Greenwich

by Howard Fast

  “That’s something almost impossible to know about any couple, isn’t it?”

  “I suppose so,” Sister Brody agreed. “Anyway, she’s coming to church tomorrow morning for the eleven o’clock mass to hear you speak.”

  “Oh? So that’s why you’re here.”

  “Yes—I suppose.”

  “How do you know?” Donovan asked without rancor.

  “I saw the bulletin in the office. It says that Father Garibaldi will deliver the homily.”

  “Yes, word does get around. Is that so disappointing?”

  “It will be to Sally and to the Greenes and the Selligs as well. They will all be here; but Sally, must I greet her with a lie?”

  “It’s not a lie.”

  “It’s my lie. I told her you would speak about the three people who died today and last night,” the nun insisted.

  “I can’t. It’s impossible.”

  “May I ask why it’s impossible?”

  No one else at the church would have dared to beard him like that, yet he didn’t tell her that it was none of her business or ask her to leave. Sister Brody guessed that he wanted to talk. She waited quietly while the silence thickened and became more difficult.

  “Pat,” he finally said, almost pleadingly, “would you mind if I smoked? I know it’s a disgusting habit, and I’ve tried to break myself of it—I know, last night, but that was a Cuban cigar—”

  She couldn’t help herself. She began to giggle. “Oh, go ahead and smoke.”

  Opening a drawer in his desk, he took out a small cigar, a lighter, and an ashtray. He lit the cigar and turned to blow the smoke away from her.

  “You don’t have to do that. My father smoked cigars. I like the smell.”

  “This is a stogie, ten dollars for twenty. You’re forbearing. I’ve had an unusual day—a rather difficult day, and I’ve spent the last hour sitting here and staring at that man on the cross. At our Lord, trying to understand why he died.”

  Sister Brody swallowed the words that came to mind and remained silent.

  “I thought you’d pick me up on that,” he said, smiling. “I don’t think I’ve sinned. I’m not confessing.”

  “Heaven forbid,” she could not help saying.

  “Amen. I’m cursed with curiosity, and this morning, before I heard the news of Richard Castle’s murder, I had Joe Hunt come by. You know him, he helped serve last night, he’s Abel Hunt’s son. He’s at Harvard, a very bright boy, and what they call a computer nerd. I asked him, in all confidence, to sit down at our computer and find out what he could about Richard Castle.” Donovan paused and shook the ashes off the cigar.

  “What did he find out?” Sister Brody could not help asking.

  “Too much. This Internet is a strange and disturbing place. I found out that it happened when Castle was an Assistant Secretary for Latin American Affairs. The nuns and lay workers who were raped and killed, the six Jesuit priests who were murdered in cold blood, Archbishop Romero—all of it carried out by murder squads we trained and armed—Castle was one of the men who planned it and pushed it through.”

  Sister Brody said nothing.

  “You don’t appear surprised.”

  “Castle? Yes, that surprises me. I don’t think Sally knows anything about that. Castle is dead. Remember, I was there. I saw the bodies. That was many years ago. Is that why you canceled the homily?”

  “No, no. I canceled the homily because I can’t write one. It goes deeper. Where was I then? Where was the church? Why was this monstrosity buried by the media? Why was the Vatican responding in whispers? Where was the rage?”

  “Rage, Father? Is rage a part of our church?”

  He dropped the cigar into the ashtray and stared at her.

  “Why are Jesuits or nuns or a bishop any different? Over seventy thousand people were murdered in that forsaken little country—and they were all human beings. Isn’t that more awful than a handful of priests?”

  He spread his arms. “My dear lady, you’re right. I am not going to argue with you. You asked me a question, and I am trying to answer it—not for you but for myself. Six million Jews were put to death in the heart of civilized, Catholic Europe. How could that have happened? Why did we let it happen? Don’t tell me answers that I already know. It’s in the past. There must be forgiveness. But forgiveness is not forgetfulness. The walls of the Vatican, the walls of every church in the world, should have exploded with protest, but where—where was the silence broken?”

