The Miracle (27 page)

"It's wonderful," said Edith.

"It's ours," said Reggie with pride. "Now let me show you the real surprise."

As they wove their way between the tables, they were intercepted by Jamet, who had come rushing forward. His Galhc countenance was wreathed in a broad smile. "Welcome, Edith," he greeted her, lifting her limp hand and kissing the back of it. "Now the evening can begin. Reggie and I will take you to your table."

It was the largest circular table in the dining room, and the only one still vacant. Propped on a holder was a white placard with gold lettering. The gold lettering read: Reserved for Edith Moore, the Miracle Woman, and Her Guests.

"Oh, no—" Edith blurted, covering her mouth.

"You deserve it," Reggie persisted as he and Jamet showed Edith to her chair behind the placard.

"I—I really am embarrassed," Edith protested, forced into the chair. She surveyed the vacant nine chairs around the table. "And guests, what guests are we eating with?"

"Why, people who want to meet you, who are excited to meet you and hear your marvelous story," exulted Reggie. "We printed handbills and passed them out all around Lourdes today. Dozens of visitors phoned in for reservations, enough to fill this table every night this week. Jean-Claude has never seen anything like this before."

"But, Reggie, what happens after next Monday?"

"What about next Monday?"

"I won't be here. We'll be going back to London."

Reggie hesitated momentarily. "I—I was rather hoping I might persuade you to stay another week."

"But I have my job. Still, even if that could be postponed—who will you have here after the second week?"

Reggie swallowed. "We are thinking of a stand-in."

"A what?"

"Someone to replace you, someone we'll say is a close friend of yours and will have rehearsed your story, the story of your cure. Maybe she'll also pass out photographs of you, photographs you've signed, and people will feel blessed."

Edith was openly distressed. "Oh, Reggie, that sounds terrible."

"They'll be getting their money's worth anyway, believe me," Reggie said urgently. He had turned and clicked his fingers, and Jamet hastened over holding a menu aloft as he would a flag.

Reggie took his partner by the sleeve. "Jean-Claude, my wife wants to know if our guests will be getting their money's worth in the meal. Tell her."

"A feast, a pasha's feast," said Jamet, opening the menu, prepared to read aloud from it. "This is a deluxe dinner for this table, for this table only." He read from the menu. "Melon Rafraichi et Jambon Cm de Pays. Followed by Aiguillettes de Canard Persillies. Then Fromage des Pyrenees. For dessert, Profiterole au Chocolat. And finally Corbeille des Fruits. "

Edith held out her hand. "Let me see the menu."

Jamet glanced at Reggie, then shrugged and handed it to her. Her eyes skimmed it and she looked up with disapproval. "What you're charging for that—I can't believe it. And the huge cover charge besides."

"But at this table there is a special attraction," said Jamet, "and everyone is ready to pay. Now excuse me, I must summon the guests who are waiting."

Edith was glaring at Reggie. "I won't have this, Reggie. I can't have this. Using people like this. It is outright exploitation."

Reggie showed his exasperation. "Edith, for heaven's sake, you'll be helping people who need help, who want to be inspired by your case."

"Helping people is one thing. But it should be done for free. Not by making them pay through the nose." She shook the menu. "This cheapens the wonder of what happened to me. I don't think the Lord will look kindly on this."

"He'd look kindly on a wife trying to give her husband a hand," Reggie said desperately. He glanced off. "We'll discuss it more later. Jean-Claude is coming with the guests. Edith, be nice to them. Tell your story. Answer their questions."

Jamet was already seating the guests, and introducing them to Edith and Reggie as they took their chairs. Jamet reeled off the introductions smoothly. "Mr. Samuel Talley from New York, whom I understand Mrs. Moore has already met . . . Miss Natale Rinaldi from Rome, and Mr. Mikel Hurtado from Madrid. It is Madrid, isn't it? . . . Mr. and Mrs. Pascal from Bordeaux . . . Mrs. Farrell and her son. Master Jimmy, from Toronto." Jamet moved in behind Jimmy, a nine-year-old boy in a wheelchair. "Here, Jimmy, let me pull away the regular chair and get you in to the table properly. Voila. And the other guest next to Mr. Moore, with whom both Mr. and Mrs. Moore have had a five years' acquaintance, is Dr. Berryer, the distinguished head of the Lourdes Medical Bureau. Now you know one another. If you will excuse me, I must tend to the other tables."

