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“So that’s it?” Jane asked. “We’ve come all this way, he’s doing everything he can to make us miserable, and you’re just- not going to help us?”
“I, well, maybe if you were in my position, you’d understand,” Dr. Stein said. “I really, really wish it didn’t have to be this way; I like you two. I really do. But, you know, there’s the other patients, and between us, I’m the only one left who can actually give them the treatment they need, so… Look, he’d want me to turn you both in, and I’m not doing that, am I?”
“He… hurt… us,” Cesare muttered, curled up in the corner of the office.
“That’s true,” Jane agreed. “We can’t let him get ahold of you. Dr. Stein, can’t you at least tell us when he’ll leave his office? We can look for the keys then.”
Dr. Stein shook his head. “He keeps the keys on him at all times; the keyring is always in his pocket.”
Cesare suddenly drew his head up. “Pocket…?” he whispered.
“Yes,” Dr. Stein said. “Do you know what a pocket is?”
Cesare nodded, grinding his teeth in irritation. “Know… how to… get them,” he muttered, although the idea made him shudder in revulsion.
“Tell me,” Jane said. Cesare whispered his idea to her, and she gasped, drawing back. “Are you sure?” she asked.
He nodded, still trembling. “Must,” he said. “Will… work.” He bowed his head. “Trust… me.”
“I trust you, but I’m worried. That’s a very dangerous idea; please be careful.”
He’d be more careful than he’d ever been in his life; he’d have to be. He stood up, hands shaking as he reached for the door.
Dr. Stein cleared his throat. “Come back here when you’re done,” he said, “but- um, only if you’re absolutely sure nobody’s watching. Miss Olsen and I will be waiting for you, unless… I mean, we’ll be waiting.”
“Good luck,” Jane added. “Once you get back here, we’ll figure out how to find Francis.”
Dr. Stein turned to her. “Wait,” he said. “Did you say Francis? That… that really complicates things.”
-
Cesare wandered out of the office, his heartbeat pounding so loudly he could barely register anything else. Get the keys, he reminded himself as he tiptoed down the hall, keeping his hand on the wall and his eyes wide open. He made it to the end, finding himself back in the lobby and wondering where Caligari’s office was. The asylum’s many floors and passageways made it difficult to navigate, especially when he was as nervous as he was.
“Why, hello there! Are you lost?” a voice asked. He looked down to see one of the staff, speaking to him as if he were a very small child.
“Direc…tor,” he managed to choke out.
“Oh, you want to see the director? He’s very busy right now. He’s looking for a girl in a white dress; have you seen her?”
Cesare wasn’t used to lying, but shook his head no.
“That’s too bad, now. He also said he was looking for a tall, thin man in a black bodysuit and stage makeup- that’s you, isn’t it?”
He fidgeted, but nodded anyway. Keys.
“You’re a nice, obedient patient, aren’t you?” The man took a bag of candy out of his pocket and handed one to Cesare. “Here; have a treat for being so good.”
Cesare, who usually never refused food, didn’t take it. “Director,” he repeated again.
“Of course,” the man said, taking his hand. “And how lucky you are that you get to see the director; he’ll make you feel all better! Just like he did with the rest of us, actually… you’re going to make the other patients so jealous!”
Cesare stopped in his tracks, blinking. “Did… to you…?”
“Oh, yes. Of course, I can’t remember a thing before it, but I’ve never felt better after meeting with him. Almost makes me wish I was one of you, but instead I’m doing the next best thing, which, of course, is working for him. Bless him for everything he does, taking care of this asylum after the previous director was found to be a murderer! They say he forced one of the patients to carry out his dirty work; can you believe it?”
Cesare blinked. He certainly could.
“If I saw someone forcing a patient to commit murder, why, I’d put a stop to it as best I could! We always have to protect our patients; that’s what the director says. But let’s not talk about awful things like murder; I don’t want to scare you. It’s no subject for innocent, damaged souls like yourself to hear about. Now, here’s the director’s door; you hurry along inside.”
