The Miracle (4 page)

noon, and then having a salad and two cups of coffee in a crowded cafe in the Loop.

After that, she had spent four hours in the reading room of the Chicago Public Library skimming through the few volumes available that were devoted to Bernadette and Lourdes. She had gone through Bernadette of Lourdes by Frances Parkinson Keyes, which was pro, and The Happening at Lourdes by Alan Neame, which was evenhanded, and Eleven Lourdes Miracles by Dr. D. J. West, which was con, jotted a few notes, and by the time the appointment with Father Heam neared, she felt sufficiently briefed to hold her own in a discussion on the subject.

The Church of the Good Shepherd was near Lincoln Park, and it had its own parking lot. The place of worship, from its size and well-maintained exterior, was obviously attended and supported by a wealthy congregation. Certainly, Amanda realized, her future in-laws would have belonged to no other.

Refusing to be intimidated by such splendor, Amanda went directly inside, where she was met and shown to the chancery office occupied by Father Heam. The priest proved to be full-faced, potbellied, and amiable. By contrast with the church itself, his office seemed unprepossessing. Plain gray drapes framed the windows. There was a fireplace, and above it a large bronze crucifix depicting an elongated Giacometti-like Saviour on the Cross. Father Heam offered Amanda a velour-covered chair beside his table desk, then took his place in the straight chair at the desk.

On the wall behind him was a framed photograph of Pope John Paul III.

Father Heam was disarmingly apologetic. "Normally, I am not this difficult to see. I enjoy meeting people, and rarely constrict their visits. But this has been an unusually busy day. I'm sorry to limit your visit. Miss Spenser, but only through a bit of sleight of hand have I managed to squeeze you in, and I can give you just twenty minutes. Perhaps another time we can—"

"No," said Amanda. "Twenty minutes will do." She realized that she could not squander a second. She must get to the subject of potential contention as quickly as possible. "As I told you on the phone, I'm Ken Clayton's fiancee."

"I'm delighted to meet you, at last. Yes, I've known about you. I was to officiate at your wedding. I still expect to do so at a later date."

"Then you know about Ken's illness, his cancer?"

"I've heard about it from his parents. And now from Mr. Clayton himself. I assume you know he was in to see me this morning. We discussed his condition at some length."

"That's why I'm here," said Amanda, "to discuss it with you further."

"I'm glad to have this opportunity to talk to you," Father Hearn assured her earnestly.

The smooth moon face before her was phlegmatic, revealed no pretense of knowing what Amanda's visit was about, but Amanda was certain that it masked shrewd understanding of her motive in wishing this appointment.

"I have no idea if you know anything about me," said Amanda. "Do you know I'm a clinical psychologist?"

Father Heam's mouth puckered. A faint suggestion of surprise. "No," he said. "No, I don't think I'd been told that."

"I have a private practice," said Amanda. "I teach part-time at the University of Chicago. I teach clinical psychology, abnormal psychology, theory of personality. I speak of this only because I want you to understand that while my concern for Ken is that of a woman who loves him, it is also that of a person who can view his illness objectively. Father, you do know how serious his illness is, don't you?"

"Yes, I do. Miss Spenser. I'm sorry for his ordeal, and your own. I shall be offering prayers for his speedy and complete recovery."

"That's kind of you. Father Hearn, and I appreciate it." She tried to control herself, keep any tinge of sarcasm out of her voice. "Helpful as prayer may be, I'm afraid Ken will need more than that. His only real hope, his one hope, he's in immediate surgery. He was prepared to undergo this surgery until he saw you this morning. Now he has cancelled it, and is off to find a miracle. For me, Father, his decision is suicidal and deeply distressing. Only by having an operation—"

Father Hearn interrupted her. "Miss Spenser, I have in no way tried to dissuade Mr. Clayton from undergoing an operation. It is not in my province to sit in judgment on a parishioner's desire to seek help from the medical profession. This was a decision Mr. Clayton had to come to himself. When we talked this morning, he had great misgivings about the surgery's being a success. He said that if he underwent an operation now, he'd sacrifice a God-given opportimity to be in Lourdes at the time of the Virgin Mary's visitation. He realized that after his surgery he'd be convalescing, bedridden, and would therefore be unable to pray directly to the Blessed Virgin for a miraculous cure of his possibly fatal illness. Mr. Clayton made his choice on his own. He decided to put his life in the hands of Our Lord and of the Mother of Heaven at a Christian shrine that has provided—constantly provided— miraculous cures to afflicted pilgrims from all over the earth."

