The Maldonado Miracle

  All night, a sleepless night, she had been looking forward to hearing visitors say, "She saw it first, Señora Josefa Espinosa." She could hardly wait until mass was over to confront Father Lebeon and find out his reason for closing the church. She was so upset that she hardly participated in the mass. At its end, she waited for the priest at the chapel entrance.

  "Father, why have you closed the church?"

  Lebeon said quietly, "Josefa, walk with me to the sacristy."

  Feeling honored by the request, Josefa said aloofly to Manuel, "Meet me in front. I must talk to Father Lebeon."

  Manuel shrugged. He was only too happy to get away for a few minutes.

  They walked slowly over the adobe path that led across the garden to the sacristy. Several of the white pigeons flew to the priest's shoulder, and he cooed at them, lapsing into French. Then he turned to Josefa. "I locked the church because I did not want to make a spectacle of this."

  Josefa nodded gravely. That would be wrong, she knew.

  "Now, if it is proved that a miracle did occur..."

  "If?" Josefa wheezed, stopping abruptly. "Father, you saw it with your own eyes."

  Lebeon stopped, too. "You saw a stain, and I saw one. It is still there. But we don't know what it is. You see, Josefa, if we all said it was a miracle and then it proved to be paint, how would you feel? How would we all feel? Cheated, of course."

  Josefa shook her head. "It cannot be paint. It is a miracle. The wood bled. He sent us this blessing."

  The priest smiled at her. "Let's wait and see."

  Josefa shook her head. "You don't want a miracle."

  Lebeon's face became serious, and he brushed the pigeons from his vestment. "Josefa, no one wants a miracle more than I do. It would take all day to listen to the miracles I want. Not only for you and myself and for the parish, but for all mankind. But don't you see what could happen if this is false? Some people might even lose faith."

  Josefa was not listening. Her head was sagging back and forth, causing the rolls of fat beneath her chin to quiver. "You don't want a miracle."

  With ringing sharpness, Lebeon said, "The church will remain closed until higher authority can determine what happened. I talked to the bishop last night, and he left it in my hands."

  Josefa was stunned. She lowered herself to a bench by the garden path. "But it was there," she said. "With a shining light all around it."

  Lebeon crossed the path, putting a hand on her shoulder. "I must go into the sacristy now, Josefa. All of this will be settled in time. Meanwhile, go back to your job, and I'll see you at mass in the morning."

  Josefa's head went from side to side mechanically. "I quit my job yesterday so that I could be at the mission all day."

  "That was a mistake," Lebeon said. "I'll call the family and see what I can do."

  "I can't go back, not when there's a miracle."

  Lebeon sighed. "Think about it, Josefa." He moved across the garden into the archway that led to the sacristy.

  AT BIGHT O'CLOCK, Frank Olcott went to the Dinner Bell. It was a morning ritual that seldom varied. Apple juice, English muffins with honey, black coffee, and a scan of the San Francisco Chronicle front page.

  Olcott climbed to a counter stool, was served his coffee, read the headlines, and watched the increasing flow of traffic with satisfaction. There hadn't been this many cars rolling down the Real in two years. Already, there were almost three dozen parked in front of the mission. He smiled at Maisie. "Looks like we'll have a lot of people in town today."

  "Yeah, I guess so. And they'll all be coming here to the Bell 'cause they can't go over there."

  "Can't go where?"

  "Father locked the door last night an' ol' Gonzalvo is guarding it like a fort. Won't let nobody in, and I mean nobody."

  "I don't understand."

  "Neither do I," Maisie said, "but it's a fact. Fellow came in here ten minutes ago an' said no one can get in 'til they prove it's a miracle. That's what he said."

  Olcott got up and hobbled to the doorway, looking over toward the mission. Gonzalvo was there, all right. "These things sometimes take months, years."

  "Maybe somebody in Santa Barbara or Fresno told him to keep people out," Maisie said. "He's got bosses. How do we know?"

  Olcott said, angrily, "Well, I'm going to find out." He went back to his stool, but he'd lost his appetite and only toyed with his muffin. He went out, slamming the door.

