Incubus

by Ann Arensberg

  We forgot about Adele, unguarded in her room as the sky turned gray and the moon dropped low on the horizon. When we reached her bedside she was sleeping on her stomach like a child, her rump uncovered. As Henry started to draw the sheet over her, he noticed part of it was drenched with wetness, stiffening as it dried, as if it had been laundered with starch. He pulled the top sheet back and felt the bottom sheet, which was wringing wet, soaking through the pad into the mattress. Telltale sheets, betraying the flow of sexual fluids, too copious for a single act of intercourse. When had Henry come across another example of such abundant liquefaction? The Burridge sleepers had drenched their beds with feminine secretions, light and watery like the sap from flowers. The viscous substance on Adele’s bedclothes resembled seminal emissions. To my disgust Henry bent down and sniffed. He said the sheets had that whiff of the ocean consistent with semen, something briny or seaweedy.

  Henry had been talking in a whisper. Now his voice rose high enough to disturb Adele. Like a doctor on rounds at a teaching hospital, he was too absorbed in the problem before him to mind what the patient overheard. Did we have proof right under our noses that a specter could ejaculate? Were we safe in supposing that a nonhuman entity had completed an act of coition with a human partner? The amount of semen emitted was in itself prodigious. Even more surprising, the fluid was, or was like, a man’s. You would think it might somehow be more “spectral,” black and inky, like the entity’s coloration, or so volatile no trace would be left of it. During the witch-hunts many inquisitors believed that incubus demons “borrowed” semen from men, collecting and hoarding the fluid men spilled in sleep during nocturnal pollutions. The proof lay on the sheets and inside Adele’s body. Henry pulled out the top sheet and made a project of folding it, in half, in fourths, in eighths and sixteenths. He got no help from me and Sally. We wouldn’t have touched it under threat of torture. He intended to ask Jane Shufelt to have the sheet analyzed. For humane reasons, getting a smear from Adele was, of course, out of the question. You could see his mind working, still wrestling with the issue, the scientist trying to argue the priest out of his scruples; then he left the room to find a plastic bag to protect the evidence.

  Sally and I went back into the living room to resume our vigil, and found Henry letting himself out the front door. “You’re not leaving us alone,” said Sally. “I have to get this to Jane,” he said, annoyed that an explanation should be necessary. I reminded him that it was five-thirty in the morning, too early even for Jane. He shut the door and walked over to the window, peering out at the whitening sky as if he could hasten the sun’s progress by force of concentration. I looked in Adele’s icebox for something to fortify us, but found only apple juice, soy milk, and an empty box of granola. Her shelves yielded an open package of Fig Newtons, which went down easier dunked in coffee. Henry ate and drank standing up. He kept his eyes on the horizon, half listening, while we tried to interest him in the victim instead of the perpetrator. What was to be done about Adele? Should we stay until she stumbled out of bed into the living room? Compound the shock of finding us there by telling her the whole story? If we left before she woke, we would spare her distress and embarrassment. She was safe now that night was over. “They can’t stand the daylight,” said Sally. Henry tuned in briefly to tell her she was thinking of vampires.

  Swayed by numerous self-serving arguments, we decided to leave Adele. We would approach her later in the day, after a few hours’ sleep. Sally could pretend the garage apartment needed construction work. Henry would insist she move in with us. I could see the idea appealed to him. It would give him a chance to observe her at closer range. I found I didn’t want her in my house, although I couldn’t say so. I wanted Henry to send her home or recommend her to another parish. With the heightened awareness induced by lack of sleep, I thought I saw events plainly.

  An entity had been grazing in our precinct, sampling the fodder, foraging in one pasture after another—my sister, my married friends, the Burridge seniors. Had it found my sister tough, my friends stale, the Burridge girls green? As cattle prefer alfalfa to grass and corn, it had savored Adele above the others: she was fresh but not raw; plucked but not bruised; mature but not overripened. It had shown itself to us to mark her for its own. If she left, her spirit raptor would follow her, even into hiding. Get her out of town and the women of Dry Falls would have their lives back. If I was ready to sacrifice Adele for the common good, I was no worse than Henry. He saw her as the cornerstone of his new faith, as Christ’s miracle had been for the congregation at Capernaum. Like the Galileans in the synagogue, Henry had seen an unclean spirit departing from a person, and been converted. Would he be content to bear witness to the supernatural or would he covet Christ’s role? Stand amazed while demons were banished, or play a part in banishing them?

