William Blatty - The Exorcist

"Who?"

She looked up. "Burke Dennings."

"The director?"

"Yes."

"The director who---"

"Yes," she cut in.

The Jesuit considered her answer for a moment in silence. He saw her index finger twitching.

"Would you like some coffee or something, Father?"

He shook his head. "Thanks, no." He lead forward, elbows on the table. "Was Regan acquainted with him?"

"Yes."

"And---"

A clattering. Startled, Chas flinched, turned and saw that Karl had dropped a roasting pan to the floor and was stooping to retrieve it. As he lifted it, he dropped it again.

"God almighty, Karl!"

"Sorry, madam."

"Go on, Karl, get out of here! Go see a movie or something! We can't all stay cooped in this house!" She turned back to Karras, picking up a cigarette packet and slamming it down on the table when Karl protested, "No, I look---"

"Karl, now, I mean it!" Chris snapped at him nervously, raising her voice but not turning her head. "Get out! Just get out of this house for a while! We've all got to start getting out! Now just go!"

"Yes, you go!" echoed Willie as she entered and snatched away the pan from Karl's grasp. She pushed him irritably toward the pantry.

Karl eyed Karras and Chris briefly and then left.

"Sorry, Father," Chris murmured in apology. She reached for a cigarette. "He's had to take an awful lot lately."

"You were right," said Karras gently. He picked up the matches. "You should all make an effort to get out of the house." He lit her cigarette. "You too."

"So what did Burke Say?" Chris asked.

"Just obscenities," Karras said, shrugging.

"That's all?"

He caught the faint pulse of fear in her tone "Pretty much," he responded. Then he lowered his voice. "Incidentally, does Karl have a daughter?"

"A daughter? No, not that I know of. Or if he does, he's never mentioned it."

"You're sure?"

Willie was scouring at the sink. Chris turned to her. "You don't have a daughter, do you, Willie?"

"She die, madam, long, long before."

"Oh, I'm sorry."

Chris turned back to Karras. "That's the first I ever heard of her," she whispered. "Why'd you ask? How'd you know?"

"Regan. She mentioned it," said Karras.

Chris stared.

"Has she ever shown signs of having ESP?" he asked. "I mean, prior to this time."

"Well..." Chris hesitated. "Well, I don't know. I'm not sure. I mean, there have been lots of times when she seems to be thinking the same things that I'm thinking, but doesn't that happen with people -who are close?"

Karras nodded. Thought. "Now this other personality that I mentioned," he began. "That's the one that emerged in hypnosis once?"

"Talks gibberish?"

"Yes. Who is it?"

"I don't know."

"It's not familiar at all?"

"Not at all."

"Have you sent for the medical records?"

"They'll be here this afternoon. They're being flown down. They'll be coming straight to you." She sipped coffee. "That's the only way I could get them loose, and even at that I had to raise hell."

"Yes, I thought there might be trouble."

"There was. But they're coming." She took another sip. "Now what about the exorcism, Father?"

He looked down, then sighed. "Well, I'm not very hopeful I can sell it to the Bishop."

"What do you mean, 'not very hopeful'?" She set down the coffee cup, frowning anxiously.

He dipped into his pocket and extracted the vial, holding it out to show Chris. "See this?"

She nodded.

"I told her it was holy water," Karras explained. "And when I started to sprinkle her with it, she reacted very violently."

"So?"

"It's not holy water. It's ordinary tap water."

"So maybe some demons just don't know the difference."

"You really believe there's a demon inside her?"

"I believe that there's something inside of Regan that's trying to kill her, Father Karras, and whether it knows piss from water doesn't seem to have very much to do with it all, don't you think? I mean, sorry, but you asked my opinion!" She tamped out her cigarette. "What's the difference between holy water and tap water anyway?"

"Holy water's blessed."

"Mazel tov, Father; I'm happy for it! So what are you telling me, meantime---no exorcism?"

"Look, I've only just begun to dig into this," Karras said heatedly. "But the Church has criteria that have to be met, and they have to be met for a very good reason: keeping clear of the superstitious garbage that people keep pinning on her year after year! I give you 'levitating priests,' for example, and statues of the Blessed Mother that supposedly cry on Good Fridays and feast days. Now I think I can live without contributing to that!"

"Would you like a little Librium, Father?"

"I'm sorry, but you asked my opinion."

"I got it."

He was reaching for the cigarettes.

"Me too," Chris said huskily.

He extended the pack. She took one. He popped one in his mouth and lit both. They exhaled with audible sighs and slumped around the table.

"I'm sorry," he told her softly.

"Those nonfilter cigarettes'll kill ya."

He toyed with the cigarette packet, crinkling cellophane. "Here are the signs that the Church might accept. One is speaking in a language that the subject has never known before. Never studied. I'm working on that one. With the tapes. We'll see. Then there's clairvoyance, although nowadays telepathy or ESP might nullify that one."

"You believe in that stuff?" She frowned skeptically.

He looked at her. She was serious, he decided. He continued. "And the last one is powers beyond her ability and age. That's a catchall. Anything occult."

"Well, now, what about those poundings in the wall?"

"By itself, it meals nothing."

"And the way she was flying up and down off the bed?"

"Not enough."

"Well, then, what about these things on her skin?"

"What things?"

"I didn't tell you?"

"Tell me what?"

"Oh, it happened at the clinic," Chris explained. "There were---well..." She traced a finger on her chest. "You know, like writing? Just letters. They'd show up on her chest, then disappear. Just like that."

Karras frowned. "You said 'Letters.' Not words?"

"No, no words. Just an M once or twice. Then an L."

"And you saw this?" he asked her.

"Well, no. But they told me."

"Who told you?"

"The doctors at the clinic. Look, you'll see it in the records. It's for real."

"Yes, I'm sure. But again, that's a natural phenomenon."

"Where? Transylvania?" Chris said, incredulous.

Karras shook his head. "No, I've come across cases of that in the journals. There was one, I remember, where a prison psychiatrist reported that a patient of his---an inmate---could go into a self-induced state of trance and make the signs of the zodiac appear on his skin." He made a gesture at his chest. "Made the skin raise up."

"Boy, miracles sure don't come easy with you, do they?"

"There was once an experiment," he explained to her gently, "in which the subject was hypnotized, put into trance; and then surgical incisions were made is each arm. He was told that his left arm was going to bleed, but that the right arm would not. Well, the left arm bled and the right arm didn't. The power of the mind controlled the blood flow. We don't know how, of course; but it happens. So in cases of stigmata---like the one with that prisoner I mentioned, or with Regan the unconscious mind is controlling the differential of blood flow to the skin, sending more to the parts that it wants raised up. And so then you have drawings, or letters, or whatever. Mysterious, but hardly supernatural."

"You're a real tough case, Father Karras, do you know that?"

Karras touched a thumbnail to his teeth. "Look, maybe this will help you to understand," he said finally. "The Church---not me---the Church---once published a statement, a warning to exorcists. I read it last night. And what it said was that most of the people who are thought to be possessed or whom others believe to be possessed---and now I'm quoting---'are far more in need of a doctor than of an exorcist.' " He looked up into Chris's eyes. "Can you guess when that warning was issued?"