Punish the Sinners

by John Saul

  “I see,” Monsignor Vernon said slowly. “You believe Marilyn’s faith is questionable. You believe that what she thinks she saw this afternoon stemmed from—what?—hysteria?”

  “I think it’s possible,” Balsam said, glad that the priest seemed to understand it so well. But then the Monsignor’s expression changed, and the cold light that Balsam had come to recognize shone in his eyes—the cold light of his religious fanaticism.

  “I disagree,” he said flatly. “I’ve seen this sort of thing before. She’s clever, you know. A very bright child. This is nothing more than an attempt to manipulate us. All of us. You, me, her friends, the sisters, everyone. Mark my words, an investigation of this matter will prove me right. You may call it hysteria if you wish. To me it is nothing more than a very clever kind of manipulation. It is out of wariness born of experience that the Church has set up machinery to investigate just sudi phenomena as Marilyn Crane claims to have experienced.” And then, as quickly as the light of fanaticism had come into the Monsignor’s eyes, it was gone. Suddenly he was smiling genially at a horrified Peter Balsam.

  “It really isn’t anything to worry about,” he said now, the hardness in his voice gone. “Things like this happen all the time. I imagine that Marilyn will forget all about it by the end of the day. And if she doesn’t, I’ll have a talk with her.” Then he paused for a moment, as if a thought had occurred to him. “And we mustn’t forget,” he said softly, “there’s always the chance that the Blessed Virgin did visit Marilyn.”

  14

  Peter Balsam heard his front door open, and called from the kitchen. “I’m in here, throwing together something that I hope won’t poison us. Come in and fix us some drinks, will you?”

  “I’m already here,” Margo Henderson replied from the doorway. She surveyed the suit he was still wearing with distaste. “One of these days we’re going to Seattle again, just to get you a new suit. Why don’t you change? Just looking at you makes me feel uncomfortable.”

  “Can’t,” Peter said, grinning at her. Now that she was there, he was beginning to feel a little better. But not much; the grin faded. “I have to go to a meeting tonight, and it isn’t the kind of meeting where you show up in jeans and a tee-shirt”

  “As if you owned such things in the first place,” Margo commented as she pried a tray of ice loose from the freezer. “What’s the big meeting?”

  “You won’t approve,” Peter said. He wrestled with a can opener, then helplessly handed the mangled soup can, together with the opener, to Margo. “It’s the Society of St Peter Martyr,”

  Margo glanced at him briefly as she took the can and completed the job Peter had botched. “I thought you were all through with them,” she said levelly.

  “I didn’t say that,” Peter hedged.

  “No?” Margo’s eyebrows arched. “Strange. That’s the distinct impression I got last night.”

  Peter looked at her sharply. “Last night? I didn’t talk to you last night.”

  “Of course you did,” Margo said. “All right, so it was early this morning, if you want to get technical. But I call anything before dawn ‘last night’ “ Then, seeing the look on Peter’s face, she frowned. “You really don’t remember, do you?”

  “There’s nothing to remember,” Peter declared. ‘I came home from the meeting, went to bed around eleven, and slept all night I thought about calling you, but decided not to; it was too late.”

  Margo finished with the can, then mixed drinks for both of them before she spoke again. As she handed Peter his scotch-and-water, she looked at him carefully, trying to decide if he was playing some kind of a joke on her. She decided he wasn’t

  “Well then,” she said, biting her lower lip speculatively, “you’ve taken up some rather odd habits. Do you always make phone calls in your sleep? Because you did call me last night.”

  Peter searched his memory, but could find no recollection of any such thing the previous night. He felt a slight knot of fear in his stomach, but fought it down. “What did I say?” he asked, trying to keep his voice light. “Was I interesting?”

  “No,” Margo said shortly, “you weren’t. All you said was that you’d gone to the meeting of that silly society of Monsignor’s and that you weren’t going back.”

  “Did I call it ‘that silly society,’ or are you editorializing?”

  The smile crept back to Margo’s face. “All right, so I didn’t quote you exactly. If you want to know, I don’t recall your exact words, I mean, it was late, and I was asleep and, well, you know how groggy people can get in the middle of the night Anyway, I got the definite impression that you were not impressed with Monsignor and his funny friends.”

