The Sleepwalkers by Paul Grossman Read Free Book Online Page A

President von Hindenburg. The Berlin police are leaving no stone unturned. Since you were one of the last to see her, Doktor Meckel, it’s likely we shall wish to speak with you more.”
    “Yes, of course. But I’ve told you everything I know.”
    An orderly appeared. “Doktor Meckel, major street fighting in Wedding. The injured are starting to arrive.”
    “Herr Inspektor, you must excuse me.”
    “Yes, of course, Herr Doktor. Until we meet again.”

Five
    “Welcome to Hell.” The hatcheck girl winked at Gunther, handing him a ticket for his coat.
    “Simmer down, boy,” Willi cautioned. “Remember, this is work.”
    For more than a decade the very name
Berlin
had been a byword among the in-the-know sets for decadence and depravity, and Klub Hell on raunchy Friedrich Strasse dished up a particularly stagy version. Topless barmaids in devil’s horns. Surrealistic murals of Dante’s inferno. And boiling cauldrons of dry ice that kept the place in a perpetual fog.
    Gunther was in heaven.
    They were given a table on the mezzanine with an excellent view of the stage. Willi could see how a provincial princess might be entranced by the theatrical glamour of the lighting and décor. But who had sent her here? Doktor Meckel?
    When the lights dimmed, Gunther wiggled in his chair like a kid at the circus. Before a backdrop of lurid red gauze, the floor show began: a series of tableaux vivants composed by squads of scantily clad vixens, each scene depicting a moment of particularly prurient history—Joan of Arc being burned at the stake, topless; Jack the Ripper tearing apart a naked London lady of the night. These were followed by silhouette compositions,
avec
vixens behind the red gauze: eroticized torture mainly, forced gratification, bondage, humiliation. There was endless cracking of whips, spanking of fannies, and exaggerated cries for pity. Gunther, Willi noticed, was not merely enthralled, but embarrassed to the core, his long, bony face turning continuous shades of red and purple.
    “For goodness’ sakes,” Willi whispered. “Don’t act like you never left a farm.”
    “I never did, until Police Academy.”
    “Well, you must have had cows and bulls and whatnot.”
    “Sure. But they never spanked each other!”
    A buxom acrobat named Helga was soon twisting herself into a Bavarian pretzel. Three topless Negresses demonstrated the latest dance craze from New York—the shimmy-shake. And a satanic ventriloquist tried to seduce a sexy schoolgirl dummy.
    Finally all the lights went dark, except for a single spotlight onstage. The room fell into silent expectation. From the rafters a small choir of half-naked angels in silver sequins descended by wires, bearing with them a large cage. Inside, as if being cast from heaven into hell, was the Great Gustave in top hat and tails, hands held dramatically overhead, seeming to writhe in pain.
    The audience applauded wildly.
    Onstage, the angels released him and Gustave stepped from captivity, silently surveying his new environment. Then slowly, deliberately, tugging on each finger of his white gloves, he prepared to master whatever came his way.
    “Meine Damen und Herren,”
his deep baritone boomed through the room. “So this is Hell!”
    The whole nightclub shook with laughter.
    Gustave was a veteran showman, Willi knew from his cousin Kurt’s tirades. A born carny who’d mastered everything from lion taming to mind reading. After thirty years in the business, he was pure stagecraft, from his whitened face and dark eyes to the exaggerated silent-screen expressions.
    “Hell”—his voice trembled like a stage villain’s—“is a state of mind as much as a physical place. Which is why Klub Hell has dragged me down here tonight to journey with you into realms of the mind normally experienced only during sleep. The realm of the deep subconscious.
    “For our journey this evening I am going to require several volunteers, which I will choose from among the females.