Acts of Faith

  I wanted to run straight through those glass doors, but something made me glance back at Tim. He seemed so forlorn and—I guess “helpless” is the word—that I felt a need to comfort him.

  “Hey,” I murmured. “Deborah’s a strong woman. She’ll get over it.”

  With this I walked away, trying not to think of the ineffably sad look on Timothy’s face.

  64

  Timothy

  Danny’s words had torn open the scar of memory.

  The discovery that Deborah had borne a child to another man had been a kind of final, albeit implicit, rejection of his own enduring affection.

  In the preceding years, Tim had often conjured up her image, joining her in a world without boundaries—a garden (for that was the literal meaning of “paradise”) where they could walk hand in hand, freely sharing each dimension of their love.

  This had been painful enough. But at least there had been the paradoxical comfort of her unattainability. Now his dream of holding her was once again a possibility—a theoretical one, to be sure, but nonetheless a possibility.

  And there was more: He still loved her so much that he even wanted to comfort her for the grief of her lost husband.

  “Hello, Father Hogan?”

  He recognized the voice and could even put a face to it. It was Moira Sullivan, a lay teacher whose Latin class he had visited when he was touring the Sacred Heart Academy in Malden. He had noticed how much the youngsters loved her. There was a gentleness in her manner and a lilt in her voice. She had blond hair.

  And yes, he had admitted to himself, she would no doubt have been attractive to any man who had not taken holy vows. If further proof were needed, she wore a wedding ring.

  During a luncheon-conference in the Staff Room, she had addressed several questions to him and at other times flatteringly referred to some of his earlier remarks (“As Father Hogan mentioned …”).

  Now, some ten days later, she was telephoning him.

  “It’s nice to hear from you, Mrs. Sullivan.”

  “I just wanted to thank you for the lovely letter you wrote Sister Irene.”

  “I meant every word,” Tim assured her. “You’re a wonderful teacher—ornamentum linguae Latinae.”

  “Oh.…” There was shyness in her voice now. “Urn, anyway, I took the liberty of calling to ask whether you’d been able to get a copy of the new textbook I mentioned—”

  “Yes—the Cambridge Latin Course. On your recommendation, I ordered it that very afternoon.”

  “Oh.” The disappointment was undisguised. She hesitated. “Did it live up to my rave review?”

  “I’m sure it will, but I had to special-order it from Blackwells, so I haven’t actually gotten my hands on it.”

  There was a momentary pause before the teacher spoke again.

  “In that case I wonder … perhaps you’d like to see my copy. I mean …” Her voice suddenly accelerated. “Could I take the liberty of inviting you to dinner … at my home? I know how busy you are, so if you can’t come, I’ll understand.”

  “Not at all,” Tim replied. “I’d very much like to meet your family as well. If I recall correctly you mentioned two daughters.…”

  “Yes, they’d be absolutely thrilled if a priest from the chancery came to dinner.” An uneasy silence. And then, “You see, my husband …”

  “Does he teach as well?” Timothy inquired cordially.

  Another pause. Moira Sullivan’s answer was quiet. “He’s dead, Father. He was killed in Vietnam eight years ago.”

  Consciously at least, Tim saw nothing out of the ordinary. A dinner with this widowed mother would be altogether within the scope of his pastoral duties.

  Paperbacks filled the white laminated shelves lining the walls of her Somerville apartment. Tim could not keep from thinking that Moira’s husband had built them himself. Indeed, though she and her two daughters, ten and eleven, were lively and hospitable, the atmosphere was charged with innumerable reminders of her husband’s absence.

  Moira talked nervously about schoolwork, her family, and other trivialities of everyday life, which were nonetheless foreign to Tim. Only once or twice did she mention Chuck, and even then referred to him almost in the abstract as “my husband.”

  The little girls, though, had not yet mastered the art of social masquerade. Even when they smiled, sadness never left their eyes.