Amanda felt a rush of anger and impatience that transcended her

control. There was a life at stake, a human life, and this pious poop was trying to disregard it with banalities. "Father Heam, you don't believe all that, do you?"

Momentarily, the priest was taken aback. "What are you saying— don't believe what?"

"That this illiterate shepherdess really, in reality, saw the Virgin Mary? Wait, let me finish, let me make myself clear, without being disrespectful in any way. Even assuming that there was a corporeal Virgin Mary, Bernadette would have been a poor choice to see her or report her message. From my reading, the evidence available, what is obvious to me is that Bernadette fits perfectly into the mold of the hysteric. There she was, in this backwater village, a half-starved, always ailing, semi-ignorant peasant girl, a little adolescent hungry for attention and love. She was the ideal type to have hallucinations, to wish for and hence conjure up a beautiful friend like the Virgin Mary, and be convinced that she had actually seen the Holy Mother and conversed with her. Bernadette deluded herself into thinking that she had seen what she claimed to see, and others then and since have been eager to be deluded also, to believe in this, to fulfill their own personal needs." Amanda caught her breath. "Father, do you expect me to put the life of the one person I love more than any other on earth in the hands of an unstable adolescent who lived briefly 130 years ago? Can you actually expect me to believe that Ken, or anyone with a medically determined serious disease, possibly incurable, can be cured by kneeling and praying at some French cave because a simple-minded peasant girl, her head filled with dreams, claimed that she had seen and talked with the Mother of Jesus eighteen times at this spot?"

Drained, Amanda sat back, hoping that she had resistance enough to weather the storm that she was sure would follow. But, to her surprise. Father Heam displayed no anger. He appeared calm, the figure of reasonableness.

The tone of his response was quiet and steady. "If the Virgin had not appeared at the grotto, to be seen and heard by a pure and innocent believer, and had not endowed the grotto with special powers, how do you account for the scientific, the medical, facts that have been produced in the decades since? How do you account for the nearly seventy persons who have experienced a miraculous cure of what had been diagnosed by the leading physicians of many nations as an incurable disease? How do you account for the fact that in every one of these terminal cases, the best doctors in the world certified the patient as totally cured, not by medicine but by the power of the miraculous? How

do you account for five thousand other cases of crippled or dying persons being reported as fully cured because of the grotto in Lourdes?"

Amanda had already brought her library notes out of her purse. Glancing at them, she said, "I read a study made by a doctor of eleven of the so-called miracle cures at Lourdes. He posed the question, 'Was there a real physical change or was it all psychological?' He decided that all or most of the so-called cures were of diseases or illnesses induced by hysteria, bodily effects of emotional disturbances such as depression, anxiety, or tension that affect the heart, blood vessels, kidneys, and so forth. 'Under hypnosis,' he wrote, 'and given appropriate suggestions, subjects have been known to produce blisters corresponding to imaginary bums and even to develop bruising and oozing of blood from the skin.' In the same way, under the hypnotic influence of Lourdes, ailments aggravated by the imagination can be improved and healed by the imagination. Not usually, but often enough to make believers think that they are sudden miracles."

"I gather," said Father Heara wryly, "you don't believe in miracles at all."

"Father, in my profession I've seen many cases—and read many case histories -- in which the mental has had an effect on the physical. But mental healing can't be depended upon, certainly not in Ken's case where he is suffering from a very real bone cancer. I'm ready to trust his life to a surgeon's scalpel. I can't trust it to an imaginative fable. No, Father, I don't believe in miracles."

"But surely you have not come here to debate with me?"

"I have come here because I assumed that, whatever your profession, you are a rational and logical man. I hoped that you would disenchant Ken with the idea of leaving his life to a mystical cure at Lourdes, and that you would convince him to go into surgery at once. I hoped that you would understand me, and I hoped that you would help me.

