The Case Against Satan (10 page)

“Enough,” moaned Susan, “enough . . .”

“YOUR NAME, I SAY!”

“Enough . . . enough . . .” The eyes of the girl rolled in her head; her belly and bosom rose and fell in tumult; sweat glued her clothes to her body.

“YOUR NAME!”

“My name . . . I will tell you my name . . .”

“BUT THIS TIME—THE TRUTH!!”

“The truth . . . yes . . . I will tell you the truth . . .” A dry tongue flashed out of her mouth and tried to lick cracked lips. “I am . . .” Her voice squeaked and failed.

“Water,” whispered the Bishop. “Give her water.”

Mrs. Farley looked quickly about, but all breakables had been cleared away and there was neither pitcher nor carafe in the room. She dashed into the adjoining bathroom.

As the water splashed into a toothbrush glass, Gregory was saying to the girl: “If you lie to me this time, if you do not tell me the truth this time, it will go hard with you, do you understand? It will go hard with you, I will see to that . . .”

Mrs. Farley returned with the water and held the glass to the girl's lips.

“That's enough,” said the Bishop.

“No, more, more,” croaked the girl. She gulped avidly, the water spilling on her face and neck, cascading over her already sweat-soaked clothes, trickling onto the bedsprings and dripping to the floor. She emptied the glass.

“Now tell me,” said Gregory. “Tell me who you are. Tell me your name.”

“I am—” Her voice was so faint they had to lean close to hear. “I am known by many names. The Son of the Morning. The Bearer of Light. The Prince of Darkness. The Enemy. The Adversary. Lucifer. Satan. Diabolus. The Devil.”

Gregory turned to the Bishop. There was a kind of pride in his face, the Bishop thought. Or was it something else? Incredulity? Scorn? Or simply the wild hysteria of battle?

There was a rattling, gagging sound from the girl, and they turned to watch in pity and loathing as she retched violently, her body curling in spasms, her fingers and toes clenched, her gaping mouth spewing jet after jet of reeking substance that covered her and splattered the wall and ran sluggishly in long viscous tendrils down to the floor.

The king was determined not to yield. He flung defiant words at his panting opponent and backed away, feeling the rough stone of the castle wall scrape his armored shoulders. In the background, the cries and clangor of mortal fray sullied the air. His whirling mind considered the awful consequences of surrender; the subjugation and the kissing of the ground before the young pretender's feet, the hooting derision of the rabble, the degradation and sickening shame. No, surrender was out of the question. Death was better. . . .

(Gregory was thrashing, gripped by one of the vivid, active, cinematic dreams that occasionally visited him. Sometimes they were beautiful, sometimes they were frightening; sometimes their meaning was clear, usually they were cryptic and even silly; often they were the strange pastiches peculiar to scholars and writers, made up of half-remembered plays and literary scraps, the Bible being a frequent source, Shakespeare another. . . .)

His tired arm lifted the battered shield before his body. “Lay on, Macduff,” he quietly smiled. Then, through clenched teeth, he hissed the words that were to be his last: “And damned be him that first cries
Hold, enough!”

Screeching the final syllable, Gregory lunged at the waiting Macduff, forcing him out, on to the balcony. The king swung his broadsword savagely, in murderous wide arcs, gripping its dudgeon with both hands. The air whistled as the blade cut through it.

Deftly, Macduff avoided the sword, waiting his chance. He saw it. The crazed king had brought back his arms to prepare for a mighty blow; he was open. Macduff plunged his sword into the king's entrails. Gregory howled; his sword clanged as
it fell on the stones. Macduff withdrew his blade, twisting it vengefully while the king's breath rasped in agony.

Now, through bleared vision, Gregory saw his enemy lift his sword for the death stroke. He was aiming for Gregory's neck: he meant to lop off his head with one blow. The sword sang through the air. . . .

Standing before Gregory were the three wayward sisters: those creatures of elder world he had encountered twice before and whose equivocating prophecies had led him to his downfall. Surrounded by blackness and mist they were, and their skinny, luminous, naked bodies gleamed. They smiled, and
merged
into each other, altering and melting until they became one grinning Presence who saluted Gregory in silent greeting.

The Fellow extended a hand. Gregory was impelled to grasp it. He was led along a blasted heath. Fog clung to his ankles. In the distance he heard a wailing as of many bagpipes. As they drew closer to the sound, he knew it for the mixed groans and screams of human voices. Some started low—a grunting in the belly—then rose higher and higher in tortured crescendo to break on a cracked, ear-piercing shriek. Others were only restless, fevered moans. But one, terrible to hear, was a woman's full-voiced, continuous scream that stopped but for a gasping breath and then went on, hideously steady and unwavering.

