The Devil and Miss Prym

by Paulo Coelho

  He had taken care of every detail, except one: he had never thought his plan would work. He had been sure that when the moment came to choose, a simple “no” would change the story; at least one person would refuse to take part, and that person would be enough to prove that not everything was lost. If one person saved the village, the world itself would be saved, hope would still be possible, goodness would be strengthened, the terrorists would not truly have known the evil they were doing, there could be forgiveness, and his days of suffering would be but a sad memory that he could learn to live with and he could perhaps even seek happiness again. For that “no” he would like to have heard, the village would have received its reward of ten gold bars, independently of the wager he had made with Chantal.

  But his plan had failed. And now it was too late, he couldn’t change his mind.

  Someone knocked at his door.

  “Let’s go,” he heard the hotel landlady say. “It’s time.”

  “I’ll be right down.”

  He picked up his jacket, put it on and met the landlady downstairs in the bar.

  “I’ve got the gold,” he said. “But, just so there’s no misunderstanding, you should be aware that there are several people who know where I am. If you decide to change your victim, you can be sure that the police will come looking for me; you yourself saw me making all those phone calls.”

  The hotel landlady merely nodded.

  The Celtic monolith was half an hour’s walk from Viscos. For many centuries, people had thought it was merely an unusually large stone, polished by the wind and the ice, which had once stood upright, but that had been toppled by a bolt of lightning. Ahab used to hold the village council there because the rock served as a natural open-air table.

  Then one day the Government sent a team to write a survey of the Celtic settlements in the valley, and someone noticed the monument. Then came the archaeologists, who measured, calculated, argued, excavated and reached the conclusion that a Celtic tribe had chosen the spot as some kind of sacred place, even though they had no idea what rituals had been performed there. Some said it was a sort of observatory, others said that fertility rites—in which young virgins were possessed by priests—had taken place there. The experts discussed it for a whole week, but then left to look at something more interesting, without reaching any definite conclusions about their findings.

  When he was elected, the mayor tried to attract tourism to Viscos by getting an article published in the regional press about the Celtic heritage of the village. But the paths through the forest were difficult, and the few intrepid visitors who came found only a fallen stone at the end of them, whereas other villages could boast sculptures, inscriptions and other far more interesting things. The idea came to nothing, and the monolith soon resumed its usual function as a weekend picnic table.

  That evening, there were arguments in several households in Viscos all over the same thing: the men wanted to go alone, but their wives insisted on taking part in the “ritual sacrifice,” as the inhabitants had come to call the murder they were about to commit. The husbands argued that it was dangerous, a shotgun might go off by accident; their wives said that the men were just being selfish and that they should respect the women’s rights, the world was no longer as they thought it was. In the end, the husbands yielded, and the wives rejoiced.

  Now the procession was heading for the monolith, a chain of 281 points of light in the darkness, for the stranger was carrying a torch, and Berta was not carrying anything, so the number of inhabitants of the village was still exactly represented. Each of the men had a torch or lantern in one hand and, in the other, a shotgun, its breech open so that it would not go off by accident.

  Berta was the only one who did not need to walk. She was sleeping peacefully on a kind of improvised stretcher that two woodcutters were struggling along with. “I’m glad we won’t have to carry this great weight back,” one of them was thinking, “because by then, with all the buckshot in her, she’ll weigh three times as much.”

  He calculated that each cartridge would contain, on average, at least six small balls of lead. If all the loaded shotguns hit their target, the old woman’s body would be riddled with 522 pellets, and would end up containing more metal than blood.

  The man could feel his stomach churning. He resolved not to think any more about it until Monday.

  No one said a word during the walk. No one looked at anyone else, as if this was a kind of nightmare they wanted to forget as quickly as possible. They arrived out of breath—more from tension than from exhaustion—and formed a huge semicircle of lights in the clearing where the Celtic monument lay.

  The mayor gave a signal, and the woodcutters untied Berta from the stretcher and laid her on the monolith.

  “That’s no good,” the blacksmith protested, remembering the war films he’d seen, with soldiers crawling along the ground. “It’s hard to shoot someone when they’re lying down.”

  The woodcutters shifted Berta into a sitting position with her back against the stone. It seemed ideal, but then a sudden sob was heard and a woman’s voice said:

  “She’s looking at us. She can see what we’re doing.”

  Berta could not, of course, see a thing, but it was unbearable to look at that kindly lady, asleep, with a contented smile on her lips, and to think that in a short while she would be torn apart by all those tiny pellets.

  “Turn her around,” ordered the mayor, who was also troubled by the sight.

  Grumbling, the woodcutters returned once more to the monolith and turned the body around, so that this time she was kneeling on the ground, with her face and chest resting on the stone. It was impossible to keep her upright in this position, so they had to tie a rope around her wrists, throw it over the top of the monument, and fasten it on the other side.

  Berta’s position was now utterly grotesque: kneeling, with her back to them, her arms stretched out over the stone, as if she were praying or begging for something. Someone protested again, but the mayor said it was time to do what they had come to do.

