The Case Against Satan (8 page)

They were nearing the rectory. Gregory slowed down. “Your
Excellency,” he said, “I don't find my brother-in-law's explanation more acceptable than yours. I just think both sides should be given a hearing.”

“Fine,” said the Bishop. “And now that they've been heard—what?” Gregory was busy parking the car and did not answer. “You see? You're hamstrung by doubt and indecision. You hesitate. You find excuses for talking when we should be doing. You hem and haw and stall for time. Thank God we're back at the rectory and you can stall no longer. Let me out of this car . . .”

Priests were queer ones and no mistake, bless them, and bishops being priests magnified, as you might say, were all the queerer. Mrs. Farley had been rectory housekeeper at St. Michael's since the time she could have counted the gray hairs of her head and had fingers left over. She had seen priests come and go, and fine they all were but odd men every one. This new one, though, this Father Sargent, was by far the oddest of the lot, and as for Bishop Crimmings! . . .

Close all the windows, His Excellency had told her before he had driven off with the Father. In this weather! Close all the windows and lock them and draw the drapes. Lock the doors. Let nobody in. If they say they're from the Cardinal
himself
don't let them in. Call the folks the Father was supposed to sit down to dinner with, the Barlows, and tell them he can't come. Then clear out this spare bedroom the Garth girl was resting in, clear it of all breakables like pictures and vases and things. Well, that made sense, anyway, after what had happened in the parlor, her throwing the breviary and smashing the picture of the Holy Virgin.

And rope. Rope, His Excellency had told her to get; good strong rope, he said; clothesline would do if it was stout enough. . . .

Ah, things had not been the same at St. Michael's ever since the girl had started coming to Father Halloran with her troubles. That poor man had been plagued enough by that looney one, and now it was Father Sargent that had the cross to bear. A booby hatch was where she belonged, the wild creature. A paddle across her round little bottom . . . knock a little sense into her, a little of the wildness and looniness out of her. . . .

But no. Treat her gentle. Be nice as pie to her. Priests were queer ones entirely.

And there they were, the two of them, coming in the front door. She'd best get herself downstairs and see what they'd be wanting of her . . .

“How is the girl?” Gregory asked the housekeeper as she walked into the parlor.

“Still dead to the world, Father. But not resting easy, I wouldn't say. Muttering and jerking in her sleep. I've locked the bedroom door.”

“Good,” said Gregory. “Mrs. Farley . . .”

“Yes, Father?”

“You have relatives nearby, don't you? A sister?”

“And her husband and six children, yes, Father. Just a few miles north of here. Why do you ask?”

“For a few days, Mrs. Farley, it might be a good idea for you to stay with them.”

“Saints be blessed, Father, and what for?”

Gregory looked to the Bishop for aid. “Mrs. Farley,” said the older man, “things may be a bit unpleasant here during the next few days. Even dangerous . . .”

“In the rectory, Your Excellency? Dangerous?”

“Yes. So for your own safety—”

“But I don't understand, Your Excellency.”

The Bishop said, “Sit down, Mrs. Farley.” She did, and the Bishop followed suit. “What I am about to tell you,” he said, “you must promise on your oath not to repeat to any living soul. Not to your sister, not to her husband, especially not to the girl locked in the bedroom upstairs.”

“I—promise, Your Excellency.”

“That girl is in a very bad way, Mrs. Farley. What is wrong with her is a thing even Father Sargent finds hard to believe. She is—” The Bishop broke off and tried a different tack. “Mrs. Farley, you have lived among priests for a long time. You have probably picked up some of their terms and phrases. I am wondering if you have ever heard the word
exorcism?”

Mrs. Farley had been frowning with the suspense of it all
and the surprise of being asked to go live with her sister. Now the frown slowly vanished and her face became smooth and blank, but it was a smoothness and blankness that expressed, more than any frown ever could, an awe and an understanding. It was very quiet in the rectory parlor. When Mrs. Farley spoke again, her voice was uncharacteristically soft: “Ah. I see. So that is what is wrong with the poor soul.”