  “Funny friends?” Peter repeated. “I don’t suppose those were my exact words either, were they?”

  “No,” Margo said again, beginning to feel exasperated, “they weren’t. But if you ask me, any friends of Monsignor’s have to be funny.”

  “I wish they were,” Peter replied in a tone Margo found suddenly disturbing. “But I’m not sure there’s anything funny about them at all.” Briefly, he told her about the meeting of the Society the previous night, and the events of the afternoon. Margo listened to him carefully, and when he was finished she shook her head.

  “But why do you want to go back again tonight?” she asked. “It seems to me you’d want to stay out of the whole thing.”

  “I don’t know,” Peter mused, as if trying to explain his feelings to himself as well as to her. “I can’t figure out what they’re up to. But I know they’re up to something. Last night, just before I left their meeting, Monsignor Vernon told me I had been invited for a reason—to have my faith reinforced. And he was right When I woke up this morning, I felt much better than I did last night.”

  “Better about what?” Margo asked.

  Peter shrugged. “The Church. Until this morning I was almost ready to throw the towel in on the whole thing. But this morning I felt different. I felt Pd missed something, that there was something, somewhere, that would make everything clear to me. And I think that something may just be in the Society. Anyway, I decided I have to give it a chance.” He smiled at Margo, hoping to erase the look of concern that had come over her face. “I don’t see what harm it can do, and it might answer a lot of my questions.”

  Margo looked doubtful. When she spoke, skepticism edged her voice. “A miraculous transformation, Peter? Something happened to you last night, because you’ve certainly changed your tune.”

  “A man can change his mind,” Peter said, trying to keep his voice light.

  “Or have it changed for him,” Margo pointed out. Silently, she decided to be waiting for Peter when he returned home that night.

  He was let into the study, as the previous night, by one of the old priests—Father Martinelli, if he remembered correctly—and once again found Monsignor Vernon deep in prayer. But the room looked different to Peter Balsam, and he soon realized why. Tonight no lights were on. The curtains had been drawn tightly shut. The only illumination was provided by a fire glowing in the fireplace and tall red candles placed around the room. Seven chairs had been carefully arranged in a semicircle around the fireplace—the two large comfortable chairs and five others. Monsignor Vernon was kneeling at one of the chairs, using it as a makeshift prie-dieu. The other chair, opposite the one Monsignor Vernon knelt at, was waiting for Peter Balsam. He took the chair silently, steeling himself for another inquisition.

  But tonight it was different. There was no discussion before the ritual got under way. Instead, as soon as Monsignor Vernon finished the silent prayers, the chanting began. The Monsignor led it, and with each phrase one of the other old priests joined in, the sound swelling until all the andient clerics were chanting out the cadences.

  At first Peter Balsam wondered if he was expected to join the chanting, but as he listened he realized that he couldn’t participate: the phrases were unfamiliar. As he tried to follow the words, he discovered that it was not the thin
ness of the voices that made the chanting unintelligible; it was the language, a tongue sufficiently like Latin to sound familiar, but different enough—twisted enough, Peter thought with a shiver—to remain beyond his grasp.

  As the cadences mounted, surrounding him, invading him, Peter Balsam felt his mind begin to wander. The fire flickering on the hearth almost seemed to recede into the distance, and tibie dancing shadows of the shimmering candles cast strange images on the walls. He began to feel as if he was being transported back in time to another age, an age where faith alone could transport a man into raptures.

  Images began flitting through his head. His eyes, almost closed, drifted from one face to another, but instead of the five elderly priests and the youthful Monsignor, Peter Balsam saw the faces of ancient saints come suddenly to life. They were smiling on him. and beckoning to him. A feeling of camaraderie came over him, and Peter Balsam happily gave himself over to the companionship of the small group.

