Three Cheers for the Paraclete

by Thomas Keneally

  The old monsignor chewed his lips and concentrated upon surviving the contretemps. Maitland did not make this task easier, contending, ‘No doubt, when the Holy Spirit sees fit to raise you to the episcopate, you’ll treat the society wives at charity openings with the same honest brutality you showed that girl.’

  ‘If ever it becomes necessary I will. Oh, what’s the use of explaining old methods to novices? Do you know how to begin to rehabilitate a woman? Do you know what the basic step is? To make her weep. Once you have, the work can begin.’

  ‘That’s barbarism.’

  ‘Ask any long-service husband,’ the doctor advised.

  ‘Might I be excused? From the room, I mean. From the whole turn-out.’

  ‘You’d better wait till mother shows.’

  Costello kept working on the list of texts for Sister Martin and, when he was finished, showed it first to the monsignor, then to Maitland. In a short time, the mother-superior returned.

  ‘Would a retreat be possible?’ he asked her. ‘I believe that sister should make a retreat soon. There is a crisis of faith pending there, and it should be brought on quickly.’

  ‘My God!’ Maitland said loudly.

  ‘There are crises of faith in all directions,’ the doctor opined tangentially and gazed into the ordered depths of the gas fire.

  Maitland stood and turned to the mother-superior. ‘Mother, thank you for having me. If I might be bold enough to say so, you gave signs earlier of thinking that perhaps you owned a jewel in Sister Martin. I concur utterly in your suspicions. Please don’t burden her with those deathly books on Dr Costello’s list.’

  ‘I don’t think you can go that far, young fellow,’ the monsignor protested behind him.

  ‘Believe me,’ said Costello, ‘he’ll go all the way one of these days. All the way.’

  Maitland certainly went further there and then. ‘As for a retreat, silence can’t hurt her. How far is it to the bus stop, please?’

  ‘But surely Dr Costello would drive you …?’

  ‘Dr Costello is not safe at intersections,’ said Maitland. ‘Monsignor, it was a pleasure to meet you.’

  Outside, it was night in an avenued suburb. The leaves spoke elementally in the wind: you would never have known that they were all tame and pampered vegetables pollarded yearly by the municipal council. Maitland felt refreshed and free.

  12

  EGAN KEPT AT his work as earnestly as any earnest civil lawyer and plied the arcane rules-of-thumb of his trade. However implacably the climate of his court work and that of his regard for Nora must have mocked each other, his cheeks still were faultlessly barbered, the neat coat fell pat over his schoolboy hips. Only Maitland knew him as a man whose two poles were in opposite motion.

  At the clerical pole, Costello’s Praelectiones had been published. Its flight into the iron skies under which canon lawyers thought and functioned had been praised in all those journals that were professional meat and drink to Egan and Costello both. A colleague’s success woke no jealousy in Egan; he did, however, suspect that he would never find his way into the beatitudes of the monthlies and quarterlies, against whom he had somehow sinned.

  This void sense of unworthiness overtook him on the evening of Costello’s further aggrandizement. Most of the staff had already come to table and were waiting to applaud the man’s entry. A student, to whom not even Nolan listened tonight, read from the rostrum. As soon as the well-known meaty shoulder pushed the door open, and that head, which could rightly be called leonine, poked into the room, Nolan rose and rang the bell. Then all scraped back their chairs, stood and cheered Costello in. Egan, putting his hands together for his brother-priest, saw Maitland follow Costello through the door, to be transfixed by applause he could not understand. ‘Nobody has told him,’ thought Egan. ‘He is the only one in the entire house who does not know.’ And, aware now of what it was to be divorced inwardly from the striving of your peers, he spent his time in pity of Maitland’s bemusement and hungry frame and poor soutane.

  Meanwhile, Costello swam towards his seat through a miasma of applause. Unprecedentedly, Nolan made a gesture of largesse with his hand and gave the chief seat up to him. This prompted so solid a spate of acclaim that even Hurst’s eyes were torn upward by it to rest on that face.

