“Didn’t our Lord say, ‘Suffer the little children to come unto me, and forbid them not; for of such is the kingdom of God’?”
“Good, my brother,” Hardt remarked, gripping his upper arm affectionately. “You have all my admiration.”
Hardt led the way up a creaking, makeshift wooden staircase to the second story.
Tim was sickened by the sight and smell of what was before him. Wretched little children, pale and scrawny, some with distended bellies, lay passively whimpering on mattresses, the smaller ones cradled in their mothers’ arms … dying.
“Tell me,” Tim asked hoarsely. “How many of these kids will ever leave here alive?”
For all Hardt’s penchant for polemics, this time he was unwilling even to talk.
“How many, Dom Ernesto?” Tim persisted.
“Sometimes,” Hardt began, “sometimes, God sends a miracle.” He paused again and in a lowered voice added, “But not very often.”
Tim felt helpless and angry.
“What are they suffering from?”
“The usual infant scourges—dysentery, typhus, malaria, and of course, since disease is the only area in which we’re up to date, we’re starting to see cases of AIDS.”
“This is inhuman!” Tim exploded. “There are supposed to be six major hospitals in Brasilia.”
Hardt nodded. “There are—but we’re somewhat out of their district.”
Struck by a sudden notion, Tim turned and appealed to Hardt.
“Can you take me to my hotel and back?”
“Certainly,” his host replied, sounding confused. “But why?”
“Don’t ask. Let’s just say I want to do something special for these children.”
“In that case,” Hardt responded, “you’d be better off helping some of the guys downstairs hammer little coffins.”
Tim lost his temper. “For once, Dom Ernesto, I’m talking to you as an archbishop. Now do what I say!”
Surprised, Hardt merely shrugged his shoulders and started downstairs ahead of Tim.
At the sight of Hardt’s mud-caked Land Rover, the doorman at the Nacional made haste to direct it as quickly as possible toward the parking lot until he saw the driver.
“Bom dia, padre. May I take your car?”
“Thanks, but we’ll only be a second.”
“In that case, leave your vehicle right here. I’ll guard it like a lion.”
Hardt winked at Tim as if to say, You see who’s boss around here.
Minutes later Tim was back in the car, this time carrying his black valise.
“May I ask what you’ve got there?” said Hardt as he gunned away from the curb.
“No, brother,” Tim replied. “It’s official church business.”
For the rest of the journey they listened to a feverish soccer game on the radio.
When they reached the village, Timothy excused himself and went into Hardt’s office. As he quickly changed his clothes he could hear Isabella and Ernesto expressing their curiosity in rapid dialect.
When he emerged moments later, the sight of him took their breath away. He was wearing the full purple regalia of a Roman Catholic bishop.
“What on earth do you think you’re doing?” Hardt remarked sarcastically. “It’s at least two months until carnival.”
Tim was not amused. “I’m going to the hospital again. You don’t have to take me. I know the way.”
Without waiting, he strode swiftly out of the house. Bemused, Ernesto and Isabella followed him through the mire.
Twenty minutes later they discovered that not all of Heaven and Earth was dreamt of in Liberation Theology. As Tim knelt by the side of the children one by one, chatting with them, each in a language the other could not understand, and, most of all, touching them, the Hardts could see from afar how Tim made the children laugh and the mothers cry. Each time he formed the sign of the cross and moved on to the next patient, the tearful mothers would bless him and instinctively grasp his hand to kiss it.
When he reached the far end of the dormitory, Tim looked back across the sea of children and saw Ernesto and Isabella smiling. He had just performed his most meaningful service since he had entered the priesthood.
When they were back in Dom Ernesto’s house, Isabella poured the coffee as Hardt commented.
“Was that supposed to be a lesson to me in pastoral healing?”
“Dom Ernesto,” Tim replied, “if you found something that enlightened you, please take it with my compliments. As far as I was concerned, I wanted to prove for myself and to you that there is something good in the power of Holy Mother Church.”
