Punish the Sinners

by John Saul

  17

  Peter Balsam found the note in his box on Thursday morning:

  The Rectory

  friday night

  8:00 p.m.

  There was no signature, not even any initials, and it was written—lettered almost—in a flowing script that appeared to have been produced by a quill. And yet, despite the lack of details in the note, Balsam was sure he knew what it was: the summons to his final initiation into the Society of St. Peter Martyr. He stared at it silently for a moment, then slipped it between the pages of the book he had been carrying. When he turned, he saw the smiling face of Sister Marie watching him quizzically.

  “Is something wrong?” the nun asked.

  “Wrong?” Peter repeated, somewhat startled. “No, nothing’s wrong.” He started to move away, but the nun stopped him.

  “Are you sure? You look pale. Almost as if you’d just seen a ghost.”

  Peter hesitated for a moment, then suddenly pulled the note from the book he was carrying. He handed it to the nun. “What do you make of this?”

  Sister Marie took the note from Balsam’s outstretched hand and examined it carefully. She turned it over, glanced at the back of it, then returned it to Balsam.

  “Odd,” she said.

  “Do you recognize the handwriting?”

  Sister Marie looked puzzled, as if she wanted to say something but wasn’t sure it was proper. Balsam pressed her. “You do recognize it, don’t you?”

  “I’m not sure,” Sister Marie said slowly. “It was like a déjà vu. When you handed me the note, I had the strangest feeling that the same thing had happened before. But then, before I could remember, it was gone.”

  Balsam felt a pang of disappointment. He had hoped the nun would be able to tell him whose hand had written the message. Then she brightened, and asked to see the note again. This time she examined it even more carefully, and held it up to the light. When she finally gave it back to him she looked even more bewildered.

  “I don’t know,” she said, hesitating in a way that made Balsam suspect she did. “I can tell you where the paper came from,” she said. “That’s easy: Monsignor Vernon. But you knew that, didn’t you?”

  “It seemed likely,” Peter grinned.

  “It’s the hand that bothers me,” Sister Marie said. “I know it isn’t Monsignor’s; I also know I’ve seen it somewhere before. But there’s something amiss. Something on the edge of my mind that isn’t quite right It’s as if I’ve seen it before, but it was different, if you know what I mean.”

  It’s like Neilsville, Balsam thought to himself. You’ve seen it all before, but here it isn’t quite right Here, there’s always something more than what can be seen. Aloud he said, “Try to remember, will you?” At his voice, the nun’s expression changed from bewilderment to concern.

  “Is it important?” she asked, not seeing how a simple summons to the rectory could be of that much concern to anyone.

  “I wish I knew,” Peter said. “It might be, and it might not be. I wish I knew who wrote this note.”

  “Well, don’t worry about it too much,” the nun smiled. “It’ll probably come to me in the middle of the night, and if it does I’ll write it down before I forget it.”

  “In the margin of The New Yorker?” Balsam asked mischievously.

  “That, or something even worse,” Sister Marie tossed at him. Then, before he could draw her out, she was gone.

  Several times during Thursday and Friday, Peter Balsam spoke briefly with the Monsignor, and each time he wondered if he should mention the odd note. But the Monsignor never mentioned it, nor did there ever seem an opportune moment for Peter to bring it up. He wasn’t sure, but he had the feeling that Monsignor Vernon was deliberately preventing him from asking any questions.

  Late Friday afternoon, Balsam went looking for Sister Marie. When he found her, he had the distinct feeling that she wasn’t particularly glad to see him. Her usual cheerful smile was nowhere in evidence, and the twinkle in her eye had faded.

  “Sister Marie?” he said, as if he wasn’t quite sure it was her. She seemed to jump a little, as if she hadn’t seen him, though he was standing right in front of her.

  “Mr. Balsam,” she said, and Peter noted the use of his last name. Her eyes didn’t meet his.

