Legion (16 page)

I went on with my experiments at home and continued to hear the soft, fleet voices either answering my questions or taking my cue for topics of discussion, though I never again heard a voice like Ann’s. From all this, I formed the following impressions. I seemed to be in touch with personalities in some place or condition of transition. They were not clairvoyant. They did not know the future, for example, but their knowledge extended past the scope of my own. For instance, they could tell me the name of the duty nurse at any moment on some ward with which I had no contact or familiarity. They often had opinions that were contradictory to one another’s. Sometimes when I asked a factual question, such as the date of my mother’s birth, they gave several answers, none of them correct, and gave me the impression of perhaps not wanting to lose my interest. A few of their statements were flat–out lies of a troublemaking nature, or designed to upset me, I would think. I came to recognize these voices and ignored them, as I did with the occasional speaker of obscenities. Some voices asked for help, but when I asked–and many times–what it was that I could do to help mem, the answer was usually something like “Happy. We’re fine.” Some asked me to pray for them, and still others said they prayed for me. I couldn’t help thinking of the Communion of Saints.

A sense of humor was in evidence. Early on in the experiments I wore an old bathrobe one night as I was taping. It had gaudy–colored stripes and a very large tear around the upper right shoulder. I heard a voice saying, “Horse blanket.” Among the numerous occasions when I asked, “Who created the material universe?”, once a voice answered clearly, “Me.” And one night I’d invited an intern over to join me in an experiment. He’d expressed an interest in psychic phenomena and I felt comfortable discussing this with him. Through the evening, he told me that he couldn’t hear a thing, although, as usual, I did. I heard “What’s the use?” and “Why bother?” and “Go play Pac–Man,” among other things. I learned weeks later that the intern was terribly hard of hearing, but didn’t want it known.

The voices helped me at times by suggesting other modes of recording. One was the use of a diode, and the other was to find a band of “white noise”–the space between stations–on a radio receiver and connect this to the tape recorder. The latter I never tried as here one would expect to receive and record actual radio voices from ordinary sources. The microphone was best when in a soundproof or extremely quiet room; but I finally opted for the use of the diode, for this ruled out misinterpretation of ordinary sounds from the surrounding environment.

Sometimes the voices criticized my technical abilities. I would have a wrong button pushed in now and then and I was apt to get a voice saying,
“
You don’t know what you’re doing.” (That particular one sounded exasperated. I was tired and had been making miscues throughout the session.) Such responses were a part of what gave me the impression that I was dealing with personalities that were highly individual and quite ordinary. Just like people. They often said “Good night” toward the end of the tape, and then I’d find that I was tired and headed for bed. On occasion there were many different voices saying “Thanks’’ and “Thank you.’’ One curious thing. Once I asked if it was important that I try to promulgate this phenomenon, and the answer was a very clear “Negative.” That surprised me.

In mid–1982 I decided to write to Colin Smythe, the man who had written the preface for Breakthrough. He’s the one who seemed so credible. I asked him a number of questions and he answered me immediately, referring me to a book of his own that he has written on the subject. (It’s called Carry On Talking.) In his letter he seemed reticent about the subject, as inevitably, especially in the London press, it had become overblown and somewhat lurid. People were claiming to have talked to John F. Kennedy and Freud and that sort of thing. But he told me something fascinating. A group of neurologists from Edinburgh, while in London for a medical conference, had looked him up and played for him tape recordings of their own. They had made them in the presence of people in coma or with incapacitating injuries which prevented them from speaking, and on the tapes were the voices of these patients.

Not long after that, I took my portable Sony recorder to the hospital. It was two or three a.m. and I went to the disturbed ward where I made a recording of a patient who was severely catatonic, an amnesiac who’d been in Psychiatric for years. None of us had ever known his actual identity. The police had picked him up wandering M Street in a daze around 1970 or so, and he hadn’t said a single word since that time. Although maybe he has. In his room, I turned on the tape recorder after having asked him who he was and whether he could hear me. I let the tape run its entire length. Once back home, I played it back. The result was very odd. First of all, in that entire half hour of tape there were only two fragments of speech that I could hear. Ordinarily, the tape would be literally jammed with them, even though most might be just barely audible. This time
—
except for the two that I mentioned
—
the silence was exceptional and very strange. The other odd thing–well, I’d say “eerie” is probably more like it–was the voices on the tape. They were both the same person, a man, and I felt virtually certain that I was hearing the voice of the catatonic patient. I thought I heard it saying, “I’m beginning to remember.” That was the first thing. Then I heard what I presumed was the patient’s name in answer to the question that I’d asked about that; something close to “James Venamin,” as I recall. I didn’t like the sound of it for some reason and I never attempted this experiment again.

