Valerie and Her Week of Wonders (12 page)

“Thank you,” said the landowner’s wife again. “I shall be calmer now.”

“And I thank you as well,” said Valerie modestly.

The old lady placed in her bag the items she had needed for the exorcism. She said:

“Tomorrow is the holy mission to widows. I’ll be going to church, so I must iron my Sunday scarf. May God protect you, dear ladies.”

After the wise woman’s departure the girls’ fears vanished. Valerie regretted she could not confide to Hedviga all that she had witnessed and that burdened her heart. This was why she was more taciturn than her friend, who once more looked forward with hope.

They repaired to the room where they were to sleep and opened the window onto the garden.

Valerie felt sad. She was thinking of Orlík and reproaching herself for his departure. She wept for him and she wept for her grandmother.

“How beautiful it is,” said Hedviga, breathing in the night-scented air.

“Let’s always be friends,” she said to Valerie, snuggling up to her shoulder.

“I’ve never had a friend and I’m so happy you’re offering me your friendship.”

“We girls have always envied you, Valerie, your house, your wealth, your luxury.”

“I’ve never been happy in that huge house.”

Some way off a dog howled. They heard footsteps. They were coming closer, then stopped a little way off. Hedviga said so loudly that Valerie was frightened:

“I shall not remove the scapular from my breast until the day I die. Just let that vampire try to come in. He has no more power over us.”

The dog howled again. And both girls heard the steps of two people running away.

“Are you cold, Valerie?” Hedviga asked.

“I was just a bit startled. I’m always afraid when a dog howls.”

“I’m sleepy,” said Hedviga.

“And I’m tired as well.”

“So let’s close the window and go to bed.”

Valerie also took a deep breath of the night.

At that moment a cock crowed.

Several jubilant voices responded.

“Do you hear?” the girl asked. “The cocks are crowing again.”

“Now I’m not afraid of anything,” her friend replied.

They lay down on the same bed, put their arms around each other and fell fast asleep.

Chapter XXIX
A FALSE WITNESS

Valerie stayed at Hedviga’s all the next day until evening. She was no longer as pale as she had been the day before and was ready to go home with fortitude. During the night Hedviga had grown several years younger and the brand on her shoulder had lost its menacing tone.

“You were shouting in your sleep,” she said to Valerie.

“Goodness, what?”

“You called for your father. You were dreaming that he was dying and you wanted to save his life.”

“I’ve forgotten what I dreamed.”

“Look, my husband’s coming back.”

“I’ll leave you two together.”

The landowner’s wife tried to persuade the girl not to go just yet, but Valerie thanked her for her hospitality and set off towards the square.

A large number of people had assembled there. Many, many people were still arriving and someone was addressing them. The girl joined the inquisitive throng. She stood near a streetlamp. On the plinth of the group statue stood the missionary, Gratian, and he was speaking. Valerie had missed the start of his speech, but she soon realized what he was speaking about. The missionary kept raising his arms to heaven, beating his bosom and with clenched fists shaking like someone having an epileptic fit. He was plainly drunk, because he was lurching. But those he was addressing were unaware of the fact.

He gushed his sentences with all the skill of a drunkard.