  Tim could see they were comforted (for that of course was the purpose of his visit) by the mere fact that he paid attention to the details of their studies, to Ellen’s tales of hockey practice and Susie’s pride at having been chosen for the choir.

  They were a close-knit family, united by their loneliness. Tim’s heart went out to them. They were such innocent girls, defenseless in a world that still viewed the offspring of a single parent as somehow defective.

  Worse, by some bitter psychological irony the children of divorce were somehow socially more welcome than orphans. It was as if the girls bore some blame for their father’s death—their schoolmates shied away from “catching” their bad luck.

  Moira herself, vivacious and pretty, did not deserve the fate dealt her. Yet how many husbandless victims of the Vietnam war had cried in his confessional? And, sadly, the more children, the more tears.

  “You must be sick to death of being asked to dinner, Father,” Moira remarked as they were sitting at the table.

  “Only when I have to give an after-dinner speech.” Tim smiled. “It’s a pleasure to be off-duty—and in such charming company.”

  He winked at the girls, who blushed with delight.

  Moira was perceptibly nervous. But she knew both from experience and instinct how to behave as “a wife.” For although Tim was a priest, he was nonetheless the man whose presence transformed their group into a family.

  Tim sensed this and was secretly embarrassed and unsettled by the pleasure it gave him.

  At nine o’clock Moira disappeared for a few minutes when the girls went to bed and left him with her copy of the Cambridge Latin Course, which he duly perused. He had moved on to browse through her library when she reappeared with coffee.

  “You’ve got some fascinating books. I could spend weeks on your theology collection alone,” he said. “I envy you—where do you find the time?”

  “Well.” She smiled self-consciously. “As you see it’s still early and the girls are asleep. If you weren’t here I’d probably read for three or four hours.”

  Part of Tim sensed the subtext of her words, yet instead of changing the subject heard himself say, “Not every night, I’m sure. I mean, you must have a busy social life.”

  Moira answered candidly, without self-pity. “No.”

  She paused and then added, “Maybe that’s part of what draws me to the Church. In what you flatteringly called my theology section, I’ve got William James’s The Varieties of Religious Experience. His primary definition of religion is man’s way of dealing with solitude.”

  “Yes,” Tim acknowledged. “That certainly could apply to the priestly calling.”

  He immediately regretted having said something that might misguidedly lead her on. Learned allusions notwithstanding, he sensed the direction of her thoughts, which he tried to deflect.

  “You must miss your husband.”

  She replied with bewildering certainty, “No.” Then she explained. “Chuck and I were both kids. Neither of us knew what marriage was. By the time he learned he didn’t like it, we already had the girls, so the only viable option for a nice but immature guy like Chuck was enlisting in the Marines. I hope this doesn’t sound too cynical, Father—”

  “Tim. Please call me Tim. And, no, I understand what you’re saying. Sometimes I think we don’t have enough instruction before marriage. After all, it is a kind of frightening leap of faith.”

  She looked at him and answered, “Yes. And I imagine you know more about it than the average husband.”

  Distracted by a guilty conscience, Tim was caught off guard. Perhaps sh
e sensed his embarrassment and diffused any potential misunderstanding by adding, “I mean, you must counsel dozens of couples every month. You certainly know what a good marriage isn’t.”

  Tim nodded and smiled at her warmly. It was simply a chaste gesture of affection, but Moira was herself too starved to notice the distinction.

  Her tone of voice changed, and he knew instantly that she was speaking to him as a man.

  “Ever since I can remember one or another of my friends has had a crush on her priest. I suppose your female parishioners must be in desperate straits.”

  Timothy laughed, hoping to reinforce the slender pretext that they were discussing other people.

  “Yes, I’m afraid now and then I do encounter an over-enthusiastic teenager.…” His voice trailed off.

  She looked at him and whispered, “How about thirty-four-year-old widows?”

  Despite himself, he saw the curve of Moira’s breasts beneath her white blouse and was frightened of his own thoughts.

  He sensed how much she needed physical comfort. And was disquieted to think that he might, too. It took all his inner strength to prevent them both from losing control. “I’m sure you understand the commitment of a priestly vow.”