  “You’ve been hiding from me today,” he said, foreing a lightness into his voice that her manner did nothing to encourage.

  “No, I don’t think so,” the nun said softly. Her eyes flitted from one part of the room to another, as if seeking escape.

  “I was wondering if you’d remembered where you saw that handwriting before,” Peter said as casually as he could.

  “Handwriting?” the nun repeated too quickly. “What handwriting?”

  “On the note,” Balsam said, beginning to feel just a bit exasperated. The nun continued to look blank. “The note I found in my box yesterday morning? Surely you haven’t forgotten?”

  “Oh, that,” Sister Marie said, laughing nervously. ‘I’m afraid it slipped my mind completely!” Again she glanced around the room, and Peter had the distinct impression she was about to dart off somewhere. He was right

  ‘Tm afraid you’ll have to excuse me,” she exclaimed. “I promised Sister Elizabeth I’d help her with some things this afternoon.” Then, as if she were too aware that the excuse was lame, she added quickly: “Some tests. I promised to help her grade some tests.” And then she was gone.

  Though they’d made no plans to have dinner together Friday evening, Peter wasn’t surprised when Margo Henderson appeared at his apartment shortly after he got there himself, nor was he surprised that she was carrying a couple of steaks that nearly matched the two he’d picked up himself on his way home. What did surprise him was that as soon as she was inside his apartment he gathered her into his arms and kissed her. She returned the kiss warmly, then pulled away from him.

  “Now that was something new,” she said. “I could get used to being greeted like that.”

  “Good,” Peter replied. “Since we have two extra steaks, why don’t you plan on being greeted that way again tomorrow night? And tomorrow night we can spend the evening together.”

  “They canceled the dance?” Margo asked. Peter snapped his fingers impatiently.

  “Damn. Pd forgotten all about it.” St. Francis Xavier’s was holding its first dance of the school term that weekend: He grinned at her. “What do you think they’d say if you showed up with me to help me chaperone?”

  “Me at St. Francis Xavier’s? Monsignor’d have to exorcise the place after I left. But I’d love to have dinner.” She paused, frowning prettily. “Although I have to admit I’m beginning to feel like a corporate wife—I have dinner with you, then sit by myself while you run around to meetings and social events.” The glint in her eye told Peter that she was teasing, but he decided to take it seriously. He took her hands in his.

  “It isn’t fair, I know. And you don’t have to do it, Margo. In fact, I wish you wouldn’t”

  The smile faded from her face and she grew serious. “Of course I don’t have to do it, Peter, and you’re very sweet to worry about it But I’d rather have dinner with you and spend the rest of the evening worrying about you than spend the entire evening with anyone else. I thought you knew that”

  “Maybe I was fishing,” Peter said, the beginning of a grin playing around the corners of his mouth. Margo’s face remained serious.

  “Or maybe you were trying to tell me you care about me, in your own way. Well, all right. I know you care about me, and you know I care about you. That gives me the right to spend an evening worrying about you now and then. I will worry about you tonight—unless I can talk you into changing your mind.”

  Balsam smiled gently. “Why don’t you wait for me and do your worrying here? Then, no matter how late I get back, we can find out what’s really going on with the Society of St. Peter Martyr. Tonight Tm going to record the whole thing.” He held up a small cassette recorder. Margo stared at i
t in silence. Suddenly she wasn’t sure she wanted to know about the Society. In fact, she was almost sure she didn’t want to know what went on at their meetings. But at the same time, she had to know. She made up her mind to be waiting when Peter came home that night. Silently, Margo began fixing dinner. There just didn’t seem to be much to talk about.

  The Society of St. Peter Martyr was waiting. All six of them were in the foyer, standing formally in a semicircle—expectant He closed the front door behind him and stood looking at them. There was a long silence as the six priests surveyed him, and then Monsignor Vernon spoke.

  “Peter Balsam,” he said sonorously, “we have met and it is our decision that you shall be initiated into the Society tonight.”

