The White Plague

by Frank Herbert

  Another armored car went in front about a hundred meters away, and two more followed, all three fully manned. There was a rocket launcher on the car in the van.

  There had been no sign of Herity since that last glimpse of him heading off for Kilmainham Jail, and Father Michael nor any of the others could or would say where he had gone.

  Father Michael leaned forward, dislodging the boy beside him and arousing a sleepy moan from him. The priest spoke to the driver, the words not audible to John, but the driver’s answer carried clearly to the rear.

  “We go by the way that’s reasonably safe, Father. The long way is often the shortest these days.”

  Father Michael nodded and leaned back.

  The armored car bounced and jerked in the rough spots. The road went winding up through hills, giving an occasional glimpse down through lanes of conifers toward the Irish Sea with houses and smoking chimneys – touches of glistening ice wherever John could see fresh water in the breaks. It was scenery of such ordinary splendor that it produced a sense of electric disturbance in John, stirring O’Neill-Within to cavernous whimpers, small cries and always that awful scream waiting there in the caves of his mind. The view down to the sea should not appear untouched. There should be signs on the land that the old Ireland had vanished. Otherwise… what was the purpose?

  The driver turned to his companion and said something. John heard only the two words at the end, spoken louder as the rumblings of the armored car increased on a steepening climb. “. . . but now…”

  Those two words at the end of a statement, the recurrence of those same two words and nothing spoken after them, struck John as a verbal mark of the new Ireland. This thought soothed O’Neill-Within and left John alone to reflect.

  “. . . but now…”

  A more descriptive expression of the times might not be found. Nothing came after now. Men had thought once they could solve any problem, scientific or otherwise, if they set about it with scrupulous persistence and good will, with a patience that cared nothing for time. At least, that was the scientific way to think. But now…

  What could he do at the Killaloe Facility? Were Doheny’s darkest fears to be proved true? That could not be! He thought about his departure from Doheny that morning. It had been dark before dawn, cold in the office. The light over Doheny’s desk had been a yellow island in the gloom. Doheny had been busy signing a stack of papers, passing them to an old man who waited beside him – a stoop-shouldered old fellow who took the papers in a knobby-knuckled hand, straightening them on the desk before departing with them. Not a word spoken between the two men the whole time.

  John had busied himself moving around the office, looking at the photographs on the walls, peering closely at them in the dim light. He stopped at one, caught by the mystery of a partly defaced sign on a brick wall. He tried to make out the wording.

  “IF Y HAVE FORMA AB UT MURD EX-P OS NS, IN MIDATI N, OR TER ORIS , IN CO P ETE CONF ENCE CAL BE AST 65 155.”

  Seeing John’s attention on the photograph, Doheny said: “I keep that as a reminder. It was mostly useless, words instead of actions. Nothing but words and very little action. The message is there, though, and the rulers in Ulster put great store by it. The thing is an interesting comparison with our present problem. When the missing parts are restored, the sign reads:

  “If you have information about murder, explosions, intimidation, or of terrorism, in complete confidence, call Belfast 65-155.”

  John turned and looked down at Doheny, feeling a surge of turmoil at the man’s words. Terrorism!

  “The Madman sent us a message with missing parts,” Doheny said. He nodded at the photograph. “That sign was in Derry. Belfast was the central point for gathering intelligence.”

  John spoke slowly while staring at the photograph. Terrorism. “Intelligence about men like Joseph Herity?”

  “And about the Prods, too. There was little to choose between them if you were a target for the bullets and the bombs.”

  John turned slowly, reluctantly. Doheny gazed up at him benignly, a glint of cynical humor in the dark eyes. The man appeared so like a fuzzy-haired doll there under the yellow light, the morning painting gray on the window behind him.

  “We had something close to sixty thousand souls there then,” Doheny said. “Now… I’d say no more than four or five thousand men living in and around. A city dies without its women.”

  John cleared his throat but did not speak.

