The Cloister Page 6

  “That was before, Saul,” Laurent said sadly.

  “ ‘Before,’ Jean-Marie? Before what?” When Laurent did not answer, Vedette said, “My friend, I asked you only for your informal reading of what I wrote. I would have welcomed your opinion. Instead, you spring this procedural embuscade, like a trap of the Inquisition.”

  “I had no choice,” Laurent explained. “You came to me because of my office. You were hoping for an institute symposium. You wanted the imprimatur. It was never going to happen. A decisive negation was required. And now you have it.”

  Vedette shook his head, mournfully. He made one last appeal. “Abelard powerfully lifted up the plight of Jews of his own day. There’s the important point. He expressly called Jews undeserving of punishment—either in this world or the next.” As he spoke, Vedette’s voice began to rise, and to take on an unprecedented urgency. “Abelard’s witness, however dismissed at that time,” he continued, “could speak to the conscience of France in our time. An upraised Catholic voice! Out of the silence! To save Jewish lives! Right now! Think of it!”

  “I have thought of it,” Laurent said. He had retreated into his formal role. “But this is a matter of scholarship. And we have given you our scholarly conclusions.” He stood, and then the other two did as well. With a flick of his hand toward the stacked pages before him, Laurent concluded, “The work is selective, incomplete, shallow.”

  Vedette remained sitting, holding his old friend’s eyes. The Jew said quietly, “You are blushing, Jean-Marie. It is fitting. You should be ashamed.”

  Laurent turned to lead the way out, but the bald professor hesitated. From the door, he looked back at Saul Vedette, and said with narrowed eyes, “Are you registered?”

  “I beg your pardon?” Vedette replied.

  “As required. Are you registered?”

  Vedette did not answer. Rachel clutched at the curtain, drew it to her mouth. She recognized the moment for the threat it was, but abstractly. She could not conjure what actual danger loomed.

  When the men had departed, leaving the typescript where it was, Rachel remained on the edge of her cot, awaiting her father’s signal. Instead of turning to her, he simply slumped in his chair. She realized that he had held himself upright, apparently stalwart, by an act of will. She was pierced with anguish for him, and now saw in the collapse of his posture the forecast of defeat. What would he be without the commission he had embraced for the sake of the Jews of France? Without the urgent work for which his entire life had prepared him?

  She entered the room. He ignored her as she went to the low table that held the manuscript. She leaned to it and flipped the pages, leafing through to the markers that flagged criticisms. She quickly took several in, the matter of Halevi, of Paul’s Letter to the Romans, a challenge to a particular word usage. She understood what had just happened: not a true finding based on the merits of their work, but the dismissal by Catholics of a presumptuous Jew. She saw, nevertheless, how the professors’ criticisms could be useful. “Papa, we can use these queries,” she said quietly. “We can take up these questions, one by one, and answer them in the book itself. The professors have helped us to make a stronger case. We can do it, Papa.” She turned to him. He was staring at her, but his eyes were unfocused. Yes, his blood sugar level was askew. She went to the kitchen for a small wedge of chocolate and brought it to him. As he slowly chewed, she let her hand rest on his head. “We can do it, Papa,” she repeated.

  In the weeks since, her father had never put into words what Laurent’s rejection meant to him. Because Rachel made Abélard et Israël seem as important as ever—and still possible—he continued his work, as she did hers. They began to take up the flagged queries, one by one. Yet it seemed fated that the grievous fatigue that warned of a worsening diabetes had begun to overcome him. Though he was restless at night, he would sleep in his chair through the afternoon. In the mornings, he still sat with his papers and dictating machine, but Rachel knew that, despite her encouragement, he was only going through the motions of work that would never achieve its purpose. He maintained the regimen of his insulin injections mostly because she supervised it. The ghost of Jean-Marie Laurent haunted their rooms. But Laurent’s betrayal, Rachel slowly came to recognize, was a shadow of her own.

  Only now, sitting at the window of Deux Garçons, wearing a yellow star on her breast with a suitcase at her feet, did she fully grasp what had happened, what she had done. The year before, alarmed to see her stalwart father faltering, she had rushed to shore him up, thinking she was doing so for his sake. But since she could not bear the thought of his decline, much less defeat, she had acted for herself, not him. She had so come to prize their collaboration that she could not imagine its being finished.

