The Exorcist

  “Doctor Klein? Oh, he’s across the bridge. In Rosslyn.”

  “In the medical building?”

  “Yeah, right. What’s the matter?”

  “Please call him and tell him Doctor Karras will be by and that I’d like to take a look at Regan’s EEG. Tell him Doctor Karras.”

  “Got it.”

  When he’d hung up the phone, Karras snapped off his collar and got out of his clerical robe and black trousers, changing quickly into khaki pants and a sweatshirt, and over these he wore his priest’s black raincoat; but then examining himself in a mirror, Karras frowned and thought, Priests and policemen! They had identifying auras they couldn’t hide. Karras slipped off the raincoat, then his shoes, and got into the only ones he owned that were not black, a pair of scuffed white Tretorn tennis shoes.

  In Chris’s car, he drove quickly toward Rosslyn. As he waited on M Street for the light to change at Key Bridge, he glanced to his left through the windshield and saw Karl getting out of a black sedan parked in front of the Dixie Liquor Store.

  The driver of the car was Kinderman.

  The light changed. Karras gunned the car forward, turning onto the bridge, then looked back through the mirror. Had they seen him? He didn’t think so. But what were they doing together? Had it something to do with Regan? he worried. With Regan and…?

  Forget it! One thing at a time!

  He parked at the medical building and went upstairs to Dr. Klein’s suite of offices. The doctor was busy, but a nurse handed Karras the EEG and very soon he was standing in a cubicle scrolling through the long narrow band of graphed paper slipping slowly through his fingers.

  Klein hurried in, his glance briefly brushing over Karras’s dress. “You’re Doctor Karras?”

  “Yes.”

  “Sam Klein. Pleased to meet you.”

  As they shook hands, Klein asked, “How’s the girl?”

  “Progressing.”

  “Glad to hear it.” Karras looked back to the graph and Klein joined him in scanning it, tracing his finger over patterns of waves. “There, you see? It’s very regular. No fluctuations whatsoever,” Klein noted.

  “Yes, I see that. Curious.”

  “Curious? How so?”

  “Well, presuming that we’re dealing with hysteria.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “No, I suppose it isn’t very well known,” Karras answered, as he kept pulling paper through his hands in a steady flow, “but a Belgian named Iteka discovered that hysterics seemed to cause some rather odd fluctuations in the graph, a very minuscule but always identical pattern. I’ve been looking for it here and I don’t see it.”

  Klein grunted noncommittally. “How about that.”

  Karras stopped scrolling and looked up at him. “She was certainly disordered when you ran this graph; is that right?”

  “Yes, I’d say so. Yes. Yes, she was.”

  “Well then, isn’t it curious that she tested so perfectly? Even subjects in a normal state of mind can influence their brain waves at least within the normal range, and as Regan was disturbed at the time, wouldn’t it seem there’d be some fluctuations. If—”

  “Doctor, Mrs. Simmons is getting impatient,” a nurse interrupted, cracking open the door.

  “Okay, I’m coming,” Klein told her. As the nurse hurried off, he took a step toward the hallway but then turned with his hand gripping the edge of the door. “Speaking of hysteria,” he commented dryly. “Sorry. Got to run.”

  He closed the door behind him. Karras heard his footsteps heading down the hall, the opening of a door, then “Well now, how are we feeling today, Mrs…” The closing of the door shut off the rest. Karras went back to his study of the graph, and when he’d finished, he folded it up and banded it, then returned it to the nurse in Reception. Something. It was something he could use with the Bishop as an argument that Regan was not a hysteric and therefore conceivably could be possessed. And yet the EEG had posed still another mystery: why no fluctuations, none at all?

  Karras drove back toward Chris’s house, but at a stop sign at the corner of Prospect and Thirty-Fifth he froze behind the wheel: sitting in the driver’s seat of a car that was parked between Karras and the Jesuit residence hall was Kinderman, his elbow out the window as he fixedly stared straight ahead. Karras took a right before the homicide detective could see him. He quickly found a space, parked and locked the car, and then walked around the corner as if heading for the residence hall. Is he watching the house? Karras worried. The specter of Dennings rose up again to haunt him. Was it possible that Kinderman thought Regan had…?

