The Stories of J.F. Powers (New York Review Books Classics)

  Father Desmond came for dinner that afternoon at four, which I thought rather early even for “early.” When he arrived, I was in the front hall having a go at the briefcase. He went right past me. I could see that he had something on his mind.

  “I just couldn’t stay away,” he said, taking a chair across from Father Burner in the parlor. “I’ve got what I think is good news, Ernest.”

  Father Burner glanced up from Church Property Administration and shook his head. “I don’t want to hear it,” he said, “if it’s about you-know-what.”

  “I’ll just tell you what I know to be true,” Father Desmond said, “and let it go at that.”

  “Whatever it is, it can wait,” said Father Burner. I could see, however, that he’d listen if he was primed again.

  Father Desmond bore down on him. “Sure, I know, you’ll get it in the mail—when you get it. That’s what you figure. I admire your restraint, Ernest, but let’s not be superstitious about it, either.”

  Father Burner, sprawling in his chair, rolled and unrolled Church Property Administration. Then, making a tube of it, he put it to his eye and peered through it, down his black leg, a great distance, and appeared finally to sight the silver glow on the toe of his big black shoe, which lay in the sunlight. “All right, Ed,” he said. “Let’s have it.”

  “All right, then,” said Father Desmond. “Here it is. I have it on reliable authority—that is to say, my spies tell me—the Archbishop visited the infirmary today.” I interpreted “spies” to mean some little nun or other on whom Father Desmond bestowed sample holy cards.

  Father Burner, taking a long-suffering tone in which there was just a touch of panic, said, “Ed, you know he does that all the time. You’ll have to do better than that.”

  Father Desmond tried to come up with more. “He had words with Dutch.”

  Father Burner flung himself out of his chair. He engaged in swordplay with the air, using Church Property Administration. “How do you mean ‘he had words’? You don’t mean to say they quarreled?”

  Father Desmond could only reply, “I just mean they talked at some length.”

  Father Burner gave a great snort and threw Church Property Administration across the room. It clattered against the bookcase, a broken sword. He wheeled and walked the floor, demanding, “Then why’d you say they had words? Why make something out of nothing? Why not tell it straight, Ed? Just once, huh?” He was standing over Father Desmond.

  “You’re under a strain, Ernest,” said Father Desmond, getting up from his chair. “Maybe I shouldn’t have said anything about it at all.”

  Father Burner stared at him. “Said? Said what? That’s just it, Ed—you haven’t said anything.” He took another walk around the room, saying the word “nothing” over and over to himself.

  Father Desmond cut in, “All right, Ernest, I’m sorry,” and sat down in his chair.

  Then Father Burner, too, sat down, and both men were overcome by quiet and perhaps shame. Several minutes passed. I was sorry for Father Burner. He’d sacrificed his valuable silence to his curiosity and received nothing in return.

  I addressed the briefcase, making my claws catch and pop in the soft, responsive leather. I wished that I were plucking instead at the top of Father Desmond’s soft head.

  Father Desmond glanced over at me and then at Father Burner.

  “Why do you let him do that?” he asked.

  “He likes to.”

  “Yeah?” said Father Desmond. “Does he ever bring you a mouse?”

  With one paw poised, I listened for Father Burner’s answer.

  “You don’t see any around, do you?” he said.

  Well done, I thought, and renewed my attack on the briefcase. I had the feeling that Father Desmond still wanted to tell the world what he’d do to me if it were his briefcase, but, if so, he denied himself and got out a cigar.

  “What’d you think of the plans for that rectory in South Dakota?” he asked.

  “Not bad,” said Father Burner, looking around for his Church Property Administration.

  “There it is,” said Father Desmond, as if it were always misplacing itself. He went over by the bookcase, picked up the magazine, and delivered it to Father Burner.

  I curled up to nap. I could see that they were going to have one of their discussions.