Cesare let go of his hand, staring up at the triangular door that appeared to jut out of the ground. As much as he dreaded going inside, he couldn’t stand another second listening to the doctor’s condescending prattle. Still, he reminded himself to try to remember it; it seemed important to know that Caligari had done something to the new staff, whatever that was.
“Are you sure you don’t want a nice treat for being so quiet?” the man asked, taking the loathsome bag of candy out of his pocket again and shaking it in front of his face.
Pocket! Cesare thought, and snatched the entire bag from his hands, slipping through the door before he could protest.
-
The first thing Cesare noticed in Caligari’s office was the skeleton, hanging on a hook by the wall. He wasn’t exactly sure what it was, but he felt his own ribs underneath his leotard and shuddered. The odd humanoid structure must have once been inside someone, he figured. How did it get out?
“So you’ve come back.”
Cesare almost didn’t notice Caligari sitting at the desk, he was so preoccupied by the skeleton. He automatically snapped to attention, clutching the bag of candy in one hand behind his back. “Came back… for you,” he muttered, forcing himself to keep still.
“Oh, did you, Cesare?” Caligari breathed, getting up. “So you’ve finally decided to be useful. It’s just as well; I could use your help. You’ve been lazy these days, haven’t you? And you know I don’t like it when you’re lazy.”
Cesare gulped. “No,” he answered, trying not to flinch as Caligari stroked his cheek.
“We have lots of work to do,” Caligari continued. “There’s a particular target of mine I want you to dispose of- tonight. He’ll learn what it means to mess with us, won’t he? And then I want you to kill the girl- oh, but we’ll let her suffer first. We’ll savor it. We deserve this, you know… after what she did to you. I want to wake up to her voluptuous screams tearing through the night, like…” He gave a deep sigh, his eyes half closed.
Cesare felt sick to his stomach, knowing whatever Caligari was thinking, it was very, very bad. I can’t kill her, he thought. I can’t kill anyone. Don’t want to anymore. He looked at Caligari, locating the pocket on the side of his hip. Inside, he could make out the keyring.
“Kill… for you,” he said, feeling his knees go weak.
“You will,” Caligari answered, and grabbed a fistful of his hair. “And after that, everything will be back the way it was. We’ll purge the world of its filth as they gaze in awe at your succulent form… drawn like flies to the sweet nectar of their own destruction as they crowd around you- my wrath, my desire, my reason, my own...” As he continued to rant, near-drunkenly in a lustful stupor, Cesare screwed his eyes shut.
“Yours,” he muttered, hoping the fear in his voice didn’t come through. “Yours. Yours. Yours.”
He felt Caligari’s hands move down his body, sliding along each of his vertebrae. Cesare held his breath, and pretended to slacken in his arms. As he did so, he slipped the keyring from his pocket, replacing it with the bag of candy, which was roughly the same weight. The second he had the keys in hand, he pushed himself away, gasping for air as he ran to the door and flung it open.
“You-!” Caligari roared, and swiped at him, but Cesare maneuvered out of his reach, running down the hall as fast as he could. Caligari stormed over to the doctor waiting outside the office, the one who had led Cesare there.
“He stole my bag of treats!” the doctor gasped. “How else am I supposed to keep the patients compliant like you asked?”
Caligari grabbed him by the coat. “Treats will spoil them; use force instead. Bring that patient to me, or you’re fired,” he snarled, shoving the man away. The doctor made a grab for Cesare, but he swerved, continuing to run.
His heart was already pounding, and he felt dizzy and exhausted. But he had the keys. There were other things he heard too, things that were certainly important, but he couldn’t remember any of them. Doing his best to retrace his steps, he ran down one corridor, only to see another group of doctors pointing at him. He knew he couldn’t keep running for long; if he exhausted himself, something very bad could happen. Good at quiet, he reminded himself, and bolted around a corner, pressing himself against the wall as close as he could.
“Where’d he go?” one of the doctors asked. “I heard the director will give whoever finds him a promotion.”
“A promotion? You know, he just gave me a promotion for that lobotomy I performed the other day,” another said. “Do you think I could get another one?”
