The White Hands and Other Weird Tales (4 page)

Now that I was through the door and it closed behind me the sound of the broken voices ceased. I stood shaking and listening for movement but there was none.

Although all was now quiet, the smell of the mould was overpowering. Mould grew everywhere in this corridor. There were great patches on bare walls and even underfoot on the rotten, threadbare carpet.

An arrow scrawled in chalk told me to bear left and I found myself in another abandoned office. On a desk there were several duplicated sheets of paper, filled with handwritten words. The strip lighting here was as poor as elsewhere in the building and this, coupled with the awkward script, made the words difficult to decipher. Slowly I worked my way through it. The manuscript seemed to be some sort of manifesto, a statement of intent written by Golmi:

Mannequins in Aspects of Terror:

An Art Installation

by Eleazer Golmi

Many have ruminated on the attraction of horror in art and in literature, but all have drawn erroneous conclusions. The art of false horror seeks not to engender actual fear, but to distance those experiencing it and allow them a pleasurable frisson, the sense that one might approach without arrival.

But this installation is a full immersion into terror. It is designed to generate a situation where the individual is subject to that terror and participates directly in it. In this installation one does not play a character, as does an actor in a play; one is that character. Nor must the artist be exempt from this immersion. In order for the work of art to be authentic the artist himself
must also become a component of it. He must feel the terror that he creates.

Remember that there is always an end to suffering in life: pain, disease and madness lead either to recovery or to extinction, but such is not necessarily the case in art. In art a moment may be fixed for all eternity.

Imagine, if you will, a simulacrum whose existence is such a state. This is the purpose of my installation. The desolate spaces are my own little universe of terror. And the mannequins are my pretty creations, playing in the wilderness of torment, in the misery of one moment of supreme terror. And I, too, play with them, having deciphered the alphabet of the 221 gates.

The greatest fear of which I can conceive is not that of murder or torture, or any of the so-called horrors that man inflicts upon his fellow man. The greatest fear is the prolongation of life indefinitely, where all thoughts are endlessly revisited, where every memory loses its meaning by repetition, where all thoughts finally blend into one: consciousness doomed to immortality—a mind filled with the nightmare of its own being, a mind that is dying in perpetuity without final release.

Our flesh and blood dies and with it, so too dies the mind. But imagine a mind in a body that cannot die: A body of plastic and paint, carefully crafted in an aspect of pain, terror, disease, madness and decay. And then imagine what it might be like to be a mind imprisoned forever within that artificial body. What distinction is there between mind and matter? Imprisoned within a mannequin in an aspect of terror, the two become one.

The mind, now riddled with the continuous agony of its new body, built expressly for suffering, believes it to be the only existence it has ever known. Plastic and paint seem more real than flesh and blood. Who then is to say which of them is artificial? And should these new bodies start into motion, should those glass eyes turn in their sockets, whom then would deny their occupants the right to welcome visitors to this little universe of terror I have wrought? To welcome them in the only way they know how, so that the same visitors might also participate in their haunted cavalcade throughout all eternity?

Let me conclude by thanking you for choosing to experience my installation, for
choosing to contribute to my pretty little vision, where henceforth you will see only through my eyes.

YHVH Elohim Met.

As I finished reading I began to feel that I was becoming enmeshed in another man’s nightmare. Did I possess an independent existence, or like the mannequins I had encountered was I a construction of Eleazer Golmi?

The idea was ridiculous of course. I had not been dreamed into existence. It was just that in this ‘little universe of terror’, as he termed it, my life outside the building seemed far away and unreal.

I left the room and made my way once more along the mouldy corridor. The doors that I passed seemed to be locked, but through their glass panels I could see the silhouettes of more mannequins. Some appeared to have their faces turned to the walls and were set in crouching positions, whilst others were curled up in a ball on the concrete floors, surrounded by debris. There was one mannequin, however, who had been positioned in front of one of the glass panels. It was more horrifying than any I had seen thus far.

It was clad in the same shoddy suit as the others, but its expression was very different. The thing’s eyes bulged and its mouth opened in a grimace of agony that reached across the whole width of its plastic face. Its body was twisted over to one side in a contortion of agony. Awareness, frozen in time, that it had been shaped to suffer . . . and mingled with that awareness was an abyss of agony. This one could not look at me for it had its eyes rolled up in their sockets, its head thrown back as far as it could go.

I turned away in disgust. Another chalked arrow lead me into a further corridor, this one, to my great relief, had a sign marked ‘Exit’.

