Apprehensions and Other Delusions (9 page)

“I made such statements and many others,” said Brother Rat, as if he were speaking from some distance away. “So you want to know how it was. You were alive when it came—you ought to remember.”

“It is not my memories that are important in this Confession,” Brother Emmerano reprimanded him. “If we are to record your repentance aright, then you must tell us how it was.”

“If you insist,” said Brother Rat with a resignation that was touched with despair. “The Plague began as other sicknesses do, but no one feared it then, not twenty years ago in Amalfi. Today I suspect it is different. Today I would think that any minor illness is viewed with alarm, isn’t it?” He did not wait for an answer. “I consulted my books, because I hoped that there would be something recorded there that would protect the people of the town. But nothing seemed to help, not the perfumes, not the tea made of rosemary and moss, none of it. So I delved further, into studies in books I was told later were forbidden though they were written by a Franciscan who had been praised for his learning, for it seemed the whole world was afflicted. As my friends and my neighbors died, with black Tokens under their arms and at the groin, I dreaded that the Plague would take my family as well.” It was a strange recitation, as if he were thinking of another person, one he had never met. “I had a wife then, and her mother lived with us and our five children. Sometimes, late in the night, I think I hear them speaking again.”

“With your family in such danger, did you not appeal to God?” Brother Emmerano demanded.

“Daily,” said Brother Rat. “And watched as the priests died with the Host in their hands.” He broke off; when he was finished coughing, he held out his cup for more wine. “Is that enough or do you want more?”

“Is that all your Confession?” asked Brother Emmerano, filling the cup with slow deliberation.

“I suppose not,” said Brother Rat. He wiped his blanket over his brow. “It ought to be enough, but—” He looked at the wine in the cup. “I need what little wits I have.”

“How did you come to heresy? Was it from the forbidden texts?” Brother Emmerano asked, growing intent to learn the beginning of Brother Rat’s madness from whence might come his salvation.

“That is what the Secular Arm said, at first,” said Brother Rat. “They were diligent in the Question. They kept me in their charge, and many times brought me to answer them. One of the Inquisitors believed that I was deep in heresy because of what I had read, but most of them were certain what I had found there had turned my wits. For I came to believe what I had read, and I believe it to this day.” Until the last Brother Rat had spoken quietly, but now a passion came into his words. “The text was from that Franciscan who had gone to the land of the Great Khan, and it stated—” He stopped, his coughing renewed.

“It stated what? What is this madness you believe?” asked Brother Emmerano, his eyes bright as hot coals.

“What does it matter, after all?” He leaned back and wiped his mouth. “It is all but over. Why not? Why not?”

“Yes,” said Brother Emmerano. “It is the Devil who urges you to silence, who makes you question the urgings of your soul to be purged of the evil that brought you to madness. Tell me what transpired and it will be recorded with your Confession. It will show that you have repented the pacts that made you mad. Think, Brother Rat, for the time when you will appear to answer for your sins comes quickly. Be reconciled to God now and—”

“Yes, yes I know,” said Brother Rat, waving him to silence. “I have heard it many times. But madness is obdurate, and it has held me too tightly. But now nothing but death holds me.”

“The Hand of God holds you, as it holds all the world,” said Brother Emmerano. He looked toward me. “Have you taken down all we have said?”

“Yes,” I assured him and blessed myself as soon as I had written my response. “It is all here.”

“And no matter what Brother Rat says, you are sworn to record it, is that not so?” Brother Emmerano pursued.

“That is the case,” I answered, writing as I spoke.

“It will be here, Brother Rat, every word of it, and there will be no doubt of your Confession and the salvation of your soul. No one will be able to question it.” He moved his stool a little closer to the pallet. “What was it that caused you to become mad? What thing did you find in those books that reduced you to this?”

It was as if Brother Rat had not heard; for some little time he stared up at the ceiling. “You know,” he said after we had all been silent for as long as it would take to recite the Supplication to the Virgin, “I followed what the books suggested. I removed all the rushes from the house and set pots of burning herbs throughout the house, so every room was filled with smoke. I permitted no new rushes to be brought into the house, and I ordered that everyone bathe once a week while the Plague was in the city.”

