Scars on the Face of God

by Chris Bauer

  “Please, Raymond,” I asked. “Show them. Please.”

  Raymond stirred. His right hand left the radio tuner and settled onto an armrest, firmly gripping the padding on the chair arm. Then his neck muscles tensed and his chin rose. His lips slowly parted, and through a string of slobber they opened wider and wider until—

  BURRRP.

  Sister and Father stifled smirks, and the three of us watched Raymond as his body relaxed, his blond head rolling lazy-like until it leaned against his shoulder again. Like a tired child at the circus, his eyelids fought to stay open until they finally closed, and he was asleep. I smelled cherries.

  “Black Cherry Wishniak,” Sister said when I mentioned it. “Raymond’s favorite. Sometimes the sugar can get him really animated.” Her comment was out there as much as an explanation for what I thought I’d heard as it was for Raymond’s burping. “He’ll nap now, until lunch.”

  Raymond slumped in his chair in the corner, began snoring like a soldier back from a weekend pass. “Please,” I said. “You need to believe me. I know what I seen in here.”

  I gave Father and Sister a rundown on my “visions,” which was what Father had taken to calling the demon’s head and the infant’s drowning face. The funny thing was, he’d stopped looking goofy at me. At the end of the library’s long table, where the old bible-book was still open to the devil picture, he leaned down like I did and put his head level to the table top, his ear almost flat against the paper. With his thumb and forefinger he cautiously lifted and steadied the page with the backward writing on it, studied it like I had, from the other side. When he straightened up, I tried to read his face. For a moment he looked excited. Then the color drained from it.

  “This,” he said to himself, so low I nearly missed it, “is the one.”

  “The one? The one what?”

  I waited for an answer. He stayed quiet, stepped over to the huge steamer trunk and peeked inside. Out came the strongbox the devil book was in, and in a moment the hefty wood container was resting on the table, next to the book, the box lid open. He flipped the devil book’s cover closed. Dust scooted from between the pages, spreading out like car exhaust on a cold day. Father ran his hand across the smooth cover, his face solemn.

  Still no answer from him. He slipped his fingers under both sides of the book and lifted, about to put it back into the strongbox.

  He needed to answer me, damn it.

  I slapped the palm of my hand down on the book and pressed. It slipped out of Father’s grip, returned to the table with a thud. There was a yelp from behind him, from a surprised Sister Dymphna, who I now noticed held a book of her own, thin and black and square as a record album, and near as large, like a ledger. I didn’t apologize for scaring her. “Tell me what’s going on here, Father. Now.”

  Father’s lips parted to say something, then he changed his mind. He exhaled, said finally, “Those families I asked you about—the ones whose babies are buried in the church cemetery—what did you find out about them?” His hand dug inside the vest pocket of his black suit jacket.

  “I learned it was probably all firstborn boys who got tossed into the rivers and sewers. The other infants, the ones who died naturally back then, they got buried in Our Lady’s cemetery. What’s your point?” I had my eye on Sister, too. She was spooked, clutching the book she’d entered the library with against her white bib, holding it near as tight as a mother did a baby when there was danger about. Something was real familiar about the book she held, but it wasn’t coming to me.

  Father retrieved a brown envelope the size of a small Christmas card from inside his jacket. He handed it to me. “Open it.”

  The envelope was unsealed, had a return address in the corner that read Coroner’s Office, Phila., Penna., with no other writing on it. I opened the flap, slipped out a piece of paper. It was stained brown and crinkly, like it had gotten wet then dried out. The words on it were hand printed and in German, some of them circled in pencil. It didn’t take long for me to figure out what they said, and it sent a frigging chill through me. Same words as the ones written backward in this Bible. “Where did you get this?” I asked him.

  “It was tucked inside the blanket of the dead infant the cop pulled out of the river,” he said. “Kerm our coroner friend asked me to translate it.”

  I read the circled words again, tried to reason this through. Will be born again, the first from two virgins…I was banished from him…my child follows his…

  Beneath the paragraph, printed in a shaky hand in German first, then English, was God forgive us. Finally it sunk in.