Toward the end of the last year a decisive event occurred. Up until then I was still in doubt about what I was hearing. That rapidly changed. I traded in my tape recorder for a Revox with a built–in variable pitch control. I also got a band pass filter, which excluded all frequencies of sound that were not within the range of the human voice. On a Saturday a rather young man from the stereo shop delivered the new equipment and wired it up. When he had finished, I had a thought. The young have almost vastly better hearing than we, and this youngster’s business, after all, was sound. So I brought out the tape with the rather loud rumbling sound and I asked him to listen through the earphones. When he had finished, I asked him what he’d heard. He said immediately, “Somebody talking.” This took me by surprise. “Is the voice a man’s or a woman’s?” I asked him. He answered, “A man’s.” “Can you tell what he’s saying?” He said, “No, it’s too slow.” Another surprise. I was accustomed to the voices being too fast. “No, you mean too fast,” I said. “No, slow. At least I think it’s too slow.” He put the earphones back on, rewound the tape to the spot and then manually speeded up the tape with his hands as he listened to the playback. Then he took off the earphones and nodded. “Yeah, too slow.” He handed me the earphones. “Here, you listen,” he said, “and I’ll show you.” I put on the earphones and listened as he once again speeded up the tape. And I heard the distinct, loud voice of a man say the words, “Affirmative. Can you hear me?”

This experience seemed to open a door, for not long after that I began to get some clear, loud voices on my tapes, perhaps one in every three or four sessions of taping. “Lacey/ Hope it’’ was the first of these. Even that intern could probably hear them.

Three of them I sent to my friend at Columbia, with the results of which I’ve already told you. Listen to them. Then make tapes of your own. You may fail at first and get only the fainter, more ephemeral voices. If so, and if you haven’t learned the trick of how to listen, of knifing through the veil of hiss and static, then take my louder tapes and build a case from them. They must first be cleaned up. There is equipment available that will remove all the static and the hiss. After that, run them through another spectrographic analysis. There is also a way of determining the original speed at which they were recorded. This, as I stressed, will absolutely rule out freak radio reception as an explanation.

The voices are real. I believe they are the voices of the dead. This can never be proved, but that they emanate from intellects without bodies–at least as we know them–can be forcefully and scientifically demonstrated. The Catholic Church has the means–and, God knows, should have the interest–of developing a scientific body of proof that these voices exist, have no earthly source, defy a materialistic explanation and can be replicated time and again in a laboratory by hardheaded men and machines.

There was that voice that said it wasn’t important to do this. But not important for whom? I have to wonder. The men of the earth cry out against death and the terror of a final extinction and oblivion; they weep through the nights with each loss of a loved one. Must faith be enough to rid us of this anguish? Can it be enough?

These tapes are my prayer for those who mourn. They may prove no more than a hand in Christ’s side, not enough to overcome that final doubt, just as the raising of Lazarus failed to convince even some who were there and had seen it with their eyes. But what is it that Jesus asks us to do? If our cup for the thirsty isn’t full to the brim are we then to withhold it? If God cannot intervene, men can. It is surely His intention that we should. This is our world.

Thank you for not telling me that my decision is the sin of despair. I know that it is not. I do nothing. I only wait. Maybe in your heart you really thought it was wrong. But you didn’t say so. I can have a good parting.

In the days to come, you may hear some very strange things about me. I dread that possibility, but should it ever come to pass, please know that I have never meant harm to anyone. Think the best of me, Father, won’t you? How long have I known you? Two days? Well, I shall miss you. Yet I know that I will see you again someday. When you read this, I will be with my Ann. Please be glad.

With respect and affection,

Vincent Amfortas

Amfortas looked over the letter. He made a few small corrections, then he checked the time and decided he had best have a steroid injection. He had learned not to wait for the headaches to come. Now every six hours he would take six milligrams automatically. Soon it would alter his mind. He’d had to write the letter now.