  When I heard the back door open, I supposed it was Mrs Wynn coming in to start dinner, but it was Mr Keller. I saw him advancing gravely up the hallway, toward me, carrying a traveling bag that I recognized as one the ushers had given Father Malt. Instantly I concluded that Father Malt had passed away in the night, that the nuns had failed to inform Father Burner, and had instead told Mr Keller, the faithful visitor, to whom they’d also entrusted the deceased’s few belongings.

  Mr Keller set down the bag and, without looking into the parlor, started back the way he’d come, toward the back door. Father Burner and Father Desmond, at the sight of the bag, seemed unable to rise from their chairs, powerless to speak.

  After a moment, I saw Father Malt emerging from the kitchen, on crutches, followed by Mr Keller. He worked his way up the hallway, talking to himself. “Somebody painted my kitchen,” I heard him say.

  I beheld him as one risen from the dead. He looked the same to me but different—an imperfect reproduction of himself as I recalled him, imperfect only because he appeared softer, whiter, and, of course, because of the crutches.

  Not seeing me by the hatrack, he clumped into the parlor, nodded familiarly to Father Burner and Father Desmond, and said, again to himself, “Somebody changed my chairs around.”

  Father Desmond suddenly shot up from his chair, said, “I gotta go,” and went. Mr Keller seemed inclined to stick around. Father Burner, standing, waited for Father Malt to come away from the library table, where he’d spotted some old copies of Church Property Administration.

  Father Malt thrust his hand under the pile of magazines, weighed it, and slowly, with difficulty, turned on his crutches, to face Father Burner.

  They stared at each other, Father Malt and Father Burner, like two popes themselves not sure which one was real.

  I decided to act. I made my way to the center of the room and stood between them. I sensed them both looking at me, then to me—for a sign. Canon law itself was not more clear, more firm, than the one I lived by. I turned my back on Father Burner, went over to Father Malt, and favored him with a solemn purr and dubbed his trouser leg lightly with my tail, reversing the usual course of prerogative between lord and favorite, switching the current of power. With a purr, I’d restored Father Malt’s old authority in the house. Of necessity—authority as well as truth being one and indivisible—I’d unmade Father Burner. I was sorry for him.

  He turned and spoke harshly to Mr Keller. “Why don’t you go see if you left the back door open?”

  When Father Burner was sure that Mr Keller had gone, he faced Father Malt. The irremovable pastor stood perspiring on his crutches. As long as he lived, he had to be pastor, I saw; his need was the greater. And Father Burner saw it, too. He went up to Father Malt, laid a strong, obedient hand on the old one that held tight to the right crutch, and was then the man he’d been becoming.

  “Hello, boss,” he said. “Glad you’re back.”

  It was his finest hour. In the past, he had lacked the will to accept his setbacks with grace and had derived no merit from them. It was difficult to believe that he’d profited so much from my efforts in his behalf—my good company and constant example. I was happy for him.

  ZEAL

  SOUTH OF ST PAUL the conductor appeared at the head of the coach, held up his ticket punch, and clicked it.

  The Bishop felt for his ticket. It was there.

  “I know it’s not a pass,” said Father Early. He had been talking across the aisle to one of the pilgrims he was leading to Rome, but now he was back on the subject of the so-called clergy pass. “But it is a privilege.”

  The Bishop said nothing. He’d meant to
imply by his silence before, when Father Early brought up the matter, that there was nothing wrong with an arrangement which permitted the clergy to travel in parlor cars at coach rates. The Bishop wished the arrangement were in effect in all parts of the country, and on all trains.

  “But on a run like this, Bishop, with these fine coaches, I daresay there aren’t many snobs who’ll go to the trouble of filling out the form.”

  The Bishop looked away. Father Early had a nose like a parrot’s and something on it like psoriasis that held the Bishop’s attention—unfortunately, for Father Early seemed to think it was his talk. The Bishop had a priest or two in his diocese like Father Early.

  “Oh, the railroads, I daresay, mean well.”

  “Yes,” said the Bishop distantly. The voice at his right ear went on without him. He gazed out the window, up at the limestone scarred by its primeval intercourse with the Mississippi, now shrunk down into itself, and there he saw a cave, another cave, and another. Criminals had been discovered in them, he understood, and ammunition from the Civil War, and farther down the river, in the high bluffs, rattlesnakes were said to be numerous still.

