Flight Dreams

by Michael Craft

  At the sound of the gavel, background jabber fills the room, and the hush-toned announcer begins his needless summary of what the listening audience has just heard.

  “Excuse me, Abe,” Helena Carter tells the cat as she lifts him from her lap and sets him on the floor next to her chair. She rises, crosses the room, and switches off the radio. When she returns to the chair, Abe leaps into her lap and resumes his nap, bearing no apparent grudge for the intrusion.

  The woman gives a chesty sigh as she settles back with her thoughts. She tells herself that Mark Manning’s life has been threatened as a result of her soul-searching escapade. She thinks of Humphrey Hasting—a man she does not know, but instinctively dislikes—and feels a pang of sympathy even for him, aware that his wrongdoing was inspired by an overzealous response to her disappearance.

  She thinks of her sister and Arthur Mendel—my dear, yes, Margaret and Arthur—soon to be questioned in court, like criminals. What effect would that have on them, especially after living through the uncertainties and the bleak suspicions of the past seven years? Arthur has been a steadfast friend of the family for over thirty years. And Margaret—well, that indiscretion was long ago forgiven—she’s still the little sister, and she’s going through hell.

  It’s gone too far, Helen tells herself. It’s gone on too long. It’s time to put an end to this nonsense.

  She knows what needs to be done. She must speak to her brother, Father James McMullen, and she knows when to do it. The priest sent a note to her today, asking her to come to the church tomorrow morning—early, at five o’clock—to celebrate with him “a private Mass of thanksgiving for the good fortune that is about to befall Assumption.” Odd, she tells herself. The first Mass of the day is normally at six. Why is it so important for them to be alone? Just as well, though—their discussion is not apt to be pleasant.

  Secure in her thoughts, she rolls her fingers under Abe’s chin and ponders the conclusions she has reached. Abe purrs.

  “No,” wails Humphrey Hasting, “it wasn’t signed!”

  At home on a mountainside in Phoenix, Neil crouches before his television set, watching an evening news report of the Houseman Trial. Earlier, at work, he tried to follow the live radio coverage, but he was busy today, and the constant interruptions made it difficult for him to make sense of the disembodied voices. He wanted to close his office door, clear his desk, and just listen, but an important project was still overdue—Manning’s belated Christmas present—and he had to hustle to get it finished in time for the four-thirty FedEx pickup. It will arrive tomorrow morning—something to perk up Manning’s day before things get ugly in court.

  Neil sits cross-legged on the floor now, no more than three feet from the picture tube. “You can’t prove it—you can’t prove a thing!” The recording of Hasting’s outburst continues to play while a sequence of chalk drawings flashes on the screen, depicting the dramatic moment as a smidge more dramatic than it actually was.

  Neil watches vacantly as a panel of “law and journalism experts” analyzes events of the day’s hearing. They all agree that as far as Manning and Hasting are concerned, the results of tomorrow’s court session will surely “make” one of them and “break” the other. They then play the portion of Manning’s testimony in which he hints that he has recently talked to Carter herself.

  One of the panelists comments, “It seems to me that Mr. Manning was indulging here in a bit of gaming with Hank Ferret. Manning stated, after all, that he would not swear to his outlandish claims concerning Mrs. Carter—shrewdly avoiding the possibility of perjury charges, yet at the same time managing to tantalize both Ferret and Judge Ambrose. What did Manning mean by this cryptic exchange? I’m afraid that’s anyone’s guess, but one thing is clear: It is now presumed with near certainty that Mrs. Carter has been dead since her disappearance seven years ago, so it’s unlikely that Manning meant for us to take literally his claim of having spoken with her. Perhaps he has had a mystical experience. Perhaps he is himself clairvoyant or has spoken with the deceased heiress through the aid of a medium. I doubt if we shall ever know the exact meaning of Mark Manning’s words.”

