Page 127 of The Secret of Secrets (Robert Langdon #6)

Steam filled the lab shower at Crucifix Bastion. The Golěm tipped his head back and savored the softness of the water on his face. Gently massaging his cheeks with his palms, he could feel the final remnants of dried clay releasing from his flesh…the last of The Golěm dissolving away.

As he ran his hands over his head, he realized that in his exhaustion he’d forgotten to remove his skullcap. Finding the edge of the skintight cap with his fingertips, he pried it away from his forehead, wincing as it slid backward off his head, inevitably tearing several hairs from his scalp.

The Golěm dropped the cap onto the floor and gently massaged his scalp, letting the water flow through his thick hair, rinsing away any remaining mud. Only after the water spiraling down the drain had become perfectly clear did he step from the shower.

Wrapped in a towel, he stood at the sink, taking a rare moment to study himself in the mirror.

The eyes staring back at him were bloodshot and weary…a face scarred by a violent past. He knew this was not a pretty face, and yet it was the face he had been given.

I have learned to see beauty in it, he thought.

Over time, The Golěm had come to love this face…the way the blond hair fell to the shoulders and framed the innocent blue eyes. Even the crooked nose had a charm to him now. He pictured the candlelit photo on the wall of his svatyně and smiled.

“Sasha,” he whispered to his reflection. “I wish you could know me.”

The blond woman in the mirror did not reply.

Despite Sasha’s bodily presence in the room, she heard nothing. The Golěm had locked her away in a sleeplike void where she was blissfully unaware of all things, including even herself.

Although they shared this physical form, The Golěm had established his dominance long ago, always in control, carefully filtering what Sasha witnessed, remembered, understood.

He did this for her protection, to shelter her gentle soul.

He was the vault to hold her pain, the army to fight her battles.

You summoned me, Sasha…and I answered.

The Golěm would never forget that horrifying moment in the Russian psychiatric hospital, when Sasha’s soul, unable to endure another moment of suffering, had called out to the universe in desperate need of help.

The moment of my birth…

Few recalled the instant they came to be, and yet The Golěm recalled his.

He had flickered abruptly into consciousness, awaking to sheer horror, finding himself trapped in a body that was being mercilessly beaten.

Overcome with pain and outrage, he instinctively rose up, summoning wells of strength this body had never accessed, and he strangled his attacker’s neck.

Standing over the lifeless body of Sasha’s night nurse, The Golěm had heard his own hollow voice for the very first time.

“I am your protector, Sasha. You are safe now.”

In the foyer outside Sasha’s apartment, Katherine Solomon’s brain struggled to organize the cascade of disquieting thoughts brought on by Langdon’s words.

He was correct that her lecture last night had included a description of sudden savant syndrome—a condition she believed was clear evidence of nonlocal consciousness—a damaged brain receiving multiple signals.

He was also correct that she had then discussed a second remarkable phenomenon.

“There exists another curious condition,” Katherine had told the audience, “that is related to sudden savant syndrome, as it also suggests the ability of the brain to receive multiple signals. The phenomenon goes by the clinical term ‘dissociative identity disorder’—although most of us know it more commonly as ‘split personality disorder’—a psychological phenomenon that presents as multiple distinct personalities inhabiting a single body.”

This globally documented condition, Katherine had gone on to explain, was most common in women and often arose as a coping mechanism for repeated physical or sexual abuse.

Most frequently, the second identity manifested for the purpose of absorbing the host’s pain by enduring the trauma in her place—a kind of proxy victim—sustaining the anguish, blocking all memory of it, and enabling the host to “disassociate” from her own suffering.

The secondary personality was known as the alternate or “alter” and typically appeared in an abrupt schismatic break during acute trauma.

Having manifested, the alter could then take up permanent residence in the host, lingering for years or a lifetime as a kind of guardian, even subsuming the subject’s darkest memories in a kind of selective amnesia—providing a clean slate with which to move forward.