Brother Emmerano was outraged; he could not speak in the soft manner he so often employed for such Confessions. “What blasphemous book taught you that? You said it was a book where you learned this, did you not?”

“A book of things learned by the Franciscan Brother in the great Land of Silk,” said Brother Rat. “A Franciscan wrote it, good Brother. A man sworn to God and Christ. He said it was thought by certain of the subjects of the Great Khan that what brought the Plague was vermin—vermin and the vermin of vermin. This book declared that if there were no vermin there would likewise be no Plague.”

“God’s Wrath brings Plague: God’s Wrath and the sins of man,” said Brother Emmerano, his voice now very loud.

“Amen.” Brother Rat blessed himself. “But the notion took hold of me, in my dread as the corpses were piled in the streets each morning and there were fewer and fewer left alive to see them buried.” He had a taste of the wine and set the cup aside. “The priests were in the grave with the rest of them. And you see, only my wife’s mother had taken the Plague. My wife lived, and our children were alive. So I kept to what the texts said, and made our house slaves clean each day, scrubbing the floors every morning. They all grumbled, but they lived.”

“A ruse of the Devil,” said Brother Emmerano.

“Very likely,” said Brother Rat with a deep sigh. “It did not last. My second son began to sweat and became restless, and that was enough to panic our slaves and servants, for they deserted us.” He forced himself to sit up properly and then he downed the cup of wine. “I might as well be drunk for this.”

“If you can give an honest Confession,” warned Brother Emmerano.

“In vino veritas,” said Brother Rat. He motioned for more. “My wife nursed the boy, and though she hated all that I did, she did not stop me for she was too worried for the other children to care that I continued to scrub the floors and burn herbs once a day. She would not allow me to have the stuffing of the mattresses changed, for fear of losing the protection of the angels who guard the sick. Then she took the Plague as well.” He watched the wine fill the cup. “In the book by that Franciscan there was much about the danger of rats—rats more than mice. So I killed every rat I saw, in the house and anywhere in the town. And as the people died, there were more and more rats, or so it seemed to me.” He was agitated now, his cough returning as short, explosive interruptions to what he said. “I thought that the rats were bringing the Plague, because of what the book said. It spoke of the vermin of vermin, and rats, and so I—”

“It is said that you went among the dead, killing rats where you found them. According to the Secular Arm you killed every rat that entered your cell.” Brother Emmerano blessed himself. “You kill rats here.”

“They are the messengers of the Plague,” said Brother Rat with such intense feeling that for once Brother Emmerano shrank back from him. “It is madness to think that, but I have said already I cannot make myself turn my thoughts from that conviction.”

Brother Emmerano clasped his hands, but this time he was nervous, and the knuckles stood out white. “But what has brought you to this?”

“The rats,” said Brother Rat. “They themselves. I have made a point to look closely at them, and they are alive with vermin of their own. And if their vermin have vermin, might not there be vermin of those, and so into the realms of angels?” He pulled at his blanket, then drank off half the wine, smacking his lips with savor. “I am now never without the conviction that there are vermin so fine and so great in number that they can penetrate anything. The rats bring them.”

“But vermin are everywhere,” said Brother Emmerano. “Have you lost sight of that? There would have to be these little vermin in all things, and what would be the purpose of that? Where does it say that God brought forth vermin? We know that the Devil brings these tribulations, and it is for us to bear these things without notice so we may the sooner turn our minds from the wiles of the Devil and toward the salvation of Christ.”

Brother Rat nodded several times as if his head were not tightly bound to his body. “I know. The Secular Arm reminded me. I know this is madness. But we who are mad cannot set aside our madness because it is what we wish. If it were that, we would be heretics.” He finished his wine. “I wish I were a heretic, I wish I did not believe as I do, that I have been corrupted and could be saved from my error. But it is fixed, like the head of an arrow in a healed wound. Broken fingers and teeth could not budge it. This cell has not changed it.” He wept suddenly, deeply.

“God will bring you to comfort, Brother Rat,” said Brother Emmerano as he clutched his Corpus in a trembling hand.