  I wanted nothing to do with the spirit world or its middlemen. Let Henry delude himself that psychical research was an extension of the healing ministry. I refused to regard Adele as a victim or a patient. Couldn’t she take some responsibility for her affliction? Show some nerve and fight back? I rejected her claims to my attention, as all healthy people reject sickness or misfortune, no matter how irreproachable their behavior toward those in need. My impulse was selfish, but selfishness is not purely callous. It can also be energy mustered in the service of life. Sally was so tired she clung to Henry’s arm on the way down the outside staircase, but I had my second wind. It seemed imperative that I get to Portland for the native plant conference, as necessary as nourishment for hunger or antiseptic for a wound. In this drought, whether natural or unnatural, I wanted to know all I could about wild and native species, like our roadside bergamot, which could thrive in dry conditions. I needed to be with other gardeners, that thin blue-denimed line barely holding its own in a world overcast by the shadow of abstraction, a world increasingly ruled by numbers and machines, mathematical entities.

  I drove us back to the rectory so Henry could pick up our second car, the battered station wagon. I don’t know if I didn’t talk to him or he didn’t talk to me. He held the white plastic kitchen-can bag with the soiled sheet in it on his lap. He seemed completely absorbed in its custodianship, untwisting the tie to open the bag, flattening and smoothing it to eliminate air pockets. When we arrived, he carried it across to the station wagon, holding it out in front of him with both hands, minding where he walked, as if it were made of some breakable material. I watched him back out of the driveway and into the street. As he drove off, he played two beeps on his horn, remembering belatedly to say goodbye to me.

  PART VIII

  Christ When We Lie Down

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Even parish priests were entitled to a yearly vacation, two weeks with full pay like any unionized laborer. We usually spent our leave at the Lieber family camp in the North Woods. The camp, built in 1923 to accommodate a party of twelve, consisted of a log house, a mess hall, guides’ quarters, and a boathouse. We chartered an amphibian aircraft in the settlement of Frenchtown, landed on Big Black Brook Lake, and taxied to the dock, when Ed Hawkfoot, the caretaker, met us. Ed stocked the main house with provisions, which Henry supplemented with fish from the lake and its feeder streams. I enjoyed a respite from cooking. We grilled salmon and trout and ate salad while the fresh lettuce lasted, then we opened cans of beans, peas, and artichoke hearts.

  Every day Henry took the rowboat with the outboard motor and left me the canoe. I slapped a sandwich together for lunch and explored the shores of the lake, tying up when the sun was high to go swimming off the rocks, many of which were long and flat enough to stretch out on full length and warm up afterward. The lake was cold, but never as cold as the ocean. Its waters were so smooth and still that swimming seemed effortless. By late afternoon, when a breeze blew the surface into ripples, it was time to paddle home.

  Henry would have cleaned the day’s catch and started the campfire. He would tell me my lips were blue and rub me down from my head to my ankles with sc
ratchy camp towels. I sat by the fire, all wrapped up, until I stopped shivering. He pulled me down on those same rough towels and made love to me, my hair damp and tangled, while the fire burned down to embers, too low for cooking. I went up to the house and put on trousers and a long-sleeved shirt to protect me from mosquitoes. By the time I returned, combed and dressed, carrying a bowl of salad or a pot of peas and a bag of marshmallows, he had built up the fire again.

