Apprehensions and Other Delusions Read online

  “But vermin are everywhere,” said Brother Emmerano. “Have you lost sight of that? There would have to be these little vermin in all things, and what would be the purpose of that? Where does it say that God brought forth vermin? We know that the Devil brings these tribulations, and it is for us to bear these things without notice so we may the sooner turn our minds from the wiles of the Devil and toward the salvation of Christ.”

  Brother Rat nodded several times as if his head were not tightly bound to his body. “I know. The Secular Arm reminded me. I know this is madness. But we who are mad cannot set aside our madness because it is what we wish. If it were that, we would be heretics.” He finished his wine. “I wish I were a heretic, I wish I did not believe as I do, that I have been corrupted and could be saved from my error. But it is fixed, like the head of an arrow in a healed wound. Broken fingers and teeth could not budge it. This cell has not changed it.” He wept suddenly, deeply.

  “God will bring you to comfort, Brother Rat,” said Brother Emmerano as he clutched his Corpus in a trembling hand.

  When the worst of his weeping was over, Brother Rat wiped his face with his blanket once more, and spat several times, as much blood as foam. “I can see it now, or so I tell myself. They ruined this eye trying to make me tell them I could not see these vermin, but ...”

  “It is madness, and they sent you to us,” said Brother Emmerano, still trying to quiet himself so that he would be able to sense God’s Will.

  “Apparently.” He considered the cup, then signaled for more. “I suppose the fever burns the wine away. I thought I would be singing by now. There was a time when I might have sung.” Now his cough shook him as if he were in the fist of a giant.

  “Should we send for—” Brother Emmerano began but was cut off by Brother Rat.

  “No. What could he do? It is ending for me.” He looked away from Brother Emmerano. “And I have been thinking that one of these invisible vermin has brought this cough to me, that it has taken over my body, as the vermin of Plague took my wife and my son, and my wife’s mother.”

  Brother Emmerano hesitated, then asked, “What of your other children? You said you had five children, did you not?”

  “Oh, yes,” said Brother Rat. “I did. And the neighbors thought I was possessed of a demon, for all that I did in my house. They saw the pots of smoking herbs and they said the Devil was with us. They saw that I had the floors cleaned every morning, and they whispered that I had done atrocious things in the night.” He put his hand to his brow. “So the ones who were still alive decided that I had brought the Plague to Amalfi.” There were tears on his wrinkled, sunken cheeks yet he made no move to wipe them away. “They gathered together and when next my children went to the church to pray for the soul of their mother, who was dead less than a week, they were met by men and boys with bricks and stones.” He closed his eyes.

  Brother Emmerano lifted his hand to bless Brother Rat, but faltered. “What became of them? Of your children?”

  “I thought that was obvious,” said Brother Rat softly, refusing to open his eyes. “They were stoned to death. I found them all broken and in a welter of blood when I came from the burial pit where I had taken flowers in memory of my wife.”

  As Brother Emmerano lowered his hand, he said, “What was said of that act?”

  “I don’t know,” Brother Rat admitted as he opened his eyes at last. “I was not told.” He stared down at his hands as if he had just noticed the fingers of his left hand had been broken. “That night was when I went to the burial pit to kill rats. I had to do something.”

  “But such a gesture ... surely you did not think that you could change the death of those poor people by killing rats.” Brother Emmerano shifted on his stool again, glancing toward the door as if to reassure himself that the lay Brothers were within reach.

  “I don’t know what I thought,” said Brother Rat in bitter amusement. “I was mad. I have been mad since the Plague came. Perhaps I hoped that if I killed the vermin and the vermin of vermin I might find the way to restore those who were dead.” He shrugged. “I can’t remember what was in my heart then.” He coughed, holding his head with his hand. “I am not used to wine. Already my head is throbbing.”

  Brother Emmerano was not going to permit Brother Rat to turn away from the matter now. “How did you come to be in the hands of the Secular Arm? Surely you did not seek them out, did you? To hear what you say, all of Amalfi died of the Plague.”

  “Most of it did. Some who could afford it left the city when the disease first struck, and they returned to find a few of us picking our way among the corpses.” He slid back on his pallet. “They came with priests and all of us who remained alive were taken to the church to answer the questions of the Bishop, to account for our lack of death. Anyone who gave unsatisfactory answers was sent to the Secular Arm. They burned the tailor as a heretic, and the chimney sweep. Those of us who were still in their keeping had to watch, to see what awaited us if we did not exculpate ourselves.”

  “A worthy lesson,” said Brother Emmerano.

  “Yes,” Brother Rat said distantly. “Although I hoped then that they would decide I was a heretic, and burn me, for life seemed an impossible burden to me then.”

  “Such an assertion is close to heresy,” Brother Emmerano cautioned.

  “My family was dead. I had failed to save them.” Brother Rat turned his face to the stones.

  “It is not for you to save them, or any man. It is for God to save them, or to move you to find the means to save them. If you usurp that power, you question the divinity of God and Christ. God in His Wisdom called your family to Him, and left you to live on so that you could return again to Christ.” Brother Emmerano placed his hand over his heart. “Your soul has been forfeited because you were misled by a Godless book, and for that your family was taken from you, and when that was not sufficient, so were your wits.”

