Thomas M. Disch (2 page)

It has to do with him.” She nodded curtly toward the white stone with the name of Paul Bryce on it. “You see, he’s not your father. Not your real father.”

“Mother, really, this is not appropriate behavior.”

“Neither was his. That’s what I’m trying to explain.”

“Mother, get up off the ground.”

“From the first we never needed birth control. But you know what I used to do? I used to confess that we did. ‘Cause everyone else did. They complained about how it shouldn’t be a sin, and they wouldn’t have complained unless they were doing it, would they? So I complained, too. So they wouldn’t suspect the real situation. So, he was not your father. Your father was someone else. That’s my
true
confession. I can’t tell you
his
name. I promised I never would. And what good would it do you to know now?”

“Will you get up, Mother?”

“Have you absolved me?”

“You’ll have to confess that sin to someone else. I simply don’t believe you. I think you made the whole thing up on the spot, out of spite. Forgive me if I’ve misjudged you.”

“It’s true that I forget a lot of things. And the fact is, I couldn’t tell you your real father’s name if you asked. But the man buried under that stone is
not
your father.
Mea maxima culpa
.”

He got his hand under her elbow and lifted her up off her knees. “Well, thank you for that, Mother. And Happy Mother’s Day.”

“Is it Mother’s Day?” she asked, astonished.

“No,” he said, pursing his lips. “And it’s not April Fools’ Day either.

Now, let’s go home, shall we?”

Of the four couples whom Father Cogling was preparing for the sacrament of matrimony, one had telephoned to the rectory an hour beforehand to announce that they’d be unable to come (“Darryl is tied up at work,” Darryl’s fiancée had explained), and another simply hadn’t shown up. So here he was in the little meeting room partitioned off from the parish hall, facing half the number he’d addressed last week, when he’d instructed them on the subject of birth control. It was no surprise to him that Darryl, who was half Jewish, should have chosen to be absent, for Darryl had been more inclined to score debating points than to receive instruction, pleading for the use of prophylaxis in various hypothetical situations and unable to grasp the simple idea that the only morally acceptable form of birth control is self-control, period. Darryl and his fiancée were college graduates. -

When Father Cogling had been a seminarian at Etoile du Nord Seminary on Leech Lake in the forties, Archbishop Cushing of Boston had made an address to the CIO in which he’d observed that not a single bishop or archbishop of the American hierarchy was the son of a college graduate. It was a source of regret to Father Cogling that this could no longer be said to be the case.

College education was one of those insidious features of modern life that seemed to betoken progress but led, more often than not, to doubt, the decay of authority, and sin. This was so, sad to say, even of those who attended Catholic universities. Even the seminaries, those that had survived, were not proof against the corruptive tendency of a socalled liberal education. Their present condition was a sword in the side of the Virgin Mary.

Father Cogling had a particular veneration for the Holy Mother and recited the rosary in her honor thrice daily. It was Mary who, by her mercy and chaste example, would restore the Church to spiritual health. Revelations had been made by the Virgin through the Blessed Josemaria Escriva de Balaguer, both warnings and promises, which were not generally known and which Father Cogling was not at liberty to share, except with some few other initiated souls. Extraordinary things were to happen—miracles, catastrophes, terrible judgments from which there could be no reprieve without the Virgin’s intercession. Meanwhile, until those prophecies came to be fulfilled, the rot would go on, the fabric of the Faith would decay, heresy and indecency would flourish, and the Madonna herself would be made an object of ridicule.

Though not in this parish, not here at St. Bernardine’s, not while Wilfrid Cogling could help it. He might not be the pastor any longer, those days were past, and perhaps it was just as well. As Father Pat kept pointing out, he was entitled to enjoy the rewards of retirement. And it wasn’t as though he were idle. He still said two Masses on Sunday, still heard confessions, still attended as many parish events as Father Pat himself, if not more. The hard part had been surrendering the habit of authority and deferring to judgments he knew to be mistaken or illconsidered. He often wondered if it would have been easier spending these years of semiretirement in another parish than St. Bernardine’s, but when he considered the other priests he might have had to deal with, he knew that God had been merciful to him. Father Pat might be lax in some doctrinal matters; he might err on the side of novelty in his approach to the liturgy (altar girls, indeed!); but he was sound in the things that counted. He didn’t equivocate about abortion or sins of unchastity or other matters. Father Cogling had no patience with those priests—and they were no longer exceptions to the rule, they had become the rule—who sided with opinion poils against the Holy Father. Were there opinion polls in hell? Probably! And probably one hundred percent of the damned were of the opinion that they should be in heaven, and the results of the polls were published every morning in hell’s own newspaper and broadcast on TV, and there were protest rallies organized by demons, and long processions of the damned wailing and singing “We Shall Overcome.”

The two couples in attendance had arrived together, five minutes late.

The younger girl, whose name was Alison Sanders, explained, “We waited outside for the others, but then…” She smiled an apologetic smile and glanced sideways at her boyfriend.

He finished Alison’s sentence for her. “They didn’t come. We figure they must’ve got scared off.”

“Sometimes,” Father Cogling observed, taking the joke in earnest, “our second thoughts are wiser than our first impulses.” He remembered now that this one, with the Clark Gable mustache and the Spanish-sounding surname (which he’d forgotten), was the smart aleck. Not an arguer, like the Jew who hadn’t come back, but a scoffer, a smiler, a know-it-all.

“I mean to say,” the priest went on, “that you may decide as a result of these talks that marriage is
not
the right path to take at this point in your life. You may decide that it would be wiser to achieve more financial security before you take on the responsibility of raising a family. You may find that you haven’t prepared yourself spiritually for what will be the most important day in your life. These talks aren’t like modern high schools that have to graduate every student who manages to sit through four years of classes whether they’ve learned anything in those classes or not.”

