Bradbury Stories (46 page)

There was indeed a pale light within the darkness of the small place.

No, not a light. A shape. A figure.

The figure stood behind and beyond the baptismal font. The sound of falling water had stopped.

His tongue locked in his mouth, his eyes flexed wide in a kind of madness, Father Niven felt himself struck blind. Then vision returned, and he dared cry out:

“Who!”

A single word, which echoed back from all around the church, which made candle flames flutter in reverberation, which stirred the dust of incense, which frightened his own heart with its swift return in saying: Who!

The only light within the baptistery came from the pale garments of the figure that stood there facing him. And this light was enough to show him an incredible thing.

As Father Niven watched, the figure moved. It put a pale hand out upon the baptistery air.

The hand hung there as if not wanting to, a separate thing from the Ghost beyond, as if it were seized and pulled forward, resisting, by Father Niven's dreadful and fascinated stare to reveal what lay in the center of its open white palm.

There was fixed a jagged hole, a cincture from which, slowly, one by one, blood was dripping, falling away down and slowly down, into the baptismal font.

The drops of blood struck the holy water, colored it, and dissolved in slow ripples.

The hand remained for a stunned moment there before the Priest's now-blind, now-seeing eyes.

As if struck a terrible blow, the Priest collapsed to his knees with an out-gasped cry, half of despair, half of revelation, one hand over his eyes, the other fending off the vision.

“No, no, no, no, no, no, no, it
can't
!”

It was as if some dreadful physician of dentistry had come upon him without narcotic and with one seizure entire-extracted his soul, bloodied raw, out of his body. He felt himself prized, his life yanked forth, and the roots, O God, were . . .
deep
!

“No, no, no, no!”

But, yes.

Between the lacings of his fingers, he looked again.

And the Man was there.

And the dreadful bleeding palm quivered dripping upon the baptistery air.

“Enough!”

The palm pulled back, vanished. The Ghost stood waiting.

And the face of the Spirit was good and familiar. Those strange beautiful deep and incisive eyes were as he knew they always must be. There was the gentleness of the mouth, and the paleness framed by the flowing locks of hair and beard. The Man was robed in the simplicity of garments worn upon the shores and in the wilderness near Galilee.

The Priest, by a great effort of will, prevented his tears from spilling over, stopped up his agony of surprise, doubt, shock, these clumsy things which rioted within and threatened to break forth. He trembled.

And then saw that the Figure, the Spirit, the Man, the Ghost, Whatever, was trembling, too.

No, thought the Priest, He can't be! Afraid? Afraid of . . .
me
?

And now the Spirit shook itself with an immense agony not unlike his own, like a mirror image of his own concussion, gaped wide its mouth, shut up its own eyes, and mourned:

“Oh, please, let me go.”

At this the young Priest opened his eyes wider and gasped. He thought: But you're free. No one keeps you here!

And in that instant: “Yes!” cried the Vision. “
You
keep me! Please! Avert your gaze! The more you look the more I become
this
! I am
not
what I seem!”

But, thought the Priest, I did not speak! My lips did not move! How does this Ghost know my mind?

“I know all you think,” said the Vision, trembling, pale, pulling back in baptistery gloom. “Every sentence, every word. I did not mean to come. I ventured into town. Suddenly I was many things to many people. I ran. They followed. I escaped here. The door was open. I entered. And then and then—oh, and then was trapped.”

No, thought the Priest.

“Yes,” mourned the Ghost. “By you.”

Slowly now, groaning under an even more terrible weight of revelation, the Priest grasped the edge of the font and pulled himself, swaying, to his feet. At last he dared force the question out:

“You are not . . . what you seem?”

“I am not,” said the other. “Forgive me.”

I, thought the Priest, shall go mad.

“Do not,” said the Ghost, “or I shall go down to madness with you.”

“I can't give you up, oh, dear God, now that you're here, after all these years, all my dreams, don't you see, it's asking too
much
. Two thousand years, a whole race of people have waited for your return! And I, I am the one who meets you, sees you—”

“You meet only your own dream. You see only your own need. Behind all this—” the figure touched its own robes and breast, “I am another thing.”

