Evil Dreams (25 page)

Purposely avoiding the subject of Jon and his dream, they indulged in more small talk about her trip. When they finished, he seemed more alert. Leaving the dinner table cluttered with the debris of their meal, they went to the far end of the living room where stereo equipment stood against the wall. Threading the tape onto the machine, he adjusted the volume before sitting down on the couch. He kicked off his shoes, looking across the room where she sat curled up in a large chair.

The tape inched toward the moment he anticipated, all the while watching Marie intently to see her reaction. She smiled at his more than passable albeit rote German, when he said,
“Wie heissen Sie?”
The dark laughter, which met the query, froze her lovely features in a questioning mask.

Again, Sam’s voice asked in German, “What is your name?” The laughter filled the room again and when it died away, silence crushed in on the two psychiatrists. He remembered fumbling for the paper in his pocket. The intensity of the void brought Marie’s eyes up to glance at him. He tiredly stared at her. She was just about to speak when Sam’s voice sounded from the speaker.
“Ich spreche nicht Deutsch! Wie heissen Sie?”

She held her breath and sat forward as though knowing this time there would be some response other than the laughter. The only sound in the living room was the quiet hum of the recorder’s motor as it turned. Then, “
Adolf Hitler!”
came out of the speakers in a voice dissimilar to Jon Ward’s but exactly like the one that had previously spoken German.

Marie gasped. “My God, Sam,” she managed when he stopped the machine. “What do you make of that?”

“What do
you
make of it, Marie?” he shot back.

She leaned back, silent. After several minutes she asked, “Is there more?”

“Yes.”

“In German?”

“No. Surprisingly enough, he cooperated, agreeing to speak English. Want to hear it?”

“By all means.”

He flipped the machine’s control bar forward, listening once more to the unfamiliar voice. Having heard the tape so many times the previous night, he mouthed the words as they were spoken. When it finished, he stopped the recorder before turning to confront Marie. Her ashen face brought the freckles out more boldly than he had ever seen.

“What do you believe at this point, Sam?” she asked after several minutes of silence passed. “Do you believe what you’ve heard?”

Shrugging, he walked to the large window overlooking the outer drive and Lake Michigan. Lines of cars fled past hurriedly, seemingly to escape his detection from above. “I’ve listened to that tape at least eleven or twelve times and I still don’t know what to believe. Are we dealing with another personality—a personality so devious as to assume a well known person’s name? Could it be a wildly complicated Oedipus complex? Could it be—” and his voice trailed off.

“Could it really
be
Hitler?” Marie quietly finished for him. They stared at each other.

“Come on, Marie, you don’t believe that, do you?” he scoffed.

“At this point, with what little we know,” she said, smiling in a reassuring way, “I think we should keep our minds open to most anything.”

“I can’t accept it,” he said curtly. “I can’t accept a male Bridey Murphy who thinks he’s Adolf Hitler. Do you realize what you’re saying? That this is Adolf Hitler manifesting in the body of my patient!”

“I didn’t say I believed it—not yet, at any rate. There
are
a couple of points going for that particular argument, however.”

“What? I don’t believe the direction you’re taking. Where’s my cool headed, unflappable, Vienna-trained psychiatrist?”

“I’m right here, Sam. That’s primarily why I’m being so open to the idea.”

“You’ll have to explain yourself. You’ve lost me someplace.”

“You remember how I kept saying something about the first part of the dream seemed somehow familiar to me?”

“I remember,” he said, sitting on the ottoman opposite her.

“When I was going to school, I did a thesis on the psychology of mass hypnosis. In fact, it was the subject matter of my talk the first time we met. Remember?”

He smiled, acknowledging the pleasant recollection.

“While I was doing my research,” she continued, “I naturally gravitated to a study of Hitler and his ability to sell his ideas so convincingly. In essence, he was mesmerizing thousands of people at once. His record, I think, speaks for itself.”

“So far, I agree with you. But I don’t understand the connection to what you’re saying now and what it has to do with Jon Ward’s dream.”