“You, Christians, know,” he cried, “that throughout my life I have been exposed to danger. More than once did the barbarism of cannibals smack its lips at the prospect of me. I have crossed all the continents and brought hundreds and hundreds of people to the Christian faith. But the danger into which I have been cast in recent days has been greater than being among the savages. Dear Christians, there is living amongst you a witch. She has adopted the outward form of a beautiful young girl of great refinement. I have seen the Devil in many forms, but the devil whose blue eyes have smiled upon me in this little town is that most dangerous of Lucifers. Hold your breath, dear Christians, and listen well to what I have to say. I was invited into a house where a devil lives. The kindly lady of the house, who suspects nothing, made me welcome, as befits a pious old lady. Today you would seek her in vain. She has vanished, as if swallowed up by the Earth. I know where she has probably disappeared to! She has doubtless gone to join her ancestors. And now listen to what befell me. The very first night, as I was praying and readying myself to sleep in the bosom of the Lord, the Devil appeared to me. He adopted the most seductive apparel of our first mother, Eve, and began to dance lewd dances before me. ‘Come,’ he called to me, ‘take off your cassock, abandon God!’ He stretched his arms towards me, grinning, and his mouth played with grotesque smiles and grotesque words as with fire. ‘Forget you are a priest,’ the beautiful specter spoke into my ear, ‘my embrace is the most enchanting heaven.’ I crossed myself and implored God to drive away the artful being whom only the previous evening I had thought the very flower of Christian maidenhood. I tore the crucifix down from the wall and defended myself against the diabolical siren. But the fiendish creature was resolved to go on tormenting me with its sinful words. It rubbed its dissembling hips against the bed to which I had been about to retire and promised me regal delights if I forgot our Lord and yielded to its blandishments. ‘Get thee behind me,’ I shouted, invoking the patron of chastity. Then the devilish maid lay on my bed and, tossing her legs in the air, horrified me with her obscenity. I knelt down and prayed fervently. When the demonic vestal saw that her snares were too weak and of no avail against a believer’s will and his trust in the mercy of God, she seized a halter, threw it around my neck and began to strangle me. She hanged me on the stairs and watched my death struggle with relish. When she thought I was dead, she took me and hauled me off to her realm. How grateful I am to God that He wreathed my soul in a faint and sleep. Otherwise I would have had to experience the anguish of death in the bottom of the coffin into which the Devil’s niece had cast me. But divine mercy is infinite, and so it was the Lord’s desire that I should come round and cast aside the coffin’s lid. She who had failed to sleep with me in bed also lay down in the coffin, so that she might have congress with me at least symbolically. However, it seemed her failure had crushed her. When she saw me alive again and with a prayer on my lips, she abandoned her shameful design and herself offered to lead me out of that crypt, which is equipped for the most dissolute orgies. Thus did I escape the Devil’s snares and now I stand here before you as a witness who enjoins you to settle accounts with your own devils.”

“Lies, every word’s a lie!” screamed Valerie and she mounted the statue face to face with Gratian.

“He has deceived you, he’s lying, don’t believe him!”

Panic ensued. People surged towards the statue so as not to miss the unexpected spectacle.

“He’s lying!” Valerie repeated, her eyes filled with righteous indignation.

Gratian reeled and barely managed to keep his balance. He looked at the girl and shouted:

“It’s her! She’s the witch!”

“Look at his face. It’s bloated with gluttony and drunkenness. All his lechery is mirrored in it. He’s a liar and a false witness!”

“Do you wish to deny that you bared yourself before me?”

“I swear he’s lying!” screamed Valerie. “He was the one making lewd advances to me. He’s a liar! Don’t believe a word he says.”

The missionary turned his eyes heavenward and started to mumble a prayer.

“Do you hear him? Can’t you see how he dissembles? I accuse you in public, Gratian, of wanting to rape me and of nearly killing me.”

Up to this point the people had not ventured to say a single word. Open-mouthed, they followed the dispute, and no one wished to arbitrate.

When Gratian finished his prayer, he shouted in a loud voice:

“Apage satanas.”

This had a magical effect on the assembled Christians. People crossed themselves.

“Do not believe him. He is a false witness. He has sworn falsely. He will die within a year,” said Valerie.

“Witch,” yelled Gratian. “To the stake with her!”

“To the stake with her!” several people in the crowd shouted.

“To the stake with her!” the missionary repeated.

“To the stake with her!” the whole assembly repeated after him.

The missionary realized that he had vanquished the beautiful girl, who stood fearlessly facing her judges. He shouted:

“Seize her!” He himself made the first attempt to detain the maiden.

The crowd surrounded the statue from all sides. But Valerie hurled herself down from it and, forcing her way through the first row, took to her heels. While some pursued her, others began building a pyre in the square.

Chapter XXX
IN FLAMES

Valerie’s attempt to escape was futile. There was nowhere to flee. Hardly did she wrench herself from the hands of one pursuer than she fell into the clutches of another. Finally she was captured and dragged to the pyre. With straw twine they bound her around the waist to the stake rising up out of the woodpile like a gallows. Valerie gave up all resistance.

