Asimov's Magical Worlds of Fantasy 10 - Ghosts by Isaac Asimov (ed.)

Author:Isaac Asimov (ed.) [Asimov, Isaac]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Signet / New American Library
Published: 1988-12-31T00:00:00+00:00

No one could enter my church without my knowledge. I must make that point wholly clear. Were it not so, there might be some quasi-rational explanation of last night’s events.

What is rare in American churches of the Romanesque revival, the Church of the Holy Ghost has a narthex, or galilee. (I prefer the latter term.) Above the broad steps frequented by the Old Soldiers of Merrymont Avenue, the great doors open upon this galilee, which traditonally is less sacred than the body of the church.

Within this interior porch, or galilee, I conduct most of my business with comers to the church—particularly with the street girls. In a vaulted chamber off the galilee I maintain a desk, some chairs, and a typewriter; this chamber has a functioning fireplace. I frequent this sentry-post (so to speak) of the Holy Ghost because it is situated near the grand entrance to the church’s west front. Only at this point may the whole church complex be entered nowadays.

For I have sealed the several other entrances, even that to the “service” regions of the complex, although closing the other doors has made it necessary for Lin, the Cambodian man whom I have appointed verger (janitor, in reality), to transport rubbish in a barrow to the west front. When I write “sealed,” I mean bricked up. No doubt I have violated fire inspector’s rules; but the public authorities, winking at worse offenses in Hawkhill, have not troubled me concerning my precautions.

The small roundheaded windows of the church, on the northern side, are set too high for burglars to operate without ladders; also they are narrow, with a stone pillar fixed in the middle of each window-arch. The rector who preceded me in this living (!) had a heavy wire screen attached to the outer side of every window, to protect the painted glass from boys’ stones. The southern windows face upon the cloister, not upon a street, and in effect are protected by the tall rectory.

A benefaction from old Mrs. Simmons enabled me to secure the windows of the adjoining rectory with interior steel shutters. I have sealed the rectory’s street doors, now reaching my rooms there by passing through the galilee and the cloister on the church’s south side. Need I remark that no building is entirely secure against intruders who possess special tools for burglary? However that may be, on the nights to which I refer below these defenses of the Holy Ghost were undisturbed, and no alarm sounded on the electronic warning system purchased out of the Simmons benefaction. I am satisfied that no one could have entered the church except through the galilee.

In one of the massive bronze doors (opened only on great feast days) of the west front is set a kind of postern door, also of bronze, so narrow as to admit only one person at a time. It is this small door through which everybody and everything pass ordinarily. Only the verger and I possess keys to this door, which moreover is secured within, when I am there, by a police-lock and other devices.

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