The Economy of Light (9 page)

As I made my selections, my new colleague shivered beside me.

The hours passed slowly, even with the companionship of another doctor. I didn’t hate him because he was a Jew, because he was as dirty and ill-smelling as the others I was selecting. I was in a life and death struggle to purify the blood, a life and death struggle with the Jewish race. Jews were a formidable foe and highly gifted. Nevertheless they were a lower race, and the only cure for the world was their annihilation. But for this short time on this cold, rainy morning, Dr. Bostroem and I constructed a truce. For these few moments or hours, I would accord him the professional respect that was his due, and he would regail me with his ophthalmologic expertise. Indeed, we selected a number of prisoner doctors, saving them for the time being; and Dr. Bostroem stood in place and shivered as I made general selections.

“How can you make these...determinations so quickly?” he asked.

I had no intention of validating such a question. Nor did he slow me down. I continued to select, even as I explained some of the work I was doing that might be within his professional purview. I told him I was conducting research on the heredity factors of heterochromia. “In six of eight Gypsy twins, we found the occurrence of heterochromia. Each had one blue eye and one brown eye.”

Dr. Bostroem nodded, obviously interested.

“I’ve had the eyes transported to Berlin for further study,” I continued.

Dr. Bostroem disapproved. He started to shake his head, but regained control over himself. He would soon learn that his place was not to approve...or disapprove.

“No, no,” I shouted at a guard who was directing a family into the wrong line.

As I continued selecting, I explained a project I had in mind for Dr. Bostroem. “I have several prisoners, Jews and Gypsies, that have heterochromia. They also have syphilis and tuberculosis, which is not optimal. I have theorized that by injecting methylene blue into their eyes, we might change the color. I would like you to direct the project. I will provide you with proper facilities tomorrow morning. You can then prepare a list of anything else you might need.”

“But why would you wish to do such a thing?” he asked.

Without thought, I lifted the
scheitel
wig from an old woman’s head with my riding crop; it was like picking a scab. It was the fascination of the abominable, the ugly, and reprehensible. Dr. Bostroem made a noise deep in his throat, and perhaps it was the cold and the hour—first light—that caught me because I, too, lost control for an instant and asked, Would
you
like to take over the selections, Doctor?”

“Dr. Bostroem apologized.

I nodded, and then asked him to make a selection.

“To the right or to the left, which will it be Dr. Bostroem?”

Faltering. “To the right.”

I nodded again, and waved the old woman off to be sent to the camp where she would surely expire in a matter of days.

“And my husband,” she cried. “He, too....”

A watery-eyed, skinny old man held onto her hand as if he were drowning.”

“Well?” I asked the doctor.

He nodded.

“
Rechts.
”

But I made the next selection myself.

I sent Dr. Bostroem to the crematorium.

The truce was over.

* * * *

Moments, hours, or an eternity later, I staggered backward as a blast of burning, coruscating light blinded me; and then the blessed weight of total, numbing, humane darkness suffocated me.

Snuffed me out like a candle.

CHAPTER TEN

THE DETERMINISM OF DARKNESS

When I awoke, I was back in Mengele’s house, lying in a four-poster bed.

I looked up at the gauzy mosquito netting, listened to the high-pitched whirring of occasional insects, and breathed deeply. My heart was beating wildly. Surely it was the dream, the nightmare somehow waking me up in the midst of REM sleep. I was lying on top of the embroidered snow white coverlet. I was dressed in the same slacks and shirt I had worn to accompany Mengele into the rainforest. I was unwashed and sweaty, my hair was greasy, and I stank of wood smoke and something else: the faint smell of ash. I sat up, half-expecting Mengele to be sitting and smoking in the stuffed chair across the room. I called for Gata, Mengele’s aide—or was he Mengele’s servant? He was the half young half old Indian who had given me the drug when I was in the rainforest with Genaro; and I remembered that when I was ill and feverish and lit with force-fed hallucinogens, I had imagined that Gata and Genaro were somehow one and the same. Superimposed, one over the other.

