Unable to attract his old friend and still plagued by his queasiness, Konrad had to turn away. At that instant he appeared in a vastly different setting that was far removed from the previous decadent vision.
It was a simple bedroom, modestly furnished with a single bed and a few functional cupboards and a wardrobe. This had been his own bedroom. All around it were dotted visions of hard-earned mementos: school diplomas, books, his treasured Werder Bremen scarf, they all stood to greet him with a sense of nostalgia. But like so much in this twisted vista, there was something out of place in the room – the person who stood in front of the window. At first, it was difficult to tell who this mysterious person actually was. Was it one of his long-dead parents? Eventually the shadowy figure turned to face Konrad. It was inevitably the same woman from his alpine dream. This time a brightly-coloured head-scarf covered her dark hair. She, unlike Konrad and Gigolo, and even the vile courtesans, wore modern civilian clothing, but like the courtesans, the woman seemed to be devoid of all life and emotion.
Konrad entered the room and joined the mysterious woman at the window and at that moment it was as if a switch has been suddenly thrown within the girl as she turned and looked at him with love and gentleness in her eyes. The woman then slowly reached out and caressed Konrad, her fingers tracing the lines of his face and lingering upon his lips. He stepped closer and as a response the girl pulled the scarf from her hair which cascaded across her shoulders. She smiled, but her gaze then drifted away. It was averted by something that she could see through the window. Konrad turned too and frowned when he saw nothing but the deep, suffocating darkness beyond. He wondered what so attracted her attention so lovingly, so seductively. It appeared that she was under the spell of some unseen lover as her chest heaved and swelled. This sudden lust was in contrast to the previously simple and unquestioning love that had emanated from her, and to Konrad, this sudden change was unnerving. He felt, once again, that the woman was being taken away from him, and this sense of loss was magnified and brought into shape as the comforting surroundings of the bedroom and the electric presence of the girl melted away as if the room and its contents had been withdrawn from a spotlight until all that remained was his solitary figure.
Within this new cold dark environment the invisible whispers still resonated and echoed, but their volume had grown, as if some unseen power had fed them. A distant shaft of light pierced the gloom. This white sword stretched far above Konrad almost to the point of infinity. Looking closer, he could see illuminated at the base of the shining column hundreds, if not thousands of shapes. These shapes were what appeared to be human figures. Beyond this congregation a single figure stood amidst the light.
Stahl.
His features were pale and drawn, his skin taut and stretched across his cheek-bones, and his shimmering blue eyes were set deep within their sunken sockets. Surrounding him was a halo of heat which distorted the dust that played and swirled within the ethereal column and a dangerous grin materialised across his ghostly face as he raised his hand and beckoned Konrad towards him. With that gesture, Konrad was pulled into the light to join the Nazi. Within the beam the temperature dropped to sub-zero levels. Whereas a hot steamy breath emanated from Konrad’s mouth, a rasping, razor-like pant exhaled from Stahl. Each breath soaked the heat from Konrad to such a point that he feared that if he stayed too long in the presence of this ghoul that this dreamy portal would forever remain his resting place. And when Stahl finally spoke, his voice matched his deliberating and malicious aspect.
‘Welcome, my curious little friend,’ he hissed. ‘You are yet another pilgrim to be welcomed here in this new world, this new kingdom – this new Reich!’
On that cue the glittering shaft of light exploded, the brilliant whiteness consuming Stahl, Konrad, everything.
After a few moments a multitude of fleshy shapes began to emerge from the blank, colourless view. Konrad collapsed onto his hands and knees and heaved up a stream of amniotic fluid, mucus, blood and spit. This foul mix of bodily and artificial liquids splashed onto the floor below him, the multi-coloured puddle becoming the focus of his still blurred vision. As his limbs trembled with the effort of bearing his weight, the geometric floor below him grew into focus, the lines of panelling growing sharper and straighter with each of his deep breaths. At the same time, the previously dreamy voices Konrad heard transformed into distinct words and phrases that could be made out and clearly understood.
‘Come on you! Move your fucking backside!’ a guttural voice cried.
Konrad was shoved against the hibernation chamber’s white padded walls. He saw the voice belonged to Doctor Blomberg, who was sheathed in a clear plastic suit. He stood at a pedestal which illuminated him in a series of blinking colours directing a group of similarly dressed technicians who stood above the glass-sphere. From the container the technicians yanked prisoners as groggy and bewildered as Konrad and let them slide down the side of the glassy globe. He moved past the other mucus-covered men and grabbed the pedestal to try and clamber up to his feet.
‘Move now!’ Blomberg hissed as he kicked Konrad off the post. ‘Make way. There are fifty more of you prisoners to come out of hibernation.’
Konrad splattered back onto the floor. Suddenly a helping hand grabbed him and pulled him away from the irate doctor.
‘Welcome back to the land of the living!’
Instinctively Konrad turned towards the male voice. For a second, he raised his hands to his ears as the normal volume of sound returned with a vengeance. It was as if the brief statement had been relayed via a set of titanic loudspeakers. As his other senses approached a sense of equilibrium, Konrad finally saw the person whose disembodied voice had greeted him. It belonged to a prisoner, and like himself, glistening fluid dripped from his naked body. The prisoner was surprisingly small and a friendly smile flashed across his round face, and despite being as thin as the other inmates, his body definition held the impression that his time at Neu Magdeburg had been a lot more comfortable than Konrad’s.
‘I feel like I’ve been through a meat-grinder arse first,’ Konrad groggily said as he spat out the remaining goo from his mouth.
‘Between ourselves, if you ask me, if I’d known what it would have been like sleeping for fifty years in the hold of this rust-bucket I would have been first in the queue for the gas chamber. At least my agonies would have been over in seconds,’ the prisoner chuckled.
Konrad frowned at the so-called joke.
‘I jest, of course, but I think you understand my meaning,’ the prisoner said as he correctly sensed Konrad’s displeasure. His tone was blackly comic as if he was familiar with gallows humour, or perhaps, more sinisterly, he took genuine pleasure in the plight of the condemned. A clue to the prisoner’s true nature was soon displayed.