Текст книги "The Exorcist"

Автор книги: William Peter Blatty

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Текущая страница: 18 (всего у книги 18 страниц)

    "Dennings?"

    "No, no, purely hypothetical. You wouldn't be familiar with it. Nothing. Not at all."

    Karras nodded.

    "Like a ritual witchcraft murder, this looks," the detective continued broodingly. He was frowning, picking words slowly. "And let us say in this house–this hypothetical house–there are living five, and that one must be the killer." with his hand, he made flat, chopping motions of emphasis, "Now, I know this–I know this–I know this for a fact." Then he paused, slowly exhaling breath. "But then the problem.... All the evidence–well, It points to a child, Father Karras; a little girl maybe ten, twelve years old... just a baby; she could maybe be my daughter." He kept his eyes fixed on the embankment beyond them. "Yes, I know: sounds fantastic... ridiculous... but true. Now there comes to this house, Father, a priest–very famous–and this case being purely hypothetical, Father, I learn through my also hypothetical genius that this priest has once cured a very special type illness. An illness which is mental, by the way, a fact I mention just in passing for your interest."

    Karras felt himself turning grayer by the moment.

    "Now also there is... satanism involved in this illness, it happens, plus... strength... yes, incredible strength. And this... hypothetical girl, let us say, then, could... twist a man's head around, you see. Yes, she could." He was nodding now. "Yes... yes, she could. Now the question.." He grimaced thoughtfully. "You see... you see, the girl is not responsible, Father. She's demented." He shrugged. "And just a child! A child!" He shook his head. "And yet the illness that she has... it could be dangerous. She could kill someone else. Who's to know?" He again squinted out across the river. "It's a problem. What to do? Hypothetically, I mean. Forget it? Forget it and hope she gets"–Kinderman paused–"gets well?" He reached for a handkerchief. "Father, I don't know... I don't know." He blew his nose. "It's a terrible decision; just awful." He was searching for a clean, unused section of handkerchief. "Awful. And I hate to be the one who has to make it." He again blew his nose and lightly dabbed at a nostril. "Father, what would be right in such a case? Hypothetically? What do you believe would be the right thing to do?"

    For an instant, the Jesuit throbbed with rebellion, with a dull, weary anger at the piling on of weight. He let it ebb. He met Kinderman's eyes and answered softly, "I would put it in the hands of a higher authority."

    "I believe it is there at this moment," breathed Kinderman.

    "Yes... and I would leave it there."

    Their gazes locked. Then Kinderman pocketed the handkerchief. "Yes... yes, I thought you would say that." He nodded, then glanced at the sunset. "So beautiful. A sight" He tugged back his sleeve for a look at his wrist watch. "Ah, well, I have to go. Mrs. K will be shrieking now: 'The dinner, it's cold!' " He turned back to Karras. "Thank you, Father. I feel better... much better. Oh, incidentally, you could maybe do a favor? Give a message? If you meet a man named Engstrom, tell him–well, say, 'Elvira is in a clinic, she's all right.' He'll understand. Would you do that? I mean, if you should meet him."

    Karras was puzzled. Then, "Sure," he said. "Sure."

    "Look, we couldn't make a film some night, Father?"

    The Jesuit looked down and murmured, "Soon."

    " 'Soon.' You're like a rabbi when he mentions the Messiah: always 'Soon.' Listen, do me another favor, please, Father." The detective looked gravely concerned. "Stop this running round the track for a little. Just walk. Walk. Slow down. You'll do that?"

    "I'll do that."

    Hands in his pocket, the detective looked down at the sidewalk in resignation. "I know." He sighed wearily. "Soon. Always soon." As he started away, his head still lowered, he reached up a hand to the Jusuit's shoulder. Squeezed. "Elia Kazan sends regards:"

    For a time, Karras watched him as he listed down the street. Watched with wonder. With fondness. And surprise at the heart's labyrinthine turnings. He. looked up at the clouds washed in pink above the river, then beyond to the west, where they drifted at the edge of the world, glowing faintly, like a promise remembered. He put the side of his fist against his lips and looked down against the sadness as it welled from his throat toward the corners of his eyes. He waited. Dared not risk another glance at the sunset. He looked up at Regan's window, then went back to the house.

