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Authors: Eric Lundgren
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into
the water afterward. I watched him do the same to a second chick, then I had to look away. To think, the staff here tossed
bread to that duck! They paid no attention to me and kept throwing bread in! Rewarding the murderer! The surface of the pond,
which you call beautiful, was littered with bloody fluff.”
Vollstrom stood at the window, appearing as a wobbly shade in the reflected castle down below. “The event was even more gruesome
with my eyes closed, in the theater of my imagination. But that wasn’t even the worst of it. After the ducklings were gone,
the very next day
, I looked up from my breakfast to see their wooden replacements. I knew then that Bernhard, that cold genius, had anticipated
the entire scenario. He had sanctioned the killing of the innocent ducklings and arranged for the manufacture of their wooden
replacements. All so that I would be reminded of it always, so that I could never forget.”
I had to interrupt my lecturer. “Bernhard has been dead since 1983.”
“In a way, that is true.” Smoking incessantly, Vollstrom claimed that there was a basement in the Traumhaus to which the residents
had no access. It housed the architect’s corpse, which was stored in a wide-berth coffin in a temperature-controlled room.
(This was not the first time I’d heard the rumor that Bernhard was entombed in the asylum of his own design. Pinkie claims
were dubious, but widely reported.) The corpse, according to Vollstrom, was re-embalmed twice a month by an admiring mortician
and consulted on key decisions by the seniorattendants. With the aid of a full spectrum lamp and dated shock therapy equipment, they had reanimated Bernhard as a part-time
administrator. Low voltage shocks from dozens of electrodes, attached to Bernhard’s slack facial muscles, could produce either
a “positive” or a “negative” expression.
“So they can only ask him yes or no questions,” Vollstrom said. “For example, ‘Is Vollstrom’s memoir harrowing enough to admit
him to the Klaus Mann Chamber?’ Then they shock the corpse, and they interpret the face. The thing is, it’s all so subjective.”
Vollstrom circled the room, as if homing in on his precise grievance. “The most recent installment of my memoir was returned
with the phrase ‘insufficiently harrowing’ stamped all over it. Can you imagine how it felt? How discouraged I became?”
“I’d like to read your memoir,” I said.
“You’ll find it in the library,” said Vollstrom. “With all the others. It’s part of the treatment. They are deposited twice
a month, shelved side by side, and they molder away. Much as I have moldered away in the Traumhaus for more than two decades
now. My memoir grows like some malignancy, feeding on itself. It has reached monstrous proportions. In order to really read
me,” he smiled impishly, “you too would have to be a resident here.”
8
W HEN I FIRST MET M OLLY, SHE WAS WEARING A RED SWEAT -suit and a gray plastic fish head. The annual Heaven/Hell Halloween party took place in a dilapidated, beery Victorian at
the campus edge. A wrecked Buick had been overturned in the driveway and stuffed with ketchup-stained mannequin limbs. Upstairs,
angels, fairy princesses, and a few stray demons listened to Purcell and smoked pot; downstairs, priests mingled with strippers
and sociopaths under strobe light. I stood in purgatory on the landing and smoked a cigarette. I was enjoying myself. Costume
parties were the only parties I’d ever enjoyed.
“What
are
you?” asked the fish in the red sweatsuit, approaching.
“I’m the dictionary,” I said, crinkling as I made room for her. I reeked of glue. “And you’re a red herring?”
“Nobody’s getting it, plus I can’t breathe,” she said, in her deep, almost masculine voice, and sat down next to me on the
landing. The red sweatsuit was refreshingly modest, I thought.She was one of the few women in the house who
the water afterward. I watched him do the same to a second chick, then I had to look away. To think, the staff here tossed
bread to that duck! They paid no attention to me and kept throwing bread in! Rewarding the murderer! The surface of the pond,
which you call beautiful, was littered with bloody fluff.”
Vollstrom stood at the window, appearing as a wobbly shade in the reflected castle down below. “The event was even more gruesome
with my eyes closed, in the theater of my imagination. But that wasn’t even the worst of it. After the ducklings were gone,
the very next day
, I looked up from my breakfast to see their wooden replacements. I knew then that Bernhard, that cold genius, had anticipated
the entire scenario. He had sanctioned the killing of the innocent ducklings and arranged for the manufacture of their wooden
replacements. All so that I would be reminded of it always, so that I could never forget.”
I had to interrupt my lecturer. “Bernhard has been dead since 1983.”
“In a way, that is true.” Smoking incessantly, Vollstrom claimed that there was a basement in the Traumhaus to which the residents
had no access. It housed the architect’s corpse, which was stored in a wide-berth coffin in a temperature-controlled room.
(This was not the first time I’d heard the rumor that Bernhard was entombed in the asylum of his own design. Pinkie claims
were dubious, but widely reported.) The corpse, according to Vollstrom, was re-embalmed twice a month by an admiring mortician
and consulted on key decisions by the seniorattendants. With the aid of a full spectrum lamp and dated shock therapy equipment, they had reanimated Bernhard as a part-time
administrator. Low voltage shocks from dozens of electrodes, attached to Bernhard’s slack facial muscles, could produce either
a “positive” or a “negative” expression.
“So they can only ask him yes or no questions,” Vollstrom said. “For example, ‘Is Vollstrom’s memoir harrowing enough to admit
him to the Klaus Mann Chamber?’ Then they shock the corpse, and they interpret the face. The thing is, it’s all so subjective.”
Vollstrom circled the room, as if homing in on his precise grievance. “The most recent installment of my memoir was returned
with the phrase ‘insufficiently harrowing’ stamped all over it. Can you imagine how it felt? How discouraged I became?”
“I’d like to read your memoir,” I said.
“You’ll find it in the library,” said Vollstrom. “With all the others. It’s part of the treatment. They are deposited twice
a month, shelved side by side, and they molder away. Much as I have moldered away in the Traumhaus for more than two decades
now. My memoir grows like some malignancy, feeding on itself. It has reached monstrous proportions. In order to really read
me,” he smiled impishly, “you too would have to be a resident here.”
8
W HEN I FIRST MET M OLLY, SHE WAS WEARING A RED SWEAT -suit and a gray plastic fish head. The annual Heaven/Hell Halloween party took place in a dilapidated, beery Victorian at
the campus edge. A wrecked Buick had been overturned in the driveway and stuffed with ketchup-stained mannequin limbs. Upstairs,
angels, fairy princesses, and a few stray demons listened to Purcell and smoked pot; downstairs, priests mingled with strippers
and sociopaths under strobe light. I stood in purgatory on the landing and smoked a cigarette. I was enjoying myself. Costume
parties were the only parties I’d ever enjoyed.
“What
are
you?” asked the fish in the red sweatsuit, approaching.
“I’m the dictionary,” I said, crinkling as I made room for her. I reeked of glue. “And you’re a red herring?”
“Nobody’s getting it, plus I can’t breathe,” she said, in her deep, almost masculine voice, and sat down next to me on the
landing. The red sweatsuit was refreshingly modest, I thought.She was one of the few women in the house who
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