  “You’re saying these people—these ‘virgin’ parents of the dead infant fished out of the river—they threw away their newborn son as a precaution? But that’s just crazy. And all them infants from before, them babies in the sewers, their parents were—”

  “Yes, Wump. Just doing their part. Making sure a certain unholy child whose birth was deemed imminent had no chance of survival. It’s not considered crazy if the Church tells you to do it. To most Catholic folks, it was more like getting a directive from God. To not obey it would have been religious heresy, in this parish at least. It’s not unusual for a panic like this to survive a few generations by, you know, word of mouth.”

  “But, Father,” I said, the evidence back inside his vest pocket, “this word of mouth came from a book written by a hermit monk more than, what, six hundred years ago? All them babies died because of some dead monk’s words?”

  Father wrestled with the size of the massive devil book until he was able to deposit it inside the strongbox. “It’s a proclamation,” he said finally. “One the church leaders believed could come true.” The strongbox lid closed. He twisted the crossbar of a small metal latch on its front to secure it. “I’m not saying I agree with them, but I can tell you their reasoning.

  “There were numerous versions of this phenomenon in different European countries, where a priest or a monk or some other cleric was told to copy the Bible as penance, each of their works supposedly completed around the same time—as I mentioned before, the same night, if you believe the legend—in the thirteenth century. It’s rumored there were as many rewrites as there were languages in the civilized world. They showed up for sure in France and Poland and Holland. The Church tracked those books down and acquired them.” Father rested his hand on the strongbox. “Each has a hand-drawn picture of the Devil in it. Same picture as this one.”

  “But why would the Church want to track them books down? They were just copy jobs of the Bible, like you said, written as a penance.”

  “Because, Wump,” Father answered, “one of the books was rumored to have the Devil’s own writing in it, telling of his return.” Father laid a hand on the strongbox. “This may be the one.”

  That statement made me look more seriously at the box. Still, this was the 1960s, and we were in the U.S. of A., the best damn country in the whole world, and these were the best of times. There was no room for stuff like this to happen. Then again, what about them visions I just had?

  “The Devil’s return? Return to what?” I asked.

  “To the big leagues. To prominence here on earth. He’s always been about pleasure, Wump. Pure and simple, decadent, personal gratification. Except he’s been relegated to that sneaky little voice in our heads that most of us have to deal with. The tiny, sexy whisper that says, ‘Go ahead, do it if it feels good. Who cares if someone gets hurt?’

  “He wants equal time and doesn’t stand to get it as long as the firmament’s current administration is in place. He also wants to avoid going head-to-head with the Almighty, since he lost that battle once already. So here he is, looking to cash in on a known tenet of Christianity, and Judaism, and countless other religions. Who is everyone waiting for? The Messiah. Whether it’s his first visit, his second or his tenth, it doesn’t much matter. The world awaits him, expects everlasting life from him. So the Devil intends to trick us into thinking he’s the one who will give us what we wan
t, when we want it. Or so the legend goes.”

  “So then the deal is”—even as I said it, it sounded dumb—“he shows up pretending to be Christ?” This whole line of thinking—religion in general, a real-life Devil—sounded dumber than a bucket of spit. Always had, always would.

  “That’s the concern, Wump. Now, and last century, and probably every century since Christ’s death and resurrection. Concern that a false Christ will appear. Someone who will lead us into and out of the Apocalypse, because this is what we expect from the real Messiah. Where would he try to take us? No one knows. But if it were to happen, it won’t be to a good place. And when would this be? Don’t know this either, of course.”

  “A thousand times two, Father,” I reminded him, “is the when, according to them words.”

  “Yes, Wump. The proclamation seems to bear this out. A hundred and nine dead babies in a twenty-year period. Those deaths indicate the monsignor of this parish at the time thought our current century, the twentieth, would be the one. The timing would have been right. A birth back then would let the child grow and mature, place his emergence as an adult in the 1930s or ’40s. During the Second World War. And my, oh my, how the Church had a field day with that speculation while the war was going on.”

