Bodies and Souls (4 page)

Which made the better minister, Peter sometimes wondered: the solitary priest who had no children of his own to pull his affections and attentions from the congregation and who thus could work undistracted by personal hopes and worries, or the minister who learned only too well from having his own family just what a frightful obstacle course life was, and thus was able to understand and help his congregation, because their fears and needs were his own? There could probably be no one certain answer to this question, but the very presence of the question gave Peter comfort when he found himself neglecting his congregation in his thoughts because of personal worries.

He thought, for example, as he surveyed those gathered before him this morning, that he could sympathize more completely with a woman like Suzanna Blair than he could have had he been childless. His glance rested on her again and again, because of all the people standing before him, Suzanna Blair seemed the most troubled. Yet this was only a hunch on his part, only a guess; she had never come to confide in him, had never asked for his help. Still, there were moments when he caught her looking down at her two small children with such sorrow on her face that he longed to interrupt the service, to call out to her, to ask what was wrong and whether he could somehow help.

He knew very little about Suzanna. He had first met her when she was still married, about three years ago, at a cocktail party at the Moyers’. Actually it was her husband that he remembered meeting. Tom Blair considered himself a memorable personage, and he
was
one of those characters who manage to seem just a little bit bigger than life. That year he had chosen to attire himself and his life as a college professor in a lumberjack-naturalist style. He wore plaid wool shirts and tweed jackets and leather boots which came up over his jeans to his knees. He smoked a pipe and was hearty, and if it was with an air of self-congratulatory heartiness that he moved through the world, as if announcing, “Look at me! Aren’t I a big, powerful, Hemingwayesque fellow, and isn’t it amazing that I can teach Milton’s poetry and split my own firewood!”—still he was a likable enough man. Of Suzanna at that particular party, Peter remembered only that she had been so gentle-looking that he had been surprised to discover from her conversation that she had a quick and witty turn of mind.

From time to time afterward he had come across the Blairs, and they seemed another normal, agreeable young couple. When he heard about their divorce, he was
surprised:
Why?
he had asked, and no one seemed to know. Many divorces in the community took place with the elaborateness of a full-scale movie production, complete with a cast of hundreds and a script full of tears and ravings that would have driven a soap opera director to fits of envy. But the Blairs, as far as Peter could tell, had just sort of slid into divorce. One day they were, at least superficially, happily married, and the next Tom Blair was showing up at parties with various adoring young women at his side. After a while, Tom moved away, and a few months later Suzanna began attending Peter’s church with her two young children. The first Sunday Peter had noticed her sitting there, he had felt expansive with anticipation; perhaps soon he would know something more about her.

But as the months passed, she not only remained a mystery to him but grew even more mysterious. When she first started attending church, Peter had considered her really just a pretty, pleasant woman. Suzanna taught first grade in the public school, and to his mind she looked the way a first-grade teacher should look. She had short, curly brown hair, pink cheeks, blue eyes, and a slightly plump, good-natured figure; her attractiveness made no demands. Then one morning about two years ago, Peter had looked down into the congregation to see Suzanna sitting there looking absolutely disheveled, even though her clothes were perfectly tidy. She had been grinning at her hymnal; then she had blushed, then covered her mouth with her hand, and finally shaken herself a little, as if trying to settle her body back down. Well, Peter thought, perhaps she’s fallen in love. But the months passed, and Suzanna came to church and parties and meetings alone, and Peter had heard no rumors of any love affairs. But surely something was going on.

