He found the section with small, individual photographs of graduating seniors, head-and-shoulder shots. Then Jesse Karp turned the pages slowly, a broad forefinger running down the columns of pictures, names, school biographies.
'Here I am,' he said laughing. 'God, what a beast!'
I leaned to look: Jesse Karp, not a beast, but an earnest, 390
self-conscious kid in a stiff white collar and a tie in a horrendous pattern. Most of the other boys were wearing suit jackets, but Karp wasn't. I didn't remark on it.
'Not so bad,' I said, looking at the features not yet pulled with age. 'You look like it was the most solemn moment of your life.'
'It was,' he said, staring down at the book. 'I was the first of my family to be graduated from high school. It was something. And here's Godfrey.'
Directly below Karp's photograph was that of Knurr, wearing a sharply patterned sport jacket. He was smiling at the camera, his chin lifted. Handsome, strong, arrogant. A Golden Boy. He had written an inscription in the yearbook directly below Karp's biography: 'To Jesse, my very best friend ever. Godfrey Knurr.' I guessed he had written that same sentiment in many McKinley High yearbooks.
Each student had a pithy motto or prediction printed in italic type below his biography. Jesse Karp's said: A slow but sure winner.
Godfrey Knurr's was: We'll be hearing of him for many years to come.
The Principal continued flipping through the pages of stamp-sized portraits. Finally his finger stopped.
'This one?' he said, looking at me.
I glanced down. It was the same girl I had seen in Goldie Knurr's photo album. The same pale gold beauty, the same soft vulnerability.
'Yes,' I said, reading her name. 'Sylvia Wiesenfeld. Do you know anything about her?'
He closed the yearbook with his two hands, slapping the volume with what I thought was unusual vehemence. He went back to the bookcase to restore the book to its place and close the glass door.
'Why are you asking about her?' he demanded, his back to me. I thought something new had come into his voice: a note of hostility.
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'Just curious,' I said. 'She's so beautiful.'
'Her father owned a drugstore,' he said grudgingly.
'He's dead now — the father. I don't know what happened to her.'
'Was this the drugstore where Godfrey Knurr worked after school?'
'Yes,' he said shortly.
He insisted on personally accompanying me through the outer offices, down the hallways and staircases to the front entrance of McKinley High School. I didn't know if he was being polite or wanted to make certain I didn't loiter about the premises.
I thanked him again for his kindness and he sent me on my way. He didn't exactly push me out of the door, but he made certain I exited. I didn't think he regretted what he had told me about Godfrey Knurr. I thought he was ashamed and angry at what he had revealed about himself.
I had set the old wounds throbbing.
On the sidewalk, I turned and looked back at the high school, a pile of red brick so ugly it was impressive. I had brief and sententious thoughts of the thousands — maybe millions! — of young students who had walked those gloomy corridors, sat at those worn desks, who had laughed, wept, frolicked, and discovered despair.
I found the white frame house two doors south of St Paul's on Versailles Street. Perhaps it had once been white, but now it was a powdery grey, lashed by rain and wind, scoured by the sun. It looked at the world with blind eyes: uncurtained windows with torn green shades drawn at various levels. The cast-iron fence was rusted, the tiny front yard scabby with refuse. It was a sad, sad habitation for a retired preacher, and I could only wonder how his parishioners could allow their former pastor's home to fall into such decrepitude.
I went cautiously up the front steps and searched for a bell. There was none, although I discovered four stained 392
screwholes in the doorjamb, a larger drilled hole in the middle, and the faint scarred mark of a square enclosing them all. Apparently a bell had once existed but had been removed.
I rapped sharply on the peeling door and waited. No answer. I knocked again. Still no reply.
'Keep trying,' someone called in a cackling voice. 'He's in there all right.'
I turned. On the sidewalk was an ancient black man wearing a holey wool cap and fingerless gloves. He seemed inordinately swollen until I realized he was wearing at least three coats and what appeared to be several sweaters and pairs of trousers. He was pushing a splintered baby carriage filled with newspapers and bottles, cans, an old coffee percolator, tattered magazines, two bent umbrellas, and other things.