I called for my nurse, the bare breasted Indian woman with the wide face and heavy body painted in red circles. But I was alone. I could hear distant voices, but could not make them out. I shuddered, remembering my nightmare of being Mengele, remembering how it felt to
be
Mengele, to stand on the ramp in Auschwitz and select Jews and gypsies for death; and even now, I could remember all the details of Mengele’s personal and private past, a lifetime of details. I could remember his memories as if they were my own.

I panicked and ran to the bathroom to make sure it would be my face staring out at me from the mirror. Indeed, it was my face, not Mengele’s; my face without a mark of the wild fire, the pemphigus that had disfigured it. Although I was exhausted and cotton-mouthed, I felt strong and healthy. The cancer was gone; I knew that was so; and in its place, nesting and nestling within me in the darkness was a great tumor of sin, mirror-memory, and obligation.

I had a sudden and terrible sense of foreboding, of
déjà-vu
.

* * * *

I made my way out of the bedroom and into the hallway. I remembered the way to Mengele’s office...down a flight of stairs, across an eternity of thick gray-black carpet, a faint smell of antiseptic in the air. The door to Mengele’s room was still ajar, and I walked in. Everything was as I had dreamed it earlier...as I had experienced it earlier, and my heart was a metronome beating fast in my throat, beating out the rhythm of my blood; and I approached Mengele’s desk. I knew every object in the room, every book in the mahogany bookcases, the history and provenance of every curiosity, statue, and treasure.

And I knew Mengele.

I closed my eyes tight, then opened them again, hoping to change what was before me: Mengele was sprawled over his desk, his nose and face broken, his forehead resting on the leather framed blotter, which was stained and sticky with blood. The back of his head was shattered; the smell of blood was crisp and fresh and acrid.

I had killed him, and he had accepted the bullets.

No amount of closing my eyes would change anything.

“So it is done. You have both decided.”

I jumped at the sound.

Gata stood in the doorway, incongruously dressed as in western clothes: tan trousers, white shirt, and a blue jacket. His heavy featured face was still divided into old and young, but the aged half was softer somehow, less withered.

“When did you find him?” I asked.

“As you did.”

“Just now, this minute?”

He made the hnrung sound, sighed, and nodded.

I leaned across the desk and gingerly, gently touched Mengele’s hand, which was cold. “But did you know what happened before...now?” I asked Gata, who looked hard at me.

“I saw what you might do, Meester; but the
Doutor
, only he knew what
he
would do. He told me a little, though....”

“What?” I asked.

“That if you both did this”—he gestured toward Mengele—“then
you
would become the
Doutor
.”

“I am no doctor.”

“Ah, but you know how now, don’t you, Meester? Now you can remember. He said it would all come to you. All his memories.”

“And what else did he tell you?” I asked.

“That I was to help you, and then I would be free to go.”

“And me?”

He shrugged. “You can go now.”

“But not be free.”

Gata laughed, something I had not heard him do before. It was a shrill, almost girlish sound. “You have him now, Meester, just as he had you before. You can do what you will; you are the
Doutor
now. Now if you will be pleased to go back to your room and rest, I will take care of this” He gestured at Mengele. “Then I will introduce you to the other doctors and nurses and
brujos
in the clinic.”

“Is there a minister on the premises who can conduct a proper service?”

Another girlish laugh: Gata seemed quite lighthearted about the death of his master. “No, it is not necessary,” he said, making a quick, fluttering gesture with his hand—a gesture used in the camps: the sign of smoke rising from the crematoria.

I took a sharp breath, remembering.

“The
Doutor
left instructions what was to be done. We have the facilities.”

And as I turned to leave, Gata said, “There is one other thing the
Doutor
left for you, Meester,” and he gave me a book.

Fiat Lux
.

Mengele’s diary.

* * * *

I took the book back to my room and wrote an entry in the diary, and then I slept. Weighted down with memory, I dreamed of Onca, fat, bountiful, natural Onca. I dreamed of her heavy legs and thighs, her large earth mother breasts. I dreamed of the glassy manioc gruel and ice cream she made for me, which numbed me, chilled me like ether until all pain was distant...cold and distant as Mengele’s memories.

