Hofmann ripped the offending tubes from his arm, hurling the intravenous drip to the floor before taking off after Ecker. As Hofmann came slamming through the door, the doctor had hardly a chance to turn before Hofmann was on him. He hooked his right leg around the doctor’s legs and shoved him hard in the back, and Ecker hit the ground like a Canadian redwood. Grabbing the back of his hair, Hofmann pulled his head back, before smashing it sharply into the floor, producing an audible snap as the doctor’s nose broke. Enraged, Hofmann growled into Ecker’s left ear.
“Don’t underestimate me, Ecker. Furtner will soon be reanimated, and then I can get rid of your sorry arse!”
Releasing the doctor’s hair, Hofmann stood and walked casually down the hall towards his room, ignoring Von Klitzing and two guards who were sprinting in his direction.
“What happened?” Von Klitzing asked.
“The doctor came face-to-face with his new reality.”
With that, Hofmann turned the corner and disappeared into his room, leaving Von Klitzing turning back and forth between the closed door and the dishevelled, bloodied figure of Dr Ecker.
Hofmann lay on the bed, exhausted, his arm still throbbing where he had ripped the needle from his vein. He watched the luminous alarm clock’s green display light bouncing back off the ceiling, its hypnotic effect pushing him towards a dark sleep’s cold embrace. The dream came instantaneously and was a mixture of both his past and Jarvis’s present firing simultaneously, a kaleidoscope of thoughts and images vying for ascendancy. Hofmann could feel the other man’s presence even as he dreamt, a spectre at his back. Together, they visited his childhood, intimate moments with his mother in the kitchen of the family’s first house. A small boy’s first school day, and a proud mother clasping her son’s face in both hands, fortifying him for the day ahead with a kiss on the forehead. Hofmann felt angry that Jarvis should become privy to such a vulnerable moment from his past. But it was not long before they were transported from his mother’s kitchen to the German Reichstag in Berlin, and Hofmann’s first meeting with the newly elected Führer. Huge red banners adorned with black swastika hung on the walls, framing the men’s embrace, both pumped with national pride and radiating the power they now held in their hands. This was a scene he was pleased for Jarvis to share. Then the picture blurred, and the walls seemed to elongate themselves, turning the Reichstag into a white hall, and, finally, a hospital ward. Complete with beds and curtains, it was totally devoid of patients. Only the soft crying resonating from the end of the ward, from behind a pea green door next to the main entrance, alerted them to the presence of a young girl. They were drawn to her like a moth to a flame. Both were aware that this was a part of Hofmann’s past he did not wish to share. The door was now in front of them and opening of its own accord. The room behind it was small, with a bed in the corner, and next to it was a hospital table holding a bank of old-fashioned electronics. The compulsory curtain was half-drawn around the bed so that you could make out a figure curled up at one end of the bed. She was wearing a hospital gown, which revealed a malnourished pubescent body. Her vertebrae and ribs were clearly visible through paper-thin, pale skin. A mop of greasy hair stuck to her shoulders and back. The gown, loosely tied with three thick cotton bands of material, could not protect her modesty. The girl was facing towards the wall so that they could not see her face, but Hofmann knew who it was. The rebirth policy had demanded that all of the chosen board members should parent a male child. With one exception, this was done by artificial insemination. He had been the exception. Choosing the prospective mother himself, he had deemed it his duty to impregnate her the natural way, devoting two weeks to the cause. He had visited the girl every evening after business hours. They had been given the nurse’s station room, and every evening, without fail, she had been there. All of the girls had been chosen from the local Hitler youth, the indoctrinated girls all keen to support the cause. These men were all heroes in their eyes, confidants of the Führer. It was an honour. She had been submissive, even happy the first few times, he remembered. But that had soon changed when he allowed his deviant nature to get the better of him. The last week of their partnership, she had dissolved into the whinging, whining mess that sat before them.
Michael listened to the man’s thoughts and watched his memories. He recognised the sound of the girl’s voice from the apartment.
That is why the neighbours knew nothing about her.
He had almost forgotten her pleading voice in the madness that had become his life.
She turned to face them, terror in her eyes, her legs working frantically to move away from him, pressing her up into the corner of the bed against the walls. Her hands pushed at the bed sheets, her eyes looking at the ceiling for some salvation. Michael felt his arm raise, poised to hit her. An all-consuming desire to teach her her place.
NO! His silent scream ejected them from the room.
Michael wrestled with his thoughts, trying desperately to make sense in them.
Who was this man?
It was Hofmann’s turn to look into the eyes of strangers. The couple in front of him stood in their eighties lounge; its patterned turquoise carpet and matching three-piece suite was alien to him. These were Michael’s first foster parents, and Hofmann felt himself taking a back seat as Jarvis’s life took its place in their combined consciousness. Michael had hated these people, but for no good reason. Seeing the welcome on their faces now filled him with guilt.
My God, the Greens. Why am I seeing this? Michael watched the scene, spellbound.
Mrs Green was on her knees, trying to console the child sandwiched between the strangers in front of him and the others holding his hands. Michael felt the child’s desperation and need to find an escape, unable to accept the warmth being offered to him. But he remembered her quilted skirts and purple cardigan. The smell of lavender, which filled the house and permeated her clothing. Mr Green was there too, wearing his thick eyeglasses, which made his eyes look disproportionate to his head. They were good people, and Michael had lived with them for the best part of a year.
Turning away from the scene, they found themselves on the steps of Leeds University, watching a young woman float past them. The huge sandstone building and clock tower were a blur, as that vision of loveliness blew through. It was love at first sight, a concept that had been alien to Michael until that moment. Love, a word he had read in books and seen in the faces of friends but never felt himself. The girl was disappearing into a crowd of commuters, and Michael felt that pang of loss, just before the men awoke.
Both staring at the same cold white ceiling, they remained perfectly aware of each other’s presence and were unable to decide what to do. Michael desperately tried to understand what was happening to him; Hofmann, all too aware of the process taking place. For a moment, neither man could separate himself from the other. Then Hofmann felt a bolt of fear course through him, as he watched his right hand grip his injured left arm, squeezing him into unconsciousness.
Lying very still, scared that a wrong movement or thought may rob him of control, Michael held the wound tightly. For some reason, he was sure that as long as he could feel the pain, he could hold supremacy. Although he did not really understand what had happened to him, he was at even more of a loss as to what he could do about it.
Michael remembered Hofmann’s life as vividly as if it were his own. Trying to relax as much as he could, he reran the different scenes through his mind again.