Every Sunday morning, Suzanna brought the children to church, and they sat together in the pew, whispering to one another, a normal, family group. After the Children’s Story, when her son and daughter and all the other children left the main sanctuary for their various Sunday school rooms in the basement of the church, Suzanna Blair would recompose herself in her pew in such a way that she gathered in the very space around her and made it private. Peter had gotten pretty good at judging whether a parishioner was listening to his sermon or daydreaming, and Suzanna seemed almost always to be daydreaming. In the midst of a most serious sermon, Peter would see an absolutely beatific smile pass over her face. To her credit, she immediately covered her mouth with her hand and shook her head slightly to reprove herself. Peter did not know just what aroused his curiosity more: those smiles of Suzanna’s or the equally intense
expressions of sorrow which often during the hour overcame her so completely that her body seemed to sag under the weight. In spite of her daydreaming, she was the person who more than anyone else looked up at him during the course of a sermon as if beseeching, as if searching, as if asking him for an answer. Clearly something was wrong in her life; she was harboring some secret that caused her both joy and pain. But how could he help her when he did not know the cause? It had something to do with the children; of that much he was certain, because of the way she watched them walk away as they left the main congregation for Sunday school. It seemed as though each Sunday she were watching them leave her forever.

But how could he help her? She would not come to him. Now Peter stared down at Suzanna Blair’s unassuming head as she bent over her hymnbook, singing her “Amen” with the others, and for one still moment he felt a cold metallic shaft of anger rise within him, as if a sword had struck his heart. For he had to look down upon her each Sunday in her suffering and fail to give her aid, because no matter how he spoke to her, she did not seem to hear, and no matter how he placed himself before her, she did not seem to see. And he wanted to smite her down, because she made him feel he was a failure and she lured him to despair.

The air was filled with shuffling, rustling noises and then expectant silence as the congregation settled back into their pews. As a body, they looked up at him, waiting for him to begin the unison reading of the Common Prayer of Adoration and Confession. Necessary stage presence brought Peter’s thoughts away from the troubled woman, and he began to read aloud, leading them all.

“Most merciful Lord, in whose kingdom the lion and the lamb lie down together—”

Now he was working: performing, teaching. He thought no more about individual members of his church, but only of leading everyone through the sturdily constructed phrases of prayer. The intermingling of human voices, female and male, young and old, strong and meek, made a chant which was pleasing to the ears. Peter thought as he often had before how odd it was that such an artificial gathering of people should produce a genuine and legitimate sound, as if people were by nature meant to read aloud together no less than birds were meant to sing in unison. This weekly harmony, contrived as it was, reaffirmed his congregation’s faith in God, and Peter’s faith in them.

At the end of the prayer, Peter asked, “Would all the children like to join me at
the front of the church for the Children’s Story?” He walked to the steps and sat on the second one, and the children from the ages of four to ten gathered in a circle on the floor around him. Each week, for four of five minutes, Peter told a Children’s Story—always an easy lesson with a catchy beginning and an obvious moral. Today he talked about the signs of changing seasons: the moral was to welcome each thing in its time. The Children’s Story provided a break in the formality of the service. This morning, as always, there was one child who interrupted to ask an irrelevant question and another who pointed out a new pair of shoes, and the adults laughed and glanced knowingly at one another, pleased with themselves for being grown-up. At the end of the Children’s Story, the congregation rose to sing a hymn while the children filed out. Then Peter settled back in his chair as Reynolds Houston went to the pulpit to read from the Bible.

Part of the Scripture lesson for the morning came from Mark, the old familiar words: “And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength: this is the first commandment. And the second is like, namely this, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. There is none other commandment greater than these.”

Well, of course, Peter suddenly thought: there’s the answer. If
he
couldn’t help Suzanna Blair, perhaps someone else could. They were a congregation. He scanned the group before him. Who could best help Suzanna Blair? Possibly Pam Moyer, who was always kind; but no, not quite right, Peter thought, not now. Pam had become very active in civic and political affairs, almost aggressively so; she would be too busy to focus on such a small, personal matter. There was always Norma Wilson, who was kind, too, but she was in her sixties, and Leigh Findly, who was closer to Suzanna’s age, but as adamantly liberal in her views as Norma was conservative. Peter continued to look around.

When his glance fell on Judy Bennett, he smiled involuntarily and knew his search had come to an end. In fact, he was surprised that he had not thought of Judy immediately. She would be the perfect person to help Suzanna—she would be the perfect person to help anybody.