Gregory saw her as the fog momentarily cleared and they stopped walking. Nude, with deep curves of flesh that shone with sweat in the red light, she sat on a throne, screaming. On her head was a crown, in her hands two maces, across her lap a royal sceptre. It was his wife, the late queen. The sceptre, the maces, the crown and the throne were white-hot.

His Companion, with a mocking bow, indicated a twin throne next to the lady's. “All hail,” he chuckled. “Thou shalt be king—
Hereafter!
”

On the way to his throne, Gregory stumbled. He looked down. Riven to the heath, half-engulfed in mist, lay Banquo. His hands and feet were spiked to the earth. His face had lost that look of cunning Gregory knew so well: the half-smile and narrow eyes with which he had approached Gregory after the murder of King Duncan. What was it he had whispered? “Thou
hast it now: king, Cawdor, Glamis—all! As the weird women promised.” His voice had dropped to a low growl: “And I fear thou play'dst most foully for it!” Gregory had blanched and fingered his sword-hilt as Banquo, after looking to the left and right, had gone on. “If there come truth from them, why may they not be my oracles as well, and set
me
up in hope?” It was at that moment that Gregory had decided Banquo would have to die. And now, here he was—looking up at his royal murderer and gasping both in recognition and in torment. The slayer and the slain regarded each other with a certain comprehension, and, in that moment, they together knew for the first time the deepest, most awful, eternal truth of damnation: that it does not distinguish between him who commits the damning act and him who in his heart desires it done.

Hoarsely, Banquo whispered, “'Tis strange.” Then, in a mixture of puzzlement and dawning realization: “To win us to our harm, the Instruments of Darkness tell us truths, win us with honest trifles, to betray us in deepest consequence.”

And then he began to choke, for a yellow, sulphurous mist weaved in to swathe him. It was impossible for Gregory to see him now, for Hell (as his lady had once divined in a moment of revelation) is murky. . . .

 • • • 

Gregory awoke suddenly, bathed in sweat, calling out unintelligible words, trying to answer questions he had not been asked in the waking world.

He found himself completely dressed, sitting in an armchair in the rectory parlor. Now he remembered. He and His Excellency had given themselves a short respite from the all-night exorcism, and while Mrs. Farley prepared a bit of breakfast, Gregory had sat down in the chair for a moment's rest. He had closed his eyes and . . .

What did the dream mean? The idea of being damned for deeds not committed was ridiculous and had no basis in theology. Why, then, had he dreamt it? The moment's nap had not refreshed him. He looked at the clock: it was almost eight in the morning. He arose with effort and, his mind puffed with questions, walked heavily into the dining room.

The sky was like a dirty window, gray with a grime that let no sun cut through. Light the color of lead fell into the dining room as Mrs. Farley threw open the drapes. “Look at it,” she muttered, shaking her head, “bright and clear for a week, and more good weather predicted, and now look at it.” Sounds of early Mass seeped in from the church. “And on Sunday too.”

“That's right,” said Gregory, “it
is
Sunday. I'd forgotten.” He rubbed a hand over his stubbled, fatigue-pale face. “I wonder how Father Stefanski's assistant is getting along?”

The Bishop, pouring himself a cup of coffee, said, “Well enough, I should judge, by the sounds. Don't worry about that.”

Mrs. Farley uncovered a small mountain of buttered toast. “Tuck into that now,” she said.

“Just coffee for me,” said Gregory, still bewildered by the dream.

“It's been coffee all night, Father,” said the housekeeper sternly, “and nothing to eat since early yesterday. You'll eat a bit of toast too this morning or I'll have you sick on my hands.”

“A good suggestion,” agreed the Bishop. He quickly said grace and reached for the toast. Gregory began to toy with a slice, and soon was wolfing it down.

“I can have scrambled eggs ready in a jiffy,” said Mrs. Farley.

“No, really,” said Gregory.

“Eggs don't agree with me,” announced the Bishop, “nor I with them. But a little jam? . . .”

Nodding, Mrs. Farley left for the kitchen.

“How many times did we perform the ritual?” asked Gregory. “I lost count.”

“Six, I believe,” replied the Bishop. “Six times completely, that is. I'm not counting the times we were interrupted by her and had to start from the beginning again.”

“How long do you think it will take?”

The Bishop shrugged. “There is no way of telling. One such case took ten days, as Mrs. Farley has told us. Another took twenty-three.”

“Twenty-three days!”

The Bishop nodded. “Earling, Iowa, 1928. The opponent was formidable. He still is.” He looked up at the younger man as he said this. Gregory did not respond. “You still doubt? Even after he told you his name?”

“I still—”

Mrs. Farley came back, bearing several jampots. “There's strawberry, damson plum, and—yes, apricot,” she said as she set them on the table.

“Thank you,” said the Bishop. Mrs. Farley returned to her kitchen.

“I still reserve judgment,” said Gregory. “His name was spoken by the lips of a human being.”