  “Trade it is that keeps a city going,” Doheny said. “But trade’s a dependency of the home. A city…” He flicked a glance at the photograph behind John. “A city is a place for artisans, for shopkeepers, deliverymen and the like. But women are at the heart of a city’s trade. Men alone are forced back onto the land, grubbing their food from the dirt and rediscovering what it means to be a husbandman. Strange word, that.”

  John looked at the top of the windowframe, unable to meet Doheny’s stabbing gaze.

  “That color photograph to the right of the sign is of the same sign from across the river,” Doheny said. “That little white spot there, you can’t read it from that far away even if it’s complete.”

  John turned and looked at the photograph, a study of the old city of Derry, its rock walls chipped and scarred by the conflicts of centuries… dirty brown rocks rising above the River Foyle… and low to one side, the little white rectangle with its black lettering.

  “The men who’re still there won’t leave,” Doheny said. “But there’s no meaning to the wage packet anymore. They’ll be gone soon enough. It’s the wage packet, y’ know, John. The foundation of the family presence, source of housing, food, clothing, entertainment. Now, I ask you straight, John, how many sources of wage do you suppose could be found today in Derry?”

  John turned back to Doheny and that pinioning stare. “Not… many.”

  “What good are incomplete messages?” Doheny asked. “But it’s our literary fantasy to persist.”

  John moved away from the wall, going around the desk to the stiff wooden chair. Something in those photos had contaminated him! The chair was cold and hard beneath him. Doheny’s gaze followed him, expression unwavering.

  As he stared out the slit in the armored car, John thought about that conversation. The convoy was crossing a long stretch of high bog with newly cut turf ricks neatly thatched, a patch of dark plastic at each peak weighted there by stone. It was such an ordinary scene that he could feel it once more arousing O’Neill-Within.

  Father Michael turned suddenly and stared at John.

  “They’re still cutting turf,” John said.

  Father Michael spoke in a low voice, not to disturb the boy beside him. “The hydroelectric dam at Ardnacrusha was blown away early. We’ve only the peat-burning stations now and not many men as will cut the peat for them.”

  John noted that the priest had put on a V-necked gray sweater with white buttons under his black suit. He had exchanged his hat for a black watch-cap. The sweater was close to the color of one worn by a toothless old guard in the hospital courtyard. Doheny had left John there alone with the man, going away “to see what’s keeping the cars.”

  The old man’s sweater had been hand-knit, thick yarn and the slight imperfections that only the hand could impart. John had stood on the stones, aware of the damp cold in the morning. There were patches of blue overhead, the mist lifting. His attention kept coming back to the old man standing there so watchfully silent, the thin chest under the gray sweater.

  His wife’s hands made that sweater, John thought. Even as John thought this, the old man pulled the sweater close around him against the chill. The thing gapped with a missing button at the bottom. The knitting had a begrimed look as though it had never been washed, and John thought: The old man wants that second-hand touch of her in this garment that her fingers worked.

  He heard the whisper of O’Neill-Within then: “Is there nothing left that Mary touched?”

  Tears burned his eyes.

&
nbsp; The old man looked away at some noise outside the courtyard, bent his head to listen and, when he turned back, his watchful stare was gone. It was a withered face, a witless eye and a mouth where the teeth were no more – and that was all. He spoke in a cracked voice:

  “You’re t’ one come in wit’ t’ priest?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Warn that one not t’ start up t’ Church and t’ Mass here!” the old man said. “I’ll wind his cassock around his breathpipe if he tries.”

  John was astonished at the bitter strength in the old voice, a strength that did not move up to the eyes nor touch the mouth, as though that toothless hole were only a mechanical speaker for a message from deep within.

  “You don’t want Father Michael celebrating the Mass?” John asked.

  “Celebrating!” The old man spat on the courtyard stones, then spoke in a weak voice as though the one word had used him up. “I’m an old man wit’ all me nimble days gone, most of me power spent. There’s no more quickness in me and I’ll go no more to Mass because I think too much there of me Fiona kneeling and praying.” Fire returned to the cracked voice. “What have her prayers brought except t’ loneliness?”

