“As Saint Gregory the Great, Doctor of the Church, teaches,” he said severely and emphatically, “a nun once swallowed the Devil with a lettuce leaf from the monastery vegetable garden because she ignored the duty of praying and crossing herself before meals. Did Brother Deodatus not commit similar misdeeds?”
The Benedictines lowered their heads and the abbot cleared his throat.
“That is indeed true,” he muttered. “Brother Deodatus could be secular, extremely secular, and not dutiful enough.”
“It is then simple to fall prey to the Evil One,” Scharley concluded dryly. “Lead me to the chapel, Brothers.”
“What will you need, Master?” asked the abbot. “Holy water? A cross? Holy pictures? A benedictional?”
“Just holy water and a Bible.”
The chapel was cold and in semi-darkness, lit only by the glowing halos of candles and a slanting column of coloured light filtered through a stained-glass window. Brother Deodatus lay in the light, on a catafalque covered by a linen mortcloth. He looked as he had in the monastery infirmary an hour earlier, when Reynevan and Scharley saw him for the first time. His face was set like a wax mask and had the yellowish colour of a boiled marrowbone, his cheeks and mouth sunken, his eyes closed and his breath so shallow as to be almost imperceptible. He had been positioned with his arms—marked with wounds from bloodletting—crossed on his chest and a rosary and mauve stole entwined around his inert fingers.
A few paces from the catafalque, an immense man with shaven head, vacant gaze and the facial expression of a slow-witted child was sitting on the floor, his back resting against the wall. The giant had two fingers of his right hand in his mouth and his left hand was clutching a small clay pot to his belly. Every few seconds, the giant sniffed repulsively, peeled the dirty, sticky pot from his sticky, dirty tunic, wiped his fingers on his belly, shoved them in the pot, gathered some honey and lifted them to his mouth. Then the ritual was repeated.
“He’s an orphan, a foundling,” the abbot said, anticipating the question and seeing Scharley’s disgusted expression. “Christened ‘Samson’ by us owing to his great size and strength. He’s a servant here in the monastery, a little simple… but he loves Brother Deodatus greatly, trots behind him like a little dog… So we thought—”
“Very well, very well,” interrupted Scharley. “He may sit there as long as he stays quiet. Let us begin. Master Reinmar…”
Reynevan, imitating Scharley, hung a stole around his neck, placed his hands together in prayer and inclined his head. He didn’t know if Scharley was pretending or not, but he was praying earnestly and zealously. He was, quite simply, terrified. Scharley, meanwhile, looked absolutely confident, oozing imperious authority.
“Pray,” he instructed the Benedictines. “Say the Domine sancte.”
He stood beside the catafalque, crossed himself and made the sign of the cross over Brother Deodatus. He gestured to Reynevan to sprinkle holy water on the possessed man. The possessed man, naturally, didn’t react.
“Domine sancte, Pater omnipotens…” The murmur of the monks’ prayers echoed around the star vault. “Aeterne Deus, propter tuam largitatem et Filii tui…”
Scharley cleared his throat loudly.
“Offer nostras preces in conspectu Altissimi,” he thundered, making even louder echoes, “ut cito anticipent nos misericordiae Domini, et apprehendas draconem, serpentem antiquum, qui est diabolus et satanas, ac ligatum mittas in abyssum, ut non seducat amplius gentes. Hinc tuo confisi praesidio ac tutela, sacri ministerii nostri auctoritate, ad infestationes diabolicae fraudis repellendas in nomine Iesu Christi Dei et Domini nostri fidentes et securi aggredimur.”
“Domine,” Reynevan joined in on an agreed sign, “exaudi orationem meam.”
“Et clamor meus ad te veniat.”
“Amen.”
“Princeps gloriosissime caelestis militiae, sancte Michael Archangele, defende nos in proelio et colluctatione. Satanas! Ecce Crucem Domini, fugite partes adversae! Apage! Apage! Apage!”
“Amen!”
On the catafalque, Brother Deodatus gave no sign of life. Scharley discreetly wiped his forehead with the end of the stole.
“Thus is the prelude complete,” he said, without lowering his eyes under the enquiring looks of the Benedictines. “And we know one thing: we are not facing any old miserable devil, for one like that would already have fled. We must bring out the heavier bombards.”
