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Chapter 15: Out of the Barrel
Jean, Hermione, Sally and Alice's had spent days in lonely confinement when suddenly all was changed as Jean was taken from the barrel.
The others cried out as one of the guards had opened the cage, unfastened her shackles from the chain that held her to the wall and pulled her from the cell. Without a word, he made no attempt to silence the others, ignoring them as he dragged Jean out, struggling and shouting.
“Where are you taking me,” she demanded, “là où êtes vous me prenant?” but she received no reply and the guard slammed the doors of the cage and the barrel shut on the other three behind her. She was half dragged half pushed along a series of rock cut corridors by her silent captor until finally she was taken through a door and into a brightly lit, comfortably furnished room. To one side there was a long leather couch, beside it a well padded armchair and a low table that carried a lamp where a slender naked woman cast in bronze held aloft a bright opalescent globe. Above the couch hung a richly painted picture of two lovers embracing,
Jean was pushed down on the couch, her hands dragged above her head and fastened there. Her captor went to the other end of the couch, reached beneath it and pulled out another length of chain which he fastened to her wrist shackles. Then with the single word, “Attends,” he left her.
It took only a few experimental tugs to convince Jean that she would have no success in freeing herself from the couch and so she settled back to wait as she had been instructed. At least the room was a little warmer than the cell she had just left. She looked around her but could find little more to give her insight into her captors than she had been able to in the cellar. Against the opposite wall stood a heavy wooden desk and a further chair as well as a tall filing cabinet. Above the desk hung a series of ornate, framed, certificates but from where she was she could not make out what they were for. She was staring at them when the door to the room opened and a short dapper man with a neatly trimmed moustache and beard came in. He pulled open the jacket of his tweed suit and pulled a gold pocket watch from his waist-coat. “So late,” he said with a German accent, “so late.”.
He picked up some papers from his desk and then strode across to the chair beside Jean's couch. “I am so sorry to keep you waiting. It is most bad manners, I know. What is it they say? Punctuality is the politeness of kings? Well I fear I must be the basest of scoundrels, goodness me, so late. I can't imagine how I came to be so late.”
Jean speculated for a moment on what to make of the bizarre circumstance in which she had been kidnapped, dragged halfway across Europe , imprisoned naked in chains in a dungeon cell and now dragged to this new place where her captor's main concern was that he'd kept her waiting. She was about to say something when the bearded man started up again.
“Ach, no please, no need to say anything. I should tell you who I am. My name is Dr Karl Insing. You see my qualifications,” he gestured to the certificates on the wall -. “I am here to help you, I wish to assure you that you will have no difficulty in acclimatising to surroundings that I am sure you are finding confusing and perhaps a little disorienting.”
“Doctor – I have no wish to become acclimatised to this brutal situation. Please tell me what I must do to leave here.”
Insing smiled. “Now you see denial is a common response to a change in circumstance – we must all learn to adapt to the world and to bend to the wind of our life as it slides past us. I should explain. I am professor of adaptive behaviour therapies at the Vienna Institute of Psychiatric Research. I have the very great privilege to work with Siggi and of course Karl. Like them I believe psychiatric theory can help us all, not just the lucky few who suffer from some derangement or other. Luckily our hosts here have been able to fund a considerable body of work researching the techniques that allow us to overcome the irrational compulsion to cling on to the behaviours that help cope with the past when they prevent you from coping with the present.”
“Doctor, I…”
“No, not to interrupt, please. I was late in starting you see and so I must press on. You will experience a series of emotions, denial – anger – bargaining and depression all these are simply obstacles, barriers to the necessary acceptance outcome of adjusted behaviour consistent with your new situation.”
“I don't need to adjust my behaviour, Doctor, I need a different situation.”
“No, no, no, more denial – it really is not mentally healthy to do this. You must find it in yourself to reach out beyond the limits of your previous experience and into the needs of your current circumstance. Why do you find this need to question your circumstances?”
