Written for the Winterfest 2022 Round Robin that wasn’t 

 

 

“Wer mit Ungeheuern kämpft, mag zusehn, dass er nicht dabei zum Ungeheuer wird.” 

~ Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process, he does not become a monster. ~

–Beyond Good and Evil, Friedrich Nietzsche

 

Early evening, after dinner, Catherine leaves Vincent sitting on his bed, content to read Great Expectations for what he believes is his first time.

So lost in worry, she doesn’t realize she’s walked the opposite direction from her building … towards the hub instead … and Father.

Padding to the opening of his arch, she spies the leader around the corner, a large tome weighing on his lap and a piece of paper held in a shaky grip. 

He hadn’t noticed her intrusion, his gaze fixed, staring at the note for much longer than it would take to read it.

She almost doesn’t say anything.

Turn around. Go home, shower, get ready for work tomorrow, the weary ache in her belly warns.

She should leave the physician to his reveries.

It would be easier. It would be safer.

Their past is pockmarked with instances of mistrust and miscommunications. Push too far, she fears, and their armistice might turn only to a cease-fire.

Vincent’s recuperation from his illness, what the troubled man in front of her calls his sons’ “loss of balance,” still feels precarious, even with weeks in between.

Despite how tired she feels – the headache encamped behind her eyes, the nausea from sleepless nights – he must be equally exhausted.

“Father?” she says before she can second-guess herself.

The patriarch startles and turns to her. Guilt and sadness mix on his features.

She hurries down the iron stairs and approaches his table so he won’t feel the need to stand.

“What are you reading?” she asks, wishing, not knowing, it’s the right thing to do.

“Oh, Catherine, I didn’t…” he stumbles. Then says with more force, “It’s nothing,” ready to dismiss her.

Keeping his own counsel, keeping secrets … he is so used to this, it offers her a choice.

A path out, an almost guiltless one.

But she peers into his careworn face and she can’t. She can’t leave him to suffer whatever this is alone.

She angles a cracked leather chair opposite him and sits. 

Father sighs and lifts the sizable tome from his knees onto the table.

She can’t breathe until he speaks.

“I was searching my journals,” he answers, accepting her question. “Searching for anything that might ease Vincent’s recovery. I started from his initial bout of—”

Madness.

He won’t say the word.

“Nothing of use there, so I hunted further back to his few childhood illnesses … and found this.”

He offers her the stiff paper from his hand—half-sheet, typed, with a picture—a government document.

What strikes her first is the photo. A boy, a young teen, maybe Zach’s age, but with gaunt features and staring with old eyes.

She reads.

Record of Registry, Name: Pater, John. Age: 16. Place of birth: Frankfurt, Germany.

She looks to Father.

“Paracelsus?” she asks in disbelief.   

“Mmhhmm,” he replies. “It’s his immigration record, from when they were bringing over refugees from the War.” He points with a nod at the paper. “He left this behind in the … chaos … after Anna.”

Unexpectedly, he flings his reading glasses off.

“Catherine, it makes no sense. None of it! Of all of us, John should have … cared … realized.”

His arms open in a helpless gesture.

“Why did he do this? He should have … understood what Vincent faced. What it was to be reviled, persecuted on sight …”

His words trail off and the anger seems to disappear as fast as it had appeared.

She reads on.

Last residence before entry: London, England. Race of People: Hebrew.

Date of arrival in the U.S.: November 19^th, 1948.

“He escaped the Holocaust?”

“Yes,” he affirms. “He fled to England through France, I believe, and then to New York.” He breathes out, “Yet, he barely talked of it, even to Anna.”

“Why?”

Why would he keep his history from his wife? 

The leader shrugs. “It was feeble to dwell on the past, I suppose. I didn’t meet him until he was twenty or so. By then he spoke perfect English, unaccented. You’d never know. He also spoke German, of course. French, Spanish, taught himself Latin.”

He pauses, retrieving his spectacles from across the table.

“One of the few times he told us anything he was boasting, really. We had asked if he would miss living above, miss the culture, the television, the movies. He said, and I’ll never forget this, he said ‘Mass entertainments are the bastion of the weak-minded.’” 

“That sounds like him.” She laughs without mirth.

“I agreed with him wholeheartedly.” Father echoes her scoffing laughter, but it seems aimed at himself. “I believed I’d discovered a kindred spirit.”

He takes the document from her and studies the photo of the boy.

“Then he told us of the propaganda, the escalation of hate, how his family was ostracized by people they once called neighbors, friends.”

He hands it back to her.