  “You shouldn’t ask me questions like that,” Sister Brody said meekly.

  “Then who should I ask?”

  “Yourself.”

  He leaned back and clasped his hands. “Thank God, Pat, that I have someone like you.”

  “Why? To remind you that people are human, weak, often mindless. May I speak freely?”

  “Have you ever spoken any other way?” he asked, smiling now.

  “Forgive me, Father, you have been too long in Greenwich. Here, things are clean and very nice. Good and evil are cloaked. There are other places all over the earth where good and evil are naked, and evil is very ugly, and death is often beyond any human explanation. I am not berating you. God forbid that I should berate a good man. I have no explanation for what happened in El Salvador or in the Holocaust or in the Catholic Church, for that matter. I have nothing to offer except my faith.”

  “And you feel that I have lost mine?” the monsignor asked, a note of despair in his voice.

  She shook her head. “I would not dare to think that. But even saints have lost their faith.”

  Then both of them, the man and the woman, retreated into silence. Sister Brody made no move to go, and the monsignor made no move to dismiss her. They both took refuge within themselves. The monsignor was recollecting a time when he was very young, when he believed many, many things that were filled with hope. Sister Brody was wondering how she could help this man in his suffering. She understood what that kind of suffering was like.

  Finally, she asked, “May I be even more intrusive than I have been?”

  This brought an anguished smile from the priest.

  “You are asking how I could be more intrusive,” she said.

  “No, Pat. Go ahead.”

  “What do you find when you meditate?”

  “It’s not what I find, Pat, but what I seek.”

  “And what do you seek, Father?”

  “God.”

  She nodded.

  The monsignor passed a hand over the pile of papers on his desk. “In there, today, I found the manuscript that Harold Sellig had sent to Herb Greene. Why his wife sent it on to me, I don’t know. Sellig has a thorough distaste for clerics of every kind, ministers, priests, rabbis—he excludes no one of the cloth. He was stationed on an aircraft carrier for two years during the Vietnam War, as a naval historian, and he spent time onshore, in part during the Tet offensive. He began the book then …” The monsignor’s voice trailed away.

  “It appears to have had a deep effect on you.” This was more a question than an answer.

  “It fractured my sense of judgment.”

  “Why should we have to judge? That’s for God, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, that’s for God.”

  “And we can pray for all three of them, can’t we, Father? For the innocent woman, for the good doctor, and for the man who espoused murder. Let Father Garibaldi give the homily. All you have to say is a simple prayer.”

  “Yes, sister.” He had tears in his eyes.

  “And now, it’s past midnight. We both need our sleep.”

  “More than you know,” the monsignor said. “What would I have done if Castle still lived?”

  “My mother used to say, If ifs and ands were pots and pans, how would the tinkers laugh!”

  “Yes, of course,” he replied, thinking that he would sit up half the night, thinking of a prayer.

  “No,” Sister Brody said, “with all apology, I think you miss the point. We believe that death is som
ething more than death, but in every case there is a certain terrible sameness. We have surrendered God’s greatest gift, the gift of life. Forgive me for reading you a homily. I have no right to, but so long as there is war and starvation and murder and grief beyond measure, we are all assassins, the good and the bad, the meek and the proud. There is the sin that we all share—the sin of indifference.”

  She had noted that it was past midnight, but Donovan did not want her to go. He stared at this small, pudgy woman and tried desperately to unravel his own complex inner being; and finally, he said, ‘The Buddhists write, Do no harm to any sentient being.”

  “We take it a little further—Love thy brother as thyself.”

  “Even Castle.” He nodded.

  “Even Castle.”

  Sister Brody rose, walked around the desk, and kissed him lightly on his cheek. “Good night, Father. Sleep well.” Then she left.

