Exorcist Needed

“I am looking for an exorcist,” Martha says to her friend Sandra, when they’re having their nightly phone call.

“What?”

“Someone who exorcises demons out of a human, you know? There was a book, popular as hell. Remember?”

“I do. I do remember the book, and a movie, too,” Sandra says. “I am not sure though if they still do it.”

“Why not?”

“I guess, the demand is low,” Sandra suggests in a mild, comforting tone. “I haven’t heard of anyone who would need an exorcist.”

Martha sighs: “But I do.”

She twists the telephone wire around her finger.

“I desperately need one.”

“But what for, dear?”

“My husband. He’s not been himself lately. Not himself.”

Their nightly check-ins are the reason why they pay for the landline.

“Don’t you think we should do this via Skype or WhatsApp?” Sandra once asked.

“But that’s not the same!” Martha exclaimed. “Don’t you see the difference?”

“True,” Sandra agreed, “not the same.”

“Besides, I don’t even have a smartphone,” Martha said. “Whom would I call?”

“I’ve got one,” Sandra confessed. “Kids insisted I have one. They want to know where I am. I personally don’t share this modern obsession with knowing everything. There should be some white spaces in life, you know.”

So, every evening, at 8.30 they seat themselves by the phone – Martha on the couch with a cup of tea, Sandra at the kitchen table, with a pen and paper for doodling – and talk. The connection, though pricey, is not the best; there is a constant crackling in the background, the telephone models are way too outdated—but still, ritual wins out.

“Just listen!” Martha says, and Sandra draws her first doodle – a spiral-shaped tree.

“He wakes up at night, like, five times. Goes to the toilet and then – just wanders around the flat. If I call him back to the bedroom, he doesn't hear. Then – he eats differently: bite here, peck there, like a bird or something. The man who used to make an eight-egg omelette just for himself!”

Sandra nods.

“Yeah...”

“Then – he doesn’t like movies he used to love. The other day I said: let’s watch that movie with Robert De Niro where he is blind and goes to New York. Remember?”

“Sweetie, I think it’s not Robert that… ” Sandra says, but Martha interrupts her.

“… and he makes a face, like – 'I don’t know what you are talking about. I’d rather take a peek at that talk show where people scream at each other.' Take a peek at the talk show with screamers.”

“A-ha.” Sandra makes a sketch of an omelette. The omelette turns out to be one with ragged edges. She needs to make another sketch, nice and round, so she asks: “What else?”

“Well, if that’s not enough… sudden mood swings – one moment he doesn’t like the way I breathe, or walk, and next moment he’s like on the first day we met.”

“Nice,” Sandra says light-headedly.

“Nice? Do you think this is nice? When my husband, whom I’ve been known for thirty-seven years, – a sophisticated, lazy intellectual type – suddenly, out of a blue, takes morning walks? At five AM! And when he comes back, it turns out he was hiking? Do you think this is normal? Oh, I expected more from you.”

Martha even takes her feet from the sofa pillow and puts them on the ground, like if she is going somewhere. She looks at her cup of tea – a pile of tea leaves sits at the bottom.

“I’m going to the kitchen,” she says in a cold voice.

They both know that when Martha gets involved with the kettle, and new tea, and cookies, she forgets that she didn’t hang up, and Sandra might wait near the phone for a good half an hour. If Martha goes to the kitchen, the conversation is over.

“Where is he now?” Sandra shouts.

“Sleeping,” Martha says indignantly. “Quiet as a baby.”

“Maybe he should see the doctor.”

“Just did. He is healthier than an average man of his age.”

“Then you are right, this is all weird,” Sandra agrees.

Sandra’s omelette is disproportionally larger than the cup, drawn next to it. She crosses out the cup.

“Anyway, ask around if anyone knows anyone,” Martha sighs.

“Maybe google it?"

“Google who–exorcist person?”

“Well, this may be an option.”

“Nah, I don’t have much trust in this google-shmoogle.”

“You know what I’ve been thinking?” Sandra says.

“What?”

“Why sometimes – not sometimes, often – my own life seems as unreachable, as someone else’s life in the window opposite.”

“Just stop spying on your neighbors.”

“What else am I supposed to do? I am bored. Bored-bored-bored.”

“Hmm… I’d rather ask around.”

“You should,” Sandra agrees. “Have you ever felt that, like, your body is not your body at all? Because I have. Like I’ve got to carry limbs and head that I am not familiar with. Consider that.”

“No,” Martha says firmly. “I always know where my head is.”

“Wait, he’s awake,” she says, lowering her voice. “Yes, Dear… I am on the phone, Dear... You want what?... No, I don’t think we’ve got pickled cucumbers.”

“Now he wants pickles,” she hisses to Sandra.

Sandra laughs.

“Is he pregnant? I remember I was dying for pickles each time I had a baby inside me.”

“Demons!” Martha shouts in whisper.

“Babies,” Sandra corrects. “I mean, sometimes I thought they were monsters, but now I think they were sweet kids.”

“No, you had babies, he’s got demons. Demons are what he’s got inside!”

“You’ve got a nasty husband!”