The other couple nodded their heads in unison, assuming an expression of submissive attentiveness. The man’s name was Robert Howell, he’d been brought up Catholic, and he was a rookie fireman in the suburb of Eden Prairie. The woman’s name was Denise, and she’d had no religious upbringing. “Though,”

she’d said at the last meeting, “I do believe in a Higher Power.” She’d said it in that confiding, sugary tone of voice that implied she was doing God and Father Cogling a favor. Father Cogling didn’t like her, but he thought she could eventually be converted and would make a suitable wife for Robert Howell.

“Before we begin,” said Father Cogling, folding his hands and lowering his eyes, “let us prepare our hearts with prayer.” He waited until the four of them had also assumed an attitude of prayer and then prompted: “Our Father. .

.”

Of the lot of them, only Alison Sanders articulated the phrases of the prayer in a crisp and audible manner. She also, to her credit, dressed in a manner both modest and becomingly feminine, in a flowery dress that showed her figure to advantage without being in any way too bold.

The same could not be said of Denise, who had dressed for the occasion in blue jeans, a Twins sweatshirt, and tennis shoes. Her fiancé, with his long hair and the gold chain around his neck and an earring in his left earlobe, was actually the more feminine of the two. Father Cogling had been reproved by his pastor on more than one occasion for making disparaging remarks about the fashions adopted by what Father Pat called “the youth culture.” As though young people lived in a separate world with its own norms and customs. As though they were Ubangis or Hottentots! But it was true, as Father Pat had many times pointed out, that there was nothing inherently immoral or indecent in hair that touched one’s collar or, for that matter, in an earring. Such things were not declarations of degeneracy, at least not necessarily. So, as reluctant as Father Cogling was to tolerate such fads and foibles, he held his peace. If firemen wanted to look like fairies, so be it. His lips were sealed.

The prayer concluded, Father Cogling smiled a wise, priestly smile and made eye contact with each of the four young people in turn. Then, his eyes still focused on Alison, he said, “We all must be so grateful for our mothers.

I know I am. Not only for my earthly mother, who passed to her reward some time ago, God bless her, but even more the mother I share with all of you here, and with”—he dipped his head reverently—”Jesus. Our mother who is the Queen of Heaven—the Virgin Mary.”

Out of the corner of his eye he saw Alison’s fiancé making a characteristic grimace, italicized by the thin line of his mustache. “That presents you with some difficulty, Mr.… ? I’m sorry, my memory isn’t what it was.”

“No problem,” the boy said. “You can just call me Son.”

“Son?”

“Yeah. I got to call you Father, right? So you can call me Son. Who needs last names?”

“Well, Son,” Father Cogling resumed imperturbably, “you seem to have some difficulty with the idea of the Virgin Mary. Many Protestants do, including some theologians. It is one of what they like to call the scandals of our Faith.”

“I’m happy to hear I’m not alone.”

Alison whispered, “Greg, please.”

Father Cogling raised his hand as though in benediction. “I prefer to think of these matters as mysteries of the Faith. Mysteries in the sense of puzzles that the rational mind, unassisted by Faith, can never solve. The Virgin Birth, for instance, is in some ways a more mysterious, or challenging, concept than Christ’s conception in the Virgin’s womb.”

“Excuse me, Father,” Denise interrupted, “but I don’t see the distinction.”

“The distinction is that Mary
remained
a Virgin
after
the birth of the Christ child. In the Latin phrase, she is
Mater inviolata
.”

“No shit,” Greg marveled. He had the decency at once to blush.

Father Cogling smiled benignly. “It is amazing, is it not? It defies common sense. It is … miraculous!”

“You mean,” Denise asked, “that it was like a cesarean section? He wasn’t delivered normally?”

“Indeed: He was delivered supernaturally.”

“You’re saying,” Greg put it as bluntly as possible, “her hymen wasn’t broken. The baby came out
through
the hymen.”

Father Cogling nodded.

“That is weird. That is incredible.”

“Hey, come on, lay off it, will ya?” Robert Howell counseled. “Give the guy a chance.”

“Ah, but Robert,” Father Cogling insisted, “he’s quite right. It
is

incredible. Quite literally. Without faith it is something one
could not believe
.”

“And you’re saying,” Greg insisted, “that for me and Alison to get married in the Church I got to believe that?”

“No,” said Father Cogling. “I’m only explaining what most Catholics believe concerning the Virgin Mary. Not even all Catholics. No pope has ever declared Mary’s postnatal virginity an infallible truth. I think Pope John Paul may do so: That has been my prayer these many years. But there
are
some Catholics who are skeptical in that regard.”

“So,” Greg said, “it’s like Ripley: Believe it or not.”

Father Cogling glared at the young man in silent remonstration before answering, “You might say that.”

“Thanks. I appreciate your generosity.”

“Greg,” urged Alison, “please.”

Father Cogling waved away Alison’s distress with a motion of his hand.

“The reason that I called the matter to your attention was to emphasize the importance that the Church places on the matter of chastity.”

“Uh-huh,” said Greg.

“Not only before marriage,” Father Cogling went on, “but throughout marriage.” He paused, inviting an objection. When none was forthcoming, he continued: “Chastity not in the sense that you are to remain virgins after you have been married—that privilege was reserved for Mary and Joseph—but, rather, in the sense that the pursuit of hedonistic or sensual pleasure should never be the object of the conjugal act. Procreation, rather, is the goal of marital love.”

This time it was not Greg who intruded on the priest’s discourse but Denise, who, from sitting and staring expressionlessly at her clasped hands, suddenly burst out laughing. A single convulsive snort of laughter that she at once did her best to stifle, but then there was a second snort, and then laughter outright. “I’m sorry. I’m reverting to high school or something.