  Twenty minutes later, the cafe door opened again and Jose came in, moving timidly to a position near the front counter. "Buenos dias," he said softly to the blond.

  Maisie smiled at him. "Buenos dias. Same as yesterday?"

  Jose nodded, then added, "Un jugo."

  Maisie frowned, and a pocho several stools down said. "The boy wants juice."

  "De naranja, por favor, "Jose said.

  "Orange," the pocho interpreted.

  "Coming up," Maisie said. "Orange juice, doughnuts, dos leche."

  Jose nodded.

  "You live near here? You're new to town."

  "Si, señora."

  He took the bag, paid for it, and then returned to the store. Sanchez trotted behind as he went to the front window, where he'd pulled a box up.

  Giron had made him promise to tell the padre that day, but it would take a while to get the courage, and he hoped that Maldonado would arrive in time for them to go to the mission together. That priest looked as tough as the Sierra de Juárez peaks.

  He'd also been thinking about the man from the service station. Surely, he knew. If Giron had been able to guess what happened, then the man, with his shining badge, had figured it out.

  9

  AT MID-MORNING, Olcott, flanked by Nello Solari, the big Swiss who owned the furniture store, and Abe Goldblatt, who ran San Ramon Hardware, headed toward the mission.

  They passed so close to the boarded-up store that Jose pulled back from the window. He kept his eyes on Olcott as the three men crossed the street. He was certain that they were on their way to tell the padre about the false miracle. Why else would the limping man be going over there?

  Then perhaps the whole town would begin searching for the person who had caused it all. Sweat popped out on Jose's forehead.

  Pausing by the mission wall, Olcott counted forty people standing around. He also saw two cars pull away and move toward the freeway entrance ramp. "That's some we lost already," he said.

  Josefa was sitting in the overstuffed chair, which Solari had offered the previous day There was a small cluster of people around her. They came, listened a moment, and went on. Manuel stood behind the chair, still looking dazed.

  Goldblatt said, "And that's a sight we could do without."

  Solari reddened. "It's good advertising for me."

  "Never mind that," Olcott snapped. "Let's go see the padre."

  People had been knocking at the priest's door since the end of the second mass, and he had received each visitor with a patient explanation about the locked door. He had left his dusty rolltop desk only briefly, to accompany a laboratory technician from a Salinas hospital into the nave. The technician took a sample of the dried liquid on the statue and was now in the mission kitchen, studying the substance under a microscope. He had brought specimen slides from the hospital for comparison.

  Father Lebeon had stayed with him for a few minutes but felt so uncomfortable about the use of ordinary medical techniques in such a delicate situation that he returned to his office. When he heard the rap on the door he attached a set smile to his face. He was greatly relieved when he saw who his visitors were.

  "It's good to see friendly faces again. Let me get some coffee cups."

  Olcott hesitated, then plunged ahead. "We didn't come to have coffee this morning, Padre."

  "Well, don't tell me you're bringing a big contribution." Father Lebeon grinned over at Abe. "Know any rabbis who'd like to trade places with me today?"

  Abe sputtered, the laugh sounding uneasy.

  Olcott said
bluntly, "Padre, we'd like to know why you closed the church."

  Lebeon pushed back in his chair. "For the past two hours, I've been explaining to visitors, friends, and enemies. But you, Frank, above all, should know."

  Olcott froze. "Why me?"

  "Because you're a Catholic, and a very intelligent man. We can't treat this lightly; make a Las Vegas show out of it. It's got to be proved."

  Recovering, Olcott said, "But people from all over the state know we've got a miracle here. It's on the radio, in the newspapers..."

  "I know." Lebeon nodded. "Listen, all of you, no priest ever wanted to close a church. We'd rather open them, a thousand a day, all over the world. But something like this happens, and we can't let emotions run it. You have to be sensible. You and Nello, as parish members and citizens here, have to help me. So do you, Abe."

  Olcott pulled a chair up to Lebeon's desk. He couldn't count the times he'd done this in the past two years. "Two weeks ago, Padre, I was here, in this very chair, and we talked about what could be done to save this town—put it on the map. We got no answers. But if you'll remem ber, when I was leaving, I said, 'Padre, maybe only luck will keep us going.' Remember that?"

