Jean-Baptiste heard a commotion in the street and hastened to finish buttoning up his jerkin. Most of the loud voices were young, but the shouts of an elder concerned him the most. He grabbed his sword off the wall and went through the open arched doorway while still in his stockings. There, out on the street, stood his father, still in his nightshirt, yelling at a handful of juveniles. Excrement and garbage that the bullies had thrown at the old shopkeeper soiled the nightshirt.
"The devil will get you, boys," the old man shouted. “I can see him behind you."
Only one boy, the smallest of the bunch, looked back; the others knew there was no devil. The largest of the boys, Arnaud, began moving in closer with a threatening look. Jean-Baptiste ran, stones rough on his stockings, and positioned himself between his father and the young man.
"Leave my father alone," he said coldly, his eyes staring menacingly.
The bully looked at Jean-Baptiste's sword and backed away.
"Your papa is crazy. If you don't want him harassed, keep him in the house. Look at him! He is a disgusting mess."
Jean-Baptiste moved the sword six inches out of its scabbard.
"Leave now," he ordered and shouted at the other youths.
"All of you!"
He waited until they had all drifted down the street and turned a corner before he turned to his father, put his arm around the elder's shoulder, and gently guided him back into the house.
"You know you should not go outside alone, Papa. Bad people like those boys will hurt you. Always wait for me to join you."
"Who are you?"
Jean-Baptiste had heard his father ask this question many times before, and the young man's stomach turned every time. The older man was losing more memory every day. Is this what happens when you live too long?
He returned the sword to the rack on the stone wall in a room that served as a kitchen and dining area. It was not illegal for a shopkeeper's son to have a sword, but many people disapproved. Although a lot had changed over the years, many still believed that having a sword was a privilege reserved for knights and lords.
Jean-Baptiste helped his father out of his nightshirt and threw it in a wooden bucket. His sister Adeline would be along later to wash clothes., and fix an evening meal. She was married but had no children yet, and her husband tolerated her time spent with her family as long as she acknowledged that all that would change when she became with child.
The shopkeeper’s son cleaned his father and helped him dress for the day. All the while, Remon watched his son without saying anything. Finally, Jean-Baptiste seated his father and himself in front of two bowls of cold porridge left over from the night before, and while Jean-Baptiste ate, his father stared blankly at the bowl. Looking up, he said to his son.
"I want to go home now."
This was another expression Jean-Baptiste heard from his father, which made no sense. They were in the home that had been in the family for generations. Where did Papa think home was if it was not here? After not getting that into his father's head, Ramon had found that taking his father for a walk and then, as they approached the house, they left ten minutes earlier, he would say,
"Ok, father, we are home now."
That would satisfy Ramon for the rest of the day. But this time, as Jean-Baptiste escorted the older man toward the door, Ramon balked.
"Look! There is the devil again. Standing in the middle of the street."
"I don't see him, Papa. Let's walk."
"No, I want to go back inside."
Ramon saw the devil frequently, along with nonexistent people with strange faces and contorted bodies. Some were huge, like giants. He would tell all this to his son, who would listen patiently and then distract Ramon with real stories of their family's past.
Sometimes, this would get Ramon's hallucinations to change from demons to past family members. His wife, who died years earlier, would appear young and beautiful in front of him in her burgundy wedding gown, filling him with an emotional mixture of love and grief that he did not understand. He did not remember her horrible death from Puerperal fever after giving birth to Adeline. Sometimes, Ramon would talk to this illusion, but all Jean-Baptiste would hear was incoherent mumbling.
#
Father Valducce closed the confessional, walked to the center of the cathedral, crossed himself in front of the altar, and began to walk down the aisle toward the front door. He had finished hearing confessions for the day. They always depressed him. What a sorry bunch of parishioners.
Two women dressed in black with matching scarves on their heads were praying in front of the votive candles they had lit. They would be gone soon, and he did not plan to wait for them. It was time to go to the parsonage and indulge in wine and pleasant conversation with friends.
He was almost at the front door when the bully Arnaud walked in and came towards the clergyman.
"I am sorry, Arnaud," Father Valducce said. " But the confessional is closed for the day. Come back tomorrow, and I will hear your confession."
Arnaud's confessions always involved some lewd behavior.
