The Case Against Satan Read online

  “On Sunday?”

  “Why not on Sunday? If I have a sabbath, it’s today.”

  “Saturday? You’re not a Jew, Talbot, are you?”

  Talbot wrinkled his nose. “You know better than that. No, I like Saturday because it’s named for Saturn, a Roman god. He ate his own children, all but three of them. How do you like that! In ancient Rome they used to hold festivals in his honor, big orgies. Saturnalia, they called them. ‘The children of Saturn shall be great jugglers and chiders, and they will never forgive till they be revenged of their quarrel.’ I like the sound of that. No, I make a point of working on Sundays.”

  “Well then, maybe you’ll be around here later on today, this evening?”

  “Maybe.”

  “I like talking to you.”

  “I like talking to you, Garth.”

  Garth left the eating-place, the coffee sour in his stomach, his spirit equally sour with worry and fear and doubt. Talbot was a good talker; he seemed to have an answer for everything. Garth could not accept much of what Talbot said, and yet . . . where there’s smoke, there’s fire. Perhaps, just as Talbot insisted, it had been a bad idea to bring Susie to the Fathers for her trouble. The Church was old-fashioned, full of antiquated notions. Maybe one of those psychiatrists would have been better. More modern. More scientific.

  But what good would it do Susie to spill her guts to a psychiatrist? Why not let her forget the bad things? Why bring them up again? Why talk about them?

  Still, there was no assurance Father Sargent wouldn’t make her talk about them. And that she must not do.

  She would probably be sitting at home now, perhaps doing her homework, watching television, reading. She was a great one for reading. Smart as a whip, and only sixteen. The old sugar daddies with their sixteen-year-old girls . . . Garth’s hands clenched. The thought disturbed him deeply.

  Wordless images crowded his mind: bald old men from whom the thrust of youth had fled, men who needed the dewy skin, the heart-melting innocence of extreme youth to kindle the fire in them again. Bug-eyed and gape-mouthed over the smooth bodies of young girls, the spittle hanging in strings from their lecherous lips, dripping upon clean flesh, loathsomely festooning the buds of breasts and round little bellies . . .

  Garth gritted his teeth.

  He was home now. He walked up the two flights of stairs, his heart pounding from the effort, and with his key let himself into the flat.

  Silence met him, and the staleness of closed windows. “Susie,” he called softly. He opened a window, but the weather was clogged and fetid. He called his daughter’s name again, casually looking through the rooms. She was not home.

  Well, it was Saturday . . . maybe one of her little girl friends had come by and they had gone window shopping. Maybe a boy . . . but no, Susie seldom dated, seemed to draw away from boys. He looked on the kitchen table for any note she might have left, but there was none.

  Could she have gone, on her own, to Father Sargent?

  And the priests come in with their frightened little girls . . .

  Garth reached for the phone, dialed a half-dozen digits of the rectory number, then hesitated and did not dial the seventh and last. He hung up.

  In the pantry there was a half bottle of bourbon. Garth sloshed an inch or so into a glass and swallowed a large gulp of it. It went down his throat smooth as oil but became a little knot of cold in his belly, a knot that slowly unfurled and grew warm and spread and filled him. He drained the glass and poured another, stiffer, shot.

  Talbot. Only a weird guy like that would work on Sunday and take a shine to Saturday because of that Saturn business. Talbot was full of oddball stuff like that.

  He now felt overwarm from the whiskey. He opened another window, but still the air hung outside, unmoving and clammy. He heard the metallic whisper of a key in the lock, and his daughter entered.

  “Where you been, Susie?”

  “Hello, Dad.”

  “Where you been?”

  “To a movie.”

  “Who with?”

  “Nobody. Alone.”

  “What movie?”

  “That one at the Midtown, all about ancient Rome and gladiators and things.”

  “You didn’t leave no note.”

  “I’m sorry, Dad, I forgot.”

  “I was worried about you.”

  “I’m sorry. But I’m home now.”

  “Yeah.” Garth finished his drink and put away the bottle. “Ancient Rome. You know today, Saturday, is named after one of them ancient Roman gods?”