There was an awkward void after Jamet left, but Dr. Berryer quickly filled it. "How are you, Edith? I must say you are looking more fit than ever."

"I'm fine, thank you, Dr. Berryer," Edith said, a trifle sullenly.

"She's better than fine," Reggie boomed out. "She's great."

'The red-letter day is the day after tomorrow," said Dr. Berryer. "The speciahst from Paris, Dr. Kleinberg, is arriving in Lourdes late tomorrow night. You'll have an appointment to see him Wednesday morning, but I will phone you before then to confirm the hour."

"Thank you," said Edith.

Dr. Berryer took in the man next to her. "You are Mr. Talley from New York," he said. "We met in your hotel. I showed you to the baths. Did you find them?"

"I took a bath," said Tikhanov, somewhat disgruntled. "I found the process extremely uncomfortable."

Here Edith could not help but interject herself. "It is not necessary that you be comfortable, Mr. Talley. Ideally, you should come here to do penance. Back in 1858, when Bernadette had her eighth visitation from the Virgin Mary, the Virgin told her, 'Go and kiss the ground as a penance for sinners.' Mr. Talley, you must regard the discomfort of the baths as a similar penance."

Tikhanov nodded solemnly. "You were kind to me at lunch. I came to this dinner for added reinforcement from you. Now I have it. I will go to the baths again tomorrow."

At this point, Natale spoke up. "Mrs. Moore, let me tell you why I am here. You are aware, of course, of my affliction."

"I am, Miss Rinaldi."

"When I returned from the grotto late this afternoon," said Natale, "my friend and helper, Rosa Zennaro, accompanied me to my hotel room, but had to excuse herself before dinner. As she left, a neighbor in the hotel who has been nice to me—Mr. Hurtado who is sitting next to me -- was entering his room and he overheard Rosa and offered to bring me dinner. Meanwhile, he was showing me into my room when he found the handbill under the door about dinner at this restaurant and the opportunity to meet you, Mrs. Moore. I was enthusiastic about the prospect, so Mr. Hurtado offered to bring me here."

Hurtado gave off a shrug. "Also, I was very hungry."

Natale laughed, and addressed herself in Edith's direction once more. "Mrs. Moore, what I wish to discuss with you is this. I have devoted all of my time here to praying at the grotto. I have not gone to the baths because I thought it would be difficult."

"There are women attendants to help you," said Edith, and added with compassion, "You must try the baths."

"I come to this question—are the baths the most important means of achieving a cure?"

"That cannot be answered exactly," said Edith. "Speaking only for myself, I was instantly cured after bathing in the water from the spring. But others have been miraculously cured after praying at the grotto, after drinking the water, after marching in the procession. Dr. Berryer is really the authority on the cures."

Dr. Berryer dipped his head toward Natale. "You can even be

cured after departing Lourdes and upon your return home. It has happened. There are no rules, no formula, for how and when the cure will happen, if it does happen."

''So it can happen after any act or profession of faith," said Natale.

"Apparently," said Dr. Berryer. "When I first came to Lourdes, I made a study of all the sixty-four cures from 1858 to 1978 recognized as miraculous by the church. It will interest you to know. Miss Rinaldi, that the very second cure authenticated as miraculous was for a fifty-four-year-old man afflicted, at least partially, as you are. Louis Bouriette of this city had suffered an eye injury twenty years earlier, and for two years had actually been blind in his right eye when his sight was restored at the grotto."

"The cure really happened?" said Natale eagerly.

"It certainly happened, defying all medical explanations," said Dr. Berryer. "All those sixty-four miraculous cures I studied defied medicine -- a young woman with a leg ulcer with extensive gangrene, a nun suffering pulmonary tuberculosis, a woman with cancer of the uterine cervix, an Italian gentleman with Hodgkin's disease, an Italian youth afflicted with sarcoma of the pelvis, such as Edith Moore had—all given up by their doctors, yet cured because of the shrine and by miraculous means. To be sure, most of these miracles occurred after bathing. But authenticated miracle cure number fifty-eight, that of Alice Couteault, and cure fifty-nine, that of Marie Bigot, took place during the Processions of the Blessed Sacrament. Yet others, among the first sixty-four, occurred after prayer before the grotto. I am still studying several that have happened since, and at least one of these cures I recall took place in the midst of prayer at the grotto. You would be wise to try everything available to you, Miss Rinaldi, not only praying at the grotto, but drinking the water, visiting the baths, even walking in the processions if you can manage it."