  Neil knows the meaning of Manning’s words—they can be taken literally, at face value, with no hidden message whatever. These idiots on TV have been told point-blank the answer to this whole trumped-up mystery, and they don’t even have the presence of mind to recognize it. But Neil knows that Manning is right, that Manning would not expect anyone to accept his words on faith, that Manning must have a plan. Neil certainly hopes that Manning has a plan—because at this moment his prospects appear chancy at best.

  Neil leans back, supporting his weight on his elbows, and breathes an impatient sigh. The news program ends, followed by a Fox Network jiggle rerun from the pre-beefcake era, beloved by the masses for its wet T-shirts, sniggering innuendo, and precocious smart-mouthed kids. But Neil is not aware of the show. Not even the noisy, strobe-flashing commercials are able to steal his attention and penetrate his thoughts.

  Neil tells himself, Mark has been gone from Phoenix for only two days. Now, without him, the four days we spent together seem like the compression of a lifetime—as though we were always so near, as though it could never have been any other way, as though nothing could ever change. But things have changed. Mark is gone. We’re going to think things over. We’ll torture ourselves with a separation intended to clear our minds and make our true desires known, unclouded by momentary passions or the urgency of lust. These things take time. These things take a level head. Infatuation is a poor foundation for decisions that change a person’s life. We’ll have to endure this a little longer. Another month? Perhaps a year? And then what? Either I go to him or I stay—in a month or in a year or not at all.

  The waiting no longer makes sense. Neil knows his mind. He knows what he must do.

  “Oh, Daddy!” yells the busty adolescent on the screen. She’s been helping wash the family minivan, and now Daddy’s getting tricksy with the hose.

  Neil snorts a derisive laugh. With his toe, he reaches up and punches the button that blackens the screen.

  Thursday, December 31

  1 day till deadline

  THE EARLY-MORNING AIR IS cool, almost frosty. A few minutes before five, Helena Carter steps out of her house wearing a bulky cardigan to protect herself from the chill. She will soon leave this climate, and she likes the idea of strolling outdoors in a sweater on a dark winter morning. Besides, the church is only two blocks away. She is a vigorous woman—a brisk walk will do her no harm.

  She didn’t sleep well overnight. Yesterday’s hearing spawned thoughts that kept her addled and awake despite her self-assurances that the long period of uncertainty had ended. Now, though, as she walks past the town square and approaches the church, her trepidation gives way to a sense of relief, as though the dreaded confrontation with her brother were already behind her.

  It feels strange to touch the big gnarled handle of the church door—unfamiliar and foreign, without the significance that the act of entering church has held for her in the past. She walks through the vestibule, strolls down the center aisle, and sits in a front pew. The candles on the altar are already lit—tongues of fire aglow in the dimness of the sanctuary. Muted voices drift from the sacristy as the priest instructs an altar boy in details of this odd private Mass. She hears the clink of heavy glass cruets being prepared for the Eucharist—one filled with water, the other with wine.

  As she waits for the service to begin, her gaze travels to the stained-glass windows, normally radiant, but inky black at this early hour. Then her gaze crosses the aisle to the windows on the opposite wall, and she can just discern the figures depicted in the glass, enlivened by the grayish light that begins to fill the eastern sky. East, she thinks—that’s home, beyond the windows, beyond the mountains.

  Her musing is interrupted by the clang of a bell as Father McMullen and the boy appear in the arched sacristy doorway and walk to the foot of the altar. As they m
utter their Latin dialogue, Helen does not follow in her missal as she always has, but allows her mind to stray again to other matters, rehearsing the conversation she must soon have with the priest.

  Forever unchanging, like a relic embedded in stone, the Mass continues along its prescribed course. The woman in the front pew sits, stands, and kneels, blessing herself with the sign of the cross, as she has done countless times during her life. But she participates without emotion, through force of habit. She feels suddenly, irreparably detached from these surroundings, as if her mind had floated from her body and were looking down upon her from a remote corner of the vaulted ceiling.

