The Sleepwalkers by Paul Grossman

going to count backwards from ten, and when I finish, you will be asleep, deep, deep asleep. . . . Ten . . . nine . . .”
    At the end of his countdown the Great Gustave tested each subject for signs of a trance. “The arms should be as limp as rope,” he tells the audience. As he lifts them, several arms indeed fall back corpselike. “The eyeballs should be turned up.” He demonstrates by yanking several of the ladies’ eyelids.
    “Hannah Lore.” He returns to her. “Can you hear me?”
    “Yes.”
    “How do you feel now?”
    “Lovely.”
    “Ladies and gentlemen, I will now demonstrate to you the power hypnotic trance exerts over the human mind.
    “Hannah Lore . . . can you speak Chinese?”
    “Of course not.” She giggles. “I’m from Düsseldorf.”
    “When I snap my fingers, you will awaken and you will no longer be Hannah Lore from Düsseldorf, but the dowager empress of ancient China. You are very angry because one of your servants has stolen your favorite teacup. You’re not sure who it is, but you vow to catch the thief and cut off his head. Here we go now. One. Two. Three.” He snapped his fingers.
    Hannah Lore jumped from her seat and with a furious scowl started screaming at the top of her lungs.
“Ching how ni gon! He how gon ni how? Chow kow ling chew! Ling chew! Ling chew!”
    She kept making slitting motions with her finger across her throat.
    The audience was in hysterics.
    “When I clap my hands, you will fall back to sleep!”
    Gustave clapped, and the empress collapsed as if poisoned, dead into her throne.
    “Hannah Lore,” he said. “Do you speak Chinese?”
    “No, of course not.” She giggled again. “I’m from Düsseldorf.”
    In this manner the Great Gustave entertained for an hour.
    Willi was astonished at the patent aura of seduction to it all. How the man stood above these limp women’s bodies, commanding them with his deep, demanding masculine voice, his every wish instantly obeyed. Turning women into bumblebees. Ballerinas. French maids.
    Gunther clearly was not oblivious to the implications either. “What I couldn’t do with six girls under my control like that,” he muttered, forgetting himself in Willi’s presence.
    Every man in the audience, Willi was sure, was thinking exactly the same.
    But not every man in the audience had the Great Gustave’s gifts.
    After the show the King of Mystics returned his subjects to the world of ordinary consciousness, and the adoring arms of their men. They recalled nothing of their adventures. All felt marvelous, they reported, as if they’d just spent a week at Baden-Baden’s finest spa. The clients of Hell were left well satisfied with their evening’s peek into the bizarre, expensive netherworld of Weimar Berlin.
    As soon as the lights came up, Willi led Gunther backstage and sought out the dressing room of the Great Gustave. They found the performer at his makeup table already half-transformed. Gone was the jet-black hair, sitting now on a wig stand, the deathlylooking black eyes crumpled on a dozen paper napkins. The white skin. The strange red lips, all washing away under cold cream.
    “Kripo? My word!” He rose to his feet showing more natural emotion than he had all night. “What on earth have I done now? Come, come in.”
    “Herr Gustave,” Willi addressed him. “Saturday night you hypnotized a young woman who later went missing.”
    “What, missing?”
    Willi handed him the picture of the princess.
    “I don’t remember her. Honestly, I’d tell you if I did. I’ve nothing to hide. But you know how many shows a week I do? All these women’s faces blur together in my mind. My work requires so much concentration. Perhaps nearly as much as yours, Herr Inspektor-Detektiv.”
    “What about the legs?” Willi asked. “Would you say she had Champagne Bottle? Baby Doll? Or the Ideal?”
    “Oh, that!” Gustave laughed, wiping the rest of the cold cream from his face and turning into a perfectly