“What must I
do
!” the Priest burst out, looking now at the heavens, now at the Ghost which shuddered at his cry.
“What?”

“Avert your gaze. In that moment I will be out the door and gone.”

“Just—just like that?”

“Please,” said the Man.

The Priest drew a series of breaths, shivering.

“Oh, if this moment could last for just an hour.”

“Would you kill me?”

“No!”

“If you keep me, force me into this shape some little while longer, my death will be on your hands.”

The Priest bit his knuckles, and felt a convulsion of sorrow rack his bones.

“You—you are a Martian, then?”

“No more. No less.”

“And I have done this to you with my thoughts?”

“You did not mean. When you came downstairs, your old dream seized and made me over. My palms still bleed from the wounds you gave out of your secret mind.”

The Priest shook his head, dazed.

“Just a moment more . . . wait . . .”

He gazed steadily, hungrily, at the darkness where the Ghost stood out of the light. That face was beautiful. And, oh, those hands were loving and beyond all description.

The Priest nodded, a sadness in him now as if he had within the hour come back from the true Calvary. And the hour was gone. And the coals strewn dying on the sand near Galilee.

“If—if I let you go—”

“You must, oh you must!”

“If I let you go, will you promise—”

“What?”

“Will you promise to come back?”

“Come back?” cried the figure in the darkness.

“Once a year, that's all I ask, come back once a year, here to this place, this font, at the same time of night—”

“Come back . . .?”

“Promise! Oh, I must know this moment again. You don't know how important it is! Promise, or I won't let you go!”

“I—”

“Say it! Swear it!”

“I promise,” said the pale Ghost in the dark. “I swear.”

“Thank you, oh thanks.”

“On what day a year from now must I return?”

The tears had begun to roll down the young Priest's face now. He could hardly remember what he wanted to say and when he said it he could hardly hear:

“Easter, oh, God, yes, Easter, a year from now!”

“Please, don't weep,” said the figure. “I will come. Easter, you say? I know your calendar. Yes. Now—” The pale wounded hand moved in the air, softly pleading. “May I go?”

The Priest ground his teeth to keep the cries of woe from exploding forth. “Bless me, and go.”

“Like this?” said the voice.

And the hand came out to touch him ever so quietly.

“Quick!” cried the Priest, eyes shut, clenching his fists hard against his ribs to prevent his reaching out to seize. “Go before I keep you forever. Run. Run!”

The pale hand touched him a last time upon his brow. There was a soft run of naked feet.

A door opened upon stars; the door slammed.

There was a long moment when the echo of the slam made its way through the church, to every altar, into every alcove and up like a blind flight of some single bird seeking and finding release in the apse. The church stopped trembling at last, and the Priest laid his hands on himself as if to tell himself how to behave, how to breathe again; be still, be calm, stand tall. . . .

Finally, he stumbled to the door and held to it, wanting to throw it wide, look out at the road which must be empty now, with perhaps a figure in white, far fleeing. He did not open the door.

He went about the church, glad for things to do, finishing out the ritual of locking up. It was a long way around to all the doors. It was a long way to next Easter.

He paused at the font and saw the clear water with no trace of red. He dipped his hand and cooled his brow and temples and cheeks and eyelids.

Then he went slowly up the aisle and laid himself out before the altar and let himself burst forth and really weep. He heard the sound of his sadness go up and come back in agonies from the tower where the bell hung silent.

And he wept for many reasons.

For himself.

For the Man who had been here a moment ago.

For the long time until the rock was rolled back and the tomb found empty again.

Until Simon-called-Peter once more saw the Ghost upon the Martian shore, and himself Simon-Peter.

And most of all he wept because, oh, because, because . . . never in his life could he speak of this night to anyone. . . .

J
OHNNY
C
HOIR CAME LIKE THE SPRING LAMBS
over the green Italian hills, gamboling at the game of war. He leaped a line of bullets as if it were the hedge fronting his Iowa home. He ducked and dodged; a pedestrian in war traffic. Most of all, he laughed and was indefatigable as some khaki kangaroo, forever hopping.