  “Bishop, I don’t think I’m one to strain at a gnat.” (The Bishop glanced at Father Early’s nose with interest.) “But I must say I fear privilege more than persecution. Of course the one follows the other, as the night the day.”

  “Is it true, Father, that there are rattlesnakes along here?”

  “Very likely,” said Father Early, hardly bothering to look out the window. “Bishop, I was dining in New York, in a crowded place, observed by all and sundry, when the management tried to present me with a bottle of wine. Well!”

  The Bishop, spying a whole row of caves, thought of the ancient Nile. Here, though, the country was too fresh and frigid. Here the desert fathers would’ve married early and gone fishing. The aborigines, by their fruits, pretty much proved that. He tried again to interrupt Father Early. “There must be a cave for you up there, somewhere, Father.”

  Father Early responded with a laugh that sounded exactly like ha-ha, no more or less. “I’ll tell you a secret, Bishop. When I was in seminary, they called me Crazy Early. I understand they still do. Perhaps you knew.”

  “No,” said the Bishop. Father Early flattered himself. The Bishop had never heard of him until that day.

  “I thought perhaps Monsignor Reed had told you.”

  “I seldom see him.” He saw Reed only by accident, at somebody’s funeral or jubilee celebration or, it seemed, in railroad stations, which had happened again in Minneapolis that morning. It was Reed who had introduced Father Early to him then. Had Reed known what he was doing? It was six hours to Chicago, hours of this . . .

  “I suppose you know Macaulay’s England, Bishop.”

  “No.” There was something to be gained by a frank admission of ignorance when it was assumed anyway.

  “Read the section dealing with the status of the common clergy in the eighteenth century. I’m talking about the Anglican clergy. Hardly the equal of servants, knaves, figures of fun! The fault of the Reformation, you say? Yes, of course”—the Bishop had in no way signified assent—“but I say it could happen anywhere, everywhere, any time! Take what’s going on in parts of Europe today. When you consider the status of the Church there in the past, and the overwhelmingly catholic population even now. I wonder, though, if it doesn’t take something to bring us to our senses from time to time—now what do you say, Bishop?”

  If the conductor hadn’t been upon them, the Bishop would’ve said there was probably less danger of the clergy getting above themselves than there was of their being accepted for less than they were; or at least for less than they were supposed to be; or was that what Father Early was saying?

  The conductor took up their tickets, placed two receipts overhead, one white and one blue. Before he moved on, he advised the Bishop to bring his receipt with him, the blue one, when he moved into the parlor car.

  The Bishop nodded serenely.

  Beside him, Father Early was full of silence, and opening his breviary.

  The Bishop, who had expected to be told apologetically that it was a matter of no importance if he’d used his clergy pass, had an uncomfortable feeling that Father Early was praying for him.

  At Winona, the train stopped for a minute. The Bishop from his window saw Father Early on the platform below talking to an elderly woman. In parting, they pecked at each other, and she handed him a box. Returning to his seat, he said he’d had a nice visit with his sister. He went to the head of the coach with the box, and came slowly back down the aisle, offering the contents to the pilgrims. “Divinity? Divinity?” The Bishop, when his turn came, took a piece, and consumed it. Then he felt committed to stay with Father Early until Chicago.

  It was some time before Father Early returned to his seat—from making the acquaintance of Monsignor Reed’s parishioners. “What we did was split the responsibility. Miss Cul-hane’s in charge of Monsignor’s people. Of course, the ultimate responsibility is mine.” Peering up the aisle at two middle-aged women drawing water from the cooler, Father Early said, “The one coming this way now,” and gazed out the window.

  Miss Culhane, a paper cup in each hand, smiled at the Bishop. He smiled back.

