Deadfall in Berlin Read online

  “My mother didn't die in an air raid like I thought, like I told you. She… she…”

  “Go on.”

  Alecia's voice was calm, unruffled. But this would get her.

  As if I were jabbing Alecia with a red-hot poker, I blurted, “My mother was murdered.”

  Pause. “Murdered?”

  “Yeah. I was there. I went to get water, but then I heard her screaming and I ran back. There was this disgusting Gestapo agent kissing her.”

  “My God.”

  “I threw a brick. There was a fight. I was hitting this guy, this Gestapo man. This is where it gets all fuzzy. He hit me. No, no, he threw me against a wall and I kind of blacked out. But I kind of didn't, either, because someone else came running in.”

  “Who?”

  “I… I don't know.” I closed my eyes and recalled more. “Then there were gunshots—two, maybe three of them. Very close, very frightening. And then this person started chasing me, you know, coming after me. I ran and—”

  “Will, I—”

  “Wait, there's more.” Yes, this was the ghastly part, the bit that was killing me. “Somewhere inside me I know who did it. I can't picture the face. I mean, my vision was all screwed up, but I know I looked right into the eyes of the person who killed my mother.”

  I took a deep breath. This was the source, the artesian well of anxiety and self-hate within me: I had never revealed my mother's murderer.

  “Will, I'm glad you called,” she said, having professionally reined in her shock. “I have an opening at four. Can you make that? There's something else we need to talk about, too.”

  I looked at a clock tacked up on one of the brick walls. It was not quite two.

  “Sure, but you know what? I'm afraid to remember it all. I'm really afraid.”

  “I understand, but you have to keep in mind that these events took place thirty years ago, Will. That was World War II.”

  Out of nowhere I started to cry again. “I know, and I've been afraid so long.” I clutched my eyes. “God, you just don't know how afraid I've been.”

  “Afraid of what?”

  “I don't know. There was a circle of people that all turned against my mother and went after her. They might still be alive, they might come after me.” I blew my nose. “Oh, God, I don't know.”

  “Will, just calm down. If you want, do a light trance to relax. Don't do an age regression. Just cool off and then come down to my office. We'll talk about everything then.”

  “Okay.”

  I plunked down the receiver, wiped my eyes. I stared at the phone, almost picked it up again to make another call. But that wouldn't help. We'd been through it several times. My adoptive parents, now living cozily in Sun City, knew nothing of my former life. Neither did little sister now with three kids out in sprawling Schaumburg. They didn't know anything. Toledo, let alone Berlin, was out of their realm of consciousness. That's why over a month ago I'd fired off a handful of letters to Europe. Didn't anyone—genealogy service, adoption agency, old friend—know anything about my real family? So far, without a response, it seemed no one did.

  I stared at my one hanging fern, turned to my four packed bookcases, then my bike and a long stack of records. I couldn't stay in the apartment. It seemed suddenly cluttered. Grabbing my keys and wallet, I headed out, bounded down the stairs, pushed open the door, and rushed down to the street, Lincoln Park West. A small, one-way passage, it traversed the heart of the Old Town Triangle, and was lined with brick townhouses and tall wooden houses built by German immigrants in the 1870s. Plus a few relatively more recent three-flats like mine. Beyond trend, this place was fashionable, had been so for decades.

  The air was summery thick and steamy. Like stew. Eyes flitting, hands rubbing, I quickly headed toward Wisconsin Avenue. My appointment with Alecia seemed days not hours away. What was I to do in the meantime? Cup of coffee? Walk? There was, I realized, enough time to hoof it all the way to the Loop. But did I want to arrive at Alecia's with anxiety beaded on my forehead? No. Just take it easy, I told myself. Coffee in an air-conditioned diner. That would do. Then I'd bus it.

