B008GRP3XS EBOK Page 4

  Yes, of course ... I'll stick to the story.

  Well, she was in the room. When I closed the door she came up to me and put her arms around my neck. She kissed me on the mouth in such a way that I was close to losing my senses, but at the same time aware that here was the moment I had longed for.

  We spent the whole night amidst the sounds of organ music. Neither of us uttered a word. She was astonishingly inventive in the way she made love. My God, for a night like that any man would gladly pay with his life.

  When the morning came I got up and walked over to the window. I opened it wide, ravished by the sight of the sun rising above the city. Just then your men entered the room. They claimed the door wasn't closed but left ajar. On my bed lay the man. Dead. Apparently, he was strangled in some peculiar manner which can't be fully explained by your doctors. You state yourself you couldn't find anything which would indicate how it was done. Let me ask you two questions then ...

  How had that man been strangled? And from where had this mysterious medallion made of the metal of unknown origin and properties come? I know very well where you can find the answers to these questions, and many others raised by my story.

  Dear inspector, do you think that in this age of electronics and cinema verite, that Hell has ceased to exist?

  Rud was trying to lie still, though the pain had lost its piercing sharpness and changed into a pulsating heat, only sometimes reminding him of the steel objects with which they had tortured him. He was almost sure they had left some of their instruments buried in the wounds. He could not get up; the strong straps were still fastened around his hands, feet and neck. He was also trying to lie still because the sheet stuck to his back and any sudden movements would tear off the dried up scabs.

  He lay, waiting for the next interrogation. It was all right now; they had stopped beating him. Only the lamp shone straight into his eyes with an unbearable glare. Because of it he had swollen and itching eyelids. Each glance caused a shooting pain and brought tears to his eyes. He wished he could keep his eyes closed for ever, but after each interrogation they were always forcing him to read lengthy statements which he then had to sign. Now he kept his eyes tightly shut to give them at least that much protection. He was afraid he would go blind, and suspected that this was precisely what they wanted. The regular flashes of the lamp, powerful like the flash of a camera, penetrated the eyelids. He saw them as sudden eruptions of red, and those particularly strong ones as slow-motion explosions of whiteness spreading through the black. The eyelids burned, especially when he was blinking, but he preferred this to the blinding flash of the light.

  He lay, thinking that he would rather be dead. Every move meant pain. The throbbing in the wounded flesh indicated the desperate efforts of his body to cope with the injuries. He almost felt the forces of his organism fighting the infections and internal bleedings, as life struggled to return to the damaged tissue. He did not even try to guess the extent of the damage. He knew that his fingernails were pulled out; he saw that. He was convinced that they had smashed his jaw. He suspected they had knocked out many of his teeth, for he remembered spitting them out. His whole body must have been one big wound; it was frightening to think what he looked like. The thing he feared most was the return of his tormentors. His every nerve strained to detect the slightest indication - a noise, the vibration of the floor - signalling their return. He knew he was under "normal procedure" and that he had to go through all its stages. The Interrogators had used that phrase in his presence several times.

  Before, they used to visit him regularly. Rud would turn his head to see the face of the electric clock hanging on the wall. That was how he knew when they would be back, and in this way he had breathing space. But they caught on to it and began to visit him at different times, or maybe they had simply changed the timetable. Now it didn't matter anyway: during one of the interrogations the blood squirted out as far as the clock and the cleaning lady, washing the room with a hose, wiped the clock with a wet rag; the mechanism stopped. Water must have got inside and caused a short circuit. They took the clock for repair and on the wall there remained only a lighter patch with two hooks and an electric wire hanging between them.

  The lamp started flashing at regular intervals. It always meant that someone was coming down the corridor. He was overcome by an animal fear. His body grew taut, as if trying to break out of the fetters, instinctively shrinking from the expected tortures. Soon he heard the steps in the corridor. The grating noise of the key in the rusty lock caused a physiological reaction - Rud wetted himself. It was accompanied by a terrible pain in his burnt and massacred genitals.