Bullets, mortar shells and shrapnel were only rumors in the air to Johnny. They were not true.

He moved with long-legged strides near San Vittore, froze, pointed his gun, fingered the trigger, cried, “Bang! I gotcha!” and watched a German fall with a red orchid pinned to one lapel. Then Johnny jigged again, to escape the answering machine gun blast.

An artillery shell approached. Johnny twisted, crying, “Missed!”

It did. It missed,
like always
.

Private Smith followed in Johnny's wake. Only Smith traveled on his thin-muscled stomach, face sweaty and juju'd with Italian mud. Smith crawled, ran, fell, got up again, and never let those enemy bullets near him. Frequently he yelled angrily at Johnny:

“Lie down, you dumb egg! They'll gut you!”

But Johnny danced on to the metal music of bullets like new, bright hummingbirds on the air. While Smith crawled earthworm-wise taking each kilometer, Johnny catapulted toward the enemy, giggling. Tall as the sky, loud as a bazooka gun! Smith broke out a ration of cold sweat just watching the kid.

Germans screamed and ran away from Johnny. When they saw his limbs flourished in a kind of classical St. Vitus—while bullets whistled under his earlobes, between his knees and betwixt thumb and forefinger—German morale disintegrated. They fled wildly!

Laughing heartily, Johnny Choir sat down, pulled out a chocolate ration and teethed on it, while Smith came inching up. Johnny glimpsed the crawling figure's exposed rump, and inquired, “Smith?”

The anonymous rump went down, a familiar thin face came up. “Yeah.” Firing had ceased in the area. They were alone and safe. Smith wiped dirt from his chin. “Honest to God, I get the weemies watching you. You gallop around like a kid in the rain. Only it's the wrong kind of rain.”

“I'll duck,” said Johnny, munching.

He had a big handsome face with blue child eyes captured in innocent wonder in it, and small pink child lips. His shorn hair resembled the blond stubble of a clothes brush. Now immersed deeply in the enjoyment of candy, he had forgotten war.

“I duck,” he explained again.

A thousand times Smith'd heard that excuse. It was
too
simple an explanation. God had a hand in this somewhere, Smith was certain. Johnny had probably been dunked in holy water. Bullets detoured around him, not daring to touch. Yeah. That was it. Smith laughed musingly.

“What happens if you forget to duck, Johnny?”

Johnny replied “I play dead.”

“YOU—” said Smith, blinking, staring, “—you play dead. Uh-huh.” He exhaled slowly. “Yeah. Sure. Okay.”

Johnny threw away the candy wrapper. “I been thinking. It's almost my turn to play dead, isn't it? Everybody's done it, except me. It's only fair I take my turn. Everybody's been so decent about it, I think
I'll
play dead today.”

Smith found that his hands were shaking. His appetite was gone, too. “Now what do you want to talk that way for?” he argued.

“I'm tired,” said Johnny simply.

“Take a nap, then. You're the damnedest one for snoozing. Take a nap.”

Johnny considered that with a pout. Then he arranged himself on the grass in the shape of a fried shrimp. “All right, Private Smith. If you say so.”

Smith consulted his watch. “You got twenty minutes. Snooze fast. We'll be moving up as soon as the captain shows. And we don't want him finding you asleep.”

But Johnny was already deep in soft dreams. Smith looked at him with wonder and envy. God, what a guy. Sleeping in the middle of hell. Smith had to stay, watching over him. It wouldn't do to have some stray German sniping Johnny while he couldn't duck. Strangest damn thing he ever knew . . .

A soldier ran heavily up, panting. “Hi, Smith!”

Smith recognized the soldier, uneasily. “Oh, it's you, Melter . . .”

“Somebody wounded?” Melter was big, too, but off-center with his fat and too high and hoarse with his voice. “Oh, it's Johnny Choir. Dead?”

“Taking a nap.”

Melter gaped. “A nap? For cripes sake, that infant! That moron!”

Smith said, quietly, “Moron, hell. He just brushed the Heinies off this rise with one hand. I saw them throw a thousand rounds at Johnny, a thousand rounds, mind you, and Johnny slipped through it like a knife through warm ribs.”