The Stories of J.F. Powers (New York Review Books Classics) (42 page)

The Bishop, laying down his soup spoon, sat gazing out the window, for which he was again grateful. It was getting dark. The world seen from a train always looked sadder then. Indiana. Ohio next, but he wouldn’t see it. Pennsylvania, perhaps, in the early morning, if he didn’t sleep well.

“I see what you mean,” he heard the young woman saying, “but I just charge it up to expenses.”

“Ah, ha,” said Father Early. “Then you don’t see what I mean.”

“Oh, don’t I? Well, it’s not important. And
please
—don’t explain.”

The Bishop, coloring, heard nothing from Father Early and thanked God for that. They had been coming to this, or something like it, inevitably they had. And again the Bishop suffered the thought that the couple was associating him with Father Early.

When he had served dessert across the table, the waiter addressed himself to Father Early. “As far as I’m concerned, sir, you’re right,” he said, and moved off.

The young woman, watching the waiter go, said, “He can’t do that to me.”

Airily, Father Early was saying, “And this time tomorrow we’ll be on our way to Europe.”

The Bishop was afraid the conversation would lapse entirely—which might have been the best thing for it in the long run—but the young man was nodding.

“Will this be your first trip?” asked the young woman. She sounded as though she thought it would be.

“My fifth, God willing,” Father Early said. “I don’t mean that as a commentary on the boat we’re taking. Only as a little reminder to myself that we’re all of us hanging by a thread here, only a heart’s beat from eternity. Which doesn’t mean we shouldn’t do our best while here. On the contrary. Some people think Catholics oppose progress here below. Look on your garbage can and what do you see? Galvanized. Galvan was a Catholic. Look on your light bulb. Watts. Watt was a Catholic. The Church never harmed Galileo.”

Father Early, as if to see how he was doing, turned to the Bishop. The Bishop, however, was dining with his reflection in the window. He had displayed a spark of interest when Father Early began to talk of the trip, believing there was to be a change of subject matter, but Father Early had tricked him.

“And how long in Rome?” asked the young woman.

“Only two days. Some members of the group intend to stay longer, but they won’t return with me. Two days doesn’t seem long enough, does it? Well, I can’t say that I care for Rome. I didn’t feel at home there, or anywhere on the Continent. We’ll have two good weeks in the British Isles.”

“Some people don’t travel to feel at home,” said the young woman.

To this Father Early replied, “Ireland first and then England. It may interest you to know that about half of the people in the group are carrying the complete works of Shakespeare. I’m hoping the rest of the group will manage to secure copies of the plays and read them before we visit Stratford.”

“It sounds like a large order,” said the young woman.

“Paperback editions are to be had everywhere,” Father Early said with enthusiasm. “By the way, what book would you want if you were shipwrecked on a desert island?”

Apparently the question had novelty for the young man. “That’s a hard one,” he said.

“Indeed it is. Chesterton, one of the great Catholic writers, said he’d like a manual of shipbuilding, but I don’t consider that a serious answer to the question. I’ll make it two books because, of course, you’d want the Bible. Some people think Catholics don’t read the Bible. But who preserved Scripture in the Dark Ages? Holy monks. Now what do you say? No. Ladies first.”

“I think I’d like that book on shipbuilding,” said the young woman.

Father Early smiled. “And you, sir?”

“Shakespeare, I guess.”

“I was hoping you’d say that.”

Then the Bishop heard the young woman inquiring:

“Shakespeare wasn’t a Catholic, was he?”

The Bishop reached for his glass of water, and saw Father Early observing a moment of down-staring silence. When he spoke his voice was deficient. “As a matter of fact, we don’t know. Arguments both ways. But we just don’t know. Perhaps it’s better that way,” he said, and that was all he said. At last he was eating his dinner.

When the young couple rose to leave, the Bishop, who had been waiting for this moment, turned in time to see the young man almost carry out Father Early’s strict counsel against tipping. With one look, however, the young woman prevailed over him. The waiter came at once and removed the tip. With difficulty, the Bishop put down the urge to comment. He wanted to say that he believed people should do what they could do, little though it might be, and shouldn’t be asked to attempt what was obviously beyond them. The young woman, who probably thought Father Early was just tight, was better off than the young man.