I would have run towards the set of double, rusted doors at the end of the corridor if I hadn’t felt a sudden stiffness in my limbs. It resembled the onset of cramp and my movements were becoming awkward. I felt like a puppet on strings.

By the time I reached the end of the corridor the pain in my limbs was becoming unbearable. I pushed open the double-doors. Beyond was a large room that must once have served as a canteen. The dining tables and chairs remained, although some were broken and others tipped over. Piles of rubbish, mostly paper and empty cartons, were strewn all around and the tiled walls were smeared with grease. Scattered among the debris were dozens and dozens of mannequins.

These dummies were not just tatty, but broken, with smashed limbs and fractured faces. But the agony of my own limbs was so fierce that I could hardly register the scene before me.

Through my pain, it seemed that the mannequin closest to me looked like a road accident victim, with broken arms and legs at odd angles and the top of its head smashed-in. Only the eyes were whole, the glass eyes, and peering into them I gained the impression that there was a mind imprisoned in this damaged form. It was experiencing an agony that no living thing could bear, that flesh and blood could not possibly tolerate. I could not begin to describe their state: to die and decay and yet not to be released—to be suspended in such a condition for ever. . . .

I moved on, screaming soundlessly in my mind, as my stiff limbs were willed into motion. All around me were dummies in their corpse-shells.

In the far corner of the canteen was a large mannequin, set apart from the rest. As I drew closer, its features, though as distorted as the others, became recognisable to me. It was a man with a heavy face and one of his eyes seemed larger than the other, giving him a lop-sided appearance. The mouth began to move, emitting a low, grinding noise.

As I stood before him, my living flesh and blood became decayed paint and plastic. I waited for him to explain what was happening, but he did not move or speak.

Pieter Slokker awoke from a dream in which he was trapped in a dark, windowless room. It was three o’clock in the morning, and it sounded as if someone was hammering at the door of his flat.
 

Slokker had not lived long in Paris. He had moved from Bruges to this cramped apartment close to the Gare du Nord Station only a few months before, in order to finish his studies in medicine. He knew no one in the mouldering old building save the garrulous concierge, and had seldom even passed a fellow tenant as he made his way up and down the torturous spiral staircase which led to his rooms on the fourth floor.

As he became more fully awake, Pieter felt a mounting sense of apprehension. The blows continued to strike the door; he had no idea who it could be, but ignoring the summons was no longer possible. Slokker got out of bed, threw on a dressing gown and made his way to the hall. Peering through the spy-hole he could at first see only the dim outline of a man.

As his eyes grew more accustomed to the dark Slokker was able to make out more of the man’s features. Such was the person’s appearance that he hesitated before unlocking the door. Pieter had encountered a few patients badly disfigured by their illnesses during the course of his medical training, but his insistent visitor looked worse than most. He was cadaverously thin, with an angular white face and a shaved head. But it was the man’s sunken, black-rimmed eyes and hollowed cheeks that chiefly disturbed Slokker. He was reminded of the time when he had been on a tour of the Hospital morgue with his fellow students. A pathologist had shown them the corpse of a man who had starved to death after being locked in a lightless cellar by his mad wife. The memory of this man’s appearance had long haunted Slokker’s dreams, and so similar was this night-visitor that he could almost believe that the self-same corpse stood outside. Was it possible, he wondered, that he was still dreaming?

Slokker’s state of full consciousness was, however, soon confirmed by another volley of blows against the wood, so loud this time that echoes pulsed back and forth along the empty corridor. Slokker began to draw back the bolts, though he was awake enough to remember to keep the chain on, allowing just enough space to speak to the caller. Thinking more clearly now he had begun to formulate a diagnosis. Surely this man was a drug addict and had found out that a medical student lived in the building? Perhaps he had come in search of supplies?

Although the door was open only a fraction, the outsider thrust his emaciated face into the aperture. His wild eyes searched frantically for the occupant and in a desperate voice he cried out:

‘Please! You must assist me, Monsieur. I cannot bear to be alone any longer! If you have any human feeling at all you will open the door!’

Slokker took a step back; the sight of that awful face close up, and the pathetic urgency of the request had unnerved him. He reminded himself that as a medical student it was his duty to offer any help he could. After all, the man seemed coherent enough, if rather disturbed. Drawing his dressing gown closer around himself, Slokker took the chain off the door and gestured at the man to enter.

