Sympathy for the Devil (51 page)

I saw the Asian woman once more, smoking with her friends in the park several weeks later, and to my amazement she nodded to me and came over, interrupted her companions' conversation.

"Are you alright?" she asked me peremptorily. "How are you doing?"

I nodded shyly back and told her that I was fine, thank you, and how was she?

She nodded and walked away.

I never saw the drunken, violent man again.

There were people I could probably have gone to to understand more about what had happened to Mrs. Miller. There was a story that I could chase, if I wanted to. People I had never seen before came to my house and spoke quietly to my mother, and looked at me with what I suppose was pity or concern. I could have asked them. But I was thinking more and more about my own life. I didn't want to know Mrs. Miller's details.

I went back to the yellow house once, nearly a year after that awful morning. It was winter. I remembered the last time I spoke to Mrs. Miller and I felt so much older it was almost giddying. It seemed such a vastly long time ago.

I crept up to the house one evening, trying the keys I still had, which to my surprise worked. The hallway was freezing, dark, and stinking more strongly than ever. I hesitated, then pushed open Mrs. Miller's door.

It opened easily, without a sound. The occasional muffled noise from the street seemed so distant it was like a memory. I entered.

She had covered the windows very carefully, and still no light made its way through from outside. It was extremely dark. I waited until I could see better in the ambient glow from the outside hallway.

I was alone.

My old coat and jumper lay spread-eagled in the corner of the room. I shivered to see them, went over, and fingered them softly. They were damp and mildewing, covered in wet dust.

The white paint was crumbling off the wall in scabs. It looked as if it had been left untended for several years. I could not believe the extent of the decay.

I turned slowly around and gazed at each wall in turn. I took in the chaotic, intricate patterns of crumbling paint and damp plaster. They looked like maps, like a rocky landscape.

I looked for a long time at the wall farthest from my jacket. I was very cold. After a long time I saw a shape in the ruined paint. I moved closer with a dumb curiosity far stronger than any fear.

In the crumbling texture of the wall was a spreading anatomy of cracks that--seen from a certain angle, caught just right in the scraps of light--looked in outline something like a woman. As I stared at it, it took shape, and I stopped noticing the extraneous lines, and focused without effort or decision on the relevant ones. I saw a woman looking out at me.

I could make out the suggestion of her face. The patch of rot that constituted it made it look as if she was screaming.

One of her arms was flung back away from her body, which seemed to strain against it, as if she was being pulled away by her hand, and was fighting to escape, and was failing. At the end of her crack-arm, in the space where her captor would be, the paint had fallen away in a great slab, uncovering a huge patch of wet, stained, textured cement.

And in that dark infinity of markings, I could make out any shape I wanted.

The Devil Disinvests

By Scott Bradfield

"I don't think of it as laying off workers," the Devil told his Chief Executive Officer, Punky Wilkenfeld, a large round man with bloodshot eyes and wobbly knees. "I think of it as downsizing to a more user-friendly mode of production. I guess what I'm saying, Punky, is that we can't spend all eternity thinking about nothing more important than the bottom line. Maybe it's finally time to kick back, reflect on our achievements, and start enjoying some of that well-deserved R&R we've promised ourselves for so long."

As always, the Devil tried to be reasonable. But this didn't prevent his long-devoted subordinate from weeping copiously into his worsted vest.

"What will I
do
?" Punky asked himself over and over again. "Where will I
go
? All this time I thought you loved me because I was really, really evil. Now I realize you only kept me around because, oh God. For you it was just, just, it was just
business.
"

The Devil folded his long forked tail into his belt and checked himself out in the wall-sized vanity mirror behind his desk. He was wearing a snappy handmade suit by Vuiton, gleaming Cordovan leather shoes, and prescription Ray-Bans. The Devil had long been aware that it wasn't enough to be good at what you did. In order for people to know it, you had to look good, as well.

Roger "Punky" Wilkenfeld lay drooped over the edge of the Devil's desk like a very old gardenia. The Devil couldn't help himself. He really loved this guy.

"What can I tell you, Roger?" the Devil said, as gently as he could. "Eventually it comes time for everybody to move on, and so in this particular instance, I'll blaze the trail, and leave you and the boys to pack things up in your own good time. Just be sure to lock up when you leave."