After the waiter came and went again, Father Early sat back and said, “I’m always being surprised by the capacity ordinary people have for sacrifice.”

The Bishop swallowed what—again—would have been his comment. Evidently Father Early was forgetting about the young man.

“Thanks for looking after the Doyles. I would’ve asked you myself but I was in the baggage car. Someone wanted me to say hello to a dog that’s going to South Bend. No trouble, were they? What’d you see?”

The Bishop couldn’t bring himself to answer either question. “It’s hard to know what other people want to do,” he said. “They might’ve had a better guide.”

“I can tell you they enjoyed your company, Bishop.”

“Oh?” The Bishop, though touched, had a terrible vision of himself doing the capitals of the world with the Doyles.

Father Early handed the Bishop a cigar. “Joe Quirke keeps me well supplied with these,” he said, nodding to a beefy middle-aged man two tables away who looked pleased at having caught Father Early’s eye. “I believe you know him.”

“I met him,” the Bishop said, making a distinction. Mr Quirke had sat down next to him in the club car before dinner, taken up a magazine, put it down after a minute, and offered to buy the Bishop a drink. When the Bishop (who’d been about to order one) refused, Mr Quirke had apparently taken him for a teetotaler with a past. He said he’d had a little problem until Father Early got hold of him.

Father Early was discussing the youth eating with Mr Quirke. “Glenn’s been in a little trouble at home—and at school. Three schools, I believe. Good family. I have his father’s permission to leave him with the Christian Brothers in Ireland, if they’ll have him.”

When Glenn got up from the table, the Bishop decided he didn’t like the look of him. Glenn was short-haired, long-legged, a Doberman pinscher of a boy. He loped out of the diner, followed by Mr Quirke.

Two problems, thought the Bishop, getting ready to happen—and doubtless there were more of them in the group. Miss Culhane, in her fashion, could make trouble.

“There’s something I’d like to discuss with you, Bishop.”

The Bishop stiffened. Now it was coming, he feared, the all-out attempt to recruit him.

Father Early was looking across the table, at the empty places there. “You realize they’d been drinking?”

The Bishop refused to comment.
Now what?

“It wouldn’t surprise me if they met on this train.”

“Yes, well . . .”

“Bishop, in my opinion, the boy is or has been a practicing Catholic.”

In the Bishop’s opinion, it was none of Father Early’s business. He knew what Father Early was getting at, and he didn’t like it. Father Early was thinking of taking on more trouble.

“I believe the boy’s in danger,” Father Early said. “Real danger.”

The Bishop opened his mouth to tell Father Early off, but not much came out. “I wouldn’t call him a boy.” The Bishop felt that Father Early had expected something of the sort from him, nothing, and no support. Father Early had definitely gone into one of his silences. The Bishop, fussing with his cuffs, suddenly reached, but Father Early beat him to the checks.

Father Early complimented the waiter on the service and food, rewarding him with golden words.

The Bishop was going to leave a tip, to be on the safe side, but apparently the waiter was as good as his word. They left the diner in the blaze of his hospitality.

The Bishop had expected to be asked where in New York he’d be saying Mass in the morning, but when they arrived at their doors, Father Early smiled and put out his hand. It certainly looked like good-bye.

They shook hands.

And then, suddenly, Father Early was on his knees, his head bowed and waiting for the Bishop’s blessing.

His mind was full of the day and he was afraid he was in for one of those nights he’d had on trains before. He kept looking at his watch in the dark, listening for sounds of activity next door, and finally he admitted to himself that he was waiting for Father Early to come in. So he gave Father Early until midnight—and then he got dressed and went out to look for him.

Up ahead he saw Glenn step into the corridor from an end room and go around the corner. The Bishop prepared to say hello. But when he was about to pass, the atmosphere filled up with cigarette smoke. The Bishop hurried through it, unrecognized, he hoped, considering the lateness of the hour and the significance of another visit to the club car, as it might appear to Glenn, who could have observed him there earlier in the evening.

The club car was empty except for a man with a magazine in the middle of the car, the waiter serving him a drink, and the young man and Father Early at the tail end of the train, seated on a sofa facing upon the tracks. The Bishop advanced with difficulty to the rear. The train was traveling too fast.

