by Неизвестный
“Jonathan. Let's agree on one thing. If you need help, I shall help. Is it a deal?” When there was no answer, he turned slowly around. “Jonathan! We have an appointment the day you—”
He broke off. Jonathan was standing in the middle of the room, his eyes closed, his body swaying back and forth as if buffeted by a strong wind.
“Jonathan! Jonathan! Are you all right?”
“Father David,” the voice was almost a whisper and full of pain. “Father David, help me. . . not now.., impossible now. . . too far. . . but at the moment. . . it's a deal. . . if. . .”
The rest was lost in a mumbling confusion. Jonathan turned away and then slumped down into an armchair. David noticed Jonathan's right index finger was held in his left hand.
The door opened. Jonathan's mother entered quietly, unhurriedly. Her face was a mask. “Don't worry, Father David,” she murmured. “He will sleep now. And in the aftertime you can get back to him. Go and rest. You need it. You all need rest.”
He chatted for a few minutes with her, then left. She would keep him posted on Jonathan's movements.
In the middle of December Jonathan left home again and went back to New York. For the next four months David followed Jonathan's activities. He was always available but never conspicuous, visiting New York regularly, keeping informed of Jonathan's whereabouts and activities. For the moment he could not intervene. That moment would come, he knew.
He now was convinced that Jonathan had ceded full possession of himself to some evil spirit. He was half-convinced that he himself was affected by all this, but he did not understand exactly how. Not until the disastrous marriage ceremony by the sea was he to have the opportunity of helping Jonathan and of finding out exactly what had happened to himself.
In mid-February, David heard quite by accident of the marriage ceremony Jonathan was going to perform at Dutchman's Point. The bride's father, a prominent broker, was an old acquaintance of David. He immediately telephoned the father and arranged to have lunch with him at his home in Manchester. David was received at first with great warmth as an old friend. But the conversation turned sour, as the reason for his visit became clear: David wanted the bride's father either to postpone the marriage or to engage another clergyman.
Father Jonathan was a good priest, sniffed Hilda's father. Then, unpleasantly, he went on to grumble about the clergy in general, saying that at least Jonathan got the younger generation to say their prayers and to believe in God and take care of the environment—something “men of the cloth” did not ordinarily do. David argued, hinting at his basic fears and suspicions about Jonathan. But it was of no avail. The world was changing, he was told. What was all this sinister talk of evil and of the Devil? Father David did not believe, or did he, in all that nonsense anymore? David's only answer was an expression of his deep apprehension for Jonathan and for his friend's daughter.
Then, if he was so afraid, the broker concluded as he rose from the table, why didn't Father David come himself? He was thereby invited. He would see, the broker added, his daughter would be all right. For once Hilda was going to be gloriously happy. She wanted things this way. She was to be married only once.
“I'll be there,” answered David quietly. “Don't worry. But you will have to answer for the result.”
The broker stopped and looked at David, thought for a few seconds, then his face clouded over with anger. His words cut into David deeply. “Father David, I am a simple man as far as religion and religious matters go. Whatever happens in that area is the fault of all you clergy. You know”—he broke off, scrutinizing David's face and figure—“sometimes I have a feeling that you people are the really lost ones. We lay people have some sort of protection. We were never in charge of religion, y'know.” They parted.
Mister Natch and The Salem Chorus
The exorcism of Father Jonathan began in the first week of April and ended only in the second week of May. Totally unforeseen by David, the exorcism of Jonathan proved to be relatively easy. It was David himself who was in jeopardy. His sanity, his religious belief, and his bodily life were in maximum danger. But thanks to David's sufferings, we can form a better idea of the mechanics of possession-at least of one type of possession: how it starts, how it progresses, and where, in the final analysis, the free choice of the possessed comes into play.
While the exorcism of Jonathan was recorded on tape, for the details of David's four-week marathon struggle with himself we have to rely on the diary he kept so punctiliously during that time, together with what he told others of his experience, and my own conversations with him.
When David and Jonathan left the marriage party on Massepiq beach, David drove directly to the seminary, where Jonathan and he stayed until the beginning of the exorcism.