  Maitland remained penned in the corner of the refectory, and began to blush for his intrusion on Costello’s triumph. The doctor and he had said a merely polite good evening to each other, and Maitland offered no congratulations, in the corridor where two forty-watt bulbs had had no spare light to throw on Maitland’s face and prove it honestly ignorant. Now he realized that he should acclaim whatever Costello had done – it was bound to be pretty impressive. He began to add his bit to the tail-end of the stamping, cheering, thumping approval. In the lull, while everyone found his seat, he tiptoed to his place at table. Passing Egan, he whispered, ‘Costello been nominated a bishop?’ Egan nodded. ‘Three cheers for the Paraclete,’ said Maitland, and sat.

  Nolan was waiting to speak and looked authentically humbled, like a man who has seen the mills of God grinding. He carried his head at just the right tilt to convey that this was another man’s circus, not his.

  ‘May I officially announce news of great joy,’ he said huskily. ‘It is news these consecrated walls were destined to hear from the time a certain young man, more than twenty-five years ago, entered them as a brilliant student to become one of their finest products. The communication came from the Apostolic Delegate this afternoon that our respected colleague and mentor, Dr Costello, has been named by His Holiness the Pope as auxiliary bishop of this archdiocese and titular bishop of Umanes. Te Deum laudamus.’

  Having meant every word of this, he closed his eyes and bowed his precise head. Everyone cheered rarely. And a long-disregarded viper, which had once whispered to him that he would be prince, stirred on a back branch of his brain-tree and forced him in conscience to smile fervently towards Costello; and go to excesses.

  For he said, ‘It may be indecent in two ways to speculate on episcopal candidates as one speculates on racehorses. Firstly because they are sacred persons, secondly because one cannot make pious wishes concerning the future archbishop of a diocese without seeming to be casting the evil eye on the present holder of that sacred office. I am sure, however, that His Grace will forgive us tonight when I predict that His Lordship – as he soon will be – His Lordship Bishop Costello will one day be our archbishop and wear the red hat of a prince of the Church.’

  Maitland thought of Sister Martin and rejected the likelihood. He clapped, however, on the understanding that he was applauding Nolan for the valour of his guesswork.

  ‘Reverend gentlemen,’ Monsignor Nolan called, his voice nearly expended in prophecy. ‘Reverend gentlemen, I present a new bishop.’

  There was such a raw and supreme joy in the Costello who rose then that Maitland’s new resentment died utterly. It was impossible to be angry with anyone so powerless beneath an extreme happiness; it was largely impossible not to believe that a man of such blessed powerlessness would one day deserve a cardinal’s hat.

  ‘Gentlemen,’ Costello said, ‘this is a day that no man dare expect for himself. To be as frank as a man should be at such a moment, some people, our beloved president among them, have in the past told me that this was likely to come one day. Yet it is impossible to accept the basic fact, let alone imagine the overpowering sensation of election that a priest feels on hearing over the telephone that he will succeed the Twelve who sat at Christ’s feet and heard infallible truth from his lips. I know that I stand here instead of better men. I know the time of crisis in which I have been chosen to lead. I do not flinch, because I am aware of your obedience and the strength of God. I know that I am able to depend on the truth of those words I have so often sung for other bishops. Ideo iureiurando fecit illum Dominus crescere. Therefore has God given His oath that he shall cause him to flourish. So may it be.’

  As he stared at the table-
top, he, the pulpit orator, begging now for themes from the humble things of the table, the salt and condiments and the president’s mustard-pot, the student Hurst rose pale and urgent from his seat and escaped the room.

  Not having seen him go, Costello began again to speak.

  ‘One wants to have the right words for an evening such as this. I believe I know what one of the right words is. Vigilance. Watch! And pray! Within the Church, tradition is under attack and, for the first time, the attackers are tolerated and, in some quarters, treated with leniency, even with favour. Our traditional theology is the object of scepticism, our traditional morality the butt of cynical raised eyebrows. Even the belief in a personal God is under attack.’

