The Stories of J.F. Powers (New York Review Books Classics) (56 page)

“Gee,” said Monsignor Gau, but he sought no explanation, and the Bishop offered none.

By June, that was how it was with them. During the previous winter, at Monsignor Gau’s suggestion, the Bishop had become a columnist in the diocesan paper, dealing with events at home and abroad, and more than holding his own, according to Monsignor Gau, Father Rapp, and others. In June, he gave up his column. “No more,” he said, again in a way that didn’t invite questions. That wasn’t all. For over a year, at Monsignor Gau’s suggestion, letters of congratulation had been going out to Catholics in the diocese who had done something worthy of the Bishop’s attention—an honor defined with great latitude by Monsignor Gau—and then, in June, the Bishop ended the practice. “No more,” he said.

The Bishop was sorry that he couldn’t think of better ways to assert himself in his relations with Monsignor Gau, and was quite prepared for the consequences. Total obscurity held no fears for him at the moment—not that that would ever be his fate. He just didn’t want it thought that he wasn’t running the diocese. Or was it already too late—again—for any but the strongest proof? If it was, did he wish to give such proof—again? Monsignor Gau was a very popular man with the people, as well as a very successful one. Monsignor Holstein hadn’t been either. And the Bishop was older now.

The Bishop had never felt so out of it as he did late in July, at the dedication of the new cathedral. For many months, Monsignor Gau had been busy with the arrangements—not only bishops from nearby sees were asked to attend but also several archbishops, whose acquaintance, it seemed, Monsignor Gau had made, or almost made, on his buying trips. Two archbishops actually showed up for the dedication, as did an unimportant and indigent Italian cardinal, an added starter, who had more or less invited himself. This, apart from the expense of flying the man in, round trip and first class, from Syracuse (N.Y.), where he had relatives, was unfortunate. He talked a lot of nonsense about rice, having been informed somewhere that this was a major crop in Minnesota, as it was in his part of Italy, and nobody had the nerve to tell him that the only rice in Minnesota grew wild and was harvested by a few Indians.

At the dedication itself, this Prince of the Church played with his handkerchief and closed his eyes during the sermon—which might have been shorter, in view of the oppressive heat, and would have been if the Bishop’s train of thought hadn’t eluded him twice. Both times, he covered up nicely by reviewing what he’d been saying earlier, once shot ahead on the intended line and once on another just as good. Trying to appeal to everybody present—clergy, nuns, and laity, Catholics and non-Catholics, and even children—he spoke of the splendid progress made by the Church and the country in his own lifetime, reckoning it in terms of Popes and Presidents, a number of whom he’d met or seen and come away from with varying impressions, which he did his best to describe, ranging back and forth between Popes and Presidents, pinpointing the great events and legislation associated with each and, whenever possible, bringing in the diocese. Such an effort would have taxed a much younger man on a cool day. As it was, with the temperature in the nineties, the humidity high, and the robes of his office heavy on him, the Bishop left the pulpit in a weakened condition.

The tour planned for the visiting prelates—first, the seminary and then lunch under the trees unless it rained, then the new cemetery, then the high school, and then back to the cathedral for lemonade and a look at the residential quarters—went on without the Bishop. Monsignor Gau led the tour. The Bishop spent the afternoon in seclusion, trying to recover. Monsignor Gau phoned. “No, it’s just the heat,” said the Bishop, and wouldn’t have a doctor or an air-conditioner. In the evening, it was Monsignor Gau who presided over the banquet at the Webb.

The Bishop stayed home with the housekeeper’s cat. He found it too warm for the cat and the paper, but not before he read that His Eminence (as the
Times
called the wandering cardinal in one place) had landed in “the country of Columbus” with the hope of seeing Niagara Falls and what he could of the frontier, and that he was delighted with Ostergothenburg, which was not unlike Brisbane, with the new cathedral, which was not unlike St Peter’s, with the local clergy and laity, whose good sense and piety were not unlike what he’d been led to expect, and with the Orpheum for exhibiting an Italian film during his visit.