    Sharon let him in and said nothing had changed. She had a bundle of foul-smelling laundry in her hands. She excused herself. "I've got to get this downstairs to the washer."

    He watched her. Thought of coffee. But now he heard the demon croaking viciously at Merrin. He started toward the staircase. Then remembered the message. Karl Where was he? He turned to ask Sharon and glimpsed her disappearing down the basement steps. In a fog, he went to the kitchen.

    No Karl. Only Chris. She was sitting at the table looking down at... an album? Pasted photographs. Scraps of paper. Cupped hands at her forehead obscured her from his view.

    "Excuse me," said Karras very softly. "Is Karl in his room?"

    She shook her head. "He's on an errand," she whispered huskily. Karras heard her sniffle. Then, "There's coffee there, Father," Chris murmured. "It ought to perc in just a minute."

    As Karras glanced over at the percolator light, he heard Chris getting up from the table, and when he turned he saw her moving quickly past him with her face averted. He heard a quavery "Excuse me." She left the kitchen.

    His gaze shifted to the album. He walked over and looked down. Candid photos. A young girl. With a pang, Karras realized he was looking at Regan: here, blowing out candles on a whipped-creamy birthday cake; here, sitting on a lakefront dock in shorts and a T-shirt, waving gaily at the camera. Something was stenciled on the front of the T-shirt. CAMP... He could not make it out.

    On the opposite page a ruled sheet of paper bore the script of a child: If instead of just clay I could take all the prettiest things Like a rainbow, Or clouds or the way a bird sings, Maybe then, Mother dearest, If I put them all together, I could really make a sculpture of you.

    Below the poem: I LOVE YOU! HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY! The signature, in pencil, was Rags.

    Karras shut his eyes. He could not bear his chance meeting. He turned away wearily and waited for the coffee to brew. With lowered head, he gripped the counter and again closed his eyes, Shut it out! he thought; shut it all out! But he could not, and as he listened to the thump of the percolating coffee, his hands began to tremble and compassion swelled suddenly and blindly into rage at disease and at pain, at the suffering of children and the frailty of the body, at the monstrous and outrageous corruption of death.

    "If instead of just clay..."

    The rage drained to sorrow and helpless frustration.

    "... all the prettiest things..."

    He could not wait for coffee. He must go... he must do something... help someone... try....

    He left the kitchen. As he passed by the living room, he looked in. Chris was on the sofa, sobbing convulsively, and Sharon was comforting her. He looked away and walked up the stairs, heard the demon roaring frenziedly at Merrin. "... would have lost! You would have lost and you knew it! You scum, Merrin! Bastard! Come back! Come and..." Karras blocked it out.

    "... or the way a bird sings..."

    He realized as he entered the bedroom that he had forgotten to wear a sweater. He looked at Regan. The head was turned away from him, sideways, as the demon continued to rage.

    "... All the prettiest..."

    He went slowly to his chair and picked up a blanket, and only then, in his exhaustion, did he notice Merrin's absence. On the way back to Regan to take a blood-pressure reading, he nearly stumbled over him. Limp and disjointed, he lay sprawled face down on the floor beside the bed. Shocked, Karras knelt. Turned him over. Saw the bluish coloration of his face. Felt for pulse. And in a wrenching, stabbing instant of anguish, Karras realized that Merrin was dead.

    "... saintly flatulence! Die, will you? Die? Karras, heal him!" raged the demon. "Bring him back and let us finish, let us..."

    Heart failure. Coronary artery. "Ah, God!" Karras groaned in a whisper. "God, no!" He shut his eyes and shook his head in disbelief, in despair, and then, abruptly, with a surge of grief, he dug his thumb with savage force into Merrin's pale wrist as if to squeeze from its sinews the lost beat of life.

