This Magnificent Desolation (7 page)

102:46:06 DUKE: Roger, Twan … Tranquility. We copy you on the ground. You got a bunch of guys about to turn blue. We're breathing again. Thanks a lot
.

102:46:16 ALDRIN: Thank you
.

And when Duncan whispers JFK's words, he might have been praying: Dear Lord,
as we set sail, we ask God's blessing on the most hazardous
and dangerous and greatest adventure on which man has ever embarked
. Amen.

He hears Billy's words clamoring in his head again:
They never made it. They never made it off the moon. The moon jumper failed to blast off and they were left stuck there. They all died
. He cannot possibly believe it is true even as he stares up into the night sky and imagines that he sees the small dark shapes of the two men splayed and bent aslant the surface of the moon. But they came home, didn't they? They must have. Mustn't they?

July 1981

A haunting music reverberates off the stone and echoes in the stairwells as Duncan enters the center hall from the chapel, and with its shifting, fractured quality, it takes him a moment to recognize the voice of Elvis. Rising and then falling, the song materializes fully and then is gone. Duncan walks the halls, moving from room to room, searching for its source.

From Father Toibin's room comes the faint sound of music, and when Duncan passes and finds the door partly ajar, he pauses. A thin slant of light spills across the hallway. A familiar crooning music plays upon a mahogany upright turntable that stands varnished and gleaming in the corner of the room. There is the scent of tobacco and of age—a comforting, spicy, pleasant smell of polished wood floors, ancient carpets, beeswax, and tallow.

Father Toibin's voice calls from the other side of the door, where
Duncan cannot see him: Come in, Duncan, come in. The door is open and I've just made tea.

Duncan pushes against the door and it swings wide slowly. A cat blinks its green eyes at him lazily from its perch upon a red velvet chair covered with its white and black hairs. There is also a red velvet sofa badly in need of new upholstery and above this is a painting of the San Damiano Crucifix, from which, the Franciscans believe, God spoke to St. Francis of Assisi almost eight hundred years ago. From dark wooden tables small lamps with aged, stained yellow paper shades cast their soft glow into the corners of the room.

Duncan closes his eyes to the warmth and to the sound of Elvis's voice and the Brothers' footsteps in the distant stairwells—a rhythm like gently falling rain—reminding him of the first time he opened his eyes after his sleep. The record is spinning on the turntable. The stylus lifts, the tone arm swings out and back, and then the stylus drops once more into the groove and the record begins from its first track. The haunting notes of “Blue Moon” tremble from the aged speakers.

Blue Moon
, he whispers and Father Toibin hears him as he emerges from the kitchen carrying a tea tray of clattering crockery.

You like it? This is one of the finest recordings of this song. Bill Black on bass and Scotty Moore on guitar. With the edge of the tray he pushes issues of
National Geographic
,
Time
magazine, and a dogeared copy of
The Collected Works of Douglas Graham Purdy: Tales of Horror and the Macabre
off a table and onto the floor, and then lays the tray down.

This is what I heard when I first woke up, Duncan says and points to the turntable. I heard this music in the sick room.

Father Toibin nods absently, gestures toward the sofa—Sit, Duncan, please sit—and takes a chair beside the cat. Oh, yes. Will you listen to that, such crooning would put a chanter to shame. He smiles, cocks his head to the side, and scratches idly at his bristles.

It's quite truly a divinely inspired piece of music, he says. And I don't think Elvis would have been afraid to admit that he was singing to God when he sang this.

On the far wall,
The Sacred Heart
with Christ baring his thorn-gouged heart imploringly, and beneath this, lining the baseboard, stacks of old, yellowed newspapers. Father Toibin follows Duncan's eyes and laughs. There you will find every
Minnesota Tribune
and
St. Paul Gazette
for the last twenty years, which is almost as long as I have been here. I really must put them in the compost.

I have trouble letting anything go, he says. It is one of my failings as a Capuchin, I believe, one among many. I ask God's forgiveness all the time, and—he raises a quizzical eyebrow—I think he understands.

