Irish Gilt (2 page)

The exchange ended with Tenet thanking Josh and then beginning to lecture on the significance for modern philosophy of the treaty. Rebecca now gave her rapt attention to the professor. Josh sat back and let the unintelligible mumble flow over him. He could scarcely believe what he had done. Most incredible of all had been the admiring glance of Rebecca.

Tenet ended his lecture when the digital clock on the wall told him that he had done his duty by this class. To teach undergraduates pained him. He needed the sophisticated response of graduate students, apprentice philosophers themselves, would-be peers. Undergraduate courses attracted the most curious mix of students, their choice more often than not dictated by the hour at which a class was taught. If he could have roused himself for the task, Tenet would have offered undergraduate classes in the first morning period, avoided by most students. Colleagues who did this told alluring stories of having only a handful of students, all of them philosophy majors. But Tenet read late into the night and was as much a stranger to morning as most students.

“Daley,” he called, as the class was dispersing.

“Sir?”

“What is your major?”

“History.”

“Ah.” Tenet gathered his papers and shuffled away.

Rebecca stood and turned to Josh. She thrust out her hand. “Rebecca.”

“Josh.”

“Daley?”

“Yes.”

They left together, but it was only when they were outside the building that they could talk.

“I love that class,” she said.

“I've never had anything like it.”

“I know.”

“You're a philosophy major?”

“Of course.”

“What hall are you in?” As if he didn't know. He wandered around Walsh so much he might have been arrested for stalking.

“Walsh. What's yours?”

“St. Ed's.”

Her green eyes filled with approval. She hated the new halls. The fact that they both lived in historic residences seemed a link between them. They went on to Recker's for coffee, where she said, “If you like Tenet, you would love Roger Knight.”

His major should have prepared him for the way in which the expected is overwhelmed by the actual outcome. None of the imaginary scenarios in which he had made himself known to Rebecca had been like this. She actually seemed to think he had a mind. He asked who Roger Knight was.

“The best thing since Joe Evans.”

“Joe Evans?”

“Ask your father. He was a Domer, wasn't he?”

“Oh, yes.”

The important thing was to say as little as possible, lest she discover how untypical his exchange with Tenet was. Or to divert the conversation.

“Why de Vega?”

She sat back, looking at him with a little smile. “How did you know?”

He shrugged. “I always check out who's in a class with me.”

She accepted that. “Lope de Vega,” she said.

“Ah.”

“The Spanish poet. My father's nuts about him. He has everything he ever wrote.”

“In Spanish?”

“Castilian.”

“What's he like?”

“My father?” She looked away. Josh had meant Lope de Vega, whoever he was. She brightened. “But who am I to complain? It was my middle name that caught Roger Knight's attention. Of course, he knew all about Lope de Vega.” It wasn't a criticism.

He walked her to Walsh, suddenly almost at ease. “Are you taking a course from Knight?”

She looked at him. “If you want to sit in, he wouldn't mind.”

“When is it?” She told him. Well, he could skip his theology class. “Where is it?”

“Why don't you meet me here?”

“Good idea.”

She nodded and smiled. “I hope so.”

3

Roger Knight sat on the patio of Holy Cross House with Father Carmody, his golf cart in the parking lot on the opposite side of the building, enjoying the thin April sunlight with the old priest. It was thanks to Father Carmody that Roger was at Notre Dame, but it was more than gratitude that brought him on his regular visits. Their conversations were a species of oral history. By means of them, Roger had acquired a deeper feeling for the past of the university, since Carmody had been a man behind the scenes for most of his active career at Notre Dame, an éminence grise even before his red hair had turned white. Across the lake, the dome on the Main Building sparkled in the sunlight. Carmody was saying that the statue of Our Lady on top of the dome was modeled after the one Pope Pius IX had erected in the Piazza di Spagna in Rome.

“Of course, it's larger.” He meant Notre Dame's.

“How tall?”

“Sixteen feet.”

