The Empire of the Senses (47 page)

The Process

During the séance, please do not speak or raise your voice. Only Father Balthazar will speak. Refrain from coughing, sneezing, or any other adjustments made to your person, including but not limited to: touching the face, smoothing the hair, rubbing the eyes, fiddling with clothing or jewelry, etc. These movements, no matter how deft and discreet, only remind the spirits of the painful truth that they no longer inhabit a corporeal form
.

Maintain a serious and reverential attitude toward your surroundings. Do not laugh. The dead can no longer laugh with true abandon, and therefore such displays of cheer offend them
.

Sister Muller held her hand to her heart, beaming at everyone around the circle. “And now, let us welcome our holy prophet and esteemed conduit, Father Balthazar.”

A smattering of applause followed, after which an adjoining door opened and out stepped Father Balthazar, smiling broadly in his royal-blue suit, the same blue Sister Muller wore. Fat and energetic with a curly white beard, his cheeks red and puffing, he was most definitely of this world, and the image Josephine had carried in her head, of the cool remote prophet, evaporated. He held a leather-bound Bible to his chest and lowered his gaze for a moment, closing his eyes. Everyone else, including Sister Muller, followed suit, so Josephine also closed her eyes. Balthazar then read from 1 Samuel 28 as an introductory prayer, after which he placed the Bible on the table with a piece of quartz resting on the open book. He surveyed the group, nodding to the middle-aged couple.

Balthazar started to speak in a deep resonant voice, “Welcome, friends. We are gathered here tonight to make contact with the Other Side. The conditions are strong—the energy is vibrant and free of pathogenic currents, which often block contact. If you experience asthma, sleep loss, or severe headaches, you may be restored to health by evading these disease-causing currents streaming through the world around us by simply following a particular regimen …” He paused a moment, lost in thought. “Please see me afterward if you experience such symptoms. But now to the matter at hand.”

The two elderly women leaned forward. The couple stared at Balthazar with searching, predatory eyes, as if he alone held the key to their happiness. The young girl looked down at the pamphlet in her lap, biting her lower lip. Josephine folded her gloves into her purse, trying to make the least amount of noise. Sister Muller set a glass bowl filled with olive oil on the table and then positioned herself to the right of the table. Balthazar sat behind it and spread his large sun-spotted hands over its surface. He assumed an odd, blank expression. The robust bloom drained from his cheeks. He closed his eyes and he suddenly appeared shrunken and wracked with fatigue.

Sister Muller asked, with a hint of severity, “May we have a volunteer?” The young girl raised her hand, and Sister Muller motioned her to come forward. The girl sat down in front of Balthazar. Sister Muller carefully pricked her finger with a sterilized needle and then squeezed
little beads of bright red blood out of the girl’s index finger, the drops falling into the olive oil, a performance that transfixed and repelled Josephine. Sister Muller nodded, signaling for the girl to return to her seat.

Then she solemnly faced the group. “Concentrate on the bowl of oil and blood and send a message out to the departed and invite him or her to make themselves known to us so that we may open the lines of communication.” Josephine stared at the blood and oil. The sight of it nauseated her—the viscous thick liquid, the swirling red drops.

Balthazar cleared his throat and shook his head back and forth like a horse. He mumbled something and coughed. He shook his head back and forth again, the sagging skin under his chin swaying along with him. His eyes squeezed more tightly shut. “My knees, my knees—they feel cold, damp, aching. Does anyone here know someone with aching knees?”

No one spoke. Josephine fidgeted with the metal clasp on her purse, feeling slightly sorry for Balthazar. Many of these mediums came up short, and she imagined how disappointing it must be for those who truly believed in it, such as the couple across from her, who looked on the verge of tears.

Balthazar put his forehead down on the table and mumbled something, his lips moving against the wood. Then he picked up his head, his eyes awake and blazing. “There’s a heavy rug over my knees and I am cold, even in summer. Even in the height of summer, at our villa in Charlottenburg with the flies buzzing around the fruit, the fruit under the muslin cloth, and our two greyhounds, Gaspar and Prima, at my feet as I sit all day on the terrace, the rug over my knees—oh my knees, my rheumatic knees!” He gasped, doubling over, and in the same moment, Josephine let out a sharp cry.

