The Horrific Sufferings Of The Mind-Reading Monster Hercules Barefoot: His Wonderful Love and his Terrible Hatred (31 page)

He wonders whether God is indifferent to his trials? Or simply irresponsible? But a failure to intervene is also to adopt a standpoint.

He is nauseous with fear. If he opens the front door he will encounter the flames of hell. He wonders how it is that fire has been made so hot it can mutilate a human being. Why didn’t God hold back a little on the potential for suffering? “If God hadn’t created suffering to its extreme limit,” his old prior had once said, “neither would His creation have been complete.” In a perfect world there must be room for everything. A limited world disputes the principle of the generosity of creation. Thus also fear.

Cold sweat is running in a furrow between his shoulder blades, carrying with it the pungent smell of fear. Again he smells smoke, followed by a voice calling eerily from inside his chest:
Del Moro, my dear inquisitor, I’m not frightening you, am I?

He falls to his knees, his body jerking like an epileptic’s. Violent convulsions are shooting through him as each hell-pitched chord leaves its imprint in his flesh. Sounds from an organ being played by some invisible demon, shrieking with laughter, about to drive him mad.

Exhausted by his horrific recollections, Sebastian del Moro lies asleep in the travellers’ guest room here in the village of Fossa. He is awakened by the sound of someone clearing their throat. Opening his eyes, he discovers on his chest a diminutive figure. A man, no bigger than a thumb, busily examining the hairy landscape of del Moro’s torso. The figure is wearing glasses, the black garb of the Dominican Order and a soiled kaftan. Del Moro realises this must be a miniature version of himself. But this double, who seems not even to notice him, lacks ears and a tip to his nose. In his hand he is holding a bag. An exact copy of del Moro’s own, over in the wardrobe.

Sebastian, my exorcist,
whispers a childish voice that seems to come from all directions at once,
you didn’t expect this, did you? We’re inside you already. We are legion, as they say . . . and if you want to get rid of us you’ll have to resort to your most advanced rituals . . .

Rotating his eyes in their sockets, del Moro looks around the room. No-one there. He suspects he may be dreaming, but then reminds himself that the status of his conscious mind is neither here nor there, the nightmares having recently penetrated so far into his waking hours, and, conversely, his nightmares of his waking hours having pursued him into his dreams.

“Who is it?” he asks, with this in mind. But as he expected, there is no answer.

On his chest, his double has opened its miniature bag of demonological equipment. He chooses slowly between various instruments, until he decides upon one of the sharp awls in the outer compartment. To del Moro’s surprise, and still apparently unaware of his existence, he takes out, from the same bag, two false ears and a false nose, which he then with some difficulty proceeds to attach to his face. That done, he takes out a small but perfectly formed human tongue, which he sews into his mouth with the aid of a needle and thread thin as a spider’s web.

Del Moro!
the voice repeats, but more challengingly this time.
You wonder where we are since you can’t see us, neither when you’re asleep nor awake. That must be making you wonder!

And what state are you in? Let me make this quite clear: you are asleep, but soon you’ll realise that it makes no difference whether unnatural things happen when you’re asleep or in broad daylight, because, in your case, sleep and waking are two sides of the same coin . . .

His catatonic state has begun to let up a little. Much to his relief he can turn his head to one side. He looks about him. On the table by his bunk someone has lit a branched candlestick. Meanwhile, on his chest his diminutive double has grasped one of his awls and is busy jabbing it energetically into his skin just under his left nipple, making a rhythmical sound as the instrument digs painlessly into his flesh.

Listen to me
, the voice says.
You can’t see us, and yet the most rational explanation doesn’t occur to you: namely, that we are talking inside you. Maybe we’ve possessed ourselves of your body, the way we sooner or later take possession of all evildoers . . . How? you ask yourself. And when? In an unguarded moment of course . . . through the first accessible bodily aperture . . . through your disgusting anus, let’s say. We detest you! But how to get rid of us? Flush us out with an enema of holy water?

The demon voice gives a mocking laugh, and del Moro understands with a shudder that it is true: the demons have indeed taken possession of his body.