  Wisconsin was empty and I started across. Images of Berlin rubble were creeping into my mind. Siam, my elephant friend at the zoo, was long dead, I was sure, but I'd heard that Knorke, the hippo, was alive and proliferating. How odd, I thought, that some creature could bridge those thirty years from my youth to adulthood, and—

  Out of nowhere I heard tires peeling and screeching. Crude and determined, that's what they screamed. I looked to the left. A big blue car was barreling toward me, gaining speed and proximity with each second. At first I wondered why the driver didn't see me, why he didn't slow. Then I realized he did see me and that's why he was going faster and faster. Yes, he was looking right at me. And I now at him. I stood deerlike—paralyzed in the street as I studied the figure behind the wheel. It was a man, a black patch over his right eye, and my entire body went rigid as if I were looking at some monster that had stepped right out of a recurring nightmare.

  I stumbled backward, determined as I moved to get a clear look at the face. Then, however, a streak of light bounced across the windshield, hid him behind a glaring reflection. I turned to flee, but my heel struck a sewer lid and I felt my balance slipping away. I started to fall, heard the engine of the blue car roaring down on me, looked at the vehicle and saw little black dots of death on its grill. Bugs. Someone started screaming desperately. Then hands were poking out, grabbing, yanking. I felt myself jerked back to the curb, next crashing and rolling to the ground in a mass of arms and legs. I untangled myself from someone, a young kid with long hair, scraggly beard, and tattered bell bottoms.

  “Jesus Christ, man,” said the stranger who'd just rescued me. Quickly on his feet, he stared after the car, pointed, waved his arms. “What was that fuckin’ idiot trying to do?”

  I pushed myself up, brushed my hands, and calmly said, “Kill me.”

  Chapter 3

  The clinic where Alecia worked was on the fifth floor of a building on Madison, just off Wabash. A very sixties kind of building, boxy, with lots of glass and a receptionist to match. It all felt very professional down here—and it was— and that was the atmosphere at my shrink's as well. Clinical, from the professionally maintained plants on up.

  As I followed Alecia from the waiting room—why did I feel like a naughty schoolboy every time I traipsed behind her to her office?—I wanted to blurt it all out, tell everyone about the blue car. I held myself in check, though, even as she stopped at her door, turned, and motioned me in. She offered me not her usual grin, but something restrained, serious. I stared at her long face, into her brown eyes. What, I wondered, is it? What's the matter? I was suddenly more afraid. She wasn't quitting, moving, going off some place where I couldn't follow was she? I wouldn't be able to bear that, for Alecia was everything I desired. Tall, thin, beautiful, of course. But also smart, insightful, and more effusive than any shrink I'd ever encountered.

  I proceeded into the office, a square room with tan walls and a Kandinsky poster just like mine. Her standard issue desk was against one wall, then three chairs—two normal straight-backs and one that was heavy and bulky and looked out of place in downtown Chicago. It was a La-Z-Boy, the thing she used as a hypnotic launching pad, and I sat in it, studied her, admired that silky brown hair I'd wanted so much to touch.

  “Is everything all right?” I asked. “You're not going anywhere, are you?” Oh, shit, I thought, she doesn't have more vacation, does she? “Not another Club Med cruise?”

  “Six of us went sailing, Will. We rented that boat.”

  She looked at me, grinned, I knew, at my jealousies, but said nothing more. Christ, it was harder than hell to get to know her. I could spill out my guts and more, and all she'd say was that she'd had a “nice” weekend at a friend's or a “nice” vacation down south. While she was coming to know every ugly detail of my mind, it was all one way. I knew that she was single, very dedicated, dressed some
where between suburban and frump, drove a gray Mazda, and jogged. She did a marathon not too long ago, which undoubtedly was why her legs, now summery brown, were so trim and tapered. Once I squeaked out of her that she'd almost been married; otherwise she was very keen at keeping her private life private.

  “Everything's basically fine,” she said, “but there's something we need to discuss. Will, I—”

  “Wait,” I blurted.

  I looked over at the ivy plant on her windowsill; she, not the plant company, took care of that one and it wasn't doing so great. I'd calmed down, but the vision of that blue car was still cruising through my mind.

  “I need to tell you something, too,” I said.

  “Fine. Go ahead.”

