Pride House: The Quest for Vainglory

Chapter 6 A Secret Remedy

  Her old gray sweater she stuffed along the crack at the bottom of the closed door, and she plugged the keyhole with a gum wrapper. Then Reason risked turning on the small lamp by Conscience’s bedside. The old man was sitting up in bed wide-awake. His room was as clean and severe as the lines of his eagle-like face. He gestured to her to pull up a straight-backed chair, and she settled on it, leaning forward and hugging herself.

  “I got out today,” she whispered. “I’ve been downtown.”

  His eyes flashed with interest. A slight movement of his eyebrows told her to go on.

  “Other than work, I haven’t been allowed out in a week,” she said. “But yesterday I found this in the pocket of one of my skirts. Love gave it to me, but I forgot all about it.”

  She handed him a calling card on which was printed in green ink: “Tired of points of view? In need of final answers? See Pastor Truth. Consultations, lectures, revelations, rebukes.” An address and phone number followed.

  She explained, “I thought I could persuade Pride to let me go if I told him it was for an eye appointment. You see, Love told me this man could cure me. Oh, I know that’s nonsense, but it got me out of the house, didn’t it? Of course, I didn’t mention to Pride anything about Love or her family being involved with this.

  “When I walked to that address, I found just a plain little office in an old building. Pastor Truth was in and turned out to be a black man of about my age. He seemed pleasant enough at first, but before long he had me wishing I’d skipped the whole thing. He’s the kind who makes a lot of pronouncements as if he were the ultimate authority. I never met such an opinionated person. He said that he already knew all about me and that my eye problem is psychosomatic. No questions, no examination, just this categorical statement. Then he started prescribing a cure. I had barely opened my mouth yet! He said I should—oh grandfather, you won’t believe it. It’s too much.”

  Conscience put his hand on her sleeve and nodded for her to continue.

  “He just said that the root of my problem is in my relationship with Pride, that I’m too withdrawn and—and dominated. He wants me to start talking back to Pride and even bossing him! I told him I haven’t got the slightest authority from Pride’s parents to do any such thing. He said—”

  At the sound of footsteps in the hallway, Reason paused. She waited until whoever it was passed on.

  “He said he gave me the authority,” she went on in a lower voice. “Can you imagine? Just like that. He wants me to run things as if Pride was a child again, and if anybody challenges me, I’m to say that I have the backing of Pastor Truth! Before I could even react to that, he started telling me to ignore Pride’s orders about my not leaving the house, and to go where and when I please. I guess I lost my head then. I argued with him. I think I even shouted. But grandfather, the man is stubborn. And calm, too; he didn’t get upset. He just ushered me out the door, and he was saying that, if I would start doing as he said, I could throw away my glasses. Then—”

  Reason took a deep breath.

  “Then—we were standing outside his office door—he lifted my glasses off and looked at my face close up. He said I looked better without them and that I have pretty eyes. Then he folded up my glasses, put them in my hand, and went back inside. I just stood there like an idiot. It was so—well, I can hardly describe it. I got so shaken up that after I left the building I walked two blocks in the wrong direction before I caught myself.”

  Reason took one of the old man’s hands in both of hers.

  “That wasn’t easy to get out,” she said wispily. “But I forgot to say, he wants me to come for counseling once a week. Grandfather, what should I do?”

  Conscience took a pen and pad from his nightstand, wrote for a moment, and handed the pad to Reason.

  It read, “Do as he says.”