When the worst of his weeping was over, Brother Rat wiped his face with his blanket once more, and spat several times, as much blood as foam. “I can see it now, or so I tell myself. They ruined this eye trying to make me tell them I could not see these vermin, but ...”

“It is madness, and they sent you to us,” said Brother Emmerano, still trying to quiet himself so that he would be able to sense God’s Will.

“Apparently.” He considered the cup, then signaled for more. “I suppose the fever burns the wine away. I thought I would be singing by now. There was a time when I might have sung.” Now his cough shook him as if he were in the fist of a giant.

“Should we send for—” Brother Emmerano began but was cut off by Brother Rat.

“No. What could he do? It
is ending for me.” He looked away from Brother Emmerano. “And I have been thinking that one of these invisible vermin has brought this cough to me, that it has taken over my body, as the vermin of Plague took my wife and my son, and my wife’s mother.”

Brother Emmerano hesitated, then asked, “What of your other children? You said you had five children, did you not?”

“Oh, yes,” said Brother Rat. “I did. And the neighbors thought I was possessed of a demon, for all that I did in my house. They saw the pots of smoking herbs and they said the Devil was with us. They saw that I had the floors cleaned every morning, and they whispered that I had done atrocious things in the night.” He put his hand to his brow. “So the ones who were still alive decided that I had brought the Plague to Amalfi.” There were tears on his wrinkled, sunken cheeks yet he made no move to wipe them away. “They gathered together and when next my children went to the church to pray for the soul of their mother, who was dead less than a week, they were met by men and boys with bricks and stones.” He closed his eyes.

Brother Emmerano lifted his hand to bless Brother Rat, but faltered. “What became of them? Of your children?”

“I thought that was obvious,” said Brother Rat softly, refusing to open his eyes. “They were stoned to death. I found them all broken and in a welter of blood when I came from the burial pit where I had taken flowers in memory of my wife.”

As Brother Emmerano lowered his hand, he said, “What was said of that act?”

“I don’t know,” Brother Rat admitted as he opened his eyes at last. “I was not told.” He stared down at his hands as if he had just noticed the fingers of his left hand had been broken. “That night was when I went to the burial pit to kill rats. I had to do something.”

“But such a gesture ... surely you did not think that you could change the death of those poor people by killing rats.” Brother Emmerano shifted on his stool again, glancing toward the door as if to reassure himself that the lay Brothers were within reach.

“I don’t know what I thought,” said Brother Rat in bitter amusement. “I was mad. I have been mad since the Plague came. Perhaps I hoped that if I killed the vermin and the vermin of vermin I might find the way to restore those who were dead.” He shrugged. “I can’t remember what was in my heart then.” He coughed, holding his head with his hand. “I am not used to wine. Already my head is throbbing.”

Brother Emmerano was not going to permit Brother Rat to turn away from the matter now. “How did you come to be in the hands of the Secular Arm? Surely you did not seek them out, did you? To hear what you say, all of Amalfi died of the Plague.”

“Most of it did. Some who could afford it left the city when the disease first struck, and they returned to find a few of us picking our way among the corpses.” He slid back on his pallet. “They came with priests and all of us who remained alive were taken to the church to answer the questions of the Bishop, to account for our lack of death. Anyone who gave unsatisfactory answers was sent to the Secular Arm. They burned the tailor as a heretic, and the chimney sweep. Those of us who were still in their keeping had to watch, to see what awaited us if we did not exculpate ourselves.”

“A worthy lesson,” said Brother Emmerano.

“Yes,” Brother Rat said distantly. “Although I hoped then that they would decide I was a heretic, and burn me, for life seemed an impossible burden to me then.”

“Such an assertion is close to heresy,” Brother Emmerano cautioned.

“My family was dead. I had failed to save them.” Brother Rat turned his face to the stones.

“It is not for you to save them, or any man. It is for God to save them, or to move you to find the means to save them. If you usurp that power, you question the divinity of God and Christ. God in His Wisdom called your family to Him, and left you to live on so that you could return again to Christ.” Brother Emmerano placed his hand over his heart. “Your soul has been forfeited because you were misled by a Godless book, and for that your family was taken from you, and when that was not sufficient, so were your wits.”