  Lebeon's eyes narrowed. He felt himself being trapped. "Yes, I remember."

  "Well, we got that luck now. There's hope in this town again. Something's happened here. Take a walk out on the street. Go into the Dinner Bell. See for yourself. It's in the air, Padre. Don't destroy it."

  "Hold on, Frank," Lebeon said angrily. "I don't want to destroy anything. I just don't want any of us to be hurt. And we can be. We can also hurt other people." The priest felt like a record on a turntable, playing the same words over and over, though to different people for different reasons. How much simpler it would be to say: Yes, it is a miracle! Hail, Mary!

  Nello Solari felt compelled to speak. "We have the feeling you're against the miracle, that you won't accept it."

  Lebeon looked over at Solari with puzzled anger. "Why do you have that feeling?"

  Solari opened the morning Salinas newspaper and pointed to the quote from Josefa Espinosa. It said that Father Francis Lebeon, O.F.M., "had doubted her."

  Lebeon said quietly, "It is my place to believe and to doubt."

  Olcott's voice was just as tempered. "Padre, we're begging you to open the church. Whatever you believe about this, give your parish a chance to survive, or at least to hope. If word gets out that no one can see the statue, believe me, you personally will have finally strangled us."

  Before Lebeon could answer there was a knock at the door. Lebeon called out dismally, "Come in."

  It was the lab technician from Salinas. For a second, Lebeon considered asking his visitors to leave but then reconsidered. It was no time to withhold the truth. He got up from the desk and asked, "What did you find? Paint? Floor polish?"

  The technician shook his head and placed two slides on Father Lebeon's desk under the lamp. "No, Father, it's blood."

  Lebeon held on to the back of his chair.

  "Human blood," the technician said. "Common Type O."

  Lebeon felt as if he'd been slugged. Now the whole thing would mushroom. Blood didn't come out of old wood like sap. It had to be dripped on, or thrown on. Yet he still could not believe that any anyone would have the courage to do so purposely. And something else had to be considered. Perhaps it was a miracle?

  He studied the young technician. "You're certain?"

  "Positive. You can look at the slides yourself."

  "Thanks very much," Lebeon said. "Will you leave these here for the commission?"

  "Be glad to," the technician said.

  When he had gone, Lebeon tried to muster a brave smile. "Well, it's human blood." Even he caught the hollow tone.

  Abe Goldblatt, who had been silent through it all, looked at the priest with sympathy, then said, reverently, "Christ was human, Padre."

  In a barely audible voice, Father Lebeon replied, "Very human, Abe." He felt tears coming into the corners of his eyes but did not know whether they were from rage or helplessness.

  Olcott could not bring himself to look at the priest. The three men muttered good-bye and left without saying anything else.

  Later, Lebeon set out on a stroll around San Ramon. He'd always felt these walks were as much a part of his duties as conducting mass. He was a familiar figure in the village, wearing his monk's robe in the European tradition, visiting the stores; speaking to everyone.

  Jose watched him cross from the mission and again pulled back The thought of facing him was terrifying. When the priest had disappeared up the road, he moved back closer to the grime, now imprinted here and there with the marks of his nose.

  More and more people seemed to be arriving. That crazy woman never left her chair. The taco peddler was back and doing a brisk business. He'd been joined by another pushcart vendor who was selling colored ices.

  Jose wondered if they were charging admission to the church.

  Father Lebeon stopped first at the Dinner Bell. Maisie Keeper was polite but lukewarm. In Estaban Cole's the grocery shoppers nodded respectfully but buried themselves in their lists. Estaban didn't hide. He said, "Town's a little puzzled by what you're doin, Padre," and then decapitated a head of lettuce for emphasis.

  Lebeon circled behind the stores on the west side of the Real, toward the freeway, and entered the farm-equipment shop of Freddie Lurash. Freddie turned down the spitting blue arc on his welding torch, crawled out from beneath a tractor, and lifted his goggles. He relighted the cold cigar stub in his mouth. He was a brawny little man, always greasy.