But Hardt was not convinced.
“Tim,” he began, “with your purity of spirit, you would have moved those poor children if you’d been dressed as Santa Claus.”
“I don’t agree,” said Isabella. “These people know that all bishops wear purple. They’ve just never seen one.” Turning to their guest, she reiterated, “You’re right, Dom Timóteo.”
“Thank you,” Tim replied. “And if it will mean anything, I’d like to celebrate Mass there tomorrow. Once on each floor.”
Hardt made a surprising request. “Would you allow me to assist you, Dom Timóteo?”
As the weeks of Tim’s “visit” grew into months, the two men’s conversations grew more intimate. Tim came to prefer the warmth of the Brazilian’s household to the luxury of his hotel. They often spent entire nights discussing Scripture … and their innermost feelings.
One evening Hardt, as ever puffing on a cigarette, asked his guest, “Tell me, my young friend. Have you never loved a woman?”
Tim hesitated for a moment, not knowing how to react. Even in this remote and alien place, visions of Deborah had continued to surface in his subconscious. Still, he had never talked about her to anyone except his confessor, and even then he had not pronounced Deborah’s name nor described what it felt like to love her. He had spoken only of sin but never joy. Now he wanted to open his heart to this man he so admired.
The Brazilian priest listened intently and did not interrupt Tim even when his narrative became elliptical and some details were jumbled.
When Tim had concluded, Hardt said gently, “I think you should have married her.” He inhaled deeply, then asked, “Don’t you?”
“I had made a commitment. I was marrying the Church, Dom Ernesto.”
“And in so doing you were perpetuating a false dogma. Of all the scriptural passages I could adduce, there is nothing more ironic—nor appropriate—than chapter three of the First Epistle to Timothy. You of course recall that here St. Paul himself sets out the requirements for a good bishop, insisting that he must be ‘blameless, vigilant, sober—’ ”
The reflexive scholar in Timothy filled in the missing part of the quotation. “… And ‘the husband of one wife.’ ”
“Can you tell me truthfully, do you still think of her?”
Tim let his eyes blur so that he would not have to see the older man’s reaction.
“Yes, Ernesto. Every now and then I see her face.”
“I feel sorry for you,” Hardt said with compassion. “For you’ll never know the very special love I share with my Alberto and Anita.”
Tim shrugged.
“Would you know how to find her?” his Brazilian friend inquired.
Tim hesitated, then at last allowed, “It wouldn’t be impossible.”
They sat silently for a moment. At last Hardt spoke.
“I’ll pray for you, my brother.”
“For what, exactly?”
“For you to find the courage,” he replied affectionately.
77
Daniel
It was like entering a time warp. One minute I was walking the sophisticated streets of Gallic Montreal; a few blocks later I found myself in a neighborhood that could have been New York’s Lower East Side a hundred years ago.
The streets were elegant enough—St. Urbain, Boulevard St. Laurent. But that was the extent of the area’s
Canadian character. All along the Boulevard, which the locals refer to as “the Main,” the shop names were in Yiddish—the language I heard everywhere in the loud negotiations between the pushcart vendors and their black-coated, bearded clients.
After working in rural New England for nearly six years, I missed these sights and sounds of my childhood.
I confess that “the Main” made me nostalgic. Except for one thing. I was no longer wearing the team uniform. My garb was in no way Jewish enough for the denizens of this area. They stared at me as if I had two heads—neither of which wore a skullcap.
Nonetheless, the only way I could recharge my ethnic batteries was by going to St. Urbain Street, and I did so as frequently as possible.
Whenever I needed a new Jewish book—or a rare old one—the closest city to which I could go to browse was Montreal. So every few months I would make a bibliophile’s journey for the sheer pleasure of holding new books and leafing through them.
On this fateful Sunday, I fortified myself with two really good hot pastrami sandwiches—a kind of ambrosia impossible to find in northern New England. Then, I headed for my destination, the Eternal Light Bookshop on Park Avenue.