  One for Sister Martin and myself, thought Maitland, though he knew he flattered himself. Costello’s just anxiety, like Costello’s just happiness, was too universal for anyone to feel direct affront. But Maitland was grateful that the man had lost the nuptial air which, until a few seconds before, had exempted him from anything other than affection.

  ‘The price we paid throughout centuries for this faith!’ cried the speaker. ‘The price paid in Ireland, in England and Scotland and Germany and Holland! The price we have paid here! Our first priest a convict, political prisoner, shipped for months in a reeking hold, beaten in prison three hundred times with a wire cat. If we are not vigilant within our own ranks, within our own minds, we will find that a great part of that price – the political persecution, the social opprobium our ancestors bore – will go for nothing. Our belief and moral code will grow indefinite and lose conviction; our structure of authority will be weakened to the point of chaos. Though we know that the Church will last for ever, we know also that it has at times grown sick almost to the point of extinction. This could happen again, within our life-span. For chaos can be bred at a thousand times the rate of order. And if chaos does come – and here I pledge my strength to see that it does not – it will not be due to assault from without. It will be caused by priests, above all by priests.’ In a hush, he said, ‘We are, or will be, priests. Will we be the so-called liberals, the so-called modernists, the so-called humanists, corrupted by expediencey, rotten with existentialism, at whose door will be laid the blame for the ruin of the Church as we know it?’

  Every face seemed to shine with a negative. Even Maitland, who knew that the besetting sin of oratory was the sacrifice of the true for the glib, found it hard to remember that Costello had assumed that all the price which had been paid needed to be paid. It was a claim at least open to argument, though Maitland would not have liked to argue it tonight with this splendid, joyous, savage man.

  The splendid man was saying, ‘I will be leaving you soon, leaving this house which has been my home, more often than not, for a quarter of a century. If I had one favour to ask of you before I go, it would be this. That you pledge your wit’s end to prevent the ruin of which I have spoken. And the second thing is, remember me.’

  Perhaps, now that Hurst had galloped, only Egan and Maitland and a few others refrained, for their various reasons, from what is usually called heartfelt applause. Physically speaking, they clapped themselves dizzy, like the others.

  Afterwards, in the parlour, liqueurs and coffee were drunk by the staff. Egan sat primly withdrawn, smiling at his cup of unlaced coffee, leaving the spadework of conviviality to the drinkers. James waited with apologies on the fringe of Costello’s vision. Tonight, when the air of the house was heavy with fruition, and the parlour smelt like an officer’s mess, it was easy for the bishop-elect to keep a circle of priests laughing.

  ‘That’s the fellow,’ said Costello. ‘The little pansy fellow with gold-rimmed glasses. What’s his name?’

  ‘Monsignor Garossi,’ Maitland suggested in the peculiar desire to be recognized.

  ‘That’s him – Garossi. Well, when I went to the phone, I could hear him clear his voice like a contralto. Then he said, “Hayc ayst Daylaygatio Apostoleecah.”’

  Everyone found this version of an Italian nobleman’s Latin side-thumpingly funny.

  ‘I said, “Do you mean to say Haec est Delegatio Apostolica?” He said, “Thatsa what Ia say. Hayc ayst Daylaygatio Apostoleecah.” I said, “I see. But I thing I understanna your English better.”’

  Slack with brotherhood and emotion, Monsignor Nolan chuckled and felt his lids sting with tears. ‘It won’t be the same without you, Cos,’ he called, and was convinced of it.

  ‘He said, “Dottore Cosatello. I haffa da grata plesser. Permetta che io annoncio. Tu nominatus eras episcopus. Da tellegrama she jost arife.” I said, “Kyrie eleison.”’

  While his brothers laughed again, the coming man of God rolled a bitter-sweet sip of whisky around his mouth. Swallowing it, he sobered.

  ‘I hope it happens to you all one day. God knows you all deserve its joy but not its terror. But, blessedly, it comes fast, without warning. Election descends as swiftly as death.’

  ‘And leaves one just as breathless, no doubt,’ ventured Nolan.

