Answer as a Man

  Bernard poured more whiskey into his glass. He turned it about in his fingers, staring down into the contents. “I couldn’t think, I don’t want to think, that six feet of dirt is all Katie is going to have.”

  Jason shivered. “Better that than the life she’s had.”

  Bernard sipped a little. “She had some moments, Jason. She loved us. Perhaps she still does. Who can tell? And we loved her, you and I. If you love someone, you never forget. You never move far away.”

  Jason went to the sink and pumped himself a glass of water. Oh, Mum, he thought. He felt the tears burning behind his eyes. He looked at the wall above the sink and saw his face in the little mirror that hung there. He saw the mountain and the valley as he had seen them this morning. He saw the sudden unearthly incandescence on them and felt the peace. There was something he had forgotten. What was it? Mysterious, exultant, promising. A lie, he thought, and dashed the water into the sink. He felt Bernard’s big hand on his shoulder. He felt Bernard slowly turning him to face himself.

  “Jason,” said the old man. “All we have left … is to believe. In God, even when we hate him and demand of him and scream at him. What else is there? A wilderness full of stones. A desert. For our own sakes, we must believe.”

  “We must be cowards and believe in a lie?”

  Bernard moved his hands down to Jason’s arms, and he gripped them. His eyes filled with tears again. “Can we prove he is a lie? The invention of priests? What can’t be imagined doesn’t exist, never comes to the mind of a man. I was niver one with words. If a man thinks there is Something, there must be something. How else can he think of it at all?”

  “Being afraid,” said Jason.

  Bernard gently shook him. “‘The fear of God is the beginning of wisdom.’ Why do we have fear? Is it in our souls, then, that we fear what is? Can you imagine being afraid of something that has no … verity, and never did? No.” He looked down earnestly into Jason’s tormented eyes. “No one has proved the existence of God. But no one has proved he doesn’t exist, either. It is better for a man to hope that he is than to deny that he does.”

  Jason turned away his head. “Then, Da, you believe in him.”

  Bernard dropped his hands. There was a little silence. Then Bernard said, and his voice shook, “I believe … I believe … even when I hate him.”

  Jason made a sound in his throat, the beginning of derision. Then he remembered those moments of awesome enlightenment, of glory, of encompassing love, of complete understanding. From what source had they come? He had not invited them or even desired them; he had never known there were such things. He wanted to tell Bernard, but how do you describe the ineffable, that which cannot be comprehended but only known?

  “Da …” he began. Bernard looked at him, waiting. “Oh, Da!” Jason groaned.

  They fell into each other’s arms and cried together, and were comforted.

  9

  “We must all come to dust,” said John Garrity after his mother’s funeral. He spoke with the cold and unctuous voice of reproving authority.

  His brother looked at him with considerable of the grandfather’s bitter rage and disgust. “So we do,” he said. “But why should Mum have come to it with so much misery, eh, and so much pain? She never had, in my memory, a truly pleasant day.”

  “She—” began John. Bernard lifted his hand. They were sitting in the kitchen on this dull April day so unlike the day Kate Garrity had died. Rain slashed the windows, and storm clouds, black and heavy, rushed across the sky like galleons with open sails. It was only three in the afternoon of Kate’s burial day, but the weather had turned chill and dank. Joan, wrapped in a shawl, was whimpering in the background. Bernard sat at the table, wearily slumped, with a bottle of whiskey at his elbow, and Jason drank tea laced with the whiskey. The “woman,” overcome, as she said, by the funeral, had left for the day. John sat stiffly upright in his chair in his black seminarian’s suit, white shirt with stiff collar, thin black tie, and stiff white cuffs. He looked fleshless and ascetic, as usual, and his prominent cheekbones gleamed in the gaslight like polished stone, and his small slate-colored eyes were remote and censorious. His hair was cropped. He was only a seminarian, and one on probation, yet he resembled an archaic priest of the Inquisition, a zealot, an icy fanatic, and Bernard, looking at him through an alcoholic haze, wondered if his grandson had bowels and blood and human flesh, or possessed any human emotions whatsoever. Bernard doubted it. This was an alien presence, and always had been, Bernard pondered in his sorrow, never a grandson or a son or a brother. He had been as apart from the family as a statue, except for a great fondness for his sister. On a few occasions Bernard had had unpleasant and unspeakable thoughts about this. He had encountered such in his own seminarian days.