  Easy, boy! Easy! Slow down!

  He walked up beside the car and leaned his head through the window on the passenger side. “Hello, Lieutenant,” he said pleasantly. “Come to visit me or just goofing off for a while?”

  The detective turned quickly, looking surprised, and then he flashed a beaming smile. “Why, Father Karras! So there you are! So nice to see you!”

  Off key, Karras thought. What’s he up to? Don’t let him know that you’re worried! Play it light! “Don’t you know you’ll get a ticket?” Karras pointed to a sign. “Weekdays, no parking between four and six.”

  “Never mind,” growled Kinderman. “I’m talking to a priest. Every meter maid in Georgetown is a Catholic.”

  “How’ve you been?”

  “Speaking plainly, Father Karras, only so-so. And yourself?”

  “Can’t complain. Did you ever solve that case?”

  “Which one?”

  “You know, the movie director?”

  “Oh, that one.” The detective made a gesture of dismissal. “Don’t ask! Listen, what are you doing tonight? Are you busy? I’ve got passes for the Biograph. It’s Othello.”

  “That depends on who’s in it.”

  “Who’s in it? John Wayne, Othello, and Desdemona, Doris Day. You’re happy? This is freebies, Father Marlon Annoyingly Particular! This is William F. Shakespeare! Doesn’t matter who’s starring, who’s not! Now, you’re coming?”

  “I’m afraid I’ll have to pass. I’m snowed under.”

  “I can see that,” the detective said dolefully as he searched the Jesuit’s face. “You’re keeping late hours? You look terrible.”

  “I always look terrible.”

  “Only now more than usual. Come on now! Get away for one night! You’ll enjoy!”

  Karras decided to test; to touch a nerve. “Are you sure that’s what’s playing?” he asked. His eyes were probing steadily into the detective’s. “I could have sworn there was a Chris MacNeil film at the Biograph.”

  The detective missed a beat, and then said quickly, “No, you’re wrong. It’s Othello.”

  “Oh. And so what brings you to the neighborhood?”

  “You! I came only to invite you to the film!”

  “Yes, it’s easier to drive than to pick up a phone, I suppose.”

  The detective’s eyebrows lifted in a dismally unconvincing stab at looking innocent. “Your telephone was busy.”

  The Jesuit stared at him silently and gravely.

  “So what’s wrong?” asked Kinderman. “What?”

  Karras reached a hand inside the car, lifted Kinderman’s eyelid and examined the eye. “I don’t know,” he said, frowning. “You look terrible. You could be coming down with a case of mythomania.”

  “I don’t know what that means. Is it serious?”

  “Yes, but not fatal.”

  “What is it? The suspense is now driving me crazy!”

  “Look it up,” Karras told him.

  “Listen, don’t be so snotty. You should render unto Caesar just a little now and then. I’m the law. I could have you deported, you know that?”

  “What for?”

  “A psychiatrist shouldn’t piss people off, plus also the goyim, plainly speaking, would love it. You’re a nuisance to them, Father. No, really, you embarrass them. Who needs it? a priest who wears sweatshirts and sneakers!”

  Smi
ling faintly, Karras nodded. “Got to go. Take care.” He tapped a hand on the window frame twice in farewell, and then turned and walked slowly toward the entry of the residence.

  “See an analyst!” the detective called after him hoarsely. Then his warm look yielded to one of deep concern. He glanced up through his windshield at the house, then started the engine and drove up the street. Passing Karras, he honked his horn and waved. Karras waved back, and when Kinderman’s car turned the corner at Thirty-Sixth Street, he stopped and stood motionless for a time, rubbing gently at his brow with a trembling hand. Could she really have done it? Could Regan have murdered Burke Dennings so horribly? With feverish eyes, Karras turned and looked up at Regan’s window, thinking, What in God’s name is in that house? And how much longer before Kinderman demanded to see Regan? Had a chance to see the Dennings personality? To hear it? How much longer before Regan would be institutionalized? Or die?

  He had to build the exorcism case for the Chancery.

  He walked quickly across the street to the Chris MacNeil house, rang the doorbell and waited for Willie to let him in.

  “Missiz taking little nap now,” she said.