  The steps resounded in Rud's head like a hammer. He tensed again in expectation of the first blow. He wanted to confess everything, he wanted to shout out his readiness, but the swollen lips did not want to move and the broken jaw responded to his efforts with a shooting pain.

  "He stinks like a skunk. Pissed himself. It's like a pigsty here," he heard a voice. "We'll have to report Blicyna. She's doing sod all, that bloody woman."

  Rud wanted to protest that it was not her fault but his own weakness, but the words could not pass the barrier of his crushed lips. He knew that Blicyna, the cleaning lady, would take her revenge for the report. She would be deliberately hosing his tortured body with disinfectant, for longer than necessary, setting the stream to the maximum force, tearing and salting the wounds. She would also, as if accidentally, push and pull the lying Rud, knowing well that it would cause him pain. She would, as if unintentionally, catch his broken fingers with the rag or prod his skin, burnt with cigarettes, with the end of the broomstick.

  When there were no reports on her from the Interrogator, Blicyna was less cruel; she did not bother, hurrying to other things. There was always a report when Rud defecated under himself, and they were more or less regular as Rud never left the table for interrogations, or even between them.

  Despite that, Rud greeted Blicyna's visits with relief. They meant that the interrogation was over. And when she tormented him no more than was her custom, he was almost happy. The most wonderful moment was when she covered his bruised body with a sheet.

  The lamp ceased to flash and the darkness returned under his eyelids. He tried to open his eyes but they were stuck with pus. Through his broken nose, filled with clotted blood, he smelt the odour of cheap tobacco.

  "Milankiewicz, dreaming's over! Wake up!" Someone pulled at the sheet, tearing off tens of scabs at the same time.

  Rud only groaned; the pain flashed in his head like lightning. Someone pulled off the sheet completely. Rud jerked in his straps.

  "There, there, it's all right now," the voice sounded different from the usual barking of the helpers or the persistent questioning of the Interrogators; there was no threat in it. Rud was crying. He expected something worse to happen at any moment. The tears at last forced their way through the dried up pus and rolled down his temples.

  "Ah, you can't open your eyes... Why don't you say so, Milankiewicz? . . . " It was the same, somewhat sleepy voice.

  But I do, I do, I would ... Rud wanted to shout it out, his heart overflowing with willingness to co-operate with the Interrogator.

  "Now, wait a moment," said the officer and walked to the glass medicine-cabinet where he picked up some eye-drops.

  Rud felt an excruciating pain, as if someone had stuck a screwdriver in his eyeball and kept twisting it. Then the pain stopped. He could open his eyes now.

  He saw before him a brutish, as if distended face belonging to the Interrogator Neuheufel. He did not have his helpers with him. Neuheufel participated in all the interrogations. He was neither better nor worse than the others. Only once, furious, he had pushed a pencil into Rud's left ear and burst the membrane. Sometimes, though rarely, he would burn the skin between his fingers with a cigarette.

  Now Rud was struck by the change in the Interrogator's appearance. Instead of a fiery pentagram, his hat bore a blue one. The hat also had a blue, rather than the
usual blood-red rim. The lapels on his uniform were of a similar colour.

  "You're in Heaven, Milankiewicz. Greater Punishment is over. I managed to arrange for an early release, without the last two sessions," said Neuheufel, at the same time loosening the straps restraining Rud.

  Rud only groaned.

  "Get up. I'll take you to the Medical now." Neuheufel was helping Rud who hissed every time the Interrogator's rubber-gloved hands crushed the scabs on his shoulders. Each move was painful; lying still too. Rud could not bear the pressure on his bruised, festering buttocks but did not know how to tell Neuheufel, who kindly, though firmly, supported him in a sitting position.

  Neuheufel pushed a lit cigarette between Rud's mashed, swollen lips.

  "Have a drag," he said. "Can you manage a walk?"

