Apprehensions and Other Delusions (8 page)

They drove in silence, and when they reached the restaurant they were told that it would be a twenty-minute wait until they could be seated. Eric accepted this with a shrug and left his name with the hostess. “No smoking.”

“It might be a little longer for that,” the hostess warned.

Muir found a table as far from the large-screen TV as possible and held the chair for Fanchon. “I’ve spent the afternoon going over the tape we made in your flat. It’s almost completely silent,” he said as they were waiting for his name to be called. “There are sounds of you moving about the flat, talking to yourself occasionally, and muttering about the noise, but for the rest, there’s a few whispers and something that could be the sound of traffic in the street. We took more than four hours to go over the tape. We can make out a little rhythmic pattern, but that’s all there is.”

“Oh, come off it,” she said, not willing to fight about it.

He looked directly at her, as if eye contact would convince her where explanations would not. “I’m telling you the truth, Fanchon. I listened to it first, and we checked out the equipment, to make sure it was working right. It’s delicate and sophisticated, and if there were any sounds there that were real sounds, that machine would pick them up. I guarantee it. No question. It didn’t fail. We checked it for that.”

“Then there has to be noise on the tape,” Fanchon said reasonably. “Lots of noise.”

“As I’ve already told you, only a few whispers and the hint of rhythm. Nothing else. Nothing like what I heard in your flat. I know what I heard in your flat, and it isn’t on the tape.”

“Oh.” She realized her appetite was gone. No matter what they were serving tonight, she could not eat it.

“I don’t know what’s going on there yet, but I want to put my graduate students on it.” He looked over at her. “I know it isn’t convenient for you, but all that noise has to be less convenient than a couple of students monitoring the noise. Can’t you stick out a couple days more?”

“And then it’ll be over?” she said wistfully.

“I don’t know. I damn well hope so. You don’t want any more of the noise, and neither do I. But we’ll have a better understanding about it than we have now, that much is certain.” He paused as the waitress approached. “I think our table is ready.”

“Fine,” she said, rising and following him so automatically that she might have been mechanical instead of human. “Lead the way.”

“Come on,” said Eric. “Let’s get some food into you.”

She couldn’t eat much at dinner, no matter how she tried. She was embarrassed that Eric had to pay when she wasn’t able to eat anything. By the time he drove them back to the house, she was so tired that all she wanted was a chance to sleep the clock around. Maybe, she thought as she opened her front door, I should give up and move out. Maybe I should call Peterson and tell him I can’t deal with this any longer.

The noise pressed on her like thick blankets when she went to bed. All attempts at sleep were useless.

For three more days there was no news from Eric Muir. Fanchon saw him only once, and he had nothing to say to her then. She made herself go to her classes, did extra research to keep away from her flat, and tried to catch naps at her office when her partner was off doing other things. She wasn’t certain if the noise were getting worse or if she were losing her ability to cope.

When she met Naomi for lunch, Naomi said that it was probably nerves, since she—Fanchon—had gone so long without real sleep. Going without sleep was an invitation to disaster. She wanted Fanchon to know that at any other time she would have taken her into her house. But Bill had just moved in, and there was less time for things outside their relationship.

Her own depression deepened as Fanchon once again wished Naomi the best of luck.

The next morning when she returned from running fifteen minutes early, she saw Eric Muir was waiting for her.

“We’ve been over the tapes and over them,” he said without any greeting. “It’s still a mystery, but we’ve been able to add a few more wrinkles to the mystery. That might or might not help you out.” He indicated the stairs to his flat. “I’ve got some fresh coffee brewing.”

“I ought to shower,” said Fanchon, but followed him up the stairs.

“There really are some words in that noise, did you realize that?” he said when he offered her a white mug filled with hot coffee.

“Really?” She didn’t care about the words, just the noise. She had nothing to contribute to his revelations.

“And they’re recognizable with a little fiddling with the tape.” He sat down opposite her. “They’re from a song that was popular back in the early seventies, done by a local group called The Spectres. They never got very far, and apparently they broke up in seventy-four or -five. Their lead guitarist went to a better band, their main songwriter went to L.A. to write lyrics for commercials—they tell me he’s been very successful—but the others just ... disappeared.”

