Bishop's Man

by Linden MacIntyre

  “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. Then 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.

  “You’re in a lot of trouble.”

  He wept. The sobs rose in spasms. “It will kill my mother,” he said. “All she wanted from her life was to see one of us ordained. I was the youngest of seven. I was her last chance. They slaved and sacrificed to get me through. And now?”

  I struggled to keep the Honduran policeman in the forefront of my mind. Don’t ever let him engage. Desperation endows great strength to the doomed.

  “We were in the sem together—”

  I cut him off. “Your mother doesn’t have to know. The point is, nobody must know.”

  “She’ll know.”

  “You should have thought of that years ago. Act like a man for once.”

  The look was incredulous. Like a man?

  “God forgive you,” he said.

  Forgive me?

  The bishop was smiling when I reported back. “He can relax about his poor old mother,” he said. “We’ve loaned him to Boston. I figure with the wops and the Irish down there, he’ll keep his nose clean if he knows what’s good for him.”

  I remember an unexpected feeling of achievement.

  “We have to be careful,” the bishop said, draping a collegial arm across my shoulders. “We can’t get hung up on the homo part of it. The natural revulsion.” He grimaced to emphasize his point. “You have to control your imagination. You have to set your prejudice aside. It has nothing to do with being queer. It’d be the same if they were chasing women. This is about the violation of a sacred vow. It is an act of personal rebellion that challenges the very foundations of the Church by jeopardizing the faith of ordinary people. Scandal, Duncan. This is about scandal. The Holy Mother Church being scandalized by little men. Weak little misfits. We have to root them out. Word of this garbage gets around . . . who knows what the impact might be. You know yourself how you were affected by what you only thought you saw. Imagine someone who’s been through it for real.”

  For real?

  I laughed. It was a reflexive expression of surprise. He waited for my mood to pass.

  The room seemed suddenly small and airless.

  “You don’t look well,” he said.

  “I’m fine,” I said.

  Alfonso told me that he was the first in the family to get beyond grade five.

  So was I, I said.

  People were amazed, he said. Did I tell you that my father was a half-breed? They all thought that I’d amount to nothing? A half Indian . . . descended from the Pipil.

  The what?

  The Pipil . . . an ancient community.

  A man of the Pipil, I said.

  He looked away and sighed. Very original, he said.

  Contrite, I said, I can believe it. Nobody thought I’d amount to anything, the way we were. My father was . . . illegitimate. A drunk. They didn’t want me, because of him.

  He took my hand in his. We’re brothers, he said. Really. They never really wanted either one of us.

  “A vocation,” Father said, “would be a blessing for the parish. The last one was before my time. Father MacFarlane, I think.”

  I listened carefully.

  “So when you see the bishop, emphasize your own determination. The purity of the call you’ve heard. Voices even.”

  I nodded.

  “You’ve heard voices?”

  I shook my head.

  “It happens sometimes. All the saints heard voices. It’s a sure sign of sanctity.”

  Yes.

  “So when you see His Excellency, you’ll have to gloss over certain . . . blank spots in the family. On your father’s side.”

  “Yes, Father.”

  “Emphasize your dedication to the larger family. To your true and Holy Mother Church.”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m clear, then?”

  “You are.”

  I told the bishop: “The records were lost in a fire. You understand the way it was. Old wooden churches burning down. It happened all the time in the old days.”

  Sunshine streamed through the window, wreathed him in a beatific halo. God in Heaven was amused. You could almost hear celestial whispers, but they were saying: Look who wants to be a priest! Listen to him!

  His Excellency was nodding. It was our third meeting. He said he was surprised to see me back.

  “A fire,” he said. “I suppose there is a record of that . . . fire?”

  I ignored the question. “In winter, people would bank the stoves the night before a Mass. Something would overheat. Chimneys would catch fire.” I shrugged.

  He sighed. “It was awful,” he murmured. “The destruction, due mostly to carelessness.”

  I thought: He’s buying it.

  “Documents for half the older people in the diocese are gone,” I said. “I suppose that we could get an affidavit.”

  “An affidavit, eh? You should go into canon law,” he said, half mocking. I took it as encouragement.

  I can still see him sitt
ing there, below that glowering crucifix, hands folded on his stomach. Smiling thoughtfully.

  He shook himself, as if struggling against boredom. “We normally need some kind of documentation. To prove at least that you’re a Catholic. Baptized. Confirmed. It’s also nice to know something about the quality of family life. I’m not sure if an affidavit will do the trick. You know what I think of affidavits.”

  “No.”

  “One guy lies, the other swears to it.”

  “You have my baptismal records. My mother died. You have her death certificate. The rest you’ll have to take . . . on faith.”

  He smiled, picked up a document and studied it. “TB,” he said, shaking his head. “Awful, the carnage that it caused around here. Like in the Third World, it was. No different.”

  “She was from Scotland. An island in the Hebrides. I’ve written to a parish there. But it’ll take a while. Anyway, I’ve heard everybody there is Catholic. Where she came from. I’d like to start next fall.”

  He didn’t seem to be listening. “But you don’t know anything about your father’s people?”

  “Like I said, the records have been lost.”

  “And he doesn’t know?”

  “He has shell shock,” I said. “Something from the war.”

  “He met your mother overseas.”

  “Yes. In England. I was born there, actually.”

  “Your dad,” he said at last. “He was in the CBH?”

  I nodded. Yes. The Cape Breton Highlanders.

  “Served in Italy?”

  “And northwest Europe. Holland.”

  “Never able to work since the war.”

  I nodded.