As they drove, Jonathan had one persistent question for David: what was the importance of starting before the sun was high in the sky?
David was frank: he did not know exactly; he might never know; but, with only his instincts to go on, David was certain that the light of the noonday sun had somehow become for Jonathan a vehicle for an evil influence. “For you, Jonathan, it has become contaminated,” David said tersely.
Jonathan wept at the implication of David's words. The light and warmth of the sun itself, the most beautiful things in Jonathan's world, had become evil for him. Still, following David's instructions, Jonathan kept the blinds drawn in his room at the seminary. He went outside to take fresh air only in the evening and at night. He avoided the high noonday sun.
The pre-exorcism preparations to which Father David had become accustomed in his work as an exorcist in the diocese were completed by the end of March. Some of these steps—medical checkup, examination by psychologists, family background—had been taken during Jonathan's spectacular seizure the previous autumn. With cursory additions, the preparations were completed. It remained to choose a place, fix a day, and appoint assistants.
David had an inner conviction that there would be little physical violence but much mental stress and a deep strain on his own spirit. He therefore asked a young psychiatrist friend and a middle-aged medical doctor to be his assistants. He had the services of his young priest assistant, Father Thomas, who was to succeed him in June as diocesan exorcist.
The choice of the place of exorcism presented a problem. David favored the seminary oratory or a room in a remote wing of the seminary. Jonathan pleaded for the exorcism to take place in his mother's house, where he had been born and reared. All his associations, his beginnings, and his high hopes dwelt in that house that his father had designed and built himself. Besides, it stood in its own plot of land and enjoyed a privacy unavailable at the seminary.
The bishop, ever calm, decided for them. “Whatever must come out, had better come out privately and discreetly. I don't want half my young seminarians getting nervous and running off half-cocked,” he said to David. He added something which David had not expected from this worldly man whose chief claim to fame was his financial wizardry: “No superstition, mind you, Father David”—this with an arching of the eyebrows—“but his rather built the house and raised his family there. He also has an interest in the whole matter. His ties are to it, surely.”
David reflected on the bishop's last remark; it bore out what he had surmised in other possession cases: there was an intimate connection between definite locales and the exorcism of evil spirits.
They all agreed that Jonathan should remain at the seminary under surveillance by David and his young assistant priest until the eve of April 1, the day chosen for the exorcism. As that day approached, Jonathan became more and more listless, ate little, and relied more heavily on sleeping pills in order to secure a good night's rest.
At 10:00 P.M. on March 31, David drove him to his mother's house. They were joined there that night by the assistants—a precaution David took, again by instinct. At 4:00 A.M. the following morning, awakened by some noise, they found Jonathan fully dressed and searching in the drawers of the kitchen c
loset. Whether he was looking for a knife to use on himself or others, or whether—as he said—he was preparing some food, David could never be sure. Anyway, since all were awake, David asked Jonathan's mother to make some breakfast. By 6:00 A.M. they were ready to begin.
The arrangements were simple. The room had been cleared of furniture. Its terrazzo floor was bare of any carpet or rug. The window shutters were closed. Jonathan preferred to take a kneeling position, face sunk in his hands, at the small table on which David had placed his crucifix, the holy-water flask, the two candles, and the ritual book. The tape recorder was placed by the window. David wore cassock, surplice, and stole. He made no solemn entry. Standing at the opposite side of the table to Jonathan, his assistants gathered around them both, he got down right away to the business in hand. He recited the opening prayer, put down his book, looked straight at Jonathan, and spoke.
“Jonathan, before we go any further, I want to ask that you, in front of these witnesses, state quite clearly that you are here of your own accord, and that you wish me in the name of Jesus and with the authority of his Church to exorcise whatever evil spirits may possess you or hold any part of you, body and soul, in captivity. Answer me.” David looked at Jonathan's bowed head. He could not see his face, only that golden hair, little strips of his forehead between the long, artistic fingers, and Jonathan's graceful hands cupping his face.
“Jonathan, please answer us,” he said after a silence. David held his breath in growing suspense.
