Black Moon

by Seabury Quinn

  He paused a moment, then, “Have you ever heard of a disease called gusel vereni?” he asked.

  “Mon Dieu!” the Frenchman exploded. “Where did you hear of him, Monsieur, if you please?”

  “I ran across the term for the first time last night, sir. I stopped at the County Medical Society library on my way from Anastasia’s and happened to pick up a copy of Wolfgang Wholbrück’s Medicine in the Near East. I don’t know what made me consult the book, except that Anastasia is a Greek—her family came here in ’21 as refugees from Smyrna after Greece had lost the war with Turkey—and I was fairly desperate for a clue—any kind of clue—to her condition.”

  “H’m’m’m’m,” de Grandin made one of those odd noises, half grunt, half whinny, which no one but a Frenchman can produce. “And what did you learn of gusel vereni, if you please?”

  McCormick answered like a schoolboy repeating a lesson: “According to Wholbrück it is a disease of unknown origin to which Greeks, Turks, Armenians and kindred peoples seem peculiarly vulnerable, and which seldom or never attacks Western Europeans. All attempts to isolate its causative factor have failed. Objectively its symptoms parallel those of pulmonary tuberculosis, that is, there is progressive loss of weight and stamina, though there is neither fever nor a cough. It is sometimes called ‘the Angels’ Disease’ because the patient loses nothing of his looks as it progresses, and women often seem to become more beautiful as the end approaches. It is painless, progressive and incurable—”

  “And Jules de Grandin knows about him, by blue! Oh, yes. He has seen him at his dreadful worst, and better than the Herr-doktor Wholbrück he knows what causes him!

  “Come, my friends, let us go see this Grecian lady who may be a victim of this so strange malady. Right away, all quickly, if you please.”

  “YOU SAID YOU KNOW the cause of this disease?” I whispered as we drove to our mystery patient’s house.

  He nodded somberly. “Perhaps I spoke with too much haste, my friend. In Greece and in the Turkish hospitals I have seen him and had him explained to me at great length, but—”

  “But did you ever see a cure?” I persisted.

  “Hélas, no,” he admitted. “But perhaps that was because the patients’ broth was spoiled by an excess of cooks.”

  “What d’ye mean? Too many doctors?”

  “Perhaps; perhaps too few priests.”

  “Too few—whatever are you driving at?”

  “I wish I had a ready answer, my old one. The best that I can do is guess, and though I am a very clever fellow I sometimes guess wrong.”

  “But what did you mean by ‘too few priests’?”

  “Just this: In Greece, as elsewhere in the Near and Middle East, the patina o’ modernity is only a thin coating laid upon an ancient culture. For the most part their physicians have been trained at Vienna or Heidelberg, great scientific institutions where the god of words has been enthroned in the high place once sacred to the Word of God. Therefore they believe what they see, or what some Herr-professor tells them he has seen, and nothing else. The priesthood, on the contrary, have been nourished on the vin du pais, as one might say. They remember and to some extent give cedence to the ancient beliefs of the people.”

  “What’s all that got to do with—”

  “Just this: The priests contend the malady is spiritual in origin; the doctors hold that it, like all else, is completely physical. Left to themselves the papas would have attempted treatment by spiritual means, but they were not allowed to do so. And so the patients died. You see?”

  “You mean it was another instance of conflict between science and religion?”

  “Mais non; by no means. There is no conflict between true science and true religion. It is our faulty definition of the terms that breeds the conflict, my friend. All religions are things of the spirit, but all things of the spirit are not necessarily religious. All physical things are subject to the laws of science, but science may concern itself with things not wholly physical, and if it fails to do so it is not entirely scientific.”

  “I don’t think I quite follow you,” I admitted. “If you’d be a little more specific—”

  “Bien. Bon,” he broke in. “You do not understand. Neither, to tell the whole truth, do I. Let us start in mutual blindness and see who first discerns the light. Meanwhile, it seems, we are arrived.”

  THE SMALL HOUSE IN Van Amburg Street where Philammon Pappalukas lived with his motherless daughter was neat as the proverbial pin. It stood flush with the street, only three low marble steps topped by a narrow landing separating it from the sidewalk, and the front door led directly into a living room which occupied the entire width of the building. Mr. Pappalukas greeted us without enthusiasm. He was a small man, slim and attractive, with hair almost completely gray and a small white mustache. His face showed lines of worry and his shoulders sagged, not with defeat but with an angle that betokened resigned acquiescence.