He tries to gather his thoughts into a prayer, but is distracted by a tune. In his head he hears a piece by Clementi, played on an organ, which turns into another piece by Bach, before, strangely enough, being played backwards, note by note.

On his chest, his double has succeeded in boring a small hole in his skin using the awl. Now he can hear the minute figure cluck its newly sewn tongue and then burst into a lengthy tirade in a nonsensical language. A drop of blood wells up on his chest like a red bead, before coming loose from its mounting and spilling down into the cavity formed between his ribs. His miniature wipes the sweat from its brow with a handkerchief bearing a papal monogram. The work has fatigued him.

While del Moro stares bewitched at this remarkable scene, a pillar of steam rises from his other nipple.

Del Moro, you ass
, says the demon voice.
The time has come! It’s time for you to cast us out!

The music in his head stops playing. Out of the nipple where the pillar of steam had just arisen, a demon’s face appears and then, quick as lightning, vanishes, once more withdrawing its ethereal, greenish body. His little double, too, has vanished, but on del Moro’s stomach, immediately above his navel, the bag still lies open, leaving all its instruments in full view.

The bag swells as if someone were blowing it up, or as if del Moro himself were inflating it with his navel; it grows ever larger, until arriving at its proper size.

The time has come for you to perform the duties of your profession
, the demon voice whispers inside him.
Time to look for us inside yourself by all available means . . . this, truly, is your last hope
.

Opening his eyes del Moro thinks he has been dreaming. But only for a split second, for resting on his stomach is the bag. Unaware of having himself put it there, or of someone having made him sleepwalk over to the wardrobe and fetch it, it seems to him he is gaining a clearer grasp on his predicament and what to do about it.

I’m possessed, he thinks with lucid insight. The demon is already inside me. I must expel it.

By the window a small domestic altar has been put in order. The tools are neatly arranged on a white cloth: a flask of holy oil, a crucifix encrusted with relics, a syphon of holy water. The greater Roman ritual, or Rituale Romane as it is called by demonologists, is a ritual reserved for exorcising serious cases of demonic possession. Del Moro has carried it out before, but never yet on himself. Now – in this ghostly room – he prepares the ceremony in its every detail.

Just as he is about to embark on the introductory prayer to the archangel Michael, the demon’s voice pipes up inside him,
You fool! I hope you know what you’re doing . . . exorcising evil spirits can kill a man . . .

The voice is stronger than before, and with a feeling that time is running out del Moro hastens his recitation, “
Sancte Michael Archangele, defende nos contra nequitiam et insidias diaboli esto praesidium.
”

As prescribed by the liturgy, he strews salt on the floor, lays a purple linen cloth over his shoulders and kisses the chalice of sacramental wine.

“
Exorcizo te,”
he chants,
“omnis spiritus immunde, in nomine Jesu Christi Filii ejus, Domini et Judicis nostri, et in virtute Spiritus Sancti.
”

He puts the sacramental wafer to his lips, lets it dissolve on his tongue. Inside the back of his head he hears the demon laughing, followed, this time, by another, more childish voice, that says,
What use is a host against my sheer hatred? You have no idea what hatred can drive us to. An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. We have a debt to settle . . .

Prayer, del Moro thinks as the demon’s voice peters out, prayer will give me strength, for in prayer mankind has been given a divine power.

“Ut descedas ab hoc plasmate Dei,”
he mumbles,
“quod Dominus noster ad templum sanctum suum vocare dignatus est, ut fiat templum Dei vivi, et Spiritus Sanctus habitet in eo.”

The voice in the back of his head giggles, as if the demon had become tipsy on the sacramental wine. Unaffected, del Moro goes on, “
Per eumdem Christum Dominum nostrum, qui venturus est judicare vivos et mortuos, et saeculum per ignem. Amen
.”

By now the room is quite silent and for a brief moment del Moro cherishes a hope the evil spirit has gone away, frightened off by the sacred words. At the same time, he knows from experience that the powers of darkness will resort to every kind of stratagem to nullify an exorcist’s ceremony.

So he bows down to the crucifix, kisses it, spits on the tips of his fingers, genuflects, wetting first his left ear, then his right, with his saliva. “
Eppheta, quod est, adaperire
,” he prays. “Open up!”

