A few scratchy clicks came through the loudspeakers as the old gramophone record was set on the turntable, and the heavy whirring of the old projector began. There was a crackle of light, and then an oblong of fly-blown whiteness appeared on the small screen, immediately followed by the German studio’s symbol.
Lucy had thought she would be able to face watching this film perfectly calmly, but as soon as Conrad Kline’s music swept in, her heartbeat punched painfully against her ribs, and she was aware all over again that a tiny fragment of a long-ago world was about to be prised open. And there are some pasts that should be left alone, she thought. There are some pasts that should be allowed to die and I think this is one of them.
The opening sequences of the film were darker and more menacing than she remembered, or perhaps she had simply been too young to pick up the darkness. She was able to pick it up now, though, and she found it disturbing. And how much of the film’s present impact was down to what had come afterwards, to the inevitable parallel between Alraune’s mad scientist creator and the Nazis’ macabre attempts at altering the blueprint of human life – the experiments on Jews and on twins…? Astonishing to remember that the film predated that by at least ten years, thought Lucy.
The actual conception of Alraune in the gallows’ shadows was rather tame compared with some of the stuff you saw on film today, but it was still extraordinarily evocative, and the music held a strong undercurrent of sexuality at this point. There was a faint rhythmic pattern that, at the romantic end of the spectrum, might have been a lover’s heart beating but that, at the comic end of the spectrum, might have been a bedspring twangingly bouncing. And then listen to it again, and it could equally well be the sound of a gibbet, creaking and swaying with the weight of a strangled murderer…I do wish I’d known you, said Lucy to Conrad Kline’s ghost. You’ve got a bit overshadowed by Lucretia as far as the family’s concerned, but I think I’d have liked you very much.
The scenes slid into one another – to one accustomed to twentieth-and twenty-first-century technology they were not entirely seamless, but the links were smooth enough not to be distracting. Lucy spared a thought to wonder if Inspector Fletcher’s own experiment, whatever it might be, was working. She glanced round the room. Michael Sallis’s face was partly in shadow; he had not said a great deal since arriving, but he had seemed pleased to see Lucy again, and he appeared interested in the film. He was sitting with Francesca Holland, Trixie Smith’s colleague, who had raised the alarm when Trixie vanished. Lucy thought Francesca was not exactly pretty but she had the kind of face you would want to keep looking at. She was watching the film closely, and as the prostitute who was Alraune’s mother harangued the scientist, Lucy saw her exchange a brief appreciative grin with Michael, as if they had both recognized some allusion or allegory in the scene.
On Lucy’s left, Edmund had donned a pair of spectacles and was looking over the tops of the lenses with scarcely veiled disapproval.
Liam Devlin, on Lucy’s right, was watching the film as well and with unexpected absorption. But as if becoming aware of Lucy’s covert regard, he half turned his head to look at her and sent her a slightly quizzical grin. He had the mobile mouth of many Irish people, and very bright, very intelligent eyes. Lucy blinked, and turned hastily back to the screen, where the scientist, by now realizing the evil results of his gallows-tree experiment, was carrying his sulky and soulless child through the night to place her in the keeping of the cloisters. The music went with him, a faint element of menace creeping in now, like a heart knocking against uneasy bones. There was a nicely brooding shot of the convent for which they were bound, standing wreathed in mist in some unidentifiable forest remoteness.