He went up to the bedroom, took the shot and then came back to the typewriter where it was resting on the breakfast nook table. He consulted some notes and then decided he should add a postscript to the letter. He typed:

P.S.: In the many, many months that I’ve been making these recordings, I have time and again asked the question “Describe your condition, state of being or location as concisely as you can.” A few times I’ve been able to elicit an answer, at least an answer I was able to hear, and since substantive questions like this are so often evaded by the voices, I thought you might like to know what answers I’ve gotten. They are as follows:

We come here first.

Here one waits.

Limbo.

Dead.

It’s like a ship.

It’s like a hospital.

Doctor angels.

I also asked, “What should we the living be doing?” and one answer that I heard rather clearly was “Good works.’’ It sounded like a woman.

Amfortas drew the letter out of the typewriter and slipped in an envelope in its place. On the front of it he typed:

Rev. Joseph D
yer, S.J. Georgetown University
To be delivered in the event of my death.

K
I
NDERMAN APPROACHED THE HOSPITAL ENTRANCE, HIS pace growing slower with every step. When he reached the doors he turned around and looked up at the drizzling sky for a moment, searching for a dawn that he’d somehow misplaced; but there were only the flashing red lights of the squad cars turning implacably and in silence, splashing the dark, wet slick of the streets. Kinderman felt that he was walking in a dream. He couldn’t feel his body. The world was an edge. When he noticed the television news team arriving, he quickly turned around and walked into the hospital. He rode the elevator up to Neurology and stepped off into quiet chaos. Newsmen. Cameras. Uniformed policemen. At the charge desk there were curious interns and residents, most of them assigned to some other ward. In the hallways there were patients, robed and frightened; some of the nurses were reassuring them, easing and cajoling them back to their rooms.

Kinderman looked around. Opposite the charge desk, a uniformed policeman stood guarding the door to Dyer’s room. Atkins was there. He was listening as newpeople pummeled him with questions, their stridencies blending together into noise. Atkins kept shaking his head, saying nothing. Kinderman approached him. Atkins saw him coming and met his gaze. The sergeant looked stricken. Kinderman leaned in close to his ear. “Atkins, get these reporters down to the lobby,” he said; then he squeezed the sergeant’s arm and for a fraction of an instant looked into his eyes in a momentary sharing of his pain. He allowed himself no more. He went into Dyer’s room and closed the door.

The sergeant beckoned to a group of policemen. “Get these people downstairs!’’ he called out to them sharply. An outcry of protest arose from the reporters. “You’re disturbing the patients,” said Atkins. There were groans. The policemen started herding the reporters away. Atkins sauntered to the charge desk and leaned his back against it. He folded his arms. His haunted eyes were fixed on the door to Dyer’s room. Beyond it lay a horror that was unimaginable. His mind could not fully grasp it.

Stedman and Ryan emerged from the room. They looked drawn and pale. Ryan’s gaze was on the floor and he never looked up as he hastened away and down the hall. He turned a corner by the charge desk and was soon out of sight. Stedman had been watching him. Now he turned his gaze to Atkins. “Kinderman wants to be alone,” he said. His voice had a hollow sound.

Atkins nodded.

“Do you smoke?” Stedman asked him.

“No.”

“I don’t either. But I’d like a cigarette,” said Stedman. He averted his head for a moment, thinking. When he lifted a hand to his eyes and examined it, he saw that it was trembling. “Jesus Christ,” he said softly. The trembling grew stronger. Suddenly the hand stabbed into a pocket and Stedman was swiftly walking away. He was following the direction that Ryan had taken. Atkins could still hear him softly murmuring, “Jesus! Jesus! Jesus Christ!” Somewhere a buzzer sounded. A patient was summoning a nurse.

“Sergeant?”

Atkins shifted his gaze. The policeman at the door was staring at him oddly. “Yes, what is it?” Atkins answered.

“What the hell is going on here, Sergeant?”

“I don’t know.”

Atkins heard some arguing coming from his right. He looked and saw a television news team confronting two policemen close to the elevators. Atkins recognized an anchorman from the local six o’clock news. His hair was pomaded and his manner was belligerent and obstreperous. The policemen were gradually pushing the news team back toward the bank of elevators. At one point the anchorman tripped and fell backward a little, almost losing his balance; then he cursed and gave up and left with the others, pounding a section of rolled–up newspaper in his palm.

“Can you tell me who’s in charge here, please? I had a notion at one time that it was me.”

