The Stories of J.F. Powers (New York Review Books Classics) (28 page)

On Saturday, Father Udovic called Monsignor Renton and asked him to run the announcement again. It was all they could do, he said, and admitted that he had little hope of success.

“Don’t let it throw you, Bruno. It’s always darkest before dawn.”

Father Udovic said he no longer cared. He said he liked to think that the envelope contained a spiritual bouquet from a little child, that its contents had already been delivered, its prayers and communions already . . .

“You should’ve been a nun, Bruno.”

“Not sure I know what you mean,” Father Udovic said, and hung up. He wished it were in his power to do something about Monsignor Renton. Some of the old ones got funny when they stayed too long in one place.

On Sunday, after the eight o’clock Mass, Father Udovic received a call from Monsignor Renton. “I told ’em if somebody didn’t own up to the envelope, we’d open it. I guess I got carried away.” But it had worked. Monsignor Renton had just talked with the party responsible for the envelope—a Mrs Anton—and she was on the way over to see Father Udovic.

“A woman, huh?”

“A widow. That’s about all I know about her.”

“A widow, huh? Did she say what was in it?”

“I’m afraid it’s not what you thought, Bruno. It’s money.”

Father Udovic returned to the front parlor, where he had left Mrs Anton. “The Bishop’ll see you,” he said, and sat down. She wasn’t making a good impression on him. She could’ve used a shave. When she’d asked for the Bishop, Father Udovic had replied instinctively, “He’s busy,” but it hadn’t convinced her. She had appeared quite capable of walking out on him. He invoked the Bishop’s name again. “Now one of the things the Bishop’ll want to know is why you didn’t show up before this.”

Mrs Anton gazed at him, then past him, as she had when he’d tried to question her. He saw her starting to get up, and thought he was about to lose her. He hadn’t heard the Bishop enter the room.

The Bishop waved Mrs Anton down, seated himself near the doorway at some distance from them, and motioned to Father Udovic to continue.

To the Bishop it might sound like browbeating, but Father Udovic meant to go on being firm with Mrs Anton. He hadn’t forgotten that she’d responded to Monsignor Renton’s threats. “Why’d you wait so long? You listen to the Sunday announcements, don’t you?” If she persisted in ignoring him, she could make him look bad, of course, but he didn’t look for her to do that, with the Bishop present.

Calmly Mrs Anton spoke, but not to Father Udovic. “Call off your trip?”

The Bishop shook his head.

In Father Udovic’s opinion, it was one of his functions to protect the Bishop from directness of that sort. “How do we know what’s in here?” he demanded. Here, unfortunately, he reached up the wrong sleeve of his cassock for the envelope. Then he had it. “What’s in here? Money?” He knew from Monsignor Renton that the envelope contained money, but he hadn’t told the Bishop, and so it probably sounded rash to him. Father Udovic could feel the Bishop disapproving of him, and Mrs Anton still hadn’t answered the question.

“Maybe you should return the envelope to Mrs Anton, Father,” said the Bishop.

That did it for Mrs Anton. “It’s got a dollar in it,” she said.

Father Udovic glanced at the Bishop. The Bishop was adjusting his cuffs. This was something he did at funerals and public gatherings. It meant that things had gone on too long. Father Udovic’s fingers were sticking to the envelope. He still couldn’t believe it. “Feels like there’s more than that,” he said.

“I wrapped it up good in paper.”

“You didn’t write a letter or anything?”

“Was I supposed to?”

Father Udovic came down on her. “You were supposed to do what everybody else did. You were supposed to use the envelopes we had printed up for the purpose.” He went back a few steps in his mind. “You told Monsignor Renton what was in the envelope?”

“Yes.”

“Did you tell him how much?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“
He
didn’t ask me.”

And
he
didn’t have to, thought Father Udovic. One look at Mrs Anton and Monsignor Renton would know. Parish priests got to know such things. They were like weight-guessers, for whom it was only a question of ounces. Monsignor Renton shouldn’t have passed Mrs Anton on. He had opposed the plan to personalize Peter’s Pence, but who would have thought he’d go to such lengths to get even with Father Udovic? It was sabotage. Father Udovic held out the envelope and pointed to the
Personal
on it. “What do you mean by that?” Here was where the creatures of his dreams had always gone away. He leaned forward for the answer.