  ‘Indeed. Indeed.’

  In the pause, while most took refuge in their cups, Maitland began to speak.

  ‘Doctor,’ he said, ‘you must have thought that I deliberately neglected to congratulate you. You remember, when we met in the corridor tonight? The fact was that I must have been the only one in the house who didn’t know about the good news. I’d been working …’

  Costello frowned, saying gently, ‘There’s no need, there’s no need …’ One way or another, Maitland’s excuses came close to making him wince. Perhaps he was as disquieted by Maitland’s good faith as Maitland had occasionally been by his.

  ‘You’ll notice now,’ someone said, ‘that all the ambitious men on the staff will take to print.’

  ‘If we can’t do anything better, we’ll write novels.’

  ‘Or some of this new poetry,’ Nolan decided. When he said ‘new poetry’, he meant Ezra Pound. ‘And how that Gerard Manley Hopkins could write all that barbaric verse and then approach the altar of a morning …’

  ‘The man had verbal diarrhoea,’ said a Scripture scholar. ‘I was never brave enough to say so in my youth. But one is less scared of fashions as one gets older.’

  ‘The man was a Jesuit,’ Costello muttered, and solved the question with laughter. ‘All those poor Protestant youths who have to decipher him in the universities! It pays them back for the Reformation.’

  When he raised his cup to his lips then, a third of those in the room did likewise. But it was a feint on Costello’s part; rather than drink, he extended his half-smoked cigarette towards Maitland. ‘Would you mind getting rid of that for me, James?’

  Nor did this seem too exorbitant a toll for anyone to pay to the man’s ease tonight. Not only did Maitland almost accept the butt, but no one in the room weighed the request and found it strange until Maitland shook his head. He could see in Costello’s sovereign-looking cheeks the assumption that no one could refuse him anything so simple, decent and do-able as this. There was even the assumption that no one could refuse him anything so simple, and not become a pariah.

  The other priests were becoming aware of the new bishop’s hand stretched out in this strange way, the gesture of an instant given too long an existence because Maitland stood resisting. They were all men who had their pride, yet they would not forget this refusal. ‘When I am sent away from here,’ Maitland knew, ‘this will be quoted as one of my final indecencies.’

  He said softly, ‘It is your episcopal ring that I am supposed to kiss, My Lord.’

  Which left him one thing to do: put down his cup and flee.

  It was a night so clear that Maitland could see in the Milky Way the stars within stars within stars. Under worlds that flew free of diocesan strife, he went walking, felt the smooth air part and let his head, disembodied by pique, forward into successive planes of starlight. He followed the terraces and hedges. A quarter of a mile away the sea moved, scaled by the lights of the House of Studies. Down there the scales broke o
n a lovers’ beach where a girl had once been murdered for love, for not being a tepid and equivocating being like Dr Maitland.

  One level of the gardens brought him, thinking kindly of the girl, to a long grassed platform, a chalky surface shining dully between tussocks. This, the sea and the clarity of things, reminded him of the Adriatic coast, visited two European summers past. He stood imagining himself parish priest of some Balkans-facing village; a moon-dream after anger, incised two minutes later by a metallic bark from his left.

  He saw at once that this was a place where any Alsatian would be pleased to wander at night, and his ankles cringed since he feared big dogs. The ravening noise came again, revoking the temperate climate of the platform, producing the feel of Dartmoor. Then, however, Maitland could see a face of luminous pallor, perhaps fifteen yards to his right; and as he stared at it, the bark rose but extended itself to a clatter. He was so pleased to forgo the Alsatian that he called good night and went to see. In a small bowl of grey earth, the student called Hurst had a hole dug and seemed to be burying the cutlery.

  Maitland said, ‘Good night. What in the name of …?’

  He could see the blemishes around Hurst’s mouth, which was open and gulped. It was not a face suited to digging.

  It said, between struggles for breath, ‘I’m not mad.’

  Hurst stared into the hole he had dug. At the bottom lay a drawer of dinner-knives.

  ‘I don’t suppose it will do any good to bury these.’