Punish the Sinners (18 page)

“I have a lot of Dominican saints here, yes,” he said pensively. “And I suppose you’re right—a lot of them do date from the period of the Inquisition. But I don’t get your point”

Balsam felt his resolve beginning to crumble. “It’s
just this,” he said, suddenly uncertain. “I got curious about the saints in the church and I decided to do some research. And then, the more I read, the more I realized that the kind of intolerance all these saints represented wasn’t much different from the sort of thing we were talking about the other day. The day we were discussing what I can, and what I cannot, teach in my class.”

The priest smiled dryly. “You think the Inquisition’s being revived, right here in Neilsville?”

“In a word, yes, that’s exactly what I think.”

“Before I even argue the point with you,” Monsignor Vernon said wearily, “may I inquire what the purpose of this meeting is?”

“Certainly,” Balsam retorted. “This is to tell you that I’ve changed my mind. I don’t think I can stay in Neilsville. In fact, after the reading I did last night, I’
m
not even sure I can stay in the Church.”

Suddenly the priest looked stricken.

“You’re not serious,” he exclaimed. “You aren’t really considering leaving the Church?”

Now that he’d said it, Balsam was suddenly no longer sure he meant it. He glanced nervously at the Monsignor, then back to the image of St. Peter Martyr.

“I don’t know,” he said uncertainly. “It’s just that I can’t stomach the sort of thing people like him stood for. And it seems to me that the Church hasn’t really progressed very far since his day.”

“Of course it hasn’t,” the priest intoned. “Why should it? Faith is absolute, and the Truth of the Lord is absolute. There is room within the Faith for differences of opinion.”

As Balsam stared, the Monsignor’s voice softened and he returned to himself. He smiled. “Peter, I know we’ve had differences of opinion. They are not at an end. We have always had our differences.” He paused,
as if weighing the prudence of what he was about to reveal, then continued with a sigh, “I hadn’t intended to tell you this, but I selected you for the job here because of those differences.” He left the edge of the desk, and began pacing the room, speaking as he moved. ‘I’ve been following your career very closely, Peter, much more closely than you ever knew. And I’ve worried about you. Of all of us, you’ve seemed to me to have had the most trouble, not only within the Church, but within yourself. I suppose some of it has to do with your childhood—”

“Forget that,” Balsam snapped. “It has nothing to do with all this.”

“Doesn’t it?” the priest said quizzically. Then he smiled again. “Well, maybe it doesn’t. At any rate, it’s an academic. If you wish, I’ll take the matter of your resignation under consideration. I will do it reluctantly, but I will do it. In the meantime, I wish you’d do me a favor. I wish you’d examine your own conscience, and I wish you’d make a greater effort to understand what the Dominican saints were all about. Their methods may seem a bit harsh today, but don’t forget that some of the tales of that period have been grossly exaggerated. Primarily, they helped people to keep the Faith. And that, I think, is at the root of your problems right now. I think you’re having a crisis of faith.” He put his hand on Peter’s shoulder. “It happens to us all,” he said gently. “It’s happened to me, since I’ve been here. But I’ve come through it. Of course I had the Society of St. Peter Martyr to help me. The Society could help you, too.”

Balsam looked at the priest curiously. “Exactly what is the Society of St. Peter Martyr?” he asked.

The priest smiled enigmatically. “Come and see,” he said. “We meet tomorrow night.” When Peter seemed
hesitant, he added: “What harm can it do? It might even help. If nothing else, at least you’ll understand us better. Then, if yon stall want to leave, I’m sure well be able to arrange it.”

Balsam sighed heavily. He had a feeling that something was wrong—that the talk had not gone as he had intended it to. He shrugged off the feeling and smiled at the Monsignor.

“Okay,” he said. “Tomorrow night?”

“Seven-thirty, at the rectory.”

The two men left the classroom, and walked together out of the school. “Will I see you at Mass this evening!?” the priest asked.

“I don’t know,” Balsam answered honestly. “But I suppose so. If I miss it, I can always confess.” He regretted the facetious remark as soon as he’d made it, but the Monsignor was not listening.

“Then if not before, I’ll see you tomorrow night.” He turned and disappeared into the rectory.