“Because, Doctor, my circumstances are the complete contradiction of anything a normal person would find acceptable. But, Doctor, just supposing for a moment that I were to accept that this is a rational proposal from the obsessive lunatic that abducted me and not the theories of an madman who kidnaps women just what do you propose should be done.”
“Oh, Miss,” – he peered down at his notes – “Alardyce, it is? Now, I fear you are wrong about me, I have not caused your abduction at all, I am merely here to help you come to terms with the results of that. It is always important to be clear about the role that others play in your fate. And I must insist that I am not obsessive, in any respect. I am certainly not obsessive about lateness, for example, there was no question that I could have been here sooner but there were circumstances, it was not possible. But you are right, I should have been on time. It is not a question of obsession, simply a recognition of reality in this particular circumstance. Now, to turn to your main point – I am pleased to see that you are sufficiently interested in my techniques to understand what is required. I have researched this for some time and I have discovered the technique that is most effective in bringing about a change of behaviour and a re-adjustment of personal perspectives.”
“And that is…” Jean asked.
“Oh, I thought you might have realised by now. I should explain. I could have spent more time if I had been here earlier, I'm so sorry. Now where was I? Ach, jah . My technique for perspective adjustment. It is very simple and like all successful methods in the treatment of the human psyche it works with the mind rather than against it, I am sure you will be pleased to hear.”
“I'm sure,” said Jean in an ironical tone that was entirely lost on Insing. “But your technique, this method of your is ….”
“Pain, my dear. I should have been clearer. The threat of and application of extreme pain. Believe me, I have studied these things. Pain accelerates the cycle of denial – anger – bargaining and acceptance. There are many who propose hypnosis or drugs but in the end I find that it is the body's defence mechanism that is the best tool – you see it is natural. Jah ?”
Jen stared back at him, horrified by whatever he might be planning for her.
While Jean was facing up to Dr. Insing, Bertie had inveigled the Comtesse into arranging a tour of the Chateau's facilities. One of the guards had shepherded him around the various cells, chambers and rooms. They ended their tour in the cellars.
“I thought, M'sieur would like to see how we are looking after the ladies that came over from England so recently,” his host said as he waved Bertie into the cellar.
“They seem to be somewhere else, old boy,” Bertie remarked scanning the cold stone room.
“Well hidden aren't they, sir,” Jennings voice came for a dark corner across the cellar, beside one of the barrels. He swung back the false front of the barrel to show the cage within.
“Trust you the find the ladies, Jennings old bean,” Bertie joked to his guide. “This chap always was quite good at cherchezing the old femmes. You'll never go short of some feminine company if Jennings is there to look after you.”
“As you say, sir,” Jennings replied pointing to the cage. “I think you'll find some ladies you know in here.”
“Jolly good, Jennings .” Bertie bounded across to the barrel. “Hello Alice , hello Sally, hope you're being looked after all right.” He waved to Hermione. “I don't think we've met – Bertie Graham, pal of Alice 's.”
Alice sobbed and held out her manacled wrists. She was so distraught and disoriented by her circumstances that she did not even attempt to hide her nakedness. “Bertie look what they've done to us. Please talk to someone. Get them to let us go. We don't know what they are going to do next – Alice has already been taken away, what's to happen to us?”
Bertie turned to the guard. “What is going to happen to them?” he demanded.
The guard gestured to Bertie to come closer. The girls watched as the guard whispered in Bertie's ear as Bertie said in turn, “Really?”, “Well!”, “Golly!” and “Oh my!” Bertie muttered something to the guard under his breath. The guard nodded. They held a brief but muttered exchange. Bertie turned back to the cage. “Sorry, girls, not really up to me you see? Did what I could though.”
There were howls of anguish from the women as the door slammed shut but the thick wood of the barrel's sides prevented them from being heard any more than they could hear the remarks of the men outside.
“So that's understood,” said Bertie.
“Yes, M'sieur, The small dark one, she will be brought to your room this evening.”
“Excellent,” said Bertie. “Oh and Jennings ..”
“Yes, sir.”
“You'd better get them to lay on some champagne. I wouldn't want the lady to think I can't give a girl a good time.”
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