The Bat Tattoo

20 Adelbert Delarue

Whichever way you turn, your mind comes with you. To take the boy out of the Jesuits, that is possible, but to take the Jesuits out of the boy, that is not possible. In a dream I was stone, yes, chiselled by Gislebertus. I was one of the sinners on the tympanum of the west portal of the Cathedral of St Lazare. Is this all there is? I thought. If so, nothing much can happen. But just then two gigantic stone hands gripped my head and lifted me by it and I was eye to eye with Christ. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘what have we here? It looks like a von Peng sort of sinner.’

‘Delarue,’ I said faintly.

‘Whatever,’ said Christ. From his garment he took out a much-used stone notebook and a stub of stone pencil. As he leafed through the pages it was like the riffling of tombstones. He frowned, licked the point of the stone pencil, and made a note. ‘I regret to see,’ he said, ‘that you have done business with some people not of the best, have you not, my old?’

‘That was my father, Gottfried von Peng,’ I said. ‘Of his business affairs I know nothing.’

Again Christ flipped through the stone pages. ‘Ah,’ he said, ‘did you inherit from him?’

‘Well, yes,’ I said.

‘It goes,’ he said. ‘With the money, the sins.’

‘That hardly seems fair.’

‘What can I tell you?’ he said with a smile. ‘Would you like to hear chapter and verse of how you’ve spent your time and your money since coming into your inheritance? Shall we speak, for example, of lewd toys?’

‘You must have a great many demands on your time,’ I said. ‘How can you concern yourself with such trifles?’

‘There are no trifles,’ said Christ. ‘There are no little things; everything is big. Dare one hope that when you wake up you’ll try to …’ At this point the great stone hands let go of me and I lost the rest of his words in the rush and roar of warm air as I fell.

‘Do better?’ I shouted as I woke up.

‘Didn’t I do it the way you like?’ said Victoria. ‘Wasn’t it good for you?’

‘Quiet!’ I said. ‘I’m trying not to lose the dream.’

‘Aren’t we all?’ said Victoria.