In front of her, protected by the crowd, stood the missionary, Gratian, brandishing a torch someone had handed to him. He said:

“Do you repent of your sins?”

“I have done nothing wrong,” Valerie replied in a steady voice.

“Confess that you are a witch!” the missionary insisted.

“You are a devil, a real devil!”

“Tell me, do you wish to make a final confession?”

“To you? Never! I would rather be burned to a cinder than have been dishonored by you, you vile worm!” the girl shouted.

“By all that’s holy I command the demon to leave your body.”

“You clown! Liar! Is there no crime to which you won’t stoop?”

“Repent!” said Gratian.

“Repent,” the crowd echoed.

“I am innocent!” said Valerie.

“Decide for yourselves,” said the priest to the crowd. “Does she deserve to die in flames? Do you condemn her?”

“Burn her!”

“Pray with me, dear Christians, for the salvation of her soul. Pray with me that when the flame touches her sinful body she may rue all her sins and stand at least before the seat of divine judgment as a penitent.”

The missionary recited a prayer and the faithful repeated it after him.

“Orlík,” whispered Valerie, “why have you forsaken me?”

“See, her lips are moving, she’s praying,” said a man with the eyes of an inquisitor.

“So are you confessing that you are a witch?”

“I confess nothing, you murderer. You deserve the stake more than I.”

“She’s a lost cause, an irredeemable sinner who will die unrepentant. You shall join the denizens of Hell. But do not expect them to welcome you with music. You shall be cast into a cauldron and your torment shall endure to the end of days.”

Gratian stepped up to the pyre and set the torch to the dry twigs that were closest to the ground. The flame blazed up, the twigs crackled, and thick, sooty smoke billowed from them. Valerie felt it wrapping itself around her, stinging her eyes and making it difficult for her to breathe. Feeling sure that she was now concealed from the eyes of the crowd, she reached into her little bag and took out the pellet. She quickly put it between her teeth and crunched it. The pellet split in two like a coffee bean. Suddenly she felt her lips wet by the juice whose taste she recognized at once. Before she could bite the other half, a spasm shot through her body. The hand that still gripped half of the mysterious bean dropped convulsively down by her side. Her convulsions were so strong that as she writhed Valerie snapped the twine binding her to the stake. All who had assisted the missionary in the murder of an innocent saw a dense, impenetrable smoke suddenly billow from the pyre. And as if driven by a powerful wind the column of smoke lurched and started to move.

Under its protection, Valerie ran across the square to the back alleys to find seclusion. Before the awestruck crowd realized she had disappeared from the fire, she was so far from the square she could think herself out of harm’s way.

The smoke, at first thick and dark, paled and thinned, so that she seemed to be looking through a diaphanous veil. Running down streets she was seeing for the first time in her life, she noticed a red lamp above one very old, deserted house.

Without a moment’s thought, she entered.

Chapter XXXI
PUPPETS

Valerie chose as her lookout a spot behind some heavy drapery that blended well with the color of the thin smoke swathing her from head to foot. The place was like some vaudeville. Walking about the large room were half-naked puppet-like beings.

Valerie also saw some oddly dispirited men. Now and again one of them would rise without a word and go over to a girl at whom he had been staring. In one corner of the room someone was laughing. Valerie saw a knot of women bent over a table where something was happening. Sitting at it was a man performing card tricks. He would pick out two and two and wave them in front of himself. The girls laughed out loud. Valerie could not understand what could be so funny about this game.

“Enough of this film,” laughed one young woman. The man threw the cards away. One landed at Valerie’s feet.

It bore an obscene picture.

“Wine!” called the man.

Valerie recognized his voice. It was the Polecat.

A woman in a white apron hurried to pour the guest a glass of wine.

“Shall we perform the scenes on the paper I’ve shown you?” the Polecat asked.

“Fat chance, old man! The nerve of this one!” said one of the puppets.

“Shut your mouth, ginger, or you’ll be the first I choose!”