The Miracle (23 page)

"It is a curious thing," the driver had said, "that when Bernadette sought a cure for her severe asthma attacks, she did not go to the grotto. By the time Bernadette had seen the seventeenth apparition of the Virgin Mother, there had already been four miracles cures at the grotto. But in truth, Bernadette did not herself believe in the curative powers of the grotto. Instead, when she was so sick, she went to Cauter-ets."

"Cauterets?" Amanda had said. "What's that?"

"A mere village. But also a fashionable spa in those days, not far from Lourdes. There was a healing spring, a thermal bath, that was supposed to be useful for an asthma cure. So Bernadette went there, not to the grotto, for her cure. Of course, she was not cured, but she tried."

"But not at the grotto," Amanda had mused. "She really did not believe in it?"

"Not for cures, no. She went to Cauterets instead."

"What's Cauterets like today?"

"It is still there, less fashionable perhaps. It's nearby. You drive up the valley into the mountains. I believe that there is even a shrine to commemorate Bernadette's visit."

"How interesting," Amanda had said. "I'll have to remember

that." If Bernadette did not believe in a cure at the grotto, she would dare to ask Ken, why should he?

Now, in the reception lobby of the hotel, she wanted to find Ken. Perhaps he was still kneeling hypnotized before the grotto. Or perhaps he was in their awful room getting some rest. Maybe the plump receptionist at the desk, the one called Yvonne, would know.

Amanda went to the desk. "I'm Mrs. Clayton," she said. "We had to go out of town last night. My husband, Mr. Ken Clayton, came back this morning. I wonder if you've seen him around?"

"Actually, I did," said Yvonne. "He's asked me to arrange for him to have lunch downstairs at Mrs. Edith Moore's table. He should be in the dining room right now. You know where it is?"

"You said downstairs. I'll find it. You can send my bags up to our room."

Amanda made for the staircase near the elevator, and hurriedly descended to the entry to the dining area. She could see the main dining hall, plain, every table filled with nondescript pilgrims, with a second narrower dining hall beyond it, and alcoves and booths off that room for more private dining.

A mdtre d' materialized to inquire if she was a resident of the hotel, and Amanda gave her room number. "I'm told my husband is lunching here now, and he's expecting me."

"His name?"

"Mr. Kenneth Clayton."

"Yes, of course, he is dining at Mrs. Moore's table. Please follow me.

Amanda was brought to an oversized round table at the far side of the main dining hall. She spotted Ken immediately, and he wobbled to his feet to greet her. She went around to embrace and kiss him. "I'm back, darling," she whispered.

"I'm glad," he said. "I hope you'll join us for lunch?"

"I'm famished."

Clayton signaled the maitre d' for another chair, then took Amanda by the elbow and introduced her to the others at the table. "This is my wife, Amanda," he announced. "Amanda, I want you to meet my friends. Right here we have Mrs. Edith Moore, from London. And this is Mr. Samuel Talley, from New York. And Miss Gisele Du-pree, who works in Lourdes as a guide."

When her chair was in place, between Ken and Mr. Talley, Amanda tried to orient herself to the strange mixed group. Edith Moore was obviously the dominant, central personality, although everything about her from her flat, square countenance to her unadorned.

inexpensive dress was commonplace. The Talley gentleman was more distinctive with his beady eyes, bulbous nose, and flowing mustache. The Gisele youngster resembled a French starlet on the make.

Ken was speaking to Amanda. "You remember, I met Mrs. Moore on the train from Paris to Lourdes. The miracle woman—"

"Oh, now," Edith protested modestly.

"I wanted to hear her whole story," Ken continued, "and I invited myself to lunch with her. She was kind enough to have me."

"I'm pleased to help anyone I can," said Edith.

"I hope I'm not interrupting anything," said Amanda, apologetically.

"We've hardly started yet," said Ken. "We just ordered our lunch. Do you want to see the menu?"

Amanda felt oppressed by the ordinary dining room and the company. "I—I'll have whatever you're having."

"We're all having the same," piped up Gisele. "For the main dish it's grilled steak and potatoes today. Is that all right?"

"Suits me perfectly," said Amanda, without enthusiasm.

Gisele gave the order to the maitre d', and then directed herself to Edith Moore. "Anyway, Mrs. Moore, you were telling us that your malignant tumor of the iliac bone was discovered five years ago."