I always called ahead to say I was coming so that Reb Vidal, the learned proprietor, would be sure to be there. I had come to rely on him to keep me up to date with what was new in the Old Testament, but on this particular day when I entered the shop he was nowhere in sight, and an ancient, stoop-shouldered clerk was off in a corner chatting in Yiddish with some customers.
I proceeded to check out the “Just Arrived” table.
I can’t describe the feeling. In Brooklyn I took it for granted. Yet here, as a fugitive from a hermetic sylvan province, I first began to appreciate the true joy of touching a book in the holy language.
I whiled away twenty minutes or so. Then I began to grow restive, so I went to get some further elucidation at the counter where the old-fashioned cash register stood. Perhaps there might be a message for me.
It was at that moment that my life changed.
Seated there was a fresh-faced girl in her late teens, with the deepest brown eyes I had ever seen. Even from afar I could sense the emanation of what the mystics called shekinah, the quintessence of divine radiance.
I approached respectfully and said, “Excuse me. I’m looking for Reb Vidal. He was supposed to—”
She immediately turned her back to me.
God, what a heathen I had become! No well-brought-up Orthodox girl would ever speak to a male stranger. Clearly she was present in that shop only to serve the female clientele.
Awkward fool that I was, I tried to apologize—which only exacerbated matters.
“Please forgive me,” I babbled, “I meant no offense. I mean …”
She turned her head again and addressed the old man in the corner in Yiddish. “Uncle Abe, would you kindly help this gentleman customer?”
“Just a minute, Miriam,” he replied. Then added, “He looks like a shaygetz to me, so go in back.”
I bristled. He had described me with the ultimate Orthodox disparagement for another Jew—calling me a gentile.
I would have been furious except that, at least by my outward appearance, her uncle was absolutely right. After all, with my crew-neck sweater and open collar, not to mention my uncovered head and the outrageous shortness of my sideburns, I was clearly an alien.
Uncle Abe was glaring at me from across the store, and I could even hear him mutter, “What chutzpah.” Thereafter he deliberately took his time with the other customers, probably hoping I would go away.
Finally he rang up their sale, and the store was completely empty. As I walked up to him, he inquired, “Oui, monsieur?”
Who the hell did he think I was, Yves Montand? In any case, to his great relief, I answered in Yiddish, hoping that would convince him that I was at least within the pale of acceptability.
“May I help you?” he asked with a touch of irritation.
“I’m looking for Reb Vidal,” I replied. “I called ahead to say I’d be here today.”
His eyes lit up in recognition. “Oh, you must be the cowboy.”
“The what?”
“That’s what my brother calls you,” he said. “He had to take his wife to the hospital, and he sends you his excuses.”
“Is it serious?” I asked.
“Well,”—he shrugged—“when you’ve spent your childhood in Bergen-Belsen instead of kindergarten, everything is serious. But—God willing—it’s just another of her blood pressure attacks. Now may I help you?”
“Please give my best wishes to Reb Vidal for his wife’s recovery,” I said. “Meanwhile, I’d like to take a look at Alfred J. Kolatch, The Jewish Book of Why.”
“Why?”
“That’s the title,” I answered.
“I know the title, young man,” he replied. “I just wanted to know why you should be interested in such a work. Are you Jewish?”
“Are you kidding? Can’t you tell?”
“Not by the way you’re dressed. But I’ll take your word for it. Just explain to me why you need a book which tells you what any yeshiva bocher of six already knows.”
“This may come as a surprise to you,” I retorted. “But not everybody in the world has had the benefit of yeshiva training. I have a lot of students desperate to learn about their heritage who can’t read Hebrew. Now could I impose upon you to show me that book?”
Uncle Abe shrugged, reached beneath the counter, and withdrew a blue-and-red volume. Glancing at it I was immediately convinced that it was a delightful way of explaining Jewish customs.
“This is terrific,” I said, looking up at him. “Can you order me two dozen?”
