Cecilian Vespers

by Anne Emery

  “Why not?”

  Robin Gadkin-Falkes was sitting in a chair facing his window; he was wrapped in a blanket.

  “Good evening, Robin,” Brennan said.

  He turned to see us. “Good evening, gentlemen. What can I do for you? Or would you like to ask first whether they’re making me comfortable here?”

  “Are they?”

  “They are most kind. And exceedingly tactful. Perhaps I’m considered a sensitive sort. I am rather a hothouse rose, I must confess. Oh, shouldn’t bandy the C-word about carelessly, should I? Do sit down, Father.”

  Brennan sat in the only other chair.

  “Here, Mr. Collins,” the monk said, rising.

  “Monty.”

  “Monty, take this chair. I shall take to my bed like the poor invalid I am. So, gentlemen, what brings you to me today?”

  “We found something in your room,” Brennan told him.

  “Oh! Nothing embarrassing, I trust.”

  “Someone sent you a message.”

  “Best wishes for an early verdict of insanity, perhaps?”

  “I’m afraid not. It’s a note attached to a chaplet of Saint Philomena.”

  There was a jolt of recognition before he tried to cover it by fussing with his blanket.

  “Would you be kind enough to enlighten us about it?”

  “I’m sure you need no enlightenment from me, Brennan. You’ve seen the thing. I haven’t.”

  “Oh? I thought perhaps you had.”

  “No. So, do tell me. I am intrigued, and not a little bored in here.”

  “Have you a particular devotion to Saint Philomena?”

  “Can’t say that I have, no.”

  “Let’s move on to the note, then. It says: ‘Fac me tecum potare.’”

  Robin couldn’t hide his surprise. That was not what he was expecting to hear. He recovered as best he could. “Someone has a sense of humour. Must be trying to jolly me along through my ordeal. Well, if you find him, tell him I should be delighted to drink with him, as long as it’s his treat. Nothing to swill in this place.”

  “Oh, forgive me,” Brennan said then. “I had it wrong. It’s ‘Fac me tecum plangere.’”

  “Ah. We’ve gone from boozing to grief. A reversal of the natural order of things.”

  “That’s right. I’m asking myself whether the writer of the note is grieving with you over your plight today, or whether the grief refers to something else. What do you think, Robin?”

  I expected another flippant reply. But no.

  “I lost someone.” He looked away from us towards the window. “I understand grief all too well.” He faced us again and continued. “Forgive me, if you will, for descending to melodrama. I lost my own mirror image, the other half of my soul. She was the love of my life, and I mean my entire life. From the instant of conception to this day and if God chooses, I shall but love her better after death. Let me show you.”

  He got up, opened his overnight bag, and gently extracted a photograph in a leather frame. “Here we are at fifteen, the year before she died.”

  The black-and-white photo showed a boy and a girl, slim and attractive with short blond hair. He had his arm around her shoulder, and they both were gazing intently at something to the left of the camera. Apart from the fact that one was male and the other female, they were identical.

  “Twins, as you can see. My sister, Louisa. We were one. We shared the same womb, the same cot in the nursery, the same bath. We never grew apart. We never needed anyone else. For anything. When she was taken from me, I tried to go with her. Tried to top myself, you see. Didn’t succeed. Here I am.”

  Brennan had lapsed into silence, so I asked: “How did your sister die?”

  “My parents took her to South Africa, where we had family. I didn’t go because I was in high dudgeon about something my father had said. If I had gone, Louisa would never have contracted her illness — or I should say infection — because she would not have gone into the wilds of Africa on an adventure with my half-wit cousins. They struck out into the jungles, where all manner of writhing, biting, stinging creatures lay in wait. I ask you, really! What civilized person — Had I been there, Louisa would have stayed with me and we’d have contented ourselves with the shops and art galleries of Jo’burg. Instead of boarding a private plane — I would have lashed myself to the propellers to prevent that! — and going off to the jungle. Anyway, she died out there. I never saw her again. After my own unsuccessful attempt to follow her into death, I underwent years and years of tedious therapy. How many times can you hear the word ‘narcissism’ before you want to scream and fall upon your therapist with a blunt and heavy object? ‘Could it be that you were in love with yourself, Robin?’ We were in love with each other! And with ourselves! It was all one and the same. Why be tiresome about it? Forgive me, I must be boring you. Brennan, you have been silent all through my little scene. Is it just too tawdry for you? Should I fall to my knees in the confessional yet again?”

