Memoirs Found In a Bathtub (6 page)

Almost at the very end, just before the turn, a soldier stood guard at a door. His uniform carried no sign of any rank, which was unusual—just a white belt. The soldier held a submachine gun in his gloved hands and stood like a statue. He didn’t even blink as I passed. After a few steps I turned back to the door he was guarding: if this was indeed an official entrance to Headquarters, I had little hope of getting in—on the other hand, what was there to lose? I touched the doorknob and glanced at him. He paid no attention, his gaze fixed on the opposite wall. I entered and was amazed to see, straight ahead, a spiral staircase. There was an unusually cold draft. I put out my hand—the chill seemed to come from above, so I started climbing. At the top only the glass of an open door glimmered in the dimness. I found myself on the threshold of a dark chapel. Inside, under a crucifix lay an open coffin. The flickering candles threw little light on the dead man’s face. Massive benches stood on either side of the aisle, barely visible in the darkness, and beyond them were niches, their contents altogether hidden. I heard heels clicking on stone but could see no one. I groped up the aisle, pondering my next move, when my eyes happed to fall on the face of the dead man—it was that little old man! He lay in the casket, covered with a flag that fell to the ground in elaborate folds. His face, serene and waxen, was nestled in starched lace; the spectacles were gone—perhaps that was why his features lacked their former look of alarm and mischief. Now he was quite solemn, as if thoroughly settled, composed. The hands were carefully arranged on either side of the flag, but one little finger had refused to bend with the rest and stuck out in a mocking, or warning gesture. It called attention to itself. From high up came a single note, then a second, with the wheeze and whine of an organ. It sounded as if some passer-by had tried a few notes on the keyboard and then had given up. Again there was silence.

The honors shown the dead man puzzled me; in fact, the whole situation was very odd. I stood at the foot of the casket, my feet freezing, and caught a warm whiff of stearin. A candlewick hissed. Then there was a light tap on my shoulder and a whisper in my ear:

“He’s already been searched.”

“What?” I blurted out. The word, though certainly not shouted, set up a long and loud echo in the place. A tall officer stood nearby. His face was pale and bloated, his nose blue. A stiff white collar turned back to front shone from under the uniform lapels.

“Did you say something, uh, Father?” I asked. He closed his eyes solemnly, as if to acknowledge my presence as discreetly as possible.

“No, no—a misunderstanding… I took you for someone else. Anyway, I’m not a priest, I’m a monk.”

“I see.”

We stood a while in silence. He lowered his head: it was shaven and covered with a small skullcap.

“Pardon my asking … you were acquainted with the deceased?”

“In a way … though not very well,” I replied. Though all I could see of his eyes were tiny reflections from the candles, it was obvious he was slowly looking me over.

“Paying your last respects?” he whispered with an unpleasant familiarity, and scrutinized me even more closely. I countered with a bold, contemptuous stare. He stiffened.

“You were assigned here then,” he sighed. I said nothing.

“There will be Mass,” he observed piously. “Obsequies first, then Mass. If you wish…”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“Of course not.”

It was growing colder, an icy wind stirred the candles. Then something near the casket caught my eye: a large, heavy air conditioner, churning out freezing air through its metal grating.

“Not a bad arrangement,” I remarked. The monk looked quickly over his shoulder and touched my sleeve with an incredibly white, soft hand.

“Permit me to report,” he whispered, “…many cases of gross negligence, incompetency, conduct not becoming an officer… The sergeant prior is not performing his duties…”

He said this through his teeth, at the same time watching me closely, ready to retreat at any moment. But I kept silent, my eyes fixed on the shadowy dead man. This lack of response seemed to embolden the monk.

“Of course, it’s none of my business… I hardly dare,” he breathed in my ear. “But if I might ask, in the hope that I could be of some assistance, in the course of duty … your orders are from … high up?”

“That’s right,” I said. He grimaced in admiration, exposing large, horsy teeth.

“Permit me—I—I am not disturbing you?”

“Not at all.”

“Well … you must know that the failures of the Mission are becoming so grave that—”

“You’re a missionary?” I asked. He smiled.

“I was speaking of our division, not of our dedication to the Lord.”

“Your division?”