“At first, they couldn’t go to the theatre, then to the park, then to work. They were barred outright or taunted … sometimes beaten. Their shops burned, along with the schools and synagogues. No freedom, no support—and then the Nazis came for them. He never wanted the … possibility again …” His gaze travels the cave around them.  

“So many exits and entrances, hidden from the uncaring world … Without John, we wouldn’t—Vincent wouldn’t—have had a home. Yet he nearly …”

“Nearly destroyed him,” she finishes.  

The older man proceeds, sounding more worn by the minute.

“John has always been a mystery, even to those closest to him. It was years into their marriage before Anna realized he was Jewish. He rejected anything to do with his heritage … and God. She said all John ever told her was his father left before the war and the rest of the family died of illness or in the camps. That John escaped was miraculous, but he was alone in the world by the time he was Samantha’s age.”

It was horrible. A child shouldn’t have to live through that. 

But it didn’t justify his crimes.

“The things he saw, the atrocities he must have survived … and then to do this …”

They fall into provoked contemplation.

Until this moment, Catherine had refused to ponder the evil that pushed her love to the edge of sanity. Paracelsus murdered Jimmy and Winslow, nearly burnt her and Narcissa to death, concocted deadly drugs, threatened them and the Tunnels time and again. Almost supernatural in his ability to disguise himself, demonic in his machinations. Now that he was dead, all she craved was to put him behind them.

He was a killer, as cold blooded as she’d seen, and she’d seen plenty. He had ample opportunities to murder Father, his professed enemy, including at Sutton Place, but inexplicably left him alive. He had even lingered at Winterfest after planting explosives in Father’s chess set. Then he returns and pushes Vincent so far with lies and cruelty her love’s only recourse was to lash out—what Paracelsus seemed to want … in the end. Why would he do it, any of it?

“John was a genius.” Father speaks, but his gaze is above her, unfocused. “And as much the architect of this world as any of us. He discovered chambers and caves, created most of the security measures, the locks, the false walls. There was never an obstacle he couldn’t think his way around. I admired him. His resourcefulness, his endurance.”

Father studies the chamber, the world that Paracelsus may have helped build, but he maintained.

“He wanted this place of safety, as I did.”

“Not like you did, Father,” she interjects. “Not like you.”

“You’re right,” he agrees, but his eyes and thoughts are still far away. “Even then, in the beginning, John hated frailty of any sort. He would have cut many from our original group had we not put our foot down. I thought, in time, reason would …” He grimaces. “The irony—the closest I’ve ever seen to his level of genius in design is Mouse, a child he would have written off … or worse.”

He points again to the picture.

“When we met, he was nothing like this boy. Or possibly, he only hid him. Yes, he buried this grief … We all did. The war was over, what good would come from dwelling on it?”

“’’That which does not kill me, makes me stronger,’” she remembers out loud. “He quoted that when he kidnapped me.”

“That was his motto,” Father says, taking the paper. “I missed the signs.” He places it into his lap, eyes downcast. “John began losing his way long before Vincent, but when Anna couldn’t give him a child … When she found a lost baby in the snow, such an extraordinary boy … that’s when he lost his balance.”

“I missed the signs,” he repeats, shrinking into himself. “As I did with my son.”

“Me too,” she whispers, reaching for Father’s hand. 

Of all of them, she should have known, should have felt something … but too busy at work, making up for all the times she’d left to go Below, to go to Vincent, expecting with Paracelsus’ death they could breathe, they could move on. 

She should have stayed … listened … noticed.   

“I made excuses for so long.” He struggles to go on, but a hitch interrupts his words. “I didn’t want things to change.” He presses his eyes. “I didn’t want the burden alone.”

It takes him a minute, but she’ll wait.

“John wanted Vincent from the first, but by then I saw—too late—he only had time for power, for survival, the struggle, the harshness of life.”

He looks away, on the verge of tears.

“He didn’t love Vincent.”

She nods.

“He wanted his strength,” she affirms.

“The War, the Nazis, shaped John,” Father breathes. “He survived them, but in fighting the monsters …”

“He became one of them.”

“When does a victim become an oppressor, the righteous turn vicious?” Father questions the air.

She thinks of Mischa and Sophie. They survived the Nazis and they didn’t become brutal. They knew how to fight for what was right, because … they knew what mattered.

“Maybe,” she says quietly, “when we can’t accept that life can be … awful, unkind, unfair, and the only thing we have is our love for each other.”

She owed Sophie and Mischa a visit. She owed Edie one too, and Jenny, and Nancy, owed Brigit a letter, owed Joe overtime, and Vincent… her life. She could collapse under the obligations … but in that indebtedness, there was purpose, existence, love.