“I consent to be here”—Jonathan's voice was deep and melodious—“wishing that whatever evil or error is present be exorcised.” David breathed easily again. But his uneasiness returned almost immediately, as Jonathan added: “Evil is subtle. Injustice is ancient. All wrongs must be righted. This is true Exorcism.”
“We are talking, Jonathan, precisely and only of Satan, the Prince of Darkness, the Angel of Light,” David hastened to say with severity. He noticed that Jonathan stirred a little, as if listening intently. “We are proposing to discover that presence and to expel it by the power of Jesus. Do you consent?”
“I consent.”
A pause. Then when David was about to put his next question, Jonathan started again. “Poor Jesus! Poor, poor Jesus! Served so badly. Described so poorly. Disfigured so brashly. Poor Jesus! Poor, poor Jesus!”
David stopped abruptly. Jonathan's voice was still bell-like and silvery. David decided to take another tack.
“Now, Jonathan, by the power invested in me by the Church of Jesus, and in the name of Jesus, I wish to put you a second question. Have you knowingly, consciously, within your living memory, ever conceded anything to, or agreed, or even trifled with the Evil One?”
Jonathan's voice came back, musical and calm. “To do that to Jesus would be a betrayal of myself, of my flock, of Jesus' goodness, of the world, of life itself, of our eternal peace. . .”
“Jonathan, I want an answer, an unequivocal answer to my question. This is important.”
“On the contrary, Jesus has come to me, and I have become his priest. Praise Jesus! Praise the Lord of our world!”
David had to be satisfied with this answer, so he went on to the next stage.
“Then, Jonathan, we will repeat, first, the Credo, and then your baptismal vows.” David hoped in this way to avoid the necessity of going through the formal ritual of Exorcism. After all, he reasoned, if Jonathan could answer thus far satisfactorily, then the possession might just be a partial thing.
David took up the first phrases of the Credo. “I believe in God, the Father Almighty, Creator of Heaven and Earth.” There he paused, waiting for Jonathan. But Jonathan had seemingly started before he had ended the phrases, and all that David could hear were the words “the Earth.” He started the next phrase, “And in Jesus Christ,” but broke off because Jonathan was still talking on.
“Two or three billion years ago, the Earth. Each one of us 50 trillion cells. 150 million in Caesar's day. 3,600 million in our day. 200 million tons of men, women, and children. Two trillion tons of animal life. . .”
“Jonathan, let's get on with it. . .”
“All so that Jesus can emerge. Oh, beautiful Omega! Praise Jesus! Praise the Lord of this world with which we are all, all 200 million tons of us, are one.”
David stopped and looked hard at Jonathan. He still had his face sunk in his hands and was still talking.
“Oh, what they've done to it. Jews and Christians. These Judeo-Christians.” Jonathan's voice now sank to a whisper of disgust. “The pontiff of creation-that's what they made every man and woman.” Jonathan's shoulders shook; he was sobbing.
Again as before, David felt a strangely welcoming agreement in himself for each statement of Jonathan's. Some hidden part of him he had not known was saying again with insistence, “Yes! Yes!”
Jonathan's voice took on a speed and haste of assertion. “And what started as a pioneering weed, a trial species with toads and cock robins, zooming upward to the Jesus Point, suddenly turned and made the planet its playground, the stage of its jig-acting, its domain.” The voice sank again to a whispered prayer. “Poor Jesus! Poor world! Praise the Lord of the World for Light! Poor Jesus!”
The surge of agreement in David started to sour. What was it Father G. had said? David's memory started to spin and turn. Panic seized him. He rummaged desperately through his recollections like a man plowing through a pile of old papers in search of a sorely needed document. He searched back to the beginning, back to the first instructions bustly Father G. had ever given him. What was it?
Jonathan's voice broke in on him.
“Father David, you are not with me. Please be with me!” It was insistent. David glanced again at the graceful hands covering the face and intertwined with the golden hair. Jonathan looked like an angel of God clad in light, doing penance on his knees for the sins of men. David wanted to say to him: “Yes! Jonathan, don't fear! I am with you! Yes!” The words rose to his lips like a drink offered. But a quick wave of uneasiness hit him again; and again that question came back like a boomerang: What did Father G. warn him against? What had he said? What was it? Jonathan's voice broke in again.
