“Why have you destroyed my town?” he asked softly, pathetic, almost childlike. “Why? I can’t understand how a man could do it. You did it … why?”
Duvoe ran a hand across his dry lips. The emotion of the other man drenched him, made him think, made him remember, forced him to consider all that had gone before, what he had done, who had known what was coming, the whys and hows and realities of it, festering till it had had to be lanced.
“Why …” he murmured the question softly, half to himself, “why indeed, Reverend. Why indeed.”
He slumped down on the bed.
What he said came very gently, as though all the broken glass edges of memory had been sea-smoothed by the wash of emotions.
“They did it in 1942. I was seventeen, away at art school in New York; I didn’t learn about it for several weeks. I couldn’t understand why my letters never got answered, or why the money stopped coming. Finally, I came home and saw the rubble where my home had been. Do you remember it, Reverend? You were here then; you were tending to the souls of your flock even then. Your flock of bigots and murderers! Do you remember, Reverend?”
Archer’s face came up. Comprehension dawned. His mouth worked and he said, “Not Duvoe. Not Duvoe at all. Deutsch! I know …Deutsch! ”
The bearded man’s eyes burned steadily, strangely, with a flickering light of inner intensity, “That’s right, Reverend. That’s right! Deutsch. Gunther Deutsch, not Gunther Duvoe. Gunther Deutsch, son of Cara and Horst Deutsch, who ran the home bakery on Pearse Street for nineteen years, until we went to war with Germany, and the bigots decided old Horst and his hausfrau were Nazis, and burned them alive in their house on Fairlawn Boulevard!”
“Nowdo you remember, Reverend?Now do you know what makes a boy of seventeen run away from even the ashes of his parents, what makes him go mad a little, Reverend, what makes him want to kill something as big as a town? Do you knownow , my holy father of the guilty ones? Now do you see what warps a boy’s life so he doesn’t marry, doesn’t settle, doesn’t live till now? Is it clear, at last?”
Archer stared in horror at the warped expression, the burning, desperately needing eyes. “You’re a fanatic, you’ve done this, do you know what you’ve done …”
The bearded man stood up, fierce, tense.
“Do I know? Reverend, the God you talk about is the only one who knows how much and how well I know.”
“They didn’t know what they were doing … the war … all the talk about saboteurs … they were sick people …” Archer flailed at nothing, trying to establish a rationale, failing completely.
“So they burned alive an old man and his wife who’d been in this town for almost twenty years. They indulged their patriotic fervor in the defence of their country; old man Deutsch and his wife …” he sneered vindictively, “ … oh, they were dangerous, all right!”
Archer dropped the pistol and turned away. The .45 lay black and huge on the carpet; the Reverend’s face (in artistic contrast) was small and milky. Duvoe would not let him retreat, however; he followed him with, “And what did you do, Reverend? What did you do to set right the wrong? Did you say anything to anyone outside Prince? Or did you let the conspiracy of silence stand? Did you succor them in their hour of need, Reverend? Did you make sure their souls were unblemished?”
The Reverend Archer did not turn. He raised his hands to his face, and soft sobs escaped between the prisoning bars of his fingers. “It was good here, so … so ordered …”
The bearded man laughed, fur-soft and deeply.
Then he said: “Well, don’t let it bother you, Reverend Archer. It doesn’t matter.”
Then,Archer turned. “What are you talking about? What do you mean?”
And Duvoe said: “It’s all a lie, Reverend. My name isn’t Deutsch. It isn’t Duvoe, either, but it certainly isn’t Deutsch. They had no children.”
The Reverend Archer’s strong chin could not support the wild weight of his slack mouth. His lower jaw dropped open, and he cast about frantically for the reason in this suddenly mad situation. “You’re …not? Then who … what did you …”
Duvoe’s smile was that of the shark. “Everyone has a hobby, Reverend, and when you’ve done evil for so long it’s the only way you know, the only product you can merchandise, well, then I suppose your first guess about me was correct.”
“Evil!” the Reverend bellowed, starting forward. “You work for him …”
“Oh, don’t be melodramatic, Mr. Archer. I’m quite as human as you. But all this wearies …” and he methodically emptied the .45 into the Reverend Mr. Archer.
He fell halfway into the bathroom, and lying there with his face cool against the tile, he smelled the last traces of incense that steam from running shower water was not able to conceal. The cool began to fade, and so did the light as Duvoe wandered about the room carrying his suitcase, murmuring abstractedly, “Now where did I put that road map …”
Exit the fanatic, to the smell of sulphur, offstage right.