desire to spend Christmas with his parishioners.
“It’s funny,” he said, “but they get angry if you don’t have a drink with every one of them. It’s the same thing at New Year’s, and Easter, with the blessed food, is the worst of all. I’m not supposed to drink now, but you think they care about my health? I’m in no hurry. It’s better if I stay here, professor,” he told Pajaczkowski, “if you don’t throw me out.”
Pajaczkowski had a weakness for the Church. It was only thanks to him that two Sisters of Charity notorious for their merciless treatment of patients had not been dismissed years ago when a ministerial commission came to investigate the death of a patient who had been scalded in the bathtub. Actually, they left a few weeks later, under his covert pressure. At least that was the story.
Now the priest was trying to talk Pajaczkowski into letting him hold Mass next Sunday in the little chapel against the north wall of the yard. He had already checked to make sure there would be no problems with the local parish, and he had everything he needed, except for Pajaczkowski’s permission. The director wanted to go ahead, but was afraid of what his colleagues might say. Everyone knew that Mass in an insane asylum was a circus. It was all right for the staff, but the priest thought that the healthier patients at least would be up to it as well.
Pajaczkowski was sweating, but when he finally agreed, he calmed down at once. Then he remembered some pressing business and excused himself.
That was when Stefan arrived. “Well, Father, no more visits from the Princess?” he asked, looking around the unkempt garden. The leaves were falling from the trees on the ridge faster than from those on lower ground. At first Stefan did not realize that he had hurt the priest’s feelings.
“My mind, dear doctor, may be compared to a musical instrument with a few strings out of tune. The soul, that marvelous artist, was therefore unable to play the proper melody. But now, since you gentlemen have treated me, I am completely healthy. And grateful.”
“In other words, Father, you are comparing us to piano-tuners,” said Stefan with an inward smile, though he maintained his serious expression. “Perhaps you’re right,” he went on. “A nineteenth-century theologian is said to have stated that the telodendria, the edges of nerve cells, are immersed in the universal ether—except that physics had already disproved the existence of the ether.”
“Not long ago there was a different note in your voice,” the priest said sadly. “Please excuse the obsession of a former patient, doctor, but it seems to me that Mr. Sekulowski has acted on you like wormwood. You are naturally good-hearted, but seeing him has given you a bitter streak that, I am sure, is foreign to you.”
“Good-hearted?” Stefan laughed. “Me? That is a compliment I have usually been spared, Father.”
“I do hope that you will come on Sunday. It only remains for you to give me your recommendation as to which of the patients should be allowed to take part in the Mass. On the one hand I would like as many of them as possible to be there, since it has been so many years, while on the other…” He hesitated.
“I understand,” said Stefan. “In my view, however, the plan is inadvisable.”
“Inadvisable?” The priest was visibly disheartened. “Don’t you think that…”
“I think there are times when even God could compromise Himself.”
The priest looked down. “Indeed. Unfortunately, I know full well that I will be unable to find the right words, because I am just an ordinary village priest. I admit that when I was in school I dreamed of meeting an unbelieving but powerful spirit. So that I could harness it and lead it…”
“Harness it? That sounds strange, Father.”
“I was thinking of harnessing it with love, but that was a sin. I only realized that later: the sin of pride. Then I discovered that living among people teaches us many other things. I know very well how little I am worth. Every one of you doctors has a whole battery of arguments that could demolish my priestly wisdom.”
Stefan was annoyed by the priest’s mawkish tone. He looked around.
The patients were walking along the paths to the building; it was dinner time.
“Let’s keep this between us,” Stefan said, starting to leave. “And you know, Father, our bond of secrecy is as strict as yours, leaving heaven out of it. But tell me something. Have you ever had doubts, Father?”
“What kind of answer do you want, doctor?”
“I would like to hear the truth.”
“Forgive me: it seems that you seldom open the Gospels. Please take a look at chapters 27 and 46 of Saint Matthew. More than once, those have been my words,”
The priest left. The yard was almost empty. The cherry-colored robes moved so evenly that an unseen force might have been combing them out of the gold-tinged gardens. Last of all came an orderly smoking a cigarette. As Stefan walked past a bare lilac bush, he saw someone crouching behind it. He wanted to call the orderly, but stopped himself. The patient, bent low, was clumsily stroking the silvery grass with a stiff hand.
ACHERON
Stefan was coming back from a walk. Fluffy gold filled the roadside ditches, as if Ali Baba’s mule had passed, spilling sequins from an open sack. A chestnut tree burned against the gray sky like an abandoned suit of armor. In the distance, the forest seemed to be rusting. As Stefan walked, the leaves thickly layered underfoot were alternately yellow and brown, like musical variations on a red theme. Twilight smoldered orange at the end of the path. Faraway orchards faded against the horizon. Leaves blown into a hissing cloud raced among a herd of tree trunks. Stefan was still dazzled by the colors when he entered the library to pick up a book he had left there.
Pajpak was standing at the telephone on the wall, pressing the receiver so hard that his ear had turned white. He was hardly saying anything, just mumbling, “Yes… yes… yes.” Then he said, “Thank you,” and replaced the receiver with both hands.
He stood there, still holding the telephone, and Stefan hurried over.
“My dear, dear colleague,” Pajaczkowski whispered, and Stefan’s heart went out to him.
“Are you feeling weak, professor? Do you want some coramin? I’ll run to the medicine room,”
“No, it’s not that. I mean it’s not me,” the old man mumbled. He stood up straight and guided himself along the wall like a blind man until he reached the window.
The autumn red, laden with the smell of mold and speckled yellow among the leaves, broke against the window like a flood tide.
“It’s the end,” he said abruptly, then repeated: “The end.”
He lowered his gray head.
“I’ll see the dean. Yes, that’s what I’ll do. What time is it?”
“Five.”
“Then he’s sure to be… home.”
The dean was always home.
Turning as if he had just noticed Stefan, he said, “And you’re coming with me.”
“What’s going on, professor?”
“Nothing so far. And God will not allow it. No, He will not let it happen. But we’ll… You come with me as a witness. It’ll be easier for me that way, safer to talk, because you know how His Excellency is.”
A spark of Pajpak’s humor shined in his use of the dean’s ceremonial title, then disappeared.
Going to a doctor’s apartment was one thing, but going to the dean’s was another. The door was plain and white, like all the others. Pajaczkowski tapped too softly to be heard inside.
He waited and tried again, louder. Stefan was about to knock himself, but the director skittishly pushed him away: You don’t know how to do it, you’ll screw it up.
“Come in!”
A powerful voice. It was still reverberating as they entered.
Stefan had seen the room before, but it looked different in the sunset light. The white walls had taken on a fiery color. It looked like a lion’s den. The old gold on the spines of the books seemed like some exotic inlay. The sun tinged the veneer of the sideboard and shelves with a deep mahogany. Pools of light shimmered in the grain of the wood; sparks glinted in the dean’s hair. He was behind his desk as always, leaning over a thick book, staring at Pajpak and Stefan.
Pajaczkowski stammered through his introduction. He apologized, he knew they were interrupting, but