Peter Balsam started down the hill. Then, as if remembering something, he went back to the church. There, still on her knees in front of the Holy Virgin, was Karen Morton, her fingers playing over the beads, her lips reciting the Rosary. As Balsam left the church and started again down the hill, he wondered how long she would be there.

If he had known Karen Morton would be in the church, praying on her knees, for the next eight hours, he might have changed his mind once more, and left Neilsville that afternoon. But it was already too late; things had already gone too far, and Balsam was already too enmeshed in it The punishment was beginning.

Inez Nelson hurried up the steps, and through the main doors of St. Francis Xavier School. She was late, and she knew that Monsignor didn’t like to be kept waiting.

She turned into the reception room and glanced nervously at the door that led to Monsignor’s private office, wondering if she should tap at the closed door. Just as she decided against it she heard the click of the latch and looked up, relieved to see the priest smiling at her.

“Come in, come in,” he said expansively. “It’s a good thing you’re late—Mondays are always my busy day. The work seems to pile up over the weekend, even though there isn’t any school. Or maybe I just don’t work hard enough on Fridays.” He closed the door behind Inez, and offered her a chair. Then he moved behind his desk and sat down. His smile had disappeared.

“I suppose you’ve been to the hospital?” he asked.

Inez nodded. “I spent nearly an hour with that Dr. Shields—”

“The psychiatrist?” Monsignor interrupted her.

“Yes.” Inez paused, choking back a sob. “Oh, Monsignor, I’m so confused and it’s been worrying me all weekend. He says Judy is doing fine. But she won’t talk about why she did it All she’ll tell him is that she’s fine now, and that it won’t happen again.”

“And what does she say to you?”

Inez squirmed uncomfortably. “Well, that’s just it, Monsignor. That’s why I felt I had to talk to you. About so many things. But primarily about Judy. You see, she won’t see me.”

Monsignor Vernon’s eyes opened in surprise. “Won’t see you? What do you mean, she won’t see you?”

“Just that,” Inez said unhappily. “She absolutely refuses to see me.” She was fighting tears. “And it’s only me,” she went on, her voice beginning to quaver. “She sees everyone else. Her father. Her friends. But she won’t see me. And everyone says she’s fine.”

“Do they?” The priest’s tone suggested to Inez that he didn’t believe Judy could possibly be fine. “If she won’t see you, I wonder how fine she could be?”

“That’s exactly what I thought, too,” Inez said. Suddenly she felt much better. “But I don’t know what to do. If only I could talk to her, I know I could find out what’s the matter.”

The priest shrugged. “Frankly, I don’t see what the problem is. Judy is only sixteen, and you
are
her mother. If you want to see her, I don’t see how anyone can stop you.”

Inez nodded vigorously. “That’s exactly what I’ve been saying. But no one agrees with me. Oh, not that I can’t see her if I demand to. Everyone says I can do that. But they all think it would be unwise. Dr. Shields, and George—my husband—both seem to think I should just wait. They say eventually she’ll see me, and I suppose they’re right. But in the meantime nobody seems to be taking my feelings into consideration. I feel like—well, I feel like such a failure.” She looked guiltily at the priest. “Do you know what I’ve been doing? I’ve been going to the hospital every day at visiting hours,
and visiting total strangers. Well, not total strangers, of course, but people I wouldn’t normally go see in the hospital. Then I tell them that I was there visiting Judy, and I just decided to drop in.” Now the tears came, and Inez stared miserably at the priest. “I just don’t know how long I can stand it, Father,” she said. “If it ever gets out that all this time Judy has been refusing to see me—well, you don’t know what an awful feeling it is.”

Monsignor Vernon offered her a Kleenex, and a smile. “It’s difficult, I know,” he said softly. “Sometimes I think everything is topsy-turvy these days, and we’re expected to give in to our children all the time.”

“I know,” Inez said, sniffling into the tissue and trying to regain control of herself. “But I was beginning to think I was the only one who thought so.”

“You aren’t,” the Monsignor replied, “although sometimes I think there are very few of us left who refuse to be manipulated by our children.”

Inez looked sharply at the priest.
Manipulated
. The same word Dr. Shields had used. “That’s it exactly,” she said. “I feel like I’m being manipulated by Judy. As if she’s trying to punish me.”

