Chapter 31

Wisdom supreme, O how great art thou showest

In heaven, in earth, and in the evil world,

And with what justice doth thy power distribute!

Dante, Inferno, 19.10-12

They moved among the trees and tents, which in this part of the camp were not being used for the exercise of lust. Most of them seemed to be empty at the moment, their owners or occupants probably away in the mines for the day. Given the pimp’s description of his neighbors, Dante was certainly glad not to meet anyone.

After a while, Dante heard a voice ahead of them. It did not seem to be raised in anger or alarm, but full of cadences of encouragement and demand. Dante caught words here and there: “My brothers… let us not miss this opportunity… Do not delay. The Almighty is full of wrath. And justice.”

They continued toward the preaching, coming to a clearing where there were a number of crude, wooden benches, most of which were empty. Dante counted six men sitting on them. Off to the side, away from the benches, five bloody, filthy, emaciated bodies were stacked in a pile – three on the bottom, two on top of those. They were stacked like firewood, face down, with their feet on the side facing the clearing; Dante was grateful not to see their faces, though seeing their feet seemed almost worse, dehumanizing them even more.

The men seated on the benches were facing a man dressed in a bright yellow robe who stood at the other side of the clearing; he was the speaker Dante had heard. Tall and with a shock of white hair, the man appeared much better kept and groomed than anyone Dante had seen for days. The way he moved and the way his eyes sparkled, he exuded a glib, polished kind confidence and reliability. Stuck in the ground on either side of him, two torches burned. By his dress and demeanor, he seemed to be some sort of priest, preaching to the small audience. He stopped his speech or sermon when he saw them.

“Please, join us, strangers,” he said.

His listeners shifted in their seats to look at Dante and the others, then returned their attention to the man in priestly garb. The congregants were all older men. They looked lethargic and bored, though they did seem to be trying to pay attention to the speaker. Perhaps they had some remnant of decency left, even in this place, and had come seeking solace or forgiveness for a sinful life that was now threatened by the living dead. Or perhaps it was not decency, but simply fear. Looking at their dirty, tired faces, that seemed the more likely motivation for their apparent interest in some kind of religion.

“Thank you, sir,” Adam said as they took a step closer, though they remained standing behind the last row of benches.

The man resumed his speech. “As I was saying, this terrible plague of the undead is a punishment for our sins. A punishment upon the ungodly and disobedient, like the plagues sent upon Pharaoh and Egypt. Do you agree, men?”

Four or five weak “Ayes” and “Amens” went up from the small crowd.

“Do you agree, strangers?” the priest asked Dante’s group. His smile of perfect, white teeth seemed more accusatory than welcoming, though it was compelling and strangely attractive in its own way.

Adam nodded to Dante, as though deferring to him to represent the group on this matter. “I believe this is because of our sinfulness,” Dante said.

The man nodded. “Good. And like the Egyptians, many of the godless will die from this plague, but the faithful, like the Israelites, will not be harmed.” His voice rose and he raised his hands above his head. “The angel of death will pass over you if you are faithful, if you do not let your hearts be hardened!” Again there were some half-hearted words of approval and agreement from the audience.

The priest lifted his gaze up to the lifeless sky. “We have no doorposts to mark, Lord! We have no lamb’s blood to mark our dwellings with! But we commit our brothers’ bodies to the cleansing fire!” He took up the one torch and stepped over to the pile of bodies. Touching the fire to them, they took light immediately, the flames dancing across the soles of their feet. The stench of the burning flesh assailed Dante; worse still were the sounds of fat sizzling and skin crisping and curling back. The smoke this time was thick, black, and greasy. Thankfully the wind was not blowing back toward the clearing, or they’d all be choked and driven out of there.

The minister had returned the torch to its place and addressed his audience. “We will send this smoke up to our just and merciful God! Let it serve as a beacon, as a signal fire to guide the angel of death away from the tiny remnant of the faithful. You are fortunate indeed to be among that remnant, my brothers. Now perhaps you will be spared. But for such restraint and kindness, the Lord requires a commitment, a sacrifice, a sign of some generosity on your part, in gratitude for His abundant grace.”

He picked up a basket off the bench closest to him and moved among the men, each of whom threw a coin into it, though they seemed to Dante to grumble and hesitate as they did so. When the priest approached him, Dante raised his hand and shook his head. The man didn’t bother to offer the basket to the other three. He grunted, turned, and made his way back to the front of the congregation.

“I sense a most disturbing lack of faith here,” he said as he shook the basket, making the few coins clink together. “Most have given little. Some have given nothing. No one has given as much as they could. The Lord helps you pull riches from His earth, and this is all you can give back? This is sinful. Perhaps you don’t deserve His protection.”

The priest paused and seemed to be thinking. When he resumed, his tone had softened. “But perhaps I haven’t made the rewards clear enough. You need more encouragement. You are sinful and hard of heart. Perhaps some concession is better than a threat. Tell me, have you sinned?”

Dante could see the six original congregants were confused at this question, obviously unsure what response they were supposed to give. After waiting a moment and seeming to relish their discomfort, the priest supplied the answer. “Of course you have! I’ve seen you whoring and drinking and fighting! I saw some of you doing these things just last night!” He lowered his voice. “And more importantly, God saw you too. And God and I both know you’ll sin again tonight! Confess!” There were some murmurs from the six men. Dante looked at Adam and scowled.

