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by anya fielding
My exorcist would have rolled his eyes at Regan’s antics.
As a horror fan, it was inevitable that I would watch the Exorcist at some point. Expletive-laden and dramatic, it remains the mould for demonic possessions in media, making head-spinning and projectile vomiting synonymous with the Devil.
But exorcists are not only found in cult films. They’re also in my childhood.
“You’ll be split into groups. Write down your order of preference for which events you’d like to attend and we’ll do our best.”
The classroom’s blackboard read: the mayor of Brunstatt, marriage tips, exorcist, volleyball tournament…
This was over a decade ago at a Catholic school in rural France. An old seminary for monks, I attended lycée – high school – there for three years, a half hour car drive from my village, where cows outnumbered the 600 inhabitants.
Needless to say, as an angsty teenager – of a similar age to Regan, The Exorcist’s protagonist –who spent 36 hours a week in class, studied 10 hours a day on weekends with no social life or skills, this was an exciting moment for me. And I thought my sister had lucked out the year before with her motivational speaker – the lone survivor of an axe attack, during which his entire family was murdered, who preached the power of Christian forgiveness.
I figured this might also help crack the case of my sleepwalking habit I had developed in my teenage years. I had no recollection of what I did during my nightly perambulations, but they left concrete evidence of their existence. I had the usual waking up with unexplained bruises and scratches but my sister, with whom I shared a bedroom, informed me I would talk and snarl during the night – with my eyes wide open, for bonus, cliché, scary points.
She recounted terrified one morning about finding me the night before mumbling incoherently about “the light” as my hand hovered above the bed, tensed in a claw shape, before bolting upright, staring at her and yelling to turn the light off. There was no light on. I had once woken up to find myself surrounded by a circle of rusty nails I used to hang framed art and pictures, which I later found stacked neatly in my closet.
I wrote exorcist at the top of my list.
A few weeks later, the exorcist walked into my classroom. He wore a black suit, his profession’s collar and an unimpressed expression. I had the feeling he did not enjoy being trotted out as a novelty to students sensationalising his calling.
He was unassuming and earnest. He spoke about his work in plain terms, downplaying it. He explained most people he met were not possessed but depressed, and that he worked often with medical professionals to help his community. He impressed upon us the importance of finding a purpose in life and building a community to avoid the low moods and anti-social behaviour mistaken as demonic possession. A fear of the cross and holy places was a sign of demonic interference; but could it not also be a sign of low self-esteem, unable to accept the Lord’s love? He was measured and empathetic to the sadness and loneliness of others.
And then in the same breath, he said he fought demons. Yes, he used holy water and the cross but reading the Bible was most effective. No, he would not reveal his other weapons. His most difficult case happened in Switzerland; he had needed assistance from another priest. No, he would not explain further. Yes, what he saw had stayed with him.
This dichotomy of a grounded, ordinary man battling the forces of evil was exemplary of the way people around me dealt with the supernatural. As though it were mundane; as though it were something to be feared; not really real, but best to be safe.
When I tell people I grew up in France, they have this glamourous image of black-clad women in high heels smoking on a bistro’s terrace next to the Eiffel Tower, with an accordion playing in the background. They rarely think of my France, the one where my neighbour slit the belly of a rabbit in front of my eight-year-old face to cook a regional delicacy. The one where I played in corn fields so much taller than me that I could get lost in them. The one where I spent days as a child, belly in the mud of a riverbank, catching newts and frogs in unchic plastic wellies. The one where my female teachers also wore high heels and elegant black dresses and chain-smoked on bistro terraces – but further away from the Eiffel Tower.
And the one, where in 1869, the possessed of Illfurth – teenage brothers Thibault et Joseph Bürner – moved objects with their minds, read people’s thoughts and were exorcised at the local church, a stone’s throw from my school, according to the exorcist.
Meeting the exorcist was not outlandish in my France. Many people I knew were devout, some having had religious experiences on school pilgrimages. He fit in with the nuns and monks of my childhood schools. And with the village witch, who cured shingles with eagle feathers, according to my mother, but whom I never saw do anything more mystical than walking around, minding her own business.
So it was with a thrill that I left the classroom after his talk, with a heightened awareness of the signs of demonic possession. Heaviness in the chest, isolation, rejection of the holy –
Wait, whose parents were doing the marriage tips session? Really, they were airing their dirty laundry in front of their kids’ peers – I ran to the next event.
Oh, and I don’t sleepwalk anymore.
pictures by claire feltham (church and graveyard)
