chapter thirty three

Eintritt In Den Wald

Mühsam poured strong coffee into small glasses. He stirred two generous spoons of sugar into one and raised an eyebrow towards Frank, his hand poised, the silver spoon trembling over the sugar pot. Frank wondered at the professional discipline that enabled the doctor to banish the effects of Parkinson’s disease when in theatre. The disease was progressive, so it would not be long before Mühsam would be forced to retire from surgery. Frank wondered what the other man had planned for his declining years as he waved away the offered sugar.

“I intend to write a definitive guide to the flora of the Black Forest,” said Mühsam. “I have a lodge there. And listen to Strauss.”

“I don’t follow you, doctor.”

“We are both intelligent men, Herr Kørner. It is clear that my days as a surgeon are numbered. One day your eyesight will fade, or your cognition will be impaired. You are a young man still, you appear to be in your late thirties; but we all age. How will you confront the inevitable evening of life?”

“It is not an issue I have ever thought about,” Frank lied. He visualised his developing twin body; the ridge covered in permafrost that loomed over the entrance to the cavern, the black pool of nutriment, the white empty body, the silence. This was his insurance against the evening of life, but he needed to win the approval of Mühsam and his superiors if he were to gain the freedom to leave the prison camp and make his way to Svalbard.

“I have rather been considering my task here. I believe I can develop a method of influencing the development of individuals in the womb that will have the effect you require.”

Mühsam took a loud suck of coffee. “You will be able to eliminate mental and sexual degeneracy? This is exactly what we desire. I have a list of a dozen respectable parents; eminent party members, who are keenly, even desperately, waiting for this to be possible.”

Frank tapped the rim of his glass, as if struggling with some inner turmoil. “Certain mental defects are already visible to me when I examine a cell. In this respect however, I must point out that there are very many forms of idiocy. I doubt that I will be able to offer an infallible screening process. The creator may always find new ways of corrupting the perfection of his subjects.”

“I understand,” Mühsam stood and selected a 78rpm record from a shelf. “You are familiar with the Alpine Symphony, I presume?”

“A brilliant sound picture of the region,” replied Frank with some enthusiasm. “I am interested in cold landscapes, and enjoy the music they inspire in fine composers.” Mühsam wound the gramophone vigorously and settled the stylus into the black groove. Frank listened to the tinny orchestra for what he judged to be a respectable length of time. “I think that the case of sexual degeneracy will be far simpler; it is a single defect, but I need to carry out some research; some comparative research.”

“What do you require? I am sure we can requisition whatever is necessary.” Mühsam closed his eyes and turned his face towards the ceiling, shaking slightly as if the music were a breeze and he an Alpine Spruce.

“Subjects. I need to take samples from many homosexuals and non-homosexuals in order to make detailed comparisons of structures in the cells.”

Mühsam opened his eyes, shook off the music and smiled. “We have many homosexuals to hand, already imprisoned. Surely we can begin with those for your subjects?”

“You are no doubt aware that incarceration can lead quite normal men to commit acts amongst one another that they would find abhorrent in other circumstances. For my research to be truly scientific I need to be absolutely sure that my subjects are wholly decadent by inclination from infancy.”

“You make an excellent point Herr Kørner. How do you propose to guarantee scientific rigour in this respect?” Frank took a pack of cigarettes from his pockets and offered one to the doctor. He did not want to appear to be too rapid in making his next comment. Both men inhaled the rich tobacco, and frank picked some specks of it from his lips before uttering the decisive sentence.

“You are aware that I have a strong grounding in deviant psychology. I propose that we infiltrate the disgusting underworld of these people in order to identify completely authentic subjects. It will be an extremely unpleasant task.”

The doctor lifted the stylus from the record. He had turned it in his trembling hands but did not replace it on the turntable. “You know those…those devils nearly destroyed my reputation at the institute. I cannot afford to be compromised with regard to this issue again. You are the expert here. I suggest that you infiltrate their world, report to me, and I will arrange for them to be swiftly…. harvested, as you might say.”