  Bernard said, “Katie’s life has made me an atheist, to some extent.”

  “We must accept the will of God,” said John, and glanced at his sister for approval. She nodded eagerly at him.

  “If we do, always, we’re damned fools,” said Bernard. “Seems to me, I’m thinking, that we get out of the mud and stench by our own will, and God, it was, who put us in the mud and the stench—by his will. Should we stay there? Ah, shut up, Jack. Don’t give us your homilies on this tragic day. You noticed, did you not, that Father Sweeney did not tell us of the ‘blessedness’ of poor Katie’s life, nor did he suggest she was singing her head off in heaven now. He said, with truth, that she was at peace at last and was resting from her labors. Sure, and he’s made progress from the early days, when he was almost as stupid as you are, Jack.”

  His red-rimmed eyes sparkled derisively at his grandson. “And a fine altar boy you were, too, glaring at the younger lads who were fumbling their best at Mass. What Christian charity! But you never heard of that, did you?”

  Jack had clasped his slender bony hands on his black fleshless knee, and those hands involuntarily clenched with affront. He looked at his grandfather’s hostile face, at the closed hard face of his brother. Hastily he directed another glance at his sister, at her pale luminous face, her black-lashed blue eyes. For a moment he wanted to weep, but it was not for his mother. Not even his mother had understood him, he thought. Only Joan. Kate had been a loving, foolish woman whose duty it had been to serve her family. John granted that in most instances she had done her duty, feeble as it was. I truly tried, he thought; to be forbearing and patient with her ineptitude. I have tried and prayed, in connection with Da and Jason. But they are intransigent and obstinate and dull of wit, and often impious. I can only pray for them now.

  Bernard said, “Thank God I had saved a bit of money over all these years to pay for a funeral for Katie so she wouldn’t lie in a pauper’s grave. And there is enough left as an offering for a few Masses for the repose of her soul, though I doubt she needs them.”

  “We all do,” said John. He was already restive. He wondered how soon he could decently leave for his seminary, where there were no sardonic men like his grandfather, no louts like his brother, who sat staring like a great black Irish bull. John was hungry. He had always been hungry, from the earliest childhood, though he had invariably eaten much more than his brother. In fact, he had eaten far more than his brother, grandfather, sister, and mother combined. Yet, never had he been comforted and replete. There had always been a hunger in him, which he now believed was a hunger for God and godliness. Yet, still, even in the seminary, that hunger did not abate. He believed, however, that when he was ordained, this tearing hidden appetite, this consuming desire, would be satisfied, as it was never satisfied by food. He had heard much of the rapture and ecstacy of the saints, and he lusted for it. It would come, he was certain, when he was ordained.

  Jason said, “I hope, my only hope, is that Mum doesn’t remember anything of her life. I hope she is dead, completely dead. That’s the only way she can have peace.” His young man’s voice was almost brutal as he looked at his brother.

  “That’s a sinful thought,” said John. He would never
have admitted that he hated Jason; that was a mortal sin. But the hate, a lifelong hate, was there, though John called it disapproval. He often prayed that Jason’s soul might be saved.

  He looked at the two huge baskets, covered with white linen, which had just been delivered from the Inn-Tavern, courtesy of Patrick Mulligan. The linen could not completely smother the rich fragrance of roasted beef and fresh bread and fruit and cake and ham and baked beans. John’s mouth watered. It was going on for four, and his hunger gripped his middle like iron fingers. When could he suggest eating? There was no sign of hunger in the rest of the family, he thought with resentment. The wind rattled the stovepipe; the rain was a long drumming on the window. The day steadily darkened. Suddenly there was a roll of thunder, surly and threatening, and a flash of lightning.

  Neighbors, who had called to console the family, and who had attended Kate’s funeral, had long departed. Bernard had shown, unmistakably, that their absence would be appreciated. It had been a grand funeral. Mrs. Lindon had given all the flowers for the altar and for Katie’s simple wooden coffin with the brass handles. Katie’s grave had been heaped with flowers from the same source. Mrs. Lindon and all her young relatives had been at Mass, wearing solemn and decorous faces. John thought it a scandal, and he wondered why Father Sweeney had permitted this evil intrusion. When he had protested the flowers, Bernard had looked at him with a threatening face.

