The Bishop's Man Read online

  “Yes,” I replied.

  He laughed, shaking his head. “You know what I mean, then. But don’t worry. It’ll all work to your advantage some fine day. Monsignor MacAskill? Nice ring to it, don’t you think?”

  But what would Mullins have thought if he knew what happened to me just that morning? Walking through the mall, fighting the tide of seasonal hysteria, I noticed a young woman approaching through the mob of shoppers. Our eyes met only briefly. But I knew her right away. She flushed suddenly and looked away and walked quickly by. She had a child by the hand. He was staring back at me as she tugged him onward. I realized I was caught in a kind of paralysis. Just standing there. I walked on, flushed and shaky, no longer sure why I was there. I happened to be near the liquor store, so I went in.

  The liquor store clerk seemed to know me, and there was something familiar about his face, too. The name eluded me.

  “You grew up out on the Long Stretch, didn’t you?”

  “Yes, I did.”

  “I knew the Gillises there. You aren’t related to them?”

  “No. They were neighbours.”

  “It’s a pretty common name around here, Gillis. One of them just moved home from away.”

  “Sextus.”

  “You know him?”

  “Yes.”

  “Quite the cat, that Sextus.”

  “I suppose.”

  The woman and the child were waiting as I left, the bag of liquor clinking in my hand.

  She had her arms folded tightly across her chest. Her eyes were wide and dry, but her lips were contracted in a small, tight pucker, presumably to keep the lower lip from trembling. Head cocked to one side.

  She is no longer pretty, I thought, her features eroded by the life that has happened to her since—what year was it?—just after Honduras. Was it ’77 or ’78? And then I remembered the priest’s name and that I’d never known hers, even then. Life is full of temporary absences, I think I told her.

  “When I realized that he wasn’t going to come back from where you sent him, I knew I had to give the baby up,” she said. “I thought you’d want to know that.”

  I stared at the little boy.

  “That’s my sister’s,” she said. “He’s only five.” And then: “Did you really think …? For God’s sake, my baby would be almost sixteen now.” She was staring at me, some of the wildness gone.

  “I’m sorry. Time goes by so—”

  “That’s pathetic,” she said.

  And then she just turned and walked away, the small boy trotting after her.

  Remembered prayers hum in my head in times like these, times of troubled idleness. The absence of external stimulation leaves a vacuum to be filled by memory and imagination. We hear the inner voices when there is no sound but consciousness. I always try to drown them out with prayer. Old remembered formulas, words fused by repetition into rhythmic stanzas, a kind of poetry if nothing else.

  The troubled mind drifts like snow, rearranging banks of memory.

  What would our father think if he could see the old place now? The kitchen is a sunny yellow. There are oriental carpets on the floor. Effie’s old bedroom, just off the kitchen, is now an office. There is a rustic harvest table and a chair. A filing cabinet. Her books and manuscripts, brought in boxes from the city, were piled helter-skelter when she was there last summer.

  One day I asked her: What about the ghosts? What about the memories?

  “You know as well as I do,” she replied with that inquiring smile that lights her face.

  “I admire your strength,” I said.

  “We get strength from resistance. You must know that. Fighting to survive makes us invincible. If, of course, we manage to survive.” She touched my cheek. “What’s the matter? You look as though you’re going to cry.”

  “Get away with you,” I said. “Me cry?”

  Wind and frost and moisture on the windows form exquisite patterns like lace, etched crystal ferns with human facial details. The rising storm batters the hypnotic silence, loosening the fragments of a lifetime.

  I remember that the bishop’s call in 1980 was unexpected. He wanted a meeting, at the palace. It was to discuss an urgent matter of some delicacy. Another pregnant housekeeper, I assumed. Or some fool wanting to get married. There’s something unstable about my generation of priests. Maybe it was the liberating notions of John XXIII, the mighty humanist. He opened the doors to the romantics, to people with misty concepts of theology, infused with adolescent impulses about love. My seminary class was crawling with them. Mystical flower children with mixed-up notions about charity and holiness, confusing carnal impulses with altruism. Destined for disaster. You could smell it, but you couldn’t do a thing about it. They’re the ones who started packing up and leaving in the seventies. Marrying and breeding like the good Catholics they are.

  But I knew right away when I arrived at the palace that it was more serious than that. You could see it in the old man’s face.

  After he told me, I insisted that I had no stomach for what he was talking about or what he wanted me to do. Surely he could remember why he banished me to the Third World.

  “God damn it, you weren’t banished anywhere,” he said, face flushed. “I want you to get off that kick once and for all.” He looked away, suddenly self-conscious about swearing.

  I just sat and waited. Point made.

  The priest in question was a former classmate at Holy Heart. The bishop told me I was the one man he had with the guts to handle this.

  “Guts?” I said.

  “It’s one of the things you can be sure you have. Guts, balls. Call it what you want to.”

  I’d never heard him speak like this.

  “You’ve got what it takes,” he said, jabbing my stomach with his forefinger. “I can spot a strong man a mile away.”