And then my dreams spoke to hers.

“Onca....”

“Do not worry, Meester. You will help people until you are okay.”

“Onca....”

“Have you got old yet?”

“I....”

“I can see you, Meester. You will be old, but all the way, not half one half other. Now you are a
claro
sonhador
. Now you will live your dream right to the end.”

“Onca....”

“Thank you for giving me my Genaro back...
Doutor
.”

“You’re welcome,” I whispered as I slept and dreamed Mengele dreams.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

JACK DANN
is a multiple award-winning author who has written or edited over seventy-five books, including the groundbreaking novels
Junction
,
Starhiker
,
The Man Who Melted
,
The Memory Cathedral
—which was an international bestseller—the Civil War novel
The Silent
, and
Bad Medicine
, which has been compared to the works of Jack Kerouac and Hunter S. Thompson, and called “the best road novel since the
Easy Rider
days.”

Dann’s work has been compared to Jorge Luis Borges, Roald Dahl, Lewis Carroll, Castaneda, Ray Bradbury, J. G. Ballard, Mark Twain, and Philip K. Dick. Dick, the author of the stories from which the films
Blade Runner
and
Total Recall
were made, wrote that “
Junction
is where Ursula K. Le Guin’s
The Lathe of Heaven
and Tony Boucher’s ‘The Quest for Saint Aquin’ meet...and yet it’s an entirely new novel.... I may very well be basing some of my future work on
Junction
.” Best selling author Marion Zimmer Bradley called
Starhiker
“a superb book...it will not give up all its delights, all its perfections, on one reading.”

Library Journal
has called Dann “...a true poet who can create pictures with a few perfect words.” Roger Zelazny thought he was a reality magician, and
Best Sellers
has said that “Jack Dann is a mind-warlock whose magicks will confound, disorient, shock, and delight.”
The Washington Post Book World
compared his novel
The Man Who Melted
with Ingmar Bergman’s film
The Seventh Seal
.

His books have been widely translated, and his short stories have appeared in
Playboy
,
Omni
,
Penthouse
,
Asimov’s
, “
Best of
” collections in Australia, the United States, and Great Britain, and other major magazines and anthologies. He is the editor of the anthology
Wandering Stars
, one of the most acclaimed American anthologies of the 1970s, and several other well-known anthologies such as
More Wandering Stars
.
Wandering Stars
and
More Wandering Stars
have recently been reprinted in the U.S. Dann also edited the multi-volume
Magic Tales
series with Gardner Dozois and is a consulting editor for Tor Books.

He is a recipient of the Nebula Award, the Australian Aurealis Award (twice), the Ditmar Award (four times), the World Fantasy Award, the Peter McNamara Achievement Award, the Peter McNamara Convenors Award for Excellence, and the
Premios Gilgamés de Narrativa Fantástica
award. Dann has also been honored by the Mark Twain Society (Esteemed Knight).

High Steel
, a novel co-authored with Jack C. Haldeman II, was published in 1993 by Tor Books. Critic John Clute called it “a predator...a cat with blazing eyes gorging on the good meat of genre. It is most highly recommended.” Dann is currently writing
Ghost Dance
, the sequel to
High Steel
, with Jack Haldeman’s widow, author Barbara Delaplace.

Dann’s major historical novel about Leonardo da Vinci—entitled
The Memory Cathedral
—was published to rave reviews. It has been published in over ten languages to date. It won the Australian Aurealis Award, was #1 on
The Age
bestseller list, and a story based on the novel was awarded the Nebula Award.
The Memory Cathedral
was also shortlisted for the Audio Book of the Year, which was part of the Braille & Talking Book Library Awards.

Morgan Llewelyn called
The Memory Cathedral
“a book to cherish, a validation of the novelist’s art and fully worthy of its extraordinary subject.”
The San Francisco Chronicle
called it “A grand accomplishment,”
Kirkus Reviews
thought it was “An impressive accomplishment,” and
True Review
said, “Read this important novel, be challenged by it; you literally haven’t seen anything like it.”