It was not uncommon for a protective alter to assume control of the body and become the dominant personality, deciding when and how the traumatized subject could safely “surface.”

Dissociative identity disorder had first been diagnosed in the 1800s under the name “double consciousness”—a kind of waking sleepwalking in which an individual seemed to be taken over by another consciousness, who then carried out actions without the permission, knowledge, or recollection of the individual.

Two of the most extraordinary cases in history were so meticulously documented that they became the basis for the bestsellers The Three Faces of Eve, Strangers in My Body, and Sybil.

Of course, the most famous book of all time on the condition was Robert Louis Stevenson’s The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.

Katherine knew that many instances of DID involved multiple alters—some with more than a dozen identities living in one host body.

Incredibly, the alters all had different voices, accents, handwriting, skill sets, food preferences, and even gender identities.

They walked differently, preferred different living spaces, suffered different physical ailments, and even had different IQs and eyesight.

One radio receiving multiple distinct stations…

Psychiatrists diverged wildly over how these stark dissimilarities between alters could be possible, and some skeptics even accused DID patients of being skilled actors looking for attention.

However, when patients submitted to rigorous testing involving MRIs, lie detectors, and sophisticated lines of interrogation, the results were always the same—there were indeed multiple discrete individuals existing within one body.

Some of the alters were aware of the others living with them in what was known as “the system.” These alters were called “co-conscious.” In contrast, some alters were oblivious that the system even existed, believing instead that they were alone in the body.

They often suffered memory gaps when stronger alters blocked them out, taking over the forefront of the mind in an action known as “fronting.”

Now, as Katherine stood with Langdon in the dingy foyer, she felt her attention fixated on the strand of blond hair that he had pulled from the skullcap. His conclusion was shocking…and logical. He believes The Golěm and Sasha are the same person.

If Robert was right, then finding Sasha was no longer a possibility. Tragically, the psychological condition that had arisen to save Sasha Vesna’s life had also likely ended it. The Golěm must have died in the explosion…taking Sasha with him.

The Golěm finished dressing and scrutinized himself in the mirror. Her image always felt foreign to him, and yet this was how he found himself most often existing in the world—dressed as Sasha, wearing the clothing she donned every morning.

Today’s attire—jeans, a white blouse, tennis shoes, and a parka—were clothes The Golěm had left in Sasha’s office for this very moment. The look was not flattering, and her hair was matted and wet, but it made her a pitiable figure…and she was in desperate need of pity.

Please help Sasha…

The Golěm had done his best to be a silent partner in Sasha’s life, hiding back in the deepest recesses of her mind, watching as she bravely navigated her new life…

the life she deserved. Like any caring guardian, The Golěm occasionally intervened for Sasha’s own protection.

He would step forward and quietly grab the reins, taking over Sasha’s body, effortlessly mimicking her voice and demeanor.

These interventions were to protect her…

to shield her from dangerous situations, painful information, or difficult decisions she was not prepared to make.

For Sasha, these moments were brief blank spots in her life and memory, akin to daydreaming while driving a car and arriving at your destination with no recollection of how you got there.

She accepted that her memory was occasionally spotty.

The Golěm’s interventions had become less frequent recently because Sasha had been as happy as he had ever seen her.

The reason for her happiness was Michael Harris.

Sasha was in love.

The handsome attaché had entered her life by chance, or so it had seemed, and while The Golěm was uncomfortable with their growing physical relationship, he had chosen not to intervene. Sasha deserved a first love, and Michael seemed like a decent man.

As it turned out, appearances were deceptive.

Three weeks earlier, The Golěm had been lying on the hemp mat in his svatyně, enjoying a postictal bliss, when he heard someone in the apartment below.

Puzzled, he pressed his ear to the floor and heard what sounded like someone searching Sasha’s flat.

Before he could get dressed and run downstairs, a voice began talking loudly in the space below.

The voice belonged to Michael Harris.