The Devil went to California. He rented a beachfront cottage on the Central Coast, sold off his various penthouses and Tuscan villas, and settled into the reflective life as easily as an anemone in a tide pool. Every day he walked to the local grocery for fresh fruits and vegetables, took long strolls into the dry amber hills, or rented one of the Nouvelle Vague classics he'd always meant to watch from Blockbuster. He disdained malls, televised sports, and corporate-owned franchise restaurants. He tore up his credit cards, stopped worrying about the bottom line, and never once opened his mail.

In his heyday, the Devil had enjoyed the most exotic pleasures that could be devised by an infinite array of saucy, fun-loving girls named Delilah. But until he met Melanie, he had never actually known true love.

"I guess it's because love takes time," the Devil reflected, on the night they first slept together on the beach. "And time has never been something I've had too much of. Bartering for souls, keeping the penitents in agony, stoking the infernos of unutterable suffering and so forth. And then, as if that's not enough, having to deal with all the endless constant whining. Oh
please,
Master,
please
take my soul,
please
grant me unlimited wealth and fame and eternal youth and sex with any gal in the office, I'll do
any
thing you ask, please
please.
When a guy's in the damnation game, he never gets a moment's rest. If I'd met you five years ago, Mel? I don't think I'd have stopped working long enough to realize what a wonderful, giving person you really are. But I've got the time now, baby. Come here a sec. I've definitely got lots of time for you now."

They moved in together. They had children--a girl and a boy. They shopped at the Health Food Co-Op, campaigned for animal rights, and installed an energy efficient Aga in the kitchen. They even canceled the lease on the Devil's Volvo, and transported themselves everywhere on matching ten-speed racing bikes. These turned out to be the most wonderful and relaxing days the Devil had ever known.

Then, one afternoon when the Devil was sorting recyclable materials into their appropriate plastic bins, he received a surprise visitor from his past. Melanie had just taken the kids to Montessori. The Devil had been looking forward all day to catching up with his chores.

"How they hanging, big boy? I guess I imagined all sorts of comeuppances for a useless old fart like yourself, but certainly never this. Wasting your once-awesome days digging through garbage. Cleaning the windows and mowing the lawn."

When the Devil looked up, he saw Punky Wilkenfeld climbing out of a two-door Corvette. Clad in one of the Devil's old suits, he looked slightly out of place amidst so much expensive retailoring. Some guys know how to hang clothes, the Devil thought. And some guys just don't.

"Why, Punky," the Devil said softly, not without affection. "It's you."

"It sure is, pal. But they don't call me Punky anymore."

"Oh no?" The Devil absently licked a bit of stale egg from his forepaw.

"Nope. These days, people call me
Mr.
Wilkenfeld. Or better yet, the Eternal Lord of Darkness and Pain."

"It's like this, Pop," Punky continued over Red Zinger tea in the breakfast room. "When you took off, you left a trillion hungry mouths to feed. Mouths with razor-sharp teeth. Mouths with multitudinously-forked tongues. Frankly, I didn't know what to do, so I turned the whole kit-and-kaboodle over to the free-market-system and just let it ride. We went on the Dow in March, and by summer we'd bought out two of our closest rivals--Microsoft and ITT. I even hear Mr. Hot-Shot Heavenly Father's been doing a little diversifying. Doesn't matter to me, either. Whoever spends it, it's all money."

"It's always good to see a former employee make good, Punky," the Devil said graciously. "I mean, excuse me.
Mr.
Wilkenfeld."

Punky finished his tea with a long, parched swallow. "
Ahh,
" he said, and hammered the mug down with a short, rude bang. "I guess I just wanted you to know that I haven't forgotten you, Pops. In fact, I've even bought this little strip of beach you call home, and once we've finished erecting the new condos, we'll move on to offshore oil rigs, docking facilities, maybe even a yachting club or two. Basically, Pop, I'm turning your life into scrap metal. Nothing to do with business, either. I just personally hate your guts."

The Devil gradually grew aware of a dim beeping sound. With a sigh, Punky reached into his vest pocket and deactivated his digital phone with a brisk little flick.

"Probably my broker," Punky said. "He calls at least six times a day."

The Devil distantly regarded his former
charge d'affaires,
whose soft pink lips were beaded with perspiration and bad faith. Poor Punky, the Devil thought. Some guys just never learn.

