I listened with a new ear to the howls. Razoring under the door, they rose to operatic pitch, subsided, resumed, like the cries of a surly, hysterical child. To test their reality, I hummed beneath my breath, I covered my head with a blanketing, scratched at the straw, coughed. No difference. The quality of substance, of existence, was there. I tried, then, to localize the screams; and, on the fifteenth night, felt sure that they were coming from a spot not far along the hall.
‘The sounds that maniacs hear seem quite real to them.’
I know. I know!
The monk was by my side, he had not left it from the start, keeping steady vigil even through Matins. He joined his tremulous soprano to the distant chants, and prayed excessively. But nothing could tempt him away. The food we ate was brought to us, as were all other needs. I’d see the Abbot, Father Jerome, once I was recovered. Meanwhile…
‘I’m feeling better, Brother. Perhaps you’d care to show me about the grounds. I’ve seen nothing of St. Wulfran’s except this little room.’
‘There is only this little room multiplied. Ours is a rigorous order. The Franciscans, now, they permit themselves esthetic pleasure; we do not. It is, for us, a luxury. We have a single, most unusual job. There is nothing to see.’
‘But surely the Abbey is very old.’
‘Yes, that is true.’
‘As an antiquarian–’
‘Mr. Ellingto–’
‘What is it you don’t want me to see? What are you afraid of, Brother?’
‘Mr. Ellington? I do not have the authority to grant your request. When you are well enough to leave, Father Jerome will no doubt be happy to accommodate you.’
‘Will he also be happy to explain the screams I’ve heard each night since I’ve been here?’
‘Rest, my son. Rest.’
The unholy, hackle-raising shriek burst loose and bounded off the hard stone walls. Brother Christophorus crossed himself, apropos of nothing, and sat like an ancient Indian on the weary stool. I knew he liked me. Especially, perhaps. We’d got along quite well in all our talks. But this – verboten.
I closed my eyes. I counted to three hundred. I opened my eyes.
The good monk was asleep. I blasphemed, softly, but he did not stir, so I swung my legs over the side of the straw bed and made my way across the dirt floor to the heavy wooden door. I rested there a time, in the candleless dark, listening to the howls; then, with Bostonian discretion, raised the bolt. The rusted hinges creaked, but Brother Christophorus was deep in celestial marble: his head drooped low upon his chest.
Panting, weak as a landlocked fish, I stumbled out into the corridor. The screams became impossibly loud. I put my hands to my ears, instinctively, and wondered how anyone could sleep with such a furor going on. It was a furor. In my mind? No. Real. The monastery shook with these shrill cries. You could feel their realness with your teeth.
I passed a Brother’s cell and listened, then another; then I paused. A thick door, made of oak or pine, was locked before me. Behind it were the screams.
A chill went through me on the edge of those unutterable shrieks of hopeless, helpless anguish, and for a moment I considered turning back – not to my room, not to my bed of straw, but back into the open world. But duty held me. I took a breath and walked up to the narrow bar-crossed window and looked in.
A man was in the cell. On all fours, circling like a beast, his head thrown back, a man. The moonlight showed his face. It cannot be described – not, at least, by me. A man past death might look like this, a victim of the Inquisition rack, the stake, the pincers: not a human in the third decade of the twentieth century, surely. I had never seen such suffering within two eyes, such lost, mad suffering. Naked, he crawled about the dirt, cried, leaped up to his feet and clawed the hard stone walls in fury.
Then he saw me.
The screaming ceased. He huddled, blinking, in the corner of his cell. And then, as though unsure of what he saw, he walked right to the door.
In German, hissing: ‘Who are you?’
‘David Ellington,’ I said. ‘Are you locked in? Why have they locked you in?’
He shook his head. ‘Be still, be still. You are not German?’
‘No.’ I told him how I came to be at St. Wulfran’s.
‘Ah!’ Trembling, his horny fingers closing on the bars, the naked man said: ‘Listen to me, we have only moments. They are mad. You hear? All mad. I was in the village, lying with my woman, when their crazy Abbot burst into the house and hit me with his heavy cross. I woke up here. They flogged me. I asked for food, they would not give it to me. They took my clothes. They threw me in this filthy room. They locked the door.’