'Is this the home of the Reverend Stokes?' I asked him.
'Yeah, yeah, that's it,' he said, nodding vigorously and showing a mouthful of yellow stumps. 'What you do is you keep pounding. He's in there all right. He don't never go out now. Just keep pounding and pounding. He'll come to the door by and by.'
'Thank you,' I called, but he was already shuffling down the street, a strange apparition.
So I pounded and pounded on that weathered door. It seemed at least five minutes before I heard a quavery voice from inside: 'Who is there?'
'Reverend Stokes?' I shouted. 'Could I speak to you for a moment, sir? Please?'
There was a long pause and I thought I had lost him. But then I heard the sounds of a bolt being drawn, the door unlocked. It swung open.
I was confronted by a wild bird of a man. In his late seventies, I guessed. He was actually a few inches taller than I, but his clothes seemed too big for him so he 393
appeared to have shrunk, in weight and height, to a frail diminutiveness.
His hair was an uncombed mess of grey feathers, and on his hollow cheeks was at least three days' growth of beard: a whitish plush. His temples were sunken, the skin on his brow so thin and transparent that I could see the course of blood vessels. Rheumy eyes tried to stare at me, but the focus wavered. The nose was a bone.
He was wearing what had once been a stylish velvet smoking jacket, but now the nap was worn down to the backing, and the elbows shone greasily. Beneath the unbuttoned jacket was a soiled blue workman's shirt, tieless, the collar open to reveal a scrawny chicken neck. His creaseless trousers were some black, glistening stuff, with darker stains and a tear in one knee. His fly was open. He was wearing threadbare carpet slippers, the heels broken and folded under. His bare ankles were not clean.
I was standing outside on the porch, he inside the house.
Yet even at that distance I caught the odour: of him, his home, or both. It was the sour smell of unwashed age, of mustiness, spilled liquor, unmade beds and unaired linen, and a whiff of incense as rancid as all the rest.
'Reverend Stokes?' I asked.
The bird head nodded, pecking forward.
'My name is Joshua Bigg,' I said briskly. 'I'm not trying to sell you anything. I'd just like to talk to you for a few minutes, sir.'
'About what?' he asked. The voice was a creak.
'About a former parishioner of yours, now an ordained minister himself. Godfrey Knurr.'
What occurred next was totally unexpected and unnerving.
'Nothing happened!' he screamed at me and reached to slam the door in my face. But a greenish pallor suffused his face, his hand slipped down the edge of the door, and he began to fall, to sag slowly downwards, his bony knees 394
buckling, shoulders slumping, the old body folding like a melted candle.
I sprang forward and caught him under the arms. He weighed no more than a child, and I was able to support him while I kicked the door shut with my heel. Then I half-carried, half-dragged him back into that dim, malodorous house.
I pulled him into a room that had obviously once been an attractive parlour. I put him down on a worn chesterfield, the brown leather now cracked and split. I propped his head on one of the armrests and lifted his legs and feet so he lay flat.
I straightened up, breathing through my mouth so I didn't
have to smell him or the house. I stared down at him, hands on my hips, puzzling frantically what to do.
His eyes were closed, his respiration shallow but steady.
I thought his face was losing some of that greenish hue that had frightened me. I decided not to call the police or paramedics. I took off my hat and coat and placed them gingerly on a club chair with a brown corduroy slipcover discoloured with an enormous red stain on the seat cushion. Wine or blood.
I wandered back into the house. I found a small kitchen from which most of the odours seemed to be emanating.
And no wonder; it was a swamp. I picked a soiled dish-towel off the floor and held it under the cold water tap in the scummed sink. Pipes knocked, the water ran rusty, then cleared, and I soaked the towel, wrung it out, soaked it again, wrung it out again.
I carried it back to the parlour. I pulled a straight chair alongside the chesterfield. I sat down and bent over the Reverend Stokes. I wiped his face gently with the dampened towel. His eyes opened suddenly. He stared at me dazedly. His eyes were spoiled milk, curdled and cloudy.