"And wanta know the best thing about this shoreline redevelopment project, Pop? There's absolutely nothing you can do about it. You take it to the courts--I own them. You take it to the Board of Supervisors--I own
them.
You organize eight million sit-down demonstrations and I pave the whole damn lot of you over with bulldozers. That's the real pleasure of dealing dirt to you born-again types, Pop.
You
gotta be
good.
But I don't."

The Devil watched Punky stand, brush himself off, and reach for his snakeskin briefcase. Then, as if seeking a balance to this hard, unaccommodating vision, he looked out his picture window at the hardware equipment littering his back yard. The Devil had been intending to install aluminum siding all week, and he hated to see unfulfilled projects rust away in the salty sea air.

"One second," the Devil said. "I'll be right back."

"Sorry, Pop, but this is one CEO who believes in full-steam-ahead, toot toot! Keep in touch, guy. Unless, that is, I keep touch with
you
first--"

But of course before Punky reached the front door the Devil had already returned from his back yard with the shearing scissors. And Punky, who had belonged to the managerial classes for more eons than he cared to remember, was slow to recognize any instrument used in the performance of manual labor.

"Hey, Pop, that's more like it," Punky said slowly, the wrong sun dawning from the wrong hills. "I could use a little grooming if only to remind us both who's boss. Here, see, at the edge of this cloven hoof? What does that look like to you? A hangnail?"

Punky had crouched down so low that it almost resembled submission.

At which point the Devil commenced to chop Punky Wilkenfeld into a million tiny bits.

"Seagulls don't mind what they eat," the Devil reflected later. He was standing at the end of a long wooden pier, watching white birds dive into the frothy red water. "Which is probably why they remind me so much of men."

The Devil wondered idly if his life had a moral. If it did, he decided, it was probably this:

Just because people change their lives for the better doesn't mean they're stupid.

Then, remembering it was his turn to do bouillabaisse, the Devil turned his back on the glorious sunset and went home.

Faustfeathers

A play by John Kessel

Cast of Characters:

Doctor John Faustus
, professor of theology, University of Wittenberg

Wagner
, his student and servant

Dicolini
, a student at the university

Robin
, another student

Frater Albergus
, a spy for the Pope

Master Bateman
, Albergus's henchman

Helen of Troy
, a spirit

Mephistopheles
, a demon from hell

Martin
, a porter

The Clock

students, demons, a barmaid

The entire play takes place in Wittenberg, Germany in late December 1519.

Scene 1: Faustus's apartment, evening

Scene 2: Albergus's room at the Boar's Bollocks Inn, the next morning

Scene 3: Faustus's classroom, late morning

Scene 4: Faustus's apartment, afternoon

Scene 5: The tavern at the Boar's Bollocks Inn, late afternoon

Scene 6: Faustus's apartment, that evening

Scene 7: The tavern in the Boar's Bollocks Inn, after midnight

ACT ONE

Scene One

Spotlight downstage center. Enter Mephistopheles.

Mephistopheles
: Know, ladies and gentlemen, that I am Mephistopheles, chief among lieutenants to our great Master Lucifer. For twenty-four years now I have been bound by magical contract as servant to the necromancer Doctor Faustus. But now the end draws nigh.

As all demons, in compensation for our damnation I am given the power to be in every place, and the power to render myself invisible (
renders himself invisible by draping his head and shoulders with tinsel
). I see you when you're sleeping, I see you when you wake,I know if you've been bad or good, so...

Excuse me. It is Christmas of 1519. All of Europe lies in turmoil over the heresies of Martin Luther. The Pope and the Roman Church attempt to keep repressed changes that cannot be repressed. To the West, a new world has been discovered. There is a rebirth of learning, a renewed quest for knowledge. It is an age of overreachers, where the certitudes of the Middle Ages have been challenged and in places, broken. New nations, new political movements, new commerce, new science, and old lusts. Vast opportunity for salesmen such as me.

Though you live some five centuries after the good doctor, you are bound as he by the self-same laws of the universe. There, but for the grace of God, go you.

Lights come up. We are in a medieval apartment, divided into three rooms. To stage right is a bedroom, center stage is a common room/dining room, and stage left is a library/laboratory/study. Of the furnishings of these rooms, the most bizarre is a human
Clock
that stands in the corner of the commons room: a man in a modern business suit who calls out the hours aloud.