  “Oh,” she said, blushing. “Have I really come across a man beyond all earthly temptation?”

  “Yes,” Tim replied, feeling a qualm of guilt even as he said it.

  “God, I feel so embarrassed. Have I offended you? Will you hate me forever for this?”

  She had now drawn closer, her face so near that it was a supreme effort for Tim to dull his sensibilities to her beauty. He spoke gently.

  “No, Moira. I’m not offended. If it can be of any consolation, I understand in ways I simply can’t explain. I hope we can still be friends.”

  She stared at him with admiration.

  “Oh, yes. I hope at least for that.”

  It had not been easy for Tim, for as a man he could not deny that she was attractive. And yet the priest in him had prevailed. So much so that he felt secure enough to kiss her on the forehead and whisper, “Good night. God bless you, Moira.”

  Outside, unable even to turn the ignition, Tim slumped against the steering wheel. Something in him shared the hurt that he had inflicted upon her. And he despised himself for the lie he had told—that as a priest he was above all earthly desire.

  For what had saved him from temptation was not merely religious scruples, but rather his unabated yearning for Deborah.

  65

  Daniel

  “Well, Mr. Lurie, indulging in a bit of peculation, are we?”

  “You could have knocked, McIntyre,” Danny replied with annoyance, as the young partner unceremoniously entered his office.

  “Oh, I beg your pardon. I didn’t realize you were such a stickler for protocol.”

  Peter McIntyre III was being unusually arrogant to the majority stockholder in his family’s firm. He further outraged Danny by sitting down and propping his expensive Gucci loafers on the edge of the desk, remarking, “I bet you didn’t even think I knew that big a word, huh?”

  “Frankly, no,” Danny answered with irritated impatience.

  “Actually it’s related to the Latin pecunia, meaning money, which is itself derived—you won’t believe this, Danny—from pecus, meaning cattle.”

  “Hey, will you get the hell out of here—”

  Peter ignored him and continued with a grin. “Wonderful thing, Latin. Who would have thought that ‘peculation’ came from the word for cows? But then I guess they didn’t teach Latin in the schools you went to, eh, Dan?”

  He leered at Danny for a moment and then drove home his point. “But anyway it’s a crime, and you’ve committed it.”

  Enraged, Danny stood up, leaned over, and shoved McIntyre’s feet off his desk.

  “Now what the hell’s on your mind, Pete?”

  “Well,” McIntyre began, “my family’s name for one. Mr. Alleyn’s for another.” He paused, aimed, and then fired: “And your head.”

  Peter McIntyre III was determined to play out this moment for all it was worth.

  “There must be a Jewish word for what you did, Mr. Lurie, something like ‘misappropriation of funds,’ ‘embezzlement,’ or ‘fraud’—check where appropriate.”

  Danny shivered inwardly.

  “You know something,” Pete went on quietly, “when I first met you, I thought you were the smartest guy who ever lived. In fact, I tried to copy you down to the slightest detail just to see if I could latch on to the secret.

  “I bet you didn’t even notice that when you started going to Francesco for your suits, I had him cut mine too. I tried to keep up with all the reading you did. I even took a course in computing—which was one of your great gifts to our firm.”

  Disquieted by this sudden flattery, Danny still did not say a word.

  “I’ll even make a confession,” McIntyre continued. “I’d sometimes come back at one or two in the morning, when I knew you were working at home, and study all the documents on your desk, the words you’d circled, the notes you’d made—”

  “In other words,” Danny murmured angrily, “you were a sneak thief.”

  “Call it what you wish,” Peter conceded. “But it’s small potatoes compared to what you’ve done. I mean, your Walston Industries caper was a dazzling bit of legerdemain, which in other quarters might even be called grand larceny.”

  Danny caught his breath. Since his urgent but short-lived “borrowing” of one and three-quarter million dollars from the company coffers was nearly two years behind him, he had been lulled into a false sense of security. Still, he replied in what he hoped were confident tones.

