DAY ONE, STORY FIVE
from THE PENTAMERON; or, THE FIVE DAYS OF FIFTY STORIES, AS TOLD BY A GROUP OF FRIENDS ESCAPING THE COVID PANDEMIC
by Stewart Berg
THE PENTAMERON; or, THE FIVE DAYS OF FIFTY STORIES, AS TOLD BY A GROUP OF FRIENDS ESCAPING THE COVID PANDEMIC is a reworking of the 15th Century work “Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles.” Part romance and part satire of romance, THE PENTAMERON features a group of Puget Sound friends who, spending a week on Lake Chelan, tell stories — all of them true — of the people at home.
There once lived in the town of Mukilteo—I believe he is still living there now—a businessman who was so enamored of his neighbor’s wife that he deemed no day happy if he were not able to find some way of being with her. She, for her part, felt the same, which is, of course, no small matter.
These lovers’ misfortune, however, was that they could never seem to find enough time for their secret meetings, and they were far too careful to think of enlisting the help of some friend, no matter how close to he or she this one or other might be. Eventually, after so many near misses and even more missed opportunities, their love compelled them to take a chance that they would have, otherwise, feared taking.
The woman’s husband—the most jealous and suspicious man living—going out for a bit, the lovers sprang into each other’s arms, and they were still that way when they heard the return of the woman’s husband, something having made him suddenly return. Indeed, so surprised were the lovers that they had no other option than to run upstairs and hide, thereby getting as far away from the trouble as possible, though, at the same time, trapping themselves. Soon, the actual sound of the husband was heard, and from the home’s foyer, he called out for his wife.
“Alas, my dear,” she whispered, “the error of our ways seems to have come, but there might, perhaps, still remain some way out of it.”
Quickly, she explained that her husband was a most superstitious man, and she gathered up a white sheet as well as a coat hanger, both of which she found in the room’s closet.
“Put on this,” she said, “and hold this. Then, listen to what I say below, and when you hear my husband’s first step on the stairs, come down yourself.”
Her lover could only be confused and comply; for she soon left him, making her way downstairs in an evident rush.
“Dear husband,” she said as she descended, “what has made you so long in the return?”
“So long in my return?” the man replied. “Forget that. What has made you so long in answering my calls?”
The wife gave no answer, merely hurrying to the man’s arms.
“What is wrong?” he asked. “And why is your face so pale? What has happened?”
“I believe I saw something upstairs,” she gasped in reply.
“‘Saw something?’”
“I heard something, and then, when I investigated, I saw something.”
“Saw what?”
“It is too dreadful to say.”
The husband could get no more from his wife, and thus, he started for the stairs.
“Are you going upstairs?” the woman called out.
“Of course,” he said. “What does it look like?”
For answer, there came noise from above, and both husband and wife looked to see that a white figure had appeared at the top of the stairs.
“Look,” the woman cried, “there it is!”
“Is that a ghost?” her husband gasped.
“A ghost! And look, he has got a gun!”
No sooner was this confirmation made than the white-sheeted lover, hanger in hand, rushed down the stairs, directly at the husband. The latter man, of course, being in such mortal fear, retreated as quickly as he was able.
“Get back!” he called out to his wife. “Come here, get behind me!”
Just in time—as he saw it—the husband was able to get his wife to the safety of a nearby room, and the ghost, without a moment to spare—as he saw it—was out the front door, not bothering to close it behind him.
“Can you believe that?” the husband asked his wife.
“I saw it,” she replied. “I would not believe it, otherwise.”
“Neither would I. Who has ever heard of a ghost with a gun?”
“I wonder if one of the upper rooms is haunted?”
This question, the husband pondered for several minutes, during which he closed and locked the front door then retreated out the back, finding a sense of security in his patio. All the while, the woman followed, attempting to gauge her husband’s thoughts.
“You must be right,” he eventually said. “It had not occurred to me, but a room, if not the whole house, must be haunted.”
From then on, the man viewed his home in a different light, and when going upstairs, he never went to the room that his wife pointed out to him as haunted, even going so far as to avoid that wing of the floor entirely. Elsewhere, too, he considered suspect, but as he must live in the place, he did the best that he could, though always uncomfortable and wary of unseen spirits. Both the local country club and his family’s cottage in the mountains began to see more frequent visits from him.
This new state of affairs did, of course, work well for the love affair of the man’s wife, and she was able to meet with her lover, utilizing the haunted room, more than ever before. Indeed, the lover, being a neighbor, was so often over that he began to tire of the relationship, and only the occasional opportunity of redonning the white sheet and wire hanger, whenever the husband needed scaring off, kept him amused enough to remain involved. The woman, we can be sure, perceived this newest change, but whether she sought to bestow the gun-ghost mantle on a new worthy is another story.
Neil: Folly, therefore, as here seen, need not be dully succumbed to, and ingenuity, combined with a little luck, can, in fact, utterly overcome it.
Chase: I am going to have to remember that ghost with a gun getup.
Pierce: Me, too. There are times in the past when it would have come in handy for me.
Phil: There are times in the future, I hope, when it may do as much for me.
Daisy: My two-manned woman would certainly appreciate the trick.
Neil: I knew that you would think so.
Chase: I wonder, though, whether this was all a case of folly truly being overcome.
Phil: What else?
Pierce: Do you mean that the wife’s success was actually the husband’s folly?
Chase: I do. Is it something that we can determine?
Neil: Well, we know that he was superstitious. Should that itself be considered folly?
Phil: It would have to be a factor in the determination, I think.
Daisy: In that case, we might never be able to get to the true bottom of it.
Neil: The argument would never end.
Pierce: What a thought. Was it really a matter of one side’s cleverness, or did it all the result from the other side’s foolishness?
Chase: That is the question.
Daisy: It is, I think, a question for much more than just this story.
Phil: That is for sure.
Pierce: It might answer the whole world.
Neil: Yet another issue that we could never get to the bottom of.
Chase: Rather sad work, too.
Daisy: Let us, then, move past it, in keeping with the established tradition of our Storytelling Boat. I have, if I may, what I think should be our next story told. So far, we have seen folly do much, but not yet has been shown the fact that error itself can often result in its opposite.
Mr. Berg grew up split between rural Texas and a Seattle suburb. After graduating from Pacific Lutheran University in 2014, he moved to Austin, where he began publishing his Miscellanea series of eBooks before joining the Press. He lives in Marble Falls, Texas.