“And that’s undoubtedly exactly what’s going on,” Monsignor Vernon said emphatically. “You have no idea what it can be like here.” He turned his chair, gazing out the window as he talked. “I have to have my guard up all the time. They’re smart, you know. Brighter than we were, when we were young. But it isn’t a good kind of brightness. It’s a clever kind of brightness. They’re always testing me, pushing me, to see how far they can go before I crack down on them. It must be even worse in the public schools. They have so few controls anymore. Thank God the Church recognizes the function of discipline in the raising of children! But it
gets harder each year. Every year, they strain me more. Every year, more of them try to corner me. Well, I don’t intend to tolerate it! This year, the children will find out who runs this school, and they’ll find out it isn’t them!” He suddenly spun the chair around again, and seemed almost surprised to see Inez Nelson sitting opposite his desk. He had almost forgotten she was in the office, and that it was to her that he was talking. Now she sat very still, unnerved by the intensity with which he had spoken. He broke the moment with a quick smile. ‘I’m sorry,” he said, chuckling a little. “Sometimes I get quite carried away. Well, what were we talking about?”

“Judy—” Inez said distractedly. “We were talking about Judy. Which brings me to the other thing I wanted to discuss with you. Dr. Shields tells me that shell be fine by the end of the week, and that she can come back to school a week from today. Next Monday.”

“I see,” Monsignor Vernon said carefully, licking his lips nervously. Inez Nelson noticed the gesture immediately.

“That’s right, isn’t it?” she said quickly. “I mean, there isn’t going to be any problem, is there?”

“Actually, I don’t know,” Monsignor Vernon said hesitantly. “I mean, we’ve never before been faced with something like this, and I haven’t quite been able to find out what to do about it yet”

“Do about it?” Inez asked blankly. “What’s there to do? I don’t understand.”

“Well,” the priest said slowly, “it isn’t really the same as if she’d simply been sick, is it? What she did comes very close to sacrilege. Judy will have to confess and be absolved before she can return to school.”

“Before?” Inez asked. “Why before?”

“Because of the nature of her sin. You must be aware that suicide is one of the most grievous sins that a Catholic can commit. Only God can forgive it, not the Church.”

Inez was suddenly alarmed. Was Judy to be excommunicated?

“But she didn’t—” she began. “I mean, she didn’t actually do anything, did she?” she asked desperately. “I mean, yes, I suppose she tried, but Dr. Shields says he doesn’t think she really meant to kill herself, and in any case, she isn’t dead, is she?”

Monsignor gave the distraught woman his most tolerant look. “I’m afraid that isn’t the point. The point is that she did, indeed, intend the sin. That she didn’t succeed was only a matter of luck, not intent. And I’m sure you’re aware that a sin intended is every bit as offensive to God as a sin committed.”

Inez Nelson stared at him helplessly. “But what’s going to happen to her?”

“I’m afraid I can’t answer that. There are grave philosophical and theological questions involved. I simply haven’t the answers yet But I intend to put the entire case before my study group tonight, and I’m sure that among the six of us we’ll be able to find the answer. The Lord, through St Peter Martyr, will guide me.”

He rose from behind his desk, and led Inez out of the office. As she was leaving, he called to her, and she turned back, her face pale and her eyes beseeching him. He raised his hand in the sign of the cross. “May the Lord bless you and keep you, may the Lord make his face to shine upon you, and give you peace.”

But as she walked out of the school, and slowly made her way to the parking lot, Inez Nelson knew there was going to be no peace for her. For her, or her daughter, or anyone else in Neilsville. As she got into the car, a
cloud passed over the sun. Summer had come to an abrupt end in Neilsville.

   The final bell had rung, and the students had poured out of the classroom into the halls. All but Marilyn Crane. She sat alone in the room, except for Sister Elizabeth, who was straightening up her desk.

It had not been an easy day for Marilyn; if she had had her way she would not have come to school at all. But her mother had insisted, and Marilyn had dragged herself up the hill. It had seemed steeper today than ever before, and when she had finally reached the school she had had to force herself to go in. All through the day she had heard the snickers, and the whispers, as the story of her humiliation on Saturday night spread through the halls. Everybody had heard. Suddenly it wasn’t just her own classmates who snubbed her and turned away at her approach. Now the younger children, the children who had always been at least a little respectful, were pointing at her and giggling together.