  She sees the room as if with new eyes. She sees the statues no longer as models of virtue, but as gaudily painted plaster. As for the scenes still brightening in the windows, she no longer views them with the comfort and ease of meeting old friends; she is jolted by the quaint, mythical nonsense of doves and dragons, reverent camels and warring angels. Then she peers at the priest, her brother, who stands before the altar. She no longer sees Father James McMullen as the man of deeply rooted beliefs who has dedicated his life to a holy mission; she sees him with instant clarity as a pathetic earthbound creature with his mind in the sky who has doomed himself to live a lie. In the solitude of her conscience, she weeps at her recognition of the real world, then she laughs—with a child’s ecstatic joy, a joy that stems from the rational consistency of seeing things, really seeing things, exactly as they are.

  The service wears on predictably, with its age-old verbatim sameness, toward the climactic moment of transubstantiation. The priest bows low over the wafer of bread and summons God’s presence, Christ’s body, as the altar boy lifts the silver bell from its velvet cushion and rings it with three sharp snaps of his wrist. The priest bows low again and peers into the gold chalice. “Hic est enim calix sanguinis mei,” he utters—This is the cup of My blood. Over the years, he has performed this rite daily, surely ten thousand times. But this time, the wine is cloudy, tainted. This time, when he dreams the waking nightmare of his twin brother’s crime, he is not haunted by it, but inspired.

  He eats the bread—but does not drink the wine.

  Instead, he turns to his sister and descends the stairs to the edge of the sanctuary. “Come,” he bids her. “Drink from the cup of our Savior’s blood.”

  She rises from the pew as commanded and steps toward him. They stand on opposite sides of the communion rail, their faces a foot apart. He raises the chalice and touches it to her lips. She stares into the wine for a moment, then into his eyes. With the tips of her fingers she nudges the cup back toward the priest and tells him, “I’m going home, Jamie.”

  His nostrils flare. He steadies the shaking chalice with his free hand.

  She adds casually, almost flippantly, “I thought you should know.”

  “I… don’t understand,” he stammers. “Tomorrow the estate can finally be settled. We’ve waited so long—you and I—seven years. This is what we both wanted. We agreed. To back out now would be betrayal. It’s a sin!”

  “Never mind my sins,” she snaps. “What of your own? What Christian motive led you to entice me out to this desert? I’ve hurt people who love me, I’ve stripped away my very identity, I’ve spent seven years with you in this squalor—and for what? Do I have to say it? Do I have to say that you’re no better than the rest? Face it, Jamie—your only interest in my ‘immortal soul’ has been my money and its service to your bullheaded mission.”

  He backs a step away from her, speaking rapidly. “Be careful, Helen. Judge not, that you may not be judged. Let him who is without fault cast the first stone.”

  “Stop that!” she says, venting a fierce frustration. “That’s drivel. You can’t just quote your way out of every tight corner. You can’t get through life on slogans.”

  “Slogans!” he says, backing to the first step of the altar. “Your words border perilously upon sacrilege, Helen, while the words of Christ are the words of life. ‘I am the way,’ He said. ‘I am the way, the truth …’”

  “Stop it, Jamie.” Her voice is now calm as she leans over the rail that separates them like a wall. “That won’t work anymore—not on me. You can believe anything you wish, but wishing and believing won’t change reality one iota. Here I am, fifty-six years old, and I spent all those years hoping and praying and worrying about the depth of my faith. And what has all that anguish accomplished? What could it accomplish?”

  The young altar boy, terrified by the priest’s reaction to the confrontation, has sidestepped out of the sanctuary and peers back through the sacristy door.

  Helen continues, “I’m fed up with the sniping and craziness I’ve found here, and I’ve come to question the purpose of it all—to say nothing of your motives, Jamie. I no longer find The Society worthy of my husband’s hard-won fortune. Not another dime. If I hurry, I can get myself—and my cats—on a plane to Chicago this morning. Mark Manning needs me there.”

  “Manning needs you?” shouts the priest, aghast, backing up another stair toward the altar. “What about the needs of Holy Mother Church? For God’s sake, what about the needs of your own flesh and blood?” He clasps the chalice close to his chest, sloshing wine down the brocade of his chasuble. “Manning is responsible for this betrayal. The sin of your infidelity rests upon his blackened soul—may it burn in hell for eternity!”