“Okay.” Fanchon tugged at her fleece pullover. “So they disappeared. What has that to do with the noise in my flat. If anything?” She thought about the many times she had used the present to make a bridge to the past, for she did it often in her classes. But what could a rock band have to do with a history instructor?

“I said disappeared,” Eric repeated.

“College towns are like that,” Fanchon reminded him. “Take any five-year period and about a third of the town will change.”

Eric ignored her. “And no one knows what became of them. We called the two we could locate and they haven’t heard from the other four since they broke up, and that was years and years ago. They don’t know what became of the others.”

“What’s all this leading up to?” Fanchon asked, drinking the coffee he offered her. It was strong and bitter; she found it very satisfying.

“People disappear. They disappear all the time and no one really notices, especially in a place like this. Students move and transfer and drop out. No one expects them to stick around, so they don’t pay much attention when they go.” He held up his hand. “Bear with me.”

“Go ahead.” There was some noise in his flat, but not very much, nothing like what she endured downstairs.

He gathered his thoughts. “People disappear. We always assume they go somewhere else. And in a certain sense, they do. Everyone goes somewhere; into a grave or ... away.”

“Is this physics or mysticism?” Fanchon asked, looking past him to the window where tree branches waved.

“It’s something between the two, probably,” he answered without a trace of embarrassment. “Consider this: a person disappears sideways, to use a metaphor. This person goes somewhere else not spatially but dimensionally.”

“More spooks,” said Fanchon. “Naomi suggested poltergeists.”

Eric would not be distracted. “And when there is someone who is also slipping away—”

“Now, wait a minute—”

He went on. “When someone is slipping toward the same dimension, they become sensitized, like an electric eye, and ... and that person, it’s as if they’re being drawn to that sideways place. Do you follow this at all?”

“Not really, no,” she lied.

“You’re triggering this because—”

“You mean it’s my fault? I’m going sideways and all this noise is the result?” She put down the mug. “A few unsuccessful rock musicians disappear fifteen or twenty years ago, and this noise is the result? And it’s my fault?” She started to leave, but he took hold of her wrist.

“You live alone, you do most of your work alone. You have no close friends here, and your family is scattered. That makes you—”

“Makes me what, Dr. Muir?” She pulled away from him; she slammed the door as she left.

“Fanchon!”

Outside, she paused long enough to shout, “Just do something about the noise, that’s all!”

Back in her own flat, she listened for the words that Eric claimed could be heard in the sounds, but she could make no sense of it. She went to the bathroom and filled the tub, hoping that a warm soak would help her to sleep. She felt sweaty and sticky, and solid as granite. She wanted to be free of Eric Muir’s absurd notions. “He’s ridiculous,” she remarked to the walls as she peeled off her clothes. It would serve him right if she used all the hot water and he had to shave with cold. “He doesn’t want to tell Peterson to fix the wiring, or whatever’s wrong. He’s making it up.” She stared into the full-length mirror on the back of the bathroom door, examining herself. In the cream-colored, steamy bathroom, her pallor made her appear transparent.

She leaned back in the bath, letting the pulse of the music blend with the movement of the water and the blood in her veins. It wasn’t as bad as she used to think, that music. Once you accepted it, it could be fairly pleasant. The music wasn’t as disruptive as Muir’s ludicrous theories. Her life, she thought, was not so empty as Muir had made it sound. It was not awful or painful or degrading; it was not pleasant or fulfilling or challenging. It was just ... ordinary, she supposed.

Perhaps it was nothing, and she was nothing, too. She laughed, but could not hear herself laugh over the welling music.

* * *

“Do you hear something?” Sandra asked Paul as they stopped at the top of the stairs, a bookcase balanced between them.

“Just my joints cracking,” said Paul. “Where do you think this ought to go?”

“In the living room, I guess,” she said.

“It’d probably make more sense to put it in the hall,” he said.

She nodded at once. “Sure. In the hall’s fine.” She got into position to drag the bookcase a few feet further.

“We were lucky to get this place on such short notice,” he said for the third time that morning.

“Great,” she said. “We didn’t have a lot of time to pick and choose.”

“All the more reason to be glad this place was available.” He shoved at the bookcase, cursing.

“The upstairs neighbor said it was haunted.” She hadn’t intended to tell him that, but she was getting tired of his insistence at their luck.