  And the quicker the better. With no speeches or justifications; that could wait until tomorrow—in the bar, on the streets, in conversations between shepherds and farmers. It was likely that one of the three roads out of Viscos would not be used for a long while, since they were all so accustomed to seeing Berta sitting there, looking up at the mountains and talking to herself. Luckily, the village had two other exits, as well as a narrow shortcut, with some improvised steps down to the road below.

  “Let’s get this over with,” said the mayor, pleased that the priest was now saying nothing, and that his own authority had been reestablished. “Someone in the valley might see these lights and decide to find out what’s going on. Prepare your shotguns, fire, and then we can leave.”

  Without ceremony. Doing their duty, like good soldiers defending their village. With no doubts in their minds. This was an order, and it would be obeyed.

  And suddenly, the mayor not only understood the priest’s silence, he realized that he had fallen into a trap. If one day the story of what had happened got out, all the others could claim, as all murderers did in wartime, that they were merely obeying orders. But what was going on at that moment in their hearts? Did they see him as a villain or as their savior?

  He could not weaken now, at the very moment when he heard the shotguns being snapped shut, the barrels fitting perfectly into the breech blocks. He imagined the noise that 174 guns would make, but by the time anyone arrived to see what was going on, they would be far away. Shortly before they had begun the climb up to the monolith, he had ordered them to extinguish all lights on the way back. They knew the route by heart, and the lights were simply to avoid any accidents when they opened fire.

  Instinctively, the women stepped back, and the men took aim at the inert body, some fifty yards away. They could not possibly miss, having been trained since childhood to shoot fleeing animals and birds in flight.

  The mayor prepared
to give the order to fire.

  “Just a moment,” shouted a female voice.

  It was Miss Prym.

  “What about the gold? Have you seen it yet?”

  The shotguns were lowered, but still ready to be fired; no, no one had seen the gold. They all turned towards the stranger.

  He walked slowly in front of the shotguns. He put his rucksack down on the ground and one by one took out the bars of gold.

  “There it is,” he said, before returning to his place at one end of the semicircle.

  Miss Prym went over to the gold bars and picked one up.

  “It’s gold,” she said. “But I want you to check it. Let nine women come up here and examine each of the bars still on the ground.”

  The mayor began to get worried: they would be in the line of fire, and someone of a nervous disposition might set off a gun by accident; but nine women—including his wife—went over to join Miss Prym and did as she asked.

  “Yes, it’s gold,” the mayor’s wife said, carefully checking the bar she had in her hands, and comparing it to the few pieces of gold jewelry she possessed. “I can see it has a hallmark and what must be a serial number, as well as the date it was cast and its weight. It’s the real thing all right.”

  “Well, hang on to that gold and listen to what I have to say.”

  “This is no time for speeches, Miss Prym,” the mayor said. “All of you get away from there so that we can finish the job.”

  “Shut up, you idiot!”

  These words from Chantal startled everyone. None of them dreamed that anyone in Viscos could say what they had just heard.

  “Have you gone mad?”

  “I said shut up!” Chantal shouted even more loudly, trembling from head to foot, her eyes wide with hatred. “You’re the one who’s mad, for falling into this trap that has led us all to condemnation and death! You are the irresponsible one!”

  The mayor moved towards her, but was held back by two men.

  “We want to hear what the girl has to say,” a voice in the crowd shouted. “Ten minutes won’t make any difference!”

  Ten or even five minutes would make a huge difference, and everyone there, men and women, knew it. As they became more aware of the situation, their fear was growing, the sense of guilt was spreading, shame was beginning to take hold, their hands were starting to shake, and they were all looking for an excuse to change their minds. On the walk there, each man had been convinced that he was carrying a weapon containing blank ammunition and that soon it would all be over. Now they were starting to fear that their shotguns would fire real pellets, and that the ghost of the old woman—who was reputed to be a witch—would come back at night to haunt them.

  Or that someone would talk. Or that the priest had not done as he had promised, and they would all be guilty.

  “Five minutes,” the mayor said, trying to get them to believe that it was he who was giving permission, when in fact it was the young woman who was setting the rules.

  “I’ll talk for as long as I like,” said Chantal, who appeared to have regained her composure and to be determined not to give an inch; she spoke now with an authority no one had ever seen before. “But it won’t take long. It’s strange to see what’s going on here, especially when, as we all know, in the days of Ahab, men often used to come to the village claiming to have a special powder that could turn lead into gold. They called themselves alchemists, and at least one of them proved he was telling the truth when Ahab threatened to kill him.

  “Today you are trying to do the same thing: mixing lead with blood, certain that this will be transformed into the gold we women are holding. On the one hand, you’re absolutely right. On the other, the gold will slip through your fingers as quickly as it came.”

  The stranger could not grasp what the young girl was saying, but he willed her to go on; he had noticed that, in a dark corner of his soul, the forgotten light was once again shining brightly.

  “At school, we were all told the famous legend of King Midas, who met a god who offered to grant him anything he wished for. Midas was already very rich, but he wanted more money, and he asked to have the power to turn everything he touched into gold.