  “It was vermin that brought Plague, Brother Emmerano. I am mad still, though I pray devoutly that God will pity me and save me from the madness that has claimed the whole of my thoughts for all these years.” It was not easy to understand him with his face to the wall. “But suppose it is true? What if my madness is no madness? Suppose that there is truth in those pages, and our efforts have been spent in vain? That is what makes my days’ torment: suppose the book is right, and there is vermin and vermin’s vermin and vermin’s vermin’s vermin, and that is what causes Plague when God is displeased with mankind?”

  Brother Emmerano sighed. “He should not have drunk so much. The wine has muddled his thoughts. He has had too much, and mad that he is, he is sunk into his madness.” He started to rise. “I will have Brother Luccio record all you have said, Brother Rat, and in the morning it will be read to you and you will be absolved, and the priests will anoint you.” His habit rustled as he rose, clapping his hands for the lay Brothers at the door.

  “There could be other vermin that bring other ills,” muttered Brother Rat. “There may be many others. It may not be sufficient only to kill rats.” He pulled his blanket close around him and coughed, low and steady, as the writing table and two stools were removed from the cell.

  As the lay Brother turned the key in the lock of the cell door, Brother Emmerano blessed him and added a blessing toward the door itself. “You will bring the Confession to me, Brother Luccio. Make sure you include my request to review it.”

  “As you wish,” I told him, lowering my face to show him respect. “As soon as I have presented it to the Prior.” I walked behind Brother Emmerano, as was proper. “They say the Plague has returned,” I mentioned as we started up the stairs to the refectory.

  Brother Emmerano nodded. “We have said Masses for the dead already.” He paused, his face emotionless. “Poor Brother Rat, if he learns of it. But it is not likely, in God’s Mercy.”

  I bowed my head and protected m
yself with the Cross. And as we resumed our climb, I could not keep from asking, “Do you suppose there is the least chance he is right? I know he is mad, but some madmen have visions, don’t they?”

  Brother Emmerano laughed once. “How can that be? Brother Rat has been broken by the wiles of the Devil. Madmen who have visions see angels and the hosts of Heaven and the tribulations of the Martyrs or are offered comfort by Our Lady. They glimpse the world that is beyond the earth, either Heaven or Hell. They do not see the vermin of rats, Brother Luccio.”

  “Amen,” I replied, my faith in Brother Emmerano and God. I resolved not to be led into error, though I had received warning that my sister was ill with a cough and a fever. How simple a thing it would be to blame rats and the vermin of rats instead of God—how simple and how monstrous. I whispered a prayer for her protection as well as my forgiveness and went to my cell to prepare the record of the Confession for the Prior.

  About Confessions of a Madman

  I wrote this story for the anthology Psycho Paths at the request of its editor, the wonderful and much-missed Robert Bloch. He asked if I could come up with something in which the supposed cause or expression of madness was not madness at all, but in which, also, the madness was genuine. This was the result.

  “THEY WERE much wiser than we are, you know.” She stood behind the gift counter at the Dry Plains International Airport, a woman with shag-cut, grey-struck hair and enormous light-blue eyes behind small wire-rimmed glasses; she looked as if she had been stuck in 1967 for the last quarter century.

  “They?” said Philips absentmindedly as he paid for the two magazines of local interest; one boasted a long section on the delights of Mexico, just over the Texas border, the other had a gorgeous series of photographs of restored turn-of-the-century houses in Dallas and Houston. He wanted to keep his mind off Dry Plains—the place gave him the creeps, always had.

  “The Comanches. They used to live around here, long ago. Sometimes, at night like this, I think they’re still here. They were a very spiritual people.” She beamed at him, handing him his change with an expression that said, “Have a nice day,” though it was now twenty minutes after two on a windy autumn night.

  “I don’t know about Comanches,” Philips said, his manner suggesting that ignorance was just fine with him.

  She smiled and indicated some of the Indian necklaces in the display case—Hopi and Navajo, for the most part, and with very unspiritual price-tags—with a gentle sigh of approval. “The Native Americans understand nature so much better than we do. They’re so empathetic, so much in tune with the earth. It’s part of their way of life, not like us at all. They respect everything in nature. You can see it in everything they do.”

  “Thanks,” said Philips, moving a short distance from the counter so as to end her version of small-talk. He paid no attention to her, choosing to put his mind on the superior photographs of the magazines. After a little while he wandered out toward the lobby area for private and corporate airplanes, half-reading the first of the magazines and trying to decide if he ought to call the Trager International office in Dallas before they called him. Just because it was the middle of the night didn’t mean that Trager wasn’t barreling along. He decided that he ought to get another cup of coffee so he wouldn’t be tempted to doze.

  He had taken a seat on one of the high stools at the only snack counter open at that hour and had just been handed a large, biodegradable cup filled with lukewarm coffee when he heard his name on the PA system. He picked up the carry-out cup and hurried toward the nearest courtesy phone, preparing to defend his decision to land here rather than at Dallas/Fort Worth. “Galen Philips here,” he said as he lifted the receiver.