“Hey, he’s a theoretical physicist. Peterson told me about him. You know what those guys are like. Give me engineering any day.” He stood up. “Why don’t you bring up a couple of boxes? I can manage the sofa cushions on my own.”

“Fine,” she said, glad to escape. As she came back up the stairs, she paused once more. “He said—the man upstairs—that she just disappeared. The woman who used to live here.”

“Come on, Sandra,” Paul protested. “What’s in the box?”

“Kitchen things,” she said, squeezing by him. As she passed the bathroom door, she paused again. “Do you hear something?”

“Not again.”He rounded on her. “This is an old house. It makes noise. We’re not used to it. Okay?”

She continued to listen, a distant, distracted frown blighting her face. “I could swear I heard ...”

“There’s a lot to unload,” he warned her.

She made herself go to the kitchen and put the box down. She stood listening a few minutes.

“Sandra!”

She shook her head. “Never mind,” she said. “It’s nothing.”

About
Become So Shining That We Cease to Be

This story probably developed out of visiting a flat here in Berkeley, which, owing to some engineering oddities, magnified sounds from the apartment next door. The couple living there joked about their “haunted house” and it eventually—a decade later—mutated into this flat. The characters in the story came from wherever it is characters come from.

IN THE
name
of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, Amen. I, Brother Luccio, at the behest of the Prior of this monastery, have recorded the Confession of the lunatic known as Brother Rat, though he has said he was once known as Bertoldo Cimoneisi and was an apothecary by trade—the records of the monastery show no such name or calling among the entries, but it may be that this is truly his name and his profession, for he spoke it under the Seal of Confession. Then again, it may be more of his madness.

Brother Rat has been confined here for sixteen years, during which time he has had no visitors—no inquiries have been made for his welfare and no one has attempted to seek him out. Upon his delivery here by the Secular Arm, it was stated that his family and relatives were dead of the Plague that came to Amalfi in the Kingdom of Napoli twenty years ago. He had been given to the Secular Arm before being entrusted to our care, for it was thought that he was filled with heretical notions. When he was given to our care, the Secular Arm had conducted a Process against him. It is written in the records of the monastery that all the fingers of his left hand were broken, that he was blind in his right eye, and that all the lower teeth had been taken from his head. Because of the answers he had given during this Questioning, it was decided that Brother Rat was not a heretic but a madman, and thus was sent to us.

During the last winter, which has lingered well into spring, Brother Rat developed a cough that has not lessened as the weather grows warmer but instead has grown more fierce with each passing day so that it is now acknowledged that there is no medicine but the Hand of God that can deliver him. To that end, so that he may come shriven to the Mercy Seat, I have been entrusted with the task of recording the Confession of Brother Rat for delivery to the Secular Arm and for inclusion in the records of this monastery. May God grant that I perform my mandate without error for His greater Glory.

Because Brother Rat is known to be dangerous, he has been confined to a cell alone. There is a window in the cell, set near the ceiling so that he cannot see out. His legs are shackled and a chain holds him to a cleat in the wall that allows him little more than twice his height in range. He has a pallet for sleep and the rushes are changed twice a year. A single blanket is provided him in the summer, two in the winter. He is fed twice a day, as are all the fifty-four madmen confined within our walls. There is a privy hole in the floor of his cell. He is clothed in a peasant’s smock, for it is not fitting that any who are mad should be habited as monks. Brother Rat is very thin, and the cough has taken more flesh from him so that his face is gaunt as a skull. He has some hair left, most of it grey, as is his beard. The nails on his right hand are very long, but on the left they do not grow well since the fingers were broken. His speech is not easily understood because he has so few teeth, nonetheless I have striven to record every word correctly, and if I have not been accurate, I beg forgiveness and offer as my excuse the difficulty of discerning his words.

When Brother Emmerano and I entered the cell, Brother Rat was lying upon his pallet. He blinked many times at the light of the three torches we brought, and shielded his one sighted eye until he was accustomed to the brightness. As he saw who we were, he spoke.

“So I’m dying.” He raised himself, spitting copiously as he did. “About time. Perhaps God is more merciful than I thought.”