In a black mood, the Bishop wondered whether he shouldn’t do away with the D.P.O. Later on, when it must have been about time for cigars at the banquet, and for Monsignor Gau to rise and say once again that though he greatly enjoyed city life, he was a country boy and would be proud and happy to be a rural pastor again, the Bishop wondered whether that shouldn’t be arranged. At another point in the evening, thinking he might read awhile, the Bishop went into his office for a book but then forgot why he was there, and stood for some time before a chart on the wall. The chart, which was in the form of a cross, had been made by an artistic nun at Monsignor Holstein’s instigation, and showed the spiritual plan of the diocese: bishop at the top of the tree, vicar-general below him, then chancellor, and then to the right, on the right branch, clergy in general, and to the left, on the left branch, nuns, or religious, as they were designated on the chart, and, finally, down the middle, on the trunk of the tree, the laity. The Bishop hadn’t really looked at the cross for years, and now saw it as he never had before. What struck him was the favored position of one officer of the diocese. He hadn’t noticed it before, or it hadn’t meant anything to him before, but the chancellor occupied the very heart of the cross. It seemed to the Bishop that the chart, in that respect, gave a distorted view of the spiritual plan of the diocese. He thought of taking it down. But he didn’t. He went back to his bedroom and got into his pajamas.

It rained sometime in the night, and cooled off, and the next day the Bishop was almost himself again.

One night about a month later, in a black mood—it had come to his attention during the day that the senior members of the model family had gone back to their old ways—he was standing before the chart again, and again it seemed to him that it gave a distorted view of the spiritual plan of the diocese. He tried one of the thumbtacks, then another. When he had the chart down, he carried it around for a while, not knowing what to do with it. He didn’t care to throw it away. He thought of burning it—respectfully burning it, as one would an old, outdated, or perhaps defective flag. In the end, he rolled it up gently, carried it out to the garage, and put it in the trunk of the car with the little model of the new cathedral.

The next morning, he noticed that the cross was still there, in outline, on the wall, and that same morning he received word that he was getting an auxiliary—something he certainly hadn’t asked for and didn’t want—and that the man chosen for the job was Monsignor, or Bishop-elect, Gau.

SIMPSON, A CONVERT, had been well treated in the seminary, given a corner bed in the dormitory, then a corner room with two windows, deferred to in class and out, and invariably he (and two Koreans) had been among those chosen to meet visiting speakers. In fact, Simpson may have been too well treated in the seminary, in view of what was to follow, namely, going out into the world, into parishwork.

The parish, Trinity, was in a still good area of apartment houses and residential hotels. The church (no school) was built of crumbly gray stone in the form of a cross but a cross carrying a load on one shoulder—this was the rectory attached. The pastor was said to be something of a hermit, a man of few words.

Simpson took this into consideration the afternoon he reported for duty, and when the door of the rectory at last opened to his knocking, and the pastor, whom he hadn’t met before but had seen in processions, a spare, gray Irish type, just looked at him, Simpson did his best to display an uncritical nature and a genuine concern by smiling and frowning at the same time.

“Doorbell out of order, Father?”

The pastor nodded, just perceptibly.

Simpson nodded back—a curate was supposed to model himself on his pastor—and seeing no need to introduce himself, his suitcases having already done that better than he could, without words, he entered the dim hallway. There he placed his suitcases longwise against the wall so nobody would fall over them, using his head (the pastor would be glad to see), and then he faced the office.

But the pastor was making for the stairs.

Simpson swooped down on his suitcases, thinking, Yes, of course, he was to be shown his quarters first, after which they’d come down to the office for a little talk, or maybe the pastor would brief him while showing him around—Simpson saw them up in the choir loft, down in the boiler room.

The pastor opened a door in the upstairs hallway, stepped back, and
spoke
. “Room.”

Simpson nodded, entered, and placed his suitcases longwise against the wall, again making a good job of it. “Nice room,” he said, and noticed that he was alone. Hearing a little noise in the distance like a door closing, he foolishly went and looked out into the empty hallway. He left his door open in case the pastor was coming back.

This seemed less and less likely as the afternoon wore on, and after unpacking, and reading his office, Simpson closed his door and tried his bed. He was there when he heard a knock, just one. Nobody at his door, but footsteps on the stairs, going down. He put on his collar and coat, found the bathroom, and hurried downstairs where he soon found the dining room.