  Brennan looked over at him, not unsympathetically, I thought, but still did not speak.

  “Where did religion come into all this, Robin?” I asked him. “It was not just a reaction, a retreat from the world, contrary to the trite thinking that characterized just about everyone I ever met subsequently. My sister and I had always been — I won’t say ‘pious’ and I certainly won’t say ‘saintly’ — perhaps I could say ‘spiritual.’ We came from an old papist family. Shunned by many of the ‘best’ people on account of it, needless to say. I had always toyed with the idea of entering an order. I knew I would never marry. Even what passes for the aristocracy in England these days would not have condoned the only marriage that I ever wanted to contract. So, no interest in settling down with a wife. There went the biggest obstacle to religious life for me. I joined the Benedictines and spent my days tilling the fields, tending the garden, chanting my office, and praying to God to take me home where I could see Him, and Louisa, face to face.”

  “I am very sorry about your sister, Robin,” I said. “Is there a connection of some kind between her death, your grief for her, and the death of Reinhold Schellenberg?”

  “Not that I can see. Can you? I thought we were talking of this note you found in my room.”

  “We were. But naturally I wonder whether a message sent to you, the man accused of the murder of Schellenberg, is in some way connected to the case.”

  “Can’t help you there, I’m afraid.”

  “How well do you know Father Sferrazza-Melchiorre?”

  Robin raised his eyebrows. “How well could a simple monk like me know a worldly figure like Sferrazza-Melchiorre?”

  “You tell me.”

  “I have lived a monastic life. Our sartorially splendid sacerdos clearly has not. So Mediterranean! I had never heard of the man until I arrived at the schola cantorum.”

  “Did you become friendly with him during the course?”

  “We exchanged pleasantries from time to time. That is all. Why are you asking about him? Is he a suspect? I hope he is, if you’ll forgive me for saying so. The jailhouse and the mental asylum would bring him into intimate contact with the least of our Lord’s dear brethren. A new dimension to his vocation, I daresay. And a new, pared-down wardrobe instead of all that clobber he’s usually got on. Now Logan, the American, poor devil, not even a Roman collar could dress him up.”

  “Don’t be thinking you can mulvather us with all this chit-chat,” Brennan admonished him. “Let’s get back to —”

  “My dear chap, I’ve never heard you speak in your native patois, and I must say —”

  “Don’t you ‘my dear chap’ me. You seem to be getting a little too much enjoyment out of all this and your central role in it. Well, I for one have had my fill of you.” Suddenly, Burke bolted out of his chair and leaned into the monk’s pale face. “Did you, or did you not, kill Schellenberg?”

  Gadkin-Falkes reared back, clutching his blanket in front of him.

  “Leave me! Get ou
t!”

  A nurse rushed into the room. “What’s going on here? Are you all right, Brother Robin?”

  “Yes, I’m quite all right, thank you. Though I do think it’s time for these men to leave.”

  “Brother Robin needs to rest now,” she told us, and stood aside for us to leave. Burke glared at the man in the hospital bed. But the invalid refused to meet his eyes.

  “Mulvather?” I inquired.

  “Bamboozle, confuse. Trying to get us off track with all this shite about Enrico’s wardrobe. About the confession, Monty — I’m thinking we should keep it to ourselves for a bit. Leave the other suspects wondering whether we think Gadkin-Falkes is guilty or not.”

  “Mum’s the word.”

  We drove back across the harbour to St. Bernadette’s.

  “I have to prepare tomorrow’s lecture on the sacred music of Mozart. How would you like to fill Michael O’Flaherty in on our conversation with Gadkin-Falkes?”

