The priest turned to smile back at him through the porthole.
“Would you call me insane?
It’s true that victims have frequently lost their minds.
But that’s not a direct result of neuroderm.
Tell me, how would you feel if everyone screamed and ran when they saw you coming, or hunted you down like a criminal?
How long would your sanity last?”
Paul said nothing.
Perhaps the anathema was a contributing factor….
“Unless you were of very sound mind to begin with, you probably couldn’t endure it.”
“But the craving… and the hallucinations…”
“True,” murmured the priest thoughtfully. “The hallucinations. Tell me something else, if all the world was blind save one man, wouldn’t the world be inclined to call that man’s sight a hallucination? And the man with eyes might even come to agree with the world.”
Again Paul was silent.
There was no arguing with Mendelhaus, who probably suffered the strange delusions and thought them real.
“And the craving,” the priest went on. “It’s true that the craving can be a rather unpleasant symptom.
It’s the condition’s way of perpetuating itself.
Although we’re not certain how it works, it seems able to stimulate erotic sensations in the hands.
We do know the microorganisms get to the brain, but we’re not yet sure what they do there.”
“What facts have you discovered?” Paul asked cautiously.
Mendelhaus grinned at him.
“Tut!
I’m not going to tell you, because I don’t want to be called a ‘crazy dermie.’
You wouldn’t believe me, you see.”
Paul glanced outside and saw that they were approaching the vicinity of the fishing cottage.
He pointed out the lamplit window to the driver, and the ambulance turned onto a side road.
Soon they were parked behind the shanty.
The priests scrambled out and carried the stretcher toward the light, while Paul skulked to a safer distance and sat down in the grass to watch.
When Willie was safe in the vehicle, he meant to walk back to the bridge, swim across the gap, and return to the mainland.
Soon Mendelhaus came out and walked toward him with a solemn stride, although Paul was sitting quietly in the deepest shadow—invisible, he had thought.
He arose quickly as the priest approached.
Anxiety tightened his throat.
“Is she… is Willie…?”
“She’s irrational,” Mendelhaus murmured sadly. “Almost… less than sane.
Some of it may be due to high fever, but…”
“Yes?”
“She tried to kill herself.
With a knife.
Said something about buckshot being the best way, or something…”
“Jeezis!
Jeezis!”
Paul sank weakly in the grass and covered his face with his hands.
“Blessed be His Holy Name,” murmured the priest by way of turning the oath aside. “She didn’t hurt herself badly, though. Wrist’s cut a little.
She was too weak to do a real job of it.
Father Will’s giving her a hypo and a tetanus shot and some sulfa. We’re out of penicillin.”
He stopped speaking and watched Paul’s wretchedness for a moment.
“You love the girl, don’t you?”
Paul stiffened.
“Are you crazy?
Love a little tramp dermie?
Jeezis…”
“Blessed be—”