  When Miss Culhane had passed, Father Early said, “She’s been abroad once, and that’s more than most of ’em can say. She’s a secretary in private life, and it’s hard to find a man with much sense of detail. But I don’t know . . . From what I’ve heard already I’d say the good people don’t like the idea. I’m afraid they think she stands between them and me.”

  The other woman, also carrying paper cups, came down the aisle, and again Father Early gazed out the window. So did the Bishop. When the woman had gone by, Father Early commented dryly, “Her friend, whose name escapes me. Between the two of ’em, Bishop . . . Oh, it’ll be better for all concerned when Monsignor joins us.”

  The Bishop knew nothing about this. Reed had told him nothing. “Monsignor?”

  “Claims he’s allergic to trains.”

  “Reed?”

  Again Father Early treated the question as rhetorical. “His plane doesn’t arrive until noon tomorrow. We sail at four. That doesn’t give us much time in New York.”

  The Bishop was putting it all together. Evidently Reed was planning to have as much privacy as he could on the trip. Seeing his little flock running around loose in the station, though, he must have felt guilty—and then the Bishop had happened along. Would Reed do this to him? Reed had done this to him. Reed had once called the Bishop’s diocese the next thing to a titular see.

  “I’m sorry he isn’t sailing with us,” said Father Early.

  “Isn’t he?”

  “He’s got business of some kind—stained glass, I believe—that’ll keep him in New York for a few days. He may have to go to Boston. So he’s flying over. I wonder, Bishop, if he isn’t allergic to boats too.” Father Early smiled at the Bishop as one good sailor to another.

  The Bishop wasn’t able to smile back. He was thinking how much he preferred to travel alone. When he was being hustled into the coach by Reed and Father Early, he hadn’t considered the embarrassment there might be in the end; together on the train to Chicago and again on the one to New York and then crossing on the same liner, apart, getting an occasional glimpse of each other across the barriers. The perfidious Reed had united them, knowing full well that the Bishop was traveling first class and that Father Early and the group were going tourist. The Bishop hoped there would be time for him to see Reed in New York. According to Father Early, though, Reed didn’t want them to look for him until they saw him. The Bishop wouldn’t.

  Miss Culhane, in the aisle again, returned with more water. When she passed, the Bishop and Father Early were both looking out the window. “You can’t blame ’em,” Father Early said. “I wish he’d picked a man for the job. No, they want more than a man, Bishop. They want a priest.”

  “They’ve got you,??
? said the Bishop. “And Monsignor will soon be with you.”

  “Not until we reach Rome.”

  “No?” The Bishop was rocked by this new evidence of Reed’s ruthlessness. Father Early and the group were going to Ireland and England first, as the Bishop was, but they’d be spending more time in those countries, about two weeks.

  “No,” said Father Early. “He won’t.”

  The Bishop got out his breviary. He feared that Father Early would not be easily discouraged. The Bishop, if he could be persuaded to join the group, would more than make up for the loss of Reed. To share the command with such a man as Father Early, however, would be impossible. It would be to serve under him—as Reed may have realized. The Bishop would have to watch out. It would be dangerous for him to offer Father Early plausible excuses, to point out, for instance, that they’d be isolated from each other once they sailed from New York. Such an excuse, regretfully tendered now, could easily commit him to service on this train, and on the next one, and in New York—and the Bishop wasn’t at all sure that Father Early wouldn’t find a way for him to be with the group aboard ship. The Bishop turned a page.

  When Father Early rose and led the pilgrims in the recitation of the rosary, the Bishop put aside his breviary, took out his beads and prayed along with them. After that, Father Early directed the pilgrims in the singing of “Onward, Christian Soldiers”—which was not a Protestant hymn, not originally, he said. Monsignor Reed’s parishioners didn’t know the words, but Father Early got around that difficulty by having everyone sing the notes of the scale, the ladies la, the men do. The Bishop cursed his luck and wouldn’t even pretend to sing. Father Early was in the aisle, beating time with his fist, exhorting some by name to contribute more to the din, clutching others (males) by the shoulders until they did. The Bishop grew afraid that even he might not be exempt, and again sought the protection of his breviary.