so hard he fell. John pinned him to the floor with all his weight. He arched Kurt’s left hand, and Kurt felt something like a blade cutting in the inside of the forearm. Kurt cried out in surprise and pain. He tried to throw John off, tried to free his hand, and John let him go. Kurt abruptly rose to his feet and staggered back from John. His hand was bleeding. He breathed deeply and irregularly, looking at John with eyes full of disbelief, confusion and even fear. John calmly sat back down on the bench and looked seriously at Kurt.

  “I warned you. I said you would be punished for disobedience, and so you have.”

  “Are you insane?” Kurt blurted; his voice harshly accusatory.

  “That’s your job. You make the diagnosis.” John grinned. He took his shirt and ripped it with the knife, cutting out a long strip. He walked over to Kurt, who now watched him warily. He led Kurt to the bench and sat down again. John took Kurt’s left hand and lifted it higher. When he wiped the blood, which immediately appeared again, Kurt saw that the cut on his hand was made in the form of the letter “J”. He turned a surprised look to John, who bandaged his wound.

  “Don’t move,” he said calmly. “Otherwise, I might have a desire to finish what I started.”

  Kurt noticed the ladle lay on the floor close to his right foot. When John was distracted for a moment, Kurt grabbed the ladle and backhanded John with all he had. The ladle struck his temple with enough force to knock John to the floor. Kurt grabbed John’s clothes as they were in reach, and ran from the room. He didn’t know the tower layout, didn’t know where to hide. He ran into the room where he had been tied to the chair. Behind him, John groaned and it caused strange feelings of pity mixed with fear to run rampant through him. Pity called to Kurt, but fear ordered him to run from John. The game had taken on some bloody hue, and now it had become a truly insane matter.

  A second look at the room revealed a ring in the floor. Kurt frowned. A trap door? He pulled on the metal ring and lifted it. Below was a spiral staircase leading steeply down into the darkness. Kurt began to descend. At the bottom, several torches dispersed the darkness enough for him to see a long corridor that branched off to the left and right. Kurt stopped at the crossroads, and listened. He had closed the entrance behind him, so he expected to hear if John suddenly followed him.

  The tunnel was quiet; Kurt heard only his breathing and his heartbeat. He hurriedly put on John’s clothes. Looking back, he listened again. No footsteps. No breathing. Nothing. He breathed a sigh of relief and turned forward again, as a shadow flashed ahead of him, and Kurt recoiled. His heart beat faster, his breath whooshed in and out for a few seconds in fear before he got hold of him and took a torch from the wall and walked to the end of the corridor. He stopped there, in front of a door. He opened it and entered. There was no one there, but in the center of the room stood a large oak table in the shape of a cross.

  Against the wall was a fireplace, with two armchairs facing the cold hearth. The door couldn’t be locked, and Kurt looked around in search of what he could use to barricade it shut. The oak table was too heavy, and it seemed it was attached to the floor. Putting the torch into one of the wall brackets, Kurt pulled one of the two armchairs to the door and propped it against the handle.

  He sat on the other chair. He needed to think. To come up with some plan. Something was changing rapidly inside Kurt. He knew he had to think about his plan, but instead his head filled with scattered thoughts, snatches of his conversations with John from the distant past. Kurt realized the balance and regularity of his life, which he so valued, had turned to dust long ago, and he cherished only the illusion of turning back. Now he knew that he had lived in this illusion for too long, and under the canopy of the darkness, something had changed within his soul.

  John seemed to be a madman. Kurt realized he had seen it in John lately, and it had alarmed Kurt. He began to think that he had never known John, even just a little, that he had never really come close to unravelling the mystery of the man and what motivated him. John was a man with a thousand faces. This idea seized Kurt so strongly that for a few moments he really could not remember John’s face.

  Then Kurt’s attention was captured by the excitement and anxiety about himself. His inner world had already undergone so many changes and influences since he had met John, that Kurt had lost count of them and feared all the more that he had lost himself.

  Oh, well, this happened long before John, a voice inside his head sneered at that thought. Kurt didn’t recognize this voice. He suddenly wondered why his world was now hidden in darkness, why he no longer saw anything he was so accustomed to, where his thoughts, images and feelings lived. Why now it was only darkness…and this strange voice…so familiar and, at the same time, so alien.

  A strange feeling came over Kurt at this point; he even got scared. It was as if something inside poured out of him and he couldn’t control it and keep it locked in its familiar place. There was n
o place for this sense in a dark closet, where he had been keeping it. It was aspiring for freedom. And it wasn’t love at all.