“Father G. is past and gone.” David was shocked by Jonathan's reading of his own inmost thoughts. “Back to the womb of all of us. Let the dead bury the dead, Father David. You and I. We live. Let us walk in the light, while we have it.”
Jonathan talked on now, intermingling Scripture with his words. David turned away as if warding off some influence coming at him from Jonathan; and his mind reeled as he tried to regain his lost ground. He looked up at the ceiling. He felt at bay: there was only Jonathan and himself, and between them a strange ether, an invisible corridor of communication. And, all the while, his memory was still groping and working overtime, looking for a firm hold for his mind and will. Ah! At last! That's what Father G. had said: “The Angel of Light.” That's what he wanted to remember. “The Angel of Light.” And Father G. had warned him, too: “Your great danger, David, is that you think too much. Too much of the old cerebellum in you. Listen to your heart. The Lord speaks to your heart.”
A strong feeling of relief passed over David. A space was being opened up inside him-free, untrammeled, easy, roomy, fresh, private—untouched by that coiling dark pathway of communication between him and Jonathan.
Then a sharp word—his own name pronounced like the snapping of a horsewhip—hit his ears.
“David! David!” It was Jonathan. This time the voice had an admonitory note, the tone used by a master or a superior. The roles were curiously reversed.
David heard his young assistant priest whispering in his ear: “David, he's shaking. Do you think he's all right? The doctor is afraid. . .” David motioned to him, and looked at Jonathan again closely. Jonathan's face was still hidden in his hands, but he seemed to David and the assistants to be racked with sobs and sorrow.
David decided to try another approach. He had to get a toehold. Somehow he had to get Jonathan to
resist the evil spirit possessing him; he had to force that spirit out into the open. And he had to keep control of himself in order to do that.
In retrospect, given David's nature, his action was almost inevitable. And given the reality of his situation as distinct from that of Jonathan, what followed was both inevitable and necessary.
He drew near Jonathan. Commiseration and compassion were uppermost in his mind. He put a hand lightly on Jonathan's shoulder and spoke.
“Jonathan, my friend. Don't give in to sorrow. I will never leave off or abandon my efforts. I will not desert you now until. . .”
“I know you won't. . .” Jonathan's voice seemed to be forced out between the violent contraction of his chest and throat. “I know you won't because”—Jonathan paused and drew a deep breath—“my brother, you can't. You can't.” It was a dreadful rasp, a curious hiss that reached like a hand inside David's mind. David started to withdraw his hand; and as he did, he felt strange impulses in his mind: a fierce persuasion beat at him that he and Jonathan were the only sane people in that room. The others, his young colleague, the doctor, the psychiatrist, were mannequins, plastic models of reality, picaresque heroes in a cosmic joke. Only Jonathan and himself. Only Jonathan and David.
“You've got it, David!” whispered Jonathan. A rasp. A hiss.
Who was in control?
“Got what?” David hardly had the words out of his mouth when he felt some understanding beyond words, some common current of thought, as if David and Jonathan were sharing a common brain or some higher intuitive faculty that dispensed with the need for word of mouth. “Got what?” David said it over and over again. It was a sort of cry, a protest against deception. For in those moments it all became clear to him. He knew for the first time: he himself was being slowly pervaded by the same spirit of evil which held Jonathan; and he understood Jonathan knew that also.
Jonathan lifted his face suddenly and looked at David. His right hand, with the crooked index finger, came down tightly on David's hand as it rested on his own shoulder. David was like a man who saw a ghost: suddenly pale, shrunken, staring eyes, tight-lipped, short of breath, sweating profusely. For the face he saw on Jonathan was wreathed and twisted, not by sorrow or tears of pain, but in smiles and merriment. He had not been racked with sobs but with suppressed laughter. And that laughter now broke from his lips with a gust of relief. He shouted into David's face.