  In truth, there had never been a chance that his intimidated Catholic colleagues would welcome a Jew’s rereading of Catholic dogma. In the back of her mind, she had always known this. For more than a year, she had lied by encouraging his project. Not only that. Protecting the image of his monumental authority, which formed the very structure of meaning she regarded as her birthright, and then protecting the partnership for which she had come to live, Rachel had delivered her father into the jaws of the ancient enemy which, on a signal from the bald inquisitor, had just snapped down.

  CHAPTER THREE

  In the Manhattan phone book, counting “Jonathan”s and “J”s, there were more than twenty possible John Malloys. The ridiculousness of Michael Kavanagh’s situation struck him at once. What? He should call each fellow out of the blue and ask if he’d ever been a Catholic seminarian? Kavanagh studied the listings, looking for clues. “Malloy John B., 405 W45, PLaza 7-6127”; “Malloy John Leonard, 656 10Av, JUdson 6-1590”; “Malloy John flags & uniforms, 209 Grand, CAnal 6-6762.”

  Presenting himself at the Communion rail that morning, Malloy had been strikingly tailored, so perhaps an enclave of the well-heeled—the Upper East Side or Gramercy Park. “Malloy John P., 26 Mtgomery, GRmrcy 3-4169.” But Kavanagh’s eyes kept losing focus as he tracked down the page. Impossible. Impossible. Ridiculous. He felt foolish.

  He had always imagined that Runner Malloy would have moved promptly back to Poughkeepsie. Perhaps he did. In that case, passing through Manhattan this week, a simple spur of the moment had brought him to Good Shepherd: John J. Malloy, sales rep for IBM, say, or Mid-Hudson Electric Power, come to the big city to drum up business, and, by the way, drop in on an old pal. Or maybe he’d just chosen a church at random, wanting to receive Communion, in which case the sight of his old friend—the priest!—had flummoxed him.

  No. No. Not at an out-of-the-way parish on the far tip of the island. Malloy had known. Malloy had come for him. But how would he have found him? A phone call to the Chancery? No. The Archdiocese fronted for its priests. If Runner, on the telephone, had asked for the present pastoral assignment of Father Michael Kavanagh, he would have been politely invited to send a letter, care of the Vicar for Clergy. Malloy would have had to go to extraordinary lengths to track down his onetime chum, so his showing up was not spur of the moment.

  What, then?

  Kavanagh shook himself for making a mountain of a molehill. Malloy had shown up—that’s all. Yes, once he had knelt at the Communion rail, his declining to receive was a curveball, but why take it as a message? Maybe it was prompted by a last-minute state-of-grace scruple having nothing to do with his old friend. But why disappear, then? What the hell?

  The tiny letters and numbers of the phone book blurred as an image intruded on Kavanagh’s mind, the last glimpse he’d had of Malloy, all those years ago. “I’m gone,” his friend had said, standing in the threshold of Kavanagh’s room, an expression of rank misery on his face. He was dressed in his black suit and tie, street clothes. “I couldn’t leave without saying goodbye.”

  Kavanagh, by contrast, was in his pajamas, his bare feet cold upon the terrazzo floor. The knocking on the door that had awakened him had been soft, but Kavanagh had bolted upright. It was
forbidden for students to come to one another’s doorways before Lauds, nor were thresholds ever to be crossed, but if what Malloy had just said was true, the rule infraction was meaningless—at least for him. Half asleep, Kavanagh registered his friend’s declaration as a joke.

  “Gone? What the hell? Gone where?”

  “Mundus, caro, et diabolus.” Runner forced a grin.

  “Cut the crap, Malloy.”

  “No, really. The world, the flesh, and the devil—”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I told you. The world, the flesh, and the devil—here I come!” Tears flashed in Malloy’s eyes. “Ask Agent. He’ll explain.”

  With that, Runner Malloy slugged Kavanagh’s shoulder once, sharply. Then he turned and walked away, down the long corridor. Watching him go, Kavanagh noticed how rigidly his friend held himself, arms stiff and hardly swinging, the ramrod posture of a man exerting control over an anarchy of feeling. But all at once, Malloy broke into a run, a slowed-down corridor version of that trademark sprint that had given him his name. Smooth, fluid motion. A man suddenly at ease with himself, leaning forward, elbows angled, foot strikes perfectly in sync with the swing of his arms, but falling so lightly as to be unheard. Kavanagh recalled Malloy’s having told him once that, as a child, he had only ever felt free when he was running. First it had been flight from his father’s blows. Then it had been solitary play along the grassy banks of the Hudson, going with the wind, like a gull. Then, in school, winning races had been the one thing he could do to garner praise. At the far-off end of the hallway, he disappeared without looking back.