  Kurt walked around the room. There were stacked logs in the fireplace, and a sharp poker stood at the fireguard. Different kinds of rubbish were lying in the corners, but Kurt found a coil of strong rope. At the table there was a small niche in the wall where light couldn’t reach.

  It wasn’t long before he thought of an idea and implemented it.

  Now all he had to do was wait. He knew John would come.

  * * * *

  The door opened and John stepped across the threshold. He’d taken the time to go to his room and dress. After all, the last thing he’d wanted was to remain naked, to give the advantage to a dressed Kurt.

  He looked keenly around the room, and not seeing Kurt, he walked to the fireplace and warmed his hands at the fire Kurt had so thoughtfully lit in anticipation of his arrival. He grinned tongue-in-cheek as he went to the table and saw the ring. He smiled and wanted to pick it up, but Kurt had made a small narrow recess in the wood, into which he’d driven the ring. John leaned over to see what held it.

  At that point Kurt stepped out of the shadowy recess. He threw a loop of rope over John’s head, quickly tightening the loop around both John’s neck and the bottom of the table’s length. John immediately grabbed the loop with both hands, trying to get free. Meanwhile Kurt tied his legs together. John reached for his pocket, obviously for the knife, but Kurt grabbed his hands and tied them behind his back.

  John wheezed; apparently the loop on his neck was too tight. Kurt pulled the knife out of John’s pocket and cut the rope holding John’s head to the table. John coughed and straightened, breathing heavily and looking at Kurt with dark eyes so full of rage, Kurt thought the ropes around his arms and legs might not hold him back.

  Kurt went to the fireplace and pulled out a red-hot poker. Looking straight into John’s eyes, he said firmly, “Lie down on the table so I can tie you to it, otherwise I’ll burn my initials on your forehead.”

  Surprisingly, John suddenly smiled widely and obediently lay down on the table. Kurt laid down the hot poker and tied him to the table. Picking with the knife, he pulled out the ring, and then sat in a chair by the fireplace. He looked at the fire and remained silent for some time.

  “Is this all? Your enthusiasm has dried up, has it?” said John.

  Kurt didn’t answer. John looked up at the ceiling and spoke again:

  “You can be mad at me, Kurt. But this tower only symbolizes your prison. I know how to get out of here, but I came here with you to help you find a way out of your prison.”

  “Drivel,” Kurt gasped and stood up. He walked over to John, still holding the ring, the cut on his forearm still pulsing with pain. He looked into John’s face, wanting to slap the smug smile off his face.

  “Drivel is when a person of your talents pretends to be such a worm,” said John.

  Kurt flushed in anger, unable to hold back his irritation. “It’s you changing masks, not me!”

  “Yes, but I know who I am. And I know that this is a game, and you’re determined to become a worm.” John laughed. “But the most of all, I’m surprised at your confusion, as if you really don’t know what I’m about.”

  “No, I don’t know, John. As to why you brought me here. Why I received this…honor?”

  “You were very eager for this honor. I wasn’t the first who paid a visit, Kurt, you were. Your curiosity gave you away. How could I not answer the call?” He chuckled. “And then it turned out you have a lot of interesting facets trapped inside you. The most interesting is your mask, your voluntary confinement. I’m free, and you aren’t. Freedom is when you do all you want, despite societal constraints.”

  “John, I don’t care about your philosophy. You like your rebellion, which is so effectively emphasized by your puppets, but I like and want a decent life.”

  “Again, loud and useless words. But you won’t disappoint me, Kurt. Not you.”

  “Drivel again.” Kurt blew out a caustic splutter.

  “Kurt, you must understand! You’re dearer to me genuine! Of course, it was difficult to learn, incredibly, and yet, when I saw you, I knew what you were. You could manage these puppets just like me and live happily ever after. As you wanted to, but you’re a coward! You became a toothless lion, but still, I immediately sensed a kin,” John said, smiling predatorily.

  “John, maybe you were already so fed up with your empty relations you began to look for a kin? You went crazy from loneliness. But I’m not like you. Don’t equate us. No matter how much I feel sorry for you in your loneliness, I’m not going to play by your rules. I have my own rules by which I live. And I do what I like. You prefer to play with people, I prefer to help them.”