The abbot blinked and shifted restlessly. The giant Samson, sitting on the floor, scratched his crotch, sniffed, hawked, farted, laboriously unstuck the pot of honey from his belly and then glanced down at it to see how much was left.
Scharley’s eyes swept the monks with a look which he thought was both wise and inspired.
“As the Good Book teaches us,” he said, “Satan is characterised by overweening pride. Nothing else but his immeasurable pride caused Lucifer to rebel against the Lord, so he was punished for his hubris by being cast into the infernal abyss. But the Devil remains prideful! The exorcist’s first task is thus to pique the Devil’s pride and love for himself. In short: thoroughly abuse him, curse, insult and revile him. Calumniate him and then he will flee with his tail between his legs.”
The monks waited, certain there was more to come. They were right.
“Thus we shall now insult the Devil,” continued Scharley. “If any of you are sensitive to coarse language, you ought to leave without delay. Come here, Master Reinmar, speak in the words of the Gospel of Saint Matthew. And you, Brothers, pray.”
“‘And Jesus rebuked the Devil and he departed out of him,’” recited Reynevan. ““And the child was cured from that very hour. Then came the disciples to Jesus apart and said, ‘Why could we not cast him out?’ And Jesus said unto them, ‘Because of your unbelief.’”
The Benedictines’ murmured prayers mingled with the recitation. Scharley, meanwhile, straightened the stole around his neck, stood over the motionless Brother Deodatus and spread his arms wide.
“Vile Devil!” he yelled so loudly it made Reynevan stammer and the abbot start. “I command you immediately to depart this body, O unclean power! Get out of this Christian, you filthy, obese, lewd hog, O beast among all the beasts and most bestial, O scum of Tartarus, O abomination of She’ol! I cast you out, you bristly Jewish swine, to the infernal pigsty, where I hope you will drown in shit!”
“Sancta Virgo virginem,” whispered the abbot, “ora pro nobis…”
“Ab insidiis diaboli,” the monks echoed, “libera nos…”
“You ravaged old crocodile!” Scharley roared, flushing red. “You dying basilisk, you shit-covered mandrill! You tarantula, tangled up in your own web! You filthy dromedary! Hear me as I call you by your true name: scrofa stercorata et pedicosa, filthy and louse-ridden swine, foulest of the foul, most foolish of the fools, stultus stultorum rex!”
Brother Deodatus, lying on the bier, didn’t even twitch. Although Reynevan sprinkled him profusely with holy water, the drops trickled impotently down the old man’s hardened features. Scharley’s jaw muscles were twitching powerfully. The climax is approaching, thought Reynevan. He wasn’t wrong.
“Begone from this body!” bellowed Scharley. “You catamite fucked in the arse!”
One of the younger Benedictines fled, covering his ears, taking the Lord’s name in vain. The others were either very pale or very red-faced.
The shaven-headed giant grunted and moaned, trying to thrust his whole hand into the honey pot, which was impossible since his hand was twice as large as the pot. The giant lifted the vessel up high, tipped his head back and opened his mouth wide, but the honey didn’t drip as there was simply too little of it left.
“And what about Brother Deodatus, Master?” the abbot found the courage to stammer out. “What about the evil spirit? Has it departed?”
Scharley stooped over the possessed man and almost touched Brother Deodatus’s lips with his ear.
“It is nearly at the surface,” he stated. “We’ll soon cast h
im out. We must simply shock him with a foul odour. The Devil is sensitive to foul odours. Come on, Fratres, bring a bucket of dung, a frying pan and a cresset. We will fry fresh dung under the possessed man’s nose.”
Several brothers ran off to carry out his instructions. The hulk sitting by the wall picked his nose, looked at his finger and rubbed it on a trouser leg. Then he resumed removing the rest of the honey from the pot. With the same finger. Reynevan felt the beavers’ tails he’d eaten rising up his throat on a swelling wave of horseradish sauce.
“Master Reinmar.” Scharley’s stern voice brought him back to the world. “Let us not cease our efforts. The Gospel of Mark, please, a suitable passage. Pray, Brothers.”
“‘When Jesus saw that the people came running together,’” Reynevan obediently read, “‘he rebuked the foul spirit, saying unto him, Thou dumb and deaf spirit, I charge thee, come out of him, and enter no more into him.’”