“All right, Sam. Listen carefully because I’m not certain I’m right about this. Let me have his folder.”

He retrieved the file from the coffee table in front of the couch. Handing it to Marie, he sat down again, watching while she carefully went through the papers.

“All the pieces,” she said while scanning the neatly typed sheets, “at least for the first part of the dream, fell into place for me when the voice said it was Adolf Hitler. Here it is,” she said, withdrawing his notes on the first and second sessions. “Remember now, the voice said he didn’t want to recall the first part of the dream because it was too painful for him to do so.”

He nodded.

“The reason I felt it seemed so familiar was because I had studied him closely. Now I believe the first part of the dream is a reliving of his career in vivid symbols. He simply can’t bear the thought of how his grand plan failed.”

“You’re serious, aren’t you?” he said, shifting forward on the ottoman.

“I’m very serious. I’m not saying I believe it completely at this point, but I do see similarities between his career and the first part of the dream.”

“Go ahead.”

“First, the dream always started with the sound of cheering. ‘Screams of adulation,’ to use Jon’s words when describing the sound. The
dee-hah
rhythm of the cheers could be
‘sieg heil’
cried over and over. I’m not certain about that aspect, but I’ve seen a Nazi propaganda film showing thousands of people gathered at a rally. The cries of the people had a definite
‘dee-hah’
beat to it. Just as he describes.”

“Score a point for the ‘other voice,’ then,” he said quietly. “What about the running, and being all alone?”

“Hitler felt as though his generals had deserted him toward the middle of the war. By the end of it, he trusted absolutely no one. The running in a vacuumlike situation could be his interpretation of being deserted by those he trusted. Toward the end, he made all the decisions concerning the war.”

Sam shook his head. “What about the trees turning into people and then burning? Have you got an answer for them?” His voice, ringing with disbelief, quavered.

“Probably the Jews he ordered murdered. I’m not sure. They were the obstacle he had to overcome to gain purity in the German super race. He probably feared retaliation at their hands toward the end of the war, as much as defeat at the hands of the Allies.”

“The whole thing is unbelievable,” he said. “The way you’re describing it, it sounds plausible and incredible at the same time.”

“The woman,” Marie continued, “in the first part of the dream, could be Eva Braun.”

He shook his head slowly before nodding in mute agreement.

“It’s been reported she committed suicide at the same time Hitler did, but she didn’t shoot herself. She supposedly took poison,” Marie said.

Sam’s eyes brightened. “That would explain her clutching her throat and collapsing without the gun going off—the one Hitler tried to kill her with. Hey, wait a minute. If she killed herself with poison, how come he tries to kill her in his dream?”

Shrugging, she said, “Perhaps he feels responsible for her death. For all we know, he insisted she commit suicide.”

His tanned complexion paled a bit. “I suppose,” he said softly, “the recurring statement about being alive, or still living, or whatever the hell was said, strengthens the argument?”

Marie thought for a moment before speaking. “I suppose it does. If Adolf Hitler suddenly found his spirit still existed after he shot himself, he would naturally relish the fact that he had beaten death as he had anticipated it to be.
Ich
lebe noche!
I still live! He said it the first time Jon spoke German. In fact, he said it directly to you, Sam. Then, when Jon fell asleep and accidentally recorded himself having the dream, the same gloating boast—I still live, was said. Now, in the third hypnotic trance, it’s the same theme, over and over. I think it reinforces the idea but we should examine the whole of the dream.”

“I was just going to bring up the second part of the dream,” he said. “The part the voice was willing to talk about. Do you believe that’s on the level?”

Thinking for a moment, she pursed her lips before speaking. She riffled through the pages, pulling one of them out to study before continuing. “It could be. Listen to this. This is from the translation I made the first time the voice spoke in German.
I have been very weak—every day I become slowly stronger. My host has been difficult to conquer. Soon I will control him!”