  Karras nodded. “Good. That’s good.” He walked by her and then upstairs to Regan’s bedroom. He was seeking a knowledge he must clutch by the heart.

  He entered and saw Karl in a chair by the window. Silent and present as a dense, dark wood, he was sitting with folded arms and with his stare pinned steadily on Regan.

  Karras walked up beside the bed and looked down. The whites of the eyes like milky fog; the murmurings, incantations from some other world. Karras slowly leaned over and began to unfasten one of Regan’s restraining straps.

  “No, Father! No!”

  Karl rushed to the bedside and vigorously yanked back the Jesuit’s arm. “Very bad, Father! Strong! It is strong!”

  In Karl’s eyes there was a fear that Karras recognized as genuine. And now he knew that Regan’s extraordinary strength was a fact. She could have done it. Could have twisted Dennings’s neck around. Come on, Karras! Hurry! Find some evidence! Think!

  And then a voice from beneath him. On the bed.

  “Ich möchte Sie etwas fragen, Herr Engstrom!”

  With a stab of discovery and surging hope, Karras jerked around his head and looked down at the bed to see Regan’s demonic visage grinning at Karl. “Tanzt Ihre Tochter gern?” it taunted, and then burst into mocking laughter. German. It had asked if Karl’s club-footed daughter liked to dance! Excited, Karras turned to Karl and saw that his cheeks were flushing crimson. Hands clenched into white-knuckled fists, he was glaring at Regan with fury as the laughter continued.

  “Karl, you’d better step outside,” Karras cautioned him.

  The Swiss shook his head. “No, I stay!”

  “You will go, please,” the Jesuit said firmly, his gaze holding Karl’s implacably until, after a moment or two more of resistance, the houseman turned and hurried out of the room. When the door closed, the laughter abruptly ceased, to be replaced by that thick and airless silence.

  Karras turned his gaze to the bed. The demon was watching him. It looked pleased. “So you’re back,” it croaked. “I’m surprised. I would think that embarrassment over the holy water might have discouraged you from ever returning. But then I forget that a priest has no shame.”

  Karras took a few breaths as he forced himself to concentrate, to think clearly. He knew that the language test for possession required intelligent conversation as proof that whatever was said was not traceable to buried linguistic recollections. Easy! Slow down! Remember that girl? A Parisian teenage servant, allegedly possessed, while in delirium had quietly babbled a language that finally was recognized to be Syriac. Karras forced himself to think of the excitement it had caused, of how finally it was learned that the girl had at one time been employed in a boardinghouse where one of the lodgers was a student of theology who, on the eve of examinations, would pace in his room and walk up and down stairs while reciting his Syriac lessons aloud. And the girl had overheard them.

  Take it easy. Don’t get burned.

  “Sprechen Sie deutsch?” asked Karras.

  “More games?”

  “Sprechen Sie deutsch?” the Jesuit repeated, his pulse still throbbing with that distant hope.

  “Natürlich,” the demon answered, leering. “Mirabile dictu, wouldn’t you agree?”

  The Jesuit’s heart leaped up. Not only German, but Latin! And in context! “Quod nomen mihi est?” he asked quickly: what is my name?

  “Karras.”

  And now the priest rushed on with excitement.

  “Ubi sum?” Where am I?

  “In cubiculo.” In a room.

  “Et ubi est cubiculum?” And where is the room?

  “In domo.” In a house.

  “Ubi est Burke Dennings?” Where is Burke Dennings?

  “Mortuus.” He is dead.

  “Quomodo mortuus est?” How did he die?

  “Inventus est capite reverso.” He was found with his head turned around.

  “Quis occidit eum?” Who killed him?

  “Regan.”

  “Quomodo ea occidit ilium? Dic mihi exacte!” How did she kill him? Tell me in detail!

  “Ah, well, that’s sufficient excitement for now,” said the demon with a grin. “Yes, sufficient altogether, I would think. Though of course it will occur to you, I suppose—I mean, you being you—that while you were asking your questions in Latin, you were mentally formulating answers in Latin.” It laughed. “All unconscious, of course. Yes, whatever would we do without unconsciousness, Karras? Do you see what I’m driving at? I cannot speak Latin at all! I read your mind! I merely plucked the responses from your head!”