Sister Muller rushed over to Balthazar, and he nodded reassuringly. A general disturbance erupted, and people started whispering among themselves.

Sister Muller shouted, “Silence!”

Josephine felt her heart race, a chilled sweat drenching her chest. She didn’t know if she should speak or not—she frantically tried to
recall the pamphlet’s instructions. Sitting very still, she raised a hand. Sister Muller gestured for her to speak.

Her throat felt tight and parched. “It’s my grandfather Frederick.”

Balthazar grimaced, his light eyes now glassy and opaque. “Yes, my child.”

She glanced at Sister Muller, who nodded for her to continue.

“I was trying to contact Mother before—I didn’t know it was you.”

“What’s happened to you? What’s happened?”

“Everything’s all right, Grandfather.” She wanted to go to him, to touch him, but Sister Muller had warned against touching the medium during a trance.

Balthazar shook his head. “The bloom is off the rose.”

Josephine’s eyes stung with tears. Sister Muller knelt down beside her. The other participants looked bored and annoyed, especially the middle-aged couple, who glared at her.

Balthazar kept shaking his head sadly. “That boy of yours. That boy.”

She lurched forward, only to be restrained by Sister Muller. “Franz?”

“Hmmm,” he said, his milky eyes surveying the room.

“What about Franz?” Josephine cried.

He yawned. “Such a shame, that fine boy of yours.”

Josephine tried to remain calm and receptive to the spirit, to not threaten its presence, but she burst out, “Please—I don’t understand. Could you be more clear?”

Balthazar started groaning about his knees again.

Sister Muller enveloped Josephine, holding her close. The strong scent of cardamom and cloves emanated from her clothing.

Balthazar raised a limp hand and waved.

The participants looked crestfallen when Sister Muller announced the session was over and to please leave quietly.

Josephine gripped the sides of her chair, frozen in a state of suspended shock. The two Russian men stood up in a huff, grumbling that today wasn’t their day. The others left reluctantly, half hoping Balthazar would revive himself and summon another spirit. But he did no such
thing. Sister Muller had moved him into the adjoining room, where he lay prostate on a tattered velvet chaise lounge, one hand covering his eyes, the other hanging down, his fingertips grazing the rug. Josephine remained seated—she couldn’t possibly leave now. Sister Muller ferried a glass of ice water into the other room, and then Josephine heard Balthazar moan, “My head’s pounding.” Sister Muller answered soothingly, “Of course it is, darling—especially after what you’ve gone through; such a strong willful visitation. It will take a few days to recover.”

Through the half-open door, she only saw Balthazar’s feet, in soft-soled leather slippers, hanging off the edge of the chaise.

He wondered aloud, “Have they all gone?”

Josephine clutched her purse to her chest. “I’m still here.”

“Come in,” he called.

Sister Muller had propped him up on the chaise, with multiple pillows supporting his back, a heavy wool shawl over his shoulders. He looked warm and feverish, and with his peaked cap removed, his bald head was as opalescent as a pearl. He held out his hand, and Josephine instinctively knelt down beside him, taking his hand in hers. Sister Muller stared at them with an exaggerated grimace of sympathy, which perversely reminded Josephine of an Edvard Munch painting—the agonized face, the sunken cheeks, the startled dark eyes peering out at the world.

“We didn’t mean to frighten you, but when the spirit presents itself, we must welcome it and provide a hospitable, receptive atmosphere.” He sipped his ice water. “But it can be quite a shock—this is your first time?”

Josephine nodded.

Sister Muller readjusted the pillows behind his back. He coughed, his chin doubling into his chest. Then he observed Josephine with wide, clear eyes. “I know you’re afraid, but please try to understand that this is normal—especially the first time the spirit presents itself, the visitation tends to be quite strong, quite insistent—he had attempted contact for quite a while.”

Josephine touched her chest reflexively. “The lights always flickered
whenever I thought of my mother, who died last fall; I mistakenly thought she was trying to contact me.”

Balthazar nodded. “Entirely understandable.”

