To Play the Fool

by Laurie R. King

  He bent forward until his forehead touched the grass, held the position for a moment, then knelt back onto his heels again. His eyes opened and he smiled a smile of such utter sweetness that Kate was instantly aware that Brother Erasmus was not altogether normal. Disappointment and relief hit her at the same moment and dispelled the spookiness of the scene she’d just watched: Probably a third of San Francisco’s homeless population had some form of mental illness. Erasmus was obviously one of them, and very likely he had cracked John across the head because a voice had told him to, or John had angered him, or just because John had happened to be there. No mystery.

  This cold splash of sobriety had not hit the others; they still stood around him enthralled. Kate heard feet on the cement steps and turned, to see the dean coming down. He nodded at her politely, and then he saw the tableau beyond.

  “What’s happened?” he asked. Before Kate could attempt an explanation, another man, one of the group from the chapel, turned and answered in a low voice.

  “He recited Psalm Thirty-eight, making it very…personal. I’ve never seen him like this, Philip. It’s very—”

  “Wait,” commanded the dean. Erasmus was speaking again.

  “I am a fool,” he said conversationally, and scrambled to his feet, bending to brush off the knees of his cassock. For some reason, this phrase, an echo of Beatrice Jankowski’s cryptic judgment, seemed abruptly to defuse the tension in the crowd. The weeping young woman pulled a tissue from her pocket, blew her nose, and raised her head in shaky anticipation. There were two people with pen and notebook in hand, Kate noticed. Was this to be an open-air lecture? Erasmus had both hands in the pockets of the garment again, and when he pulled them out, there were objects clutched in them—a small book, a little silver plate—which his left hand began to toss high into the air, one after another, rhythmically—juggling! He was juggling, four, five objects now in a circle, and he began to talk.

  “It is actually reported that there is immorality among you,” he declared fiercely, glaring at a figure Kate had noticed earlier, a tiny wrinkled woman in the modern nun’s dress, plain brown, with a modified wimple. She blushed and giggled nervously as his gaze traveled on to the man behind her. “I wrote to you in my letter not to associate with immoral men. Not to associate with an idolater, reviler, drunkard, or robber. Not even to eat with such a one. Drive out the wicked person from among you! Do not be deceived, neither the immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor robbers will inherit the kingdom of God.”

  Oh Christ, thought Kate in disgust, he’s just another end-of-the-world, repent-and-be-saved loony. Why the hell are these people listening to this crock of shit?

  Erasmus had turned his attention to the things he was juggling, looking at them with a clown’s amazement at the cleverness of inanimate objects. He allowed each of them, one after another, to come to a rest in his right hand, paused, holding them for a moment, and then began to toss them back into the air with that right hand, reversing the circle. When he spoke again, his voice was neither hoarse with suffering nor fierce with condemnation, but gentle, thoughtful.

  “After this he went out, and saw a tax collector, named Levi, sitting at the tax office, and he said to him, ‘Follow me.’ And he left everything, and rose and followed him. And Levi made him a great feast, in his house, and there was a large company of tax collectors and others sitting at the table with them. And when the Pharisees saw this, they said to his disciples, ‘Why does your teacher eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?’ And Jesus answered them, ‘Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick.’ ”

  There were seven objects in the air now, different sizes and weights but perfectly, effortlessly maintaining their places in the rising and falling arcs of the circle. Again, Erasmus studied them with the openmouthed admiration of a child, and then suddenly the objects leaving his right hand did not land in the left but flew wildly through the air to be caught by onlookers. The small red book with a wide green rubber band holding it closed was caught by the young woman who had cried, the silver plate by the older man who had spoken to the dean, a palm-sized plastic zip bag by a scruffy young man with lank blond hair. A gray plastic film container hit a tall black woman on the shoulder, and then the last thing left his hand, something shiny that flashed at Kate and she automatically put out a hand to catch it: a child’s toy police badge, the silver paint chipped. She jerked her head up and looked into Erasmus’s dark and smiling eyes.

