In Conor’s view, the world of evil spirits was like an autocratic organization: “Joe Shtaleen used to sind Molotov to do his dirty work. So the Grate Panjandhr’m sens his hinchmin.”
Conor taught Peter tricks and ruses; and he gave him tags—phrases, words, numbers, concepts—to label perilous phases, capital moments and events in an exorcism. He made available to Peter some of his own practices: the use of “teaser texts,” for instance. At certain awkward gaps in the exorcism, there was no way to contend head to head with the possessed and with what was possessing them. The possessing spirit literally hid behind the identity of the possessed. It had to be flushed out into the open. Conor had the habit of reading certain texts chosen from the Gospels, until such time as the spirit made mistakes or arrogantly threw aside its disguise.
Conor’s advice was always concrete and vivid, and always in Peter’s mind echoed with that warm, fresh brogue they both shared like a piece of common turf: “The t’ing is beyond yer mind. It’s a sperrit agin yoors. The reel camuflin’ starrts inside in yeh. And yeh’r just an ole toe-rag, unless Jesus is wid yeh.”
But, above all else, Conor reconciled Peter to the inevitable drain on the exorcist. He explained in simple terms what wounds he could receive as an exorcist, what wounds he should avoid, and what wounds were incurable once inflicted on him. All these wounds were “internal” to spirit and mind and memory and will. Peter had received some minor ones already. He now realized what he could undergo.
Conor refined Peter’s primitive idea of “the Devil” and of “Devils,” expressing in simple terms what to most moderns is an enigma if not downright nonsense: how that which has no body can be a person, have a personality. And he dealt curtly with psychoanalysts: “Down the road a bit, they’re goin’ to find out that the whole thing is entoirely differr’nt; and then they’ll put Siggy and company up on the shelves as histhoric’l lave-overrs, like Galen on bones or Arishtot’l on plants.”
But it was not Conor who rid Peter of his lack of confidence. He could never give Peter a reason to trust his own judgment. It was the man who in two years would become Paul VI who made that change in him.
Peter never exchanged one sentence with Giovanni Battista Montini, then Archbishop of Milan. Montini had been relegated from the Vatican to the political wilderness of Milan by Pope Pius XII, had survived it, and now was back in Rome—“still listening to his voices” (as the Roman wags described the ethereal gaze of Montini and the impression he gave of having shutters over his eyes to hide the light within)—and was deeply involved in the council.
One of Montini’s theologian-counselors was impressed with Peter’s arguments at an evening meal. They met several times afterwards during Peter’s stay. Once they went with Conor to a gathering of theologians who were discussing issues being hotly debated on the council floor. Such gatherings were frequent in those days; Archbishop Montini was the guest of honor at this particular meeting.
As Montini arrived and walked to his seat, Conor gossiped in a whisper with Peter: “They tell me, my frind, that Johnny [then Pope John XXIII] won’t lasht long.” Then with a nod in Montini’s direction: “There’s the nixt wan.”
But Peter was not interested in future popes as such. For an inexplicable reason, he was fascinated by Montini. Everything about the man, his person, and his speech and his writings had a peculiar significance for Peter. As he remarked to Conor, “He seems to walk with a great vision no one else sees.”
He set out to learn all he could about Montini, speaking with those who knew the archbishop, reading his sermons, frequenting Montini’s familiars and employees. He even got to the stage of referring to Montini as Zio, a name used affectionately by those around the archbishop.
Peter came to share Conor’s trenchant point of view on recent popes: “Pacelli [Pius XII] was loike a shliver of ice serrved up in an archangel’s cocktail at the hivinly banquit,” confided Conor wryly as they walked home one evening. “Awsteerr, arishtocratic, sometimes wid a dead-an’-dug-up look, y’know. Johnny [John XXIII], av coorse, is out on his own, a mountin uv sperrit. But this lil’ fella [Montini] has an airr ’v thragedee.”
