City of Endless Night | Page 8

air. At last the elevator stopped and I was carried out to an ambulance that stood waiting in a brilliantly lighted passage arched over with grey concrete. I was no longer beneath the surface of the earth but was somewhere in the massive concrete structure of the City of Berlin.
After a short journey our ambulance stopped and attendants came out and carried my litter through an open doorway and down a long hall into the spacious ward of a hospital.
From half closed eyes I glanced about apprehensively for a black-haired woman. With a sigh of relief I saw there were only doctors and male attendants in the room. They treated me most professionally and gave no sign that they suspected I was other than Capt. Karl Armstadt, which fact my papers so eloquently testified. The conclusion of their examination was voiced in my presence. "Physically he is normal," said the head physician, "but his mind seems in a stupor. There is no remedy, as the nature of the gas is unknown. All that can be done is to await the wearing off of the effect."
I was then left alone for some hours and my appetite was troubling me. At last an attendant approached with some savoury soup; he propped me up and proceeded to feed me with a spoon.
I made out from the conversation about me that the other patients were officers from the underground fighting forces. An atmosphere of military discipline pervaded the hospital and I felt reassured in the conclusion that all visiting was forbidden.
Yet my thoughts turned repeatedly to the black-eyed Katrina of Armstadt's diary. No doubt she had been informed of the rescue and was waiting in grief and anxiety to see him. So both she and I were awaiting a tragic moment--she to learn that her husband or lover was dead, I for the inevitable tearing off of my protecting disguise.
After some days the head physician came to my cot and questioned me. I gazed at him and knit my brows as if struggling to think.
"You were gassed in the mine," he kept repeating, "can you remember?"
"Yes," I ventured, "I went to the mine, there was the sound of boring overhead. I set men to watch; I was at the desk, I heard shouting, after that I cannot remember."
"They were all dead but you," said the doctor.
"All dead," I repeated. I liked the sound of this and so kept on mumbling "All dead, all dead."
~4~
My plan was working nicely. But I realized I could not keep up this r?le for ever. Nor did I wish to, for the idleness and suspense were intolerable and I knew that I would rather face whatever problems my recovery involved than to continue in this monotonous and meaningless existence. So I convalesced by degrees and got about the hospital, and was permitted to wait on myself. But I cultivated a slowness and brevity of speech.
One day as I sat reading the attendant announced, "A visitor to see you, sir."
Trembling with excitement and fear I tensely waited the coming of the visitor.
Presently a stolid-faced young man followed the attendant into the room. "You remember Holknecht," said the nurse, "he is your assistant at the laboratory."
I stared stupidly at the man, and cold fear crept over me as he, with puzzled eyes, returned my gaze.
"You are much changed," he said at last. "I hardly recognize you."
"I have been very ill," I replied.
Just then the head physician came into the room and seeing me talking to a stranger walked over to us. As I said nothing, Holknecht introduced himself. The medical man began at once to enlarge upon the peculiarities of my condition. "The unknown gas," he explained, "acted upon the whole nervous system and left profound effects. Never in the records of the hospital has there been so strange a case."
Holknecht seemed quite awed and completely credulous.
"His memory must be revived," continued the head physician, "and that can best be done by recalling the dominating interest of his mind."
"Captain Armstadt was wholly absorbed in his research work in the laboratory," offered Holknecht.
"Then," said the physician, "you must revive the activity of those particular brain cells."
With that command the laboratory assistant was left in charge. He took his new task quite seriously. Turning to me and raising his voice as if to penetrate my dulled mentality, he began, "Do you not remember our work in the laboratory?"
"Yes, the laboratory, the laboratory," I repeated vaguely.
Holknecht described the laboratory in detail and gradually his talk drifted into an account of the chemical research. I listened eagerly to get the threads of the work I must needs do if I were to maintain my r?le as Armstadt.
Knowing now that visitors were permitted me, I again grew apprehensive over the possible advent of Katrina. But no