Seeing people as either burdens or means to an end, that was how Paracelsus came to be.

“If we are hurt,” she ventures, “we can harm others while seeking … meaning, safety. Anna became an impediment to Paracelsus’ vision, and he killed her for it. Those who took his drug were nothing but a means to gain wealth. Vincent …”

“Vincent was a way to get back at me,” Father spits out.

“Yes, but …”

It was more than that.

“Vincent was afraid he’d become a monster.”

“And John knew that,” the older man whispers. “Exploited that … my son’s greatest fear.”

Vincent attacked Paracelsus disguised as Father. Paracelsus goaded him into doing it.

“He wanted Vincent to be a killer without conscience,” she says, trying to work it out. “A killer, like him. A warrior without weakness. Perhaps … the warrior he needed as a child.”

She had seen Vincent kill, kill to save her. There was no denying his power, and what he had done to Paracelsus, she would never forget, but …

“But that’s not who Vincent is,” she announces.

Father looks puzzled, and she tries to explain. 

“Vincent is a warrior, a protector, but he’s also gentle …” she sighs, “and fragile too. He needs us.”

He needs me.

“He spoke of his fears, his weakness.”

Father nods.

“And I think—I hope—that’s what will heal him. That’s the difference between them. Paracelsus wouldn’t talk about his pain, his loss, expecting it to make him stronger, more determined. But sometimes suffering doesn’t improve us.”

She thinks.

“Being harmed doesn’t make us saints. It doesn’t make us noble. We have to do that. If we don’t confront the pain, accept the weakness, we can become hard, selfish.”

“But that isn’t Vincent,” Father says.

“His heart is different,” she agrees. “Vincent cares deeply. So deeply … I worry …”

The doctor waits a few seconds before squeezing her hand to go on.

“I worry that when his memories return, he’ll see the things he’s done, the things he’s had to do, as proof of his greatest fear. Paracelsus, John, took his own pain and used it as fuel for his hate. He destroyed those he professed to love. But even when Vincent was hurting the worst, when he was the most lost, he didn’t want to hurt us.”

She catches his gaze.

“You taught Vincent to love, to care … deeply. When he was afraid he’d harm us, he ran. I wish he hadn’t, but I understand why he did.”

“And you found a way to reach him.” His statement also an awed question. “You wouldn’t leave Vincent in that dark place.”

No.

Not without me.

But she can say nothing more, has no more wisdom, because love sometimes isn’t enough. If it was, Rolley would be here with them, maybe Mitch too.

Reaching out only works if the person is willing to reach back. Perhaps that’s another difference. Vincent wanted her to help him, reach him. John never gave anyone else the chance. Anna loved him, Father loved him, but that didn’t save him.

And Vincent …

“He’s healing, Father, but it’s slow. And he still doesn’t remember … so many things …” She swallows. “I hope we can find the balance … between remembering the past, learning from it, but not drowning in it.”

“If there is …” He smiles briefly. “You will find a way.” Then he raises her hand and kisses it.

He believes in her, trusts she will help his son.

But how?

It is the greatest compliment he has ever shown her.

She prays she’s worthy of it. She prays her love is enough.

Because what if …

What if she and Father are going in the wrong direction? What if they should leave well enough alone and forget about recovering Vincent’s memories.

He could deal with his past by not having one.  

He doesn’t have to be weighed down.

He’s happy enough, well enough. He can read. He smiles. He sleeps. She’s watched him sleep. And he says he doesn’t dream.

Father interrupts the uneasy musing.

“I wish we had reached John, for all our sakes.”

He returns the picture of the lost boy between the pages of his journal and places the book with the others.

“Me too,” she mumbles, staggering under the weight of his trust and her own past.

Like what happened in the cave.

What she did, what they did together, to bring Vincent back from the edge …

It was reckless … crazy, with Father and the others right outside.

She can hardly believe it happened. 

If Father found out …  If Vincent …

If he remembers, will he accept where passion led them, or blame himself for losing control?

“Catherine?” Father calls her attention from the blush-inducing memory. “Please don’t tell Vincent this … about John … I don’t think he’s ready. He’s too frail.”

No, a part of her instantly rebels.  

And that is her answer.

She must tell him. Not today. Not tomorrow, but at some point.

Vincent deserves to know about the man who tormented him. He deserves to know that despite his fears, he will never become that … that he could never be who Paracelsus wanted him to be—a warrior without limits or conscience.

He has to remember, and she’ll be there to help him. Together they brought him back from the brink of death. They can heal the wounds of his past.

Because they never withhold the truth from each other.

“Vincent is too fragile now,” she agrees with the basics of the statement.

But he won’t always be.