  “A call for you, sir,” said a woman’s voice with a faint Spanish accent. “I’ll put you through.”

  “Thanks,” he told her in order to be polite. He waited, wondering who would be on the other line.

  “Philips!” boomed D. A. Landis, as if in the middle of the night he was ready to participate in a jousting tournament or emcee a banquet for a thousand people. “Good to talk to you this way.”

  Philips sighed. He had a strong distrust of the hearty, venal Landis who ran the Trager division in Chicago. “Good morning, D.A.,” he said, trying to infuse a little good fellowship into his voice.

  “I had a call from the maintenance people there about half an hour ago.” He made every word portentous. “They told me that you had to be one lucky son of a bitch to bring our company jet down without any harm, considering the malfunction of the instruments. We ought to listen to you veteran pilots more often. Your hunch about the plane was right. If you’d tried to push on, you might have crashed; that’s what the night supervisor just told me. We can’t have that.”

  “I guess not,” said Philips, his guts feeling suddenly hot, then cold.

  “You experienced flyers, you’ve got instincts.” He coughed once. “You better layover there until the plane is fixed. They say it shouldn’t be much more than two days. They can start work on it in the morning; their night crew is just a skeleton, a shift of five guys. They can’t handle the trouble, and according to them it’ll take a day at least to check it out. Hell, we can spare you from the roster that long. Besides, you’re due for some ground time, aren’t you?”

  “Pretty much,” said Philips.

  “Too bad we don’t have a corporate apartment there you can use—there’s no reason for it—but find yourself a hotel and get a good room. Not the most expensive suite in the place, but we don’t want you camping in a broom closet, either. Looks bad to the stockholders.” He had a plummy chuckle that sounded like ripe fruit bursting. “Put it on your corporate account. We’ll cover anything reasonable like car rentals and meals, providing you don’t eat steak and lobster three times a day, or drive to Nevada.”

  “Thanks,” said Philips, feeling a bit dazed by his good fortune and suspicious of it all at the same time.

  “Use this as your long rest time. You’re supposed to take three days off at the end of the month. You might as well do them now.” He sounded more hail-fellow-well-met with every word, and Philips distrusted that.

  “Why now? I’ve got other flights logged.” He did his best to sound mildly curious instead of worried.

  Landis did not answer him. “Oh,” he said as if it had just occurred to him, “would you mind sticking around the airport until the morning maintenance crew comes on? Stay with them while they go over the report on the plane? You were there when the trouble started and you know the right things to ask. They’ll be able to give you a better picture about the repairs, and you can relay that to me when you get to the hotel.”

  Philips swallowed hard. He knew that the morning crew at this airport arrived at six, which would mean he would have to wait another three and a half hours to talk with them. He was glad now that he had bought the magazines. “Sure. No problem.”

  “That’s terrific,” said Landis. “That’s just fine.”

  As reckless as it was, Philips could not keep himself from asking, “What about the Amsterdam flight? Who’s going to cover for that?” He was scheduled to leave late tomorrow afternoon with a group of executives bound for a crucial meeting in The Netherlands.

  “We’ll find someone,” Landis told him confidently. “We can probably bring Chapman back from vacation a day early.”

  “I could take a commercial flight up in the morning, after I get the report on the plane. I could be out of here by noon,” Philips suggested. He did not want to admit that he hated this place and the thought of being here for more than a couple of hours made him edgy. “I’d have enough time for sleep and sufficient hours off to make the flight.”

  Again that high-calorie chuckle. “I wish more of our people had your dedication, Philips.”

  He wanted to say it wasn’t dedication, it was dread, and a sense of being drawn here,
as if the very place itself were reaching out to snare him. But such an admission could earn him a psychiatric evaluation and enforced retirement; he was close enough to that already. “You know me. I like to fly, and Amsterdam is a great place. I had some plans for the trip, that’s all. I was hoping to get in a little ... play.”

  Now the chuckle had a licentious spice in it. “I enjoy playing in Amsterdam myself. I can’t blame you for wanting to go there. Maybe we can arrange for you to have a couple of extra days there when this is over.” The offer was a sop and both men recognized it for what it was. “Let me know what the maintenance people tell you, and we’ll figure out what to do next. How’s that?”

  “Great,” said Philips, who thought it sucked.

  “I’m relying on you,” said Landis, and went on to assure Philips that he would be sure to credit him with saving the company’s second-largest jet, and planned to inform the Board of Directors that there ought to be a bonus in the deal for him.

  When Landis had finished finessing Philips, he hung up abruptly, leaving Philips to stare down the long, empty corridor toward the main part of the airport. From the air, he thought it looked a little like a lopsided galaxy, with four spiral arms stretching out from the center. Now he had the disquieting impression that he was at the edge of a whirlpool, turning and pulling, turning and pulling. He wanted to avoid the center as long as possible, for once there he would not escape. It was hard for him to shake off that irrational sensation as he went back to the snack counter to buy a couple of stale doughnuts.

  The woman from the gift shop was there, getting a cup of herbal tea. “You’re still here,” she said in that lilting way that brought back memories of flower children. “Are you waiting for a connecting flight?”

  “No,” he said. “Worse luck.”