The visitor staggered across the room without a word and slumped into a chair. Perhaps he was trying to compose himself, but his eyes darted restlessly towards the shadows. He appeared to be averting his gaze from the windows; whenever he turned inadvertently in their direction, he would put his head in his hands. After observing the man in silence for a few minutes, Slokker reappraised his initial diagnosis; he was beginning to suspect that drugs were probably not the cause of his visitor’s obviously dire condition. His sleeves were rolled up to the elbow and the deathly white skin betrayed no telltale track-marks. Perhaps, then, the man was simply unhinged and wasting away through self-neglect.

‘Please, it’s late. Tell me how I may be of assistance. Perhaps some brandy might calm you?’ Slokker used his most soothing bedside manner.

The man turned his gaze towards Pieter and tried very hard to keep it level. Then he laughed, a mocking chuckle, as if enjoying a private joke.

‘You are kind, yes. I will drink with you.’

He swallowed the brandy as if suffering from a terrible thirst, but the alcohol had little visible effect on him. Despite Slokker’s questions, the man seemed disinclined to speak. The medical student could do little but sit and watch his silent guest, though he was filled with unease at his presence. There was something truly unearthly about the man.

Occasionally, as the night wore on, he seemed on the
verge
of
revealing
something
about
himself,
but
would then lapse back into staring into space, occasionally laughing as if at the same sick joke. Any suggestion Slokker made to the effect that the visitor should leave was accompanied by renewed pleas of a piteous nature and he was forced to resign himself to the strange companionship.

Finally, just as dawn was breaking, the visitor made to depart and Slokker watched him as he staggered back along the corridor. To his surprise and interest, the man entered an apartment only four doors away. Had he tried the three doors separating them before hammering on Slokker’s?

As he wearily relocked his door and returned to bed Slokker resolved to discuss the matter with the concierge later in the morning. His strange neighbour required prompt attention, and possibly commitment to a psychiatric hospital. And Pieter would be very glad to do without any further nocturnal visits.

***

The concierge, who was an elderly man with a dislike of Flemish Belgians, ran his fingers over the white stubble on his chin. An unlit Gauloise hung from his lower lip.
 

‘He came from Apartment 205, you say?’

‘Yes. I don’t know his name. The man’s in need of treatment. I think he could be dangerous; to himself, if not to others.’

‘I find that hard to believe. The gentleman who occupies that room is Monsieur Deschamps. A little odd, I’ll grant you, but he’s careful about his appearance and always gives me a good tip. I haven’t seen him for a few weeks, but then he’s always liked his privacy. Lately he’s even taken to having his food delivered.’ He scratched his chin. ‘Though I haven’t seen the delivery boy for a while. . . . But I wouldn’t . . .’

Slokker interrupted the old man’s monologue.

‘Well, I am not leaving until you come upstairs with me and see for yourself. If you won’t I’ll complain to the landlord.’

The old man got to his feet with a long-suffering expression, and took down from its hook the duplicate key for Apartment 205.

A few moments later the two were climbing the spiral staircase to the fourth floor, the concierge grumbling as they made their way upwards. He paused several times to draw on the now lit cigarette. It seemed to Slokker that he took as long as he possibly could.

‘You’re a medical student, you say? Well, let me tell you, Monsieur, that I haven’t much time for doctors. One of you scoundrels gave me six months to live and that was more than twenty years ago! What do you think of that, eh?’

‘What I’d like to know is what you meant when you said that this Deschamps was a little odd.’

‘Odd, eh, odd? Well, isn’t everyone a bit odd in their own way? When you’re as old as I am, perhaps you’ll realise that too. Odd? I meant nothing by it. Only that when I helped Monsieur Deschamps move his belongings upstairs, oh, when was it?’ He had stopped again. ‘Yes, when I helped him I happened to glance at his books.’

‘And?’

‘Well, they were unusual books. Things about premonitions, fortune telling, magic and the like. He seemed ashamed of them. Oh and some on black magic! So what do you make of that, eh, my young Flemish friend! Eh? Black magic!’

At which statement the concierge laughed. This set off a violent coughing fit. He threw his cigarette to the floor and insisted they wait a while for him to recover.

When they finally reached 205 the concierge at first tapped gently on the door, calling out to Deschamps in a regretful tone, glancing disapprovingly at Slokker all the while. But there was no answer, even when the medical student shouted through the keyhole and they had both banged uninhibitedly on the door. The commotion had attracted a small crowd of people in the hallway.

‘Don’t you have a key?’ Slokker asked the concierge.

‘But he might just be out.’ The old man replied grumpily.

‘Open the door and don’t be such a fool! Something might have happened to him!’ said a large, powdered lady cradling a white fluffy cat. She seemed to have more influence over the concierge than Slokker because to the medical student’s annoyance he bowed obsequiously and mumbled ‘Of course, of course, as you wish, Madame,’ before drawing the key from his pocket and inserting it in the lock.

