Thomas M. Disch (32 page)

“That’s what I would like to do.”

When Hedwig returned, her thin lips were bent into an anxious smile.

“Well, I have just had the most wonderful news. We’re to have a priest with us here at BirthRight. We’ll be able to attend Mass, perhaps every day. And go to confession, if we need to. To take Communion. Tara, for one, will be delighted.”

“What a treat,” said Janet.

“Is it Father Cogling?” Alison asked.

Hedwig shook her head. “No. No, it’s the director of BirthRight. He’s only been here once before, and that was before any of you girls had come here. His name is Father Pat, and he’s much younger than Father Cogling. But a real crusader in the battle for Life. Oh yes, he’s been at the forefront!”

“Pat is his last name?” Janet asked.

Hedwig shook her head abstractedly. “I do wish they’d given me more notice. There are no fresh flowers on the altar, and I should have something special for his dinner, and a dozen other things. So I’m afraid our little celebration must come to an end. Alison, let me take you back to your room first. Janet, you stay here with Raven, and perhaps she’ll let you feed her some cake. But don’t take the bandage from her mouth till we’ve left, or she’ll start carrying on again.”

“Yes, Mrs. Ober,” said Janet.

Hedwig opened the cell door. “Come along, dear,” she said to Alison.

“I’ll get some fresh linen, and you can help me make Father Pat’s bed.”

At ten a.m. promptly Father Cogling rapped on Father Pat’s bedroom door.

“Father Pat, you really must get up now. I explained, when you laid down, that you mustn’t get too comfortable. It’s imperative that you set off now for the Shrine without any more delay. You can catch up on your sleep in the car.

Father Pat, are you listening to what I say?”

There was only a groan in reply, but that was better than the silence of utter, unrousable stupor.

“Gerhardt is waiting for you right now, Father Pat,” Father Cogling went on, more loudly. “I’ve packed two bags for you. You must get up! Do you understand?”

Father Pat produced a groggy “Yes, yes,” but that was an improvement on groans.

“The police phoned twice yesterday, and once the day before. I’m sure it’s purely routine. It’s probably all because the young man I spoke of had written a new will recently, in which he particularly requested thatyou perform his funeral service. I told the man at McCarron’s that that would be out of the question, and he understood at once, given what is known about this Bing Anker, which I won’t go into. But now there’s another
priest
who’s been pestering me about the same thing, and wanting to talk with you, and it’s all become very complicated. The long and short of it, Father Pat, is that
you must leave now!
”

The door was opened from inside, and Father Pat, unshaven and bleary-eyed, regarded Father Cogling balefully. He seemed to have slept in his clothes, and his hair was a fright. Father Cogling took out a comb from the inside pocket of his suit coat and neatened Father Pat’s hair. Father Pat allowed himself to be put to rights with the resentful impassivity of a four-year-old boy who disdains to comb his own hair or button his own buttons.

“Do you remember anything of what I told you when you got home this morning?” Father Cogling asked, with that tone of resigned, contemptuous solicitude with which the wives of alcoholics address their spouses.

Father Pat shook his head.

Father Cogling found that possible to believe. He’d never seen the pastor of St. Bernardine’s looking so much the worse for wear—or so little inclined to assert his own authority. He seemed ready to do anything he was told to, without question or protest. This was gratifying in one way, but also somewhat unsettling. Getting Father Pat to do what needed to be done was like driving a car with a steering wheel that allows too much slip. It went where it was directed, but the driver didn’t feel that he was securely in control.

Father Cogling sighed and shook his head. “Then let me explain the matter, as much as I understand it myself. Some days ago-in fact, the very night you chose to go on a binge—a young man in St. Paul was found shot twice. It was in the papers, but I’d thrown them out before the police called here, so I can’t give you any more of the details. His name was Bing Anker, and it appears that many years ago, when you were at Our Lady of Mercy, he was an altar boy there. Does the name ring a bell?”