Brother Emmerano blessed the poor madman, and then said, “This is Brother Luccio, who will record everything we say here. He is a scribe and a true monk who will take care to be correct in what he writes. I am come to take your Confession.” He spoke slowly and clearly, for he has often maintained that madmen are more sensible when they are addressed in this way. “Two of the lay Brothers wait outside the door.”

Brother Rat barked; he might have meant to cough or to laugh. “I cannot attack anyone, Brothers. I am burning with fever and I’m all but starved. You’d better give me some water, out of charity, or I will not be able to speak with you for long.” He folded his arms and looked from Brother Emmerano to me with the expression of a man who finds a corpse laid out at his door.

“Be calm.” Brother Emmerano signaled to be brought his stool, and for my bench and table. “There is a cask of wine being brought, not sacramental wine for your absolution, which we will provide when your Confession is complete—we will use this to ease your cough. We will be prepared presently.” He then nodded toward me. “Remember all of this, Brother Luccio, for you must write it down.”

I bowed my head and prayed that God would not take the words from me before my vellum was spread and my ink ground. “I ask that you do not speak too much more until I am prepared,” I begged, and was rewarded with silence until the lay Brothers had brought what we needed. Once I was in position, I raised my hood so that my face was shadowed, so that I would be nothing more than a cipher during the Confession. I had four nibs cut and ready in case one should fail. I nodded to Brother Emmerano and put my pen into the ink.

“It is for the salvation of your soul that we seek to hear your Confession, Brother Rat,” said Brother Emmerano. “God has blighted your wits, or you were a tool of Satan. Thus you have passed your life here, where you can do no greater harm or call up the forces of Hell to aid you. Either way, you will need to have peace in your life before you depart it, for Grace to be yours.”

“What does a madman know of Grace, and a drunken one at that? I haven’t tasted wine for more than fifteen years—how many sips will make me senseless, do you think?” Brother Rat asked angrily. “I am addled as it is. God will have mercy on me.”

Brother Emmerano nodded slowly. “It is touching to know that faith remains in your heart, Brother Rat. But if you are to be spared more suffering, you must reveal all you can recall in your Confession, and thereby find absolution and redemption.”

“So you must take even this,” said Brother Rat, as if he shouldered a great burden. He watched as the lay Brother poured out a cupful of wine from the small cask, a bariletto. It was the same wine the Brothers drank at supper, a thin young red that turned sour quickly.

“Do not say disrespectful things, Brother Rat,” said Brother Emmerano. “It will not profit your soul to run wild this way. Your madness is beyond you, but try to govern your words.” He folded his hands and murmured a prayer before he addressed Brother Rat again. “Can you tell me how you came to be here? Do you recall what is the cause of your madness, or has God hidden that from you?”

Brother Rat coughed and tears ran from his eyes; as soon as he could he took a long draught of the wine. He drew his smock more tightly around him. “Leave me alone.”

“Were we tools of Satan, we would,” said Brother Emmerano. He touched the Corpus that hung around his neck. “If we were heathen, we would not bring you this comfort. But as Christian monks, we cannot abandon you.”

For a short while, Brother Rat continued to cough between sips of wine, then lay back and stared up at the window. “If I don’t talk to you, you will only return, won’t you?”

“We have our duty to our faith,” said Brother Emmerano. He folded his hands again.

“Oh, yes,” said Brother Rat, his face taking on a strange light, as if the torches had made another fever in him. He tugged his single blanket higher around his shoulders. “I wish you’d left the second blanket, but since Easter has come and gone, I suppose you ...” He choked, and turned away.

“Let us hear your Confession, Brother Rat,” said Brother Emmerano with admirable persistence. “Let us bring you the joy of Communion before you are too ill to know what is happening to you. Strive to keep God in your heart so that you will not fail.”

“Ah.” The madman put his taloned hand to his blind eye. “You are not content to have me die, it must be on your terms.” His speech seemed to be that of an educated man when you made allowances for his teeth. He addressed Brother Emmerano with curiosity, as if his question were of nothing more than the quality of fruit grown in the orchard. “What is the reason this time?”

“You are corrupted, Brother Rat. You are the tool of Satan when you speak in that way.” Brother Emmerano refilled the cup. “Here. Let this good wine calm your body and your soul.” He watched while Brother Rat took the wine. “Soon you will stand before God, and the Book will be open before Him. All you have done is written there. In
your madness you may forget now, but then there will be no forgetting, and without mercy you will suffer the pains of Hell for eternity.” He paused. “I have heard it said that you were in Amalfi at the time of the Plague. Many who did not die of it were touched in their wits because of what God visited on that city.”