The statue, like the dome, was golden. Father Carmody told the story. After the fire of 1879, the Main Building had been rebuilt, and in 1886 the first gilding took place. It was renewed periodically, at irregular intervals. The last time had been 1988.

“Real gold?”

“Oh, yes. Twenty - three - and - three - quarter - karat Lefranc Italian gold leaf.”

“How do you remember such things?”

“I oversaw the process in 1988. It was done by the Conrad Schmitt Studios from New Berlin, Wisconsin.”

“Expensive?”

Father Carmody opened his hands. “Father Sorin never spared expense to honor Our Lady, nor should we.”

The bird feeder at the edge of the patio was alive with birds. A cardinal swooped in and scattered the others.

“They must be mere bishops,” the old priest murmured.

“Of course, you didn't know Father Zahm.”

“Just his brother Albert. He spent his last years here.” The old priest wrinkled his nose. “Unlike Father Zahm.”

“He was a brilliant man.”

“We have never had his like again. But he wasn't a team player. Unless he was captain. He left when he wasn't reelected provincial and settled at our college in Washington, D.C.”

“Settled?”

Father Carmody smiled. “Oh, he was already quite a traveler while he was here. How is your class going?”

“Wonderfully. How could the kids not be interested? I am emphasizing the range of his interests—science, of course, but seemingly everything else. Dante, the conquistadores, the Southwest. The reading list of one hundred great books he drew up for students is remarkable.”

“I didn't know about that.”

“You can find it in Weber's biography.”

“I've always meant to read that.”

“He acknowledges your help.”

“Does he?”

“What was his brother Albert like?”

“He became quite distinguished. Most of his career was spent elsewhere, but, as I said, he came back here during his last years. He is one of the few laymen to be buried in the community cemetery.”

“I am going to stop there on the way home.”

Father Carmody stirred. “I'd like to come with you.”

So it was that, in Roger's golf cart, they bumped across the lawn to Moreau Seminary and continued on to the community cemetery. Roger parked his cart on a pathway, and they got out. For the next hour, they wandered among the identical crosses marking the graves of the departed members of the Congregation of Holy Cross. At the southern end, in the shadow of a crucifix, lay Father Edward Sorin, and nearby was the grave of John Augustine Zahm.

“He was a great favorite of Sorin's,” the old priest said.

“They visited the Holy Land together. Of course, Zahm wrote a book about it.”

“Of course. Was that under one of his pseudonyms?”

“No.” Zahm had published some books under an anagram of his name, H. J. Mozans, as well as under the names A. H. Johns and A. H. Solis. “Why did he use pseudonyms?”

“Modesty?”

Albert Zahm's grave was at the north end of the cemetery. Father Carmody, as he had at every grave at which they stopped, traced the sign of the cross over himself and stood for a moment in silence. When he turned to look back the way they had come, he said, “I will be buried among youngsters.”

“This place always reminds me of Arlington Cemetery.” Row after row of identical crosses moved away from the grave of the founder.

“It's older.”

Roger smiled. It was a Notre Dame kind of remark.

*   *   *

He dropped Father Carmody at Holy Cross House and continued to his apartment, where he found Phil waiting for him.

“Roger, this is Boris Henry.”

The visitor rose from his chair, unfolding his body as he did, but remaining stooped. “This is indeed a privilege.” He thrust out his hand. “I understand we share an interest in Father John Zahm.”

“Ah.”

Phil had not risen from the beanbag chair that held rather than supported him. Getting out of it was a bit of a trick, a trick Phil now performed, rolling to one side, getting a palm on the floor, and then levering himself awkwardly to his feet. “I'll leave you two alone.”

“Mr. Henry and I can talk in the study, Phil.”

“Boris,” Henry said.

“Boris.”

Phil dropped back into the beanbag and reached for the remote. Roger led Boris Henry into his office, where the tall man stood and looked wonderingly around, at the walls of books, at the computer, at the special chair that accommodated Roger's bulk and enabled him to wheel rapidly from desk to bookshelves.

