by J.F. Powers
“John, what if he’s wrong?”
“He’d still be right.” The Bishop knew what he meant. “He’s the Bishop now.”
Monsignor Holstein said, “History hasn’t been kind to the hierarchy in these cases, John.”
Late that night, on his knees in his pajamas in the hallway, the Bishop pushed two envelopes under the door of the Chancery office, each envelope containing a Christmas card and a check, each check annotated some months earlier (in case he died unexpectedly): “Much obliged but can be put to better use, =J.D.” And then he went to bed again, and this time he slept.
Traveling north the next afternoon in the Mercedes, he had no trouble until, a mile past Fahrenheit, turning off U.S. 52, he was fiercely honked at by a truck. He activated his turn signal to make amends, and drove, flashing and drumming, down a crushed-rock road a half-mile or so, coming then to a white farmhouse with an orange school bus in the driveway and, parked behind the bus, a car, the color of which was reassuring. With his signal still flashing, right, he turned in, left, and came to rest behind the black car.
Monsignor Holstein materialized alongside the Mercedes—so it seemed to the Bishop, who’d been having trouble again with his seat belt. They went around to the back of the house, Monsignor Holstein saying the front door wasn’t used in cold weather, the Bishop assessing the Nagel property, noting the windbreak of blue spruce, the only sizable trees, though there were many seedlings.
Lest Mrs Nagel, perhaps put up to it by Monsignor Holstein, attempt to kiss the episcopal ring, which was a practice best confined to the clergy these days, the Bishop kept his gloves on—a needless precaution. Mrs Nagel was more concerned with Monsignor Holstein and his glasses, which had misted over in the warm kitchen, and which she polished with a linen towel while he stood blindly by, the Bishop enjoying the scene as one who, though older, wore glasses only for reading. In Mrs Nagel, who was blond, fairly young, fifty or so, he thought he saw the perky, useful, down-to-earth type of woman, a type he associated with hospital nuns and airline stewardesses, and liked, but he wondered that he didn’t see something else in her.
“Now, shoo!” she said when she’d finished with the glasses, and returned to the cake she was frosting.
So the Bishop and Monsignor Holstein, both smiling—both firm believers in the supremacy of women in certain areas—left the kitchen and passed through the dining room, where, as in the kitchen, there were numerous plants, and on into the living room, where there were many more. Yes, all kinds of green, growing things (some, in tubs, were immense), and so thick that the Bishop, settling down on the settee, and Monsignor Holstein, over by the TV, which was crawling with vines, had to look through a gap in order to see each other face to face.
“What’d I tell you, John?”
“What?”
“She’s a real homemaker.”
“Yes.” Yes, that was in Mrs Nagel’s favor, from the human standpoint. But when the Bishop thought of spiritual phenomena (of which he had no firsthand experience) he thought of way-out types. And that Mrs Nagel wasn’t one of them, that she wasn’t, according to Monsignor Holstein, unusually devout—only went to Mass on Sundays and holy days of obligation, to confession once a month—that she was to all appearances just a good, average Catholic, and not some kind of nut, was not in her favor, in the Bishop’s view. That, though, was what was so wonderful about this case, according to Monsignor Holstein, who, though—in interpreting it as he did, as a sign from Heaven that the traditional precepts and practices of the Church were still O.K.—might have a vested interest, the Bishop feared. Monsignor Holstein, like many pastors in re-cent years, had been under considerable pressure from curates, parishioners, and media, all crying change, change, change. The Bishop had been under similar pressure but could be more objective now, being retired, and the truth was he couldn’t see this woman, though he’d liked her in the kitchen, as one specially chosen by Heaven.
No, and when she came into the living room and sat where he could see her, beside him on the settee, he still couldn’t see her in that role. Nor could he while, over coffee and cake, they listened to her story, which was on tape because she’d had so many visitors and dreaded repeating it. (“The Little Flower felt the same way,” said Monsignor Holstein.) The Bishop resented that—the Little Flower, after all, was a canonized saint of many years’ standing—and after he’d heard the tape, which he also resented, believing an exception should have been made in his case, he was silent.