  John felt O’Neill-Within, a silent watcher, fascinated by the toothless mouth and its bitter words.

  “I was born at midnight and can see t’ shades of t’ dead,” the old man said. “If I squints me eyes proper and if I stares at one place long enough, I see me old woman there at t’ fire, just as real as life, cooking me breakfast porridge.”

  The old man squinted his eyes and peered across the inner spaces of the courtyard. His voice fell almost to a whisper.

  “It’s not like t’ memories of old pains. They can be made gone, y’ know. This is t’ pain that goes not away. This is t’ pain you can feel wit’out t’ knowing. It’s in t’ skull, it is, and it won’t stop short of t’ grave.” He shook his head feebly. “Mayhap not even there.”

  Doheny returned then, striding across the stones from the arched entrance, a strangely vigorous walk in such a heavy man. The old man gave him a limp salute as Doheny stopped.

  “They’re picking up Father Michael and the boy right now,” Doheny said. “Be along in a minute. Has old Barry here been whiling away your time with a story?”

  John nodded.

  Doheny patted the old man on the shoulder. “Get along out to the entrance, Barry. Wave a hand when they come up. We’ll join you then.”

  Doheny spoke to John while keeping his attention on the old man walking away from them. “Some among us live in the hope of revenge.” He cast a quick glance at John. “Some in despair and some lost in whatever pleasures they can find – drink, drugs, hideous parodies of sex with no hope of progeny.” He nodded toward the old man who had taken up station in the middle of the entrance arch, his attention directed to the right. “Barry there wants only to meet the Madman and ask one question: ‘Are you satisfied with what you’ve done?’” Again, Doheny glanced at John. “We’re most of us beyond fatigue.” He cleared his throat and John thought he would spit, but Doheny swallowed. “We have our various ways of avoiding reality. If you forced us to face it every moment of our days we’d all go mad.”

  The rumbling of several vehicles could be heard at a distance on the street outside. The old man bent forward to stare in that direction.

  Doheny said: “O’Neill’s revenge was, I suppose, his way of not facing his reality. And the terrorists who outraged him, the bomb, that was their way of avoiding their reality.” Again, he looked at John, a fixed stare. “You’ll find even a bit of sympathy around for that poor Madman, O’Neill.”

  John rubbed his throat, unable to turn away from Doheny’s gaze.

  “If you have no alternative to despair, you may explode,” Doheny said. “We had only the role models of our fathers, the examples in the Church and State and family – violent and angry and painful.” Doheny turned toward the entrance. “Ahhh, there they are now.”

  John looked up to see the old man waving to them. An olive-green armored car was visible in the archway beyond him.

  “When you get to Killaloe,” Doheny said, “make them give you some fresh clothing, stuff that fits. You should be comfortable at least.”

  Riding toward Killaloe in the armored car, John returned again and again to that strange scene in the hospital courtyard… the old man, Doheny. It had been like theater prepared only for him. To what purpose? Was it a fishing expedition aimed at O’Neill?

  O’Neill-Within remained quiescent. No sighs, no whispering, not even the echoes of screams nor the howling like that of a bereft dog. That was the most terrible sound of all – the howling.

  The old man in the courtyard remained bothersome. John felt sympathy for him. It was the sympathy he felt for O’Neill. Both had suffered tragic bereavement. And what could the poor old fellow do about it? Guard a doorway? Run errands for Doheny, perhaps. Fill out his days until he died… alone. John had not imagined old men like that in Ireland, nor for that matter any silent boys.

  Tears slid down John’s cheeks. He closed his eyes against them and when he opened them, found Father Michael staring across the back of the seat at him.

  John patted the seat beside him. “Father, please join me.”

  Gently, not to awaken the sleeping boy, Father Michael disengaged himself from the cradled head and slid over the seat, clumsily bumping into John and lurching to the position beside him as the car turned a sharp corner.