Dann’s novel about the American Civil War,
The Silent
, was chosen as one of
Library Journal’s
‘Hot Picks’.
Library Journal
wrote: “This is narrative storytelling at its best—so highly charged emotionally as to constitute a kind of poetry from hell. Most emphatically recommended.” Peter Straub said “This tale of America’s greatest trauma is full of mystery, wonder, and the kind of narrative inventiveness that makes other novelists want to hide under the bed.” And
The Australian
called it “an extraordinary achievement.”

His novel
Bad Medicine
(titled
Counting Coup
in the U.S.), a contemporary road novel, has been described by
The Courier Mail
as “perhaps the best road novel since the Easy Rider Days.”

Dann is also the co-editor (with Janeen Webb) of the groundbreaking Australian anthology,
Dreaming Down-Under
, which Peter Goldsworthy called “the biggest, boldest, and most controversial collection of original fiction ever published in Australia.” It won Australia’s Ditmar Award and was the first Australian book ever to win the World Fantasy Award. His anthology,
Gathering the Bones
, of which he is a co-editor, was included in
Library Journal
’s Best Genre Fiction of 2003, and was shortlisted for The World Fantasy Award. His anthology,
Wizards
, co-edited with Gardner Dozois, and titled
Dark Alchemy
in the UK and Australia, made the Waldenbooks/Borders bestseller list, and was shortlisted for the World Fantasy Award. He has also edited a sequel to
Dreaming Down-Under
:
Dreaming Again
. The influential
Bookseller+Publisher
gave
Dreaming Again
a five star rating and wrote: “Here are stories that engage with the building blocks of our culture and others that give shape to our shared darkness and light.
Dreaming Again
is at once quintessentially Australian and enticingly other. If you read short fiction you’ll want this collection. If you don’t, this is a reason to start.”

His most recent anthologies are
Dreaming Again
,
The Dragon Book
(with Gardner Dozois),
Australian Legends
(with Jonathan Strahan), and
Ghosts by Gaslight
(with Nick Gevers).

Dann’s stories have been collected in
Timetipping
,
Visitations
, and the retrospective short story collection
Jubilee: the Essential Jack Dann
.
The West Australian
said it was “Sometimes frightening, sometimes funny, erudite, inventive, beautifully written and always intriguing.
Jubilee
is a celebration of the talent of a remarkable storyteller.” His collaborative stories can be found in his collection
The Fiction Factory
.

The
West Australian
called Dann’s recent novel,
The Rebel: An Imagined Life of James Dean,
“an amazingly evocative and utterly convincing picture of the era, down to details of the smells and sensations—and even more importantly, the way of thinking.”
Locus
wrote: “
The Rebel
is a significant and very gripping novel, a welcome addition to Jack Dann’s growing oeuvre of speculative historical novels, sustaining further his long-standing contemplation of the modalities of myth and memory. This is alternate history with passion and difference.” A companion James Dean short story collection entitled
Promised Land
has also been published in Great Britain, as has Dann’s most recent short novel,
The Economy of Light
.

As part of its
Bibliographies of Modern Authors Series
, The Borgo Press has published an annotated bibliography and guide entitled
The Work of Jack Dann
. An updated second edition is in progress. Dann is also listed in
Contemporary Authors
and the
Contemporary Authors Autobiography Series
;
The International Authors and Writers Who’s Who
;
Personalities of America
;
Men of Achievement
;
Who’s Who in Writers, Editors, and Poets, United States and Canada
;
Dictionary of International Biography
; the
Directory of Distinguished Americans
;
Outstanding Writers of the 20th Century
; and
Who’s Who in the World
. His recently published autobiography is entitled
Insinuations
.

Dann lives in Australia on a farm overlooking the sea, and ‘commutes’ back and forth to Los Angeles and New York. He is married to the writer Janeen
Webb.

His website is jackdann.com. You can also follow him on Twitter @jackmdann