Father Pat shook his head, and Father Cogling could have wished the police had been there to see it. A professional actor could not have given a more persuasive performance.

“I didn’t suppose it would, Father. It was so long ago. However, and this is unfortunate, there was a priest outside the house on the night the young man was killed. And there’s no possibility, according to the police, that the young man committed suicide. And there was no evidence of a burglary.

And that is why they want to talk with you. They’ll want to know where you were last Thursday evening, and who you were with. I should have had the presence of mind to tell them, at once, that you were here with me. But I didn’t, and now it would be too late. But I did the next best thing and told them that you were on retreat, and that I would tell you to get in touch with them as soon as you phoned here. So, what must be done now is for Gerhardt to drive you to the Shrine, so that you can call the police from the telephone there. Both Gerhardt and his sister will vouch for your having been there, so there will be no need for you to feel any… embarrassment about this. Not that you have anything to feel embarrassed about. However, it’s possible that you were… with someone else during the time in question, someone who wouldn’t want to be involved in this.”

Father Pat nodded, and answered guardedly, “Yes, I have been with…

someone else.”

“And there’s no reason why
anyone else
need be involved. I really don’t think the police have any business in matters that concern the Church.

So!” He held out his hand. “Your bags are already in the car, and Gerhardt is waiting.”

Father Pat made rather more of the handshake than was strictly warranted. He hesitated at first, and then clasped Father Cogling’s hand too firmly and held it too long. It was as though he feared they might be parting forever, and Father Cogling realized, with a twinge of misgiving, that it was not an entirely unwarranted fear.

“God bless you!” Father Cogling said with a final squeeze and then a slipping loose. He led the way to the door, and Father Pat followed with what seemed, under the circumstances, a miraculous acquiescence. No questions, no hesitations, no demurs. Only at the last moment, as he stood in the open doorway, with Gerhardt at the curb, holding open the door of the Cadillac, did he turn to Father Cogling and ask, “I
am
still a priest, am I not?”

“Yes, indeed, Father, you are still a priest.
That
can never be taken away from us. Ordination leaves a mark on the soul that is indelible.”

“Like a tattoo,” said Father Pat.

Father Cogling nodded. “I would not have thought of that comparison myself, but yes, I suppose it could be thought of as the soul’s tattoo. But this is not the time, or the place, to wax poetical. Goodbye for now.” He stepped back inside the rectory and, after Father Pat had lowered his head as a sign of parting, closed the door.

The Cadillac had barely pulled away from the curb when the phone rang.

If it was the police, Father Cogling could now state unequivocally that Father Pat was not in the rectory.

But it was not the police. It was Mrs. Demain, the manager of the nursing home, who explained that she had been trying for some time to reach Father Bryce but that she always got his answering machine, which was why she was troubling Father Cogling.

“I gather you’re calling about Father Bryce’s mother?” Father Cogling said. “Is anything the matter?”

“That’s what we would like to know. Mrs. Bryce was checked out from the Home on Sunday morning by her other son, Peter. The ward nurse was given to understand that they would be going to your church, where Father Bryce would be saying the eleven o’clock Mass.”

“Why, yes,” said Father Cogling brightly, “I remember talking to them briefly after Mass. Father Bryce was out of town on a retreat that day, and I took the eleven o’clock Mass. Father Bryce is
still
on retreat, which is why you’ve been getting his answering machine. And I must take the blame for not having monitored his calls for him. Though even if I had, there’s not much I could do to help you. There’s no phone where Father Bryce is. Is something the matter with his mother?”

“The matter is that she hasn’t returned to the Home.”

“Well, surely, the person to contact is the son she was with, Peter.”

“We’ve tried. And came to the same dead end—another answering machine.”

“Well, it’s surely remiss of Peter to have taken Mrs. Bryce off somewhere with no explanation, but I’m afraid Father Bryce couldn’t help you any more than I can.”

“At this point, we’re considering contacting the police.”

“That’s your decision, of course. Have you tried to call Peter at his place of employment?”