“The Theological Division. Quite recently, Father Amnion from the Confidence Section misappropriated…”

And he went on. But I lost the thread of what he said—the dead man’s little finger, the one that refused to bend with the others, was now moving. The other fingers seemed carved from one piece, like a wax model of a shell, but this one, plumper and pinker than the rest, twitched back and forth, as if to express the slightly rakish character of the deceased. Yet there was something so incorporeal, so fantastically light in that motion, one thought less of resurrection and more of hummingbirds and the kind of tiny insects that appear only in a blur before us. The tremor became more and more pronounced. “Impossible!” I cried. The monk cringed and clutched me.

“You have my sacred word! I speak the truth!”

“What? Oh, I see… Well, tell me more,” I said, suddenly realizing I preferred his oppressive company to that of the dead man. Besides, the dead man wouldn’t dare attempt anything more in the presence of two people.

“The confession files are poorly kept, there’s no supervision. At least half of our plants have been spotted. Brother Lieutenant Gatekeeper is extremely careless about giving out passes and writing reports. The Holy Spirit Section has completely neglected provocation activities, angel-baiting…”

“You don’t say,” I muttered. The finger was still. I knew I should leave immediately, but didn’t want to be impolite.

“And how is the situation regarding the performance of religious duties?” I threw out, reluctantly playing the role of interrogator—against my better judgment, but at this point I had little choice.

The monk’s excitement mounted. The passion of informing was on him. He hissed, his watery eyes glittered, he foamed at the mouth.

“The practice of religious duties!” he said, hoarse with impatience to cast off the heavy weight of accusations he had to make. “The sermons are not effective, attendance is down, the regulations on bugging prayers are generally disregarded. This holds for all denominations, but I speak only of my own. The transgressions in the Higher Goal Section would have led to a scandal; they were hushed up only because Brother Agent Malchus was able to supply the sexton with several willing nuns. And Chaplain Major Orfini, instead of notifying the authorities, plays with mysticism and preaches retribution not of this world.”

“You mean, off-planet?”

“If only! Oh no, he—but excuse me, I don’t even know your name…”

“That’s all right.”

“Of course … now the retribution of Judgment Day, the Apocalypse, that I can understand, thanks mainly to the most efficient methods our scientific colleagues have made possible … and then, to make matters worse, Malchus goes around bragging left and right that he’s cracked the Bible code! Do you know what that means?”

“Blasphemy?” I offered.

“Blasphemy the Good Lord can take care of, that’s no problem. It’s our whole order that’s at stake, the very theological foundations for the dogma of Divine Desertion!”

“Fine, fine,” I said, impatient, “let’s skip the theories. This Brother Agent Malchus—what was that all about? Get to the point, Brother.”

“As you wish. We’ve known for a long time that Malchus was a triple agent. The way he said his psalms, you understand… Brother Almigens checked him out and we planted a few civilians. For instance, he was seen making certain signs while prostrate before the altar—that in itself constitutes an infraction of paragraph fourteen. Then in the course of the routine quarterly examination we found silver threads sewn into his chasuble.”

“Silver threads?”

“What else? For video transmission. I personally conducted an investigation among the communicants.”

“Thank you,” I said, “that’ll do. I get the picture. You may go now, Brother.”

“But, but I haven’t begun to—”

“Dismissed!”

The monk stood at attention, about-faced, marched off. I was left alone. So … religion here was no extracurricular activity, no harmless hobby, but another front for the usual business? The little finger twitched—I reached over and grabbed it, but it broke loose and rolled into a fold in the flag, lying there like a little pink sausage. I picked it up and examined it closely: it was an inflated membrane, the wrinkles and nail painted on in great detail. What sort of prosthetic device was this? Hearing footsteps, I quickly pocketed the object. Several people entered the chapel, carrying a wreath. I retreated behind a column and watched them arrange funeral ribbons with gold letters. A priest appeared at the altar and an acolyte adjusted his vestments. I looked over my shoulder: beneath a bas-relief of Peter Renouncing Christ was a small door. Behind the door I found a narrow passageway that turned to the left. At the end of it, before a large alcove containing a few steps that led to a door, a monk in cowl and sandals sat upon a three-legged stool and turned the pages of his breviary with gnarled fingers. When he lifted his eyes and looked at me, I could see that he was very old. The skullcap sat on his bald head like a patch of mud.