The bedroom and laboratory are dark, but four men occupy the apartment.
Wagner
is looking for something in the study. At the dining table, lingering over the remains of a dinner, are
Frater Albergus
,
Master Bateman
, and
Doctor Faustus
. Albergus is an imposing man of middle years, wearing somewhat elaborate medieval garb. Bateman is Albergus's henchman, a lascivious little man who has seen too much conniving and is cynically accustomed to it all. Wagner is Faustus's student at the university of Wittenberg, and his servant. He is waiting table at this dinner. Faustus looks exactly like Groucho Marx of the early Paramount Marx Brothers films. He wears gold wire-rimmed spectacles, a black academic gown over a loose white shirt, a sloppily tied black cravat, and tights.

It is winter and a fire burns in the fireplace. At the rear of each room a latticed window looks out on the alley behind Faustus's apartment. At the beginning of the scene Wagner leaves the commons for his study and Albergus continues his conversation with Faustus.

Albergus:
Of course the power that comes from the blood of unbaptized infants is only good during months without an "r" in them. My colleague Master Bateman, here, is an expert in such matters.

Bateman
(
smiling
): I before e except after c.

Faustus
: You know, to look at those teeth you'd swear they were real.

Wagner returns from the study.

Wagner
: I cannot find them, Master.

Faustus
: Of course you can't. Frater Albergus, meet my apprentice, Wagner. Don't let the feckless demeanor fool you. He really is a Renaissance dope.

Faustus exits.

Albergus
: How long have you been Doctor Faustus's fag, my boy?

Wagner
: Two years.

Albergus
: Yet he treats you abominably. Why do you put up with it?

Wagner
: I am a student of the magical arts. I seek knowledge.

Albergus
: What sort of knowledge?

Wagner
: The Meaning of Life.

Bateman
: Big, beautiful, brown eyes are The Meaning of Life.

Albergus
: He means magical knowledge. Am I right, son?

Wagner
(
hesitates
): No. Learned sir, please keep my confidence. I have seen the most beautiful woman here, in Faustus's apartments. And yet she is
not
here, nor have I ever spied her entering or leaving. How I long to meet her! To get to converse with her.

Bateman
: Have a friendly little chat. Discuss theology. Geometry. Anatomy.

Albergus
: Was this woman Greek?

Wagner
: How can one tell if a woman is Greek?

Bateman
: There's a trick they do with...

Albergus
: Enough, Bateman!

Faustus
: Wagner! Get your sorry butt in here!

Exit Wagner

Albergus
: We proceed apace, Bateman! See the way Faustus accepted our introduction from Doctor Phutatorious at face value. Now I must draw him out. The Pope will not tolerate these magical tricks any longer. We must expose this Faustus as a dealer with the devil, discover his contract, confiscate his magic book, and drag him before the Inquisition.

Clock
: NINE O'CLOCK. THE TEMPERATURE IS TWELVE DEGREES. DO YOU KNOW WHERE YOUR CHILDREN ARE?

Bateman
(
looking warily at Clock
): I don't know about you, but I'd rather not end up as a piece of furniture.

Albergus
(
absorbed in his machinations
): And now hear what this
slack fool says. This woman he speaks of must be Helen! But we need proof more positive than this. Now hurry and find us some students we can use as spies. Have them report to my rooms at the inn directly tomorrow morning.

Bateman leaves. Faustus and Wagner return from the study and Faustus sets down a box of cigars. Wagner sits on a stool in the corner. During the ensuing conversation he occasionally rises to refill their cups with wine.

Albergus
: So tell me, learned Faustus, how you discovered the secret of this miraculous alembic.

Faustus
: Never mind that, pick a card.

Faustus proffers a deck of tarot cards. When Albergus just stares he folds them away, leans forward over his glass of wine, places one end of a cigar into his mouth, lights the other from the candle flame. He puffs a few times, then exhales a plume of smoke across the table at Albergus. He pushes the wooden box forward.

Faustus
: Sorry your friend had to leave so soon. Have a cigar.

As Albergus reaches out to take one...

Faustus:
Just one.

Albergus
: To be sure.

Albergus examines the cigar; he has never seen anything like this before and is not ready to take any chances with a magician like Faustus.

Albergus:
Ah? What is the nature of this? This "see-gar" you burn here, Faustus? Albertus Magnus speaks of securing rooms against evil spirits by burning certain herbs, but he advocates the use of a brazier. Does not this smoke taste noxious to the palate?