  There was a pause in his explanation while he let it sink in for me. Finally it clicked. “You mean Hitler?”

  “Yes. Do you know when he was born, Wump?”

  “No.”

  “April 20, 1889. Same month and day as you, my friend, but ten years earlier.”

  Good grief. Hell, maybe I did know.

  “Of course no one can speak to the age the false Christ will be when he actually shows himself. Will he be an adult, around the age Jesus was when he started teaching? Will he be a child? An old man, maybe? Will he even know who or what he is until it’s time for him to act? And showing himself—announcing his true identity—that could be key, too, from the Almighty’s perspective at least, since the Church figures God won’t intervene until He’s sure we’re dealing with the real thing. Then, let’s just say, we expect there’ll be a rebuttal.”

  “A rebuttal?”

  “Yes. Like the last time they met. When God banished him from Heaven. It wasn’t a pillow fight.”

  He meant Lucifer, the fallen angel.

  Father Duncan went silent on me as if this was all sinking in for him just now, too, and Sister, she hadn’t said a word, deferring to the father. The quiet was broken by a loud snore from the corner, Raymond’s nasal intake making him flail some in his wheelchair. Sister resettled him, but only after she dropped the book she’d been holding onto the desk in front of him.

  Thin black book, on Sister Irene’s polished red mahogany desk…finally I remembered. It wasn’t a ledger. It was the first logbook for St. Jerome’s Home for Foundlings.

  “Is your truck outside, Wump?” Father asked, looking the strongbox over.

  “Huh? No, it’s back at my house. I walked. Why? This Bible going somewhere?”

  “Yes. I’m taking it to the archdiocese’s offices in Center City, Philly. After the cardinal sees what’s in it, I expect he’ll want it to go to the Vatican.”

  Father tented his dark eyebrows, waited for me to say I’d get my Willys to help him transport this thing. My eyebrows crept down, near my line of vision. I was still deciding.

  “Look”—he sensed my doubt—“what I said to you a few days ago, about the Archdiocese sending me here because of Monsignor Fassnacht’s behavior, it wasn’t the only reason. Magdalena’s declining condition was the catalyst. The sisterhood wants this Bible removed, had never understood the original direction Monsignor gave them years ago when they rediscovered it, that the Archdiocese said it should stay at the orphanage. Turns out the monsignor never reported it to his superiors, only said he had.

  “This proclamation—I paged through the book a few times looking for it, or anything like it. For something Monsignor might have used to persuade Magdalena; I found nothing. This was a great find on your part, Wump. Truly a great find.”

  A great find on Raymond’s part, but I wasn’t saying nothing, else they’d think I was even more confused.

  “Fine. I’ll get my truck.”

  22

  Took me fifteen minutes to walk home, drive my truck back, and park it curbside in front of the orphanage. I hustled back into the library.

  Father acknowledged me with a nod, sidled up to the end of the long table, positioned himself next to the strongbox; he reached around both sides. I shooed him away from the side nearest me. We each grabbed a handle, raised the box a few inches off the tabletop and scooted it over to the edge, then lifted. Damn thing was heavy, more container than it was book. We settled it on the hardwood floor to rest a moment and to reposition it for the longer walk out the front door to my truck. I bent forward slightly to stretch the muscles in my back. This put me nearly face-to-face with Sister Irene’s old mahogany desk, Raymond snoring next to it.

  Father had rested long enough. He reached for the handle on his side of the strongbox and lifted.

  “Hold on a second, Father,” I said, straightening up. I wiped my palms on my pants then shot a curious look at Sister. Before they found me on my duff talking crazy in here, the father and Sister Dymphna were upstairs in the attic, and what was it they brung down with them?

  “Is this book on Sister Irene’s desk what I think it is, Sister?”

  “What it is,” she said, her voice reverent, her dimpled chin a hardened white knob, “is a record, in Sister Irene’s own handwriting, of the comings and goings of St. Jerome’s children from the first day the orphanage opened its doors.”