  The monsignor sat at his desk for almost an hour after she had gone. He pondered over his work, his life, its barren disappointments, its moments of exultation, its emptiness, and its fullness, and he searched for a link he could break and thereby make himself free. He wandered through a desert called the world we live in, and he recalled the endless parade of faces that had come and gone, and at long last, his mind was still. He picked up his pen and began to write on the pad that lay on his desk:

  The selfsame moment I could pray;

  And from my neck so free

  The Albatross fell off, and sank

  Like lead into the sea.

  A Biography of Howard Fast

  Howard Fast (1914–2003), one of the most prolific American writers of the twentieth century, was a bestselling author of more than eighty works of fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and screenplays. Fast’s commitment to championing social justice in his writing was rivaled only by his deftness as a storyteller and his lively cinematic style.

  Born on November 11, 1914, in New York City, Fast was the son of two immigrants. His mother, Ida, came from a Jewish family in Britain, while his father, Barney, emigrated from the Ukraine, changing his last name to Fast on arrival at Ellis Island. Fast’s mother passed away when he was only eight, and when his father lost steady work in the garment industry, Fast began to take odd jobs to help support the family. One such job was at the New York Public Library, where Fast, surrounded by books, was able to read widely. Among the books that made a mark on him was Jack London’s The Iron Heel, containing prescient warnings against fascism that set his course both as a writer and as an advocate for human rights.

  Fast began his writing career early, leaving high school to finish his first novel, Two Valleys (1933). His next novels, including Conceived in Liberty (1939) and Citizen Tom Paine (1943), explored the American Revolution and the progressive values that Fast saw as essential to the American experiment. In 1943 Fast joined the American Communist Party, an alliance that came to define—and often encumber—much of his career. His novels during this period advocated freedom against tyranny, bigotry, and oppression by exploring essential moments in American history, as in The American (1946). During this time Fast also started a family of his own. He married Bette Cohen in 1937 and the couple had two children.

  Congressional action against the Communist Party began in 1948, and in 1950, Fast, an outspoken opponent of McCarthyism, was called before the House Un-American Activities Committee. Because he refused to provide the names of other members of the Joint Anti-Fascist Refugee Committee, Fast was issued a three-month prison sentence for contempt of Congress. While in prison, he was inspired to write Spartacus (1951), his iconic retelling of a slave revolt during the Roman Empire, and did much of his research for the book during his incarceration. Fast’s appearance before Congress also earned him a blacklisting by all major publishers, so he started his own press, Blue Heron, in order to release Spartacus. Other novels published by Blue Heron, including Silas Timberman (1954), directly addressed the persecution of Communists and others during the ongoing Red Scare. Fast continued to associate with the Communist Party until the horrors of Stalin’s purges of dissidents and political enemies came to light in the mid-1950s. He left the Party in 1956.

  Fast’s career changed course in 1960, when he began publishing suspense-mysteries under the pseudonym E. V. Cunningham. He published nineteen books as Cunningham, including the seven-book Masao Masuto mystery series. Also, Spartacus was made into a major film in 1960, breaking the Hollywood blacklist once and for all. The success of Spartacus inspired large publishers to pay renewed attention to Fast’s books, and in 1961 he published April Morning, a novel about the battle of Lexington and Concord during the American Revolution. The book became a national bestseller and remains a staple of many literature classes. From 1960 onward Fast produced books at an astonishing pace—almost one book per year—while also contributing to screen adaptations of many of his books. His later works included the autobiography Being Red (1990) and the New York Times bestseller The Immigrants (1977).

  Fast died in 2003 at his home in Greenwich, Connecticut.

  Fast on a farm in upstate New York during the summer of 1917. Growing up, Fast often spent the summers in the Catskill Mountains with his aunt and uncle from Hunter, New York. These vacations provided a much-needed escape from the poverty and squalor of the Lower East Side’s Jewish ghetto, as well as the bigotry his family encountered after they eventually relocated to an Irish and Italian neighborhood in upper Manhattan. However, the beauty and tranquility Fast encountered upstate were often marred by the hostility shown toward him by his aunt and uncle. “They treated us the way Oliver Twist was treated in the orphanage,” Fast later recalled. Nevertheless, he “fell in love with the area” and continued to go there until he was in his twenties.