  “I think that God had exhibited us apostles as last of all, like men sentenced to death, because we have become a spectacle to the world, to angels and to men. We are fools, for Christ’s sake, but you—you are wise in Christ,” he said slyly. “We are weak, but you are strong. You are held in honor, but we in disrepute. To the present hour we hunger and thirst, we are ill-clad and buffeted and homeless, and we labor, working with our own hands.” Leaving the staff upright in the grass, he held out his rough hands before him and moved slowly forward, toward the dean and Kate at his side. “When reviled we bless, when persecuted we endure. We are the refuse of the world, the offscouring of all things. I urge you, be imitators of me. The kingdom of God does not consist in talk but in power.” He was very close now, and he was facing not the dean, but Kate. “What do you wish?” he said, and stretched out his hands to her, cupped together, his elbows in and his wrists touching: the position for receiving handcuffs.

  Six

  The whole point of St. Francis of Assisi is that he certainly was ascetical and he certainly was not gloomy.

  Kate stared for several seconds at the thin pale wrists with their fringe of black and gray hairs before the automatic cop reflex of never react kicked in. She calmly took the toy star, reached up to pin it onto the chest of the black cassock, and patted it. The beard split in a grin of white teeth.

  “Our feelings we with difficulty smother, when constabulary duty’s to be done,” he commented, then turned to the dean. “Blessed are you poor, for yours is the kingdom of God,” he said, cocking his head expectantly. The dean frowned for a moment, then his face cleared and he laughed.

  “I agree, I’m feeling particularly blessed myself. Omelette or Chinese?”

  “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, killing the prophets and stoning those who are sent to you,” Erasmus said inexplicably. He then looked pointedly first at Kate, then back at the dean, who in response turned to extend his hand to her.

  “I’m sorry. Philip Gardner. I’m the dean of this school. Are you a friend of the Brother here?” he asked.

  “Not yet,” replied Kate somewhat grimly. “I would like to speak with both you and Brother Erasmus. Privately,” she added, although the people around her had obviously picked up some signal to indicate the end of the—performance? lecture?—and were beginning to move away, up the stairs and across the lawn, most of them clapping the oblivious Erasmus on the arm or back as they went.

  “Right. Sure. Have you had breakfast yet? Or lunch? We were just going for something.”

  “I had a late breakfast,” she lied.

  “Coffee, then. I hope you don’t mind if we eat, you heard the good Brother say he was hungry.”

  Kate had heard no such thing, but now was not the time to quibble. The courtyard was emptying, the wet moss-choked lawn surrounded by brick walls looking cold and bleak. Kate took out her identification folder and held it open in front of Erasmus.

  “Inspector Kate Martinelli, SFPD. We’re investigating a death that occurred Tuesday in Golden Gate Park. The man seems to have been one of the homeless who live around the park, and we were told that you might know more about him than the others did. You are the man they call Brother Erasmus, are you not?”

  The man turned his back on Kate and went to the tree, pulled his staff out of the turf, came back, and, curling his right hand around the wood at jaw level, leaned into it. She took this as an affirmative answer.

  “W
ere you aware that there was a death in the park?” she asked. Silently he moved the staff to his left side and dug around with his right hand in the cassock’s pocket, coming out with a much-folded square of newspaper. He handed it to Kate. It was the front page of that morning’s Chronicle, whose lower right corner (continued on the back page) told all the details that had been released, including the man’s first name, the cremation attempt, and even a paragraph on the cremation of Theophilus last month.

  “You knew the man?”

  “He was not the Light, but came to bear witness to the Light.”

  “Sir, just answer the question, please.”

  “Er, Inspector?” interrupted the dean. “Could I have a word?” He led her aside, under a bare tree. She kept one eye on Erasmus, but the man merely pulled a small book with a light green cover out of his pocket, propped himself against his staff, and began to read. “Perhaps I ought to explain something before you go any further. Brother Erasmus does not speak in what you might call a normal conversational mode. He may not be able to answer your questions.”