  “Seems like our Lord was grateful to Mary Magdalen when she brought him ointment to soothe his feet,” Bernard had said. “But then, and for sure, you don’t understand that, do you, Jackie lad? Think on it. There’s many a Magdalen who is purer than all the fine ladies who bedded down only with their husbands.”

  John had forgiven his grandfather, who, of course, was only a rude peasant, for all he had had a teacher for a father and had studied for the priesthood. John was always forgiving his family. It made him feel very holy.

  None of the family knew, of course, that Mrs. Lindon, who had been a caller after the funeral, had looked at Joan with thoughtful shrewd eyes, saying to herself, “There is one of us, and that is certain. I’m never mistaken. If it weren’t for her crippled state, she would be a very successful courtesan, not a mere whore. I wonder how twisted her legs are? There’re some perverted men who like disabled women, even ugly and deformed women. This girl is the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen, and no doubt she is a virgin, too.” Mrs. Lindon always detected corruption; she knew that Joan had a corrupt, if still inexperienced, soul. Corruption had nothing to do with experience. It was a matter of spirit.

  Joan, who had heard some vague rumors that Mrs. Lindon was a scandalous woman, did not quite understand where the scandal lay or what it implied. The “woman” had mentioned “men,” but Joan had had no explicit understanding. Kate, of course, had had no words with which to instruct her daughter, nor would she have thought it necessary. But Joan had looked at Mrs. Lindon, and the two had felt an instant kinship. Mrs. Lindon, thought Joan, was “nice” and “kind.” And very stylish and handsome. Joan had looked covetously at Mrs. Lindon’s jeweled hands, her beautiful suit of dark blue wool, and her fur and her smart hat and her rope of pearls and her well-coiffed hair. Joan had been much impressed that Mrs. Lindon had arrived in a new automobile, followed by another containing her young cousins and nieces, all richly and suitably clad, with kid gloves and feathered hats and boas and pearls. Joan thought them lovely and magnificent. Some were younger than herself, she thought enviously, but none was prettier. How wonderful to have wealthy parents! How wonderful to have such a cousin or aunt! Joan had heard of dances and parties in Mrs. Lindon’s house. She nurtured a dim hope that someday Mrs. Lindon would invite her, too. So she had fawned sweetly on Mrs. Lindon and had given shy radiant smiles to the young relatives, who were much amused both by her recognized depravity and by her naiveté. Joan had seen people whispering behind their hands, and had been impatient. It was only envy, of course. What on earth were such as Mrs. Lindon and her relatives doing in Belleville?

  Mr. Mulligan and his daughter, Patricia, “that stuck-up girl,” had been at the funeral, though they had not gone to the cemetery. Mr. Mulligan had put his arm about Jason, but had given John only a brief nod. This had puzzled Joan. It was true that Jason worked for Mr. Mulligan, but John was studying for the priesthood, and that was a vast difference in status. Joan had resented Patricia’s haughty air and condescending nod, but had consoled herself with the silent observation that Patricia was very plain, and no match in appearance for Mrs. Lindon’s beautiful young relatives. Patricia had drawn her velvet skirts aside when Mrs. Lindon and her charges had passed her in the pew, and Joan thought that had been very rude and was no doubt inspired by jealousy. Patricia had given Joan a swift look of acrimony because of Joan’s beauty, but was mollified when she saw Joan’s wheeled chair, pushed by a small nondescript woman, obviously a servant. A slight contemptuous smile had lifted Patricia’s pale lip.

  Lionel and Molly had been there, of course, and Joan’s shriveled heart had expanded at the sight of Lionel. He in turn was freshly struck by Joan’s imperial loveliness. What did it matter that she was a cripple? Her body itself was perfection, and his experienced eye had penetrated beneath the coarse brown frock, the old wool coat. Joan’s blue eyes were spectacular. She made the young whores look like drabs and strumpets. There was a regality about her, an untouchable delicate splendor. Lionel, too, had long ago sensed Joan’s innate corruption of spirit, just like his own, and he loved her and was determined to have her, one way or another.