  What I remembered with most regret was not making love, but shivering—being cold enough to shiver. Violette Pond and Sally’s swimming pool were tepid and afforded no refreshment. From forty feet underground our well pumped lukewarm water. Fall was almost upon us, with its seesawing temperatures. When autumn came, winter was supposed to follow, although there were grounds for believing that Nature had suspended the seasons. This year, when I needed it most, Black Brook Camp had been denied us. Henry’s cousin, Maury, the one who ran the smoked fish business, had mixed up the bookings and given our two weeks to cousin Jason’s son, Alex. Maury begged for our understanding and cooperation. The Alex Liebers lived in Cleveland and had four young children. The camp was ours any time in October, if we wanted it. The snows might have started, of course, but no serious accumulation. It would be quite an adventure for us. By the time the conversation was over, Maury had convinced himself he was doing us a favor.

  Henry saw it that way, although he was careful to pretend disappointment when I raised the issue. During our annual furlough, young priests who were waiting for their first assignments were dispatched by Bishop Hollins to take over the services. This summer’s recruit, Sam Borders, commuted from Portland on Sundays. Daily services were read by lay people. The new head vestryman, Ralph Hiram, was in charge of parish business. The office was closed, and the answering service referred callers to Ralph’s home number.

  Adele had been packed off to Baltimore so fast she hardly knew what was happening to her. Her mother was in Europe. Adele’s father was rattling around in the deanery writing a paper on ascetic practices of the Cappadocian Christians, living on crackers and tea, forgetting to turn off the burner when the kettle had boiled. Adele was needed at home, or so Henry persuaded her. Short of a crisis (a rock through a stained-glass window? Sam Borders’s car breaking down on the turnpike?), Henry could count on being left alone so assiduously that it might have the paradoxical effect of luring him back to his duties.

  Henry was enjoying his civilian status. He didn’t shave, went shoeless and bare-chested, poked around in his library for clues to the identity of the Dry Falls ravisher. Jane Shufelt dropped off the report on Adele’s sheet from the hospital laboratory. “Bad luck, Henry,” she said. “Negative for semen. Nothing but female secretions and traces of a popular brand of laundry detergent.” Instead of being depressed by the news, Henry was elated. There had been a starchy, yellowish liquid on the sheet. He had seen it and touched it. The fact that it had disappeared was in itself miraculous.

  Henry spent a lot of time talking to Walter Emmet, who was at loose ends. Walter’s pot garden was so far gone he had given up on it. It was too hot to make the effort of getting together, so they gossiped on the telephone. I decided to clean the storage closet on the landing outside Henry’s office. I could have organized picnics at the beach instead of closets, but I had no intention of making the best of things. Beyond the Dry Falls town limits the days and nights would be cooler, but whether we escaped for a day or a fortnight, we would always be faced with returning.

  The closet was a morgue for old winter clothes, moth-eaten lumber jackets, grease-stained down vests, a hooded black cape, rusty with age, that had been my grandmother’s. Henry would never agree to get rid of his army uniforms, but I had no attachment to the polo coat I had worn in college. I emptied two cartons from the closet shelf directly into a lawn bag. One carton was filled with knit caps and ski masks; the other with unmated mittens. The cartons came in handy. The floor was heaped with decrepit boots and outgrown ice skates. Propped at the back was a collection of snowshoes with broken bindings. I decided to keep them. The bindings could be replaced. While I worked in this inferno of wool and dust, every item I handled a reminder of cooler seasons, I caught snatches of Henry’s talks with Walter, and some of their drift.

  Henry was sitting in his swivel chair with his naked feet on the desk, relaxed and cheerful, little knowing what fate awaited his hockey skates. Teenaged girls held the honors when it came to long telephone calls, but Henry and Walter were setting a record for middle-aged men. Occasionally, the chatter stopped for a minute or two. Henry looked up a reference while Walter stayed on the line, or Walter left Henry holding to get more iced tea. They were having as much fun discussing biblical demons as girls did trading lore about clothes and hairstyles. “Listen to this,” said Henry, quoting from one of the texts on his desk. “Asmodeus is the ‘bringer of erotic fantasies, the genius of matrimonial unhappiness or jealousy.’ Hold on. Here it is. In Persian, the name means ‘lustful.’”