Frank felt the cold air of Svalbard dissolving in his veins and at the same time his penis began to swell with the promise of the mission. He sat quickly to hide the physical response. “May we have more Strauss? This will not be easy.” Mühsam could never imagine the lascivious couplings that filled Frank’s thoughts as he once again allowed the Alpine breeze to overwhelm his fragile form.

chapter thirty-two

Drawings of Shoes

“See a shoe and pick it up and all day long you’ll have good luck,” struck Frank as being an absolutely infantile caption for the beautiful drawings of footwear that he was considering in the Bodely Gallery. Here he found crass consumerism and delight in form engaged in a mutually debasing act of desperate onanism. At least he was aware of the uses to which he was putting his bio-chemical artistry. He took a long draught of the fizzing champagne offered by the gallery and noted the pale image of the artist himself distorted in the base of the fluted glass as it emptied. Warhol was propping himself against a fire extinguisher and opening a pack of Luckies, his eyes down, avoiding contact. Frank felt the urge to talk to him, misanthrope to misanthrope, but then realised he had nothing to say.

“Isn’t this hot, hot, hot?” Spong tapped Frank on the ass and went directly to Warhol, offering him a Chesterfield. Frank watched the cigarette being accepted, Spong providing the light. He wondered what they were talking about and then dismissed the subject as he turned his attention to another image. Warhol was, like himself, a hot property amongst the ultra wealthy of New York, and it was hardly a duty to enjoy the graphic delights presented in the gallery.

Frank had purged all thoughts other than those of line, colour and composition when he felt another pinch on his left buttock. “He wants to film me! He has a film project; you could be in it too. Why don’t you chat to him?” Frank wanted to turn and put his father’s impossibly sharp rock probe through Spong’s chest, but instead smiled. “I might well do that. How’s Jack?”

“Jack is Jack. This is the new thing! Who cars about pictures of the flag any more? Shoes are the new flags, consumers are the modern Medicis. Wealthy or not; although we prefer wealthy of course,” said Spong, and he pinched Frank’s ass again. Frank took a deep breath and blew the carbon dioxide out upon his fingernails. Spong’s end would be slow, painful and humiliating.

Frank watched Warhol leave with Spong, but not before he had an invitation to the filming session. After meeting Spong in Central Park he had conceived of a terrible vengeance, and he now had forty eight hours to perfect it. He could no longer take in the drawings; his mouth was dry and his fingers shook, crumpling the cigarette before letting it fall into the ash tray. He ignored several of his most illustrious female clients as he made his way to the street and had no recollection of the short walk to his Manhattan apartment.

Focussing the microscope brought calm. Now he was operating on a biological scale; a chemical scale, hearing the same internal clock that had begun to tick in the cavern some eighty-eight years earlier. He looked at the cells, his own cells which he had placed in the nutriment a few days earlier and noted how they had already multiplied at an astonishing rate. The power of the nutriment to foster life and promote growth was always remarkable, but this time he was not interested in progressing life; that was a gift he had reserved always for himself. Right now he was interested in inhibiting the power of the nutriment, and he had a virus which he hoped would stop the inexorable vitality it contained, and leave cells open to any of the millions of pathogens which fill the natural world. He carefully introduced the virus to the culture; saw it large dark and initially spherical amongst his rapidly replicating cells. Quite soon, although he had no idea how much time had passed, he noticed filaments joining the healthy cells to the larger dark mass. He left his laboratory and went out onto the balcony, where New York had achieved a brief impression of peace before dawn.

From somewhere came a cry; female, and the rattle of sheet metal. He looked for the moon, and found instead the full yellow circle of a clock on a nearby office-block. He let the night absorb him and imagined several million human actors frozen in whatever small screams their existences at that moment, required. He lifted his gaze to the stars and found them few and distant and infinitely cold.