Peter made a point of going to listen to Montini whenever he was billed to speak in public. It was on one of these occasions that he had his “Montini experience.” Together with others present, he knelt to receive the archbishop’s blessing at the end of his speech. As Montini raised his right hand to make the sign of the cross, Peter lifted his eyes. They locked with Montini’s at the juncture point of the cross the archbishop traced in the air. As he looked, the “shutters” over Montini’s eyes opened for an instant. Montini’s gaze was momentarily an almost dazzling brilliance of feeling warmth, communication. Then the “shutters” closed again, as Montini’s eyes traveled on over the heads of the others kneeling around Peter.
Afterwards, Peter knew that the empty feeling of diffidence had left him. For the first time in his life, he had no fears.
That was in mid-November of 1962. At the beginning of December, as the first session of the council ended, he was told that he had been freed from his obligations back in New York and that he could go home to Ireland for Christmas. After Christmas vacation in his home town, he worked in Ireland from January 1963 until August 1965.
He was winding up his summer vacation in July 1965 and preparing to return to work in Kerry, when he received a short note from New York telling him of Marianne K., a young woman, apparently a genuine case of possession. The note was urgent: the authorities felt he could best handle the affair. Could he come over immediately?
In mid-August he arrived in New York.
MARIANNE K.
Toward the spring of 1964, and thousands of miles away from the calm and fresh Kerry countryside where Peter was then living, the habitués of Bryant Park, in New York City, began to notice a skinny young woman of medium height wearing jeans, sandals, and a blouse, with a raincoat thrown over her shoulders. Her visits there were irregular; and she stayed for unpredictable periods of time, sometimes for hours, sometimes for ten or fifteen minutes, once for two days. The weather had nothing to do with the length of her stay; sunshine, rain, snow, cold made no difference. She looked clean; but those she passed got the rancid odor of unwashed hair and skin. She never spoke to anyone, and never stood or sat in exactly the same place twice. Always she had a fixed expression, a kind of frozen smile that was only on her mouth; her eyes were blank, her cheeks unlined, taut; her teeth were never visible through the fixed and smiling lips. Her blonde hair was usually unkempt. Those who frequently saw her nicknamed her the Smiler. Marianne K.
Her behavior was harmless, though erratic, at first. Some days she came, sat or stood without any motion to speak of. Then she departed suddenly as if on a signal. Other days, she arrived, gazed blankly around at every corner, then left precipitately. At other times she brought little wooden sticks which she ceremoniously stood upright in the earth, tying scraps of cloth with a single bow to their base. “Like little crosses upside down,” was a description given later.
Only once in that early time did she cause any commotion. She came to Bryant Park one morning, sat down for a while, then stood up stock-still facing south, with what could have been taken as a beatific gleam in her eyes. Someone passed by carrying a radio blaring music. As the radio came level with her, suddenly she flung her hands to her ears, screamed, spun around like a top, and fell hard on her face, her body twitching. A score of people gathered around her. A policeman strolled over with the unspeed of the New York cop. “Turn that thing off, pal,” he said to the owner of the radio.
Almost immediately a tall man was by the policeman’s side. “She’s Marianne. I will take care of her.” He spoke in a voice of authority and very clearly.
“Are you a relative?” the policeman asked, looking up as he crouched on his haunches beside Marianne.
“I’m the only one she has in this world.” The policeman remembered the man touched Marianne on the left wrist and spo
ke quietly. In a few seconds she awoke, and got quickly but unsteadily to her feet. Her face still had the smile. Together, she and the tall man walked slowly away towards Fifth Avenue.
“You needn’t report it, Officer.”
The policeman heard the words said evenly, confidently, over the man’s shoulder. “I was sure they were father and daughter,” he commented later in recalling the incident. “He looked old enough; and they both smiled in exactly the same way.”
Nothing of a recorded public nature took place again in Marianne’s case, even though she was already in a state of possession by an evil spirit.
No definite sign of that possession, unequivocal in itself, had been visible in her from her childhood days until well into the year following the incident in Bryant Park.