“Bishop, you’re free to ask questions,” said Monsignor Holstein, whom the Bishop, since moving over on the settee for Mrs Nagel, could no longer see.
“Oh, am I?” said the Bishop tartly, pausing to let the words sink into the greenery where Monsignor Holstein was, and then he addressed himself to Mrs Nagel. “This branch”—this branch that had disturbed her sleep and that she’d been about to cut off one morning when the apparition first appeared to her in that very tree, the figure of a woman all in blue, smiling but shaking her head—“has it stopped brushing against the house?”
“Oh, no. Not when the wind blows hard from the north.”
The Bishop had known as much from Monsignor Holstein, but was checking, testing. “Still brushes against the house?”
“Oh, yes, when the wind blows hard from the north. But I don’t mind it now.”
“No miracles yet,” Monsignor Holstein said, from his concealed position, “and none are claimed.”
There were footsteps overhead. The Bishop said, “What does your husband say, Mrs Nagel?”
“Oh, Mart never did mind it. His hearing’s not so good.”
There were footsteps on the stairs. The Bishop said, “I meant, what does he say about . . . all this?”
Mrs Nagel laughed—an honest laugh, the Bishop thought, nothing bitter about it. “Oh, Mart just thinks I’m seeing things.”
Monsignor Holstein said, “Those closest to the scene are often the last to believe.”
“Mart just doesn’t like all the visitors,” said Mrs Nagel. “Oh, he’s very good. But there’ve been so many visitors—busloads—and we just don’t have, you know, the facilities.”
The back door slammed.
“Mart has to go for the kids,” said Mrs Nagel.
The Bishop, with an effort, got to his feet, saying, “Shouldn’t we move our cars, Monsignor?”
“It’s all right,” said Mrs Nagel.
“Ground’s frozen,” said Monsignor Holstein.
The Bishop moved over to the side window and peeked through the foliage there. He saw the bus go by on the lawn, traveling fast.
“Mart’s late,” said Mrs Nagel.
The Bishop, who’d been wondering why Mr Nagel hadn’t come in to meet him, sat down, saying, “On these occasions”—so far there had been five occasions, all feast days of Our Lady, counting Christmas as one—“she, whoever she is, never says who she is?”
“No.”
“And you’ve never asked?”
“No, I know.”
The Bishop was silent for a moment, weighing the claims of faith against the demands of prudence, which had been his job for thirty years but hadn’t got any easier. “And the message—it’s always the same?”
“Yes.”
“And you understand it?”
“Oh, yes.”
“When did she tell you not to tell it to anybody else?”
“Oh, Father Barnett told me that.”
The Bishop had known that, but again was checking, testing. “So he’s the only one you’ve told it to?”
“And Mart. I told him before I told Father, but Father said that was all right. Just not to tell anybody else.”
“You accept that from Father, do you?”
“Oh, yes.”
The Bishop had to smile. “Because he’s your pastor and confessor?”
“Of course.”
The Bishop had to smile again. “Even though he may not himself—believe?”
“Oh, yes.” And Mrs N
agel, as she had earlier at the idea that she could be seeing things, laughed.
And that was exactly how a woman chosen by Heaven would and should respond to skeptics in this world, the Bishop believed, but what impressed him even more, what really moved him, was the way this woman deferred to her doubting pastor—to proper ecclesiastical authority.
What a wonderful world this would be if everybody did the same!
“I have no more questions, Monsignor,” the Bishop said.
On the way home, alone in the Mercedes, the Bishop stopped at the rectory in Fahrenheit and rang the doorbell. “Is Father in?”
“In!” cried the housekeeper.