“It’s not impossible,” he responded vaguely, obviously intent on sparing me the pleasure of a simple yes.
Just then his glorious niece reappeared. “Uncle Abe, Papa’s on the phone.”
“Oh,” said the old man in a worried tone, and as he turned away mumbled to me, “You wait quietly.” Then, as he passed the counter, he said to the young girl, “Don’t speak to the cowboy, Miriam.”
She nodded obediently, and her eyes followed her uncle as he disappeared to the back of the shop.
I know, chapter and verse, that what I did next was wrong. But I did it anyway. And the reason couldn’t be found in any Jewish Book of Why. I addressed the girl.
“Miriam, are you still in school?” I asked timidly.
She hesitated for a moment and then, glancing furtively behind her, turned to me. “It’s not proper that we speak like this,” she said uneasily.
But she didn’t walk away.
“I know we shouldn’t,” I replied. “The prohibitions can be found in the Code of Jewish Law 152:1, and Shulchan Aruch Even Ha Ezer 22:1 and 2.”
“You know the Shulchan Aruch?” she said with surprise.
“Well, I’ve studied a bit and I know the unabridged version pretty well.”
“Oh,” she said, “that must be why Papa likes you so much.”
I was astonished. “You mean Reb Vidal has actually spoken of me?”
She blushed and again glanced over her shoulder. “My uncle will be back in just a moment. I’d better—”
“No,” I stopped her. “Just one little second. What exactly did your father say?”
She answered shyly and quickly, “That you were … very learned. That it was a pity—”
“A pity that what—?” I interrupted urgently.
“That you were—”
At that frustrating moment, Uncle Abe reappeared and glared at Miriam. “Have you been talking to this stranger?” he asked sternly.
She was tongue-tied, so I interceded. “It’s my fault, sir,” I insisted. “I was just asking her what time it was.”
“You don’t have a watch?” the old man inquired suspiciously.
“Uh,” I answered, groping for a pretext, “Uh—it’s stopped.” That was even half-true. For in a cosmic sense, time had stood
still from the moment I set eyes on Miriam Vidal.
He ordered his niece to go out while he would “take care of this tourist.” But I was heartened to see that Miriam disobeyed him. She remained rooted to her post behind the counter, drinking in every word of our conversation.
“All right then, mister,” he said curtly. “Have we done all our business for today?”
“No,” I answered, “I haven’t driven two hundred miles just to order one book. I was looking forward to discussing publications on mysticism with Reb Vidal.”
“Well, you’ll have to do that next time. Have a nice journey home.”
Before he could turn his back on me, I stopped him with the next question, “Scholem?”
He sneered at what he chose to regard as a mispronunciation. “Shalom to you as well.”
“No, no,” I persisted, “I mean Gershom Scholem. He writes on the kabbalah.”
He took this remark as the ploy it was and answered dubiously, “What particular title were you interested in?”
“Well, I’d like to see what you have.”
“Certainly,” he replied and pointed to the opposite wall. “Mysticism’s over there on the top three shelves. If you need any advice just ring the bell on the counter and I’ll come out. Now, if you’ll excuse me.”
He turned and saw his niece still standing there.
“Miriam,” he said with a frown, “I thought I told you to go.”
“I’m not talking to him or anything.”
“But you’re looking,” her uncle snapped. “And you know what the Code says about that.”
This was my moment. I intervened with as much hostility as I could put into a single sentence. “And in precisely what tractate does such an interdiction appear?”
Uncle Abe was stumped. “Uh—it doesn’t matter, I just know that it’s forbidden.”
“I beg your pardon,” I replied, warming to the fray. “According to Chapter 152:1 of the Code, I’m forbidden to look at Miriam—which, as you can see, I’m not doing. It’s forbidden for me to look at her and say that her hair is the loveliest I’ve ever seen, her voice the loveliest I’ve ever heard. But of course I’d never do such a thing.”
I stole a look at her out of the corner of my eye. She was smiling.