“You’ve got nothing of a husband,” Martha said abruptly. “I’ll call you back.”

The next evening Martha calls back. Eight PM as per their ritual. Martha sounds much more cheerful.

“I found one!” she announces. “The girl at the pharmacy gave me the contact of the guy, he’s coming around tomorrow.”

“May I say 'nice' now?” Sandra asks.

“Apparently, they are not called 'exorcists' any more. It’s a 'coach.' So, you were right,” Martha says.

Sandra doesn’t respond.

“Hey!”

“Don’t call me tomorrow. Or the day after tomorrow.”

“Why is that? Are you mad at me? Because I didn’t mean...”

“I am not offended,” Sandra says. “I have to go to the hospital.”

“What’s wrong?”

“There is something inside my body. Right there where the babies were once placed.”

Martha pauses.

“I’ve always sensed it’s a fraud,” Sandra finally says.

“What is a fraud?”

“Growing another person inside of yourself... Ah, well,” Sandra says. “What's done is done.”

“Oh, don’t give me that! No, don't! You will be fine! I’ll exorcise the demons from my husband, you check your guts, and we’re going to Prague next spring, remember?”

Martha tries to reach Sandra for a week. She’s got so much to tell. She makes sure that her husband takes his herbs; she herself has been practicing a ritual with a paper and a candle… Once he’s gone to bed, she calls Sandra. Sandra doesn’t pick up. Martha makes notes and leaves them on the bedside table. Notes saying “coach is fun”, “yarrow seed”, “forgiveness is essential”, “new normal”, “i want to remember”, “no effect at all.”

Failed hour-long talks with Sandra that she wrapped into a couple of lines.

When Sandra – finally! – picks up, she says:

“Can you hold for a sec? I am on a Skype call right now.”

“With whom?” Martha screams out. “Where have you been?”

Sandra says “luv you, luv you” – to someone that Martha can’t see.

“Sorry, that was my husband number three. The one that is still alive,” Sandra explains. “He’s in Australia now.”

“Same as dead,” Martha says. “Where have you been? Are you okay?”

“I might spend some more time in hospital,” Sandra says.

“Is it cancer?” Martha asks.

“No, it’s not cancer.”

“Then you’ll be fine! If it’s not cancer, you are fine.”

“What’s up with you? Any luck with beating the demons?”

“No,” Martha says. “No… there is so much I wanted to tell you, but, somehow, now I don’t know what to begin with.”

“Begin with today,” Sandra suggests.

“But do you need my help in the hospital, sweetie?”

“No, no worries. Kids are on their way.”

“All of them?” Martha asks.

Sandra responds after a pause.

“All of them,” she says.

“Well, he, my husband, had a massive hypertensive crisis – luckily, not a stroke,” Martha says. “I gave him this stuff… yarrow seeds, you know… The ones that the coach… the guru… that teacher guy recommended. And I also burned some paper. And then he had this thing with his blood pressure...”

Martha sounds incoherent, as if she tried and failed to connect the dots.

“But it’s not a stroke,” she repeats.

“Thank god. He’s so lucky to have you,” Sandra says.

“You think?” Martha sobs, “I almost killed him.”

“That’s what every marriage does,” Sandra chuckles. “It keeps you alive and then it kills you.”

Martha silently weeps.

“Anyway, is he back to normal now?”

“He’s old,” Martha says. “Old and weak. He is fragile as piece of glass and transparent.”

“But no demons he contains?”

The crackling noise in the background increases. It sounds almost like fabric being torn.

“What are you doing?” Sandra asks.

“No, don't!” Martha says to someone who is not Sandra. “No, don't!”

“'No, don't' what, Martha? Martha? Are you here?” Sandra repeats.

“They are out now. They left his body. His body is invisible, but demons are visible. They are sitting in the corner and looking at me,” Martha whispers.

“Demons?”

“Yes,” Martha whispers.

“How do they look?”

“Like small, black, fluffy creatures with little yellow eyes. They are waiting.”

“Waiting for what?”

“To attack me.”

“But why?”

The sound of tearing fabric stops. There is a sound of music in the background instead.

“It’s like someone is singing very far away,” Sandra notes.

“They want to attack me. They've been wanting to do so since I poisoned my husband.”

Sandra says quietly:

“We should Skype next time, sweetie. Or do Facetime. I’d love to see you. It’s been years since we saw each other.”

“I look like shit,” Martha says.

“Me too!”

Both, sort of, laugh.

Then Martha abruptly stops laughing.

“It's been like that every day since I poisoned my husband,” she says. “They've come for me, to take me.”

“Just listen what you are saying!” Sandra says. “You never knew the difference between real and imaginary threat. You amaze me! I mean – I can barely walk.”

“And I am lying on my bed now,” Martha interrupts. “He is lying next to me. My husband is holding my hand. He is saying good words to me. We both are in the pure night dark, but I can see the demons. No, Dear, don't!”

“Martha?” Sandra says. “Are you still here?”

Sandra can hear only the sound of music. Sandra is tired – in general, and of this conversation alike.

The connection is breaking severely: someone's weak voice is singing about being taken away, about being alone in the dark.