“We did. And learned that he hasn’t reported to work since last Friday.”

“That
is
worrying. Well, if I hear anything, I will let you know at once.”

The woman hung up, and Father Cogling breathed a silent
Laudamus Deo

of relief. If he had had to explain to Father Pat that his mother and brother were missing persons, on top of the business with Bing Anker, it might not have been possible to persuade him to leave for the Shrine. He would have made a nuisance of himself trying to find them, and all in vain. Imagine trying to explain that one to Father Pat! My dear boy, I’m afraid I have bad news for you: We had to kill your mother and your twin brother, because they were about to be a source of great scandal to the Church. Father Cogling himself had not taken the matter so calmly when Gerhardt Ober had apprised him of his fait accompli, even though Gerhardt had been acting in this, as in so much else, as Father Cogling’s factotum. He’d done unbidden what Father Cogling would probably have agreed to let him do after days of agonized inner debate. Even now, Father Cogling had to ask himself whether he had acted to spare the Church grave scandal or to save his own skin. But, really, that was not a meaningful distinction, since the scandal could only have been averted by saving his own skin.

Now that the deed had been done, by his acquiescence if not by his own hand, Father Cogling found himself wishing that it might have been accomplished years and years ago, before he’d yielded to Margaret Bryce’s blackmail demands. Of course, neither of them had ever called it blackmail.

She was a poor widow who needed help bringing up her two boys, and didn’t he, as their natural father, feel a certain moral responsibility for their welfare? He did not. What he had felt was an abject fear of what might happen to him if she were to go over his head to the Bishop with her self-righteous demands. And so, to placate her, Father Cogling had dipped into the constant flow of donations, and no one had ever been the wiser. God had even performed one of his favorite miracles, producing good out of apparent evil, for the building funds that were pilfered from St. Bernardine’s collections box had gone toward the upbringing of the church’s future pastor.

Perhaps God might perform the same miracle again and wring some blessing from these later ills. Father Cogling knelt before the altar of the rectory’s private chapel and prayed that that might be the case and that God would send some kind of token of his intentions in this regard. Father Cogling often asked for, and received, signs and portents that let him shape his actions in accordance with God’s wishes. Christ’s prayer at Gethsemane—”Not my will, but thine, be done”—was Father Cogling’s as well.

Scarce had the favor been asked than it was granted: The rectory’s door chimes sounded their time-honored mi-do-re-sol, sol-re-mi-do. Father Cogling made the sign of the cross, by way of acknowledging receipt of the omen, got up from his knees, and crossed to the chapel’s bay window, from which it was possible to oversee anyone standing at the front door.

There were two men there, one of them a priest. The priest seemed unfamiliar, though from the vantage of the bay window his most noticeable feature was the bright pink crown of his bald head, so it was hard to be sure.

He kept ringing the bell impatiently, as one does when one suspects that those within are malingering. Father Cogling was quite certain that this had to be the priest from Las Vegas who had already telephoned twice wanting to talk with Father Pat, and then, thwarted in that regard, to insist that Father Cogling allow Bing Anker’s funeral services to be held at St. Bernardine’s, to which Father Cogling’s response had been a polite but categorical no.

Having this priest appear at the rectory was distressing enough (especially if it were to be read as a portent), but what was still more distressing was the fact that the priest was accompanied by a young man whose face was maddeningly familiar, though Father Cogling could not at first put a name to it. And then the young man touched his thin, Clark Gable—style mustache in a particular way and Father Cogling realized that this was the impudent fellow who had been the fiancé of Alison Sanders, the girl whom Father Cogling had rescued from the abortion clinic. Father Cogling could feel his nervous system going on red alert. The priest was trying to find Father Pat, and the boy was undoubtedly trying to find Alison, and both of the people they were looking for were to be found at the Shrine of Blessed Konrad of Paderborn. But they could not possibly be aware of this coincidence, so why had they appeared at the door of the rectory together?