A clawed hand came up and pushed the towel aside. I 395
folded it and laid it across his parchment brow. He let me do that and let the towel remain.
'I fainted?' he said in a wispy voice.
'Something like that,' I said, nodding. 'You started to go down. I caught you and brought you in here.'
'In the study,' he whispered, 'across the hall, a bottle of whisky, a half-filled glass. Bring them in here.'
I looked at him, troubled.
'Please,' he breathed.
I went into the study, a shadowed chamber littered with books, journals, magazines: none of them new. The room was dominated by a large walnut desk topped with scarred and ripped maroon leather. The whisky and glass were on the desk. I took them and started out.
On a small marble-topped smoking stand near the door was a white plaster replica of Michelangelo's 'David.' It was the only clean, shining, lovely object I had seen in that decaying house. I had seen nothing of a religious nature — no pictures, paintings, icons, statuary, crucifixes, etc.
I brought him the whisky. He raised a trembly hand and I held the glass to his lips. He gulped greedily and closed his eyes. After a moment he opened his eyes again, flung the towel from his brow on to the floor. He took the glass from my hand. Our fingers touched. His skin had the chill of death.
'There's another glass,' he said. 'In the kitchen.'
His voice was stronger but it still creaked. It had an unused sound: harsh and croaky.
'Thank you, no,' I said. 'It's a little early for me.'
'Is it?' he said without interest.
I sat down in the straight chair again and watched him finish the tumbler of whisky. He filled it again from the bottle on the floor. I didn't recognize the label. It looked like a cheap blend.
'You told me your name?' he asked.
'Yes, sir. Joshua Bigg.'
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'Now I remember. Joshua Bigg. I don't recognize you, Mr Bigg. Where are you from?'
'New York City, sir.'
'New York,' he repeated, and then with a pathetic attempt at gaiety, he said, 'East Side, West Side, all around the town.'
He tried to smile at me. When his thin, whitish lips parted, I could see his stained dentures. His gums seemed to have shrunk, for the false teeth fitted loosely and he had to clench his jaws frequently to jam them back into place.
It was like a painted grimace.
'I was in New York once,' he said dreamily. 'Years and years ago. I went to the theatre. A musical play. What could it have been? I'll remember in a moment.'
'Yes, sir.'
'And what brings you to our fair city, Mr Bigg?'
I was afraid of saying the name again. I feared he might have the same reaction. But I had to try it.
'I wanted to talk to you about the Reverend Godfrey Knurr, Pastor,' I said softly.
His eyes closed again. 'Godfrey Knurr?' Stokes repeated. 'No, I can't recall the name. My m e m o r y . . . '
I wasn't going to let him get away with that.
'It's odd you shouldn't remember,' I said. 'I spoke to his sister, Miss Goldie Knurr, and she told me you helped him get into the seminary, that you helped him in so many ways. And I saw a photograph of you with young Godfrey.'
Suddenly he was crying. It was awful. Cloudy tears slid from those milky eyes. They slipped sideways into his sunken temples, then into his feathered hair.
'Is he dead?' he gasped.
First Goldie Knurr and now the Reverend Stokes. Was the question asked hopefully? Did they wish him dead?
I turned my eyes away, not wanting to sit there and watch this shattered man weep. After a while I heard him 397
snuffle a few times and take a gulp from the glass he held on his thin chest. Then I looked at him again.
'No, sir,' I said, 'he is not dead. But he's in trouble, deep trouble. I represent a legal firm. A client intends to bring very serious charges against the Reverend Knurr. I am here to make a preliminary investigation ...'
My voice trailed away; he wasn't listening to me. His lips were moving and I leaned close to hear what he was saying.
'Evil,' the Reverend Ludwig Stokes was breathing.
'Evil, evil, evil, evil . . . '
I sat back. It seemed a hopeless task to attempt to elicit information from this old man. Goldie Knurr had been right; he was fuddled.
But then he spoke clearly and intelligibly.
'Do you know him?' he asked. 'Have you seen him?'
