answer your questions.”
“He was doing well enough talking to all those people. There’s only one of me.”
“But he wasn’t talking. He recites. Everything he says is a quotation.”
Kate took her eyes from the monk and looked at the dean.
“Well then, he can just quote the information I want.”
“It’s not that simple. If the answers to your questions were contained in the Bible or the Church Fathers or Shakespeare or a couple dozen other places, he could give you answers. But a direct question is very difficult. Look, you heard me ask him if he wanted omelette or Chinese food for breakfast, or lunch, whatever you call it this time of day.”
“He didn’t answer you.”
“But he did. He gave me the first part of a quote from Matthew’s Gospel, which ends, ”even as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings.“ Hen: egg. He wants an omelette.”
“But all that… speech he gave.”
“All quotations. First Corinthians, Luke, Matthew. And a bit of Gilbert and Sullivan to you—that’s a first.”
“Why does he talk like that?”
“I don’t know. I just know he never speaks freely. I suspect he carries a fair amount of suffering around with him. Perhaps it’s his way of dealing with it.”
“Would you say that he is mentally disturbed?”
“No more than I am. Probably less, since he doesn’t have any administrative jobs hung around his neck. No, but seriously, he’s not delusional, doesn’t think he’s Jesus. He never mutters and mumbles to invisible beings. He’s always cooperative and helpful. He reacts and understands even if he doesn’t always answer in a way people can understand. The board here discussed his presence—this is not public property, you know, so in effect he has been invited. He stimulates discussion and thought, the students enjoy his stream-of-consciousness talks, and frankly I find him great fun. I love asking him direct questions, just to see how he answers. It’s a game, for both of us.”
Oh, right lots of fun, thought Kate: prospecting the off-the-wall remarks of a religious fanatic in hopes of finding nuggets of sense. Well, since he enjoyed it: “I wonder if I could ask you to stay with me, then, while I talk with him. You can be my translator.”
“I’d be happy to, but I’m leading a seminar in an hour, so could we do it while we eat?”
“No problem.”
In the cafe down the road, the air was thick with the smells of cooking eggs and hot cheese and coffee, the clatter of crockery and voices, the essence of a morning cafe in a university town. Erasmus stepped inside behind the dean, then circled behind the door and propped his staff up in the corner before following the dean to a table next to the window. Kate, behind both of them, noticed the easy familiarity of both men with the place and its patrons, the way they collected and distributed nods.
The waitress knew them, too, and automatically brought two mugs of coffee along with the menus. Erasmus paused in the act of sitting down and rose up again to his full height. After she had put down the coffee and distributed menus, he reached out, took hold of her heavily ringed hand, and, looking into her eyes, black with makeup, declaimed in full rotundity of voice, “The sweet small clumsy feet of April came into the ragged meadow of my soul.”
The waitress blushed scarlet up into the roots of her emerald colored hair and began to giggle uncontrollably. She managed to find out from Kate that yes, coffee would be fine, then took her giggles off to the kitchen.
The dean looked sideways at Kate. “Her name is April,” he said, more as an apology than an explanation.
Kate let them study their menus. The dean did so perfunctorily, then dropped it onto the table. Brother Erasmus read through it thoroughly, as if to memorize it and recite it at a later time, although when April returned with a third mug, he did not recite. When the dean had given his order, Erasmus placed his finger on the menu and April looked over his shoulder, wrote it down on her pad, and looked to Kate for her order. Kate shook her head, and the woman left. No question: The man could communicate when he wanted to. Let’s see how much he wants to, she said to herself.
“They call you Erasmus, I understand,” she said to him. He looked at her with his gentle dark, eyes but said nothing. “Is that your real name?”
“Whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name,” he said, after a brief pause.
“That’s a quote?” she said.
“From Genesis,” contributed the dean. “Er, the Bible.”
“Fine, I’ll call you Erasmus if you like, but I do need to know your real name.”
“That which we call a rose, by any other name would smell as sweet.”
“Shakespeare,” murmured the dean.
“Right. Okay. We’ll come back to names later. You saw the article this morning that one of the homeless men who lives around Golden Gate Park died and that some of his friends there attempted to cremate him. I think the article said his name, as well?”
“He was not the Light,” said Erasmus with a nod.
“You told me that before.”
“Er, Inspector? That phrase is used in the New Testament about John the Baptist,” said the dean. “Was this man’s name John?”
“It was. Did you know John?” she asked Erasmus. Again, there was a short delay before he answered, as if he needed to consult some inner oracle.
“A fellow of infinite jest,” he said dryly.
“Would you take it that means yes?” she asked the dean.
“Probably.”
“This is going to be such a fun report to write up,” she grumbled, and took the mug of coffee from the waitress, poured cream in it, and took a sip. “Sir, can you tell me where you were on Tuesday morning?”
Erasmus smiled at her patiently, tore open a packet of sugar, and stirred it into his own cup.
“Does that mean you don’t remember, or you won’t tell me?”
He put the cup to his lips.
“It may simply mean that he can’t think of a quote that fits the answer,” suggested the dean. Erasmus smiled at him with an air of approval.
“Did you know the man they called John?” she persisted.
“I knew him, Horatio,” he said clearly and without hesitation.
Thank God, one answer anyway, thought Kate. I’ll just have to choose my questions to fit a classical tag line.
“Do you know his last name?”
Erasmus thought for a moment, then resumed his drinking. With a regretful air?
“Do you know where he came from?”
Erasmus began to hum some vaguely familiar tune.
“Do you know where he stayed?” There was no answer. “What he did? Who his close friends were?”
Erasmus looked at his cup.
“Why do you do this?” Kate threw her spoon down in irritation. “You’re perfectly capable of answering my questions.”
Erasmus raised his eyes and studied her. His eyes were remarkably eloquent, compassionate now, but Kate could make no use of that kind of answer. Suddenly he leaned forward, held his hand out in an attitude of pleading, and began to speak.
“I am a fool,” he pronounced. “And thus I clothe my naked villainy with odd old ends stolen forth of holy writ, and seem a saint when most I play the devil. Vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher, all is vanity. A man’s pride shall bring him low,” he said forcefully, and his eyes searched her face—for what? Understanding? Judgment? Whatever it was, he did not find it, and he turned to the dean. “A man’s pride,” he said pleading, “shall bring him low,” but the dean gave him no more satisfaction than Kate had. He turned back to her, the muscles of his face rigid with some powerful but unidentifiable emotion. He swallowed and his voice went husky. “Then David made a covenant with Jonathan, because he loved him as his own soul. Would God I had died for thee, O Absalom, my son, my son. Behold, I am vile. What shall I answer thee? A fool’s mouth is his destruction.” Seeing nothing but confusion in his