‘Why?’
‘Why?’ He moaned. ‘I wish I knew. That’s been the worst of it. Five years imprisoned, beaten, tortured, starved, and not a reason given, not a word to guess from – Mr. Ellington! I have sinned, but who has not? With my woman, quietly, alone with my woman, my love. And this God-drunk lunatic, Jerome, cannot stand it. Help me!’
His breath splashed on my face. I took a backward step and tried to think. I couldn’t quite believe that in this century a thing so frightening could happen. Yet, the Abbey was secluded, above the world, timeless. What could not transpire here, secretly?
‘I’ll speak to the Abbot.’
‘No! I tell you, he’s the maddest of them all. Say nothing to him.’
‘Then how can I help you?’
He pressed his mouth against the bars. ‘In one way only. Around Jerome’s neck, there is a key. It fits this lock. If–’
‘Mr. Ellington!’
I turned and faced a fierce El Greco painting of a man. White-bearded, prow-nosed, regal as an Emperor beneath the gray peaked robe, he came out of the darkness. ‘Mr. Ellington, I did not know that you were well enough to walk. Come with me, please.’
The naked man began to weep hysterically. I felt a grip of steel about my arm. Through corridors, past snore-filled cells, the echoes of the weeping dying, we continued to a room.
‘I must ask you to leave St. Wulfran’s,’ the Abbot said. ‘We lack the proper facilities for care of the ill. Arrangements will be made in Schwartzhof–’
‘One moment,’ I said. ‘While it’s probably true that Brother Christophorus’s ministrations saved my life – and certainly true that I owe you all a debt of gratitude – I’ve got to ask for an explanation of that man in the cell.’
‘What man?’ the Abbot said softly.
‘The one we just left, the one who’s screamed all night long every night.’ ‘No man has been screaming, Mr. Ellington.’
Feeling suddenly very weak, I sat down and rested a few breaths’ worth. Then I said, ‘Father Jerome – you are he? I am not necessarily an irreligious person, but neither could I be considered particularly religious. I know nothing of monasteries, what is permitted, what isn’t. But I seriously doubt that you have the authority to imprison a man against his will.’
‘That is quite true. We have no such authority.’
‘Then why have you done so?’
The Abbot looked at me steadily. In a firm, inflexible voice, he said: ‘No man has been imprisoned at St. Wulfran’s.’
‘He claims otherwise.’
‘Who claims otherwise?’
‘The man in the cell at the end of the corridor.’
‘There is no man in the cell at the end of the corridor.’
‘I was talking with him!’
‘You were talking with no man.’
The conviction in his voice shocked me into momentary silence. I gripped the arms of the chair.
‘You are ill, Mr. Ellington,’ the bearded holy man said. ‘You have suffered from delirium. You have heard and seen things which do not exist.’
‘That’s true,’ I said. ‘But the man in the cell – whose voice I can hear now! – is not one of those things.’
The Abbot shrugged. ‘Dreams can seem very real, my son.’
I glanced at the leather thong a
bout his turkey-gobbler neck, all but hidden beneath the beard. ‘Honest men make unconvincing liars,’ I lied convincingly. ‘Brother Christophorus has a way of looking at the floor whenever he denies the cries in the night. You look at me, but your voice loses its command. I can’t imagine why, but you are both very intent upon keeping me away from the truth. Which is not only poor Christianity, but also poor psychology. For now I am quite curious indeed. You might as well tell me, Father; I’ll find out eventually.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Only that. I’m sure the police will be interested to hear of a man imprisoned at the Abbey.’
‘I tell you, there is no man!’
‘Very well. Let’s forget the matter.’
‘Mr. Ellington–’ The Abbot put his hands behind him. ‘The person in the cell is, ah, one of the Brothers. Yes. He is subject to…seizures, fits. You know fits? At these times, he becomes intractable. Violent. Dangerous! We’re obliged to lock him in his cell, which you can surely understand.’