Another wafer dissolves on his tongue as he touches his nostrils.

“
In odorem suavitatis. Tu autem effugare, diabole; appropinquabit enim judicium Dei
.”

The demon is beginning to feel worried. He can hear it muttering something, but cannot grasp the words. From the depths of his chest comes something del Moro initially believes to be a new voice, but which he finally recognises as organ music. Again he kisses the crucifix, lights two mass candles and asks himself solemnly, “
Abrenuntias satanae
. Do you abjure Satan?”

“
Abrenuntio
,” he answers, “I abjure!”

His face is visible in outline on the surface of the sacramental chalice. The sagging cheeks, his greenish, blotchy skin, the hairs of his beard: matted together in dirty tangled knots, they frighten him.

“
Et omnibus operibus ejus?
” he asks himself: And all his deeds and doctrines? “
Abrenuntio
!”

He takes the syphon of holy water and splashes a few drops on his clothes.

“
Et omnibus pompis ejus?
”

The demon remains calm. But from the wardrobe there comes a rustling sound. And the wind from the mountains, del Moro observes, is gaining momentum.

He opens the flask of holy oil and rubs a drop of it into his forehead.

“
Ego te linio
,” he continues, “
oleo salutis in Christo Jesu Domino nostro, ut habeas vitam aeternam
.”

As the ritual nears its end del Moro is filled with wonder that the demon isn’t putting up a fight, that it should submit so passively to being exorcised. And he is just about to begin the final prayer when it starts talking again:
This is all most amusing, del Moro . . . you can’t see me . . . not even in your past . . . do you really not remember me? After all, we’ve met before, under very different circumstances. But as we all know, in the realms of the blind the one-eyed king rules . . .

Del Moro raises his voice, continues, “
Credo in Jesum Christum Filium ejus unicum . . .
”

You don’t believe in anything, not even in human beings. Anyway, you think I’m dead . . . you, and your superiors . . . belief makes a fool of a man . . . and your God never did come to my assistance, though I’ve more than once sorely needed Him to . . .

While del Moro exchanges the purple linen cloth around his shoulders for a white one that symbolises the soul’s purity, and uses all his strength to resist talking back to the demon – something the ritual strictly forbids – he hears him laugh mockingly; and a moment later, when he has knelt down to read the praise, he is sent reeling to the floor by a triad from one of hell’s organs.

Can you really not remember me?
the demon voice shouts, to make itself heard above the din.
I’ve played the keyboard for you before, remember?

Del Moro staggers to his feet. Inside him the organ music is playing another piece by Clementi with a force he’d never have thought possible.

“
Credo in Jesum,”
he shouts, taking off his garment and smearing holy oil on his chest in the sign of the cross.

The organ music turns into a slow improvisation. His intestines cramp in fear. On the spot where his double, in the dream, had chopped a hole in the skin immediately under his left nipple, a small green-coloured viper sticks out its tail. Panic-stricken, he claws at it, but the monster manages to slip back into his body as a new peal of demonic laughter fills the air.

He is on the verge of vomiting. Everywhere on his stomach and chest little holes are opening up where worms, larvae and reptiles’ spawn rear their heads. From his body he discerns a strong stench of putrefaction rising, as if he were already dead. And again the demon starts screaming at him.

So much sin gathered in your breast . . . so many evil deeds, so much horror . . . are you really seeing all this? Or am I distorting your vision? Come on, you can remember me if you want to . . . your little organ virtuoso . . .

The awls!
another voice breaks out inside him.
Expel him with your silver awls!

Imagining it to be the archangel Michael coming to his rescue at the last moment, del Moro reaches out gratefully for one of the awls in his bag; the ones he uses to ascertain whether the possessed can still feel pain in warts and witches’ marks.

The voices are merging inside him now, a whole chorus, a cacophony of devils and angels, or so it seems to him, fighting for the mastery of his soul. Once again, in the hole under his left nipple, a demon rears its repulsive face, but much to his relief it flees back into his chest when he prods the silver awl at the cavity.