'Yes, sir,' I said. 'I spoke to him yesterday. He seems to be in good health. He has a beard now. He runs a kind of social club in Greenwich Village for poor boys and he also counsels individual, uh, dependants. Mostly wealthy women.'
His face twisted and he clenched his jaw to press his dentures back into place. A thin rivulet of whisky ran from the corner of his mouth and he wiped it away slowly with the back of one hand.
'Wealthy women,' he repeated, his voice dull. 'Yes, yes, that would be Godfrey.'
'Reverend Stokes,' I said, 'I'm curious as to why Knurr selected the ministry as his career. I can find nothing in his boyhood that indicates any great religiosity.' I paused, stared at him. 'Was it to avoid the draft?' I asked bluntly.
'Partly that,' he said in a low voice. 'If his family had had the money, he would have wished to go to a fashionable eastern college. That was his preference, but it was impossible. Even I didn't have that kind of money.'
'He asked for it? From you?'
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He didn't answer.
'I understand he had good marks in high school,' I went on. 'Perhaps he could have obtained a scholarship, worked to help support himself?'
'It wasn't his way,' he said.
'Then he could have gone to a low-tuition, state-supported college. Why the ministry?'
'Opportunity,' the Reverend Stokes said without expression.
'Opportunity?' I echoed. 'To save souls? I can't believe that of Godfrey Knurr. And surely not the monetary rewards of being an ordained minister.'
'Opportunity,' he repeated stubbornly. 'That's how he saw it.'
I thought about that, trying to see it as a young ambitious Godfrey Knurr had.
'Wealthy parishioners?' I guessed. 'Particularly wealthy female parishioners? Maybe widows and divorcees? Was that how his mind worked?'
Again he didn't answer. He emptied the bottle into his tumbler and drained it in two gulps.
'There's another in the kitchen,' he told me. 'In the cupboard under the sink.'
I found the bottle. I also found a reasonably clean glass for myself and rinsed it several times, scrubbing the inside with my fingers. I brought bottle and glass back to the parlour, sat down again, and poured him half a tumbler and myself a small dollop.
'Your health, sir,' I said, raising my glass. I barely wet my lips.
'He was a handsome boy?' I asked, coughing. 'Godfrey Knurr?'
He m
ade a sound.
'Yes,' he said in his creaky voice, 'very handsome. And strong. A beautiful boy. Physically.'
I caught him up on that.
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'Physically?' I said. 'But what of his personality, his character?'
Another of his maddening silences.
'Charm,' he said, then buried his nose in his glass. After he swallowed he repeated, 'Charm. A very special charm.
There was a golden glow about him.'
'He must have been very popular,' I said, hoping to keep his reminiscences flowing.
'You had to love him,' he said, sighing. 'In his presence you felt happy. More alive. He promised everything.'
'Promised?' I said, not understanding.
'I felt younger,' he said, voice low. 'More hopeful. Life seemed brighter. Just having him near.'
'Did he ever visit you here, in your home?'
Again he began to weep, and I despaired of learning anything of significance from this riven man.
I waited until his eyes stopped leaking. This time he didn't bother wiping the tears away. The wet glistened like oil on his withered face. He drank deeply, finished his whisky. His trembling hand pawed feebly for the full bottle on the floor. I served him. I had never before seen a man drink with such maniacal determination, as if unconsciousness could not come soon enough.
He lay there, wax fingers clamped around the glass on his bony chest. He stared unblinking at the ceiling. I felt I was sitting up with a corpse, waiting for the undertaker's men to come and take their burden away.
'I understand he was in trouble as a boy,' I continued determinedly. 'In a drugstore where he worked. He was accused of stealing.'
'He made restitution,' the old man said, his thin lips hardly moving. 'Paid it all back.'
'You gave him the money for that?' I guessed.
I hardly heard his faint, 'Yes.' Then . . .
'I gave him so much!' he howled in a voice so loud it startled me. 'Not only money, but myself. I gave him my-400
self! I taught him about poetry and beauty. Love. He said he understood, but he didn't. He was playing with me. He teased me. All the time he was teasing me, and it gave him pleasure.'
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