  Helen is still restrained in the face of the priest’s raving. She tells him, “Mark Manning is a friend. He helped me. But I made up my own mind. I accept full responsibility for my actions—and it’s high time.”

  The priest trembles as he glares at the woman who watches him serenely over the communion rail. With anger still mounting, he extends an accusing finger. “You blaspheme!” he bellows, his ire matching that of any judge of the Inquisition. “Saint Paul tells us plainly that man is justified before his God by faith alone.”

  Backing up to the top stair of the altar, he drops the chalice—it bounces and clanks on the marble. He crosses both arms before him as if to ward off an evil presence. “Only faith has the power to heal and make us whole—faith in a God we can never know and only dare to love. Faith alone is what raises man from the filth and mire where he wallows with the other animals. Faith permits him a fleeting vision of the divine.” The veins pound visibly up his neck and through his temples. “Almighty God is a merciful judge, but the wrath of the Lord will be upon those who have heard His words yet fail to believe. Woe to the unfaithful!” he cries. “Woe to the infidel!” he screams again, enraged—but this time he chokes on his words.

  Suddenly breathless, he feels a crush of pain against his chest, like steel bands tightening around his torso, his arms, his neck. He felt this pain once before and recovered, but now it assaults him ruthlessly. “My … my God,” he gasps as he struggles to inhale, fingers clawing to loosen his collar. His legs can no longer support the weight of his body, and he collapses before the altar. His head cracks soundly against an edge of the stone steps. His foot kicks the consecration bell from its cushion and sends it skittering across the polished floor until it crashes with a final, mangled clatter against the wrought-iron base of the pulpit.

  “Go!” says Helen to the ashen-faced youngster as she fumbles to open the gate of the communion rail. “Run to the rectory. Tell Father’s housekeeper to call an ambulance.” As she steps into the sanctuary, the boy darts from the church, but she knows that his efforts will be futile.

  The priest’s eyes are barely open, squinting with agony and fright. One hand still flails lamely at his neck. The other beckons Helen to his side.

  She kneels on the steps next to him, opens his collar, and takes hold of his hands. Trying to speak, he drools blood from the corner of his lips. She leans close to his mouth, and he whispers several sentences to her.

  He shudders, then exhales his last breath.

  A couple of hours later in Chicago, Roxanne gulps coffee from a mug at the table in Manning’s loft. She wanted for them to meet—“
it’s imperative”—before the afternoon court session, so Manning invited her to his home, since the office would surely be chaotic today.

  She slaps a folder closed and tosses it atop one of several stacks of files on the table. “Please be aware,” she tells him, “that you could be in bigger trouble than Humphrey Hasting if Judge Ambrose holds you in contempt.”

  Manning isn’t listening. He’s busy unwrapping an oblong parcel, a three-foot tube that has just been delivered to his door.

  She continues, “Your elusive testimony about Helena Carter yesterday made great headlines, but I’m afraid you’re going to find yourself in some very hot water because of it.”

  He’s got it open. Clumsily, working with only one good arm, he pulls out a roll of papers that springs open on the kitchen counter, smelling distinctly of ammonia. He grabs various cooking utensils to anchor the curled corners.

  It’s a set of architect’s blue-line prints. The top page is a floor plan, vaguely familiar but largely meaningless to Manning—a cryptic profusion of symbols and lines with overlapping arrows that mark dimensions. He turns to the second sheet, a similar plan, probably another level of the same building. He pages through more of these technical drawings, then a sequence of elevations that look like walls, and finally a perspective—a detailed, colored rendering of a large interior space drawn three-dimensionally. Manning turns the page and finds another perspective, as if looking at the same room from its opposite corner. Glancing up from the drawings and into his unfinished loft, the plans suddenly make sense. He has his bearings.

  Roxanne says, “Mark, this is important—and you haven’t heard a word. What on earth is so interesting over there?”

  “Christmas gift from Neil.” His nose is buried again in the plans.

  “Ohh?” She rises from the table to join him, looking over his shoulder.