  Fast (left) with his older brother, Jerome, in 1935. In his memoir Being Red, Fast wrote that he and his brother “had no childhood.” As a result of their mother’s death in 1923 and their father’s absenteeism, both boys had to fend for themselves early on. At age eleven, alongside his thirteen-year-old brother, Fast began selling copies of a local newspaper called the Bronx Home News. Other odd jobs would follow to make ends meet in violent, Depression-era New York City. Although he resented the hardscrabble nature of his upbringing, Fast acknowledged that the experience helped form a lifelong attachment to his brother. “My brother was like a rock,” he wrote, “and without him I surely would have perished.”

  A copy of Fast’s military identification from World War II. During the war Fast worked as a war correspondent in the China-Burma-India theater, writing articles for publications such as PM, Esquire, and Coronet. He also contributed scripts to Voice of America, a radio program developed by Elmer Davis that the United States broadcast throughout occupied Europe.

  Here Fast poses for a picture with a fellow inmate at Mill Point prison, where he was sent in 1950 for his refusal to disclose information about other members of the Communist Party. Mill Point was a progressive federal institution made up of a series of army bunkhouses. “Everyone worked at the prison,” said Fast during a 1998 interview, “and while I hate prison, I hate the whole concept of prison, I must say this was the most intelligent and humane prison, probably that existed in America.” Indeed, Fast felt that his three-month stint there served him well as a writer: “I think a writer should see a little bit of prison and a little bit of war. Neither of these things can be properly invented. So that was my prison.”

  Fast with his wife Bette and their two children, Jonathan and Rachel, in 1952. The family has a long history of literary achievement. Bette’s father founded the Hudson County News Company. Jonathan Fast would go on to become a successful popular novelist, as would his daughter, Molly, whose mother, Erica Jong, is the author of the groundbreaking feminist novel Fear of Flying. (Photo courtesy of Lotte Jacobi.)

  Fast at a bookstand during his campaign for Congress in 1952. He ran on the American Labor Party ticket for the twenty-third congressional district in the Bronx. Although Fast remained
a committed leftist his entire life, he looked back on his foray into national politics with a bit of amusement. “I got a disease, which is called ‘candidateitis,’” he told Donald Swaim in a 1990 radio interview. “And this disease takes hold of your mind, and it convinces you that your winning an election is important, very often the most important thing on earth. And it grips you to a point that you’re ready to kill to win that election.” He concluded: “I was soundly defeated, but it was a fascinating experience.”

  In 1953, the Soviet Union awarded Fast the International Peace Prize. This photo from the ceremony shows the performer, publisher, and civil rights activist Paul Robeson delivering a speech before presenting Fast (seated, second from left) with the prestigious award. Robeson and Fast came to know each other through their participation in leftist political causes during the 1940s and were friends for many years. Like Fast, Robeson was called before the House Un-American Activities Committee during the McCarthy era and invoked his Fifth Amendment right not to answer questions. This led to Robeson’s work being banned in the United States, a situation that Robeson, unlike Fast, never completely overcame. In a late interview Fast cited Robeson as one of the forgotten heroes of the twentieth century. “Paul,” he said, “was an extraordinary man.” Also shown (from left to right): Essie Robeson, Mrs. Mellisk, Dr. W.E.B. Du Bois, Rachel Fast, and Bette Fast. (Photo courtesy of Julius Lazarus and the author.)

  Howard and Bette Fast in California in 1976. The couple relocated to the West Coast after Fast grew disgruntled over the poor reception of his novel The Hessian. While in California, Fast temporarily gave up writing novels to work as a screenwriter, but, like many novelists before him, found the business disheartening. “In L.A. you work like hell because there is nothing else to do, unless you are cheating on your wife,” he told People after he had moved back East in the 1980s. Of course, Fast, an ardent nature-lover, did enjoy California’s scenic beauty and eventually set many of his novels—including The Immigrant’s Daughter and the bestselling Masao Masuto detective series—in the state.