  I had packed the contents of the closet into eight lawn bags and three cardboard boxes. I spared the cape and the uniforms. Before I swabbed the closet floor and shelf I had to use the vacuum cleaner. When I switched on the machine, Henry and Walter were rehashing a Bible story. I knew the legend of pious Tobit, who went blind because sparrow droppings fell onto his eyes while he was sleeping in the courtyard. Tobit’s troubles were compounded when his son, Tobias, fell in love with a girl who had been married to seven husbands. The wicked demon, Asmodeus, killed each of them on his wedding night before the marriage could be consummated. The archangel Raphael instructed Tobias to marry the girl anyway. When he entered his bride’s chamber, all he had to do was put the heart and liver of a certain fish on the embers of the incense. The odor of the fish organs would repel the demon, who would flee to the ends of the earth and never bother her again. I turned off the vacuum cleaner and heard Henry saying he had no idea what kind of fish were found in the Tigris, but he was sure there must be similar species in Maine rivers. He was silent for a moment, then he responded, “Are you sure, Walter? I thought you hated fishing.”

  I could see what we were in for. An antiques dealer and a minister restored to boyhood, heading off to the nearest stream with their poles and tackle boxes, catching their lines in trees, forgetting the insect spray, coming back with sunburned noses and faces swollen with mosquito bites. I imagined it all, the fish blood on the kitchen counter, the guts in the sink, the charcoal-colored chunks of church incense smoldering in my copper gratin pan. Squawks of rude laughter as the fish organs met the embers and released a stink. Histrionic coughing and gagging as the fumes filled the room and, soon, the whole house. These experiments repeated daily while the boys ranked the fish as to which kind smelled strongest.

  Men won’t leave things alone. They kept tinkering with fate. Dry Falls had been quiet since Adele was expelled. Marriages were mending. I saw Ralph and Ruth Hiram out walking, arm in arm. Ford and Sally had given a party on Labor Day weekend. Was our town merely in remission, or was it cured? Henry and Walter’s experiments might be dangerous, like keeping guns or Ouija boards in the house. They were practicing witchcraft, scripturally inspired or not. Their biblical remedies could boomerang, attracting the identical powers they were meant to repel. They had forgotten, or intentionally ignored, one crucial item. The fish Tobias cut open was a unique, miraculous fish, plucked from the river and dropped at his feet by one of God’s angels.

  I left Henry sitting at his desk, telephone cradled between his ear and shoulder, reading a map, giving Walter the comparative mileages to the Kennebec and the Sheepscot. Bags of clothes and a stack of cartons barricaded the doorway and clogged the landing. If he wanted to get out of his office, he could haul them downstairs himself.

  When Henry was at home we took time out for tea every afternoon. I insisted on it. Tea stimulates the system without jangling the nerves. Before tea, events drive you; afterwards, keener and calmer, you can take back the reins. It was so hot f
or late September that we were still drinking iced tea, Darjeeling steeped with mint and a lump of fresh ginger.

  Since our leave began, I had fallen down on the job. Today the cookie tin was empty. There was a loaf of banana bread somewhere—I was sure of it. I found it in the freezer, rock-solid. If I overdid the ice, I might manage to stretch the tea left in the pitcher to fill two glasses.

  Any other day I would have whipped up a batch of brownies, thirty minutes from start to finish. While the brownies were baking, I’d start the spaghetti sauce for our supper, making do with canned tomatoes. Before the timer went off, I might dice an eggplant, salt it, and leave it to sweat in a colander. Or slice a store-bought cucumber for our salad course; dress it with sour cream, lemon juice, scallions, and dill; and crisp it in the icebox. I went through all these steps in my head, gesture by gesture, from unwrapping the squares of chocolate to tearing off a sheet of waxed paper to cover the dish of cucumbers. Reviewing the motions was tantamount to performing them. The tasks themselves would be repetitive and uninspiring. My skills in the kitchen were reduced to thinking up menus. I was losing touch with the sensuous dimension of cooking, which is nine-tenths of it.