    "... pious..."

    Karras sagged back and took a deep breath. Then he saw the tiny pills scattered loose on the floor. He picked one up and with aching recognition saw that Merrin had known. Nitroglycerin. He'd known. His eyes red and brimming, Karras looked at Merrin's face. "... go and rest for a little now, Damien."

    "Even worms will not eat your corruption, you..."

    Karras heard the words of the demon and began to tremble with a murderous fury.

    Don't listen!

    "... homosexual..."

    Don't listen! Don't listen!

    A vein stood out angrily on Karras' forehead, throbbing darkly. As he picked up Merrin's hands and started tenderly to place them in the form of a cross, he heard the demon croak, "Now put his cock in his hands!" and a glob of putrid spittle hit the dead man's eye. "The last rites!" mocked the demon. It put back its head and laughed wildly.

    Karras stared numbly at the spittle, eyes bulging. Did not move. Could not hear above the roaring of his blood. And then slowly, in quivering, side-angling jerks, he looked up with a face that was a purpling snarl, an electrifying spasm of hatred and rage. "You son of a bitch!" Karras seethed in a whisper that hissed into air like molten steel. "You bastard!" Though he did not move, he seemed to be uncoiling, the sinews of his neck pulling taut like cables. The demon stopped laughing and eyed him with malevolence. "You were losing! You're a loser! You've always been a loser!" Regan splattered him with vomit. He ignored it. "Yes, you're very good with children!" he said, trembling. "Little girls! Well, come on! Let's see you try something bigger! Come on!" He had his hands out like great, fleshy hooks, beckoning slowly. "Come on! Come on, loser! Try me! Leave the girl and take me! Take me! Come into..."

    It was barely a minute later where Chris and Sharon heard the sounds from above. They were in the study and, dry-eyed, Chris sat in front of the bar while Sharon, behind it, was mixing them a drink. As she set the vodka and tonic on the bar, both the women glanced up at the ceiling. Stumblings. Sharp bumps against furniture. Walls. Then the voice of... the demon? The demon. Obscenities. But another voice. Alternating. Karras? Yes, Karras. Yet stronger. Deeper.

    "No! I won't let you hurt them! You're not going to hurt them! You're coming with..."

    Chris knocked her drink over as she flinched at a violent splintering, at the breaking of glass, and in an instant she and Sharon were racing from the study, up the stairs, to the door of Regan's bedroom, bursting in. They saw the shutters of the window on the floor, ripped off their hinges! And the window! The glass had been totally shattered!

    Alarmed, they rushed forward toward the window, and as they did, Chris saw Merrin on the floor by the bed. She stood rooted in shock. Then she ran to him. Knelt. She gasped. "Oh, my God!" she whimpered "Sharon! Shar, come here! Quick, come–"

    Sharon screamed from the window, and as Chris looked up bloodlessly, gaping, she ran again toward the door.

    "Shar, what is it?"

    "Father Karras! Father Karras!"

    She bolted from the room in hysteria, and Chris got up and ran trembling to the window. She looked below and felt her heart dropping out of her body. At the bottom of the steps on busy M Street, Karras lay crumpled amid a gathering crowd.

    She stared horrified. Paralyzed. Tried to move.

    "Mother?"

    A small, wan voice calling tearfully behind her. Chris gulped. Did not dare to believe or–"What's happening, Mother? Oh, please! Please come here! Mother, please! I'm afraid! I'm a–"

    Chris turned quickly and saw the tears of confusion, the pleading; and suddenly she was racing to the bed, weeping, "Rags! Oh, my baby, my baby! Oh, Rags!"

    Downstairs, Sharon lunged from the house and ran frantically to the Jesuit residence hall. She asked urgently for Dyer. He came quickly to Reception. She told him. He turned pale.

    "Called an ambulance?"

    "Oh, my God, I didn't think!"

    Swiftly Dyer gave instructions to the switchboard operator, then he raced from the hall, followed closely by Sharon. Crossed the street. Down the steps.

