Last Things Page 7

  “Calmly. How else?”

  “We talked a bit on the phone. Her voice is very much like Mom’s.”

  Are people just reassembled pieces of their forebears? What else do we mean by DNA? But the idea is that each combination is unique. Raymond could see traits of his father in Andrew, and of his mother.

  “You look more and more like Dad,” Andrew said.

  He had stepped back as if to get perspective. He nodded in agreement with himself. “When I first saw you I thought, my God, it’s Dad. It’s no one thing, just the way you walked in here.”

  Was he flattered or offended? Once his father had been a hero to him and vice versa. He was the oldest, lucky or successful in most things, better at tennis than baseball, and with a vocation. From the time Father Bourke first asked him if he had ever thought of the priesthood it seemed that he had thought of little else all along, subconsciously. Of course he had been an altar boy at St. Hilary’s, but the Franciscans all looked like bit players in a farce, with their sandals and cinctures and floppy cowls, always looking as if they needed a shave. And they all looked as if they talked to birds. St. Francis had always seemed a wimp to Raymond; it was only later that he read about him and knew better. But his followers had always been a scruffy crowd, and in the States they had become affluent beggars. Raymond could see that his father liked Father Bourke when he first came to the house.

  Fulvio put on his wop persona, getting out the wine, talking about his tomato plants, but his cool business eye was appraising this strange priest who had interested his son in the Edmundites.

  “You want to kidnap him, eh?”

  “I don’t think Raymond should do anything until after high school.” That was half subversive, as he admitted later; he should have been helping fill the preparatory seminary on the Iowa border, but the attrition rate there was high and the staff not the cream of the order. “He can enter the seminary on the campus grounds. After his novitiate, of course.”

  Father Bourke had ticked off the stages to the priesthood: a year as a novice, which was devoted to the spiritual life, acquiring the outlook of an Edmundite and future priest, then college with two years of philosophy, after which theology began.

  “Nine years!”

  Father Bourke smiled. “How old would you be then, Raymond, twenty-five?”

  “Twenty-six.”

  It was all settled on that first visit, but Father Bourke came by regularly after that, and he and Fulvio got along like a house afire. With jacket and collar removed, in his shirt sleeves, Father Bourke would play pinochle with Fulvio in the back room that was alive with plants.

  “He’s a man as well as a priest,” was Fulvio’s verdict.

  Belatedly, Raymond asked Andrew about their mother. Bags had begun to slide down a chute onto the moving carousel, and passengers elbowed one another to get a look at the passing luggage. Carts had been wheeled up, and ankles were run into by eager passengers when they spied their bags. They would let it thin out before claiming his suit bag.

  Andrew looked solemn. “Dad shagged the priest out of the room.”

  What could he say? His mother had written him a long letter, telling him Fulvio’s reaction to his leaving. There had not been an accusative note in it. It had always been her role to be understanding, forgiving. Isn’t that what mothers are for? She had always been a background figure, busy in the kitchen, off to Mass in the morning, the salvation of them all. Fulvio had never been a devout man, and Raymond was not about to take the blame for his present attitude toward his religion. Did he think his father had lost anything? A terminal provides a hectic sample of the race, all the anxious jostling people, each one the center of his own universe. How many of them really believed that a benevolent God knew them all by name and listened to the secrets of their hearts? It was all a great consolation, no doubt of that. Raymond himself sometimes missed it. Every civilization had some version of it. Of course Christianity was different. Once long ago a man had lived in the Middle East who had died the death of a criminal, and the events of his life were the key to human history. Christ died for our sins, conquered death, would return in triumph to judge us all, separating the sheep from the goats. A billion crucifixes carried that message.

  “How is Mom taking it?”

  “I think she hopes you can bring him around.”

  My God. He looked away. Where did Andrew stand on all this? Andrew insisted on carrying his suit bag, and they headed across the street jammed with shuttle buses and cabs to the parking garage, where Andrew’s ten-year-old Honda awaited. The trunk door squeaked when he raised it and stuffed the bag in with his golf clubs.

  “Do you get out much?”

  “Just to the college course.”

  “Just? As I remember, it’s a pretty good nine-hole course.”

  “It’s been expanded to eighteen. We have a golf team now.”

  “St. Edmund’s has a golf team?”

  “You wouldn’t recognize the place.”

  To Raymond’s surprise, Andrew began to talk shop, some silly quarrel in his department about a young man demanding tenure.

  “I’m on the committee. He hates my guts.”

  “Will he get tenure?”

  “Over my dead body.”

  Andrew got them out of the great echoing parking garage and into the traffic headed for the interstates.

  “It’s odd to be back.”

  “The first time.”

  “Yes.” Andrew must know that, unless he thought he might have slipped in without telling the family.

  “It sounds as if you’re doing all right in California.”

  “Tell me about the changes at the college.”

  Raymond realized he was not elated at all the alleged improvements Andrew spoke of. He had shut the door of his mind completely on the place since leaving it, avoiding any news of it, needing to pretend that it didn’t exist. Nostalgia and remorse were dangers still, and he and Phyllis were watchful of any signs of them in one another so they could be nipped in the bud. Their life was in the present and such future as lay before them, period.