From an ornate china teapot, Father Toibin pours steaming brown water into two large mugs and nods to himself. The Brothers that attend to the boys' sleeping quarters tell me of how terribly difficult it has been for you at times, he says. Have you talked to Dr. Mathias? You know that is what he is there for.

There are some things I'd rather not tell him, Duncan says. Is that okay?

Of course, Duncan. Of course.

Can I ask you something?

Yes, yes, yes, Father Toibin says, waving him on as he works to clear the table and his chair of papers, and then sits.

It's about the children who have died here. Do you suppose they all go to God when they die?

Father Toibin harrumphs, clutches at his teacup as brown water sloshes from its tilting rim. He takes a sip and grimaces, as if the liquid has burned his lips. From the campanile comes the sudden discordant ringing of bells and, frowning, Father Toibin glances at his watch. Brother Canice, he says softly, sighs and shakes his head, rubs violently at a point above his eyebrow as if it were causing him sudden and intense pain. For a moment he stares imploringly at Duncan,
wide-eyed and helpless, shakes his head in disbelief, and Duncan tries not to smile. Tonight in the kitchen he will tell Brother Canice that Father Toibin is very much taken with his bell ringing.

Well, Duncan, he says, as if trying to think about things other than the bells, children have died here, he says. I wouldn't tell you otherwise. And God has always taken them into his care. I remember how hard the year of that terrible blizzard was—many people died, not just children. And of course many children died aboard the Holiday Train. We weren't even able to break ground to bury the dead. They all remained in the charnel house until spring. And it was late coming that year. I remember the pickaxes they had to use on the ground, and there simply wasn't enough room. We buried them all together: mothers, fathers, daughters, and sons. The other children were all orphans. We buried them in the children's graveyard.

The monastery's record books say that an influenza epidemic took a dozen children in 1902, but still, the blizzard and the Holiday Train, well, it's hard to imagine worse than that. I'd never experienced anything like it. He shakes his head slowly, still unbelieving, and Duncan wonders what he sees upon the plains beyond the monastery's walls. Perhaps mechanized snowcats laden with the Holiday Train's dead rumbling over the snow-covered hills, or the shrouded figures of gravediggers hunched against the wind over their spades and pickaxes, or, at the end of spring, the pallbearers from the chapel carrying the small coffins containing the children from the charnel house to the grave.

I held so many of them during baptism, he says. And so many families begging me to baptize their children, their infants who had died before they could receive the Sacrament of Baptism. All of them so small they weighed next to nothing. The curtains sweep back and Father Toibin is holding up his hands, empty hands cradling the air. Next to nothing, he says again, and then: We baptize dead children with our tears and it is with our tears that they enter heaven.

He comes forward and touches Duncan, not without kindness,
on his arm. Enough of this morbidity, he says. That was a long time ago. He shakes his head. Children have died here, Duncan. Children will always die here. We hold them in God's care and yet they die. This is why we have the children's graveyard. This is why we offer up prayers at Mass. This is why we have faith in God and believe that they are all with him now.

I almost died too, didn't I? Dr. Matthias thinks that's why I can't remember things. Or at least it's a part of why.

You were very sick and we are blessed that you survived, that you are here now.

Duncan thinks of his mother in her coffin wrapped in white roots and her face turning toward him, the pupils of her eyes so large and blue he can see his own longing reflected in them.

Do you think my mother, he says, after she left me here, what do you think happened to her?

Father Toibin purses his lip and considers the question, as if he is weighing what to say, and at first Duncan thinks he will say nothing at all. The children of the Home know that this is the question you do not ask—it is sacrosanct and unwritten but the priests and Brothers will not talk about the children's parents.

Every so often, Father Toibin begins slowly, I used to get a letter from her. They stopped years ago, of course. He waves absently at the air, as if, Duncan thinks, all letters from parents eventually stop when they move on to their new lives and new families or when they simply die.

But she sent money when she could for your support. Even though she could not be a mother to you, Duncan, you were very much in her thoughts. I think, in leaving you here, she felt she was doing what was best.