‘I understand,’ I said, ‘that you’re still lying to me. If the answer were as simple as that, you’d not have gone through the elaborate business of pretending I was delirious. There’d have been no need. There’s something more to it, but I can wait. Shall we go on to Schwartzhof?’
Father Jerome tugged at his beard viciously, as if it were some feathered demon come to taunt him. ‘Would you truly go to the police?’ he asked.
‘Would you?’ I said. ‘In my position?’
He considered that for a long time, tugging the beard, nodding the prowed head; and the screams went on, so distant, so real. I thought of the naked man clawing in his filth.
‘Well, Father?’
‘Mr. Ellington, I see that I shall have to be honest with you – which is a great pity,’ he said. ‘Had I followed my original instinct and refused to allow you in the Abbey to begin with…but, I had no choice. You were near death. No physician was available. You would have perished. Still, perhaps that would have been better.’
‘My recovery seems to have disappointed a lot of people,’ I commented, ‘I assure you it was inadvertent.’
The old man took no notice of this remark. Stuffing his mandarin hands into the sleeves of his robe, he spoke with great deliberation. ‘When I said that there was no man in the cell at the end of the corridor, I was telling the truth. Sit down, sir! Please! Now.’ He closed his eyes. ‘There is much to the story, much that you will not understand or believe. You are sophisticated, or feel that you are. You regard our life here, no doubt, as primitive–’
‘In fact, I–’
‘In fact, you do. I know the current theories. Monks are misfits, neurotics, sexual frustrates, and aberrants. They retreat from the world because they cannot cope with the world. Et cetera. You are surprised I know these things? My son, I was told by the one who began the theories!’ He raised his head upward, revealing more of the leather thong. ‘Five years ago, Mr. Ellington, there were no screams at St. Wulfran’s. This was an undistinguished little Abbey in the wild Black Mountain region, and its inmates’ job was quite simply to serve God, to save what souls they could by constant prayer. At that time, not very long after the great war, the world was in chaos. Schwartzhof was not the happy village you see now. It was, my son, a resort for the sinful, a hive of vice and corruption, a pit for the unwary – and the wary also, if they had not strength. A Godless place! Forsaken, fornicators paraded the streets. Gambling was done. Robbery and murder, drunkenness, and evils so profound I cannot put them into words. In all the universe you could not have found a fouler pesthole, Mr. Ellington! The Abbots and the Brothers at St. Wulfran’s succumbed for years to Schwartzhof, I regret to say. Good men, lovers of God, chaste good men came here and fought but could not win against the black temptations. Finally it was decided that the Abbey should be closed. I heard of this and argued. “Is that not surrender?” I said. “Are we to bow before the strength of evil? Let me try, I beg you. Let me try to amplify the word of God that all in Schwartzhof shall hear and see their dark transgressions and repent!” ’
The old man stood at the window, a trembling shade. His hands were now clutched together in a fervency of remembrance. ‘They asked,’ he said, ‘if I considered myself more virtuous than my predecessors that I should hope for success where they had failed. I answered that I did not, but that I had an advantage. I was a convert. Earlier I had walked with evil, and knew its face. My wish was granted. For a year. One year only. Rejoicing, Mr. Ellington, I came here; and one night, incognito, walked the streets of the village. The smell of evil was strong. Too strong, I thought – and I had reveled in the alleys of Morocco, I had seen the dens of Hong Kong, Paris, Spain. The orgies were too wild, the drunkards much too drunk, the profanities a great deal too profane. It was as if the evil of the world had been distilled and centered here, as if a pagan tribal chief, in hiding, had assembled all his rituals about him…’ The Abbot nodded his head. ‘I thought of Rome, in her last days; of Byzantium; of – Eden. That was the first of many hints to come. No matter what they were. I returned to the Abbey and donned my holy robes and went back into Schwartzhof. I made myself conspicuous. Some jeered, some shrank away, a voice cried, “Damn your foolish God!” And then a hand thrust out from darkness, touched my shoulder, and I heard: “Now, Father, are you lost?”’
The Abbot brought his tightly clenched hands to his forehead and tapped his forehead.
‘Mr. Ellington, I have some poor wine here. Please have some.’