    "Let me through, please! Coming through!" As he pushed through the bystanders, Dyer heard murmurs of the litany of indifference. "What happened?"

    "Some guy fell down the steps."

    "Did you...?"

    "Musta been drunk: See the vomit?"

    "Come on, we'll be late for the..."

    Dyer at last broke through, and for a heart-stop-ping instant felt frozen in a timeless dimension of grief, in a space where the air was too painful to breathe. Karras lay crumpled and twisted, on his back; with his head in the center of a growing pool of blood. He was staring vacantly, jaw slack. And now his eyes shifted numbly to Dyer. Leaped alive. Seemed to glow with an elation.

    Some plea. Something urgent.

    "Come on, back now! Move it back!" A policeman. Dyer knelt and put a light, tender hand like a caress against the bruised, gashed face. So many cuts. A bloody ribbon trickled down from the mouth. "Damien..." Dyer paused to still the quaver in his throat, and in the eyes saw that faint, eager shine, the warm plea.

    He leaned closer. "Can you talk?"

    Slowly Karras reached his hand to Dyer's wrist. Staring fixedly, he clutched it. Briefly squeezed.

    Dyer fought back the tears. He leaned closer and put his mouth next to Karras' ear. "Do you want to make your confession now, Damien?"

    A squeeze.

    "Are you sorry for all of the sins of your life and for having offended Almighty God?"

    A squeeze.

    Now Dyer leaned back and as he slowly traced the sign of the cross over Karras, he recited the words of absolution: "Ego te absolvo..."

    An enormous tear rolled down from a corner of Karras' eye, and now Dyer felt his wrist being squeezed even harder, continuously, as he finished the absolution: "... in nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti. Amen."

    Dyer leaned over again with his mouth next to Karras' ear. Waited. Forced the swelling from his throat. And then murmured, "Are you...?" He stopped short as the pressure on his wrist abruptly slackened. He pulled back his head and saw the eyes filled with peace; and with something else: something mysteriously like joy at the end of heart's longing. The eyes were still staring. But at nothing in this world. Nothing here.

    Slowly and tenderly, Dyer slid the eyelids down. He heard the ambulance wail from afar. He began to say, "Good-bye," but could not finish. He lowered his head and wept.

    The ambulance arrived. They put Karras an a stretcher, and as they were loading him aboard, Dyer climbed in and sat beside the intern. He reached over and took Karras' hand.

    "There's nothing you can do for him now, Father," said the intern in a kindly voice. "Don't make it harder on yourself. Don't come."

    Dyer held his gaze on that chipped, torn face. He shook his head.

    The intern looked up to the ambulance rear door, where the driver was waiting patiently. He nodded. The ambulance door went up with a click.

    From the sidewalk, Sharon watched stunned as the ambulance slowly drove away. She heard murmurs from the bystanders.

    "What happened?"

    "Who knows, buddy? Who the hell knows?"

    The wail of the ambulance siren lifted shrill into night above the river until the driver remembered that time no longer mattered. He cut it off. The river flowed quiet again, reaching toward a gentler shore.

EPILOGUE

Late June sunlight streamed through the window of Chris's bedroom. She folded a blouse on top of the contents of the suitcase and closed the lid. She moved quickly toward the door. "Okay, that's all of it," she said to Karl, and as the Swiss came forward to lock the suitcase, she went out into the hall and toward Regan's bedroom. "Hey, Rags, how ya comin'?"

    It was now six weeks since the deaths of the priests. Since the shock. Since the closed investigation by Kinderman. And still there were no answers. Only haunting speculation and frequent awakenings from sleep in tears. The death of Merrin had been caused by coronary artery disease. But as for Karras... "Baffling," Kinderman had wheezed. Not the girl, he'd decided. She'd been firmly secured by restraining straps and sheet. Obviously, Karras had ripped away the shutters, leaping through the window to deliberate death. But why? Fear? An attempt to escape something horrible? No. Kinderman had quickly ruled it out. Had he wished to escape, he could have gone out the door. Nor was Karras in any case a man who would run.