  Some time later, he became vaguely aware that the chanting had stopped, and that the Society was now involved in responsive prayers. He was dimly aware of Monsignor Vernon’s voice, resonating softly through the room, and the thin, reedy voices of the five elderly priests as they made the responses. He tried to concentrate on the words, but, like the chanting, they were in a not-quite-Latin that he was unable to translate. Yet, like the chanting, the prayers held an insistent rhythm, a rhythm that grew, bearing a spiritual message that was very clear: Peter Balsam, the steady intonations seemed to whisper, you are in the presence of God. Be humbled, Peter. And be comforted.

  And he was. As the rhythms overcame him once more, Peter Balsam uttered a silent prayer of thanksgiving to be part of this wondrous ceremony.

  Time almost stopped for him then, and his thoughts ceased to flow as he gave himself up to the religious experience that was unfolding around him. As he sank deeper and deeper into a state of trance, his senses sharpened. He felt the searing heat from each individual candle; the tongues of fire on the hearth seemed to be licking at his feet. He heard the voice of the Devil calling out to him in his head, and tried to close out the beckoning whispers. He began to feel the heat of hell glowing around him, and as his discomfort grew he became frightened. And then, as he felt himself being drawn downward, he felt the hands of angels upon him. He was suddenly cooler, and his mind’s eye saw the fires receding into the distance. As the angelic hands caressed him, he felt a calm come over him, and he began silently repeating the Acts of Faith and Contrition. Slowly, his ecstasy grew.

  The fire still burned in the fireplace, as high as it had when the evening had begun. The candles were shorter, but how much shorter he couldn’t discern. Around him, the six priests were gathered, sitting calmly, almost expectantly, in their chairs, watching him. Peter Balsam had no idea what time it was, nor how long he had been closeted in the study with the six priests. He discovered, to his own fascination, that he was not thinking about the ceremony at all; instead, he was almost entirely possessed by a feeling of fulfillment, as if he had, somehow, received answers to questions that he could not now even formulate. And he was tired, with the weariness of a man who had just run several miles. Somewhere in the back of his mind a memory stirred, then disappeared.

  He wondered if he was expected to speak. He looked from one face to another, and for the first time tonight saw each of the priests distinctly. In the warm glow of the candlelight the gnarled old faces took on a kind of beauty, and Peter Balsam realized that there was a gentleness in these men that he had not seen before. They were smiling at him, and he returned their smiles.

  “Welcome,” Father Martinelli said softly.

  “Welcome?” Peter repeated, just as softly. Suddenly, it was a word of many and marvelous meanings.

  “We are glad to have you among us,” Father Prine murmured.

  Monsignor Vernon nodded agreement. “Once again we are seven. Now we can continue our work.”

  Balsam frowned slightly. “Work?” he asked. “What work?”

  Monsignor Vernon shook his head. “No questions,” he said quietly. “Not now.”

  The meeting of the Society of St. Peter Martyr was over. Peter Balsam had become a part of the Society.

  He walked back to his apartment slowly, savoring the night air, and the first feelings of true peace that he had felt in a long time, certainly since he had come to Neilsville. He breathed deeply of the warm, dry air, and looked to the sky in search of the stars he felt should have been there. The sky was black, except for a pale, almost ghostly glow where the full moon far above the clouds shone weakly through the mists. By the time Peter Balsam reached his home, the rain had begun to fall.

  light glared in the living room, hurting his eyes. Squinting, he stepped inside, then drew back. Margo was lying on the couch, sound asleep, an open book sprawled across her breast While he was wondering whether to wake her, her eyes popped open, and she jumped off the couch.

  “What are you—” she began. Then she glanced wildly around and sank back down on the sofa.

  “What am I doing here?” Peter asked, grinning at her. “I live here, remember?”

  She looked up at him sheepishly. ‘I’m sorry,” she said. “I was going to be here waiting for you, all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, and dying to hear all about what happened at that meeting. So what do I do? I fall asleep. What time is it?”

  Peter suddenly realized he didn’t have the vaguest idea what time it was. When he looked at his watch, he wasn’t sure he believed it

  “That can’t be right,” he muttered, holding the watch up to his ear.

  Margo looked at him quizzically. “What can’t?” she said. “What time is it?”