Edith gave a deprecating wave of one hand. "Well, if you're sure you want to hear all that—"

"Mrs. Moore, I am anxious to know how your cure came about," said Tikhanov.

"Yes, do tell us about it," added Ken.

Amanda kept her lips compressed. She wanted to tell them all that despite what they heard from Edith Moore about a cure at the grotto, Bernadette herself, the instigator of all this miracle nonsense, had put no faith in the powers of the grotto, had instead been taken to a spa called Cauterets. But Amanda maintained her silence. She would not diminish the glory of this ordinary Englishwoman, and certainly she did not want to upset Ken, not right here in this odd group.

"To make it brief," Edith Moore was saying, "I had been forced to quit my job with a movie talent agency, and I could get around only with the use of a crutch, when Father Woodcourt -- the very one on the train yesterday—suggested I join his next pilgrimage to Lourdes. Although I was a believer, I did not have much hope, nor was I given any great hope by Father Woodcourt. But I had reached a state where I was ready to try anything, you understand."

They all, except Amanda, bobbed their heads with full understanding. Ken, Amanda observed, most vigorously of all. Edith Moore halted

her recital to allow the first course of the lunch to be served. The moment the plates were on the table, the English lady resumed, and Amanda found herself irritated by Edith's monotonous voice, no inflections whatsoever, and her colorless language. Nevertheless, Amanda made a pretense of being extremely attentive.

"The first visit to Lourdes produced no change in me," Edith Moore recited. "Perhaps the visit was too brief, and I did not pray enough, even permitted doubts to enter my prayers." Her gaze went around the table. "One must believe," she said. She chewed her shrimp piously, and resumed with her mouth full. "The second visit, four years ago, I was determined to try harder. To stay longer and try harder. I prayed by the hour at the grotto. I drank water from the spring without stop. I immersed myself in the baths. On my final day, being assisted out of the bath, I found that I could stand and walk without aid. I went to the Medical Bureau and was examined. Over the next three years I returned to Lourdes, and realized I was cured."

"It was verified?" asked Tikhanov.

"By sixteen different doctors," said Edith. "Even the iliac bone, which had degenerated, began to grow back to normal. There are X rays to prove it."

"A miracle," said Ken with awe.

"It has already been declared a miracle," chirped Gisele enthusiastically.

Edith Moore retreated behind a modesty that Amanda was sure she did not possess. "The miracle is not official yet," said Edith. "I have one more examination with a famous specialist in Paris, Dr. Paul Klein-berg, who will be arriving here this week to confirm my—my full recovery."

"But that's open and shut," said Gisele, employing one of her favorite Americanisms. "Everyone in Lourdes knows you are the one, the latest, of a favored group closest to Saint Bernadette."

"Oh, I don't know," said Edith with a seraphic smile, but not actually denying it.

"So it does happen," said Ken with continued awe. "It can happen to anyone."

"If they have pure faith," pronounced Edith as high priestess.

Amanda, bending over her plate, felt sick to her stomach, with no desire to eat and with the single desire to get Ken away from the banal, stupid Englishwoman.

Tikhanov, his voice serious, said, "You attribute it all to the baths?"

'To everything here, to belief in the Immaculate Conception above

all else," said Edith. "But my cure happened after the bath on the last day of my second visit."

As Edith finished speaking, a rather large, florid gentleman—he reminded Amanda of pictures she had seen of Phineas T. Bamum—had appeared behind Edith, stooping to kiss her on the cheek.

"Reggie—" said Edith, pleased. "Everyone, this is Mr. Reggie Moore, my husband." She proceeded to introduce Reggie to everyone at the table, one by one.

"Edith," Reggie said, "I hate to interrupt your tete-a-tete, but I must see you alone on something that's come up."

"But Reggie," Edith complained, "I haven't had my dessert yet."

He was half lifting the miracle lady out of her chair. "I'll treat you to some ices later. Please come along." He saluted the others. "Glad to have made your acquaintance, everybody. Hope to see you again soon."

Pushing and then pulling, he was leading the reluctant Edith out of the room.

"So it is the baths," mumbled Tikhanov to no one in particular. He twisted toward Gisele. "You heard. She said it happened after the bath."

"Well, you're on your way," said Gisele. "You started your baths this morning."

