Morte D'Urban

by J.F. Powers

  Early in October, the Clementines had learned that the building they occupied on the near North Side was up for sale, and that their lease would not be renewed. This, it seemed, had been a big issue in the election, and had had a lot to do with the outcome. Before the new Provincial arrived on the scene, men said, “Wait’ll he gets here.” After he got there, they said, “What’s he doing?” Early in December, when the day came to move out (many had doubted that this day would ever come), the Clementines moved out, and not to another location (many had predicted a return to the Loop), but out to the Novitiate. When, later that month, it was rumored that the building hadn’t been sold, and that another religious order had been offered the space formerly occupied by the Clementines, men said, “How come?”

  Father Louis spoke to the new Provincial about the matter, and spoke as an old friend, pulling no punches, but got no satisfaction, as he told others later, and then, entirely on his own, went to see the owner of the building. After a long evening in town, he returned to the Novitiate none the wiser, empty-handed, and stoned. “What’s happened to us wouldn’t happen to a first-class outfit, or even to a second-class one,” he told the dormitory of first-year men in his charge (most of whom, fortunately, slept on, exhausted as they were by pillow fights), and the next morning he failed to meet his classes in phy ed and moral.

  The same day, Father Siegfried called upon a friend of his in the other Order about another matter, and discovered that the Dalmatians—for it was they who were being offered the location—had turned down the proposition: only the owner of the building and Father Gabriel had been sanguine enough to believe that such a thing could get past the Chancery, and he, by the way, was being given a well-deserved rest in the country.

  Back in November, the Clementines had learned that the radio station on which their weekly program had been heard for so many years no longer wanted them, since it was increasing its coverage of news and music—news on the half hour instead of the hour, the Top 88 Tunes instead of the Top 42. Late in January, after the program had been off the air for a month, the new Provincial came forward with a proposal: fifteen minutes on a smaller station, “Father Clem Answers Your Question” to occupy the time slot between “Civil Service News” and the “Transylvanian Hour,” which had already moved from the larger station and gone from a half hour to fifteen minutes. The proposal was received in silence, and voted down. The new Provincial didn’t seem to care. Father Siegfried said that they might do well to educate some young men in the field of television, and was praised on all sides for his foresight, but the new Provincial only said, “We’ll see.”

  Men were no longer asking, “What’s he doing?” but “What’s he done?”

  Seldom had a new Provincial so badly disappointed the hopes and calculations of men. Many changes in personnel had been expected, but there had been few, and strangely, the men regarded as most likely to be affected, as almost certain to get the boot, were spared. Father Wilfrid was still in charge at St Clement’s Hill. Brother Henry, formerly Father Boniface’s secretary, was now secretary to the new Provincial. And Father Boniface himself, whom many had thought destined for Texas or New Mexico, was still at the Novitiate—teaching Father Louis’s courses. Father Louis was back at the Hill, a two-time loser, and Father John, who was reported to be writing the life of St Adalbert in his spare moments, was back on the road. These were the only major changes, and they made men wonder.

  The biggest change was in the physical appearance of the Novitiate. Ceratocystis had reached into the tribe of elm trees on the grounds, and by order of the new Provincial the infected members were cut down. For this he was roundly blamed. What men did not know, and what he did not tell them, was that the slaughter should have been carried out immediately after the examination, which had taken place during the previous spring. Father Boniface, that hard man, had been too soft to order the job done while the trees were in leaf, it seemed, and later had feared the effect it might have on his chances for a second term. And so, besides their prestige address on the near North Side, and their radio program, the Clementines had lost the Avenue of Elms. These were the things that came to mind when men thought of the new Provincial.

  About these things, and others, he had little to say, but reading the speeches of Winston Churchill, and coming to “I have not become the King’s first minister in order to preside over the liquidation of the British Empire,” he thought, “No, nor did Mr (as he was then) Attlee consider himself so called, but such was his fate.”

  By March, “What’s he done?” had become “He’s not well.”