Mrs Anton leaned forward to give it. “I mean I don’t want somebody else takin’ all the credit with the Holy Father!”

Father Udovic sank back. It had been bad before, when she’d ignored him, but now it was worse. She was attacking the Bishop. If there were only a way to
prove
she was out of her mind, if only she’d say something that would make all her remarks acceptable in retrospect . . . “How’s the Holy Father gonna know who this dollar came from if you didn’t write anything?”

“I wrote my name and address on it. In ink.”

“All right, Father,” said the Bishop. He stood up and almost went out of the room before he stopped and looked back at Mrs Anton. “Why don’t you send it by regular mail?”

“He’d never see it! That’s why! Some flunky’d get hold of it! Same as here! Oh, don’t I know!”

The Bishop walked out, leaving them together—with the envelope.

In the next few moments, although Father Udovic knew he had an obligation to instruct Mrs Anton, and had the text for it—“When thou dost an alms-deed, sound not a trumpet before thee”—he despaired. He realized that they had needed each other to arrive at their sorry state. It seemed to him, sitting there saying nothing, that they saw each other as two people who’d sinned together on earth might see each other in hell, unchastened even then, only blaming each other for what had happened.

I HAD SPENT most of the afternoon mousing—a matter of sport with me and certainly not of diet—in the sunburnt fields that begin at our back door and continue hundreds of miles into the Dakotas. I gradually gave up the idea of hunting, the grasshoppers convincing me that there was no percentage in stealth. Even to doze was difficult, under such conditions, but I must have managed it. At least I was late coming to dinner, and so my introduction to the two missionaries took place at table. They were surprised, as most visitors are, to see me take the chair at Father Malt’s right.

Father Malt, breaking off the conversation (if it could be called that), was his usual dear old self. “Fathers,” he said, “meet Fritz.”

I gave the newcomers the first good look that invariably tells me whether or not a person cares for cats. The mean old buck in charge of the team did not like me, I could see, and would bear watching. The other one obviously did like me, but he did not appear to be long enough from the seminary to matter. I felt that I had broken something less than even here.

“My assistant,” said Father Malt, meaning me, and thus unconsciously dealing out our fat friend at the other end of the table. Poor Burner! There was a time when, thinking of him, as I did now, as the enemy, I could have convinced myself I meant something else. But he
is
the enemy, and I was right from the beginning, when it could only have been instinct that told me how much he hated me even while trying (in his fashion!) to be friendly. (I believe his prejudice to be acquired rather than congenital, and very likely, at this stage, confined to me, not to cats as a class—there
is
that in his favor. I intend to be fair about this if it kills me.)

My observations of humanity incline me to believe that one of us—Burner or I—must ultimately prevail over the other. For myself, I should not fear if this were a battle to be won on the solid ground of Father Malt’s affections. But the old man grows older, the grave beckons to him ahead, and with Burner pushing him from behind, how long can he last? Which is to say: How long can
I
last? Unfortunately, it is naked power that counts most in any rectory, and as things stand now, I am safe only so long as Father Malt retains it here. Could I—this impossible thought is often with me now—could I effect a reconciliation and alliance with Father Burner? Impossible! Yes, doubtless. But the question better asked is:
How
impossible? (Lord knows I would not inflict this line of reasoning upon myself if I did not hold with the rumors that Father Burner will be the one to succeed to the pastorate.) For I do like it here. It is not at all in my nature to forgive and forget, certainly not as regards Father Burner, but it is in my nature to come to terms (much as nations do) when necessary, and in this solution there need not be a drop of good will. No dog can make that statement, or take the consequences, which I understand are most serious, in the world to come. Shifts and ententes. There is something fatal about the vocation of favorite, but it is the only one that suits me, and, all things considered—to dig I am not able, to beg I am ashamed—the rewards are adequate.