Father Barnett, in his late fifties, the kind of priest once taken for granted and now much prized, stable, was in his bedroom, in a wingback chair, with a pillow behind him. His first words to the Bishop were “Yesterday, Bishop, going for the alarm—I keep the clock there on the TV, out of reach, so I have to get up when it rings. Anyway, phffft. Slipped disk. What they call it, but they don’t know. I’ve talked to ’em in Minneapolis. I’ve talked to ’em in St Paul. We had a couple of back men here from Rochester, up here fishing, and I talked to ’em. Waste of time. Some of ’em will admit it, some of ’em won’t. Bishop, there are two parts of the human body we still know nothing about—the back and the head. Or next to nothing, I’d say, from talking to ’em. I’ve stopped talking to ’em, Bishop. Treat myself. A firm pillow, Bishop. Not soft. Pressure’s what you want. Give your back support. Give your tissues a chance to heal. That’s all you can do. And wait. I’ll be all right in a few days, Bishop. I always am. Lucky I was able to treat it at once. Not like the last time. Was under the bed, straightening the boards—I have boards under my bed, Bishop—and couldn’t make myself heard. Housekeeper out. Funny feeling, Bishop. Flat on your back, paralyzed, see your whole life pass before you, and so on. Sit down, Bishop. What brings you up here?”
“Mrs Nagel.”
Father Barnett nodded.
“Monsignor Holstein was there.”
Father Barnett nodded.
“Strange case.”
Father Barnett nodded.
“Well, we can talk about it later, Father.”
The Bishop (he hadn’t sat down) stepped over to the phone, dialed the Chancery and spoke to the girl in the office, said he’d be in Fahrenheit for a few days (“Father Barnett’s down with his back, nothing serious”), asked that the ex-cathedral and the Webb be notified, and hung up.
Father Barnett said, “This is mighty good of you, Bishop.”
The Bishop nodded.
Then he went downstairs, and after speaking to the housekeeper he drove to the business district and made a few purchases, among them an alarm clock. He was recognized by clerks in stores, and by other shoppers, farmers and their wives who knew from his pastoral letters over the years that they were his favorite people, and when he was standing out in the street with the door of the Mercedes open, about to embark, he was honked at by a woman in a passing car with one of those musical horns—all of which was personally gratifying. But, more important, it showed that the Church was well regarded locally, and, more important, since there was nothing special about the town (except, maybe, its nearness to Mrs Nagel, whom one farmer’s wife had mentioned), it showed that the diocese was still in good heart.
He pulled into the driveway when he returned to the rectory, and was sorry he had to leave the Mercedes out in the cold (only a one-car garage and Father Barnett’s car was in it). Rather than ring the bell again, he entered the rectory by the back door, and, rather than wait until the day he departed, he presented the housekeeper with a box of chocolates then, along with a carton of eggs he said “somebody” had given him, rather than mention Mrs Nagel. With a breviary from Father Barnett, he went over to the church, where, after familiarizing himself with the light switches in the sacristy, he sat in a pew and read his office until the Angelus sounded automatically overhead, then stood. Returning to the rectory, again using the back door, he dined alone—not as well as he might have at the Webb but well enough.
On a tip from the housekeeper, he dropped in on a gathering of women in the church basement that evening, and a good thing he did, for word had got around that he was in residence, and there was a much larger turnout than usual, so he was told. At his insistence, the program proceeded as planned—a talk by one of the women on Christmas in Bethlehem—but when it was over he was again asked to speak. So he did—on Christmas in Rome, not very well. Leaving Rome, he traced his career in the Church, from curate to pastor to bishop, from North Dakota to Minnesota, to the diocese—incidentally, he said, the best place in the world to be at Christmastime, or any other time. For this he was warmly applauded, and should not have gone on to say that if the history of the human race had been different the first Christmas might have been celebrated in more suitable surroundings, which had confused some of the women and offended the one who’d spoken earlier. Still, a very successful evening. Held in conversation (several women mentioned Mrs Nagel), he didn’t get back to the rectory until ten.
He watched the news with Father Barnett. Then they had a drink, the able-bodied one going down to the kitchen for ice, and played cribbage—something the Bishop hadn’t done since seminary. Father Barnett talked about his back and his parish, more about the former than about the latter, and didn’t mention Mrs Nagel. After an hour, the Bishop retired to his room, out nineteen dollars and very tired, but lay awake in his new pajamas, listening to his new alarm clock, which had a loud tick.
The next morning, he saw that it had snowed on the Mercedes. After Mass, borrowing a broom from the housekeeper, he swept the car and part of the walk, working up an appetite. After breakfast, he looked in on Father Barnett, who asked about the attendance at Mass in his absence, as pastors will, and when given the count, which the Bishop knew from the housekeeper was three times the usual for a weekday, just nodded, as pastors will.