“Where does this go?” I asked, indicating the door.

“Eh?” he croaked, cupping his ear.

“Where does this door lead to?” I shouted, bending over him. A flash of understanding lit his sunken face.

“Nowhere, it don’t lead to nowhere… It’s a cell, Father Marfeon’s cell … our hermit.”

“What?”

“A cell, a cell.”

“May I see the hermit then?” I asked. The old monk nodded.

“Yes, this here is our hermitage.”

I hesitated, then walked up and opened the door to a dim antechamber cluttered with all sorts of junk—dirty sacks, onion skins, empty jars, sausage rings, ashes and old papers strewn about the floor. Only the center of the room had been swept, or rather, there were a few clean places to put one’s foot. I reached the other door, stepping gingerly through the debris, and turned a heavy iron handle. Inside, there was shuffling, whispering. By the light of a single candle somewhere on the floor I saw shadowy figures scurry about, crouch in the comers, scuttle under crooked tables or cots. Someone blew out the candle and there were angry whispers and grunts in the darkness. The air was heavy with the stale smell of unwashed bodies. I beat a hasty retreat. When I passed the old monk, he lifted his eyes from the prayer book.

“Father Marfeon see you?” he rasped.

“He’s sleeping,” I said, and hurried on. The voice followed me down the hall:

“You come the first time, he’s sleeping, but the second time, then you’ll see…”

I went back through the chapel. The funeral rites were apparently over; the casket, flags and wreaths were gone. Mass too was over. A priest stood in the dim pulpit and admonished the congregation:

“…for it is written:
And when the devil had ended all the temptation, he departed from him for a season!
” The preacher’s shrill voice reverberated beneath the high-domed ceiling: “
For a season
it is written—and where does the devil hide for a season? In that Red Sea that courses through our veins? Or perhaps in Nature? But, O my brothers, are we not ourselves Nature, Nature without end? Does not the rustle of her trees echo in our bones? Is our human blood less salty than the waters of the sea that carve great caverns of lime and chalk, great skeletons beneath the waves? Does not the everlasting fire of the desert bum in our hearts? And are we not, in the end, a clamorous prelude to the final silence, a marriage bed to engender dust, a universe for microbes, microbes that strive to circumnavigate us? We are as unfathomable, as inscrutable as That which brought us into being, and we choke on our own enigma…”

“You hear that?” came a whisper behind me. Out of the comer of my eye I saw the sweaty, pale face of a Corporal Brother. “Choking, yet—and that’s supposed to be a provocation sermon! He doesn’t know how to slip anything in!”

“Seek not the key to the mystery, for surely it will never fit! Thou shalt not penetrate the impenetrable! Humble thyself!” the voice boomed.

“Father Orfini’s finished now, I’ll call him over. He can be of use, you know—a good man to third-degree!” the pale monk hissed, burning my neck with his foul breath. Some of the worshipers began to turn around and look at us.

“No, don’t!” I whispered. Too late—he was already making for the altar by a side passage. I tried to leave unobtrusively, but the exit was too crowded; the monk was already returning with the priest (now back in uniform), pulling him by the sleeve. Then with a conspiratorial wink he disappeared behind a column, leaving the priest and me alone in the empty chapel.

“You wish to make confession, my son?” he asked in a melodious voice, presenting me with the stem face of an ascetic, gray at the temples, and with a gold tooth. The gold reminded me of the little old man.

“No, that’s all right,” I said. Then a thought occurred to me, and I added:

“I am in need of certain … information.”

The father confessor nodded.

“Very well, follow me.”

Behind the altar was a low door, which led into an almost black corridor. On each side stood the robed figures of saints, their faces turned to the wall. We entered a painfully bright room with an enormous safe, a black enamel cross inlaid on its stainless steel. The priest offered me a chair and went over to a table cluttered with old papers and books. Even in uniform he looked very much a priest: the white, expressive hands like those of a concert pianist, the delicate blue veins about the forehead, the dry skin that stretched across the bones. Everything about him bespoke a stem serenity.