  “Well…” What was she going to say about this one? What could she? “I went out after we talked. You know, to get a cup of coffee. As I was crossing the street, someone tried to run me over.”

  “What?”

  Her long face stretched longer, and I was pleased to hand her the story and have her shock confirm and legitimize it all. As I spoke, I plucked at some loose threads on the recliner and found myself having to repress a smile of sorts. I'd always wanted to be special, particularly in her eyes.

  As soon as I was finished, she looked away, a very dry expression on that thin face of hers. She took a pen and started rolling it in her fingers.

  “Will, I must admit I'm not quite sure what to make of this. Did you get a license plate number or anything?”

  I shook my head. “There's not much that can be done, is there?” I shrugged. “Oh, well, it was probably just some old drunk bastard.” I looked up, and asked, “So what was it you wanted to tell me?”

  “What? Oh.” She took a deep breath as was her habit when trying to appear calm. “Well, it's something almost as disturbing—the clinic was broken into last night.”

  My body tensed. This was my territory now, a place that over these past few months had become a haven of solace. Most important, from this spot reigned my Alecia, doling out love and hope to my needy soul. So was the clinic now soiled and no longer safe, ruined by some transgressor?

  “That's terrible,” I responded. Had Chicago, to quote an English friend, finally popped its crust? Flipped out at last? “Was anything taken?”

  “Unfortunately, yes.” She looked right at me and raised her eyebrows. “A number of files were stolen, all with names beginning W. Yours was among them.”

  I bolted forward in the recliner. “What?”

  “I'm sorry, Will, but your file is missing. It's among about a dozen that were taken.” She gave a deep sigh. “I don't think there's anything for you to worry about. The police were here this morning, and the general thought is that it's related to a child abuse case. We've been advised, though, to alert everyone who could be affected.”

  Oh, shit, I thought. “How much was in there? How much had you written down?”

  She looked at the floor. “A fair amount.”

  “Oh, man. I—” The idea of a stranger seizing my file and learning about me and my most inner neuroses horrified me. “This really bothers me.”

  “I understand and I apologize, but I don't think you have anything to worry about.” She was silent for what seemed like hours. “The police are working on it, and I promise I'll keep you fully apprised of what we find out.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Terrific.”

  She asked, “Can we go on?”

  “I suppose.”

  “We can talk more about this if you want.”

  “No.” Groaning and moaning would never bring back my file. “It's okay.”

  I knew her fake smiles, and she gave me one. I could forgive her a couple of those because usually she was so right-on and perceptive. A mind surgeon whose favorite tool was hypnosis, she could split open my head and go right to the source of a problem. I wanted to say it was because she was so brilliant—she was terrifically smart—but I think it had more to do with chemistry. In an odd way that I never understood, there was something similar about us. Consequently, she knew exactly where to cut, when to stitch. Needless to say, quite often I was putty in her La-Z-Boy.

  She said, “Regarding the age regression you did this morning—can you tell me more about it?”

  “Sure.”

  I forced myself on, telling Alecia everything, just as I always did. And as I recounted this morning's trip down memory lane and all the way to Berlin, she sat there, totally focused, nodding, questioning here and there, probing for a true understanding.

  Finally, she said, “Will, I'd like to put you into a trance. There're some nuances I'd like to check out. Some images. Would you be willing to do another age regression?”

  “Only if you're steering.”

  She smiled, this time the real thing. “I promise it'll all be safe and I'll bring you back if it gets too rough.”

  “And none of that weird stuff?”

  “No, none of it.”

  A few weeks ago she'd done a regression where she'd taken me back and I'd conversed with my eighteen-month-old self. In most ways it was an actor's dream, but I still didn't know how to identify it, fact or fantasy. Alecia had simply told me to trust in my imagination, that it had the power to take me where I needed to go in my unconscious.

  “Okay, Will,” began Alecia, “why don't you get comfortable.”

  I sat back, pulled the lever on the side of the La-Z-Boy. My head sank. My feet rose. Blast off time.