“I see what you’re driving at, Marie,” he said. “The second part of the dream was never experienced by Jon because each time he had the dream, he woke up at the suicide of—of—of Hitler. Christ! 1 can hardly bring myself to say it, much less say it in a way that lends credence to the theory. Apparently the only way the other voice—Hitler—had any degree of control over Jon was when he was either asleep, or very relaxed, or—or hypnotized. He was able to
live,
if you will, or experience the second part, when Jon was on the angiogram table in a very relaxed state. The hypnotizing speaks for itself. I removed his inhibitions where control over his mind was concerned. I left the door wide open for this—this thing to happen. The incident in Galena was the first time he didn’t have enough resistance. Or the other one had too much strength. Whichever, the result was the continuation of the dream under so called normal conditions.”

Marie nodded, understanding what he said, but held up her hand in a gesture bringing him to a stop. “Don’t get too optimistic, Sam.”

“I’m not. I’m not even certain I can buy any of this, even if all the proof indicates that such is the case. The entire idea seems just a little preposterous.” Snorting, he rumpled his curly hair.

“Why? Why does the possibility seem preposterous?” she asked, sitting forward.

“What’s the purpose of it? Why would Hitler’s spirit—no, make that personality— suddenly surface here in Chicago after all these years? It doesn’t make sense.”

“If you discount the second half of the dream as it was explained by the voice while Jon was under hypnosis, it doesn’t. But if you take what was said in truth, it almost makes good sense.”

Fumbling through the folder, she withdrew a sheet and said, “Here’s more evidence of a sort: his sudden, spasmodic abhorrence of alcohol. His limp. His apparent sore arm. What’s this?” She held up the memo he had written that morning about Jon’s change in personality the previous evening and wanting a dog.

He explained what Trina had said and wondered about Marie’s reaction when she merely nodded. “I don’t understand about his arm, though,” he said, shaking his head.

“When the assassination attempt on Hitler’s life failed, he was injured slightly but retained stiffness in an arm and one leg. As a result, he limped.”

“The same arm and leg?”

“The same.” The expression on his face told her she should continue. “Let’s deal with the facts as they are and not as they appear to be. If what the other personality said is true, then the
why
is readily explained. The
how
and
who
and
where
are more or less taken care of. We know
who
the other voice says he is. We know
how
and
why
he came to be locked into the same body as Jon Ward. The physical evidence concerning the sore arm and the limp seem to verify it. The unknown factors at this point I would say, are what happens next and
where
do we go from here?”

He digested her evaluation for several moments. “I think we could expand on
what
a little more than “What happens next.’ What does he want? What is he after? We could also extend the
how.
How does he intend to accomplish whatever it is he is after?”

“How do we know he wants to accomplish anything, Sam? For all we know, the spirit of Hitler, or this particular personality, may be a victim of circumstances just as Jon is.”

“Are you saying he had no choice in the matter, Marie?”

“Perhaps.”

Reaching for the open folder, he took it from her lap. He thumbed through the stapled sessions, withdrawing the second hypnotic trance. Scanning the contents for a moment, he stopped short, looking up at her. A confident smile played on his mouth. “Then how do you explain what he said in the second trance when he spoke German?
Soon I will control him.
He means his host—Jon Ward. Then he said.
Then, I can claim what is rightfully mine.
He has a purpose all right, an intent of will that seems as though it was almost planned before he died— or formulated soon after death.”

Her face whitened as she sat back in the easy chair. “He also said something about retaining information—the coordinates and directions to something,” she added quickly. “If your theory is correct, Sam, these aren’t the ramblings of a recently freed spirit. They’re the plans or the most important memories Hitler retained when he died.”

“You mentioned the coordinates,” he said. “I had them checked. They pinpoint the Four Corners in the southwestern part of the States.”

The questioning look on her face brought further explanation from Sam. “I have no idea what the connection is,” he finished.

“Did you find out anything about
Zozobra?”

“They’re still looking.”

She frowned and said, “I’ll call a friend of mine at the University. Maybe he can help.”