I drank, gratefully. Then the priest continued.
‘I faced a man of average appearance. So average, indeed, that I felt I knew, then. “No,” I told him, “but you are lost!” He laughed a foul laugh. “Are we not all, Father?” Then he said a most peculiar thing. He said his wife was dying and begged me to give her Extreme Unction. “Please,” he said, “in God’s sweet name!” I was confused. We hurried to his house. A woman lay upon a bed, her body nude. “It is a different Extreme Unction that I have in mind,” he whispered, laughing. “It’s the only kind, dear Father, that she understands. No other will have her! Pity! Pity on the poor soul lying there in all her suffering. Give her your Sceptre!” And the woman’s arms came snaking, supplicating toward me, round and sensuous and hot…’
Father Jerome shuddered and paused. The shrieks, I thought, were growing louder from the hall. ‘Enough of that,’ he said. ‘I was quite sure then. I raised my cross and told the words I’d learned, and it was over. He screamed – as he’s doing now – and fell upon his knees. He had not expected to be recognized, nor should he have been normally. But in my life, I’d seen him many times, in many guises. I brought him to the Abbey. I locked him in the cell. We chant his chains each day. And so, my son, you see why you must not speak of the things you’ve seen and heard?’
I shook my head, as if afraid the dream would end, as if reality would suddenly explode upon me. ‘Father Jerome,’ I said, ‘I haven’t the vaguest idea of what you’re talking about. Who is the man?’
‘Are you such a fool, Mr. Ellington? That you must be told?’ ‘Yes!’
‘Very well,’ said the Abbot. ‘He is Satan. Otherwise known as the Dark Angel, Asmodeus, Belial, Ahriman, Diabolus – the Devil.’
I opened my mouth.
‘I see you doubt me. That is bad. Think, Mr. Ellington, of the peace of the world in these five years. Of the prosperity, of the happiness. Think of this country, Germany, now. Is there another country like it? Since we caught the Devil and locked him up here, there have been no great wars, no overwhelming pestilences: only the sufferings man was meant to endure. Believe what I say, my son: I beg you. Try very hard to believe that the creature you spoke with is Satan himself. Fight your cynicism, for it is born of him; he is the father of cynicism, Mr. Ellington! His plan was to defeat God by implanting doubt in the minds of Heaven’s subjects!’ The Abbot cleared his throat. ‘Of course,’ he said, ‘we could never release anyone from St. Wulfran’s who had any part of th
e Devil in him.’
I stared at the old fanatic and thought of him prowling the streets, looking for sin; saw him standing outraged at the bold fornicator’s bed, wheedling him into an invitation to the Abbey, closing that heavy door and locking it, and, because of the world’s temporary postwar peace, clinging to his fantasy. What greater dream for a holy man than actually capturing the Devil!
‘I believe you,’ I said.
‘Truly?’
‘Yes. I hesitated only because it seemed a trifle odd that Satan should have picked a little German village for his home.’
‘He moves around,’ the Abbot said. ‘Schwartzhof attracted him as lovely virgins attract perverts.’
‘I see.’
‘Do you? My son, do you?’
‘Yes. I swear it. As a matter of fact, I thought he looked familiar, but I simply couldn’t place him.’
‘Are you lying?’
‘Father, I am a Bostonian.’
‘And you promise not to mention this to anyone?’
‘I promise.’
‘Very well.’ The old man sighed. ‘I suppose,’ he said, ‘that you would not consider joining us as a Brother at the Abbey?’
‘Believe me, Father, no one could admire the vocation more than I. But I am not worthy. No; it’s quite out of the question. However, you have my word that your secret is safe with me.’
He was very tired. Sound had, in these years, reversed for him: the screams had become silence, the sudden cessation of them, noise. The prisoner’s quiet talk with me had awakened him from deep slumber. Now he nodded wearily, and I saw that what I had to do would not be difficult after all. Indeed, no more difficult than fetching the authorities.
I walked back to my cell, where Brother Christophorus still slept, and lay down. Two hours passed. I rose again and returned to the Abbot’s quarters.
The Weird: A Compendium of Strange and Dark Stories Page 78