Faustus
: I've had better smokes, but you won't be able to get them for a couple of hundred years. I just burn these ropes to drive the bugs away.

Albergus
(
sniffs
): There does not seem to be any hint of cinnabar. How did you come by these instruments?

Faustus
: That's an interesting story. I was riding a double-decker down Broadway and when we took the corner to 42nd Street on two wheels (the driver was a dyspeptic Abyssinian) a young woman fell into my lap. Imagine my chagrin. Naturally I took her home with me and we became devoted friends. In the divorce settlement she got the Hemingway manuscripts, I got these stogies.

Albergus:
In Nuremberg it is rumored you have had much success in conjuring the shades of historical figures.

Faustus:
Hysterical figures. And I do mean figures. Remind me sometime to introduce you to Helen.

Wagner spills the wine.

Faustus
: Try again, boy: cup
outside
, wine
inside
.

Albergus
(
pushing Wagner away as he tries to mop up the wine
): Helen of Troy?

Faustus
: Troy, Schenectady? One of those towns.

Albergus:
So you have indeed raised the dead?

Faustus
: She only acts that way in the mornings. Lithium deficiency.

Wagner finishes mopping the spilled wine.

Albergus
: Have you heard the reports of the astounding incidents that took place recently in Rome? It is said that some sorceror, invisible, plucked food and drink right out of the Pope's mouth. Then, to humiliate the papists further, this same necromancer stole the heretic Bruno away from the Inquisition and whisked him off to Austria. A most clever trick. I only wish I'd been able to manage it myself. The person responsible for bearding the Antichrist's tool in his own den must be the most powerful mage in all of Europe. Who do you suppose that might be?

Faustus
: Are you going to smoke that cigar or eat it? Go ahead! You can pay me later.

Albergus
: Pay you? Alas, Faustus, I have but little coin in pocket.

Clock
: NINE THIRTY. MAYBE YOU SHOULD CHECK YOUR WALLET.

Faustus
: Money, money, money! I'm sick to death of this talk of money! It's destroying our marriage! These cigars would cost a couple of guilders on the open market. Of course it's closed now, so you're left to your own devices. You did bring your devices, didn't you?

Albergus
: What sort of?

Faustus
: If not, you'll have to get your brothers to help you.

Albergus:
I have no brothers.

Faustus
: Your father must have been relieved.

Albergus:
My dear Faustus, do not insult me. I may only be an itinerant scholar, but I've come all the way from Nuremberg to sit at your feet and learn.

Faustus
: As long as you're down there, how about shining those shoes.

Albergus
: You do not mean what you say.

Faustus
: Let me tell you a thing or two about what I mean.

FAUSTUS' SONG:

When I took this job

I told the dean

You play it nice

I'll play it mean

It don't pay to mess with the Wittenberg Man

The Greatest Scholar in all of Europe.

I'll clean your clock

I'll drink your hock

I'll be your friend

Until the end

Or something better comes along.

Wagner
: It's true, it's true

He's beat me black and blue

Don't mess with the Wittenberg Man

The Wisest Guy in all of Europe.

Faustus
: I've got my magical clock

And a book full of spells

I make deals with the spirits

I wear a cap with bells

I've got a dog with a bone

The philosopher's stone

So tell all your sages

All your magical mages

It don't pay to mess with the Wittenberg Man

The Faustest Doctor in all of Europe.

Albergus
: Don't get me wrong, gentle colleague

I'm not here to try your patience

I've come to praise your great achievements

Learn to follow your investigations

Into the arcane hollows

Of these hallowed halls

The ivy covered walls

Of this great institution.

I won't dis the reputation of the Wittenberg Man

The most Powerful Professor in all of Europe.

Faustus:
If you're looking, pal, for knowledge

Let me give you a clue

Don't go to college

It's the worst you could do

Take my word for it, buddy

I work here every day

Before your first semester

You'll begin to fester

In a most distressful way.

But if you must matriculate

Here's a tip I can relate:

Make a deal with the devil

Before you step through the door.

Don't worry about perdition

It's a faculty tradition

He'll get you grants galore

You'll publish oceans, magic potions

Win mysterious promotions

That a Chancellor can't ignore

Take a warlock's degree

Major in astrology

For a minor, sorcery

And a concentration in dissimulation.