    But then why the fatal leap?

    For Kinderinan, the answer began to take shape in a statement by Dyer making mention of Karras' emotional conflicts: his guilt about his mother; her death; his problem of faith; and when Kinderman added to these the continuous lack of sleep for several days; the concern and the guilt over Regan's imminent death; the demonic attacks in the form of his mother; and finally, the shock of Merrin's death, he sadly concluded that Karras' mind had snapped, had been– shattered by the burden of guilts he could no longer endure. Moreover, in investigating Dennings' death, the detective had learned from his readings on possession that exorcists frequently became possessed, and through just such causes as might here have been present: strong feelings of guilt and the need to be punished, added to the power of autosuggestion. Karras had been ripe. And the sounds of struggle, the priest's altered voice heard by both Chris and Sharon, these seemed to lend weight to the detective's hypothesis.

    But Dyer had refused to accept it. Again and again he returned to the house during Regan's convalescence to talk to Chris. He asked over and over again if Regan was now able to recall what had happened in the bedroom that night. But the answer was always a headshake; or a no; and finally the case was closed.

    Now Chris poked her head into Regan's bedroom; saw her daughter with two stuffed animals in her clutch, staring down with a child's discontent at the packed, open suitcase on her bed. "How are you coming with your packing, honey?" Chris asked her.

    Regan looked up. A little wan. A little gaunt. A little dark beneath the eyes. "There's not enough room in this thing!" She frowned.

    "Well, you can't take it sill, now, sweetheart. Leave it, and Willie will bring the rest. Come on, baby; hurry or we'll miss our plane."

    They were catching an afternoon flight to Los Angeles, leaving Sharon and the Engstrom to close up the house. Then Karl would drive the Jaguar cross-country back home.

    "Oh, okay." Regan pouted mildly.

    "That's my baby." Chris left her and went quickly down the stairs. As she got to the bottom, the door chimes rang. She opened the door.

    "Hi, Chris." It was Father Dyer. "Just come by to say so long."

    "Oh, I'm glad. I was just going to call you myself." She stepped back. "Come on in."

    "No, that's all right, Chris; I know you're in a hurry."

    She took his hand and drew him in. "Oh, please! I was just about to have a cup of coffee."

    "Well, if you're sure..."

    She was. They went to the kitchen, where they sat at the table, drank coffee, spoke pleasantries, while Sharon and the Engstrom bustled back and forth. Chris spoke of Merrin: how awed and surprised she had been at seeing the notables and foreign dignitaries at his funeral. Then they were silent together while Dyer stared down into his cup, into sadness. Chris read his thought. "She still can't remember," she said gently. "I'm sorry."

    Still downcast, the Jesuit nodded. Chris glanced to her breakfast plate. Too nervous and excited, she hadn't eaten. The rose was still there. She picked it up and pensively twisted it, rolling it back and forth by the stem. "And he never even knew her," she murmured absently. Then she held the rose still and flicked her eyes at Dyer. Saw him staring. "What do you think really happened?" he asked softly. "As a nonbeliever. Do you thinly she was really possessed?"

    She pondered, looking down, still toying with the rose. "Well, like you say... as far as God goes, I am a nonbeliever. Still am. But when it comes to a devil–well, that's something else. I could buy that. I do, in fact. I do. And it isn't just what happened to Rags. I mean, generally." She shrugged. "You come to God and you have to figure if there is one, then he must need a million years' sleep every night or else he tends to get irritable. Know what I mean? He never talks. But the devil keeps advertising, Father. The devil does lots of commercials."

    For a moment Dyer looked at her, and then said quietly, "But if all of the evil in the world makes you think that there might be a devil, then how do you account for all the good in the world?"