Atkins looked to his left and saw a short, slender man in a blue flannel suit. Behind rimmed glasses were small, alert eyes. “Are you in charge?” asked the man.

“I’m Sergeant Atkins, sir. Can I help you?”

“I’m Doctor Tench. I’m the Chief of Staff of this hospital, I think,” he said with heat. “We have a number of patients here in serious to critical condition. All this upset isn’t helping them, you know.”

“I understand, sir.”

“I don’t want to sound callous,” said Tench, “but the sooner the deceased is removed, the sooner it will stop. Will that be soon, do you think?”

“Yes, I think so, sir.”

“You understand my position.”

“Yes, I do.”

“Thank you.’’ Tench walked away with a brisk, officious step.

Atkins noticed it was quieter now. He glanced around and saw the departing television crew. They were almost gone. The anchorman still slapped at his palm with the paper and was boarding an elevator from which Stedman and Ryan were emerging. They walked toward Atkins with their heads down. Neither said a word. The television anchorman was watching them. “Hey, what happened in there?” he called out. The elevator door slid shut and he was gone.

Atkins heard the door to Dyer’s room coming open. He looked and saw Kinderman emerging. The detective’s eyes were red and rubbed. He stopped and faced Stedman and Ryan for a moment. “All right, you can finish,” he said. His voice was cracked and low.

“Lieutenant, I’m sorry,” said Ryan gently. His face and his voice were filled with compassion.

Kinderman nodded, staring down at the floor. He murmured, “Thank you, Ryan. Yes, thank you.” Then without looking up he hurried away from them. He was headed for the elevators. Atkins caught up with him quickly.

“I’m just going for a walk now, Atkins.”

“Yes, sir.” The sergeant kept walking beside him. As they reached the elevators, one opened. It was going down. Atkins and Kinderman stepped in and turned around.

“Guess we picked the right elevator, Chick,” said a voice.

Atkins heard machinery running. His head spun around. The television anchorman was grinning while a camera churned in another man’s hands. “Was the priest decapitated,” asked the anchorman, “or was he–”

Atkins’ fist smashed into his jaw and the anchorman’s head cracked into a wall and rebounded from the fury of the blow. Blood spurted from his lips and he crumpled to the floor, where he lay unconscious. Atkins glared at the cameraman, who quietly lowered the camera. Then the sergeant looked at Kinderman. The detective seemed oblivious. He was staring down into space, his hands plunged deep into the pockets of his coat. Atkins pushed a button and the elevator stopped at the second floor. He took the detective by the arm and led him out. “Atkins, what are you doing?” asked Kinderman dazedly. He seemed a helpless, confused old man. “I want to go walking,” he said. “Yes, we’re going, Lieutenant. This way.” Atkins led him to another wing of the hospital and took an elevator down from there. He wanted to avoid the reporters in the lobby. They walked through more hallways and soon they were standing outside the hospital on the side facing out to the campus of the university. A narrow portico above them sheltered their bodies from the rain; it was coming down harder now and they watched the downpour in silence. In the distance students in raincoats and brightly colored slickers were walking to breakfast. Two coeds ran laughing out of a dormitory, both holding newspapers over their heads. “The man was a poem,” said Kinderman softly. Atkins said nothing. He stared at the rain.

“I want to be alone, please, Atkins. Thank you.” Atkins turned his head to examine the detective. He was staring straight ahead. “All right, sir,” said the sergeant. He turned and went back inside the hospital, returning at last to the neurology wing where he started to question possible witnesses. All the staff on the night–to–morning shift had been asked to remain for that purpose, including the nurses, doctors and attendants from Psychiatric. Some of these were clustered by the desk. While Atkins was talking to the charge nurse on duty in Neurology at the time of Dyer’s death, a doctor approached him and interrupted with, “Would you forgive me, please? I’m sorry.’’ Atkins looked him over. The man seemed shaken. “I’m Doctor Amfortas,” he said. “I was treating Father Dyer. Is it true?”

Atkins nodded gravely.

Amfortas stood staring at him for a while, his complexion growing paler, his eyes more withdrawn. Then at last he said, “Thank you,” and walked away. His steps were unsteady.

Atkins watched him, and then turned to the nurse. “What time does he come on duty?” he asked her.

“He doesn’t,” she told him “He doesn’t do ward work anymore.” She was fighting back tears.