“Marvelous,” Henry said, then took the chair Roger indicated. “Your brother tells me that you're giving a course on Zahm.”

“That's right.”

“Tell me about it.”

Boris Henry nodded enthusiastically through Roger's abbreviated account of what he was doing in the class. Finally, he sat back.

“Now let me tell you what I would like the university to do.” There were a number of recently established centers at Notre Dame—Henry was all for them—and, of course, among them was what he called the granddaddy of them all, the Maritain Center. “Jacques Maritain was a great man. It is only fitting that he should be commemorated in that way. But, Roger, he was never on the faculty here. He was a guest lecturer at most. John Zahm
was
Notre Dame. He
is
what this place should be. You can see where my thoughts are heading.”

“Tell me.”

“A John Zahm Center, of course! Think of the variety of things it could foster—the relation of religion and science, science and literature, the moral responsibilities of scientists. The role of the Southwest in the history of the Church in this country. And he was a pioneer in what is now called women's studies.” Boris paused. “To say nothing of his interest in the conquistadores and El Dorado.”

“I think it is a great idea.”

“His books are out of print, Roger. Why not a collected edition?”

“Convincing me is easy, of course, but you must talk to someone in the administration.”

“That is the purpose of my visit. I have an appointment with the provost tomorrow. May I mention your enthusiasm for the idea?”

“For what good it might do.”

“Of course, it will cost money, but surely money is no problem for Notre Dame.”

4

The archives of the University of Notre Dame are located on the sixth floor of Hesburgh Library, a cornucopia of papers, memorabilia, and publications on which any history of the university or of any of its various personnel and aspects must be based. There, for some days, in a glassed-in workroom, sat Xavier Kittock, class of '74, poring over the contents of gray archival boxes. On the table was a laptop computer, carefully placed so that no one who entered the room could learn of the project that engaged him. Secrecy was essential. Like other scholars obsessed with an idea, Kittock was certain that hordes of rivals were gathering to rob him of his subject. Surely there were dozens of others to whom his great idea had occurred. It was a matter of anguish to Kittock that the minions of the archives must know what he was up to. It was to lessen the danger of discovery that he dealt only with one archivist, Greg Walsh, a shy man whose speech impediment suggested that he would be unable to communicate Kittock's secret.

It was a phone call from Clare in Kansas City that explained Kittock's haste and secrecy. “Boris has gone to Washington,” she had told him when she called the previous day. “He plans to stop at Notre Dame on the way back.”

No need for her to spell out what that meant. Had Boris returned to Washington in the manner of one who, having found a gold coin, returned to the spot in the hope of finding more? It was in Washington that he had bought at auction a lot that proved to contain a travel diary of John Zahm's.

“Do you think he intends to give it to Notre Dame?” Kittock asked her.

“I think he hopes to sell it to them.”

“Of course.” Some time ago, Clare had given him the surprising news of Boris's personal financial embarrassment. Thanks to Clare, the rare book business, sequestered from Boris's own finances, flourished, but it was not money tree enough to support Boris's gambling.

“Have you found anything?” Clare asked.

“Not really.”

His wild hope had been that the information that was surely contained in the diary Zahm had kept during the travels on which his two volumes on the conquistadores and his later one on El Dorado had been based would be found among the Zahm papers. The only hope now seemed to be the diary Boris had come into possession of, and all the ass could think of was some immediate profit from it. For Kittock it represented far more.

The adventurers of an earlier time had spawned a new kind of adventurer. Tales of sunken Spanish galleons full of gold had inspired expeditions to find and raise that long-lost treasure, and some had succeeded. Kittock had invested in one such expedition and spent some months with the visionary and his crew off the coast of South America. The expedition had not been a success, but others had been. How much treasure had been spent in the quest for such treasure? It was the source of the gold that had come to interest Kittock, especially the legend of El Dorado. At least two places had been thought to mark the site of that city of gold. Zahm had been to both, and it was Kittock's conviction that the priest had learned that the object of the quest of so many did exist.