Father Early glanced around. He moved over on the sofa to make room for the Bishop, and had the young man move. The Bishop sat down beside the young man, who was now in the middle.

“One I went to—we’re talking about fairs, Bishop—had an educated donkey, as the fellow called it. This donkey could tell one color from another—knew them all by name. The fellow had these paddles, you’ve seen them, painted different colors. Red, green, blue, brown, black, orange, yellow, white—oh, all colors . . .”

The Bishop, from the tone of this, sensed that nothing had been resolved and that Father Early’s objective was to keep the young man up all night with him. It was a siege.

“The fellow would say, ‘Now, Trixie’—I remember the little donkey’s name. You might’ve seen her at some time.”

The young man shook his head.

“‘Now, Trixie,’ the fellow would say, ‘bring me the yellow paddle,’ and that’s what she’d do. She’d go to the rack, where all the paddles were hanging, pick out the yellow one, and carry it to the fellow. Did it with her teeth, of course. Then the fellow would say, ‘Trixie, bring me the green paddle.’”

“And she brought the green one,” said the young man patiently.

“That’s right. The fellow would say, ‘Now, Trixie, bring me the paddles that are the colors of the flag.’” Father Early addressed the Bishop: “Red, white, and blue.”

“Yes,” said the Bishop. What an intricate instrument for good a simple man could be! Perhaps Father Early was only a fool, a ward of heaven, not subject to the usual penalties for meddling. No, it was zeal, and people, however far gone, still expected it from a man of God. But, even so, Father Early ought to be more careful, humbler before the mystery of iniquity. And still . . .

“My, that was a nice little animal, that Trixie.” Father Early paused, giving his attention to the signal lights blinking down the tracks, and continued. “Red, green, all colors. Most fairs have little to recommend them. Some fairs, however, are worthwhile.” Father Early stood up. “I’ll be right back,” he said, and went to the lavatory.

The Bishop was about to say something—to keep the ball rolling—when the young man got up and left, without a word.

The Bishop sat where he was until he heard the lavatory door open and shut. Then he got up to meet Father Early. Father Early looked beyond the Bishop, toward the place where the young man had been, and then at the Bishop. He didn’t appear to blame the Bishop at all. Nothing was said.

They walked in the direction from which Father Early had just come. The Bishop thought they were calling it a day, but Father Early was onto something else, trying the waiter on baseball.

“Good night, Father.”

“Oh?” said Father Early, as if he’d expected the Bishop to stick around for it.

“Good night, Father.” The Bishop had a feeling that baseball wouldn’t last, that the sermon on tipping was due again.

“Good night, Bishop.”

The Bishop moved off comically, as the train made up for lost time. Entering his Pullman car, he saw the young man, who must have been kept waiting, disappear into the room Glenn had come out of earlier.

The Bishop slept well that night, after all, but not before he thought of Father Early still out there, on his feet and trying, which was what counted in the sight of God, not success.
Thinkest thou that I cannot ask my Father, and he will give me presently more than twelve legions of angels?

“Would you like me to run through these names with you, Bishop, or do you want to familiarize yourself with the people as we go along?”

“I’d prefer that, I think. And I wish you’d keep the list, Miss Culhane.”

“I don’t think Father Early would want you to be without it, Bishop.”

“No? Very well, I’ll keep it then.”

ON THE DAY the Daviccis moved into their house, Ethel was visited by a Welcome Wagon hostess bearing small gifts from local merchants, but after that by nobody for three weeks, only Ralph’s relatives and door-to-door salesmen. And then Mrs Hancock came smiling. They sat on the matching green chairs which glinted with threads of what appeared to be gold. In the picture window, the overstimulated plants grew wild in pots.

Mrs Hancock had guessed right about Ethel and Ralph, that they were newlyweds. “Am I right in thinking you’re of Swedish descent, Mrs Davicky? You, I mean?”

Ethel smiled, as if taking a compliment, and said nothing.

“I only ask because so many people in the neighborhood are. I’m not, myself,” said Mrs Hancock. She was unnaturally pink, with tinted blue hair. Her own sharp-looking teeth were transparent at the tips. “But you’re so fair.”