When Peter and Patricia and their three children had first moved to Londonton, it had been the hospitality of Judy Bennett that had made that move bearable. The Taylors and their moving van had arrived from Maine in August. The day of their arrival had been scheduled for months, but it had rained in Londonton for an entire week, and the
roof of the parsonage had sprung a leak. Because no one was living there at the time to notice it, it had widened and opened, so that the walls and ceilings and floors of the bedroom and the living room collapsed in places. Judy Bennett had gone to the house early, to open it up for the Taylors, and she had met them at the door with the bad news: workmen had come, and were working as fast as they could, but it would be a good week before the house was livable. Before they could gather their wits together to despair, she hurried on: the Taylors would stay at her house for the week—there was plenty of room since her two children were off at prep school, and she’d enjoy having the Taylor family around.

So the moving company had piled the furniture and boxes into the rooms that were not damaged, and Judy had welcomed all five Taylors into her home. Not only had she made them feel totally at ease in her large and beautiful house, not only did she serve them delicious meals rich with homemade breads and desserts, but she also had contrived to introduce them to the community, and the community to them, with a deft and graceful hand. She had small social gatherings that week and the week that followed. There were morning coffees for the older ladies of the church, and evening cocktail parties, and a buffet dinner for a few of the more prestigious members of the congregation. People were presented to the Taylors in small and manageable groups, so that Peter and Patricia could learn names and faces of at least fifty people with relative ease.

Their second week in Londonton, when they had been in their own house for only two days, Patricia had had to return to Maine to take care of some necessary legal matters. She had taken their youngest child with her, leaving the two older ones and Peter in the newly repaired parsonage. Within hours of her leaving, Peter was flat on his back with a powerful flu that stunned him with exhaustion, and he was furious with himself for getting ill at such a critical point in his family’s life. He felt that it was a terrible failure on his part that his two older children had to scavenge around in cardboard boxes to find clean towels and clothes; and as he heard them rummaging through the kitchen to find bowls for their cereal, he vowed that by that afternoon he would be up and around, preparing a decent meal. Instead, he fell into a profound invalid’s sleep, and did not awaken until eight o’clock that night. He walked into the living room on weak legs to find his two children cross-legged on the floor, eating more dry cereal.

“I think you should call Mrs. Bennett,” he said, and collapsed back into bed. When he woke again, it was morning, and he could hear Judy Bennett in the kitchen with
the children, laughing. He could smell eggs and bacon frying, and he felt all was right with the world.

For three days Peter remained too drugged by the flu and the medicine Judy brought him to keep hold of consciousness for long; but he was aware from time to time that she was in the other room, unpacking boxes and arranging dishes on a shelf, or towels in a closet. She made him tea, and when he could take it, milk toast, and she sat with him as he ate, reassuring him that his children were well and happy, that Patricia had called and would be back soon. When Peter had finished eating what he could, Judy would rise and smile and bend to take the tray away, and Peter would lapse back into sleep. So the events of that week slid by, dreamlike; and he slept and woke in wrinkled pajamas, unshaved and shaky, vulnerable to Judy Bennett’s scrutiny and judgment. He thought he had never been in a relationship of such intimacy with any woman other than his mother or his wife, and he marveled later at Judy Bennett’s fastidious compassion, because never once in her intimate serving did she graze that invisible, delicate screen of propriety which separated a man and his family from the rest of the world.

She had her own family, of course, but they seemed to find it only natural that she would be so involved in helping others. Ron Bennett, her husband, was a tall, handsome, confident man with great charm; he worked as a contractor and over the years had built many private homes and small buildings in Londonton. He was respected, admired, and he was rich. But both he and Judy seemed not to have been affected by his wealth, for they continued to devote much personal time and energy to their community. And Judy remained as innocent-looking as a bride. She kept her slim face free of makeup, and her brown hair was always pulled straight back from her head and braided into one thick braid which fell down her back or over her shoulder. So she looked as wholesome and winsome as a farm girl, and she was forty-five.