  Karras felt an instant dismay as his certainty crumbled; felt tantalized and frustrated now by the nagging doubt that had been planted in his brain.

  The demon chuckled. “Yes, I knew that would occur to you, Karras,” it croaked. “That is why I’m so fond of you, dear morsel; yes, that is why I cherish all reasonable men.”

  The demon’s head tilted back in a wild spate of laughter.

  The Jesuit’s mind raced rapidly, desperately, formulating questions to which no single answer was correct, but rather many. But maybe I’d think of them all! he realized. Then ask a question that you don’t know the answer to! he reasoned. He could check the answer later to see if it was correct.

  He waited for the laughter to ebb and then spoke:

  “Quam profundus est imus Oceanus Indicus?” What is the depth of the Indian Ocean at its deepest point?

  The demon’s eyes glittered. “La plume de ma tante.”

  “Responde Latine.”

  “Bon jour! Bonne nuit!”

  “Quam—”

  Karras broke off as the eyes rolled upward into their sockets and the gibberish entity appeared. Impatient and frustrated, Karras demanded, “Let me speak to the demon again!”

  No answer. Only the breathing from an alien shore.

  “Quis es tu?” he snapped hoarsely in a fraying voice.

  Only silence. The breathing.

  “Let me speak to Burke Dennings!”

  A hiccup. Sputtery breathing. A hiccup.

  “Let me speak to Burke Dennings!”

  The hiccupping, regular and wrenching, continued. Karras lowered his head and shook it, then trudged to an overstuffed chair where he sat, leaned back and closed his eyes. Tense. Tormented. And waiting…

  Time passed. Karras drowsed. Then jerked his head up. Stay awake! And then with blinking, heavy lids, he looked over at Regan. Not hiccupping now. Eyes closed. Was she asleep?

  He stood up, walked over to the bed, reached down and felt Regan’s pulse, then, stooping over, he examined her lips. They were parched. He straightened up and waited a little time, and then at last he left the room and went down to the kitchen in search of Sharon. He found her at the table eating soup and a sandwich. “Can I fix you something to eat, Father Karras?” she ask
ed him. “You must be hungry.”

  “No, I’m not,” Karras answered. “Thanks.” Sitting down, he reached over and picked up a pencil and pad by Sharon’s typewriter. “She’s been hiccupping,” he told her. “Have you had any Compazine prescribed?”

  “Yes, we’ve got some.”

  He was writing on the pad. “Then tonight give her half of a twenty-five-milligram suppository.”

  “Okay.”

  “She’s beginning to dehydrate,” Karras continued, “so I’m switching her to intravenous feedings. First thing in the morning, call a medical-supply house and have them deliver these right away.” He slid the pad across the table to Sharon. “In the meantime, she’s sleeping, so you could start her on a Sustagen feeding.”

  Sharon nodded. “Right. I will.” Spooning soup, she turned the pad around and looked at the list. Karras watched her. Then he frowned in concentration. “You’re her tutor?” he said.

  “Yes, that’s right.”

  “Have you taught her any Latin?”

  “Latin? No, I don’t know any Latin. Why?”

  “Any German?”

  “Only French.”

  “What level? La plume de ma tante?”

  “Pretty much.”

  “But no German or Latin.”

  “No.”

  “But the Engstroms—don’t they sometimes speak German?”

  “Oh, well, sure.”

  “Around Regan?”

  Standing up, Sharon shrugged. “Oh, well, sometimes, I suppose.” She started toward the kitchen sink with her plates as she added, “As a matter of fact, I’m pretty sure.”

  “Have you ever studied Latin?” Karras asked her.

  Sharon giggled as she answered, “Me, Latin? No, I haven’t.”

  “But you’d recognize the general sound?”

  “Yeah, I guess.”

  She rinsed the soup bowl and put it in the rack.

  “Has she ever spoken Latin in your presence?”

  “Regan?”

  “Yes. Since her illness.”

  “No, never.”

  “Any language at all?”

  Sharon turned off the faucet, looking thoughtful. “Well, I might have imagined it, I guess, but…”

  “But what?”

  “Well, I think…” Sharon frowned. “Well, I could have sworn I heard her talking in Russian once.”