  “I was in the North Novies, but I was young. It was near the end. I missed all the action. Never got any closer than Camp Borden. Always regretted that. Missed the biggest event of my age.” He sighed. “So you haven’t got a clue where your father’s folks were from.”

  “I’ve heard about a place called Hawthorne. In Port Hood parish.”

  “MacAskill isn’t a very common name around here for a Catholic. That’s why I have to ask. There could be . . . impediments. You understand?”

  “Of course. You can’t just take anyone who comes along.”

  “Truer words were never spoken,” he said.

  It was at the end of the fourth visit that he told me: “I’m going to give you the benefit of the doubt. We’ll consider your father’s genealogy a small . . . lacuna, shall we say. A little blip.”

  He pronounced it “bleep,” the way my father did. And I was suddenly startled by the resemblance between them.

  “You won’t regret it,” I promised.

  In the morning, I was wakened by the sound of a machine in the driveway. The storm had ended, probably late at night judging from the snowdrifts in the fields. Through the window I could see Bobby on his tractor, bucket down, biting large holes in the smooth drifts that blocked the road. Moving methodically, attacking the deep white barrier that had briefly offered an excuse for my isolation.

  {8}

  Christmas takes over the memory temporarily. And memory makes every Christmas bittersweet. Each of the senses stores identical impressions year after year. We hear the same sounds, see the same colours, inhale the same fragrances. The language of Christmas is unchanging, full of false celebration and hysterical goodwill. Personally, I’d rather be in the Third World for Christmas.

  “The Third World!” Stella was laughing at me.

  She’d telephoned two days earlier. Christmas was going to be in Hawthorne, at Danny’s. He wanted us all to come. Including Sextus. They knew each other from their younger days, working in Toronto. He needs the support of friends, I thought. He’s struggling with his illness. He’s feeling his mortality.

  I told Stella that I was expecting my sister home for the holidays.

  “Well, bring her too,” she said. “I’d love to meet her. Sextus has told me all about her.”

  I doubt it, I thought. But only said: “I’ll let you know.”

  “I’ll get a room ready,” I told Effie after she announced her plan.

  “Don’t go to any bother,” she said. “I think I’ll stay in town.”

  I didn’t pursue it. I knew what she meant.

  “What about Cassie?” I asked. Effie’s daughter, my niece.

  “She’s planning her own holiday. She and some journalist friends are going to Mexico, I think. Christmas in the heat. I couldn’t picture it myself. But that’s her choice. So, rather than spend the holiday alone, I just decided. Spur of the moment.”

  “You’ll rent a car, I suppose.”

  “No. Sextus will meet me at the airport.”

  Stella said she’d pick me up at five. They were planning dinner for early evening. Her car was warm and softly scented. I thought, Her bedroom probably smells like this. Music murmured from a disc in the car stereo. Something classical, but with a Christmas theme. The darkness thickened as we drove. Soft pools of red and white and green light made a confection of the snow in front of blazing houses. On this unusual day, I thought, we can believe that all is harmony and warmth within those inscrutable dwellings, even if our knowledge tells us otherwise. Beyond Long Point, a fat moon glittered on the swelling bay.

  We drove in silence, concentrating on the road, but once, I stole a glance and she was smiling slightly.

  Driving up the Hawthorne Road, she said: “I always thought I was a shore person. But there’s something special here. The place is named after the American writer, you know.”

  “I didn’t know that.”

  She was nodding.

  “I thought it was the tree,” I said. “They say the crown of thorns on Jesus’ head came from the hawthorn tree.”

  “I wouldn’t be surprised. The tree of thorns.”

  And then we were at Danny’s.

  Sextus was already there, and Effie. He seemed to be the designated bartender and poured a stiff drink, handed it to me. He was casting a salacious eye at Stella.

  “You know her, I believe,” I said. “From tennis.”

  “Stella? Oh, yes. The wonderful, impenetrable Stella.”

  “What do you mean by that?”

  “A lady full of mysteries. If you can get around that, you’re a better man than I am. She’s got a wicked backhand.”

  He winked. I laughed dismissively.

  Waiting for dinner, Danny and Sextus entertained the room with outrageous tales of misbehaviour during their younger days away from here. I watched young Danny for reactions to the exaggerated anecdotes. His face was flushed, smiling in tolerant affection. The look, I thought, of one with stories of his own.

  “So you’re the new priest in Creignish,” said a middle-aged man who was sitting beside me.

  “I am,” I said, trying to remember a name. William something, I recalled. Stella’s cousin who lived with her aunt. He was tall, about my height, with a large stomach, a florid face and watery eyes that suggested a history of heavy drinking.

  “Willie Beaton,” he said, extending his hand.

  I grasped it briefly.

  “I get a kick out of the stories they’ll be telling,” he said, nodding toward Danny Ban. “Quite the performers those two were, if you believe the half of it. Danny Bad, they called him, for good reason.”

  I just smiled.

  “I guess we could all tell a few stories, eh, Father,” he said with an insinuating grin.

  The room was suddenly too warm.

  There was a dreary sameness to the scenes. The rooms all seemed to smell and look alike. Potpourri or carpet cleaner, or both. Pastel colours. Sturdy furniture, probably bought from one of the pay-when-you-feel-like-it merchants shouting out of their oversized TV sets. Swedish wood stoves. Rooms overheated. Long silences. At first I was confused by the tension, which I finally attributed to embarrassment on the part of what we were calling the victims.

  In spite of how much I’ve learned since then, I still wonder about that word. Victi
m. What does it really represent? Uncertainty? Guilt? Victims of whom? The predator? Their weaker selves? What complex web of circumstances does that prophylactic word conceal?