THE MADNESS OF DR. CALIGARI

by Dennis Weiler

  “Then why is it here? Is your friend planning to buy this place?”

  “I told you: our group, it’s interested in weird shit. Like what you experience when you’re in one of these places. I had mentioned our conversation to another member of the Friends. She knew about this development, said it might be an idea to bring you here and see what happened. I was planning to do that when we found the prop. I thought maybe it would give you a boost.”

  “Give me a—you realize how crazy this shit sounds.”

  “Please. You’re already halfway there with your Psychic Friends deal.”

  “Whatever,” Carpentier said. “I’m done. I’m out of here.” He turned toward the door.

  “Thought you might say that,” Diaz said. He dug his right hand into the front pocket of his jeans. Carpentier tensed, expecting him to produce a knife, even a gun, but when his hand emerged, it was holding a thick roll of bills wrapped in rubber bands. “Five hundred bucks,” he said, tossing the money to Carpentier. “For humoring me.”

  “How do I know this is five hundred dollars?”

  “Jesus Christ,” Diaz said, rolling his eyes. “Count it.”

  Carpentier tugged the rubber bands off the roll, relaxing it into a wave of twenty dollar bills. He thumbed through them, stopping every five or six notes to check for fakes, green paper with green magic-marker on it.

  “Satisfied?”

  He was holding five hundred dollars in his hand. “You’re serious about this?”

  “As a motherfucking heart attack,” Diaz said. “Do you want the money?”

  It wasn’t much of a question. Carpentier nodded, removing his wallet and wedging the money into it. He had to force the wallet into his pocket. “Okay. What do you want me to do?”

  “Get in the box,” Diaz said. “Carefully. The thing’s still a priceless piece of film history.”

  From the outside, Cesare’s box appeared narrow, too tight for Carpentier to fit in comfortably. To his surprise, once he leaned back into it, shoulders hunched, arms crossed, there was ample room for him to relax. As he looked out at Diaz, the empty room, he had the momentary impression something was off about them, as if he were seeing them through the thick lens of a friend’s glasses. When he focused on anything, though, it appeared fine, undistorted.

  Diaz had retrieved a can of spray paint from beside the box and was bent over, marking a large, silver circle around the box. The paint’s metallic reek filled the air. “Maybe you don’t care, but here’s the theory behind what we’re doing. In The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, the box is the spot from which Cesare has his visions. As far as that story is concerned, that’s its function. ‘But wait,’ you say, ‘that shit was made up.’ That’s true. Thing is, a whole lot of people saw that piece of make-believe, and they bought it. Not for real, but the way you do when you’re watching a movie. That was after all the actors, the director, had done more-or-less the same thing. It was enough; it solidified the role the film had given the box. This is why that countess was so desperate to get her hands on it. The prop was full of all this accumulated energy, energy that kept accumulating every time another audience sat through the movie. The stuff she did to it—the carvings—not to mention, the stuff she did with it, augmented it.”

  Aware of the wad of money pressing against his ass, Carpentier said, “I’m sorry man, but you’re talking shit. That’s…magic. That isn’t how the world works.”

  “I guess we’ll find out.” Diaz was almost finished with his circle. Instead of completing it, however, he left an arc open directly in front of the crate.

  “Run out of paint?” Carpentier said.

  “Circles keep things out,” Diaz said, straightening, “and in. the broken circle helps to channel forces the way you want them to go.”

  “You really are into this shit. I’m kind of impressed.”

  “Yeah, well, it’s not the kind of thing you talk about over lunch.” Diaz set the spray can on the floor. “You ready to give this a try?”

  “I suppose. What do you want me to do?”

  “Same thing as downstairs.”

  Carpentier was on the verge of asking Diaz how he suggested he do that crammed into an upright coffin, but the fact was, while the two of them had been talking, he had noticed the return of the sensations he’d experienced on the first floor, only amplified, as if the volume on a radio playing in the background had been dialed from one to five, not enough to distinguish the lyrics of whatever was playing, but more than sufficient to pick out the tune and name the artist. As he concentrated on his impression of the house, it increased again, the volume being spun to ten. He flinched. “Shit, man.”