  “Sure. I’ll give him a quick rundown before I head home.”

  I found Michael in the priests’ library and described our encounter with the Englishman.

  “So we know a bit more about Robin now, Mike. We know he’s well aware of the prayer beads, though he refuses to admit it. And he denies any particular interest in Saint Philomena.”

  “The chaplet was the only item in his room that related to Philomena, was it, Monty?”

  “As far as I could see, yes.”

  Mike said: “So that reinforces the impression that the Philomena reference is about someone else.”

  “Right. The only other reference I saw to a saint was a little drawing of Saint Charles. Whoever he is.”

  “What did the drawing look like?”

  “It depicted the saint spinning in his grave. Somebody in one of the schola classes apparently announced that he or she had heard enough of Palestrina. Sacrilege, in the opinion of Robin and the saint.”

  “Well now, that would be Charles Borromeo. Sixteenth-century Italian saint. A contemporary, and a champion, of Palestrina. Charles is a particular favourite of clergymen, including Pope John XXIII! If my memory isn’t fooling me, it seems to me Pope John arranged to have his papal coronation on the feast day of Saint Charles.”

  “So this saint might be associated in some minds with John XXIII, who set in motion the Second Vatican Council.”

  “Now I wouldn’t be reading too much into that, Monty. Any more than I’d suspect you because Saint Charles was a lawyer!”

  Chapter 7

  Omnes sancti Sacerdotes et Levitæ, orate pro nobis.

  Omnes sancti Monachi et Eremitæ, orate pro nobis.

  Sancta Cæcilia, ora pro nobis.

  All ye holy priests and Levites, pray for us.

  All ye holy monks and hermits, pray for us.

  Saint Cecilia, pray for us.

  — “Litany of the Saints”

  “What are you looking at, Bleier?”

  “Is this the part of the movie where I am to be beaten by your fists, Logan? Or shot with a pistol? It seems I have looked at you in the wrong way; we all know what happens to those who do that.”

  “I’m glad you find things so funny here. Which leads me to the obvious question: what are you doing here, Bleier?”

  “I am an invited guest.”

  We all were. I had joined Brennan and a few people from the schola for lunch Wednesday at the Gondola on South Street. We had just ordered our meal, and received our drinks, when Kurt Bleier walked in and drew the ire of William Logan.

  “You know goddamn well what I mean, Colonel. Why are you at a school for traditional Catholic music? You know, that just doesn’t compute for me.”

  “I might ask you the same question, Mr. Logan. What attracts you to such a traditional Catholic program? Did you not leave the church many years ago?”

  “I never left! I am a Catholic! I am now living in the lay state and I have my disagreements with the church, sure. But why am I answering to you? If you had your way, there would be no church. No religion. No belief in —”

  “If you had your way, Mr. Logan, what kind of church would there be?”

  “What the hell do you mean by that?”

  “Just a question. What kind of church would you like to see?”

  “I don’t see how that’s any of your business, considering how you guys worked to suppress religion at every turn.”

  “On the contrary. You will find that in the German Democratic Republic, the church was left largely to its own devices, as long as it —”

  “As long as it toed the party line!”

  “How could it do that? If, as you suggest, the party line was atheistic materialism, a church that toed the line would hardly be a church. And yet Christianity survived in democratic Germany. In fact, churchmen were always free to practise their faith.”

  “Free! Your system is the very antithesis of freedom. You would have liked nothing more than to overthrow the government of the United States, the very Land of the Free. What are you smirking at, Brennan? You think this is funny? Come to think of it, you never were actually Americanized, were you? You in your little Irish ghetto in New York. But this isn’t about you. This is about Colonel Bleier and his late, lamented commie state, where nobody even had the freedom to take a piss without checking with the party first.”