Father Heam sat in silence for many seconds, and finally he spoke. "Miss Spenser, I can't help you because I can't understand you, just as you can't understand me. We speak different languages. My language speaks only in the words of faith, unreserved faith and belief in God, in the Lord, in the Virgin Mary, and the wonders, the miracles, they choose to perform. If you do not understand my language, there is nothing more we can say to each other."

Amanda felt sickened. "Then you are saying there is no chance you'll try to dissuade Ken from making the pilgrimage to Lourdes and waiting for the Virgin and her miracle?"

"No chance. I've already succeeded in getting Mr. Clayton on an

official British pilgrimage to Lourdes being led by an old colleague and friend, Father Woodcourt of London. I will pray that Mr. Clayton's pilgrimage proves successful."

Amanda sighed, and stood up. "You've made his reservation, you say?"

"On a pilgrimage train from London to Paris to Lourdes. Yes, the reservation for Mr. Clayton is secure."

Amanda went to the door of the chancery, then turned. "I'd appreciate it if you'd make it two," she said.

"Two?"

"Reservations. One for Ken. The other for me. I can't let that damn fool take this horrible risk by himself. Thank you, Father. I hope that the next time we meet it will not be at a funeral."

Sitting in the Cadillac limousine taking him from the United Nations to the Soviet consular building on East 67th Street in New York City, Sergei Tikhanov still enjoyed a sense of elation at the excellent reception given his speech at the UN, especially by delegates of the Third World bloc. While the Soviet ambassador to the United Nations, the good-natured Alexei Izakov, delivered the routine speeches. It was Tikhanov, as veteran foreign minister of the USSR, who was always sent to New York to make the more crucial public statements.

This morning's address, on the continuing nuclear weapons confrontation with the United States, had been a crucial speech, and it had gone down well. If Tikhanov had any one reservation about his speech, it was that Premier Skryabin had placed limitations on its contents and the invective that might be used. This was the one thing that irked Tikhanov, his superior's conciliatory and soft policy toward the Americans. Tikhanov knew the Americans better than anyone else in the Kremlin hierarchy, and he knew they were like children who responded only to sternness and threats. But nevertheless, within its limitations, the major policy address had been effective, he was sure.

The only other thing that had bothered Tikhanov about the speech had been the rude way in which it had been treated by the leading member of his own delegation. Midway through Tikhanov's ringing address. Ambassador Izakov had abruptly risen from his seat and left the hall. Tikhanov had been momentarily embarrassed by this boorish behavior.

He intended to tell Izakov so, and expected an apology, unless the ambassador had some acceptable excuse to offer.

Perhaps there was an acceptable excuse. Because the moment that Tikhanov himself had left the UN auditorium, and the applause, he had

been intercepted by a member of his delegation with a message that Ambassador Izakov wanted to see him at the consulate at once. Maybe, Tikhanov speculated, there had been some emergency that had called the ambassador away from his speech.

Now, hardly aware of the KGB security guard beside him, eager to learn what Izakov had on his mind, Tikhanov leaned forward in the back seat, peering between the driver and the second KGB guard to make out the Soviet consular building up ahead.

Inside the consulate reception room, Tikhanov had unexpectedly found an impatient Izakov waiting for him. Hastily, the ambassador led the way to his safe office, electronically secured against eavesdropping, and hastily shut the door behind them.

Without bothering to sit down or wait for Tikhanov to be seated. Ambassador Izakov, appearing strained, began to speak. "Sergei, my apologies for having to walk out during your magnificent speech, but I was called away by an urgent emergency phone call from Moscow, from Kossoff, none other."

General Kossoff was chairman of the KGB, and now Tikhanov was listening attentively.

"It's Premier Skryabin," the ambassador went on. "He's suffered a stroke. He's in a coma."

"A stroke," repeated Tikhanov. "I'm used to his little heart attacks. But a stroke? How bad?"

"Massive. Whatever happens, the old man is through. If he comes out of the coma, recovers, he will be a vegetable, incapacitated. Or he may linger on in his present state. At best, the doctors give him no more than a month."