  Runner, Kavanagh thought now, in the phone booth, and the simple meaning of the name hit him. Malloy had moved out and moved on all those years ago, while Kavanagh himself had stayed. Stay of proceedings. Stay of adjudication. Stay of execution. Stasis. Stayer Kavanagh.

  He closed the phone book, slapping its heavy cardboard cover, and swung it back into its slot below the wall-mounted telephone. Next to the phone, a piece of taped-up paper struck him, a set of the rectory’s frequently called numbers, each with its identifying word: “Convent,” “Parish School,” “Tribunal,” “Chancery,” “Residence.” This last referred to the Cardinal’s mansion on Madison Avenue, more commonly known as the Power House. Kavanagh stared at the numbers for a moment, like an uncomprehending pupil at a math problem. The numbers added up to something, but what? The booth stank of cheap cigars, and the peculiar odor of the unlaundered cassock—part incense, part BO.

  The hell with the numbers, he all but said. As always, it was a relief to push the hinged door open and, with the booth light snapping off behind him, to step into the shadows of the rectory corridor.

  The hum of the television set came from the adjacent room, the Common Room, to which the Fathers repaired of an evening, after the bingo, the sodality meetings, the last round at the hospital, or, as in Kavanagh’s case, the CYO basketball scrimmage in the school gym.

  Glancing in, Kavanagh saw Frank Russell and Billy Mitchell posted like the library lions, each with his clerical collar loosened, and each holding a highball glass in one hand, a cigarette in the other. They were fixated on a newsreel television show; on the screen, a familiar figure was pounding a lectern, but Kavanagh did not take in what he was saying. In the far corner of the room, behind the fully spread Herald Tribune, was another priest. That would be Joe Gallen, who disdained television but begrudgingly forced himself into the corner chair for a nightly display of community spirit.

  Frank and Billy were a pair of burnt-out but harmless cases, twenty years Kavanagh’s senior, and thirty years older than Gallen, whom they mocked as “Suede.” Since the wicked nickname derived from “suede-o-intellectual,” the priests had dosed it with self-mockery, too, as if they themselves could not pronounce “pseudo.” The name had stuck, and Suede Gallen, with forced camaraderie, even answered to it now and again. In fact, Gallen was a part-time doctoral student in theology at Fordham, and there was nothing “pseudo” about his brain power.

  Of the three priests, Kavanagh preferred the old coots. Their ardent goodwill had long ago cooled into the chill of causing no trouble, checking off boxes on the parish duty list, ducking the sweep of Power House radar. But to Kavanagh, the thought of actually joining them in front of the TV seemed insufferable. He saw now that the newsreel featured a fulminating Joe McCarthy, whose pudgy face looked flushed, even in black and white. His arm was raised above his head; his fist was clenched. Kavanagh hated to have to watch or listen to the buffoonish Wisconsin senator, but he needed that drink. He slipped into the dark-paneled, heavily curtained room and moved to the oak table opposite Gallen. Half a dozen bottles of booze stood guard over a pewter ice bucket and a spread of glasses. He poured a couple of fingers of bourbon, dropped in some ice, then moved, sociably enough, to stand behind the two old priests.

  “Howdy, Mike,” Billy said, looking up. As always, a tear ran down his right cheek, where the oddly pale skin was flattened. As a young man, the priest had been a Doughboy in France, and had taken shell shrapnel to his face, losing an eye. On that reconstructed side of his face, he had no feeling. The tear duct at his glass eye regularly overflowed, making it seem that Billy was weeping, but he wasn’t even aware of the tears. It was odd. The children in the school were famously frightened of Father Mitchell, but he was a sweet soul. “Catch Senator McCarthy,” he said now. “Listen to this….”

  McCarthy, with his florid ruddiness, sweaty forehead, widow’s peak, and shapeless suit, looked like an upended pile of soiled laundry. He was raucously holding forth in front of a wildly appreciative audience, declaiming, “…the final Armageddon foretold in the Bible…”

  At that, Frank Russell let out a howl of approval, and reached over to slap Billy’s shoulder, spilling ashes on his black shirt, a mess of which Billy took no notice.