“We go through Chicago all the time,” said the boss missionary, who seemed to be returning to a point he had reached when I entered. I knew Father Malt would be off that evening for a convention in Chicago. The missionaries, who would fill in for him and conduct forty hours’ devotion on the side, belonged to an order just getting started in the diocese and were anxious to make a good impression. For the present, at least, as a kind of special introductory offer, they could be had dirt-cheap. Thanks to them, pastors who’d never been able to get away had got a taste of Florida last winter.

“Sometimes we stay over in Chicago,” bubbled the young missionary. He was like a rookie ballplayer who hadn’t made many road trips.

“We’ve got a house there,” said the first, whose name in religion, as they say, was—so help me—Philbert. Later, Father Burner would get around it by calling him by his surname. Father Malt was the sort who wouldn’t see anything funny about “Philbert,” but it would be too much to expect him to remember such a name.

“What kind of a house?” asked Father Malt. He held up his hearing aid and waited for clarification.

Father Philbert replied in a shout, “The Order owns
a house
there!”

Father Malt fingered his hearing aid.

Father Burner sought to interpret for Father Philbert. “I think, Father, he wants to know what it’s made out of.”

“Red brick—it’s red brick,” bellowed Father Philbert.

“
My
house is red brick,” said Father Malt.

“I
noticed
that,” said Father Philbert.

Father Malt shoved the hearing aid at him.

“I know it,” said Father Philbert, shouting again.

Father Malt nodded and fed me a morsel of fish. Even for a Friday, it wasn’t much of a meal. I would not have been sorry to see this housekeeper go.

“All right, all right,” said Father Burner to the figure lurking behind the door and waiting for him, always the last one, to finish. “She stands and looks in at you through the crack,” he beefed. “Makes you feel like a condemned man.” The housekeeper came into the room, and he addressed the young missionary (Burner was a great one for questioning the young): “Ever read any books by this fella Koestler, Father?”

“The Jesuit?” the young one asked.

“Hell, no, he’s some kind of a writer. I know the man you mean, though. Spells his name different. Wrote a book—apologetics.”

“That’s the one. Very—”

“Dull.”

“Well . . .”

“This other fella’s not bad. He’s a writer who’s ahead of his time—about fifteen minutes. Good on jails and concentration camps. You’d think he was born in one if you ever read his books.” Father Burner regarded the young missionary with absolute indifference. “But you didn’t.”

“No. Is he a Catholic?” inquired the young one.

“He’s an Austrian or something.”

“Oh.”

The housekeeper removed the plates and passed the dessert around. When she came to Father Burner, he asked her privately, “What is it?”

“Pudding,” she said, not whispering, as he would have liked.

“
Bread
pudding?” Now he was threatening her.

“Yes, Father.”

Father Burner shuddered and announced to everybody, “No dessert for me.” When the housekeeper had retired into the kitchen, he said, “Sometimes I think he got her from a hospital and sometimes, Father, I think she came from one of
your
fine institutions”—this to the young missionary.

Father Philbert, however, was the one to see the joke, and he laughed.

“My God,” said Father Burner, growing bolder, “I’ll never forget the time I stayed at your house in Louisville. If I hadn’t been there for just a day—for the Derby, in fact—I’d have gone to Rome about it. I think I’ve had better meals here.”

At the other end of the table, Father Malt, who could not have heard a word, suddenly blinked and smiled; the missionaries looked at him for some comment, in vain.

“He doesn’t hear me,” said Father Burner. “Besides, I think he’s listening to the news.”

“I didn’t realize it was a radio too,” said the young missionary.

“Oh, hell, yes.”

“I think he’s pulling your leg,” said Father Philbert.

“Well, I thought so,” said the young missionary ruefully.

“It’s an idea,” said Father Burner. Then in earnest to Father Philbert, whom he’d really been working around to all the time—the young one was decidedly not his type—“You the one drivin’ that new Olds, Father?”

“It’s not mine, Father,” said Father Philbert with a meekness that would have been hard to take if he’d meant it. Father Burner understood him perfectly, however, and I thought they were two persons who would get to know each other a lot better.

“Nice job. They say it compares with the Cad in power. What do you call that color—oxford or clerical gray?”

“I really couldn’t say, Father. It’s my brother’s. He’s a layman in Minneapolis—St Stephen’s parish. He loaned it to me for this little trip.”