  “Plus I’ve got the practical experience. Isn’t that what this is all about?”

  “I don’t know what you’re referring to.” He seemed to mean it.

  “Surely you remember—”

  “This is different.”

  “How—”

  “You were wrong that time. Dead, dead wrong. Let’s move on. This is an entirely different situation.”

  “What’s different?”

  “Some layman has complained. Someone’s trying to make trouble.”

  “Okay,” I said wearily. “What is it I’m supposed to do?”

  “First, you’ll have to get the family onside. Convince them that we’re taking it seriously and that appropriate measures will follow. That’s mainly what they need to know. That we’re going to take decisive action.”

  “What kind of action?”

  “We’ll figure that out as we go along. It isn’t something for which we have a protocol. And, please God, this isn’t something we’ll ever have to face again.”

  I remember asking myself: Does he really believe that? Does he really think that I was wrong?

  Canon law is clear, the bishop said. “Keep your eye on the ball.”

  You have to think of them as strangers, he said before I left his place that night. They’ll use anything. Collegiality. The brotherhood of the cloth. Just remember, they’re damaged and they’re desperate, but you have your job to do.

  It must have been the expression in his eyes that reminded me of Calero, the policeman in Honduras. A former soldier, talking about assassination with impressive authority. Smiling softly, but with a terrifying intensity in the eyes. Never hesitate, Calero said. Never make eye contact, like I’m doing now. Say nothing. Walk up quickly. Do it. Drop your weapon. Walk away. You have to close your heart and seal it off from the deed. His eyes were glittering. This will be helpful to know in many situations. Getting rid of a bad employee or a troublesome girlfriend or eliminating a dangerous enemy. Same thing. He smiled.

  And I remembered how Alfonso left the room, saying nothing.

  “What’s wrong with him?” Calero asked.

  I shrugged.

&
nbsp; He laughed. “It isn’t really killing. It’s just rescheduling. We all die someday.”

  The bishop said: “Don’t hesitate to use the trappings of authority. Wear everything—black suit, stock and collar. The chasuble if necessary. Hang the crucifix around your neck. Of course, I’m joking. But draw attention to the institution. And don’t forget: it’s the integrity of the institution that’s at stake. Something larger and more important than all or any of us.”

  One look at the man who met me at the door on that first awkward visit to the family in question instantly convinced me that the bishop’s cautions were correct. He was large through the shoulders, big-bellied, a heavy-equipment operator according to the file. Obviously hostile. Anticipating an encounter with another potential pervert, maybe. But in the actual presence of the cloth the lines on his weather-beaten face soon softened and rearranged themselves in a mask of pain and confusion.

  “Come in,” he said.

  The boy was in the living room with his mother, who was smoking a cigarette, her face a mask of contempt.

  “When did it happen?” I asked.

  His father answered. “It was about five years ago. When he was serving on the altar. We never suspected anything at the time. It only came out recently. At school, with the guidance counsellor.”

  “How old were you?” I asked the boy directly.

  “He was only eleven friggin’ years old,” the mother said.

  “You probably know the guy,” the father said. “He’d be about your age.”

  “Would you be comfortable telling me what happened?” I asked gently, ignoring the parents.

  The boy shrugged, blushed slightly.

  “Go ahead,” the father said, lighting a cigarette.

  “He came on to me,” the boy said. “We were just sitting there talking about something. Close together like. Then he started talking about sex things. Telling me I shouldn’t feel bad about getting … you know. And that even priests get them sometimes. And he took my hand to show me and I never thought anything of it. He was a priest, right? Then the first thing I knew he was—”

  I could feel a liquid substance stirring in my gut.

  The father interrupted. “I always knew there was something funny about that one. The way he always had young fellas around the glebe. Giving them stuff. Lending them the car even. Now I hear he even let them drink.”

  “Just beer,” the boy said.

  “He’d offer them liquor,” the father said.

  “Can you tell me how far this went?” I asked. “He took your hand.”

  “I’d rather not,” the boy said, looking nervously at his father.

  “I got him to write it down.” The father handed me a thick envelope. “This thing went on for quite a while. It’s all here.”

  “That’s good,” I said. “I’ll read it. We can talk again. In the meantime—”

  “He wanted to go to the cops,” the father said. “But I put a stop to that. Figured there wouldn’t be much point. Cops going after a priest? Not likely, eh. Figured the bishop would be best to handle this.”

  “You did the right thing,” I said.

  “I want that bastard in jail,” the boy blurted, eyes suddenly full of tears.

  “You shut your mouth,” his father said quickly. “He’s still a priest.”

  I sat for a long moment, head down, hands clasped before my face. Fighting the embarrassment and nausea. The room was silent. Help me here, I was thinking. Help me find the words and the wisdom to navigate through this. Then I felt the anger swelling within me, imagining the fool who exposed himself and all of us to this potentially lethal awkwardness. And an unexpected wave of resentment directed at the whining adolescent in front of me, dredging up this garbage to deflect God knew what crisis in his own miserable life.