“Surde et mute spiritus ego tibi praecipio,” Scharley repeated menacingly and commandingly, stooping over Brother Deodatus. “May His power cast you out along with your entire cohort!”
The honey-guzzling hulk suddenly coughed, slobbered and snorted mucus. Scharley wiped the sweat from his forehead.
“An exacting and difficult casus,” he explained, avoiding the abbot’s increasingly suspicious expression. “It will be necessary to use even stronger arguments.”
For a moment, it was so quiet that all that could be heard was the insistent buzzing of a fly that had flown into a spider’s web in the window alcove.
“By the Apocalypse,” Scharley’s now slightly hoarse baritone sounded in the silence, “which our Lord used to reveal things which are to come to pass, and confirmed those things through the mouth of an angel banished by him, I curse you, Satan! Exorciso te, flumen immundissimum, draco maleficus, spiritum mendacii!”
As before, the words had no effect. All sorts of emotions were etched on the faces of the watching Benedictines. Scharley took a deep breath.
“May Agios strike you as he struck Egypt! May they stone you to death, as the Israelites stoned Achan. May they trample you with their feet and hang you on a tree, as were the five Amorite kings! And may your tail be cut off right by your devilish arse!”
Oh, thought Reynevan, this is going to end badly.
“Devilish spirit!” Scharley suddenly spread his arms over Brother Deodatus, who was still showing no signs of life. “I curse you by Acharon, Ehey, Homus, Athanatos, Ischiros, Aecodes and Almanach, by Pophiel and Phul! I curse you by the mighty names of Shmiel and Shmul! I curse you with the most abominable of names: with the name of the overpowering and terrible Semaphor!”
Semaphor was no more effective than Phul and Shmul. It couldn’t be denied. Scharley saw it, too.
“Jobsa, hopsa, afia, alma!” he screamed savagely. “Melach, Berot, Not, Berib et vos omnes! Hemen etan! Hemen etan! Bow! Wow! Wow!”
He’s lost his mind, thought Reynevan. And in a moment, they’ll pounce. They’ll soon work out that it’s all nonsense—they can’t be that stupid.
Scharley, now awfully sweaty and hoarse, caught his eye and winked an extremely clear request for support, a request bolstered by an insistent though furtive gesture. Reynevan raised his eyes towards the vault. Anything, he thought, trying to recall the old books and conversations with friendly mages, anything has got to be better than “bow-wow-wow.”
“Hax, pax, max!” he bellowed, waving his arms. “Abeor super aberer! Aie Saraye! Aie Saraye! Albedo, rubedo, nigredo!”
Scharley, breathing heavily, glanced at him gratefully and gestured for him to continue. Reynevan took a deep breath.
“Tumor, rubor, calor, dolor! Per ipsum, et cum ipso, et in ipso! Jobsa, hopsa et vos omnes! Et cum spiritu tuo! Melach, Malach, Molach!”
They’ll start beating us any moment now, he thought feverishly. Any second now. There’s nothing to be done. I’ll have to go all out. In Arabic. Stand beside me, Averroes. Save me, Avicenna.
“Kullu-al-Shaitanu-al-rajim!” he screamed. “Fa-anasahum Tarish! Qasura al-Zoba! Al-Ahmar, Baraqan al-Abayad! Al-Shaitan! Khar-al-Sus! Al ouar! Mochefi al relil! El feurj! El feurj!”
The last word, as he vaguely recalled, meant “pudenda” in Arabic and had little in common with an exorcism. He was aware of the great stupidity he was engaged in. He was even more astonished by the outcome.
He felt as though the world had stood still for a moment. And then, in utter silence, among the tableau of Benedictines in black habits frozen against the grey walls, something twitched, something disturbed the dead calm with a movement and a sound.
The vacant-looking giant sitting by the wall suddenly tossed aside the sticky, dirty honey pot in disgust and revulsion. The pot clattered against the floor and didn’t break, but rolled, penetrating the silence with a dull but noisy clunking.
The giant raised his honey-covered fingers up to his eyes. He looked at them for a moment and his chubby, moonlit face showed first disbelief and then horror. Reynevan watched him, breathing heavily. He felt Scharley’s urgent gaze on him, but he was unable to utter a word. That’s it, he thought. That’s it.
The hulk, still looking at his finger, moaned. Heart-rendingly.
And then Brother Deodatus, lying on the bier, grunted, coughed, wheezed and kicked his legs. Then he swore, extremely secularly.