  “Freedom is a mantra for you Americans, I realize,” Bleier replied. “But what I see in America is freedom run amok. When it comes to the point where the citizens are free to buy guns at will and kill each other with them, have you not taken freedom beyond its logical extreme? Are you not on your way towards a society in which the freedom of the unarmed will be trampled by those who are armed with weapons, where you will not be free to step outside your house without the fear of being attacked?”

  “I’m glad you mentioned killing, Kurt. That goes back to my original question. Why are you here? How many religious institutions have you attended in your life? Besides whichever ones you infiltrated so you could spy on them, I mean. Is this the first time you were struck with the inspiration to go to church? Did this inspiration coincide, by any chance, with the fact that Reinhold Schellenberg was coming here? A fellow German, who no doubt opposed everything you stood for and tried to do?”

  “Were you not in opposition to Reinhold Schellenberg yourself, Mr. Logan? Did he not represent a retrenchment to a position for the church that you could not abide?”

  “Are you accusing me of Schellenberg’s murder?”

  “Pardon my poor manners. I thought for a moment you were making the same accusation against me. Without any evidence or grounds on which to do so.”

  An uneasy truce was established, and peace reigned. Until I got to my office. I walked in to find one of my criminal clients badgering our receptionist about my absence. He was looming over the reception desk, and Darlene was clearly uncomfortable.

  “What’s the trouble, Duane? Move away from the desk.”

  “I’ll stand wherever I fucking well want to, Collins.”

  “Darlene, maybe you’d like to go for your coffee break now.”

  “Well, I —”

  “Go ahead.” When she was out of harm’s way, I said: “All right, Duane. Let’s have a seat and see what’s bothering you today.”

  “You’re never fucking here when I want you. I got a trial coming up, remember?”

  “I do remember. All you have to do is make an appointment and I’ll be here. As it happens, I have a file full of copies of letters I’ve written to you, asking you for names of witnesses and other information I need for your defence. I’ve called you and left messages. You never call, you never write. You’re the one who’s going to jail if I can’t put on a decent defence, but I need help from you —”

  “If I go to jail, Collins, you die the fucking minute I get out. Hear me? So you get to work on my case and do a good job on it. Or you’re dead. Got it?”

  Out of the corner of my eye, I saw someone come into the reception room. I hea
rd the person pick up the phone and punch in some numbers. I heard a man’s voice, one of my partners. “Yes, I’d like to report a criminal offence. Uttering a threat. I’m calling from the Stratton Sommers law office on Barrington Street …” Duane bolted from the room.

  So we dealt with that. Once again, I had made myself unpopular not only with a client but with my fellow lawyers at Stratton Sommers. Not everyone looked kindly on the addition of a criminal law department — me — to this long-established corporate law firm.

  “Who was it who said: ‘Let’s kill all the lawyers’?”

  I had decided to absent myself from the office after the uproar with Duane. Something with a little more tone, like a lecture by a visiting professor on the counterpoint of Johann Sebastian Bach, was a fine corrective. I stayed in the classroom after the lecture and regaled Brennan with the tale about Duane.

  “‘Kill all the lawyers,’” he repeated. “I’m sure that’s been said in every part of the world, in every age.”

  “Thanks, Burke. But some of us do the work of the angels. Not to blow my own trumpet, of course, but …”

  “But what?”

  “Nothing. I was fishing for a compliment. Hoping you’d butt in and assure me I’m doing good works. Mike O’Flaherty even came up with a saint who was a lawyer. Can’t remember the name.”

  “Could be any of a number of people. There were many lawyer saints.”

  “There’s hope for me yet. This guy was the patron saint of Pope John XXIII, or no, John was crowned on this saint’s feast day. Saint Charles somebody.”

  “Must be Carlo Borromeo.”

  “Yes, that’s him.”

  “One of those many and varied instances you’re talking about, where somebody said: ‘Let’s kill all the lawyers.’”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Somebody tried to do him in.”

  “What?”

  “There was a plot to assassinate him. They shot him while he was kneeling at the altar, saying evening prayers with members of his household. He commended himself to God and instructed the others to finish their prayers. But he survived the attempt and lived for another fifteen years.”