"I am afraid I did not," admitted Tikhanov. "I prayed by the grotto, but I did not go in the baths."

"Then go this afternoon, Mr. Talley."

"I shall. But first I must find a room in the city." He added quickly, "It is a pleasure to room with your parents, Gisele, but it is too far from here, too removed. I want to be close to the baths. I must find a hotel room in this city. I have tried, and I will try again."

Gisele eyed him shrewdly. "Is that all that's bothering you, a hotel room in Lourdes?"

"I know it is impossible, but it is important."

"Maybe I can find you a hotel room, but it'll cost you extra. Are you willing to pay extra?"

"I will pay anything reasonable."

"Say four hundred francs, for me to give to a reservations clerk."

"I will pay it."

"Let me see what I can do," said Gisele, rising. "As a matter of fact, I'm moving into town myself tonight. One of my girl friends is going to Cannes for the week, and she's turning her apartment over to me. I have to be here for the overload of work. I'll walk you to the baths now, and you can start in. You can meet me in front of the Information Bureau at five o'clock, and we can drive to my parents, pick up our

things, and both move back to Lourdes tonight. If I can get you that hotel room."

"You will?"

"I think so," said Gisele. She waved to Ken and Amanda. "Excuse us. You heard our heavy business. Pleased to have met you both. Good luck."

Amanda watched the trollop leave with the older man, and finally she turned to Ken, intent on bluntly telling him what the taxi driver had told her, that Bernadette had never believed in the grotto or that its waters could cure, and had gone to another village to seek her own cure. But facing Ken, Amanda saw his expression. Oh, Christ, she thought, he's been lofted to another plane, all spirituahty and faith in his future.

"Mrs. Moore is quite a lady," he murmured. "She's done a lot for me, she's renewed me."

Je-sus, Amanda said under her breath. This was no time to shake him up with the truth.

Besides, she told herself, she had better be sure of the taxi driver's story about Cauterets. She had better go to Cauterets and find out for herself if what she had been told was actually a fact. Telling Ken about the incident could wait a day longer.

"Ken, maybe you should go up to the room and rest for a while."

"I'm going back to the grotto," he said doggedly, starting to rise.

Amanda stared at him. That her man, sharp and brilliant attorney, athlete and handball player, marvelous lover, had been reduced to this puddle of piety was almost impossible to believe. But here it was, and she would somehow have to deal with it, with him, a tougher case than any she had ever encountered as a clinical psychologist.

She sighed and stood up. "Very well."

"See you for dinner early."

She wondered what she would do in the desert of the afternoon. Maybe buy her future mother-in-law a souvenir, a plastic Virgin Mary.

Going up in the elevator to the fifth floor of the hotel, Reggie Moore had been uncharacteristically quiet, but Edith knew that he had something on his mind. She knew that he was waiting for the privacy of their room before speaking to her.

Once they were in their room, the door shut, Reggie all but pushed his wife into the straight chair at the table as he remained standing over her. Dutifully, Edith waited, letting him have the floor, prepared for him to speak what was on his mind.

He spoke. "Edith, I had to get you off alone. I felt there was something I must discuss with you."

"Couldn't it wait a few more minutes? Those lovely people at lunch, they were hoping to hear more about my cure."

"That's just it," said Reggie emphatically, "the very thing I want to talk to you about."

"I don't understand. What do you want to talk about, what very thing?"

"Your cure," said Reggie. "The minute I came on you with all those people, I knew those freeloaders had cornered you to get some advice and inspiration."

"But they weren't freeloaders. That nice Mr. Talley said he would pay for my lunch."

Reggie showed his exasperation. "Edith, I didn't mean money. I meant they were freeloading from your—your mind."

"I don't know what you mean."

She was used to Reggie speaking to her as if she were a child, and she was ready to endure it now.

"I mean everyone wants to use you," Reggie answered. "Everyone wants to draw strength from you for themselves, selfishly in a way. My point is you shouldn't be going around giving away your story for free. You shouldn't do it."

"But why not?" she asked, utterly bewildered. "What's wrong with it? If the story of my cure gives people inspiration, gives them hope, why shouldn't I tell it to them? I'm an example to them, a fortunate one who was blessed with a miracle. They want to hear that it's possible. Why shouldn't I tell them?"