  “There aren’t many Edmundites left.”

  “Oh.”

  “I mean on the faculty. Of course all the administration is lay now.”

  That seemed stupid. How could you control an institution if you delivered it into the hands of mercenaries? An old loyalty to the Order surged up in him, and he resented the thought that the Edmundites had become a disappearing presence in the college they had founded. And again Andrew adverted to the quarrel raging in his department. Obviously it was much on his mind.

  “Cassirer knows nothing of the past of the place. Most of my colleagues know nothing about that. I suppose things are different over in Hurley House” (the residence building of the Order).

  “They haven’t given that away?”

  Andrew laughed. “I sometimes see old Father Bourke.”

  “A good man,” Raymond said, closing that off. “How’s your writing?”

  “So so.”

  “Jessica still at it?”

  “Oh yes. She’s planning a new novel. Ask her about it.”

  “That sounds mysterious.”

  “She has Eleanor all in a snit. Apparently it’s to be the saga of the Bernardos, suitably disguised of course, and Eleanor is terrified.”

  “Eleanor! Why should she care?”

  But something in the way Andrew had brought it up alerted Raymond. It occurred to him that he himself might figure prominently in the saga of the Bernardos. As for Eleanor, he thought he could guess the cause of her uneasiness. An old anger at his father flared up. Had discovering his father was a womanizer eased his own way out of the order? That made as much sense as his father’s blaming him for his loss of faith.

  “Eleanor has become our guardian angel. She was one of the first to the hospital to see Dad.”

  Raymond glanced at Andrew, but his brother seemed not to intend anything special by the remark. But mention of Eleanor ha
d brought back the crushing event of his life, when he had learned that his father was not the paragon of family virtues he had always imagined. They stood vulnerable to one another, Raymond and Fulvio, but neither of them could occupy the role of judge.

  12

  Father Dowling had two remarkable assistants in Marie Murkin, the rectory housekeeper and general busybody, and Edna Hospers, who directed the center for seniors the parish school had been turned into when the demographics of the parish made a school no longer viable. Even if there had been a sufficiency of students, there were no longer nuns to teach them for a song, and it would have been a great financial burden to keep up the parish school. Of course, he would have done so if it had made any sense. Once he had tried a meeting with both women together and once had been enough. Marie had a sense of turf that was formidable; Edna had been hired to run the center, and she intended to do so. For Marie, it was intolerable that any parish activity escaped her watchful supervising eye. Civil war had threatened. Marie was reined in; the center was Edna’s, and that was that. After a few days of icy silence, Marie emerged smiling from her kitchen. “Live and let live, I say.”

  “Is that Mark or John?”

  “Murkin.” And she went back through the swinging door into her kitchen like a figure on a clock.

  Now he met his lieutenants singly, Marie first, in his study, then Edna, in her office in the school.

  “The Franciscans killed the school,” Marie said.

  “Not even Franciscans can produce children at will, Marie.”

  “I should hope not.”

  “What is this about painting the house? How do you paint a brick house?”

  “The trim, Father. It has been years.”

  “I don’t remember its ever being done.”

  “Exactly.”

  “So what do we do?”

  Marie tolerated the pronoun. She had already made provisional plans.

  “A professional painter would cost an arm and a leg. They would put on a crew, make a great production of it, be here for weeks.”

  “What’s the alternative?”

  Marie took a folded sheet from her apron pocket and laid it on the desk. He opened it. It was a computer printout announcing that students from St. Edmund’s College were available for work of all sorts: snow removal, lawn care, baby-sitting, companions for the ill, house painting. The name of Rudy Berg was in caps with a phone number in even larger type.

  “It looks year round. Except for the painting. That must be in summer.”

  “Of course it is. And they do a land-office business. I checked. We have to get on their list early.”

  “Student painters,” he mused.

  “Just my reaction. I checked that out too. They painted three houses in the parish, and I spoke to the people and went to look at one place.”

  “How did you know they had done that?”

  “I called them.”

  And she had arranged for Rudy Berg to come by later in the day. He was faced with a fait accompli, and didn’t mind it a bit. He had no independent views on house painting and was not anxious to acquire any.

  “Have you signed the contract yet?”

  “He’ll bring it along.”

  “You got an estimate?”

  “He will adjust it when he looks at the house.”

  “Well, that’s settled.”

  “If you agree.”

  “I’ll talk to Rudy.”

  “Good.”

  On the walk to the school from the rectory there was a junction with another walk coming from the church, and there, in a little wooded area, a grotto had been built. By one of the Franciscans, though Marie was reluctant to give credit. There was a little knot of seniors in conversation and one old man on the kneeler before the Madonna, beads in his hand. The center gave a chance to the retired in the parish to get together, sometimes say their prayers, and lie about their grandchildren. The conversation stopped, and three old ladies bobbed their heads at Father Dowling like schoolgirls. He bobbed in return and continued to the school.