  Peter sank down on the couch beside her. “My watch says three o’clock,” he breathed. “But it can’t be. I was only gone an hour or so.”

  Margo looked at him speculatively. “You’ve been gone seven hours, Peter,” she said calmly. “What happened?”

  “I don’t know,” Peter said blankly. He tried to. explain to Margo what had transpired at the rectory that evening, but in the telling none of it made sense. It all sounded like a dream, like disconnected fragments out of some religious fantasy. Margo listened to the story quietly.

  “Why don’t you go get out of those clothes?” she said when he’d finished. “They look like they’ve been slept in. I’ll put on some coffee and we’ll try again.” She grinned at him mischievously. “So far, it all sounds exactly like what I thought it would be. A bunch of silliness.” But inside, she was more concerned than she had shown.

  As she put the kettle on, Margo wondered if she was making a mistake. Perhaps Peter wasn’t what he seemed to be. Perhaps he wasn’t the nice, simple, rather straightforward person she had become so fond of. She spooned instant coffee into two mugs and tried to clear the last remnants of sleep from her mind while the water came to a boil.

  A few minutes later, as she started into the living room with the two steaming mugs, Peter appeared in the doorway, his face pale.

  “Margo—” he began.

  She set the cups down quickly, and hurried to him. “Peter, what is it?”

  “I don’t know,” Peter gasped. “When I took off my shirt, I—” He broke off again and unconsciously touched the belt of his robe.

  “What is it?” Margo said, more urgently. He clutched his robe tighter around his torso, and stared at her, wild-eyed. Peter was frightened. Very frightened. She moved closer to him.

  “Let me see, Peter,” she said gently. His hands fell to his sides, and he let her untie the cord around his waist. Then she opened the robe, and let it fall to the floor.

  On Peter’s back, from his shoulders to his waist, were angry red welts. Though the skin was not broken, the marks had swollen and stood out in painful relief from the pale whiteness of his back.

  “My God,” Margo breathed. “What happened?”

  Peter shook his head mutely. “I don’t know,” he said. And then the full horror of it struck him.
He began shaking. And with the shaking came the tears.

  “I don’t know, Margo,” he sobbed. “And that’s the worst of it. I don’t know where they came from!”

  ‘They did something to you,” Margo kept insisting. “While you were in that trance, or whatever it was, they did something to you.”

  Balsam shook his head in despair. “They coulant have,” he repeated yet again. ‘I would have remembered it I wasn’t unconscious. I was in some kind of odd state, I know, but I was conscious of my surroundings.”

  “But you thought you were gone only an hour or two, and it was seven hours. Seven hours, Peter! If you really remember everything that happened, how could you have lost five or six hours?”

  “I don’t know,” Peter said helplessly. ‘I suppose something happens to your time sense when you go into a trance. But I know I wasn’t unconscious. I know it”

  As the dawn came, they gave it up. They were both too tired to retrace the same ground. Peter went to the window, and watched the sun rise slowly over Neilsville. The clouds had gone, but there was a heaviness in the air that said they would be back soon. Peter turned back to Margo.

  “You’d better go,” he said. “It’s awfully late.”

  She nodded dully. “I know.” Her voice was lifeless. She looked at his tired eyes and she wanted to put her arms around him, to feel his arms around her. “Oh, Peter,” she said, the words choking her a little. “What are we going to do?”

  He tried to smile at her, but the attempt failed. “I don’t know,” he said. Then a touch of irony crept into his voice. “I don’t seem to know much of anything, do I?”

  Now she did go to him and put her arms around him. “Yes, you do,” she said softly. “There’s an explanation for all this. And we’ll find it Really we will.”

  Peter wanted to believe her; he told himself that he did. But inside, he wasn’t sure. Inside, he was terribly frightened, and terribly alone.

  He sent Margo on her way, then sat for an hour, trying to fight off the sleep he was suddenly afraid of. At seven o’clock he called the school and told them that he had become ill in the night, and would not be in today. Then he went to bed and spent the day sleeping—and dreaming. In the dreams, there were many explanations of the strange marks on his back. But when he woke up every now and then, none of them made sense. Or maybe they did.