  “He was doing well enough talking to all those people. There’s only one of me.”

  “But he wasn’t talking. He recites. Everything he says is a quotation.”

  Kate took her eyes from the monk and looked at the dean.

  “Well then, he can just quote the information I want.”

  “It’s not that simple. If the answers to your questions were contained in the Bible or the Church Fathers or Shakespeare or a couple dozen other places, he could give you answers. But a direct question is very difficult. Look, you heard me ask him if he wanted omelette or Chinese food for breakfast, or lunch, whatever you call it this time of day.”

  “He didn’t answer you.”

  “But he did. He gave me the first part of a quote from Matthew’s Gospel, which ends, ‘even as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings.’ Hen: egg. He wants an omelette.”

  “But all that…speech he gave.”

  “All quotations. First Corinthians, Luke, Matthew. And a bit of Gilbert and Sullivan to you—that’s a first.”

  “Why does he talk like that?”

  “I don’t know. I just know he never speaks freely. I suspect he carries a fair amount of suffering around with him. Perhaps it’s his way of dealing with it.”

  “Would you say that he is mentally disturbed?”

  “No more than I am. Probably less, since he doesn’t have any administrative jobs hung around his neck. No, but seriously, he’s not delusional, doesn’t think he’s Jesus. He never mutters and mumbles to invisible beings. He’s always cooperative and helpful. He reacts and understands even if he doesn’t always answer in a way people can understand. The board here discussed his presence—this is not public property, you know, so in effect he has been invited. He stimulates discussion and thought, the students enjoy his stream-of-consciousness talks, and frankly I find him great fun. I love asking him direct questions, just to see how he answers. It’s a game, for both of us.”

  Oh, right lots of fun, thought Kate: prospecting the off-the-wall remarks of a religious fanatic in hopes of finding nuggets of sense. Well, since he enjoyed it: “I wonder if I could ask you to stay with me, then, while I talk with him. You can be my translator.”

  “I’d be happy to, but I’m leading a seminar in an hour, so could we do it while we eat?”

  “No problem.”

  In the café down the road, the air was thick with the smells of cooking eggs and hot cheese and coffee, the clatter of crockery and voices, the essence of a morning café in a university town. Erasmus stepped inside behind the dean, then circled behind the door and propped his staff up in the corner before following the dean to a table next to the window. Kate, behind both of them, noticed the easy familiarity of both men with the place and its patrons, the way they collected and distributed nods.

  The waitress knew them, too, and automatically brought two mugs of coffee along with the menus. Erasmus paused in the act of sitting down and rose up again to his full height. After she had put down the coffee and distributed menus, he reached out, took hold of her heavily ringed hand, and, looking into her eyes, black with makeup, declaimed in full rotundity of voice, “The sweet small clumsy feet of April came into the ragged meadow of my soul.”

  The waitress blushed scarlet up into the roots of her emerald colored hair and began to giggle uncontrollably. She managed to find out from Kate that yes, coffee would be fine, then took her giggles off to the kitchen.

  The dean looked sideways at Kate. “Her name is April,” he said, more as an apology than an explanation.

  Kate let them study their menus. The dean did so perfunctorily, then dropped it onto the table. Brother Erasmus read through it thoroughly, as if to memorize it and recite it at a later time, although when April returned with a third mug, he did not recite. When the dean had given his order, Erasmus placed his finger on the menu and April looked over his shoulder, wrote it down on her pad, and looked to Kate for her order. Kate shook her head, and the woman left. No question: The man could communicate when he wanted to. Let’s see how much he wants to, she said to herself.

  “They call you Erasmus, I understand,” she said to him. He looked at her with his gentle dark, eyes but said nothing. “Is that your real name?”

  “Whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name,” he said, after a brief pause.

  “That’s a quote?” she said.

  “From Genesis,” contributed the dean. “Er, the Bible.”

  “Fine, I’ll call you Erasmus if you like, but I do need to know your real name.”