Marianne grew up with one brother a year younger than she. They spent their first years in Philadelphia. The family was then of lower middle income. It was strongly Roman Catholic and closely knit. Her parents, both of Polish origin and second-generation American, had no living relatives in the United States. Close friends were few. Neither of them had completed high school; and they had never found time for culture or much leisure for the finer things in life. Her mother was a quiet-spoken, firm woman who held a job and continually worried about bills. Her father was a bluff, down-to-earth character who grew up in the Depression, married late, was solidly faithful to his wife, never fretted about difficulties, and, outside his working hours, spent all his spare time at home.
Discipline was not rigid at home, and a good deal of fun and merriment ran through it all. Both children were reared to lead an orderly existence. Religion occupied a prominent place in their lives. Prayers in common were recited mornings and evenings. Family love and loyalty were based on religious belief. The Polish pastor was the ultimate authority.
In those early years there was such a strong resemblance between Marianne and George, her younger brother, that they were often mistaken for twins. When their mother or father called them, either of them could answer by mimicking perfectly the voice of the other. They had special signs and words of their own, a kind of private language they could use. Marianne relied on George to a great extent. She was left-handed, had begun to speak normally only at the age of six, and was very shy and obstinate.
This close companionship between the two children was broken when, around Marianne’s eighth birthday, the family moved to New York, where her father had been reassigned by his company. His new position made the family financially secure and comfortable. Marianne’s mother no longer worked at a job outside the home. Her brother was successful in school. He made friends easily, was a good athlete, and had a rollicking disposition. In New York he gradually sought the company of his peers, and so spent less and less time with his sister.
Marianne made few friends and was at ease only when at home. She never seemed to prefer one parent over the other. After finishing high school, she spent two years at Manhattanville College, where her academic interests were physics and philosophy. But her stay there was stormy and unhappy. She wanted the “full truth, to know it all,” she told her teachers in the first flush of enthusiasm. But with time she seemed to get cynical and disillusioned, and gave the impression she believed they were evading the real problem and hiding the full truth from her.
She found particular difficulty with her metaphysics teacher, a certain Mother Virgilius, middle-aged, myopic, high-voiced, exigent, a disciplinarian and member of the “old school.” Mother Virgilius taught Scholastic philosophy. She derided modern philosophers and their theories. Her arguments with Marianne were, from the start, bitter and inconclusive. The girl kept plying the older woman with questions, perpetually throwing doubt on any statement Mother Virgilius made, driving her back step by step until the nun rested desperately on her own basic ideas she had accepted but had never questioned. And Marianne was too clever and too tenacious for her, leaping nimbly from objection to objection and strewing difficulties and remarks to trip her up.
But clearly what Marianne was after seemed to be a trap of an odd kind in which to catch the nun. There didn’t seem to be any desire on her part to find out something true or to deepen her knowledge, only a disturbing viciousness, a stony-faced cunning with words and arguments alternating with a sardonic silence and smirking satisfaction, all leading to confusion and curiously bitter derision.
Virgilius sensed this but could not identify it. She merely stood on her dignity. But this was no help to either of them.
It all came to a head one afternoon. The lecture concerned the principle of contradiction. “If something exists, if something is, then it cannot but exist. It cannot not be at the same time and under the same respect,” concluded Mother Virgilius in her high pitch. “The table is here. While it is here, it cannot not be here. Being and nonbeing cannot be identified.”
As she finished, Marianne’s hand shot up. “Why can’t they be identified?”
They had been over this ground interminably. The nun had no more answers and no more patience. “Marianne, we will discuss this later.”
“You say that because you cannot prove it. You just presume it.”
“First principles cannot be proven. They…”
“Why can’t I have another first principle? Say: being and nonbeing are inseparable. The table is here because it isn’t here. God exists because he doesn’t exist at the same time.”
A titter ran around the class.
Marianne rounded on her classmates: “It’s no joke! We exist and we don’t exist!”