Duncan looks at him. Instead of feeling pleasure and happiness at the unexpected news, he finds that he is suddenly numb; nausea rolls in his stomach and he fights to settle it.

Finally he says: Can I see her letters?

Father Toibin places his hand on the side of Duncan's head. Let me think about that, okay? I want you to understand that your mother made a choice a long time ago. We don't talk about those choices here and we don't talk about your parents because we don't want to instill the false hope that someday they may return. Sometimes we have to accept what is and then move on in life, otherwise we remain stuck and we fail to thrive. Everything we do here is with that in mind. If I do show you the letters, it will be under the condition that after reading them, you will be able to move on, yes?

Duncan feels the nausea in his stomach subsiding but places his hand there anyway. He wonders what the letters contain and whether or not he really wants to see them at all. Perhaps he should be content for his dreams, of her standing before the Festival of Lights Holiday Train in the snow, for the image of her resting peacefully in the ground.

The cat with the green eyes stretches upon the seat, shakes itself, and then jumps to the floor. Its uncut nails tap the floor as it makes its way out of the room.

It is time you were in bed, Duncan, Father Toibin says, and suddenly he seems very tired. His eyes are red-rimmed and his face pale. I've kept you here much too long.

Duncan whispers: Father, will I die here?

Father Toibin shakes his head and, suppressing a laugh, coughs into his hand. Again, such morbidity! You will not die here, Duncan. We're not a shop of horrors, you know. Besides, doesn't God have other plans for you? Aren't you meant to do something special out there in the world of the living?

It's the seventh game of the World Series and in the playing field beyond the children's graveyard, Father Toibin and three novitiates are umpiring the game. The New York Yankees and the Boston Red Sox are tied 4–4 in the top of the ninth and there are two outs. Billy steps to the plate—someone's folded T-shirt—and with his bat takes two large swipes at the air. He stomps the dirt, toes the T-shirt, and settles into his batting stance, a partial crouch with the bat tight against his shoulder. This is the sixth batter to the plate this inning, and they've already seen Reggie Jackson. A lanky kid with red hair moans at third base, raises his glove to his mouth, and shouts to Duncan, who's about to pitch: He can't be Jackson again.

Jackson's already been up, Duncan calls from the pitching mound, fifteen feet away. Jordan says you can't be Jackson again.

With difficulty Billy straightens his back, points to imaginary bleachers with his bat. I've changed the batting order. I've moved Reggie from third to eighth.

Duncan shakes his head. You've got to be someone else.

Oh, please, does it really matter? Julie shouts. She's standing in the long grass at the farthest edges of the field, wearing a large, tattered floppy straw sun hat that covers her eyes. Her hands are clasped behind her head in boredom. There are three other outfielders and one of them is sitting with his legs crossed Indian-style and flicking stones.

All right, Billy says. I'm Dave Winfield.

Duncan shakes his head again.

Fine. I'm—

Duncan hurls the ball at the center of the plate and Billy swivels his hips, grimacing, and with a loud crack drives the ball directly toward Julie. It strikes the ground and, whispering like a snake, quickly comes to a stop in the grass. Julie doesn't move and already Billy is on his way to second. Julie! the second baseman shouts. Pick up the ball! Pick up the ball!

Julie pouts, pushes the hat back on her head, and trudges to the ball. The other team is cheering.

Hearing the second baseman's shouts, Billy grins, and Duncan watches him, legs thumping up dust, tongue lolling from his mouth like a dog, and laughing. Carefully Billy rounds second, stumbling briefly so that Duncan starts toward him, and then gambols bow-legged around third, raising his hands in celebration, but the ball is sailing through the air in one sharp arc and the catcher has merely to reach out for it. He turns to his left and is waiting with the ball in his glove when Billy comes, tottering and wheezing, to a stop before him.

Goddamn shit! Billy says, and Father Toibin hollers for him to watch his mouth. The children look toward the outfield, where Julie is standing with her oversize leather glove on her hip.

This is the stupidest game I've ever played! she hollers. Is it over yet?