  “Saturn? Yes, I know.” She had opened the refrigerator and was now selecting food for a sandwich: luncheon meat, cheese, lettuce, mayonnaise, butter.

  “Yeah, you would know. Great little reader.”

  He watched her build and then bite into the sandwich. “I thought maybe you went back to the Father.”

  Her mouth was full, and she only shook her head.

  Garth said, “I’ve been thinking about that.” The girl raised her eyes. “Yeah, been doing a lot of thinking. And I don’t know if it’s such a good idea, you going to him for help.”

  “It was your idea, Dad.”

  “I know, but . . . well, we don’t know this fellow, he’s new, we don’t know anything about him, the way he thinks, anything like that . . .”

  “Does that matter?”

  “I don’t know. I just mean—well, how can he help?”

  “Maybe he can’t. But he can try.”

  Garth looked at her with curiosity. “You were dead set against it last night. How come you’re all for it now?”

  “I’m not all for it . . .”

  “Yes you are. What’s so great about Father Sargent all of a sudden?”

  “I didn’t say he was so great, just—”

  “Remember what happened when you went to see Father Halloran.”

  The girl put down her sandwich. She stared at it, beyond it, not seeing it. “I remember,” she said.

  “You’d better. Would you want that to happen again?” She did not reply. “Well, would you?”

  “No. No.” She closed her eyes. “Mama,” she said.

  “What about her?”

  “If only she were here.”

  “I know, I know, but your mother’s been dead for six years now. I’m here.”

  “You’re glad she’s not here, aren’t you?”

  “What a lousy thing to say . . .”

  “Glad she’s dead.”

  “Susie, don’t start that stuff again . . .”

  “You never loved her.”

  “You’re too young to understand things like that, honey.”

  “You never loved her so you let her die.”

  “That isn’t true, Susie.”

  Quickly she said, “Did you love her?”

  “Look, I love you, that’s all you need to know.”

  “Don’t say that. Don’t say you love me. When you say that, it’s like that day, that day a long time ago . . .”

  “What day?”

  “The day I fainted, the day I can never remember, the day that’s just like a blank in my mind. All I remember about it is you saying that, about loving me. Don’t love me. You didn’t love her, so don’t love me.”

  “A person can’t help who he loves, honey.”

  She got up.

  “Where are you going?” he asked.

  “To Father Sargent.”

  “Now wait a minute—we got to talk about this.”

  “No. I’m going.”

  “Look, you can’t just go barging in there all the time whenever you feel like it. You got to wait until he’s ready for you, wait till he calls.”

  She walked toward the door. “If he doesn’t want to see me, I’ll come back.”

  “Damn it,
girl, I’m your father!”

  “Some father,” she said, and left.

  Garth stood looking at the closed door, hearing her feet on the stairs, the sound of her trotting quickly down and away into silence. For a moment he thought of going after her, and his hand was on the knob. Then he retreated aimlessly into the kitchen, where he saw on the table the magazine Talbot had given him.

  He turned to the article Talbot had recommended. Pretty sexy stuff . . . and pretty surprising, considering who the author is . . .

  Garth recognized the author at once. He sat down, slowly, to read what the author had to say on the subject of Ecstasy.

  IV

  BLOOD OF THE CELIBATE

  “At the supreme moment, at the highest peak, sexual, artistic and religious ecstasy are surprisingly similar. It is difficult to tell them apart. It is only in the trappings, in ‘the limbs and outward flourishes,’ in the building-up and the dying-away, that it is possible to distinguish one from another. In that split second of ecstasy in which one is ripped off the earth and flung into the Eternal, the lover, the artist and the religieuse all feel much the same thing. They are akin, for that instant. They are one. Then the instant is over and they float down to terra firma, on parachutes woven from the silky echoes of ecstasy, drifting farther apart all the time. They touch ground and walk off in three different directions, not speaking to each other, and they do not meet again until the next time ecstasy rockets them into orbit. . . .”

  Bishop Conrad Crimmings closed the magazine, glanced once more at the blurb on its glossy cover (“A Priest Looks at Ecstasy” by Father Gregory Sargent, in this issue . . .) then turned his eyes to the window of the taxi that was carrying him to the rectory of St. Michael’s.