"I am not here to confess," Arnaud replied. "May I talk to you, Father, as you walk?"
"Of course, my son."
Arnaud was taller and thicker than the priest, and being around him intimidated the clergyman.
"Father, I think the old shopkeeper, Ramon, is in league with the devil. He claims he can see and talk to Lucifer. He has threatened me and my friends with the wrath of the devil."
Father Valducce said nothing, and the two walked in silence. He remembered his early days in the priesthood when he participated in an inquisition in Toulouse. Although the Church mainly tortured those who dared denounce its doctrines, he recalled the occasional devil worshiper being tortured and then burned at the stake. He missed those days.
"Are you going to do something about this, Father?" Arnaud asked, breaking the silence.
"Have you seen any signs of witchcraft? Is he casting spells?" the priest asked hopefully.
Arnaud did not understand the question but answered in the affirmative anyway.
"What did you see?"
Trapped in his stupidity, Arnaud began to stammer.
Father Valducce tried to help the young man along.
"Has anyone close to you suddenly fallen sick?"
It was a good bet that one of the several diseases around hit someone Arnaud knew.
"My friend, who was with me when old Ramon spoke of seeing the devil, has a fever."
Father Valducce stopped walking and looked at the strong young man. He struggled to contain his excitement.
"This is serious, my son. Do not go near Ramon or his shop. It seems like he put a spell on all of you. I will consult with the Bishop about this. "
Father Valducce had nothing against Ramon, the shopkeeper. Neither father nor son attended mass often, but other than that, they did not behave like heretics or devil worshipers. Nevertheless, the chance to engage in church-sanctioned torture was tempting, and he was sure his bishop would agree. Once he had written approval with the Bishop's seal, he could request that the authorities arrest Ramon and take him to the city dungeon.
The following day, as the cleric dictated the letter to his scribe, Adeline, on her way to her father's house passed under an open window in the church and heard the priests mention her father's name. With horror, she heard the details of Father Valducce's plans for her father.
#
Jean-Baptiste and his father opened Ramon's shop, ajoining the family house. While the son went to work preparing for the day, the father sat on a barrel and stared blankly out into the street, occasionally pointing to non-existent creatures in the street. He jumped with alarm when Abraham Goldstein came through the door.
"Who are you?" He asked the banker whom he had known and been friends with for many years.
"Papa, it is Monsieur Goldstein.”
Jean-Baptiste looked at the banker apologetically, but Abraham Goldstein smiled and looked at his damaged old friend.
"It is good to see you again, Ramon. You are looking well. Now, I have some business to attend to with your son, so you must excuse me."
Ramon said nothing but resumed looking out at the street.
Jean-Baptiste produced a handful of coins and gave them to the banker.
"Business has been good. I can make a payment on my father's loan. I am expecting some new pieces of porcelain from China to arrive soon, and when they do, I will send word to the Lord and Lady. I’ll pay off the loan if they buy the lot."
"Let me have a look at them when they arrive. I might be able to give you a good price or take more off your father's debt. There is a rumor that the Lord and Lady are not faring well with money. It is not like it was in their ancestor's day when they had much more land and serfs to work on it."
He lowered his voice and continued.
"The Lordships are heavily in debt to me, spending too much they don't have to keep up appearances. Unlike you, they are terrible debtors and are very slow with their payments. But what can I do? Nobility still has power."
" I will show the porcelain to you first," Jean-Baptiste said. The shopkeeper and his banker talked for a few more minutes, and then Abraham Goldstein bid his old friend adieu. Ramon stared blankly back.
Jean-Baptiste returned to work putting new products on the shelf, dusting, cleaning, and hoping for customers. Ramon continued to stare out the door, and various hallucinations created by his afflicted brain came and went, some beautiful, others horrific. He could see a marble statue of the Madonna holding Jesus in her lap after the crucifixion, followed by a naked red-headed lady on a sea shell.
Then he saw a man approach with a green aura around him. Ramon felt the devil and his eyes widened with fear. He jumped up and hid behind the barrel as Father Valducce walked into the shop.
Jean-Baptiste looked at his father with concern. His behavior was getting stranger every day. The priest said nothing to Ramon, spoke briefly with Jean-Baptiste, bought some needles and black thread to repair a torn cassock, and left.