  “I see,” said Balsam softly. He decided to risk a question. “Even though I’m not a priest?”

  The Monsignor smiled faintly. “We have never had a … layman in the Society before, but we are prepared to make an exception for you. Our reasons,” he declared, anticipating Peter’s question, “will eventually become clear to you.”

  Peter remained silent. But he wondered why the Monsignor had hesitated over the word “layman.” What other word had come into his mind?

  The six priests tamed suddenly, and began filing down the hall toward the study. Balsam quickly reached into the inside pocket of his jacket and activated the recorder before falling in behind them.

  As before, the study was lit only by candles and the uneven glow of the fire. Once again the chairs were arranged in a semicircle in front of the fire, with the two easy chairs opposite each other, reserved for Monsignor and Balsam. In a few moments the seven men were seated.

  The catechism began again, each of the priests in turn questioning Balsam’s knowledge of the Faith. He answered the questions easily, giving the correct responses, careful to keep his voice level, to give no hint of his true feelings whenever he was mouthing a doctrine he questioned. As the inquisition went on—and he had the distinct feeling that it was, indeed, an inquisition—he wondered to what purpose it all was. The questions were the same ones he had answered before, and his answers were the same. No, he realized with a start, the answers were not the same. The first time he had sat in this room to be questioned by the six priests, it had taken him a while to realize what they wanted to hear. Tonight, he had known from the beginning. And his tone had been different that first night. He had made no effort to conceal his doubts about certain aspects of his faith. Tonight, Peter Balsam was acting the part of the true believer. And as he played his role, letting himself be led through the Doctrine and listening calmly to his own responses, he began to wonder if the role wasn’t taking over the actor, to wonder how much of his earnestness was feigned and how much was real.

  It was over, finally, though Peter Balsam didn’t realize it at first. He looked from one stern face to another, wondering from which of them the next question would come. Eventually he realized there would be no more questions. The six clerics were looking at him with satisfaction; he had apparently passed their test He wondered what would come next.

  Suddenly they were standing, looming over him. “Peter Balsam,” they asked in one voice, “what do you want of us?”

  The question echoed in his mind. What do you want of us? His brain searched for the answer. He knew there was an answer; one single answer that they were looking for, and that if he was unable to give it, there would be no second chance. He was still trying to decide what to say when he heard his own voice answering.

  “Solace in my Faith.”

  “And what do you offer us?”

  “My body and my mind, for use in your holy work.”

  They reached out to him then, taking each of his hands, and drawing him to his feet They offered him wine.

  He had passed.

  He was one of them.

  He had told them what they wanted to hear, and he was glad.

  The Society of St. Peter Martyr, once more seven strong, began to pray.

  The same chanting he had heard before began once again, but this time Peter Balsam was aware that he was somehow able to take part in it. He mouthed the strange words easily, his lips and tongue forming one syllable after another as if he had been saying the unfamiliar Latin-like words all his life. As he chanted in unison with the others, part of his mind tried to reason out the source of his ability to match the priests word for word. He told himself that it was simply because he had heard the service once before, and it had remained imprinted on his memory. But another voice inside him told him there was more to it than that; that one hearing of the service was not enough for him to have it flow so easily from his lips.

  He put the disturbing thoughts from his mind, and concentrated instead on trying to follow the service. It sounded, at first, much like the praises of the Lord that had been sung in the convent he grew up in. But, again, there was something different. The praises were there, but there were overtones of other things. Things in the odd not-quite-Latin that he could almost get a grasp on, but then would lose. Eventually he stopped trying to understand the words and began to feel them instead. They were words of exhortation. The Society was praising the Lord, yes, but it was also exhorting Him. To what purpose? Faster now, and faster, until individual words escaped him and there was only the rhythm.