The Bishop made himself useful that morning—answered the phone, saw people (only two), and had a nice talk with the mailman, as well as with the man who delivered the fuel oil. In the afternoon, the Bishop called at the jail and admonished the no-good husband of a sad case he’d seen that morning (and written a check for), after which he called at the Chrysler garage, since there wasn’t a Mercedes dealer in Fahrenheit, and arranged for the car to stay there, since it had again started to snow. He ordered snow tires for his rear wheels. Then he walked over to the Rexall store, where he exchanged his alarm clock for a travel model with a quiet tick, bought a combination snow brush and ice scraper for the Mercedes, and joined the proprietor at the soda fountain in a cup of coffee. He was soon having another with the local Lutheran minister—a pleasant, if somewhat intellectual, young man—who drove him back to the rectory.
That evening, seeing lights flashing in the church basement, he went over to investigate, and there were the Scouts!
He returned to the rectory too late for the news, after a nice talk with the Scoutmaster and an Eagle (a vocation?), but not too late for a drink and cribbage. He heard more about Father Barnett’s back, and still nothing about Mrs Nagel, about whom he was now less inclined to ask. He did better at cribbage that night, losing eleven dollars, and went to bed less tired, though he’d had another busy day. For some time he lay awake, being pleased with his new clock, its quiet tick, and with himself, as he hadn’t been for thirty years. It was good to be working as a parish priest again.
Three days later, the Bishop said good-bye to the housekeeper (with whom he’d had a nice talk) and to Father Barnett, who, now recovered, saw him to the front door, where (and this after repeatedly telling himself that he was retired, that it was none of his business now, that he wouldn’t do this) the Bishop asked, “What about Mrs Nagel?”
Father Barnett replied, “She’s a good person, Bishop. Of her sincerity I have no doubt. But there’s this that leads me to believe—not to believe, Bishop. This so-called message. Since it was told to me in co
nfession, I can’t tell you what it is. But I can tell you this—that it’s noncontroversial, nothing about praying for the conversion of Russia, China, or the U.S., and that I advised her to keep still about it (naturally, I didn’t tell her this) because it wouldn’t be believed, even by people who believe in the visions, and I was afraid she’d be hurt. Should’ve advised her to keep still about the visions—I know that now—but doubted at the time that I could make it stick. Should’ve tried. Should’ve imposed total silence, or none at all. I fell between two stools, Bishop, and I’m the one to blame. Not Mrs Nagel. She’s a good person. Sincere. About all I can say, Bishop. There are two parts of the human body we still know nothing about.”
After that, the Bishop left.
That evening, he dined at the Webb, said the eight o’clock at the ex-cathedral the next morning, and resumed his routine at home. But the following night he was in the rectory at Gebhardt, near Fahrenheit, in response to a call for help (flu), and was there for five days, including a Sunday. The day he returned home, a call came from Glanville, in the western part of the diocese, word of his availability having spread among the clergy, and he was there for twelve days (two Sundays). While there, he had a call from Grasshopper Lake (flu again), whence he proceeded directly, not returning home. He spent the days of Christmas in Grasshopper Lake, and was very happy there, nightly entertaining members of the choir in the rectory—a grand bunch, for whom he kept the beer coming and had the piano tuned. From there he went on to Pumphrey, was there ten days, and so it was the middle of January when he got back home.
“Look,” Bishop Gau said, “you don’t have to go on livery-horsing”—what the monks at the college, who helped out in parishes on weekends, called it—but then he spoke of the situation at Buell (with a mission at Kuhl), where the pastor, one of the few priests in the diocese not ordained by the Bishop, and one of the few noncontributors to his farewell gift, was AWOL. Bishop Gau said he thought that Father (soon to be Monsignor) Rapp, even though it was the height of the bowling season, should go to Buell temporarily, to still the waters. The Bishop, believing he’d be better in such a delicate situation—more experience and more, though he was retired, clout—said he’d go, gassed up, and went.