Jean-Baptiste found he had to be careful when asking his father about his strange actions. At worst, it brought on a hostile reaction; at best, a rambling monologue that made no sense. But this sudden manifestation of fear was something new.
“Were you frightened by Father Valducce, Papa?”
“That man has demons in him. They are green with horns and hoofed feet and big teeth.” He spoke rapidly, breathing heavily like a child who had just run away from a goblin.
“I am sure he is not evil, Papa. Father Valducce is a man of God.”
“Oh, he is evil all right,” came Adeline’s voice from the doorway. Ramon smiled at his daughter. He did not remember who she was, but he felt warmly loved whenever she was in his presence. Jean-Baptiste looked at his sister with concern. She was pale, and he could tell something was bothering her. She motioned her brother away from their father and spoke quietly to Jean-Baptiste, telling him what she had heard outside the Cathedral window.
This filled Jean-Baptiste with fear. Once the church decides someone’s fate, nothing can stop them. He could not just take his father and flee. What would they live on? There were family members in another village, but it was far away, and he did not know these people well and would not know how willing they would be to accept his Papa. Adeline suggested writing to the Pope, but that would mean hiring a clerical scribe who would indeed report back to Father Valducce.
As the siblings spoke quietly, Ramon continued to stare out the door, frequently interrupting them with descriptions of the wild creatures dressed in carnival costumes in the street, which were products of his infirmed mind. Adeline pushed back tears. Her father's hallucinations reminded her that his mind was no longer in the real world.
#
Jean-Baptiste’s appearance at the confessional startled Father Valducce. The young man had to find a way to appeal to the priest's humanity without telling him that Adeline had been eavesdropping.
After the requisite beginning, he launched into his confession, telling the priests that his sin was his thoughts of abandoning his father somewhere in the woods to get rid of the old man and his demens. Of course, he had no intention of doing such a cruel thing, but if he could impress upon Father Valducce, seeing the devil was not some satanic behavior but just one of several confusing visions his father experienced regularly. He recounted the images, as many as he could remember, that his father had described: the strange creatures in costumes, people with big heads in trees, and so forth.
“But you did not do this thing, my son, so there is no sin here.”
“Is it not a sin to think such a thing? Am I not to honor my father?”
“Yes, but your actions, not your thoughts, that matter. You came to confess these terrible thoughts, and that is the action that counts.
Father Valducce watched as the young shopkeeper walked out of the church. He felt sorry for the boy. The demens was not his doing but the curse of his father. As he stood in the aisle, a novice approached the priest with a message from the bishop.
“There does not appear to be sufficient grounds for the inquisition you requested. Such practices are coming under scrutiny these days, and we cannot just do the torture based on the word of one person.”
Father Valducce looked at the parchment, and while he felt disappointed, based on what Jean-Baptiste had told him, it was probably for the better. He knelt before the altar to pray and ask God for guidance.
#
As Jean-Baptiste began locking up the shop for the day, his father walked out the door.
“Are you going home, Papa?”
The elder nodded in the affirmative.
“I will join you there shortly, “the young man said, locking up valuable items in his hardwood safe. After shutting the windows and locking the front door, he proceeded next door to the family home.
“Papa,” he called out when he arrived, but there was no answer. He checked the house and the alley behind the house, but there was no sign of Ramon. It was common for Ramon to wander, so Jean-Baptiste was not worried. He would find his father somewhere on a nearby street, hopefully before the bullies found him. The sword was not on its rack, and panic seized the young shopkeeper when he saw the scabbard on the floor.
#
As he walked towards the Cathedral, brown and green demons swarmed around Ramon. He swatted at them with his free hand, but they continued to buzz around and taunt him. When he turned a corner, Ramon came face to face with Arnaud, who, seeing the unsheathed sword, turned white and ran away as fast as he could. Ramon continued toward the cathedral. He could feel the pain the demons inflicted with their forks, stabbing his chest, his left arm, and his neck. He pushed on with the determination of a man ready to remove evil at all costs.
Father Valducce finished his prayer, rose, crossed himself, and turned around in time to see Ramon charge down the aisle, the sword in front of him, which the old man drove into the clergyman’s heart. Father Valducce screamed and fell to the floor. The scream morphed in Ramon's mind to a chorus of angels, which rose to a crescendo as he clutched his chest and collapsed next to his victim.