  “What is it?” Diaz said. “What’s happening? Are you getting anything?”

  “Yeah,” Carpentier said. “It’s pretty strong.” He swallowed. “Hate to say it, but you were right. The box is definitely amping things up.”

  “Good,” Diaz said. “Good.”

  “I don’t know.” The room’s walls were rice-paper thin, vibrating like drum skins with the drone Carpentier had tuned into downstairs, which had escalated to concert-level. The light in the room dimmed, the way it did in a theater before the performance started. Across from Carpentier, the walls glowed with pale luminescence, then faded translucent, transparent. “I’m seeing something.”

  “What? Can you describe it?”

  It was a bare, white floor, surrounded on three sides by darkness. He might have been looking at a stage, or the floor of a cave. At the far end of the space, almost but not quite concealed by the dark, a figure squatted. “It’s—there’s nothing there. Aside from a floor, I mean. But there’s someone on the other side of it.”

  “Who? What do they look like?”

  “No, I can’t… Wait. Something’s happening.” From out of the darkness, a low, heavy fog poured across the floor. In a moment, the surface was gone, hidden beneath roiling vapor. “There’s like, fog all over the place now.”

  “What about the person? What’re they doing?”

  “Hang on…” The shape rose to its feet. There was something wrong—something profoundly wrong with it. Slowly, it shuffled toward the center of the space. As it drew nearer, his stomach lurched, its contents rushing halfway up his throat. “Aw, no,” he said, “aw no, man, come on.”

  “Talk to me,” Diaz said. “Tell me what you’re seeing.

  How could he? Maybe he could have called the naked figure a man and left it at that. He could have omitted the deathly pallor of the man’s flesh, the way it trembled as if not entirely solid anymore. He would have found it more difficult to avoid mentioning the shades of red smeared and crusted around the man’s mouth and jaw, his neck and chest, his hands and forearms. He could not have ignored the massive wound that was the man’s belly, a bloody space from which the contents had been removed with terrific violence.

  “Talk to me,” Diaz said.

  “It’s a guy,” Carpentier said, “there’s a guy, and he’s—his stomach—his intestines—it’s all gone, but he’s still moving, still walking around.”

  “Okay,” Diaz said, “okay, good. What else do you see?”

  Quickly as it had arrived, the fog was departing, sinking to the floor and draining into it. On the way, it revealed a group of people at the disemboweled man’s feet: a man and a woman, a girl and a boy. The man and the woman looked mid-to-late thirties, the kids either side of ten. All were dressed well: the adults in a suit and blazer and skirt, the children in new jeans and long-sleeved t-shirts with Pokémon characters on them. The stereotypical white, upper-middle-class American family. Around them, the floor was littered with dozens of nails, each anywhere from six to nine inches long. A few claw hammers were scattered amongst the nails.

  “There’s a family,” Carpentier said, “um, Mom, Dad, couple kids. They’re on the ground—lying on the ground. The fog’s gone. They’r
e surrounded by hammers and nails. I’m talking big nails. They…oh, hey. Hey, no, don’t do that. No. Hey! Hey! Jesus! Fuck!”

  The people on the floor were scrambling for the hammers, the nails. The instant each had a hammer and a nail, they twisted to whoever was closest, pressed the point of the nail against their arm, leg, or chest, and brought the hammer down. The nails dove through their clothing. Faces contorted, the family members slapped the ground for a second nail, seizing it and smacking it into the nearest limb. Blood splashed the mother’s blazer, the father’s slacks, the children’s jeans. They hammered nails into one another’s calves, shoulders, knees, feet. The nails grew difficult to handle, the hammers slipped from their bloody hands and clattered on the floor. They retrieved the tools and continued their gory work. Ten, twelve nails protruded from each member of the family. Their blood smeared the ground, soaked their clothes. The children joined forces, succeeded in nailing the father’s left foot to the floor. In a shower of blood, he tore his foot free, pivoting on his side to set a nail against the mother’s thigh.