  When Joan had passed him in her chair, Lionel had bent and kissed her chastely on the cheek, and had touched her shoulder in consolation. Joan wondered at the sudden wild fire in her vitals, and her trembling. Lionel had felt this even more violently in himself, but he had not wondered. Molly, with her acute perception, had sensed something of this exchange between Joan and her brother, and she had been disturbed. Innocent though she was herself, she felt something wicked had transpired, or that dangerous people had touched each other in a manner inexplicable to her, and had known each other with absolute surety. As Joan was wheeled down the aisle to the door, Molly had seen that Lionel’s eyes followed her and were filled with a curious deep longing and a forgetfulness of where he was. It was the first time he had kissed the girl. There was still a tingling on his lips, and a sharp thirst. When he finally turned and looked at his sister, he was surprised to see alarm in those clear yellow eyes. Molly’s hair, like his own, was a blaze of red in the shadowed gloom of the little church. The organ moaned dolorously, but Molly continued to eye her brother with that confused apprehension.

  Jason, one of the pallbearers for his mother, had gone before, but Molly had looked at him with yearning, and he had not seen her. She had wanted to touch him, desperately, but that was not possible for a girl so innocent, so truly innocent. The peal of the bell tolled, in her heart, like a dark premonition, leaving desolation behind. She felt bereft and alone, though Lionel took her arm and guided her out of the church. Their parents were not there. They were too busy.

  Joan had watched, in the approaching rainstorm, the lowering of her mother’s coffin into the wet brown grave. She had cried. That was not hard, thinking of Lionel and his kiss and the ecstasy it had brought her. They were the first tears she had shed, and people thought them very touching. Even Jason thought so. Bernard was not deceived, though he did wonder at the source of the tears. They were certainly not for poor Katie. Nor was Joan sentimental, nor could she produce tears at will.

  There were but two real mourners at that funeral, Bernard and Jason. They were not resigned. They had not been consoled by the funeral Mass. They were consumed by bitterness and sorrow. They were almost alone at the cemetery. Rain struck their faces.

  John was becoming ravenously hungry. The fragrance of the waiting food was unbearable. He had to wipe his mouth free of saliva. It was then that Father Sweeney came in to console the bereaved family. Jason and John rose, Joan stirred in
her chair, but Bernard surveyed the priest irascibly, and merely leaned back in his chair.

  “I congratulate you, Bill,” he said mockingly, lifting a glass of whiskey in salute. “You didn’t utter one hypocritical or pious word at Katie’s funeral.”

  John said, dropping to his bony knees, “Your blessing, Father.”

  The young priest hesitated. He looked at Bernard’s bitterly smiling face, at the silent Jason. Father Sweeney thought that he would have preferred to give the old man and Jason his blessing, rather than John, and he was alarmed at this, which was surely uncharitable and unfitting. Coloring a little, he murmured the requested words, but he felt a faint coldness in himself. John was improving somewhat at the seminary, but he was still on probation. The old fathers were still ambiguous about his vocation. He was constantly confessing to the “sins” of unworthiness and sloth. The fathers were inclined to believe in the “unworthiness,” considering his scrupulosity, but they could not condemn him for sloth. “A busier bee was never known here before,” one old priest had said, with some dissatisfaction.

  After the requested blessing, Father Sweeney looked about him with some helplessness. “You’ll be having a drink with us, Faether,” said Bernard, lapsing into his richest brogue. “To Katie, for her blameless life, and in hope for her peace, at last.” He poured a large dollop of Irish whiskey into an empty glass and extended it, as a challenge, to the priest. Father Sweeney, like all Irishmen, could not resist a challenge. He took the glass, still standing, and said thank you. He saw that John was regarding all this with coldly furious umbrage. So the priest lifted the glass, sipped at it with the other two men, and said, “Amen.” He was covertly pleased to see that John was horrified.

  “This family was blessed in Kate Garrity,” Father Sweeney continued. “A noble lady in all her ways. Her memory will be cherished, her presence dearly missed. I have never known, Bernard, a more tender and gentle soul, devout and kind, almost sinless. If sins she had, they were the sins of putting her family before all else. But I do not think our Lord will hold that against her.”