“Lips moved by
him,
moved like the lips of a puppet to form
his
words, not hers.”

“Perhaps. But perhaps the words
were
hers. Those names of Satan—she could have read them somewhere, anywhere. She likes books.”

“And the filth?”

The filth had come in a torrent after a while. It came in the form of epithets first, and then, when the agony climbed to unbearable peaks, it took the form of offers; offers so vile and so increasingly recondite that Mrs. Farley had to be sent from the room. “In what books did she read that stuff?” asked the Bishop.

“There are such books,” said Gregory. “For that matter, she could have read it on any of a dozen fences between here and her home—with very graphic illustrations to explain any words she might not know. And as for the rather flowery way she talked—it's the standard period speech you can find in every hack historical novel and swashbuckler movie. She could have picked it up from late TV.”

“But why?”

“Why?” Gregory shrugged and sat back in his chair. “Why, in Salem, did hysterical young girls feign convulsions and declare a spell had been put upon them by old widow so-and-so, only to break down later when it was too late, when old widow so-and-so had been burned to a black crust at the stake, and admit they had been lying, that it had all been a figment of their girlish imaginations? I don't know the answer to that one either. But it certainly was a surefire way to become the center of attention!”

“Then you think this girl—”

“I reserve judgment, that's all. I reserve judgment. There was another, you know, another who demanded solid, seeable, touchable proof.
Unless I see in his hands the print of the nails, and put my finger into the place of the nails, and put my hand into his side—I will not believe
. And proof was given to him.
Then he said to Thomas, Bring here thy finger, and see my hands; and bring here thy hand, and put it into my side; and be not unbelieving, but believing. Thomas answered and said to him, My Lord and my God!”

“Yes,” said the Bishop, pouring himself another cup of coffee. “Very much to the point and very well quoted, but why don't you quote the rest?
Jesus said to him, Because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed. Blessed are they who have not seen, and yet have believed
.
”

“All right,” snapped Gregory, rising and walking to the window. “Blessed are they. But proof was not denied Thomas. Nor was sainthood denied him. And yet he doubted. When others were ready to accept everything at face value, he withheld. I admire Thomas. He is my favorite among all the apostles, all the saints. I feel a kinship with him.”

“Fine,” said the Bishop, “as long as you don't feel yourself his equal. It is not everyone God considers worthy or important enough to be provided with physical proof, Gregory. Don't make the mistake of overestimating your own value. Don't try to place yourself in the company of the apostles. It won't work. The apostles were one thing, you and I are another.”

“Oh?” Gregory turned from the window and sardonically echoed the Bishop's earlier words: “Have things changed that
much? Love, hate, fear, pity, right and wrong, good and evil? Has God changed?”

The Bishop gently set his cup upon its saucer. “Touché, Gregory,” he said. “You win this round.”

 • • • 

It was all most distressing, thought Mrs. Barlow as she left the church. The fact that her new outfit had drawn admiring and envious glances from the congregation, the reassuring knowledge that she was, at forty, still the handsomest woman in the parish: these were not enough, this morning, to counteract the items of disturbing interlocking information she had been receiving of late. First, there was the thing Mrs. Dunham had told her some weeks before. Then what the Chandlers had spoken of just this morning. Not to mention the business about last night's dinner. And now
this
 . . .

A nervous young boy of a priest replacing Father Sargent at Mass. Without so much as an explanation. Mrs. Barlow did not like the unexpected. She lived an ordered life, and saw no reason why others should not do likewise. For this, she was respected, looked up to; it was her capacity for discipline and organization that had made her a leader in the community, and she owed it to the community to look into this matter. It was expected of her. She asked—rather, she told—her husband to go home; she would follow shortly, she said.

Then she walked directly up to the rectory door and rang the bell.

Mrs. Farley opened the door. “Ah, good morning to you, Mrs. Barlow,” she said.

“Good morning. Is the Father in?”

“He can't see anyone right now, ma'am,” said Mrs. Farley, following instructions.

“He's not ill, I hope?”

“Oh no, but—”

“You see,” Mrs. Barlow cut in, “we're all worried about him. Won't you please tell him I would like to see him?”

“But the Father said—”

“Please
tell him I am here.” The pronunciamento had been delivered and Mrs. Farley bent under the weight of its authority.

“Well . . . won't you step into the living room, please, ma'am? . . .” Mrs. Barlow was admitted to the rectory.

Left alone for a moment in the living room, she glanced about, like a detective making mental notes, looking for telltale clues. She was soon joined by Gregory.

“Good morning, Mrs. Barlow,” he said. “Won't you sit down?”

“Thank you, Father.” She sat on a hard chair, her back straight, her ankles primly crossed. “I have just come from Mass. I was surprised to find another priest conducting the service. I feared you were perhaps indisposed.”

“No, no,” Gregory assured her, “but thank you for your concern.”