  “What?” Diaz said. “What?”

  “They’re using them on one another,” Carpentier said. Tears were streaming down his cheeks. “The hammers and nails.”

  “How about the Gullet?”

  “What?”

  “The other guy—the one with the missing insides.”

  “He’s…” The ravaged figure had lowered to a squat in the midst of the violence. Blood spattered his white flesh. The mother turned her attention from the nail she’d pounded into her daughter’s back to raise her cupped left hand to the empty man’s mouth. He caught her hand with both of his, steadying it while he brought his lips to it. He slurped its contents, which pattered out of his torn esophagus in red droplets. The boy held up both his hands for the creature to drink from; he did, blood trickling from the wound of his throat onto his ruined pelvis. “He’s drinking their blood,” Carpentier said. “They’re offering it to him, and he’s fucking drinking it.” The father’s benefaction was followed by the daughter’s.

  “And he’s satisfied with it?” Diaz said.

  “How the fuck should I know?”

  “Okay,” Diaz said, “okay. Be cool.”

  The figure Diaz had called the Gullet stood, allowing the family to devote their full attention to one another. With a shift of the creature’s head, Carpentier realized that he had been discovered. For a moment, the Gullet considered him, then began to move in his direction. “Oh shit.”

  “What is it?”

  “He saw me. The guy—the Gullet saw me and he’s headed this way.” Carpentier shifted side to side, trying to work his way forward out of the crate.

  “Hey!” Diaz said. “What’re you doing?”

  “Did you not hear me? The fucking guy saw me, and he’s coming over here. We need to move.” Carpentier pushed and pulled, but it was as if the box had shrunk around him. No matter what direction he turned, Cesare’s box held him fast “What is this shit?”

  The hiss of spray paint being discharged drew his eyes down. Diaz had grabbed the can of silver paint and was completing the broken circle from outside its circumference. Once that was done, he dropped the can and regarded Carpentier. “This kind of information,” he said, “it’s hard to come by. Lots of risk. The inhabitants of the Base are unpredictable. Most of the time, they’ll leave you alone. Not always, though. It’s a shame. I thought we got along okay.”

  “What are you doing?” Carpentier said. Already, the Gullet was approaching the room’s walls.

  “The price you pay,” Diaz said. “Well, the price you pay for us. Some kind of lesson in economics there, right?”

  “Come on,” Carpentier said. “Get me out of here, man, come on.”

  “None of the Friends is sure what the Gullet is, exactly,” Diaz said. He was backing towards the doorway. “Some say he’s a god, a remnant of one of the old pantheons, the bloody ones. Others say he’s a manifestation of the collective psyche—which, to be honest, sounds like the same thing to me. One member says he’s an ideation with teeth. I just thought you might want to know, we don’t understand him, ourselves. But he does have his uses. And, I’m afraid, his costs.”

  The Gullet pushed one pale hand through the wall, into the room. The air rippled.

  “Please,” Carpentier said. “Please man, please.”

  The empty man slid the rest of his arm out of the wall.

  “We’ll find someone to replace you,” Diaz said, “don’t worry.” He was standing outside the doorway. “Lot of people looking for work. Looks like there will be, too, for a while. Oh,” he added, before he left, “and the box should be fine.”

  For Fiona

  Noun, descriptive: like, or reminiscent of, Robert Weine’s classic Expressionist horror film The Cabinet of Dr Caligari. See also: like, or reminiscent of, the experience of watching The Cabinet of Dr Caligari. This word came into critical use immediately after the first screenings of Caligari, and appears to have since fallen into complete obscurity. In the contemporary era, even references to its previous existence have become almost impossible to find.

  ***

  FRAME STORY (Rahmenerzählung), Winn writes, at the top of the page. When telling the story of how The Cabinet of Dr Caligari came to be made, figuring out exactly who did what when—and, most importantly, whose ideas took precedence, in terms of the film’s unique creative vision—can be difficult, since almost every person who worked on the project appears to have done so under a sort of personal compulsion, one strong enough that the events of the film might be seen, in hindsight, to echo the events of their own lives.