  “The fund I run for this firm is audited every six months, Peter. There’s never been the slightest question—”

  “Oh, I know,” McIntyre answered. “There’s no one better at the old financial soft-shoe than Dan the Man. By the time you came up for scrutiny you had everything perfectly back in place. You’d already ‘bought’ Walston Industries and unloaded it—”

  “For a profit,” Danny interrupted.

  “Nominal, my friend, nominal,” his antagonist rebutted. “By curious coincidence a sum precisely equivalent to interest at the prime rate for the six days you held it. Now, dumb gentile that I am, I can’t understand why a guy with your smarts didn’t turn a better profit than that.”

  “What’s your point?” Danny demanded.

  “What I really want to know is what was yours. You must have done something incredibly … borderline with that dough. And my insatiable curiosity impels me to find out what.”

  “Suppose I needed liquidity really fast to cover a temporary shortfall? Anyway, there’s no proof I ever did.”

  McIntyre took his time, wanting to savor this moment like the last drop of a vintage port.

  “I guess real computer literacy hasn’t hit Wall Street yet, Dan. Those poor backward supervisors only audit your printouts. They don’t inspect what might still be lurking deep down in your database.”

  “Were you actually devious enough to check the contents of my private computer?” Danny was livid.

  McIntyre nodded unrepentantly. “Lucky for the firm I did,” he said. “I don’t have to tell you what would happen if the S.E.C. got wind of this. Not only to you but to the entire partnership—a respected institution founded before your relatives were even puked up on Ellis Island.”

  He paused for a moment. “That’s why I’d like to see this thing worked out privately,” he said. “By the way, only my father and grandfather know about this. They’ve authorized me to speak on their behalf.”

  “About what?” Danny asked.

  “About something you probably won’t understand—preserving our good name. So here’s our proposal, which we regard as fair, equitable—and completely nonnegotiable.”

  Danny held his breath as Peter strode up and down the large office, like a player warming up before a championship game.

  He stoppe
d at the farthest corner of the room and said softly, “You’ll sell us back your majority holding in McIntyre & Alleyn, for fifty cents on the dollar.”

  “That’s outrageous.”

  “Oh, I agree,” Pete replied with mock commiseration. “Believe me, Dan, I fought like hell for you. My father really didn’t want to go above twenty-five.”

  Danny was speechless.

  McIntyre continued, “Would you like a little time to think it over—say five or ten minutes?”

  “What if I refuse?”

  “Oh, that’s the beauty of it—you don’t have a choice. At the worst, the McIntyres and the Alleyns only risk embarrassment. You, my good man, risk going to the clink. Know what I mean?”

  Danny flopped into his large leather chair. He closed his eyes for a moment, then sighed.

  “Okay, draw up the papers and I’ll sign them. Just get the hell out of my office.”

  “Sure, Danny, sure. The documents’ll be ready by eleven tomorrow, and we’d be very grateful if you were out of our office by twelve. Naturally, we’ll forward your mail.”

  Again Pete smiled and held out his hand in valediction.

  “Hey, I feel terrible leaving you here all alone. Could I buy you a drink or something? I mean, if you did something crazy like jump out the window, that would kind of spoil the whole negotiation.”

  Danny picked up the small gold clock on his desk—a Christmas present from the entire staff of the Fund—and hurled it at Peter McIntyre with all his might. It missed and shattered painfully against the wall.

  “Don’t worry about it, Dan.” McIntyre smiled casually. “We can have the wall fixed. Good night, old buddy.”

  66

  Daniel

  I suppose anyone else in my position would have jumped off a bridge. But far from being desperate, I was curiously relieved. God had punished me for what had clearly been a sin. Though my motive had been only to save the B’nai Simcha from Schiffman’s larceny, and though the reason I had not paid that money back immediately was that the seven days of mourning for my father intervened, had I misappropriated the money for no more than thirty seconds, I would have been no less guilty.