Atkins jotted down a few words in his notebook. He was turning to the nurse again when he looked and saw Kinderman approaching. His hat and coat were soaking wet. He must have been walking in the rain, thought Atkins. Soon he was standing in front of the sergeant. His manner had changed completely. His gaze was firm and clear and determined. “All right, Atkins, stop loitering around with pretty nurses. This is business, not Young Detectives in Love.”

“Nurse Keating was the last one to see him alive,” said Atkins.

“When was that?” the detective asked Keating.

“About half past four,” she said.

“Nurse Keating, may I speak to you alone?” asked Kinderman. “I’m sorry, but this has to be done.”

She nodded and dabbed at her nose with a handkerchief.

Kinderman pointed to a glass–enclosed office behind the charge desk. “Perhaps in there?”

Again she nodded. Kinderman followed her into the office. It contained a writing shelf, two chairs and shelves filled with files of various papers. The detective motioned the nurse to be seated, and then closed the door. Through the glass, he saw Atkins quietly watching. “So you saw Father Dyer at half past fourish,” he said.

She said, “Yes.”

“And where did you see him?”

“In his room.”

“And what were you doing there, please?”

“Well, I’d gone back to tell him that I couldn’t find the wine.”

“You said
‘
the wine’?”

“Yes. He’d buzzed me a little bit before and said he needed some bread and wine and did we have some?”

“He wanted to say Mass?”

“Yes, that’s right,” said the nurse. She colored a little, and then shrugged. “One or two on the staff–well, they keep some liquor around sometimes.”

“I understand.”

“I looked around in the usual places,” she said. “Then I went back and told him I was sorry, that I just couldn’t find it. But I gave him some bread.’’

“And what did he say?”

“I don’t remember.”

“Would you tell me your hours, Miss Keating?”

“Ten to six.”

“Every night?”

“When I’m working.”

“And what are your working nights, please?”

“I’m on Tuesday through Saturday,” she answered.

“Had Father Dyer said Mass here before?”

“I don’t know.”

“But he never before wanted bread and wine.”

“That’s correct.”

“Did he tell you why he wanted to say Mass today?”

“No.”

“When you told him that you couldn’t find the wine, did he say something?”

“Yes.”

“And what did he say, Miss Keating?”

She needed the handkerchief again, then she paused and appeared to be composing herself. “ ‘You drank it all?’ he said.” Her voice cracked, and now her face puckered up into grief. “He was always making jokes,” she said. She turned her head away and started weeping. Kinderman noticed a box of tissues on one of the shelves, and he pulled out a handful and gave them to her; her handkerchief by now was a crumpled, wet ball. She said,
“
Thank you,’’ and took them. Kinderman waited. “I’m sorry,” said Keating.

“Never mind. Did Father Dyer tell you anything else at the time?”

The nurse shook her head.

“And when did you see him next?”

“When I found him?”

“When was that?”

“Around ten before six.”

“Between half past four and ten to six, did you see someone entering Father Dyer’s room?”

“No, I didn’t.”

“Did you see someone leaving it?”

“No.”

“And at those times, you were opposite the room at this charge desk.”

“That’s right. I was writing up reports.”

“But you were here the whole time.”

“Well, except for some times when I gave out medication.”

“How long did it take you to give the medication?”

“Oh, a couple of minutes for each, I would guess.”

“What rooms?”

“Four–seventeen, four–nineteen and four–eleven.”

“You left your desk three times?”

“No, twice. Two medications were together.”

“And what times did you give them at, please?”

“Mister Bolger and Miss Ryan had a codeine at a quarter to five, and Miss Freitz in four–eleven had a heparin and dextran about an hour later.”

“These rooms, they’re on the same hallway as Father Dyer’s room?”

“No, they’re around the corner.”

“So if someone else had entered Father Dyer’s room around a quarter to five you wouldn’t have seen it, and the same if someone left the room an hour later?”

“Yes, that’s right.”

“These medications are given every day at those times?”

“No, the heparin and dextran for Miss Freitz are new. I never saw it on the log until today.”

“And who prescribed it, please? Can you remember?”

“Yes, Doctor Amfortas.”

“You’re certain? Would you like to check the records?”

“No, I’m positive.”

“Why are you positive?”

“Well, it’s unusual. The resident usually does that. But I think he’s got a sort of special interest in her case.”

The detective looked puzzled. “But I thought Doctor Amfortas doesn’t work on the ward anymore.”

“That’s right. That was as of last night,” said the nurse.