war, as a few had. Perhaps he had aided Anna in her exploits, or helped Danforth in some way.
“Loudon, France, August 1634,” Danforth added. “Satan signed a diabolical pact with him, according to Grandier’s accusers. A few other demons signed it as well, Astaroth and Baalberith. The highest of the devils signed.” He smiled. “But Grandier never did.”
Had we been two men upon a stage, the lights would have dimmed at that moment save for the single beam trained on Danforth; it would have softened and been touched by a blue as intense as the blue of Danforth’s eyes as he began to speak.
“He was accused of bewitching nuns and brought to trial by a man very jealous of his power,” Danforth said. “He refused to confess to any of the charges against him, and so he was ordered to endure what is called ‘the question.’”
I recalled Fedora’s ominous method, his insistence on asking only one question, and again recognized the winding through and winding back of Danforth’s mind, how later words were linked to earlier words, recent allusions to more distant ones, all his small stories but stepping-stones to a greater one.
“Father Grandier was a very handsome man,” he continued. “His torturers were about to crush his legs. He knew that his face would never be the same once that process began. Agony would contort it. And so he asked for a mirror. The mirror was given to him and he looked at himself for a long time. According to witnesses, there was no hint of vanity in his expression. What they saw, they said, was peace.”
I could not imagine that peace was what Fedora had seen on Danforth’s face, a suspicion he immediately confirmed.
“What my tormentor saw was terror,” Danforth said without hesitation. “I was acting bravely, of course. What else could I do? But it’s convulsive, pain like that. And I remember thinking how important it was for me not to vomit.” He laughed. “I’d just had a nice lunch right here in this club. Lamb with mint sauce. Very good. And port. A little too much port. I had this nightmare vision of spraying it all over the floor, then looking up to see Fedora staring at me with absolute contempt.” He lifted his glass and rolled it in his arthritic hands. “The root of the word
“Did you collapse?” I blurted before I could stop myself.
Danforth didn’t answer immediately, but instead regarded the glass he was still rolling back and forth in his gnarled hands.
“There are torture museums throughout Europe,” he said finally. “I visited one in Amsterdam. Very elaborate affairs, the instruments of the Inquisition.” He mentioned a few of these elaborations, the virginal face carved into the iron maiden, the brightly polished wood of the Spanish horse. “Ah, but Paul,” he added softly, “to break a man you need only a little spoon.”
~ * ~
New Brunswick, Connecticut, 1939
He heard the snap of the pulley’s release and felt himself collapse onto the hard floor. In the aching blur that settled over him, he could feel the chill of the concrete. Perhaps at some point the pain had simply unstrung his senses, ripped out the wiring that connected him to time.
The door opened, then closed, but Danforth didn’t know if his torturer had left or if someone else had entered. He listened for footsteps but heard none, and so, after a time, he decided that he was alone. He wanted to move but couldn’t.
“Get him up.”
Then he was lifted from the floor, the muscles of his arms so unnaturally stretched they’d lost their power to flex, his hands like weights at the end of a burning tangle of ligament and bone.
Now he was moving down the hallway, carried like a broken toy in his torturer’s arms, then plopped down in the chair before Fedora’s desk.
He sat, slumped and drained, barely able to keep himself in the chair, and waited as Fedora took his place behind the desk.
“Are you passing?” he asked. “Are you a secret Jew?”
Danforth didn’t answer.
“What else can explain it?” Fedora asked. “This . . . stubbornness.” He seemed amused by the taunting. “Do you think England will stop the Communists? France? America?” He laughed. “Perhaps you don’t want them to be stopped. Perhaps you are a secret Communist
Danforth stared at Fedora silently.
“Do you know what they are doing, the Reds?” Fedora asked. “They are ripping down everything. They are waiting to swarm over Europe, and then they will swarm over us.” He leaned forward slightly and looked closely at Danforth, his gaze probing, a man digging through a cluttered box. “Why are you helping them? America and Germany have the same enemy. Even the English know that.”
Danforth knew that the slightest movement would send sheets of pain through his rib cage, and so he sat motionlessly and stared straight ahead. After a moment, he felt sensation in his toes, then his fingers, a glimmer of power returning to the far reaches of his body. It was like the first fibrous tingling of a phantom limb, and he experienced it as an awakening, the sure and certain evidence that for all the damage done, it was not irrevocable.
“Listen to me,” Fedora said sharply.
Danforth tried to focus on the man behind the desk.
“Pay attention to what I am saying.”
Danforth’s head lolled back slightly, but with effort he drew it up again.