The Bishop opened his mouth to speak, but Mrs. Farley continued:

“Long ago, in the old country, when I was a slip of a girl, there was a man in our town. They said he was mad. I used to hear him scream out in the middle of the night, sometimes laughinglike, sometimes yelling words, foul stuff that had no meaning for me then. Doctors and healers came to him but could do no good for him; the constabulary threw the wretch in jail for a time, but the whole town could hear him screaming through the bars—it seemed like he screamed most of his waking hours, like he had a strength no man had ever had. And then the parish priest said he wanted to have a look at him. And when he had looked at the poor man, he came away and sat himself down and wrote a letter to the bishop—we had no such thing as a telephone in our town in those days—and then he waited, our priest did, sat and waited for an answer to come by the post. It came, finally. Some kind of permission it was, do you see. And the priest went into the jail cell and oh, then the screaming that had been done before was like whispering, it was. Because the sounds that came out of that place were like the unholy ones down in Hell twisting in the fire. It went on and on for days. Nobody in the town could sleep; you felt like clapping your hands to your ears all day long and all night too.

“Then just like that it stopped. Ten days later, at one in the afternoon, it just stopped. The poor tortured creature was dead. But his face, they say, was calm and full of peace for the first time in any man's memory.” Mrs. Farley had been looking past the men, through them, her eyes blurred with remembrance; but now she looked back at the Bishop. “Yes, Your Excellency, I have heard that word, exorcism.”

The Bishop said, “Susan Garth—”

“I understand, Your Excellency.”

“And you don't find it hard to believe?”

“Hard to believe? I heard that man scream all day and all night, Your Excellency. I
heard
him. No human thing screams like that, and no animal neither.”

The Bishop nodded, then looked up at Gregory. No words passed between them.

Gregory spoke to Mrs. Farley: “Then you see why we think you should go away from here for a little while?”

“Yes, Father,” said Mrs. Farley, “but if it's all the same to you, I'd rather stay. I wouldn't feel right about leaving you to shift for yourself at a time like this. Sure, who would be fixing your meals and picking up after you and seeing to it that you got your sleep? And I'm thinking, strong men that you are, both of you, an extra set of hands might be useful somewhere along the line.”

“No doubt of that,” said the Bishop. “But we were thinking of your safety.”

“What is there to be afraid of, Your Excellency?”

“As you know so well, Mrs. Farley, the thing that inhabits that poor girl may be the Enemy himself.”

“
That
for him,” she said, snapping her stubby fingers. “A great boob he is to pit himself against a holy Father and a bishop of the Church, with the very House of God next door. The nerve of him! He'll turn tail and run back to where he came from before you have the first words out of your mouths, if he knows what's good for him. I'm not afraid of that one. Nothing but scum he is; scum and lowlife; stand up to him, put the fear of God in him, and he'll whine like a little puppy. If you please, Your Excellency, I'd much rather stay.”

“You may stay, Mrs. Farley,” said the Bishop.

“Ah, thank you, Your Excellency,” said Mrs. Farley. “And would you and the Father be wanting a bite of something now?”

“Not now, Mrs. Farley. Father Sargent and I would like to remain undisturbed in the parlor here for about half an hour. As you leave, you may lock the door.”

“Yes, Your Excellency. Just call me when you need me.” She left the room, and they heard the key turning in the lock.

The Bishop said, “You're probably hungry, Gregory, but I thought you'd prefer to fast for a short time. It's customary.”

“Yes, of course.”

“I'll join you.” The Bishop slowly settled into a chair, his face shadowed by trouble. “Gregory,” he said, after a moment.

“Yes?”

“Perhaps we should not go through with it after all.”

“What?” He walked across the room and sat down close to the Bishop. “You say that? Why?”

“Her story. The man—died.”

“That's what I've been trying to tell you, Your Excellency—the danger—”

“I know, I know.” The Bishop's large white head nodded rhythmically. “But you were speaking of a thing that
might
be. She was speaking of a thing that
was
.”

“And you want to quit?”

“Don't you?”