  “…that struggle between good and evil, between life and death…”

  Billy and Frank jostled each other—the triumph of hearing the Bible appealed to, their own vocation given sudden relevance. “You tell ’em, Joe!” Billy cried.

  “We cannot survive on half loyalties,” McCarthy went on, “any more than we can fight the facts of Communist conspiracy with half-truths.”

  Kavanagh’s glance went to the corner, where Joe Gallen, having lowered his newspaper, was waiting to make eye contact with him. They smiled at each other, united suddenly in a feeling of sad embarrassment. Kavanagh crossed the room and took a chair by Gallen’s. “Captain O’Blunder,” Kavanagh said, raising his glass.

  “Patrick O’Trigger.” Gallen brought his glass up, and they clinked. Gallen added, unnecessarily, “McCarthy’s a disgrace.”

  “Tailgunner Joe. Television’s idea of a Mick,” Kavanagh said.

  “The Jews love to see an alcoholic Irish Catholic making an ass of himself.”

  The remark surprised Kavanagh, the swerve of it. He sipped his drink. Gallen started to lift his newspaper again, but Kavanagh said, “Why do you say that?”

  “Because he is. McCarthy’s a drunk.”

  “No, I mean about the Jews.”

  “John Cameron Swayze?” He gestured toward the TV with his glass.

  “The newsman?” Kavanagh asked.

  “Swayze, Michael. Swayze. They’re all Jews. Television. Movies. Show business. Walter Lippmann, obviously. Walter Winchell. But all the others, too. They change their names. Milton Berle. Bob Hope. George Burns. Gracie Allen. Jews.”

  “Bing Crosby?” Kavanagh said, grinning above the rim of his glass.

  Gallen did not answer.

  “No, really. Bing Crosby?”

  “No,” Gallen said. “Not Bing Crosby.” He lifted the paper again, hiding.

  “You scared me there, Joe. What with Bing playing Father O’Malley in The Bells of Saint Mary’s. What would Ingrid Bergman say if her lovable pastor was Jewish?”

  From behind the paper came the one word, “Bergman?”

  Kavanagh stared at
the front page of the Herald Tribune, taking in the headline “General MacArthur Wants Atom Bomb for Korea.” It had never occurred to him that Ingrid Bergman was Jewish, but then he thought of Casablanca: Philip and Julius Epstein. Peter Lorre. What about Humphrey Bogart?

  He took a drink. Normally, he’d have thought nothing of a fellow priest’s crack about Jews, but for some reason it cut him tonight.

  Then he knew.

  Gallen had made plain an intention to stay behind his paper, but Kavanagh said, “Joe, actually, I’ve got a question for you.” In fact, Kavanagh realized, Gallen was the only one in the rectory who would have a clue to what had nagged at him all day. “Simone Weil,” Kavanagh said.

  “What about her?”

  “Was she an anti-Semite?”

  The Herald Tribune came down, collapsing into the priest’s lap. “Don’t be ridiculous. She started out Jewish.”

  “But she compared the ancient Hebrews to the Nazis. Said they were alike.”

  “I never heard that.”

  “In her journals, the ones still in French. Not translated into English yet.”

  The younger man was silent for a moment, deliberately quizzical. No priest at Good Shepherd could read works in French. Certainly not Kavanagh. “Well, if she made that comparison,” he said finally, “she had a point. ‘Blessed be he that shall take and dash thy little ones against the rocks.’ Can’t you see the Nazis doing that? Do you know how many times the Old Testament celebrates the murder of children?”

  “No. But I’ll bet you do.”

  “Read the Psalms, Father.”

  “I do read the Psalms, Joe. Five times a day.”

  “And the prophets. Jeremiah. The ancient Hebrews practiced child sacrifice. Infanticide.”

  “Bullshit, Joe. The whole point of the Abraham-Isaac story is to end child sacrifice.”

  “Exactly. Proves the point. Genesis can’t order the end of child sacrifice if the ancients aren’t practicing it. And Exodus. Passover. Hitler had nothing on Yahweh’s Angel of Death. Every firstborn male baby of Egypt killed by the will of God? Please.”