“It was a beautiful lobotomy; made me emotional just watching it.”
“Thank you. The way you tested that experimental sedative on that one old man was admirable, too. He ought to promote you for that!”
“Oh, you flatter me!”
Cesare didn’t know what promotion or lobotomy or experimental sedative meant, but if Caligari was making them do experiments at all, it couldn’t be good. He clutched the keys in his hand tightly, glad they were distracted, and crept past them. To his relief, they were too busy talking about promotions and lobotomies to notice, whatever those were.
He came to a flight of stairs- yes- I remember stairs! he thought. At the bottom were two more doctors, along with a patient. He’d have to be very careful not to get their attention, and waited for them to move, hoping his breathing wasn’t too loud. When they were at last out of sight, he began to tiptoe down the stairs. He couldn’t count them, so he didn’t know how many there were, but he at least knew that every time he went down one stair, that was one less stair to worry about. The thought reassured him as he kept his step light, moving from one stair to the next- almost like dancing, he thought. I like dancing.
But he didn’t have much time to think about dancing. Right as he made it to the last step, he heard someone shout behind him, and three men in coats came barreling down the stairs towards him. With a screech, he propelled himself forwards, despite the fact his feet were hurting, desperately searching for a place to hide.
“Cesare! In here!”
He turned his head to see the door to Dr. Stein’s door open, and Jane standing in the doorway, her long sleeves like wings as she waved frantically at him. He gasped, stumbling towards the door and barely making it inside, just as Dr. Stein slammed it shut.
“What were you doing?!” Dr. Stein demanded at Jane. “They were all running towards him; if anyone noticed you, you would have given us away; I bet you already have! Now they’ll search my office and find my notes- and then what will I do with you two? I’ll get thrown out- or worse- and you’ll have yourself to blame!”
“Were you really going to let Cesare get caught?” Jane argued back. “What’s the point of all your precious research if they were going to reverse it and destroy his mind?”
“Without me, nobody here is actually getting cured, do you understand? I’ll do as much as I can for you, but I’m not giving myself away and risking the patients in this asylum whom I’m committed to helping.”
“Are you sure it’s about the patients, or is it about yourself? And what about Francis?”
“Don’t- don’t bring Francis into this.”
“Francis is exactly why we’re here!”
“Keys,” Cesare groaned, swaying on his feet before collapsing. Jane caught him, attempting to help him into a chair, but he impulsively shoved her back. He didn’t want anyone else touching him, and fell sideways into the chair.
“You have the keys?” Jane asked.
Cesare nodded, and handed them to her. He suddenly started coughing, and Dr. Stein brought him a wastebasket, which he promptly vomited into.
“Deep breaths,” Dr. Stein said. “Like I taught you. Deep breaths.”
“Oh, Cesare…” Jane gasped. “I don’t want you doing anything else like that, okay? It’s too risky. I’m glad you got the keys, but they’re looking for you now.”
“He knows… I am… here,” Cesare breathed, before vomiting into the wastebasket again. “Wants… me.”
Dr. Stein and Jane looked at each other.
“Water,” Cesare said. Dr. Stein poured him a glass from a pitcher, and he took small, shaky sips.
“We’ll have to figure out what to do next,” Jane said. “I’m really, really sorry you had to do that; it worked, but…” she was about to tell him that nothing was worth what he had put himself through to get the keys, but remembered the position Francis was in. Was saving Francis worth putting Cesare through immense emotional torment? She found she couldn’t answer that. “I’m glad you’re okay.”
Dr. Stein handed Cesare a blanket, which he refused. When he gave him another pastry, he accepted it, but didn’t eat it, staring blankly down at its hardening raspberry center.
“You should rest while we discuss what to do,” Jane told him. “You’ve been through a lot… but you’re safe here. We’ll take care of you, all right?”
Cesare nodded, but didn’t meet her eye.
You’re safe here.
Dr. Stein pushed up his glasses, stopped watching Cesare, and gazed at the door in complete silence.