After an uncomfortable pause—she had given Gregory his cue, and his response had failed to measure up to her expectations—she said, “Everybody was disappointed not to see you this morning, Father. Some of our friends knew we had expected you for dinner last night and asked me why you weren't saying Mass. I didn't know what to tell them. We all assumed you were not feeling well. Are you sure you are all right? You look not quite yourself.”

“I'm fine, Mrs. Barlow,” said Gregory, passing a hand somewhat self-consciously over his unshaven face. “Just a little tired, I guess. I'm sorry about last night. Perhaps Mrs. Farley didn't explain that I'm involved in some special work; a kind of instruction; it will prevent me from saying Mass for a few days.”

With a tolerant smile and disarming graciousness, Mrs. Barlow said, “I suppose it must take a lot out of you, being up all night.”

“Yes, I—” Too late, he realized he had fallen into a trap.

“Some people I know were up rather late, too, did not get home until three this morning, as a matter of fact. The Chandlers?”

“Oh yes.”

“They said they saw lights in the rectory at that time.”

Noncommittally, Gregory said, “That's right.”

“They also said—but I find this hard to believe—”

“Go on, Mrs. Barlow.”

She made an embarrassed little gesture with shoulders and hands. “They said they heard sounds. Rather unusual sounds for
a rectory. Loud laughter, feminine laughter, and high-pitched shrieks, and things being smashed, like glasses or bottles . . .”

“Oh?”

“They said it sounded like—” she laughed politely “—a wild party.”

Gregory echoed her polite laugh. “There was no party here last night, Mrs. Barlow,” he said, “wild or otherwise.”

“I see.” She frowned nervously down at her new kid gloves.

Gregory could hear footsteps in the bedroom above. He knew the Bishop was impatient to resume the exorcism. He said, “Is there anything else, Mrs. Barlow?”

“Only this.” Her manner became more direct. “I think you should know that I have a good many friends, rather influential friends, and not all of them belong to this parish.”

“I'm sorry, but I don't follow you.”

“Perhaps you remember the Dunham family,” she suggested.

“Dunham.” His mind tasted the name, and with identification came despair. “From St. Francis . . .”

“Yes, from your old parish.” The dagger had been plunged into him. Now, ill concealing the relish she felt, she could not resist giving it a little twist: “In short, Father, the reason for your recent transferal might be classed as an open secret.”

There was more movement upstairs than seemed good. Perhaps they were having trouble with the girl. Gregory found it difficult to pay full attention to Mrs. Barlow.

“Father Halloran was a very respected man here,” she was saying. “Any replacement of his has to fill a terribly big pair of shoes. We are broad-minded people in this parish, Father Sargent, none more broad-minded than myself, and we can overlook certain things, but when the replacement himself requires a replacement because of some ‘special instruction,' and when there are rumors of wild parties, and when I find you unshaven on Sunday morning, unable to say Mass, what am I to—”

“Shit!”

The word, high and clear and in an unmistakably female voice, cut through walls and ceiling. It was followed by a curve of ribald laughter.

Gregory felt his palms ooze clammy sweat. Mrs. Barlow sat as if chiselled out of obsidian.

“What was that?” she asked, finally.

“Nothing . . .”

“What was it?
Who
was it?”

“Please,” said Gregory. “Whatever you're thinking, you're completely wrong. It's someone I'm helping, someone who—”

“It came from upstairs.”

“I know, but—”

“Who do you have upstairs, Father?”

Gregory said nothing.

“Father, I have asked you a question, and as a leading parishioner—as well as in light of what we know of your career at St. Francis—I feel I am entitled to demand an answer.
Who is that woman upstairs?
”

“Mrs. Barlow,” said Gregory wearily, “you force me to tell you it is none of your business.”

“None of my—” A slap across the face could not have stunned her more. “Very well, Father Sargent,” she said at last. “I see I am not welcome in your—seraglio!” She turned and walked swiftly to the door. Before she left, she fired a parting shot. “Bishop Crimmings will hear of this.”

“He—” But she was gone.

The spare bedroom now had a strong carbolic odor. After Susan's sickness of last night, Mrs. Farley had thoroughly scoured it with purging soaps and chemicals. Susan had been scoured, too. After she was safely inert from exhaustion, the housekeeper had peeled off her wet, befouled clothing, dumped her limp body into the tub in the adjoining bathroom and scrubbed her from head to foot. Then she had washed the girl's clothes and hung them on the shower rod to dry. They were still dripping there, and Susan, tied again to the Procrustean bed, was clad in a single improvised garment which Mrs. Farley had made out of one of her own old cotton housedresses and a quantity of safety pins.

The disturbance the girl had created during Mrs. Barlow's visit had been fleeting, Gregory noted as he walked into the bedroom, for she was now calm and breathing evenly. The Bishop asked about the visit, and Gregory told him quickly.