  “Good evening, Dr. Trowbridge, Dr. de Grandin,” he acknowledged McCormick’s introduction, then, in answer to our guide’s inquiry, “No, there doesn’t seem to be much change. I think the end is very near, now, Marshall. I’ve seen such cases before—”

  “And so have I, Monsieur,” de Grandin interrupted. “May we see this one, if you please?”

  Our host gave him a rather weary look, as if to say, “Of course, if you insist, but it won’t do any good,” then led us to the bedroom where our patient lay.

  She was a pretty little woman with a wealth of softly curling black hair, soft brown eyes almost disproportionately large, a rather small but very full-lipped mouth and a sweet, yielding chin cleft by a deep dimple. Except for her bright lipstick the only color in her face was centered round her eyes where violet shadows gathered in the hollows. “Thank you, Marshall;” she responded to young McCormick’s inquiry, “I don’t feel much better; I’m so tired, dear, so cruelly tired.”

  Our physical examination told us nothing, or, to be more exact, served only to confirm McCormick’s report. Her temperature and pulse were normal and her skin was neither dry nor moist, but exactly as a healthy person’s skin should be. Fremitus was no more than usual; upon percussion we could find no evidence of impaired resonance, and our stethoscopes disclosed no trace of mucous rales. Whatever her illness might be, I was prepared to stake my reputation it was not tuberculosis.

  De Grandin showed no disappointment. He was cheerful, and with something more than the conventional “bedside manner,” as he dropped into a chair and took her hand in his, his finger resting lightly on her pulse. “They tell me that you dream, ma chère,” he announced. “Of what is it that you dream all unhappily?”

  A thin wash of blood showed in her face, to be succeeded by a pallor even more pronounced than before. “I—I’d rather not discuss my dreams, sir,” she answered, and it seemed to me a look of fear came in her eyes. “I—”

  “No matter, my small one,” he broke in with a quick, reassuring smile. “Some things are better left unsaid, even in the sick room or confessional.”

  He drew a notebook from his pocket and poised a silver pencil over it. “And when was it you first began to feel these spells of weakness, if you please?”

  “I—” she began, then faltered, drew a long breath and fell silent.

  “Yes?” he prompted. “You were saying—”

  “I—I can’t remember, sir.”

  His narrow black brows rose in Saracenic arches at her answer, but he made no comment. Instead, across his shoulder he asked me, “Will you be good enough to move the light, Friend Trowbridge? I find it difficult to see my notes.”

  Obediently I moved the bedside lamp until he nodded satisfaction with its place, and as I stepped back I noticed that the light fell directly on the silver pencil with which he appeared to be scribbling furiously, but with which he was actually making aimless circles.

  “Morbleu, but he is bright, is he not, Mademoiselle?” he asked the girl as he held up the pencil. “Does he not shi
ne like sunlight on clear water?”

  She looked at the small shiny rod and as she did so he twirled it more quickly, then gradually decreased its speed until it revolved slowly, then swung back and forth like a pendulum. “Observe him closely, if you please,” he ordered in a soft monotone. “Behold how he sways like a young tree in the wind, a tired, a very tired young tree that seeks to rest all quietly. It is a sleepy little tree, a very tired and sleepy little tree, almost as tired and sleepy as you, ma petite.” His voice sank low and lower, and his words took on a slurred and almost singsong tone. It might have been a lullaby cradle-song to lure her into slumber, and as he kept repeating the slow, almost senseless phrases I saw her lids quiver for a moment, seem to fight to remain up, then slowly, almost reluctantly, fold across her big brown eyes.

  “Ah, so!” he murmured as he rose and placed his thumbs upon her brow, stroking it toward the temples with a soft massaging motion. “So, my little poor one, you will rest, n’est-ce-pas?” For several moments he continued stroking her forehead, then, “Now, Mademoiselle, you are prepared to tell me when it was you first began to feel sensations of this tiredness, hein?”

