Fred Saberhagen - The Frankenstein Papers

The experience seems natural and not natural at the same time. Is it possible that my brain was once that of a mountaineer?

And at the same time, my thoughts are occupied on quite another level, still trying to understand what happened during my encounter with Mesmer. What did I really cry out, and in what language? Is it possible, possible at all, that I might actually be the peasant called Big Karl?

Freeman, when we first discussed the possibility, quickly pointed out the absurdities that such an identification would entail. What peasant, to begin with, could possibly know all the languages that I can speak?

My body of course might be, for all I know, that of Big Karl, my brain that of someone else entirely. Is it conceivable that the body, in mesmeric trance, remembers its right name even when its original brain is gone, and is able to communicate that knowledge with a shout?

And, as always, there is the mystery of my face. I still have no idea whose that can be. No one's, probably, but mine. Some mistake by Frankenstein, that he was always too secretive to acknowledge.

From the start of our flight, I had some idea that the air would grow colder as we rose higher, and such has proved to be the case. A suspicion has crossed my mind as well that the air will eventually prove too thin to breathe, if we rise high enough; but it seems after all that we shall not have to worry about that on this little trip. The bag is of some crudely rubberized cloth fabric, and I am sure it must be leaking. We are already beginning a descent. I pray it does not become too precipitous; there is little or nothing available for us to throw out to lighten ship.

Later _There are clouds—I think they are clouds and not hills or mountains—off on the horizon to the south, and Freeman is determined to believe that they may be the Alps. He is permanently awestricken, it seems, and I have a hard time getting him to concentrate on what seems to me more important.

"Freeman, exactly what did I say when Mesmer had cast me into that extraordinary state? Was there anything else, besides those two words that might have been a name?"

But he is unable or unwilling even to try to think about it just now. Every minute—and we have been aloft for hours, the day is well advanced_he is still pointing out some new marvel.

The roads below us and behind us now lie in full sunlight, and I scan them for evidence of the King's cavalry, or whatever other pursuers there may be. So far I can detect no sign of our enemies below, and I am somewhat heartened.

I do see peasants in the fields below, interrupting their early morning labors to point upward at us and gesticulate. Work stops altogether as we pass, and many little figures go running off to spread the news. There will be plenty of witnesses to tell our pursuers which way we are drifting.

Later _We came down, sooner than I had hoped we would, and rather hard, though fortunately on nothing harder than a plowed field. There was an incident of peasants and pitchforks. We were fortunate to get away unscathed; and the balloon, taken for some kind of demonic messenger, was attacked and totally destroyed. My last glimpse of the scene, as my friend and I vanished over an adjoining hilltop in a stolen farm wagon, showed a man who must have been the local priest, approaching the tattered ruin as if reluctantly, and well armed with holy water.

On to Ingolstadt! I am now consumed with the idea that the answers I must have are to be found nowhere but there.

Later _I have evolved a theory, but cannot decide if it is sane or not. Suppose that, somehow, Frankenstein's electric treatment not only restored life to what are now my brain and my body, but somehow altered me in both substance and appearance. So that now the personality and the body of Big Karl, along with those of one or more other contributors, still exist, but in an altered state, or each only intermittently or partially.

Looking at the words after writing them down, my theory strikes me as utterly confused at best. If I were Frankenstein, I could explain it all by reference to the electric fluid. But to me that term explains nothing.

Another thought: if I am Big Karl, entirely, then what happened to the dead body, or assemblage of dead bodies, that Frankenstein was attempting to animate on that November night? I remember seeing no such charnel exhibit in the room. Nor did Frankenstein and Clerval ever report seeing anything of the kind when they reentered the laboratory on the following morning.

And what am I to make of Saville, that hard-headed man of business, and his oft-repeated solemn assurance that on that night he and Clerval had seen incontrovertible evidence of my creator's unqualified success? Saville would lie, of course, if he stood to gain by lying; but he was convincing when he said that he would not have staked his fortune and years of his life in pursuit of a goal whose basis remained to him unproven.

But more and more I am convinced that I was not dead before that November night of lightning and of change. Whatever else may eventually be proved to be the truth, that at least has the ring, the feel of truth to me. I am not, I think, Frankenstein's creation after all; Franklin seemed doubtful that I could be. Then I am someone else…

I remember—never shall I be able to forget—the awe with which Victor regarded me during that first daylight meeting between us, in the Bavarian forest. I look again at my own yellow skin, at the networked veins and tendons running underneath it. How could this body ever have been anything but what it is?

And yet the same thing might be said of every human body. What magical transformations of growth, development, disease, decay, are worked in each of us by simple time and patient nature_how little we are able to understand any of these changes.

Freeman and I are forging on our way, toward Ingolstadt and the nearby village where Big Karl is supposed to live. God grant that there the truth, or some substantial portion of it, is waiting to be found.

LETTER 12

April 1,1783

Bavaria — the vicinity of Big Karl's village

Dear Father—

I trust that you received my last letter, in which I gave, at some length, the particulars of our miraculous balloon adventure; at any rate, I am not going to repeat the details of that enterprise here, for there is fresh news of some importance to be told.

I have success to report—and failure too. We have managed to learn something that may well have significance, and yet I fear that the whole situation regarding my companion's nature and his origins remains as unclear as it ever was.

This village, where Big Karl was born and has lived most of his life, is just about as much of a backwater as you might expect. Or it would be, except for one circumstance. The proximity to the university town of Ingolstadt, where a number of them find employment, has rendered the inhabitants somewhat conversant with the great world. Since our arrival we have encountered two of the local clergy, both of whom at once assumed we had some connection with the university. I suspect that everyone in the village believes the same about us, and that as a result any oddities in our behavior are likely to be tolerantly overlooked.

Since our arrival here we have asked everyone we meet about Big Karl. Apparently he has no immediate family. At least some of these people must know him well, but it would be hard to guess that from their answers. No one is willing to admit knowledge of Karl's present whereabouts, and all have difficulty recalling when and where they saw him last. One old woman, gazing up at my tall companion, took it for granted that he was some relative of Karl's; but when she was told that the visitor was "from the university" she immediately dismissed her earlier impression as absurd.