  Ah, Gregory, Gregory, he said to himself; you are a glib and bright man, and your thoughts on ecstasy (if somewhat heterodox) are fresh and provocative and deserving of publication . . . but this magazine is publishing them for all the wrong reasons; don’t you know that? Can’t you see the editors cackling salaciously and licking their lips as they planned this cover announcement, striking the word priest against the word ecstasy and watching the sparks of circulation fly upward? It’s an old but always effective trick, mixing sex and religion. Sex mingles easily with religion, and their blending has one of those slightly repulsive and yet exquisite and poignant flavors which startle the palate . . . who said that? One of the Huxleys, wasn’t it? Aldous. Oh, well, no amount of editorial flim-flam can destroy a good piece. The magazine fell open again. “It is interesting to note that the word ‘ecstasy’ originally meant a kind of trance, that it is derived from a Greek word meaning displacement, and that Elizabethan writers, Shakespeare among them, used it as a synonym for madness. . . .”

  The taxi pulled up in front of the rectory.

  When it had deposited its massive, white-maned passenger on the sidewalk and driven away, the Bishop stood looking at the small church and modest rectory, noting with vague malaise how shopworn they appeared in the slant of the afternoon sun. From the church came sounds of choral singing. A Mass for St. Michael. He was reminded that the parish’s special occasion, The Feast of St. Michael, would take place soon, on September 29th. Today was Saturday, the 27th. Just a couple of days off. Good: preparations for the special Mass would be keeping Gregory busy, his mind off his troubles. The Bishop frowned, then sighed, then walked up the path to the rectory door.

  Bishops appeared to be fairly exotic specimens to the housekeeper, who was immediately tongue-tied and flustered by his presence. He was left alone in the parlor for a moment, and then Gregory joined him. The younger man knelt, kissed the proffered ring, and murmured, “Good afternoon, Your Excellency. It is good of you to come.”

  “God bless you, my son. How are you?”

  “Oh . . . fine . . . won’t you sit down? Try this chair . . .”

  “Thank you, Gregory. Very comfortable.”

  “Can I offer you anything to eat?”

  “No, no—I won’t stay too long . . .”

  “A glass of brandy, perhaps?”

  “No, don’t trouble yourself. Do sit down, my boy, and let me look at you. Now then. Well. It’s been a long time. You’re looking—I was going to say you’re looking well, but on closer inspection, I don’t know. You’re tired, I can see that.”

  “Late hours,” said Gregory, shrugging.

  “You must take care of yourself.”

  “You look in good health, Your Excellency. It’s been years, and yet you look just the same, only . . .” he had trouble finding the right word “. . . more so.”

  “More so!” The Bishop chuckled. “You mean I’m fat?”

  “Oh no—”

  “I know just what you mean,” he smiled. “We grow older and our noses grow longer and our ears grow longer and our oddities become more marked. I’ve noticed it in others. Age is a ruthless caricaturist, Gregory; with the years, we all become parodies of ourselves. But you won’t have to worry about that for a long time. Just how old are you?”

  “Forty-five.”

  “Really. The years fly. Little Gregory Sargent. I’ve known you ever since—well, I suppose ever since you were born. Forty-five years ago! My, my. Looked just like your mother then. Look more like your father now. Wonderful people, wonderful. God rest them both. I must say, in those early days one never would have thought you would have entered the priesthood. You lacked the docility one sees in so many boys who take the cloth. You were quite spunky, quite outspoken, always had a mind of your own. Precocious too, oh my yes. Why, when you were only seven or eight you used to write a kind of newspaper . . . printed it all yourself in pencil on big sheets of brown wrapping paper. The Daily—”

  “—Clarion,” finished Gregory. “Despite the ‘Daily’ it came out every two or three weeks.”

  The Bishop’s eyes narrowed in the act of recall. “I remember one of the drawings you did for it. A cartoon. It was a picture of God, wearing a turban of all things, and sitting cross-legged under a sign that read, God—Sees All, Knows All. He had a fortune-teller’s crystal ball in His lap, only it wasn’t really a crystal ball, it was the Earth. Not an orthodox conception of The Divine, perhaps, but very perceptive. Come to think of it, Gregory, you haven’t really changed at all: those articles you write, I’ve read a few—perceptive, but quite unorthodox. Sometimes, I must confess, I don’t understand them at all. But they are entertaining.”