  “To help them out of their stuttering and bedwetting.” He laughed. “You were strong, great, and tormented by vanity! You knew you were smarter and stronger than all your fellow students who crammed books and had less talent than your hat. You were smarter than your professors. You could do nothing about the fact they didn’t deserve your respect. So, you researched them passionately and vividly. Whose fault was it that those weaklings so easily approached the edge?”

  Kurt once again was swept by a strange feeling akin to excitement. “What are you talking about?”

  “About your past, about you!” John exclaimed.

  “You have lost your mind!” Kurt shouted, becoming angry.

  “Maybe it’s you who’ve lost your mind?” John said softly.

  Kurt just shook his head.

  “Well, if you deny it so strongly, let me tell you a story.”

  “What if I don’t want to hear it? It’s probably just as stupid as all the others you relish telling.”

  “Yes, well, I want you to hear it nonetheless.”

  Kurt sighed heavily as he sat down in one of the armchairs. “Then regale me, but make it quick.”

  John chuckled. “Once there was a boy, a hellion and bully, whose father often beat him. The mother never stood up to the father, so the boy hid in the dark from him, but his father almost always found him and beat him ‘til the boy was bruised and wounded. His father was a thief, and his mother a theatre actress. When his father was jailed, his mother abandoned her son. But the boy wasn’t simple. He knew how to get others to do what he wanted. He stole and pretended, and everyone believed him.”

  John’s soft, gentle voice surrounded Kurt, touching him and seeping into his soul. Kurt could not help but listen to him.

  “The boy might have spent all his life like this, but he dreamed of wealth and luxury, and he looked to one rich old woman for that. He snared her with flattery, convinced her he loved her with all his heart. The old woman found joy with the young man in the last days of her life, but quarreled with all her relatives over her will. After her death, her fortune went to the young man. And again, he wasn’t stupid. He went to university, but unfortunately, a decent life was hard for him to attain. Sometimes he couldn’t resist stealing for the excitement, but he was more amused by manipulating others at school. Then three students almost committed suicide. The story was made public, and our hero decided to settle down, but how? He took paints and painted a new life. A new destiny. He wiped away his mistakes and sins. He forgot who he was. He put himself in a box, just to fit into society, where he wanted to be, but he lost almost all his power. He told himself he didn’t need it anymore and he was swallowed by routine. The name of our hero was Kurt Devers. You know him; he became Kurt Rhein.” John laughed. “A good tale, isn’t it, Kurt?”

  Kurt remained silent, and John continued.

  “Did you take me for a fool, Kurt? You thought I never learnt anything about anyone, didn’t you? One of the advantages of membership in the secret Order is the ability to obtain almost any information one wants. Luckily, I discovered it before my excommunication. Also, I notice and see everything. The countless scars on your body and the way you fight, as if in the past, you fought con
stantly. Did you think I’m blind, Kurt? Or maybe you wanted me to unravel you, to bring you back to yourself. You have grown hateful of living in fear, of living in servitude, of living in a frame. In your past, you searched for someone like me. How could I resist you? And even after all this time, after having renounced your past and driven your true self deep within your psyche, having known about me, you came, led by your inner nature, which asks for my help. And I see no reason to deny it, because it is the real you. The one I love.”

  John’s words rocked Kurt as if he had been shot. If John had said it a minute earlier, maybe it would have touched Kurt, but now his words drowned in the spitfire of black flame.

  Finished, John looked at Kurt with extreme curiosity. And it was really worth watching Kurt’s face right now. First it expressed nothing, then was filled with anger, then with sadness, and finally his eyes took on a unique expression, which John had never seen before. And suddenly Kurt laughed.

  Something broke inside of him; a canopy of darkness disappeared, and Kurt’s world no longer existed; in his place, a castle of crystal stood. It was cold. A mysterious sheen, that Kurt sometimes noticed, came from an array of instruments, similar to surgical tools. And finally, the lady in black stood before him. She touched her broad-brimmed hat and pulled it off, but Kurt still couldn’t see her face. She was dissipating into the dust, and in her place stood Kurt. Another Kurt. With bottomless cold blue eyes. He reached out and touched the real Kurt with cold fingers, turning him into dust, too. Now, he was alone in this world, and a faint smile touched his lips.

  All this happened inside Kurt within seconds, but in those few seconds he could understand. The changes in his soul had begun long ago, with his first meeting with John. And when the lady in black appeared, he should have known what shadow had awakened in him. It accumulated so much power it engulfed his world, hid it under the canopy of darkness and made everything how it wanted. And now it enthroned his meanness and greatness, his power. His hateful power. His needed power.