Stunned, The Golěm found himself listening to a phone conversation between Harris and the U.S. ambassador. The call revealed not only that Harris had ulterior motives for befriending Sasha, but also that the kindness shown by Sasha’s trusted mentor, Dr. Brigita Gessner, might also be disingenuous.

In a matter of seconds, The Golěm reassessed the charmed life he thought Sasha had found.

He was well aware of the extensive medical treatments she had undergone, and yet his belief was always that Brigita Gessner had benevolently cured Sasha of her ailments—and continued to administer procedures to perfect the results.

Now The Golěm saw a different reality. From that moment on, he was almost always present, watching through Sasha’s eyes, observing, listening, guiding, and awaiting his opportunity to reveal the truth.

Last night, The Golěm had finally seized his opportunity, isolating Gessner in her lab and immortalizing the treachery.

His recorded confession of Gessner had covered it all…

surgeries, implants, Dmitri’s death, psychedelic drugs, Mr. Finch, the CIA, and their true objective in Prague.

Threshold is now gone, The Golěm reveled as he exited the lab’s bathroom into the hallway.

He hoped Robert Langdon and Katherine Solomon had escaped; the American professor had shown significant kindness to Sasha today, and his scientist friend understood the universe in ways that only those like The Golěm could truly grasp.

The day, while ending in triumph, had presented no shortage of unforeseen challenges.

The Golěm’s first shock had been encountering úSZI officers at the bastion; his second seeing Langdon crouched over Gessner’s body; and his third—no doubt triggered by the first two—an epileptic seizure in Gessner’s lab that he was unable to stop.

The challenge with seizures was that The Golěm’s brain always rebooted to its original default state—Sasha.

She always awoke alone and vulnerable. Post-seizure, Sasha’s consciousness was fully present and in control until The Golěm could flicker back online after several minutes and take over.

For this reason, he kept his svatyně pitch-black when he received the Ether, ensuring Sasha would always awaken to darkness rather than to an unfamiliar room.

This morning, following his seizure beside Gessner’s body, The Golěm had wrestled his consciousness back to the forefront and found himself cradled in the arms of Robert Langdon.

Realizing his descent to Threshold would have to wait, The Golěm persuaded Langdon to flee the bastion—ostensibly with Sasha—but as the professor descended the snowy slope to Folimanka Park, The Golěm had been with him every step, watching through Sasha’s eyes.

At Sasha’s apartment, Harris’s imminent arrival provided the perfect opportunity to punish Sasha’s cruelest betrayer, so The Golěm had sent Langdon out of harm’s way by improvising a simple illusion—a slip of paper; a knock on the door; a momentary retreat back into the bathroom.

Langdon found the message and dashed into the alleyway in his socks, never noticing The Golěm watching from Sasha’s window.

Less than an hour ago, here at the bastion, a female operative had attacked him, and he could still see her startled expression as she desperately drove her hands up into The Golěm’s chest…and encountered the soft shape of Sasha’s breasts.

I am not as you think I am.

And then, his final challenge, downstairs in Threshold. Having lost his magnetic wand, The Golěm was hit by another seizure and frantically searched the domed chamber for a safe place to ride it out, finally opting for the padded interior of one of the EPR pods. It was a place he knew well.

I have died there many times.

The Golěm shuddered as he now recalled the true nature of Gessner’s experiments—pushing Sasha to the brink and pulling her back—over and over.

At the time, he had believed in Gessner’s generosity and had done his best to absorb the pain of those events, to shield Sasha from the discomfort and fear.

Fortunately, Sasha could not recall the many times Gessner had drugged her and wheeled her through Threshold to perform various experiments in the operating suite and pod room.

But I remember, The Golěm thought.

The faint wisps of recollection still haunted him.

Another life, he told himself. That was the past.

The future was getting close now, the future he had planned for Sasha, the future she deserved. Soon I will set her free and vanish. All that remained was to ascend from this subterranean world…and make his way to the United States embassy.