  The rhythm, insistent, inexorable, caught him up in its mysticism, transporting him into the same state of religious ecstasy he had experienced once before in this room. He began to lose consciousness of his physical surroundings, and was only aware of the presence of the light, and the warmth, and the spirituality of his companions. They were moving now, the circle closing in on him, surrounding him, and as the service grew more intense Balsam had the feeling of being at one with them, of joining them in an experience that was both frightening and exhilarating, as if, for the first time, the core of his soul was being touched by God.

  And then the voice began.

  It sounded far away at first, but it grew steadily louder until its throbbing tones echoed through the room. The glow of the candles and the heat and flicker of the fire held him but the chanting had stopped. Only the throbbing sound of a single voice filled his ears now. And then that, too, stopped. In the sudden silence, Peter Balsam reached out to touch the priest who was closest to him. In the odd light the priest seemed to glow white as an angel, and Balsam was sure he would find the support he was seeking. He tried to speak, but his mouth refused to open. From somewhere he heard another voice:

  “He is with us. Saint Peter Martyr is with us.”

  And then the deep tones of the oddly disembodied voice once more filled the room, using the strange language that Peter could not quite understand. He was able to follow the meaning now and then, but only in snatches.

  “You must find him for me …

  “You must punish …

  “They are everywhere …

  “Celebrate …

  “Punish …

  “Sin …

  “Sin …

  “Celebrate … Punish … Sin … “

  And then the voice was gone, and the chanting began again. And once more the strange trance came over Balsam, and he lost track of time, and of place, and of what was real and what was not. All was religion, and religion was all. And the chanting went on … and the celebration went on … and sometime during the long night, Peter Balsam felt himself slipping away, drifting in a fantasy that he had neither the will nor the desire to define.

  Three hours before dawn, it ended. As before, Peter Balsam had no idea of what had happened. Only impressions, and a feeling of both exhilaration and exhaustion.

  And, of course, a tape. As he left the rectory he felt the miniature recorder, still in the pocket of his jacket, still running. He switched it off, though he knew it must have stopped recording hours earlier. But the first two hours of the meeting were on the tape. At least it would be a beginning. But a beginning of what? He hurried his step, and by the time he got home he was almost running.

 
; Margo was waiting for him, a strange expression on her face.

  They listened to the tape together.

  Margo sat at one end of the sofa, Peter at the other, and Peter was intensely aware of the distance between them. They only listened to snatches of the first part of the tape; the part that had recorded the catechism. Ten minutes after it began, Margo commented softly that whatever else was on the tape, Peter had certainly started out sounding like a good Catholic. He glanced at her, wondering what the remark meant, but her eyes were turned away from him. He reached down and advanced the tape through the rest of the first hour to the point where the chanting began.

  When the first strange sounds of the almost religious music came out of the tiny speaker, Margo spoke again.

  “There was a silence,” she said suddenly. “What was happening during the silence?”

  “You mean when they were accepting me into the Society?”

  Margo nodded.

  Peter thought back to the moment, then remembered.

  “Wine,” he said. “Monsignor Vernon passed a chalice of wine around.” Margo’s brow furrowed, and she fell silent

  They listened to the tape, watching the cassette player almost as if it were producing a visual image as well as emitting the peculiar sounds.

  “It sounds almost like Latin,” Margo said.

  “I know. But it isn’t. Not quite. It’s close, but just different enough to make it mostly unintelligible. I can pick up a word here and there, but most of it sounds like another language.”

  “Like Spanish, sort of,” Margo said.

  “Spanish?” Peter said. He listened more closely, and suddenly the rhythms made more sense. And then it came to him. It wasn’t Spanish at all. It was some kind of strange Italian.

  “That’s it,” he said softly.

  “What?” Margo asked, looking at him for the first time.

  “That’s it!” Peter exclaimed. “It’s not Spanish, Margo, and it isn’t quite Latin. It’s some kind of Italian! And it makes sense, too. Not the words. I can’t understand them, but I know what we’re listening to! They’re using a language that’s between Latin and Italian.”