  For example, like the Weimar Republic itself, screenwriters Hans Janowitz and Carl Mayer were living lives overshadowed by the legacy of World War I. Janowitz had served with distinction but emerged from the war a pacifist, while Mayer had faked insanity to avoid being drafted; this gambit led to a series of intense interviews with a military psychiatrist which left Mayer with a phobia about both authority figures and psychiatry alike…

  “Ever notice how the sky looks fake, sometimes?” Claire asks, from over by the window. She’s peering up through the disarranged shade, studying the clouds outside as if she thinks they’re hiding exam answers. Winn scowls, and replies: “Everything looks fake sometimes, Claire.”

  “‘Everything’? That’s putting it a bit strong, don’t you think?”

  “Not really, no. You still have that one-thirty with Doctor… whatever his name is?”

  Claire doesn’t turn. “Her name.”

  “Oh yeah?” Winn can’t recall ever having known that, not that it matters. “Well. Anyhow.”

  “We had to reschedule.”

  “When for?” No answer; Winn can’t tell if that’s because Claire can’t hear, or because she just doesn’t want to. So, making a conscious effort not to sigh, she returns to the argument at hand.

  According to Janowitz, he would never have gotten involved with the film industry if not for the influence of Mayer, who suggested they write a screen scenario together, she writes. Mayer, on the other hand, claimed he was working in the Berlin Residenztheater when he fell in love with leading actress Gilda Langer and wrote Caligari “for” her, planning to have her star in the movie. Janovitz also claimed that Langer encouraged him to visit a fortune teller during the war, who predicted that Janowitz would survive his military service but Langer would die unexpectedly; tragically, she did exactly this in early 1920, the same year Caligari would be shot. Her planned role—that of Jane, the girlfriend of the film’s nominal protagonist Francis and murder victim of Dr Caligari’s pet somnambulist Cesare—went to Lil Dagover instead, a turn of fortune that contributed directly to Dagover becoming one of the era’s most popular and recognized actresses.

  “I had a dream last night,” Claire says, still not turning, appearing to crane her neck at an ever more uncomf
ortable angle. “But not just one dream, you know? A dream inside a dream. Or a whole bunch of dreams inside dreams, maybe, and I can only remember the last one.”

  “I hate it when that happens,” Winn says, not looking up. She watches her hand dip into the page’s margin, adding a column of notes: Coincidental that in 1922, Fritz Lang cast Dagover in Doktor Mabuse Der Spieler, about another criminal mastermind/psychiatrist/hypnotist?

  Spieler = gambler, but also puppeteer, actor, player; literally, someone who gambles with others’ lives. So only two years later, Caligari was already a trope—the quack doctor who abuses his powers, by tricking unsuspecting patients (literally unsuspecting, ie Cesare the somnambulist, who murders while asleep) into doing his dirty work.

  “Me too,” Claire agrees, from the window, and for a second Winn has no idea what she’s talking about. Then she remembers the conversation they’re supposedly having and pulls herself back out, just long enough to reply—

  “So what was it about, this dream?”

  “Oh, you know.”

  “No I don’t.”

  “Yes. You do.”

  No particular emphasis on these last words, and yet—Winn looks up, finally, to find Claire staring back at her: eyes wide, white all ‘round the iris, pupils reduced to points. Her head cocked abruptly down at much the same angle it was previously cocked up, that same weird tilt, too sharp for comfort. How can you breathe like that? Winn wants to ask, but feels the words dry in her throat.

  Such a white face, paper-plaster bright, against a suddenly dark backdrop. Such rudimentary features, reduced at once to line without shadow, a mere sketch of themselves. The sky was blue, but now it’s black, shuttered, an eclipse-filter cast ‘round the sun’s penny-sized bone disk; all sounds from outside cease, muffled, drop-cloth quick. Like a falling curtain. Like a falling blade.