“Saint Euphrosyne…” the abbot groaned, kneeling. The other monks followed his example. Scharley opened his mouth, but quickly and astutely closed it. Reynevan put his hands to his temples, not knowing whether to pray or run away.
“Bugger…” croaked Brother Deodatus, sitting up. “My throat’s dry… What? Did I sleep through supper? A pox on you, Brothers, I only wanted a nap. I asked you to wake me up in time for Vespers…”
“It’s a miracle!” yelled one of the kneeling monks.
“God’s kingdom is come,” said another, falling spreadeagled on the floor. “Igitur pervenit in nos regnum Dei!”
“Alleluia!”
Brother Deodatus, who was now sitting on the bier, looked uncomprehendingly from the kneeling monks to Scharley with the stole around his neck, from Reynevan to the giant Samson, still examining his hands and belly, from the praying abbot to the monks who had just run in with a pail of manure and a copper frying pan.
“Would someone kindly tell me what the hell’s going on here?” asked the recently possessed monk.
Chapter Thirteen
In which, after leaving the Benedictine monastery, Scharley lectures Reynevan about his existential philosophy, which can be reduced to the theory that you only need to drop your trousers and look the other way for some unkind person to have a go at you. A moment later, life confirms his arguments in every detail. Scharley is saved from trouble by somebody the reader already knows—or, rather, thinks they know.
The exorcism in the Benedictine abbey—although in principle crowned by success—further deepened Reynevan’s dislike of Scharley, which had been increasing from day one and intensified after the incident with the beggar. Reynevan now understood he was dependent on the penitent’s assistance and that without him, attempting to free his beloved Adèle by himself had slim chance of success. Understanding his dependence was one thing, but the dislike remained, nagging him like a torn fingernail or a chipped tooth, and Scharley’s behaviour only deepened it.
A dispute flared up the evening after they left the monastery, when they were but a short distance from Świdnica. Paradoxically, Reynevan was recalling Scharley’s exorcistic mischief and reproaching him for it while they consumed gifts obtained through that very mischief. For on parting, the grateful Benedictines had given them a large bundle containing a rye loaf, a dozen apples, a dozen hard-boiled eggs, a ring of smoked juniper sausage and a fat Polish blood pudding.
Our wanderers were sitting on a dry hillside at the edge of a forest, eating and gazing at the sun, which was sinking lower and lower towards the tops of the pine trees. And arguing. Reynevan had raced on somewh
at, extolling ethical norms and criticising roguery. Scharley immediately took him down a peg.
“I don’t accept,” he pronounced, spitting out the shell of a badly peeled egg, “moral teachings from someone who is in the habit of screwing other men’s wives.”
“How many more times,” said Reynevan in irritation, “do I have to repeat that it’s not the same? That you can’t compare them?”
“You can, Reinmar, you can.”
“Interesting.”
Scharley pressed the loaf against his belly and cut off another hunk.
“What makes us different,” he began a moment later, speaking with his mouth full, “is experience and practical wisdom. What you do instinctively, driven by an outright childish desire to satisfy your sexual urges, I carry out deliberately, according to a plan. But the same drive lies at the heart of both behaviours. Namely, the conviction that what counts is me, my welfare and my pleasure, and the rest can go to hell if it doesn’t serve my interests. Don’t interrupt. To you, your dear Adèle’s charms were like a sticky bun to a child. In order to taste it, you forgot everything else—all that mattered was your own pleasure. No, don’t try bringing love into this, quoting Petrarch and Wolfram of Eschenbach. Love is also a pleasure, and one of the most selfish I know.”
“I will not listen to this.”
“In summa,” continued the penitent adamantly, “our existential beliefs don’t differ at all, since they are based on the same principium: everything I do should serve me. Where we do differ, though—”
“So we do differ, then?”
“—is the ability to think long term. In spite of frequent temptations, I refrain as far as I am able from bedding other men’s wives, because long-term thinking suggests that in addition to not benefitting me, it will cause me problems. I don’t pamper the poor with alms, not out of miserliness, but simply because such charity doesn’t achieve anything. In fact, it is blatantly harmful—you lose a penny and gain the reputation of a fool. And since numerus fools infinitus est, I swindle them whenever I can, including foolish Benedictines. Got it?”
The Tower of Fools Page 21
