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“You should sleep. They won’t come for us quite yet.”
Oczy shakes his head. He seems to be smiling, although with his wounds, it’s difficult to tell.
“We don’t have much time left,” he says. “I’d rather stay awake.”
His stitches stretch with each word. The pain must be excruciating, and yet he chooses it over the easy oblivion of sleep. Badeni understands his choice. Still, he doesn’t want to see him suffer anymore.
On their last night, they have been allowed to share a cell, and Badeni can’t tell if this is a reward for his cooperation, or punishment for not cooperating sooner. Maybe, somehow, it’s both. He will remain at Oczy’s side for the rest of their lives. He will be made to bear witness to the consequences of his choices.
His choices?
Badeni clasps his hands together, not in prayer, but simply to keep them from trembling. His vision swims, and his pulse throbs behind his eyes. He squeezes his fingers until they hurt.
If he was going to confess, then he should have confessed immediately. But he didn’t, and Oczy had suffered meaninglessly for it. He’d suffered because of him, and soon he’ll burn because of him, the smoke of his corpse indistinguishable from the smoke of the tallow candles burning outside their cell. Because of him, he will have no grave—they’ll sweep his ashes into a sack and pour them out in some ditch. Because of him, he will be made unmournable, and his soul…
No. This line of thinking is not rational. It is a mockery of rationality. He did not hurt Oczy—that inquisitor did. Nothing Badeni said or did in that room could have actually protected Oczy because he had no power there. He could have confessed immediately and the inquisitors could have beaten him regardless. They didn’t need a reason. They’d invented one (“We’re only hurting him because you won’t give us what we want”), but it was just another instrument of torture, like a thumbscrew. Except it was something the victim applied to himself.
It didn’t have to be that way. They didn’t have to hurt him. Why didn’t you just confess?
He won’t do it. Although he is well versed in the art of self-flagellation, he will not continue the inquisitors’ work for them. No matter what he thinks of himself, of his choices, Oczy doesn’t hate him.
Somehow, Oczy doesn’t hate him. He has been granted a shred of grace.
“I’m glad they didn’t hurt you.”
Oczy is learning forward, elbows on his knees and his steepled fingers covering his mouth. He sounds truly relieved, and it would be a cruelty for Badeni to tell him that he’s mistaken, that they had an entire week to work him before Oczy woke up, and that the damage is easily hidden beneath the loose folds of his clothes. So he says nothing. He stares at the bandages wrapped around Oczy’s arm and fights the urge to scratch open his old wounds. If they had hurt him worse, would it have absolved him of anything?
No, he decides as his gaze settles on Oczy’s swollen eye. No, it would not have made a difference.
What of it, then? All of this pain? His study of martyrs should be instructive, but he can take no comfort in hagiologies now. The same people who venerate the suffering of saints are the people who split Oczy’s face open. Somehow, this is not a contradiction, but one of the main features of the Church.
And what of it?
Badeni is not an inquisitor. He doesn’t believe that any truth worth knowing can be discovered through duress. And yet, such techniques have led him to once again question the nature of the world.
The Earth moves. He knows it. The math supports it. God did not design a chaotic universe of wandering planets after all, but a one of rational order, fully comprehensible to humanity. The Earth is neither the center of the universe nor the bottom of it. It is not a sunken, cast off, fallen place. It is, and always has been, in harmony with the heavens. Therefore, the Earth could be as beautiful as the heavens.
But is it? Can he still call this world “beautiful” while the smell of blood hangs in his nose? While the shepherds of his faith maim their flock over a few reams of math? Maybe Oczy was right. Maybe the Earth isn’t as beautiful as Heaven. Maybe Heaven is as filthy as the Earth.
“Are you cold?” Oczy asks. “Your hands are shaking.”
The cell is cold, but it’s no worse than the barn. A slight chill won’t kill him (and if it did, it wouldn’t shorten his life by very much). Still, Oczy places his hand on top of his. His palm is wide, calloused, and not particularly warm, but Badeni’s trembling stops.
Oczy squeezes his hand, or rather, he tries to. His grip is shockingly weak. The wound to his forearm must be worse than he realized. For a moment, Badeni worries that he’ll never hold a pen again, and then he remembers that of course he won’t.
The world is full of beauty, he decides. It abounds with beauty. And that beauty can be crushed, strangled, stamped out. The possibility of this destruction is immeasurably cruel, but perhaps love predicates suffering. If so, is it worth it?
The realization comes so gently that it strains belief—he was happy. Happy? Traipsing into the woods at night with a professional killer? Working long hours by bad light in a drafty barn? Sneaking into town to meet unwashed beggars? And he’d been happy?
Yes. The past six months have been the happiest time of his life.
Badeni presses his shoulder to Oczy’s. History will not remember this. The tides will wash this moment out to sea and wipe clean any imprint it may have left on the world. His work will not be published. If heliocentrism is perfected, his name will not be attached to it. He will not be remembered as “special.” He will not be remembered at all. The Earth will keep turning gloriously and indifferently. They will die, and what happens to them afterward, only God knows. It is a miserable ending.
But he was happy.
--
The night wind carries the scent of wet grass and the sound of rustling leaves. It passes over Badeni’s face, and despite the weight of the rope around his neck, he feels clean.
“Tonight’s sky is definitely beautiful.”
Oczy is smiling, his face turned upward. Badeni can no longer see the stars, but he doesn’t have to. He takes his words on faith.