  "Freddie, what's the feeling in town about my closing the church?"

  Lurash sucked on his cigar a moment until the tip was red, bit a chunk off the butt, and spit it across the room. "You just walked around it, didn't you, Padre?"

  Lebeon nodded. It had been an unnecessary question.

  "For the first time in years they don't understand you," Lurash said. "Neither do I." Lurash had always been blunt, no matter who got offended.

  "How's business?"

  "Mine's great. Always is." He patted the muddy tractor. "They don't make 'em that won't break down." He peered at the priest over a cloud of thick smoke. "But some people in this town been hurtin a long time."

  Father Lebeon returned to the mission. He summoned Gonzalvo and ordered him to open the church doors. Then he sat down and carefully wrote out a request for immediate transfer from Mission San Ramon.

  10

  BY TWO O'CLOCK, Jose could stand it no longer. He had to see the statue. There were now more than five hundred people thronging around the mission, among them some photographers. Cars were pulling in and out every few minutes. No one would notice him, he was certain.

  He crossed the Real, hearing the jingling bells from the colored-ice cart, its owner crying out, "Helados! Hela-dos!" The taco man was also shouting his wares. A third peddler, holding a handful of strings attached to red and blue gas balloons, already stenciled the miracle of san ramon, was yelling, too.

  It is almost like a carnival, Jose thought. A circo.

  Then he noticed older people moving toward the church. There was a woman in a wheelchair; a man on crutches. They had to be going in for a cure. He had seen Mexicans like that going into the church in Ensenada.

  How could the priest let this happen? Surely, he knew the truth. Surely, the gas station man had told him in the morning.

  Jose went over near the fat woman in the chair. There was a crowd around her. He didn't understand what she was saying because she spoke in English.

  "...there seemed to be a light, a beautiful light all around it..."

  "And no one else was there?" a woman spectator asked.

  Josefa answered regally, "It was I who discovered the Miracle of San Ramon. Father Lebeon would not believe it when I told him."

  A news photographer said, "I hear he doesn't believe it now."

  "He cannot doubt it."

  "May I touch you?" the
woman spectator asked.

  Josefa considered the request and then extended her pudgy hand as if she were consecrated. "You may kiss it," she said.

  The news photographer muttered, "Pardon me while I throw up," but took his photograph nonetheless.

  Jose went on around the mission.

  The priest was surrounded by a group of men in the garden. There were photographers and lights for television cameras. A distinguished-looking gray-haired man in a dark suit was standing near the priest.

  Jose watched, certain that it concerned the statue.

  "...I'm sorry about the facilities. I really wasn't expecting you in a group. I've never done anything like a press conference..."

  The man in the dark suit said, "A Mr. Olcott called us last night."

  Lebeon seemed puzzled.

  "He said he was the mayor. I'm Jack Ortt, KDOX-TV."

  Father Lebeon said, "Yes, I've seen your news shows. Well, as you see, we have..." He wondered what to say next. "Well, gentlemen, is there anything I can do for you?"

  Ortt replied, "Yes, Father, the miracle."

  The TV cameras began to grind as Lebeon said, "It is not really anything for sensational headlines. Or the six P.M. news, Mr. Ortt."

  The newscaster replied pleasantly, "That's a matter of opinion, Father."

  "It's mine. I don't choose to call this a miracle as yet." There, he thought, I've done it. The bishop would probably take exception.

  "Can you explain it, then?" Ortt asked.

  "I cannot," Father Lebeon replied firmly. "Look, let's not be premature. That's all I ask These things sometimes involve hope where hope is false. Hope for old people ... for the dying ... for the crippled..."

  Jose stood a moment longer, then forced himself to go up the church steps and inside. He stayed in the back Some visitors were coming in, some were leaving. A few kneeled in front of the rope. Others just stood and stared.

  He looked at the stains and then at the sightless eyes angling down on him. Suddenly, he felt afraid and ran from the church. It was those eyes. He stopped a moment in the middle of the street and then kept going until he was opposite Olcott's. He hid behind a telephone pole.