  The smoke scoured his aching throat. His lips burnt unbearably. Irritated by the cigarette, the chafed lip burst and a thin trickle of blood rolled down his chin. He started coughing, gasping for air. Each cough caused a paroxysm of pain in his battered guts.

  "Oh,Milankiewicz,pull your socks up," muttered the dissatisfied Neuheufel. "A young man like you ... and such a jelly."

  Rud's sight was still too weak to judge properly the state he was in. He only noticed that his right shin, broken during one of the interrogations, had healed crooked. His body was covered in scabs. He could not tell one wound from another.

  Neuheufel helped him to get up. Rud's limbs were not numb. Perhaps it was thanks to the various chemicals injected into his veins after each interrogation. He could not stand straight, his left leg was shorter, he was trying not to lean on the broken toes or the battered heels. The only remaining support was the outer edges of his feet.

  Neuheufel threw over Rud a grey, sleeveless prison shirt. Apparently, the regulations forbade leading naked prisoners through the corridors. The shirt had a big fiery pentagram on its back and a ten-digit registration number. Rud could never remember it.

  "Follow me. But don't embarrass me and don't shit yourself on the way, Milankiewicz," said Neuheufel. He opened the door and walked out into the corridor.

  Hissing with pain and limping on his injured feet, Rud hobbled after him. Neuheufel's polished boots flashed in front of his eyes. He could not keep up with the Interrogator's springy gait.

  "You're in no great hurry, Milankiewicz. I see I shouldn't have bothered with that early release. You don't even want to shift your arse from the Interrogation Room, do you?" said Neuheufel without turning his head, as he walked on.

  Unable to deny it, Rud began to cry. The accusation that he was being ungrateful hurt like a match being pushed under his fingernail.

  "No ... no ... I simply can't walk any faster," he mumbled out his first words.

  They stopped in front of a lift. Neuheufel ceremoniously pressed a big, blue button.

  "You'll go to the very top, Milankiewicz. Aren't you pleased?" He chuckled and lightly slapped Rud on the back. His back was one big messy wound full of pus.

  The Medical Committee was already waiting for him. The uniformed nurse led him to the middle of the room and to the small plinth standing opposite a huge mirror. On the left stood a table covered with a green cloth. One of the doctors sat in front of an ancient typewriter. On a little plate there were doughnuts, and around it stood glasses of freshly brewed coffee. The green cloth was generously sprinkled with icing sugar from the doughnuts.

  The committee consisted of four female doctors. They all wore field-caps, and white coats over their uniforms. Rud noticed that all of them had blue pentagrams on their caps and none wore the fiery sign. He sighed with relief.

  The doctors were healthy, rosy-cheeked, of unidentifiable age. They all wore heavy make-up. The one who had the role of typist was correcting her manicure with brightly coloured nail varnish. The room was filled with the intense smell of acetone mixed with the fragrance of coffee and cheap perfume.

  The sight of so many women, bursting with health and aggressive sexuality, overwhelmed him. In the Interrogation Room he had long lost the sense of time. Now he could not remember when he last saw a woman.

  One of the doctors, arguably the most beautiful of them all, with flaming hair, strong rouge on her cheek bones and cherry lipstick on her lips, watched Rud with interest. Her colleague sitting next to her unbuttoned her white coat and uniform to her waist, constantly moving and stroking her breasts. Between her hand and the material he caught glimpses of her smooth skin. Ignoring Rud, she was discussing with her neighbour the problem of looking after breasts and their firmness. In the end she took them out even further and, pretending she was screening them from Rud's eyes, she showed her colleague the nipple, boasting of its perfect roundness and colour, it being apparently the result of long massage and a specially prepared ointment. Rud's head was swimming. " Angels ... he thought, enraptured.

  The fourth doctor listened to the talk while nibbling at a fresh doughnut sprinkled with icing sugar and quietly slurping the coffee.