"But certainly the baths, you must try the baths," insisted Edith.

From across the table, the doughy Canadian mother, Mrs. Farrell, spoke up. "You were saying you, yourself, were cured after bathing."

"That is correct," said Edith.

"It would be a true revelation to us, to my son and myself," said Mrs. Farrell, "if you would tell us how the miracle happened to you."

"Go on, Edith," Reggie urged his wife, "tell them how it happened. I'm sure everyone here wants to know."

Edith shot him a lethal glare, and then, tuning back to the others she affected a transformation as neatly as an actress, offered one and all an engaging smile, and ignoring the food being served, she patiently went into her practiced recital.

As the guests sat mesmerized, only Dr. Berryer constantly bobbing his head in confirmation, Edith spoke of the gradual onset of her illness, the endless tests in London, and the final verdict that she had been suffering a sarcoma. Then, when all hope seemed lost, her parish priest. Father Woodcourt, had suggested a visit to Lourdes with his pilgrimage group.

Listening intently to her familiar story Reggie tried to judge his wife's temper from her tone. So aware was he of every nuance of her speech that, even though the listeners might be deceived, he knew Edith was straining to be level and even-tempered. Beneath there boiled a lava of displeasure with him that might erupt at any moment. While pretending to be closely attentive, Reggie glanced off toward the cocktail lounge and caught Jamet's eye. Reggie nodded mysteriously. Jamet, as if understanding, nodded back, and disappeared into the lounge.

Reggie appeared to hang on every word his wife was speaking, but from the comer of his eye he was on the lookout for something else. Then Jamet reappeared leading a cleric toward the table, keeping to the rear of Edith. The clergyman, a tall, imposing figure in a Roman collar and dark suit, came quietly to a chair Jamet had placed behind Edith. The clergyman settled into it, and cocked his head the better to hear what Edith was telling the others.

The courses came and went, and Edith's story progressed to her second Lourdes visit, to the last day of the visit and the final bath, when she had emerged no longer disabled, totally cured and free of her crutch, fully ambulatory.

Reggie noted, and was pleased, at the reaction of the first-night audience to Edith's opening performance. The American Talley was grunting his pleasure, the blind Italian girl's angelic countenance reflected happy wonder, the Canadian mother and the French couple were delighted with the miracle. What followed from his wife, Reggie knew, the certification of the cure from the many doctors at the Lourdes Medical Bureau, was anticlimax but an added sweetener more delicious than the profiteroles everyone had just finished consuming.

Then it was over, the dinner and Edith's miracle, and the adults were rising, thanking her profusely, everyone inspired and grateful, and leaving now in a rush for the domain and the evening procession, everyone with reinforced optimism that they too might be saved in this momentous Reappearance Time.

When the last of the guests disappeared, Edith and Reggie were alone at the oversized table. Immediately, Edith turned on her husband. Her bland face was contorted again in anger. "Now are you satisfied?"' she demanded.

Reggie did not reply directly. Instead, he touched his wife's shoulder, and said, "Edith, you have one more guest who wanted to hear you. Look behind you."

Puzzled, Edith jerked around in her chair and saw the priest rising from his seat.

"Father Ruland," Edith murmured.

Reggie beamed, observing yet another and expected transformation on his wife's face. Her entire expression had softened. Reggie was aware that Father Ruland, the most intellectual and urbane of the Catholic churchmen in Lourdes, was a particular favorite of Edith's.

"Delighted to have you back in fiill health, Mrs. Moore," said Father Ruland in his courtly manner, bending his head without displacing a strand of his long sandy hair in a bow of appreciation, "and do forgive me for eavesdropping. I'd never heard your story in company, and I wouldn't allow myself to miss it. You asked your husband if he was satisfied. I am sure he is, and I can tell you that I certainly am. It was inspiring, both to me and to everyone in attendance. I, for one, want to thank you for sharing it with us."

If a person could melt in a puddle, Edith had done so. All anger had evaporated. Her countenance reflected only the purest joy. "Father Ruland, you are too generous. This coming from you means so much to me.