  “Perhaps too entertaining?” Gregory suggested.

  “Well,” said the Bishop, “you do at times seem to pay a good deal of attention to the turning of a phrase. I remember one—‘The Hand of God is quicker than the eye’—clever, but I’m not sure it means anything. I rather prefer God in a turban with the Earth in His lap. But words are simply your personal bit of pride, Gregory. Not even a priest can escape it.”

  Gregory dutifully quoted: “‘Pride goeth before destruction.’”

  “But also—‘In the beginning was The Word.’”

  A phone call from the Barlows, reminding Gregory of the dinner engagement, prompted the Bishop to say “I’m keeping you from something,” but Gregory assured him they had hours. That being the case, the Bishop allowed that he might, after all, sample a bit of that brandy, and Gregory filled two glasses.

  “Ah,” said the Bishop, smacking his lips. “Excellent. Although I’m not much of a connoisseur, I’m afraid.” Casually, he added, “You are, though, aren’t you?”

  Gregory had been returning the brandy bottle to the sideboard. He stiffened. Quietly, he asked, “What exactly do you mean by that?”

  “Why,” groped the Bishop, “just what I said . . .”

  “Oh, why pretend, Your Excellency?” said Gregory with a gesture of impatience. “Why do we sit here exchanging polite conversation? I know why my parish was taken from me—”

  “My boy, this is your parish.”

  “Thi
s.” Gregory laughed bitterly. “Father Halloran himself said it was like a small town.”

  With deliberation, the Bishop said, “You were transferred here from St. Francis because—”

  “Pardon me for interrupting, Your Excellency, but I know the official reason—I was ‘an emergency replacement for Father Halloran, who had to leave suddenly.’ But the real reason—I know that, too. And it’s all a lie!”

  “Gregory—”

  “I couldn’t defend myself,” Gregory went on, “because there was no actual charge, but I knew why I was suddenly yanked out of St. Francis. Because somebody told you I was a drunk. And you believed it.”

  There. It was said. It was out in the open.

  “Nobody told me you were a drunk,” the Bishop said softly and slowly. “If anybody had, I would not have believed it. But somebody did tell me you were drinking. And I didn’t need anybody to tell me that. I’ve known it for some time.”

  Gregory pointed to the Bishop’s glass. “Show me a priest who doesn’t take a glass of something once in a while. You do.”

  “Many of us do,” said the Bishop. “Once in a while.”

  “Are you implying—”

  “I am not implying you are a drunk. You probably go for days without touching a drop—”

  “I do.”

  “—But you sometimes touch more than a drop. You sometimes try to give extreme unction to a dying man with your tongue so thick you can hardly pronounce the words and with the smell of liquor hanging like a pall in the room.”

  Gregory said nothing.

  The Bishop asked, “Is this a lie?”

  Putting down his glass, Gregory sank into a chair. “Once,” he said. “Once that happened. It never happened before and it will never happen again. But because of that one slip, my parish was taken from me, the parish I worked so hard to build into something, and I’m exiled to this . . . this backwater.”

  “My boy,” said the Bishop, “I believe you. I believe it never happened before, I believe it will never happen again, and I want you to believe me when I tell you that your one slip was only a partial reason for your transferal here to St. Michael’s. I needed someone desperately, and in a hurry, because Father Halloran had to leave at once. You came to mind because, well, because I thought it would be an excellent chance for you to make a fresh start in a parish where nobody knew you. I suppose I should have brought the subject out in the open, suggested you go on retreat—all the usual things—but I don’t always follow the rulebook; one can’t, always; one has to play by ear sometimes. And my ear told me it would be hurtful to bring things to a head. It told me that the vacant post at St. Michael’s was heaven-sent. Perhaps I was wrong, but I didn’t want to call that much attention to the drinking because it does not matter. It is the reason for the drinking I want to know.”