The concierge had some difficulty in dissuading the crowd from following them into the apartment, especially the powdered woman with the cat, but once they had been shooed away, he and Slokker made their way cautiously down the uncarpeted hall and into the main living room. The floor was littered with papers and discarded food cartons. Thick dust lay over everything. Clothes, old newspapers and books were heaped on the floor and Pieter and the concierge had to navigate between them carefully. The curtains were half-drawn and a stale, sickly odour permeated the room. Behind the curtains, newspapers had been stuck to the windowpanes creating a permanent yellow twilight. A brief further inspection revealed that the other rooms were in a similar state of chaos and neglect. There was no sign of Deschamps.

And then they came across a tiny, windowless room. Its walls had been draped with black velvet curtains. There was a large mirror on the wall, either side of which the curtains were parted, and a single chair with an electric lamp positioned just behind it. The bulb was of a very low wattage and the legs of the chair had been sawn off so that it tilted backwards. If you sat on the chair, you found yourself gazing directly into the mirror, only, judging from its height, it would not be possible to see one’s own reflection, only the mirror image of the darkness of the room.

‘Eh, my friend? What do you make of it?’ asked the concierge.

Slokker found himself completely lost for words.

***

Whatever had happened to Deschamps remained a mystery. It seemed that he had abandoned his rooms and Pieter Slokker was the last person to have seen him. The concierge reported Deschamps’ disappearance to the police and his name was added to their list of missing persons.
 

As the days passed, no more information was forthcoming. Deschamps had paid his rent for the month ahead, and the landlord decided that the rooms would remain unlet for this period, just in case his tenant should return. However, at the end of the month, the apartment would be re-advertised.

Shortly
after
his
neighbour’s disappearance, Slokker, who, when not being awoken by deranged neighbours usually enjoyed a good night’s sleep, found himself experiencing a bout of sleepwalking. One night he woke to discover that he had left his rooms, wandered along the corridor, and was trying the door of Apartment 205. This pattern of sleepwalking repeated itself two or three times every night of the following week and finally Slokker was forced to resort to keeping himself in bed by means of an elaborate system of cords with which he bound his ankles to the bedstead. He tied the knots in so complicated a fashion that any attempt to unravel them in his sleep usually resulted in failure. He often awoke in pain, his fingertips sore and bleeding from picking at the unyielding rope.

Perhaps inevitably, Pieter’s studies began to suffer. After two weeks of exhaustion, he began to feel that the only way to put a stop to his unconscious compulsion was to find a way to re-enter Deschamps’ apartment. The next day, while a deliveryman was usefully distracting the concierge with a disputed receipt, Slokker managed to ‘borrow’ the duplicate key from the hall office. He pressed it carefully into a tablet of wax he had prepared by melting a couple of candles.

As it turned out, having a copy key made was an easy matter. The key cutter in the booth on the Boulevard asked no awkward questions, and he made the key there and then, while the medical student waited on the street. Later that evening, when the building was quiet, Slokker made his way along the corridor. He carried with him a torch so that he would not risk attracting any unwelcome attention by switching on the lights.

The interior of the apartment was even more desolate by night. Nothing had been touched, and the only change was that a thicker layer of dust now covered the debris littering the floorboards.

Slokker flashed the torch around, making shadows start out from the peeling walls. Once in the windowless room he switched on the low-wattage lamp behind the chair and extinguished his torch. He sat down on the angled seat and directed his gaze to the mirror. The reflection showed only the velvet curtains behind him. He was looking into a rectangular slab of perfect blackness.

At first he focused on the surface of the mirror, but, because there was nothing of any interest to look at, he allowed his gaze gradually to relax. For some time nothing happened, but then the focus of his eyes altered and he seemed to be staring beyond the mirror at a distant object hidden in its depths. Slokker’s very gaze seemed to be bringing forth something from the darkness. Whatever it was, and he could not be sure there was really anything there, it was surrounded by a silvery-white glare. The object seemed to come closer the more he concentrated on it, and for a moment he had the feeling that something or someone was looking back at him, albeit from far away. Slokker could not be sure whether the distant vision was merely a product of his own imagination. The whole process was exhausting, and he found that he was developing a throbbing headache. Finally, he gave up the exercise and, as quietly as he could, made his way out of the rooms into the corridor.

Once back in his own apartment Slokker was astonished to discover that four hours had passed. He slumped gratefully onto his bed and for once fell immediately into a deep, untroubled sleep.