The general amusement gave way to hostility and embarrassment. None in the room, Virgilius included, realized, as Marianne reflects today, that by some kink of inner impulse, her mind was running in little twisted gorges of confusion. She was guided by no clear ideas, was not commenting from a rich store of reflection and experience, but was only pulled by a peculiar fascination with the negative. Many a greater mind had fallen off a dark cliff somewhere along this same way or impaled itself in desperation on some sharp rocks.
Virgilius, feeling already tired, was humiliated. She got angry. “I told you, Miss, we will speak…”
But before she had finished the sentence, Marianne was on her feet, had swept up her books, glared at everyone, and was out the door.
Marianne refused to return to Manhattanville. To all questions as to why and to all entreaties that she give it another chance, she kept repeating: “They are trying to enslave my mind. I want to be free, to know all reality, to be real.” She had nothing but contempt for her former teachers. But none of them could guess how far she had already gone in this contempt.
As she traces it now, her new path began when she decided that her teachers—Mother Virgilius among them—were phonies, that they merely repeated what they had been taught. There was nothing abnormal in this. Up to a certain level, Marianne had an emotional reaction rather normal in the adolescent. But she pursued it with a logic that was not normal for her years. And she was deliberately isolated: she did not communicate with her companions, nor did she discuss it with her parents. She was determined to work it out for herself.
Gradually she extended the same premise (“All authorities in my life are phonies, because they repeat what they are told and never inquire”) to her parents, to the priests at the local church, to the religious teaching she had been given, and to the habits and customs of daily life. To everything.
Her parents knew nothing of philosophy. And when Marianne spoke darkly of “how good it is to see all the ‘noes’ side by side with the ‘yesses’” or of “dirt on the nose of the Venus de Milo” or of “murder as an act of beauty as real as composing a sonata,” they were bewildered. They only knew that they loved her; but manifestations of that love were taken by Marianne as chains thrown around her. “If only you could hate me, Mummy, just for five minutes, we would get along so well,” she said once to her mother. At another time: “Why doesn’t Daddy rape me or break my nose with his fist? Then I would see my beauty.
And he would be real for me.”
In the end, after much discussion and consultation, it was decided to send Marianne to Hunter College for the fall semester of 1954. Perhaps a purely secular school with good standards would satisfy what her parents could only take on the surface to be Marianne’s urge to acquire knowledge.
Academically Marianne never had any difficulty during her three years at Hunter. But the rhythm of family life changed around this time. And she took a totally unexpected turn in character. George, her brother, had gone away the previous year to study oceanography. He had been the one human being with whom she communicated on an intimate basis. Her father was more frequently than ever out of town traveling for his company. Her mother, who had taken up working again in an advertising agency, lost any real contact with Marianne by the end of her first year at Hunter.
Her contemporaries at the college remember her as a rather plump, grave-faced girl who rarely laughed, did not smile easily, spoke in a low voice, had few friends, never dated boys, gave the impression of great stubbornness whenever an argument arose, and (as far as they were concerned) was a “homebody.” But neither they nor her family knew anything about her first meeting with the Man.
During her first two years at college, Marianne used to go downtown and sit in Washington Square Park, reading her textbooks and making notes. One afternoon in 1956, as she was reading William James’ Varieties of Religious Experience, she felt suddenly, but without any sense of shock, that someone was bending over her shoulder and looking at the pages of her book. She looked around. He was a rather tall individual whose face and clothes never impressed themselves on her memory. His left hand was resting on the back of the park bench. Her one clear memory is only of his mouth and the regular teeth she glimpsed behind his lips as he read repeatedly from the open page of her book the words: “When you find a man living on the ragged edge of his consciousness…” running all the words as one sentence several times over and over again without pause or stop. The mouth kept repeating and repeating: “…on the ragged edge of consciousness on the ragged edge of consciousness on the ragged edge of consciousness on the…” It was done softly. Without hurry. Without emphasis. Until the words became a slowly whirling carousel in her ears, and her mind moved in circles, bumping against them on all sides. She burst into tears.
Hostage to the Devil Page 7