“But what I don’t understand is this business about Franz, my son. Could you tell me anything more? Any feeling you might have about him?”

He touched his forehead and sighed deeply. After a pause, he murmured something into his beard.

Sister Muller put her hands on his shoulders.

“Why are they never satisfied?” he cried.

Sister Muller massaged his shoulders.

His cheeks reddened. “Always more, more, more, until I drop dead myself one day from overexertion!”

Sister Muller lowered her face next to his, their cheeks touching, and shushed him. Then she motioned toward the door, indicating Josephine should leave.

Josephine rushed out of the room, but then Balthazar called weakly, “I apologize, my dear. It’s all been very taxing, you see.”

Before leaving, Josephine paused on the landing above the stairs and heard Balthazar demand dried dates and a cup of tea with a stick of cinnamon. Sister Muller cried out that she wasn’t a dumbwaiter, and Balthazar moaned about his pounding head.

She closed the apartment door and pressed her back against it, unable to go down the stairs and out into the world again, but at the same time, unable to return to Balthazar and Sister Muller, who were now yelling over the price of dried dates.

31

It had started growing darker earlier, so this evening when Vicki left the ballet studio, the sky was no longer an inviting violet but a stark sapphire, the first stars brightening. In less than half an hour, she was meeting Elsa at the university to hear Rabindranath Tagore, a scholar and literary genius, who also happened to be incredibly handsome, according to Elsa, although Vicki secretly wished they could go see
The Girl from Tauentzien Avenue
at the UFA Palast. Only in the cinema’s warm darkness, when the live orchestra played Offenbach before the newsreel, and then the heavy green curtains parted to reveal the screen illuminated by a preternatural light, soon animated with images that softened the day’s aggravations and anxieties, did she experience a relaxed happiness. But no—Tagore it was. Pulling her felt hat nearly over her eyes, as she had seen Elisabeth Bergner wear it in a magazine, Vicki anticipated the hard wooden seats of the lecture hall, the inevitable hobnobbing afterward when students clamored to get a signed copy, the way Elsa would gush over his mystical and enlightened demeanor. She buttoned up her coat with one hand, the other rummaging through her purse in search of change for the U-Bahn. If she didn’t have change, then she’d have to stop at the cigarette kiosk across the street, which would only delay her further. Removing herself from the oncoming stream of pedestrians, she reconsidered the time. At best, she would arrive fifteen minutes late, and they might not allow her into the lecture hall. All the tickets would be sold, unless Elsa had saved her a seat, which was unlikely, because Elsa herself was always late.

She walked back toward the ballet studio, in the direction of home, but home was distasteful. She wasn’t speaking to her mother at the moment. A few nights ago, she’d taken her father’s side about how grotesque,
how inhumane that rally in Nuremburg had been. Even though it had occurred in August and it was now October, whenever she pictured that girl dragged along by those troopers, their big ugly hands on her, and then how they shaved off her shining hair, and that middle-aged woman who watched in rapt attention as if she was at the cinema, the images stung. How the subject of Nuremburg had even come up escaped her, but Franz and her mother had chimed in, saying there must have been more to the story, that a young girl doesn’t just end up in such a situation without a reason for it, however misguided the reason is. And then Franz had described the good work of the National Socialists, how many of them had fought in the Baltic after the war and regained land, how they’d set up soup kitchens for the unemployed and the wounded, how they only wanted to restore Germany’s honor. Her father replied they were merely a fringe group, unworthy of dinner conversation, and then he smiled casually at Vicki, a smile she didn’t entirely believe.

She stopped short in front of the ballet studio, noticing the outline of a familiar figure. He stood in front of the window, staring into the empty studio, and then he looked down, boring his hands into his coat pockets, and the gesture made her heart leap—yes, it was him. But he had made it perfectly clear that day. She could still slip into the arcade on her left, and he would never see her. Avoiding such a meeting was the discreet, rational thing to do. Of course this was not at all what she wanted, what her whole body wanted when she felt herself moving toward him, her mouth trembling, her steps light and wobbly.

“Geza,” she said, a little too softly.

He kept staring into the empty studio.

She swallowed hard. “Geza.”