  “That's good.” She did her cue: a deep breath. “Just relax.”

  All right, I thought. Following her lead, I inhaled, exhaled. I knew that Alecia would enter a trance, too. Believing it gave them better concentration and keener insights, many hypnotherapists induced themselves along with their patients. And the thought of Alecia following me into my mind was thrilling, decidedly erotic. Never did I feel more close to her than in a trance.

  “You know how to enter hypnosis, Will. Just roll your eyes up and then slowly, very slowly close your eyelids. That's it. Good. Good.”

  I did as commanded, for I was eager to get to that special place. Craved it, because there I was safe. I wanted to get away. Leave this world and rise upward toward the great unknown. I could see it now. My rising and rising until… until I was so high that I disintegrated altogether and was then pieced together in some totally new and all-embracing form. Well, that's kind of what hypnosis was like for me.

  Her words slow, Alecia said, “Just breathe in and out. Relax.”

  But… but it wasn't coming. My mind felt cluttered, unwilling to slow down.

  “I'm sorry,” I said, “I can't stop thinking about some stranger reading my file.”

  “Let it go for now. We can discuss that later.” She exhaled. “Just let all the tension leave your body.”

  “Okay, but you don't have to talk so loud. I'm right here. I can hear you.”

  “Will,” she said, moving on and sinking her voice to a deep and seductive level, “for the next several moments concentrate on the tone of my voice, the words that I say, and your own physical sensations. Focus on them and allow them to build in a way that takes you into a very profound state of hypnosis. A state of hypnosis that you know well, for you are a good subject, someone who has all the senses at your command. You not only see things vividly in a trace, you hear them, feel them, taste them.”

  That's because I am who I am, I thought, lying there and sensing the foggy start of a trance. I'd always been able to set aside reality, picture myself elsewhere. I think fantasizing myself out of Berlin and into the tranquil Alps was how I survived the war. Even now, whenever I saw a movie it would seem real to me. I would become totally taken in by a film, would want it to go on and on, and would even be surprised when it ended. That's why I was a good actor, I knew. I could step out of myself.

  “Will, just imagine yourself at the top of a staircase. I will count from ten to one as you go down the stairs and descend deeper and deeper into a very heavy state of—”

 
“No, I'm the one who gets lighter.”

  She said, “Sorry. Picture yourself at the bottom of that staircase. I will count from one to ten as you climb higher and higher, feeling lighter with each step. One.”

  “That's better.”

  “With each passing moment you feel the weights of the world dropping away. Two. You feel yourself lifting from earth, floating toward a state of hypnosis that is relaxing and calm.”

  As my dear Alecia continued her litany of the trance—her voice nurturing like a mother's, luring like a lover's—I suddenly felt an enormous rush of energy pulse through my body.

  “Three.”

  I was like an enormous dirigible—no make that zeppelin—that had suddenly been freed of everything and anything that tethered it to here, now, a little office in Chicago. I was taking off, floating away.

  “Four.” Her voice was becoming increasingly dreamy, more and more mystical. “Five, you are halfway there, halfway to the top of the stairs. And with each step you take, you find yourself floating higher and higher into a trance. Six.”

  Yes, suddenly my arms and legs seemed to rise right off that La-Z-Boy. All my worries were like sandbags that fell from my body, dropped to the ground. As they tumbled away, I became lighter, flew higher.

  “Seven.”

  I saw it. The swirling blackness of a truly wonderful trance. My heart quickened. I could feel hypnosis seeping over me like a magical mist that embraced me, carried me up and into the skies.

  “Eight. You're getting near. Very near. Just remember, Will, you can trust this state of hypnosis because I am with you. And at the end of the session we can process all that you've learned. Nine…”

  Suddenly I felt as if a mind orgasm was just ahead and I was rushing toward it faster and faster and feeling the pull and having no choice any more, like being on the edge of a vacuum, and suddenly I couldn't resist the pull and my whole being focused on that one little window and God I was so close and the pull was so strong and there was no going back and… and…

  “Ten.”