    The thought made her squint as she held his gaze. Then she dropped her eyes. "Yeah... yeah," she murmured softly. "That's a point." The sadness and shock of Karras' death settles down on her mood like a melancholy haze. Yet through it, she saw a speckled point of light, and tried to focus on it, remembering Dyer as he had walked her to her car at the cemetery after Karras' funeral. "Can you come to the house for a while?" she'd asked him. "Oh, I'd like to, but I can't miss the feast," he replied. She looked puzzled. "When a Jesuit dies," he explained to her, "we always have a feast. For him it's a beginning, so we celebrate."

    Chris had another thought. "You said Father Karras had a problem with his faith."

    Dyer nodded.

    "I can't believe that," she said. "I've never seen such faith in my life."

    "Taxi here, madam."– Chris came out of her reverie. "Thanks, Karl. Okay." She and Dyer stood up. "No, you stay, Father. I'll be right down. I'm just going upstairs get Rags."

    He nodded absently and watched her leave. He was thinking of Karras' puzzling last words, the shouts overheard from below before his death. There was something there. What was it? He didn't know. Both Chris's and Sharon's recollections had been vague. But now he thought once again of that mysterious look of joy in Karras' eyes. And something else, suddenly remembered: a deep and fiercely shining glint of... triumph? He wasn't sure, yet oddly he felt lighter. Why lighter? he wondered.

    He walked to the entry hall. Hands in his pockets, he leaned against the doorway and watched as Karl helped stow luggage in the cab. It was humid and hot and he wiped his brow, then turned at the sound of footsteps coming down the staircase. Chris and Regan, hand in hand. They came toward him. Chris kissed his cheek. Then she held her hand to it, probing his eyes tenderly.

    "It's all right," he said. Then he shrugged. "I've got a feeling it's all right."

    She nodded. "I'll call you from L. A. Take care."

    Dyer glanced down at Regan. She was frowning at him, as at a sudden remembrance of forgotten concern. Impulsively, she reached up her arms to him. He leaned over and she kissed him. Then she stood for a moment, still staring at him oddly. No, not at him: at his round Roman collar.

    Chris looked away. "Come on," she said huskily, taking Regan's hand. "We'll be late, hon. Come on."

    Dyer watched as they moved away. Returned Chris's wave. Saw her blow a kiss, then pile quickly after Regan into the cab. And as Karl climbed in front beside the driver, Chris waved again through the window. The taxi pulled away. Dyer walked over to the curb. Watched. Soon the cab turned a corner and was gone.

    From across the street, he heard a squeal of brakes. He looked. A police car. Kinderman emerging. The detective moved slowly around the car and waddled toward Dyer. He waved. "I came to say good-bye."

    "You just missed them."

    Kinderman stopped in his tracks, crestfallen, "They're gone?"

    Dyer nodded.

    Kinderman looked down the street and shook his head. Then he glanced up at Dyer. "How's the girl?"

    "She seemed fine."

    "Ah, that's good. Very good. Well, that's all that's important." He looked away. "Well, back to business," he wheezed. "Back to work. Bye, now, Father.-" He turned and took a step toward the squad car, then stopped and turned back to stare speculatively at Dyer. "You go to films, Father Dyer? You like them?"

    "Oh, sure."

    "I get passes." He hesitated for a moment. "In fact, I've got a pass for the Crest tomorrow night. you'd like to go?"

    Dyer had his hands in his pockets, "What's playing?"

    "Wuthering Heights"

    "Who's in it?"

    "Heathcliff, Jackie Gleason, and in the role Cathrine Earnshaw, Lucille Ball. You're happy?"

    "I've seen it," said Dyer without expression.

    Kinderman stared limply for a moment. Looked away. "Another one," he murmured. Then he stepped to the sidewalk, hooked an arm through Dyer's and slowly started walking him down the street. "I'm reminded of a line in the film Casablanca," he said fondly. "At the end Humphrey Bogart says to Claude Rains: 'Louie–I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.' "

    "You know, you look a little bit like Bogart."

    "You noticed."

    In forgetting, they were trying to remember.

The End

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