  “That which we call a rose, by any other name would smell as sweet.”

  “Shakespeare,” murmured the dean.

  “Right. Okay. We’ll come back to names later. You saw the article this morning that one of the homeless men who lives around Golden Gate Park died and that some of his friends there attempted to cremate him. I think the article said his name, as well?”

  “He was not the Light,” said Erasmus with a nod.

  “You told me that before.”

  “Er, Inspector? That phrase is used in the New Testament about John the Baptist,” said the dean. “Was this man’s name John?”

  “It was. Did you know John?” she asked Erasmus. Again, there was a short delay before he answered, as if he needed to consult some inner oracle.

  “A fellow of infinite jest,” he said dryly.

  “Would you take it that means yes?” she asked the dean.

  “Probably.”

  “This is going to be such a fun report to write up,” she grumbled, and took the mug of coffee from the waitress, poured cream in it, and took a sip. “Sir, can you tell me where you were on Tuesday morning?”

  Erasmus smiled at her patiently, tore open a packet of sugar, and stirred it into his own cup.

  “Does that mean you don’t remember, or you won’t tell me?”

  He put the cup to his lips.

  “It may simply mean that he can’t think of a quote that fits the answer,” suggested the dean. Erasmus smiled at him with an air of approval.

  “Did you know the man they called John?” she persisted.

  “I knew him, Horatio,” he said clearly and without hesitation.

  Thank God, one answer anyway, thought Kate. I’ll just have to choose my questions to fit a classical tag line.

  “Do you know his last name?”

  Erasmus thought for a moment, then resumed his drinking. With a regretful air?

  “Do you know where he came from?”

  Erasmus began to hum some vaguely familiar tune.

  “Do you know where he stayed?” There was no answer. “What he did? Who his close friends were?”

  Erasmus looked at his cup.

  “Why do you do this?” Kate threw her spoon down in irritation. “You’re perfectly capable of answering my questions.”

  Erasmus raised his eyes and studied her. His eyes were remarkab
ly eloquent, compassionate now, but Kate could make no use of that kind of answer. Suddenly he leaned forward, held his hand out in an attitude of pleading, and began to speak.

  “I am a fool,” he pronounced. “And thus I clothe my naked villainy with odd old ends stolen forth of holy writ, and seem a saint when most I play the devil. Vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher, all is vanity. A man’s pride shall bring him low,” he said forcefully, and his eyes searched her face—for what? Understanding? Judgment? Whatever it was, he did not find it, and he turned to the dean. “A man’s pride,” he said pleading, “shall bring him low,” but the dean gave him no more satisfaction than Kate had. He turned back to her, the muscles of his face rigid with some powerful but unidentifiable emotion. He swallowed and his voice went husky. “Then David made a covenant with Jonathan, because he loved him as his own soul. Would God I had died for thee, O Absalom, my son, my son. Behold, I am vile. What shall I answer thee? A fool’s mouth is his destruction.” Seeing nothing but confusion in his audience, he sat back with a thump and forced a weak smile of apology. “I am a very foolish fond old man, forescore and upward, not an hour more or less, and to deal plainly, I fear I am not in my perfect mind.”

  While we’re talking quotations, thought Kate, how about “crazy like a fox”? They were interrupted by the waitress bringing two plates, and Kate instantly regretted not ordering something to eat. She half-expected Erasmus to say a prayer, or at least bow his head over his food, but instead he calmly spread his napkin onto his lap and began to eat.

  “So,” she said, “you cannot tell me anything about the man John?” She did not hold out much hope for an answer, but he surprised her.

  “A back-friend, a shoulder-clapper,” he said promptly, his face going hard. “The words of his mouth were smoother than butter, but war was in his heart. His words were softer than oil, yet they were drawn swords.” He took a forkful of food and chewed it thoughtfully for a moment, then added, “Choked with ambition of the meaner sort. His heart is as firm as a stone, yea—as hard as a piece of nether millstone.” He returned to his omelette.