  “What is it, John?” the priest asked.

  “Will you hear my confession, Father?” John whispered.

  It has come at last, Father Michael thought. He had suffered premonitions of this moment since first seeing John beside the lake – that strangely depilated head, the tortured face now covered by a beard… but the eyes still burning with terrible fires.

  “Yes, of course,” Father Michael said.

  John waited while the priest found his case under the seat and arrayed himself for the ancient ritual. John felt calm, calmer than he could remember since… since… He could not remember ever being this calm.

  Father Michael leaned toward him. “How long has it been since your last confession, my son?”

  The question confused John. He had never been to confession. John Garrech O’Donnell had never said the words that lay now on the tip of his tongue. He uttered them:

  “Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned.”

  “Yes, my son. How have you sinned?”

  “Father… I have John Roe O’Neill within me.”

  A blank expression swept over the priest’s face. He whispered hoarsely: “You… you are O’Neill?”

  John stared at him. Why didn’t the priest understand? “No, Father. I’m John O’Donnell. But I have O’Neill within me.”

  Father Michael’s eyes went wide, a glazed look of fascination. He had learned his psychology from a good Jesuit, Father Ambrose Dreyfus, a doctor and an expert in Freud and Jung and Adler and Reich and the permutations between. The concept of schizophrenia was not foreign to Father Michael. But this! The enormity… the danger…

  The habits of the confessional preserved him.

  “Yes, my son. Please continue.”

  Continue? John sat in bewilderment. How could he continue? He had said it all. He felt like a raped woman carrying the rapist’s child and being asked by a male gynecologist: “And what other symptoms do you have?”

  When John remained silent, Father Michael asked: “Does O’Neill wish to confess through you?”

  John sensed the terrible stirring within, the start of the howl. No! He pressed his hands against his ears, knowing as he did it that nothing would keep out the sounds of that awful anguish.

  Father Michael sensed the dismay and said in his most calming voice: “You wish to confess for yourself?”

  John held himself still for several long heartbeats, lowering his hands only when he sensed the calmness returning.

  “For myself,” he whispered.
<
br />   Father Michael lurched into John as the armored car negotiated a rutted turn, growling loudly in reduced gears. The priest glanced forward: The driver and guard appeared unaware of the drama in the rear. The boy still slept.

  His mouth close to the priest’s ear, John whispered: “It’s a terrible burden, Father.”

  Father Michael felt that he had to agree. An awesome sense of compassion swept over him. The poor man! Driven insane… yet coming here in the shy and persistent identity of John O’Donnell. Wanting to help. A maddened creature within him trying to undo the terrible wrong.

  “Help me, Father,” John pleaded.

  Father Michael placed a hand on John’s head, feeling the neck muscles stiffen at the touch and then relax as John bent his head.

  How could such anguish be relieved? the priest wondered. What penance could possibly be assigned? He sensed the other persona, O’Neill, waiting for him to speak.

  “Please, Father!” John whispered.

  Father Michael went into automatic, whispering the familiar absolution and benediction. Only the penance remained. What could he assign? How could anyone help this poor creature?

  God help me! Father Michael prayed.

  The solution filled his awareness and he felt blessed calm as he spoke.

  “John, you must do everything in your power to find a cure for this plague. That is your penance.” He made the sign of the cross on John’s forehead, feeling that he had personally assumed John’s burden. What priest had ever before been asked to keep such an awful secret under the seal of the confessional? Perhaps only Christ Himself had known such a weight. Father Michael could not tell.

  John sat in silent withdrawal, his eyes closed tightly, fists clenched in his lap. Father Michael sensed the man’s disturbance but could not hear the howling.

  One of the key characteristics of an elite corps is its susceptibility to those more powerful than itself. Elite power is naturally attracted to a power hierarchy and fits itself neatly, obediently into the one that promises the most personal benefits. Here is the Achilles’ heel of armies, police and bureaucracies.