The pastor, seated at the table, greeted him with a nod and introduced him (“Father uh Simpson”) to the elderly housekeeper, a small wiry individual (“Uh Miss Burke”).

“
Miz
,” she said.

The pastor bowed his head in silent grace, as Simpson did then, and while they ate—hashed brown potatoes, scorched green beans, ground meat of some kind—Ms Burke set the table with things that should have been on it earlier (such as a napkin for Simpson), then appeared at intervals with a loaf of sandwich bread under her arm, put out some (the pastor ate a lot of bread), and disappeared into the kitchen, talking to herself.

“Still sore,” said the pastor, silent until then. “Sat where you’re sitting. Beeman.”

“Father Beeman?” Father Beeman was Simpson’s predecessor in the curate’s job, an older man, an ex-pastor with, it was said, personality problems.

“Know him, do you?”

“No, but I know what he looks like. I’ve seen him in processions. Big man.”

The pastor nodded. “Threw stuff. Threw his food on the floor.”

Simpson nodded.

The pastor shook his head. “At Holy Sepulchre parish now.”

“One of my classmates—Potter—
he’s
at Holy Sepulchre.”

There was no response from the pastor, and no more conversation.

Ms Burke came in with dessert—sliced canned peaches and cardboard Fig Newtons—and began to remove things from the table.

Simpson thanked her with a nod, almost a bow, when the meal was over, caught up with the pastor in the hallway, and got into step. “Ms Burke’s been with you for some time, Father?”

The pastor nodded, just perceptibly. “Take the eight o’clock Mass, Father. Weekdays.”

“Eight o’clock.” Simpson repeated it to minimize the chance of error. “Weekdays.”

“See about Sundays later.”

“Right.” It was Simpson’s impression that briefing had begun and would continue in the office, which they were approaching, but the pastor kept going, and at the head of the stairs it was Simpson’s impression that the man was about to leave him.

“G’night.”

“
Father
”—it came out sounding desperate—“I’ve been wondering about things.”

The pastor, on the point of entering the room at the head of the stairs, looked embarrassed. “Uh. Convert, aren’t you?”

“No, no. I mean—yes.” Simpson had answered the question in order to get back to the assumption underlying it—it was understandable—that he, as a convert, might be shaky in his faith. “No, no, Father, I was just wondering about things—you know, like what time I say Mass.” And, quickly, lest that be misunderstood: “Eight o’clock. Weekdays.”

“See about Sundays later.”

Simpson sort of nodded. “The rest can wait, Father?”

The pastor nodded, just perceptibly, opened the door but not much, and in a crabwise manner that aroused and thwarted Simpson’s curiosity, entered the room at the head of the stairs.

The next morning Simpson said the eight o’clock Mass and had breakfast (learned from Ms Burke that he got Wednesday afternoons off), went upstairs and brushed his teeth, but after that he didn’t know what to do. Ms Burke had made his bed. On the chance that he’d find his orders for the day in the office, he went downstairs and checked it. No, nothing for him. Acting then on information from Ms Burke, and again using the door he’d discovered, the door between the rectory and the church, he entered the sacristy, and was there when the pastor came in to vest for Mass, there with the idea of bringing himself to the man’s attention, and also of being useful, but was told when he attempted to help with the alb, “Not necessary, Father.” So he returned to the rectory and, because the pastor could have dropped something off there on his way to Mass, rechecked the office. No, nothing. He then went up to his room and sat down with his breviary, leaving his door open, though, because he was (he thought) on duty. But nobody called at the rectory, or at least nobody knocked, during this period. When he heard footsteps—another reason for leaving his door open—he got up and left his room, again with the idea of bringing himself to the man’s attention. He met the pastor at the head of the stairs, was nodded at in passing, nodded back, and went down and checked the office. Nothing.

He wanted to retire to his room and settle down with a good book, but thought it wouldn’t look or, perhaps, be right if he did. So he kept coming and going between his room, the office, and the church (with which he was familiarizing himself), and took a side trip down to the boiler room. In this fashion, moving about, looking for the action, he got through the morning.