  In what had been the school gym a variety of games were being played: shuffleboard, darts, always a risky venture, and cards, with one table for the truly serious bridge players. More bobbing to the pastor as he went through. Up the wide staircase that had known the feet of hundreds of children, some of them now among the elderly in the gym, to Edna’s office, once the principal’s office.

  “Father Dowling,” she said, rising from her desk. “You’re right on time.”

  Edna was an admirable woman, a wife and mother of three, whose husband, Earl, had run afoul of the law and was in Joliet. He and Edna would be old before Earl got out, their children grown, one of the sad facts of life that apparently no wishing could make go away. Earl had been convicted of manslaughter, but it was arguable that he had been guilty only in intention and not in fact. But he accepted his fate, feeling it just, and Edna had responded to Father Dowling’s suggestion that she start a center for seniors, a therapeutic suggestion, with enthusiasm and success. The results had been far beyond anything he had imagined, and the position had brought Edna and her family back into the mainstream of the parish.

  “Do you need any painting done around here?”

  “Watercolors or oils?”

  He laughed. “They will be painting the rectory next summer.”

  “No need of anything like that here.” She paused. Her hands were flat on her desk. “I would like to add a little summer help here though. Someone to supervise the trips to the mall and help generally.”

  “Sounds reasonable.”

  “I thought Janet?” Janet was her daughter.

  “Perfect.”

  Edna smiled and shook her head. “You’ve been so good to us, Father.”

  “I think the benefit has gone in the other direction. How does she like St. Edmund’s?”

  “Why do they teach them about computers when kids already know all about them? It’s the same thing in high school. Carl teaches the teacher. Now Janet says she wants to major in computer science. I suppose it’s a practical choice.”

  “I hope she’s learning some other things.”

  “She hates English.”

  “That’s a shame.”

  “You should hear her stories. She has a fanatic named Cassirer and is trying to transfer out of the class. Anyway, I was thinking minimum wage, forty hours a week, is that okay?”

  “Can’t we do a little better than minimum wage?”

  “Maybe later. Why don’t we see how she does?”

  “And it will be nice for you to have Janet here.”

  “Yes. To keep her out of harm’s way.”

  She said nothing more, but it seemed a generic expression of parental concern. “I did take her to see her father.”

  Earl had been adamant that he did not want his children to see him as a prisoner, but Janet had been equally adamant. She had a right to see her father.

  “How did it go?”

  “Fine. You would have thought they had seen one another a week before instead of years ago. She is very much like him. I guess that explains it. Now the boys want to go.”

  “I was in prison and you visited me.” But this was even more fundamental than that. The Hospers seemed to be benefitting from their adversity.

  “How much longer?”

  “Five years at least,” she said in a small voice.

  “Is there anything I can do?”

  “You already have.”

  “Would you want me to look into it again?” He could drive to Joliet and talk with the chaplain, his classmate, and find out what chances he thought there might be for a parole. If he put Amos Cadbury on it …

  Rudy Berg was six feet tall with a fat and happy face and enormous blue eyes. On his T-shirt was emblazoned Hire A Student and beneath that, Boss The Future Bosses. He wore baggy pants and sandals that seemed to have stirred old memories in Marie. But she was sticking by her man.

  “This is Rudy Berg, Father.�
��

  A two-handed shake, and he dropped into a chair. “I’ve looked over the house, Father. And I think my estimate was a little high.”

  Behind him Marie beamed. Had she assisted his rethinking?

  “Tell me about your group.”

  “We’re all students at St. Edmund’s; this is our second year. I’m contracting for more jobs every day. I’ll be part of the crew here.”

  “So what year are you in?”

  “I’m a junior. Major in accounting.”

  “I thought St. Edmund’s was a liberal arts college.”

  “Oh, it’s grown way beyond that in recent years. Far more practical than it was.”

  “And that’s good?”

  “If you hope to get a job, it is.”

  Father Dowling’s own college years had been devoted to Latin and Greek, history and literature. If he hadn’t become a priest what would it have prepared him for?

  “When can you start?”

  Rudy had a little notebook whose pages he flipped. “Mrs. Murkin has talked me into bumping you to the top of the list. Middle of May?”

  “How long will it take?”

  “Three to four days.”

  Marie said, “I’ve also talked with Rudy about the grotto.”

  “I’ll go take a look at it. Can’t say what that would run.”

  Marie said she had become concerned about the rocks that made up the grotto. Were they stable? The original cement holding them in place might have to be replaced. It sounded like rebuilding, but perhaps she was right.

  “Let me know what you think.”

  Another warm handshake.

  “Isn’t there a contract?”

  “I’ll bring it Monday.”

  He shuffled toward the door. One of his sandals became loose, and he had to work his foot into it. “I don’t work in these,” he said apologetically.

  “No one ever did,” Marie said.

  13

  “The eagle has landed,” Andrew had told Jessica, calling from the house, where he had taken Raymond. “He’s with Mom.”

  “I thought you were going to take him to the hospital.”