“That is true. You must drink it willingly.” Father Jerome nodded at Karl. “But when you drink, there is no way back.”
Karl hesitated. He looked at Johann, and Johann thought he could detect a silent sadness in his assistant’s eyes—sadness and something else. Johann was about to say something, but then Karl lifted the chalice to his lips.
And drank.
And just then, the droning bass of the invisible organ set in again.
The most conflicting feelings raged inside Karl when he placed the chalice to his lips. He assumed the potion was not poison but a drug. Still, his hands shook as if he was being passed a cup of hemlock. All this seemed so absurd and horrible at once. Karl knew what had happened back in Nuremberg after Faust had been given the black potion. During a gruesome sacrificial ceremony, the doctor’s little finger on his right hand and his left eye had been removed. Was he facing a similar fate now?
The liquid touched his lips and then seeped down his throat. It was the most disgusting thing he’d ever drunk. His body reacted by gagging, and he struggled to keep the potion down. He could feel the eyes of the guests on him, watching him like hungry wolves. Damn—these people were at least as crazy as those Satanists below Nuremberg. Karl couldn’t believe that the guests were hundred-year-olds who prolonged their life through some sorts of horrific rituals—or worse, living dead who had risen from their graves. He refused to believe it because he knew that otherwise his entire view of the world would collapse, a view that rested on reason and science and that had no room for a real devil, immortality, and all the other outrageous nonsense he had encountered over the last few months.
But still he drank. He drank for one reason in particular—a reason almost as irrational as the existence of the devil.
He did it for love.
Karl couldn’t leave the doctor, not after all the years they’d spent together, and that was why he had to walk this path with him now. As painful and crazy as it was.
The liquid burned like bile as it seemed to expand in his stomach; the pain reminded Karl of a pungent, high-proof liquor. Once he overcame the initial nausea, a heat spread from the center of his body and radiated into even the smallest pores. At the same time he felt light and strangely carefree. Suddenly he had no idea how much time had passed since he’d taken the first sip. Minutes? Hours? His fear was gone, and the glow of the torches in the crypt seemed warm and homely to him, like a cozy fire on a winter’s night.
Karl looked over at Johann, who was standing beside him with his eyes closed. The doctor was so handsome. Karl wanted to touch him; he reached out for Johann but grew aware that they weren’t alone. The men and women inside the crypt surrounded them, but they no longer seemed crazy or evil to Karl. They were friendly, warmhearted people who beamed at him. Some laughed, others clapped their hands, and they chanted: “O lord, take them to you! Let them come to you!” And Karl laughed with them like a big, innocent child.
A hand touched him gently by the shoulder. It was Father Jerome, smiling at him.
“Follow me to the bath.” Father Jerome’s voice was as warm and mild as the morning sunshine in early summer. “You must wash before you can set forth on your journey.”
Karl and Faust followed him submissively. Father Jerome led them to the well at the back of the crypt. The water inside gleamed black, and the well looked much larger to Karl now, almost like a basin meant for swimming.
Like an enormous baptismal font, he thought.
“Take off your clothes,” said Father Jerome, not in the tone of a commanding priest but lovingly, like a dear friend.
Hesitantly at first, then faster and faster, Karl undressed, and so did the doctor. Soon they both stood naked in front of the well, and for some reason Karl felt comfortably warm despite the chilly air inside the crypt. It was his first time seeing the doctor like this. Even though Faust was past forty now, his body still looked athletic and sinewy, without an ounce of fat on him. Strands of muscles showed beneath his skin like taut ropes, even in those places where he was paralyzed. Bushy pubic hair covered his manhood, which, Karl noticed, was rather large.
“Now enter the pool and wash,” said Father Jerome. “Every part of your body! Nothing must remain untouched.”
Karl didn’t hesitate for long. He found the water to be surprisingly warm. When he lowered his foot into it, circles formed on the surface that grew toward the outside edge, and Karl felt magically drawn to them. He sat down on the rim and slid into the bath; it came up to his hips when standing, and it felt wonderful. He leaned down and scooped the liquid over his body. When it wet his lips, it tasted as salty as seawater. All worry and exhaustion seemed to fall away from him.
Johann climbed in next. They hadn’t exchanged a word so far, and Karl wasn’t even sure if the doctor was aware of him. He seemed to be entirely absorbed in his own world. Karl noticed a shine, a supernatural reddish glow that Faust exuded. What was it? Karl reached out and gently touched the doctor’s cheek. Only then did Johann notice him and smile.
“Karl, my loyal Karl,” he whispered. “You’ve always been there.”
“Johann,” replied Karl softly. He had never before called the doctor by his first name. “I . . . I love you . . .”
The words had come out of his mouth as if his thoughts suddenly had a voice of their own. Strangely enough, the revelation didn’t seem to shock the doctor.
“I