  “In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit,” I said, crossing myself.

  Father, mother and son instantly lowered their faces and clasped hands in front of themselves.

  “Lord, comfort us in this time of pain and sorrow. And grant us the wisdom to conduct ourselves in a spirit of healing and justice.”

  We sat like that for a full half minute. I stood then, clutching the damning envelope, and approached the boy, reached out and shook his hand. “I’ll read this. It was wise to put it in writing. But you should know that I am in no doubt, no doubt at all, about the truth of what you’re telling me. I believe you. The bishop will know of this. Corrective measures will be taken. There really isn’t anything the police can contribute at this point, but if that changes, I promise you we will spare no effort to ensure that something like this never happens again.”

  “I wasn’t the only one,” the boy said.

  “Never mind,” said his father. “Father just told us that he’s going to deal with it.”

  “God bless you all,” I said, with a brief gesture of benediction.

  At the door, the man confided that the boy was going through some difficult times. Doing badly in school. They recently found some pills in his coat pocket. Painkillers, it turned out. Stolen from his grandma, who has brain cancer. They’d always been an open family, talking things through. Figured they’d deal with this head-on. That’s when the stories about the priest surfaced.

  “I believe him,” the father said. “But I think it’s all a part of something bigger.”

  I agreed.

  “They’re right,” I later told the bishop. “I think something major happened.”

  “I was always leery of that fellow,” the bishop said. “Always organizing ‘youth’ activities away from the parish. Big in sports.

  What do you think they’ll do?”

  “I don’t think they’ll do anything. What about the letter?” “I’ll take care of it. And what about buddy? What should we do about him?”

  “You tell me.”

  “We’ll get rid of him,” he said. “How?”

  “I’ll think of something. You’ve done your thing for now.” “For now?”

  “Best if it’s you who breaks the news to him. You’re a contemporary, I believe?”

  Walking back to campus through the silent town, I was asking myself: How could I not have known? We were in the seminary together. I’d seen him a dozen times since ordination. Was I blind? Or did the priesthood change him? The bishop said he was glad that I was shocked. A good sign, he called it.

  I should have asked him: why was it a good thing to be shocked this time? The last time I was shocked, he sent me away. And then I remembered what I told the family, about justice. Something about healing and justice.

  You debased the word, I told myself. What kind of priest have you become?

  “So what’s new at church?” my father asked.

  A flat question, not mocking. He was holding a cup of tea before his face, elbow on the table. It was when he’d move the cup to his lips I’d see the trembling.

  “I talked with Father after Mass.”

  “Go ‘way with you. Not about me, I hope.” When he laughed, tea dribbled from the corner of his mouth.

  “About after I graduate, next year.”

  “Ah, yes. You really think you’ll graduate?”

  “Where in Scotland was my mother from?” I asked, and his face clouded over.

  “Who wants to know?”

  “I need to know. I need her baptism certificate. And I need to know where you were born and baptized. And when. Plus your parents’ names.”

  He looked away. “So why would the priest be interested in the family tree?” he said, staring out.

  “I need to know.”

  He shrugged. “I got a bible upstairs. They gave it to your mother. When she left home over in the old country. I’ll look for it. I think there’s a page of names.”

  “Really?”

  “As for me …” He laughed. “Well. That might take a bit more work.”

  “You said you were brought up. Adopted.”

  He looked at me sharply, as if about to speak. T
hen looked away. Sipped shakily from the cup, put it down. Began to roll a cigarette.

  “So where were you born?” I persisted.

  He sighed. “Out back,” he said after a long pause.

  “Out back where?”

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  “What if it does?”

  “Why would it?”

  “I think I want to be a priest.”

  “A what?”

  “They need to know. There must be records for adoptions.”

  He laughed. “Records o’ what? She gave me up. I never saw her again. I couldn’t tell you what she looked like. They used to say, ‘He never had a mother. His aunt had him.’ Comical, eh? That’s what I put up with.”

  “But—”

  “You just tell whoever wants to know it’s none of their g.d. business.”

  “You told me once your mother came from some place called Hawthorne.”

  “I told you that?” I expected anger, but the eyes were sad.

  I just stared.

  He stood up, looked away, then headed for the door. Just before he closed it, he turned and said: “You’ll never be a priest.”

  I just stared.

  “They don’t let sons of bastards in the priesthood.”

  I asked Alfonso: Why did you become a priest?

  Because I’m a coward, he said.

  He could see the confusion in my face.

  The priesthood was my disguise, he said. My life insurance.

  But unfortunately, I had this urge to do something.

  What was the alternative?

  He laughed.

  An AK-47 maybe?

  The bishop’s words came back: They’re desperate men. They’ll use anything. The policeman in Honduras made it clear: it should be swift and clean. And that was how I did it. I remember how his face lit up when he saw me standing on the doorstep. His old classmate from Holy Heart. I didn’t smile. Once inside, I didn’t hesitate.