  “It was last autumn,” she responded weakly. Her words came slowly, feebly, wearily, in a voice so tired that it might have been that of an old woman. “It was last autumn in November—All Souls’ Day—”

  “Parbleu, do you say so? And what had you been doing, if you please?”

  “I’d been out to the cemetery to visit Timon’s grave. Poor Timon! I could not love him, but he loved me—” Her voice sank lower and lower, like that of a radio when the rheostat is turned off slowly.

  “Do you say so? And who was Timon, and why did you go to his grave?”

  “Timon Kokinis,” she began then stopped as a knock sounded from the ceiling just above her bed, as if a clenched fist had struck the plaster.

  “Ah, yes, one sees; and this Monsieur Kokinis, he was—grand Dieu, my friends, look to her!”

  “Oh!” The girl’s sharp exclamation had been like the cry of a hurt animal and she caught her breath in a gasp as she began to tremble in a clonic spasm, quivering from throat to feet as if in the throes of a galvanic shock. Her hands, which had been meekly folded on her bosom, wreathed themselves together as if in mortal terror, her eyes forced open as if she were being throttled, then turned up underneath their lids till only a thin thread of white was visible. Her lips writhed back and her tongue thrust out.

  “Good God!” cried McCormick. “Hold her. Dr. Trowbridge—watch her mouth; don’t let her bite her tongue!” He snatched his kit up, hurried to the bathroom and came back with a filled hypo. “Easy! Easy does it,” he soothed as he sponged her arm with alcohol, took up a fold of skin and thrust the needle in.

  For something like a minute she continued struggling, then the morphine took effect and she subsided with a tired sigh.

  “Parbleu, I thought it was le petit mal at first!” de Grandin murmured as he dropped the girl’s quiescent hands.

  “You thought?” McCormick shot back. “You know damn well it was, don’t you? If that’s not epilepsy I never saw a case—”

  “Then you have never seen one, my friend,” broke in the small Frenchman. “This seizure, if its origin were physical, was much more like hysteria than epilepsy. Consider, if you please: There was no epileptic cry or groan preceding the spasm, and while she ran her tongue out, there was no attempt to bite it.” He looked down at the drugged girl pityingly. “Ma pauvre,” he said in a low voice. “Ma pauvre belle créature!”

  McCormick looked at him challengingly. “What d’ye mean, if the origin of her seizure were physical?” he demanded.

  De Grandin fixed him with a long, unwinking stare, and nothing moved in his face. At last, “There are more things in heaven and earth, and most especially on earth, than medical philosophy is willing to admit, mon jeune ami,” he answered in a level, toneless voice. “Attend her, if you please,” he added as he moved toward the door. “I think that Friend Trowbridge and I have done all that we can at present, and further inquiries are necessary for our diagnosis. If anything untoward occurs do not delay to telephone us; we shall be in readiness.”

  “MAYBE YOU KNOW WHAT you’re doing,” I whispered as we went down the stairs, “but I’m completely at sea—”

  “I, too, am tossed upon a chartless ocean of doubt,” he confessed, “but in the distance I think that I see a small, clear light. Let us see if Monsieur Pappalukas can assist us in obtaining our bearings.

  “Tell me, Monsieur,” he demanded as we joined our patient’s father in the downstairs room, “this Timon Kokinis, who was he?”

  “Timon Kokinis?”

  “Précisément, Monsieur, have I not said so?”

  “He was a childhood friend of Anastasia’s. His parents escaped from Smyrna with my wife and me when the American destroyers took us from the burning city. He and she were born in this country and grew up together. We Greeks are rather clannish, you know, and prefer to marry in our own nationality, so when the children showed a fondness for each other his father and I naturally assumed they’d marry.”

  “Perfectly, Monsieur. We make such arrangements in France, too; but the happy consummation of your plans was frustrated by the young man’s death?”

  “Not quite, Dr. de Grandin. Timon was a wild lad, rather too fond of the bottle, and with a hard streak of cruelty in him. He was two years Anna’s senior, and almost from babyhood seemed to think he owned her. When they went to grammar school it was she who carried both their books, not the other way around, as usually happens, and if be did not feel like doing his homework, which he seldom did, he made her do it for him, then meet him at his house early enough for him to copy it. If she displeased him he would beat her. More than once she came home with a blackened eye where he had struck her in the face with his fist.