“It was years and years and years and years ago,” said Brother Rat, not bothering to look at Brother Emmerano. “It remains only in my dreams, and they are not sweet. What happened then is between God and me.”

“You claimed that to the Secular Arm,” said Brother Emmerano gently, “and they feared you were a heretic. You were examined by the Secular Arm, it is in the document that sent you here. Before they discovered your madness, they strove to cleanse you of heresy.” He blessed himself, in case the dangerous word would bring contagion to him. “And though you are mad, what you say is heretical.”

Brother Rat laughed and then doubled over coughing. His thin, mangled hand shot out and seized the cup. He drank quickly and deeply. “Why not, why not?” he asked of nothing and no one we could see. With that he turned toward Brother Emmerano. “My chest rattles like a tinker’s pack and the fever roasts my vitals. Tonight, tomorrow, a day or two at most and I will be gone from here at last. I will escape you, and the Secular Arm.” He gestured for more wine before Brother Emmerano could protest so reprehensible a statement. “Go ahead. I’ll tell you what you want to know. You can’t do anything to me now; you could torture me and it would mean nothing, for I would die at once.” He leaned back on his pallet, looking up toward the diffuse light at the window. “Sometimes I can see shadows of things, just there on the wall. Other than that, I have seen nothing but monks and stones for sixteen years. Sixteen years.” Another cough rasped out of him. There were two bright places in the hollows of his cheeks and sweat shone on his forehead.

“You know that?” Brother Emmerano asked, a bit surprised.

“I used to count the days, make months and years of them. Now I measure them by Easters.” He closed his eyes.

“Resurrection,” said Brother Emmerano with satisfaction.

“If you prefer,” Brother Rat answered. He rolled to his side and looked directly at Brother Emmerano. “How long have you been here? Not in this cell, a monk in this monastery?”

“I came here eleven years ago, from Benevento.” He waited as Brother Rat stared hard at him. He went on when Brother Rat appeared to be satisfied with his response. “It is said you came from Amalfi.”

Brother Rat shrugged. “I have been here longer than you have.” He regarded Brother Emmerano. “Where is this monastery? They didn’t tell me when they brought me here, and”—he indicated his missing lower teeth—“I was not able to ask in any case.”

“We are near Anagni, in Campagna. They brought you from Napoli.” He considered pouring more wine, then did not.

“From Napoli. That was where the Secular Arm had me,” said Brother Rat. “They have prisons in Napoli, such prisons. This is nothing compared to them.” He moved his hand to indicate his cell.

“This is not a prison, Brother Rat.” Brother Emmerano could not keep his voice even, for it vexed him to hear such things, even from a madman.

“I am shackled and kept in a cell,” said Brother Rat. “What difference to me that it is monks and not soldiers who lock the doors?”

Brother Emmerano stiffened. “This monastery cares for the mad. We have none of the Secular Arm here.” He leaned forward. “You are nearing the end, but I still may have you beaten if you are taken by a demon. I do not want to bring you more suffering now, but if it is necessary I will do it.”

“I am sure you will,” said Brother Rat softly. He finished the wine in his cup and set the cup aside. “I would not live through the beating, not now.” He made himself sit up, moving slowly as much from the wine he had drunk as from the hold of his sickness. “So I came here to Anagni from Napoli.” He put his hand to his chest as if to contain his coughing in his hands. “What did the Secular Arm tell you?”

“That you claim to have been an apothecary and that you were speaking heresy, or so they feared.” Brother Emmerano nodded encouragement. “Go on, Brother Rat. Let me hear this Confession. Reveal all that you have hidden for so long so that you will be absolved of your sins before you appear before God.” Zeal made Brother Emmerano speak more loudly, and he paused as he realized he had raised his voice.

“It was because of the Black Plague,” said Brother Rat after being silent for a time. “The Plague was enough to make heretics of saints and angels. It had more than enough martyrs.” He fell silent again.

“Those are dangerous thoughts, Brother Rat,” said Brother Emmerano. “It is not strange that the Secular Arm should confine you if you made these accusations when the Plague came.”