“I'm not sure . . . But you—for
you
to doubt—”

“It is not doubt, not your kind of doubt. I
believe
. Oh yes, I believe all too well! But, Gregory . . .” The Bishop stood up and walked restively away. “To cause the death of a human being . . . I wonder if you know how terrible that is?”

Quietly, Gregory said, “There are things worse than death, Your Excellency.”

The Bishop sought out Gregory's eyes and fixed them with his own. “Thank you,” he said. “Thank you, my boy. Are you prepared to make confession now?”

“Yes.”

The Bishop produced a small leather case from an inner pocket, and from it took a little ribbon-like stole of deep plum color. He kissed the crucifix stitched at its top. As he put his head through the little loop of silk, he said, “Even as I put on this stole, may I put on God's mercy and hear this confession as Our Lord would.”

Gregory knelt beside the chair. “Bless me, Father, for I have sinned,” he said. “My last confession was three days ago. My sins are . . .”

Some twenty minutes later, Gregory was saying, “I am sorry for and repent of my sins, all my sins, past and present.” Then, his hands folded, he softly murmured the Act of Contrition while the Bishop spoke the Absolution:

“. . . Ego te absolvo a peccatis tuis,”
the Bishop concluded, slowly making the sign of the cross over the penitent,
“in nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti.”

“Thank you, Father,” said Gregory, and rose.

 • • • 

As Gregory lit the ceremonial candles, creating a joyless flicker that cast wavering hulks of shadows on the walls of the small, stripped bedroom, the Bishop turned the pages of the
Rituale Romanum
. Both men had changed into black cassocks—the Bishop's embroidered in red—and both wore stoles. Gregory wore, in addition, a surplice.

“Remember, Gregory,” the Bishop was saying, “we and Mrs. Farley are the only people who must know what we are about to attempt here. It is imperative that Susan, above all, have no idea. If she receives the slightest inkling, then no matter what we may accomplish, that doubt will keep nibbling at your mind. You will tell yourself it is all just another example of her hearing the clicking of the rosary beads and therefore acting in the way she knows we expect her to act. But if she knows nothing—”

He broke off, for the door opened and Mrs. Farley led in Susan. The girl, calm now, was dressed as before, but Mrs. Farley had replaced her shoes and bobby sox with a pair of outsize carpet slippers.

“Now then, Susan,” said the Bishop, “why don't you come over here and just relax?” He waved toward the narrow bed.

Susan looked at him, then at Gregory, then back at the Bishop again. Their ceremonial attire awed her. She said, “You both look so . . .”

“Formal?” supplied the Bishop. “Well, everyone likes to dress up occasionally, and you must admit we have colorful costumes. Do sit down, my dear.” The girl sat uneasily on the edge of the bed. “Wouldn't you like to lie back and rest a little?” She swung her feet out of the slippers and lay down, staring at the ceiling.

“That's it,” said the Bishop. He gestured Mrs. Farley out of the room. Gregory locked the door.

“Now,” said Gregory to the girl, “I'm just going to say a little prayer. You won't mind that, will you, Susan?”

She shook her head.

The Bishop handed Gregory the book of rituals. Gregory cleared his throat and began to read aloud the Latin words—hesitantly at first, then with more sonority, the ancient tongue undergoing easy and automatic translation in his mind:

“O glorious Prince of the celestial legions, St. Michael the Archangel, defend us in battle against the invisible forces of evil. Come to the aid of men, whom God has made in His own image, and deliver us from the Devil's tyranny with great show. The Holy Church venerates thee as guardian and patron; the Lord has given thee the task of bringing the souls of the saved into the bliss of Heaven . . .”

Slowly, Susan's eyes began to close, as if a powerful drug had begun to take effect. Gregory kept on reading:

“. . . Deliver our prayers into the presence of the Most High, that the mercy of God may come to us more quickly, and capture the dragon, the ancient serpent who is Satan, and send him in chains into the Abyss, that he may no longer seduce the nations.”

Feeling a trifle insecure, he stopped and looked up at the Bishop, who motioned him to continue. He turned again to the book.

“In the name of Jesus Christ, our Lord God . . .”