The priest nodded his approval of the vague and noncommittal admissions of guilt. “Good,” he said. “And what if the dead came, right after all your godless, filthy sinning? Would you have time to repent? You might not!” Again his voice began to rise as he got back into the rhythm of his sermonizing. “You could feel a cold, impossibly strong hand close on your neck even while you were in the very midst of sinning! And when those avenging teeth sunk into your sinful flesh, it’d be too late to repent! So repent now, my friends! Repent for the sins you’re about to commit! I can offer you forgiveness for these before you sin, so you’ll be safe! Can you do this? Can you commit to this kind of repentance and accept the safety it offers?”

This time the preacher’s vivid speech and enthusiasm seemed more infectious to his meager congregation, for their acclaim was more vigorous and lasted longer than their earlier exclamations. He raised his one hand, while with the other he again shook the basket. The audience, other than Dante and his friends, now seemed excited and committed enough that they came forward on their own to throw more coins into the container. The preacher nodded his approval and set the basket back down as the congregation returned to their seats.

“Better, much better,” he said.

Their attention had been so focused on the priest, Dante did not notice the man staggering in from the side till he had come quite close to the minister. Some of the men let out a gasp and pointed, and the priest turned to see the man approaching him with outstretched arms. But he did not seem surprised or frightened by any of this. He just put the palm of his right hand on the man’s forehead and held him at arm’s length, while he gestured with his left to his congregation, indicating for them to stay away. Dante thought this very strange, and looked closer at the assailant. He did move slowly and stiffly, and moaned a bit, but there was something not quite convincing about him being a dead person, something alive about him. Perhaps the eyes were too shiny, or his motions were too fluid, or the red stains on him were too bright, looking more like mashed berries than like dark, dried blood. Whatever it was, Dante was convinced the man was alive and the “attack” was staged. He looked at Adam, this time rolling his eyes. When he looked at Radovan, the younger man returned the expression.

The men of the congregation were yelling in fear and waving their hands, but the preacher continued to play his act. “If you have faith, you can say to this mountain, ‘Be pulled up, and cast into the sea!’ And it will be done according to your faith!” he shouted. “If you have faith, you can say to the wind, ‘Be still!’ And the storm will cease and you will be saved! And if you have faith, you can say to the dead, ‘Rise!’ And they will rise again!” He gave the supposedly dead man a shove, and the actor fell backwards. He lay there on his back, making some convulsing motions and moaning. The charlatan extended his hands over his accomplice, palms down, and shouted louder than before. “Be gone, spirit of uncleanness! Let this poor man live once more!”

The actor on the ground gave a choking, strangling sound then he went slack. His death rattle was probably the most convincing part of the whole show, and made Dante shudder. Then the man on the ground lay silent and still. Not even Dante could resist the urge to crane his neck and see what he’d do next. He could see the original group of six was enthralled by the performance. The man on the ground blinked and slowly rose to a sitting position, where he looked around with a shocked, stupefied expression, as though just waking up in a completely unexpected, unfamiliar place. The minister helped him to stand, and presented him to the audience.

“With faith, we have power, even over death,” the priest said triumphantly. Then he lowered his voice and scowled at them. “But if you lack faith, you are doomed. And the Lord knows your faith, based on your generosity.” He extended a hand in the direction of the basket, into which more coins now flew.

Adam and Radovan hustled Bogdana and Dante out of the clearing. “Let’s go,” Adam said in a low voice. “This is mad, base, and vulgar.”

Their escape did not go unnoticed, however. “You there!” the priest shouted after them. “Do you still lack faith?”

“I agreed with you about the source of the undead plague,” Dante said. “We have our own way of dealing with it and are eager to move on.”

He had considered openly exposing the man’s deception, but as jubilant as the old men looked as they fawned on the supposedly “saved” man, Dante doubted they would’ve believed him. And as surrounded as they were in the tent city, it hardly seemed advisable to raise any alarm or confrontation with the strange, wicked inhabitants. Better to sneak out quietly with as little attention or debate as possible.

“Then you lack faith,” the minister replied. “We will pray for you that your faith increases. But you are going down a very dangerous, deadly path. Others may not be as tolerant of your faithlessness as we are.”

The other three were already out of the clearing. “Thank you for your prayers,” Dante said and slipped out after them.

Walking away from there, he marched beside Adam.

“It’s funny,” Adam said as they walked. “I assumed the farther we went up the valley, the more isolated and removed from civilization, the less people would be interested in money. It seems I was wrong.”

“I’m not even sure it was about the money,” Dante said. “He liked the power, being the center of attention, being superior and more intelligent than those around him. The money was just a bonus.”

Adam nodded. “I think you’re right.”

They walked in silence for awhile before Dante spoke again. “Now I have been cursed at for praying for someone, and cursed for not joining in an impious prayer.”

“Such are the ways of the wicked,” Adam replied. “Wisdom and goodness to the vile seem vile. Filths savor but themselves.”

“Should I have said more to him? Tried to counter his evil plans?” Dante asked.

“No, of course not,” Adam replied. “There is no point in debating with the truly, habitually evil. They must be watched, observed, learned from, but you needn’t try to correct them. If we were far from here, in a normal town or city, you should have pointed out his wickedness to save his victims from being cheated, perhaps even to teach him to stop and behave better himself. But here? I fear those he cheats are nearly as much to blame as he is. They want to believe his foolishness and madness. They wouldn’t want real faith and hope. It would demand too much of them. So they get what they can for their worthless coins, which otherwise they would spend on other sins. They deserve each other.” He nodded toward Bogdana, who walked a few steps ahead of them. “Besides, we have other people to care for.”

Dante nodded, thinking some of Bogdana’s practicality had crept into Adam’s thinking. Perhaps different kinds of wisdom and goodness could magnify and influence one another, the way different kinds of evil so frequently did. It would be nice if it worked that way, though there in that depraved city Dante didn’t let himself hope for such a blessing, resigning himself instead to the terrible reality and potency of sin.