  “By the time they reached high school he had become completely possessive. She was afraid to look at another boy or even have an intimate girl friend.”

  “Afraid, Monsieur?”

  “Yes, sir; literally. Timon was an athlete, a four-letter man, and more than a match for any of his classmates. If he caught Anna at the soda fountain with another boy he did not hesitate to slap her face, then beat her escort unmercifully.”

  “Mordieu, and you permitted this?”

  Mr. Pappalukas raised his brows and drew the corners of his mouth down. “The Levantine does not regard such things as Western Europeans and Americans do, sir. With us it is the woman’s place to serve, the man’s to command. Perhaps it is the relic of centuries of Turkish oppression, but—”

  “And Mademoiselle your daughter? She was born here, grew up here. Surely she had no such Oriental ideas?”

  Once more Mr. Pappalukas made that odd grimace that seemed almost a facial shrug. “Anna had been brought up in a Greek household, Dr. de Grandin, and Timon was conspicuously handsome—like one of our old demigods. From infancy she had been led to expect she would marry him—”

  “But ultimately there was a break?”

  “Yes, sir; ultimately. I don’t think Anna ever loved Timon. She accepted the thought of their marriage as she might have accepted him as a brother, because there was no help for it, but notwithstanding her strict rearing and his possessive attitude she began to rebel before she was through high school. When war came and he joined the Army she broke away completely. We could not very well object to her engaging in Red Cross activities, and the contacts that she made in the work changed her attitude entirely. When Timon came back she told him she would not honor the engagement his father and I had made for them in infancy.”

  “And Monsieur Timon, how did he take her rebellion?”

  “He flew into a rage and beat her so severely that she was in bed a week. Then I took sides with her, and the engagement was definitely broken. When I refused to force her to marry him he called a curse down on her, saying she should surely die a prey to a vrykolakas, which is to say—”

  �
�One comprehends, Monsieur. And afterwards?”

  “After that he shot himself.”

  De Grandin’s little round blue eyes lit up with that sharp light I knew portended action. “One understands, in part, at least, Monsieur. You have been very helpful. It now remains for us to find a way to circumvent that curse.”

  “Then”—Mr. Pappalukas’ voice trembled—“you think my daughter’s illness is no natural thing?”

  The little Frenchman gave a noncommittal shrug. “I would not go so far as that. We sometimes draw the limits of the natural too close. I am persuaded that she suffers from no infection known to biologists, and equally convinced her illness will not yield to ordinary medicine. Eh bien, since that is so we must resort to extraordinary means. The good young Dr. McCormick is with her, and will keep us posted as to her condition. Meantime, we shall do what we can—”

  “Ah, but what can you do?” Mr. Pappalukas broke in. “You admit that medicine is powerless—”

  “Perfectly, Monsieur, but did you hear me say that Jules de Grandin is helpless? Mais non, it is quite otherwise, I do assure you. I am of infinite resourcefulness, me, and if I do not find a way to aid your charming daughter I shall be astonished. Yes, certainly.”

  “I SUPPOSE YOU’VE WORKED out a theory?” I ventured as we drove toward home.

  “Not quite a theory; let us rather say an hypothesis,” he answered. “To begin, the young McCormick gave us a clue when he told us he had read Wholbrück. I know that one, me; I have read him carefully and cursed him roundly.”

  “Cursed him? Why?”

  “Because he is a fool, by blue; because he will not believe what he sees. He is like the rustic who visited the zoo and on beholding a rhinoceros declared that notwithstanding he was looking at him there was no such animal. Consider, if you please: Time out of mind it has been believed in the Levant that gusel vereni, sometimes called ‘the Angels’ Disease,’ sometimes ‘the false consumption,’ is not an illness in the usual sense of the term, but the result of demoniacal possession. In olden days it was more common, but in our time it is met often enough for Wholbrück to have made mention of it. And what does he say of it, I ask you? That its cause is unknown, and biochemistry is unable to isolate its infective agent. You see, he willfully shuts his eyes to the possibility of anything but physical causation. He will not even go so far as to say, ‘It is believed by the peasants to be caused by demoniacal possession.’ Not he! He says simply that its cause is unknown. Parbleu, a fool he is, a bigoted, blind fool.”