  “Let me remind you what happened: first, Midas transformed his furniture, his palace and everything around him into gold. He worked away for a whole morning, and soon had a golden garden, golden trees and golden staircases. At noon, he felt hungry and wanted to eat. But as soon as he touched the succulent leg of lamb that his servants had prepared, that too was turned into gold. He raised a glass of wine to his lips, and it was instantly turned into gold. In despair, he ran to his wife to ask her to help him, for he was beginning to understand his mistake, but as soon as he touched her arm, she turned into a golden statue.

  “The servants fled the palace, terrified that the same thing would happen to them. In less than a week, Midas had died of hunger and thirst, surrounded by gold on all sides.”

  “Why are you telling us this story?” the mayor’s wife wanted to know, putting her gold bar back on the ground and returning to her husband’s side. “Has some god come to Viscos and given us this power?”

  “I’m telling you the story for one simple reason: gold itself has no value. Absolutely none. We cannot eat it or drink it or use it to buy more animals or land. It’s money that’s valuable, and how are we going to turn this gold into money?

  “We can do one of two things: we can ask the blacksmith to melt the bars down into 280 equal pieces, and then each one of you can go to the city to exchange it for money. But that would immediately arouse the suspicions of the authorities, because there is no gold in this valley, so it would seem very odd if every Viscos inhabitant were suddenly to turn up bearing a small gold bar. The authorities would become suspicious. We would have to say we had unearthed an ancient Celtic treasure. But a quick check would show that the gold had been made recently, that the area around here had already been excavated, that the Celts never had this amount of gold—if they had, they would have built a large and splendid city on this site.”

  “You’re just an ignorant young woman,” the landowner said. “We’ll take in the bars exactly as they are, with the government hallmark and everything. We’ll exchange them at a bank and divide the money between us.”

  “That’s the second thing. The mayor takes the ten gold bars, goes to the bank, and asks them to exchange them for money. The bank cashier wouldn’t ask the same questions as if each of us were to turn up with our own gold bar; since the mayor is a figure of authority, they would simply ask him for the purchase documents for the gold. The mayor would say he didn’t have them, but would point out—as his wife says—that each bar bears a government hallmark, and that it’s genuine. There’s a date and a serial number on each one.

  “By this time, the man who gave us the gold will be far from here. The cashier will ask for more time because, although he knows the mayor and knows he is an honest man, he needs authorization to hand over such a large amount of money. Questions will be asked about where the gold came from. The mayor will say it was a present from a stranger—after all, our mayor is an intelligent man and has an answer for everything.

  “Once the cashier has spoken to his manager, the manager—who suspects nothing, but he is nevertheless a paid employee and doesn’t want to run any risks—will phone the bank headquarters. Nobody there knows the mayor, and any large withdrawal is regarded as suspicious; they will ask the mayor to wait for two days, while they confirm the origin of the gold bars. What might they discover? That the gold had been stolen perhaps. Or that it was purchased by a group suspected of dealing in drugs.”

  Chantal paused. The fear she had felt when she first tried to take her gold bar with her was now being shared by all of them. The story of one person is the story of all of humanity.

  “This gold has serial numbers on it. And a date. This gold is easy to identify.”

  Everyone looked at the stranger, who remained impassive.

  �
��There’s no point asking him anything,” Chantal said. “We would have to take it on trust that he’s telling the truth, and a man who calls for a murder to be committed is hardly to be trusted.”

  “We could keep him here until the gold has been changed into money,” the blacksmith said.

  The stranger nodded in the direction of the hotel landlady.

  “We can’t touch him. He’s got powerful friends. I overheard him phoning various people, and he’s reserved his plane tickets; if he disappears, they’ll know he’s been kidnapped and come looking for him in Viscos.”

  Chantal put the gold bar down on the ground and moved out of the line of fire. The other women did the same.

  “You can shoot if you like, but since I know this is a trap set by the stranger, I want nothing to do with this murder.”

  “You don’t know anything!” the landowner cried.

  “But if I’m right, the mayor would soon be behind bars, and people would come to Viscos to find out whom he stole this treasure from. Someone would have to explain, and it’s not going to be me.

  “But I promise to keep quiet. I’ll simply plead ignorance. And besides, the mayor is someone we know, not like the stranger who is leaving Viscos tomorrow. He might take all the blame on himself and say that he stole the gold from a man who came to spend a week in Viscos. Then we would all see him as a hero, the crime would go undiscovered, and we could all go on living our lives—somehow or other—but without the gold.”

  “I’ll do it,” the mayor said, knowing that this was all pure invention on the part of this madwoman.

  Meanwhile, the noise of the first shotgun being disarmed was heard.

  “Trust me!” the mayor shouted. “I’ll take the risk!”

  But the only response was that same noise, then another, and the noises seemed to spread by contagion, until almost all the shotguns had been disarmed: since when could anyone believe in the promises of a politician? Only the mayor and the priest still had their shotguns at the ready; one was pointing at Miss Prym, the other at Berta. But the woodcutter—the one who, earlier on, had worked out the number of pellets that would penetrate the old woman’s body—saw what was happening, went over to the two men and took their weapons from them: the mayor was not mad enough to commit a murder purely out of revenge, and the priest had no experience of weapons and might miss.