  This was true. His head was worse. Standing on it hadn’t helped him either. His severest attacks now came in pairs, the first one lasting about a minute and a half, the second one about a minute, with an interval of perhaps forty seconds between them. They arrived and departed like sections of the Twentieth Century Limited—three or four times on some days, a dozen on others—and left him with a dazed and run-over feeling. When somebody was in the office, and he felt the first section coming down the tracks, he swiveled around in his chair, saying, “I’ll be with you in a minute, Father,” and opened his breviary, and closed his eyes, and waited until both sections had come and gone. Thus he tried to disguise his condition from others, and thus, without wishing to, he gained a reputation for piety he hadn’t had before, which, however, was not entirely unwarranted now.

  But he did his best to see as few people as possible. Several men were asked not to call at the office except on urgent business (Father Louis, before his transfer, was one of these), and Father Excelsior was asked not to call except on urgent, new business. At Christmastime, Father Excelsior had received an imported card from Dickie Thwaites, who had removed from Des Moines (to Greenwich Village), a card on which editor informed publisher that he was going home to be with Mother during the holidays, after which he hoped to write and clarify the situation. By March, he hadn’t done either. The MS (as Father Excelsior called it) of Sir Launcelot and the Catholic Knights of the Round Table was in the hands of the publisher, but otherwise the marriage between the Millstone Press and Eight Seasons Editions had borne no fruit.

  Monsignor Renton had written twice, the first time from the hospital after his prostatectomy, and the second time, some weeks later, to report that he’d had a relapse. This, he wrote, had been brought on by leaving the hospital too soon, and this he’d done because the Bishop had checked in with flu and had wanted his suite. Monsignor Renton, rather than move to a room, had checked out of the hospital. Late in February, on his way back from Florida, Monsignor Renton had phoned from Union Station and invited the new Provincial to have dinner with him in town, but the new Provincial hadn’t cared to come in, and Monsignor Renton hadn’t cared to come out, and so they’d talked for a while and let it go at that. Monsignor Renton said that he’d advised Father Udovic to put off building a new church at St Monica’s until spring, or, better yet, summer. The man hadn’t listened to him, but now wished he had, because it was costing him fifty dollars a day for oil just to keep the bricklayers warm. The new church would be one of those hatchery affairs, with silo attached.

  The new Provincial did entertain one visitor from Minnesota, however. Late one morning, he heard somebody asking for him in the outer office and say he hoped Brother Henry wouldn’t mind not being called “Father.” Unfortunately, just as the visitor was being shown in, the Provincial had one of his attacks, which, as usual, wiped out what had gone immediately before, so that when he faced the visitor he had no idea who would be there, and did not realize that a minute before, between trains, he’d said, “I’ll be with you in a minute, Father.”

  Mr. Studley, to give him credit, let it pass. He was in Chicago for a reunion of his old squadron, he said, and having got the new Provincial’s new address from the folks at the Hill, he’d thought it might be a good idea to stop by and say hello and also to say that Frank had died. Mr. Studley was invited to stay for lunch, did, and had a wonderful couple of h
ours meeting priests and brothers, faring somewhat better with the latter than with the former. There wasn’t much news from home, he said. Zim, and all that crowd, were in Florida. Frank had died.

  Father Wilfrid wrote often. In January, the weather was very cold in Minnesota, and also in February. The blower had made a big difference, but the house was a bit chilly just the same. In March, Father Wilfrid said he was grateful for permission to set up a speakers’ bureau at the Hill, and, as directed, he and Father Louis would confine themselves to subjects of a religious nature, as would Brother Harold in his chalk talks to teenagers. Rex was fine. In April, Father Wilfrid wrote that the Bishop and Father Feld had been out to the Hill, on a friendly visit.

  And the new Provincial, replying at once, said that he was pleased to hear that the Bishop had been out to the Hill, and urged Father Wilfrid to do everything, within reason, to assure continued good relations between Order and Diocese. But the new Provincial was worried. Oddly enough, although for many years he’d traveled out of Chicago, he seemed to think of the Hill as home.