  "At last, they've sent someone sensible from downstairs," said the cherry-lipped one, picking up a file. "Normally they send us shrivelled up grandads, swollen fatties or aborted foetuses. Ho, ho, ho," she showed her surprise, leafing through the file, "what a womaniser. So many women ..." She grew silent, absorbed in reading the documentation. "Hm," she said and looked at Rud with interest. A light, sensuous smile lent her somewhat aggressive beauty a hint of charm.

  "So, your name is Rudolf Milankiewicz?" she asked after a period of meaningful silence.

  "Ruder, not Rudolf," he corrected her. "My father was an immigrant."

  "I don't mind. Take your clothes off."

  Before the surprised Rud could react, two female Guardians stripped him of his prison shirt. In the mirror in front of him he saw the terrifying ruin of his body. The ghastly puffed up face with hardly visible slits for eyes; the broken nose; the lips deformed and swollen out of all proportion; the horribly emaciated limbs, covered with dry blood, sweat and dirt; the open wounds and the grotesquely bent right leg that was never set properly; the ears hanging in shreds.

  Only after a while, as if waiting for Rud to examine himself in detail, the doctors burst out laughing.

  "But men usually have something else there, not scraps like that," cracked the one who was doing her fingernails, and the rest cackled.

  "Is he a man at all?"

  "He's worse than a grandad or a cardiac!"

  "What a wreck!"

  Flushed and animated, the doctors were shouting one over the other, almost overflowing with feminine sexuality.

  "Well, we'll see what we can do for him," said the beautiful one and came closer.

  "Our boys did a right job on him," she said after a while, prodding the remains of Rud's genitals with the pencil. "Torn up and burnt shreds, now infected and full of pus," she said. "Point one: fit for complete removal."

  "They were connecting electrodes, pulling with little hooks ..." mumbled Rud.

  "Correct. That's why the skin is charred," she answered. "But no worries. We'll fix you with a pretty little pipe. You'll piss without pain."

  Rud's heart fluttered like a caged bird.

  "Can you feel anything?" she asked, for a change sinking the pencil in the huge, rotting wound stretching from his collar-bone to the top of his shoulder. She had to push it deep before Rud hissed with pain. She deliberated for a long time over his leg, but in the end came to the conclusion that the bone was rotting and the leg would have to be amputated below the knee.

  The slow thumping of the ancient typewriter was sealing the fate of his wretched body. The typist kept making mistakes, swore and complained that the typing was ruining her nail-varnish.

  The doctor spent even more time over his face.

  "I think the ears can be just as well altogether removed. There's hardly anything left of them anyway. The nose ..." she hesitated, "the nose could go too." She must have suddenly felt pity for Rud, for she added: "You are a tricky case. There's very little healthy skin
left on you that we can use for grafts."

  "They were beating me till the skin burst," he said. "Poured acid into my ..armpits

  "Stop moaning, Milankiewicz," she barked at him and her beautiful face hardened unexpectedly into the expression he used to see on Neuheufel's face. "It's a normal procedure for interrogations. You didn't get there without a reason."

  And then she changed her tone again.

  "I can make you the ears but then there won't be enough for the piss-pipe," she said more kindly. "I'll make you a little hole, like a girl's, but you'll have to wee-wee squatting."

  "Maybe we should turn him into a girl altogether," giggled the one who was playing with her breast. "We'll make him a little hole and breasts stuffed with sponge and then we'll have enough skin to make him a pretty little face."

  "No ... No, you can't. I object," protested Rud violently.

  "If you object to the operation we won't treat you at all, Milankiewicz," said the beautiful one firmly. "You are free to choose. With rotting genitals and that wound on your shoulder you won't last long. Ten days at the most. There are already the beginnings of a general infection."

  Rud shuddered.

  "Your consent to all operations and amputations is the condition of your treatment. You have absolute freedom of choice. Here you are, choose."

  She waited a little while for his answer. Rud went numb with fear.

  "We won't change him into a woman. The documents state he is a man so he'll have to stay a man. It all has to tally."

  "We can cut the leg above the knee and then we'll have more skin to repair the face," mused the one eating the doughnuts.