  Like I figured, Sister Irene’s logbook. I turned back to Father Duncan. “Father, you mind if I—”

  “Go ahead, Wump. Take a look, but please make it quick.”

  I studied the book’s cover. Black, made from a pimpled hide of some sort. The top and bottom edges on the side that opened were protected with smooth, three-cornered leather patches the color of clay. I opened the cover.

  The pages were hand-lined with rows and columns, each row half an inch high, maybe ten rows per sheet, the column headings labeled in longhand. Leftmost column had children’s names, next column was labeled Birth Date, next one Adoption Date, the next one Adopting Parents. Rightmost column wasn’t labeled. With all us orphans having “St. Jerome” as a surname during our stay at the orphanage we were guaranteed, the sisters had told us, that there’d be at least one saint looking after us. About three-quarters of the way through the book, I found what I was looking for, the handwriting striking in an inkwell blue-black. My twelve years as a St. Jerome’s orphan on one row, in four entries.

  Name: Johannes St. Jerome

  Birth Date: April 20, 1899

  Adoption Date: October 19, 1911

  Adopting Parents…

  I knew the names of them bastards already, stifled an urge to spit on the entry. I turned a few pages farther back, toward the front of the book, then a few more, then all the way back to the beginning. Sister and Father watched over my shoulders as I worked my way forward, a few pages at a time.

  It seemed almost none of the earlier group of orphans, the ones who came to St. Jerome’s in the late 1880s, got adopted. Notes in the last column said some “left at maturity,” anywhere from their sixteenth to eighteenth birthdays. Some “ran away.” A few died, their dates and causes of death noted. I paged forward, reached the entries on kids born a decade or so later—late 1898, early part of 1899 and after—and…well, lookie here. The Date of Adoption column had lots of entries in it, orphans getting adopted left and right, many at older ages, same as what happened to me. Except all these adoptions didn’t start until—

  “You know when the old monsignor died?” I asked Sister. She didn’t respond, looked puzzled. “I’m talking about Our Lady’s pastor back then, around the turn of the century. The one Sister Irene didn’t like.”

  “Oh. You mean Monsignor Krause. Let me thi
nk. He was the parish pastor, I believe, from 1875 until his death in…”

  Sister scoured another pile of memorabilia on the couch behind her, moved some of it out of the way and flipped around a large picture frame so it faced front. It was a portrait of the old Monsignor, him sitting in an arm chair wearing a black cassock with red piping and buttons, a purple sash, and a black skull-beanie sitting above his chubby, stern face. The brass plate below the painting gave the dates of the monsignor’s birth and death. “He died in 1911,” Sister said. “July twelfth.”

  “Now ain’t this odd,” I said to the both of them. “Look at all these adoptions so soon after the monsignor’s death. Close to twenty of them over the next three months. Weren’t twenty adoptions the whole ten years prior. Seem odd to you, Father?”

  I gave Father some room. He ran his fingers down the page the book was opened to, his eyes bouncing back and forth between the Date of Adoption column and the Date of Birth column. What was also odd were the entries for the adoption dates. Some of the handwriting was different.

  “Here’s one,” Father said. “A boy named Arno. Arno was about fourteen when he was adopted. Here’s another adoption, for a boy who was thirteen. And another one, for another fourteen-year-old.” He turned a page, said, “How about you, Wump? How old did you say you were?”

  Suddenly it hit me why the writing was different. My stomach lurched; I was close to tasting this morning’s oatmeal all over again on its way back up. For one sickening moment, I was completely drained.

  One entry, nothing to do with me, was the reason, for a boy whose name I couldn’t read on account of my eyes were so moist. The entry started out in a steady hand, then ended in a large blot of ink in the middle of the word July. To the right of the inkblot, July got written a second time, but in someone else’s hand.

  This was the moment Sister Irene died.

  “Wump?”

  I remembered how hard her death hit us, and now a real sadness washed over me. My eyes spilled over a bit; I took a swipe at them. “I was twelve when I was adopted, Father.”