by Mark Wheaton
“What’s troubling you, Father?” Whillans asked.
“In our vocation we’re hardly unaccustomed to feeling an invisible hand behind the workings of things,” Luis began. “I am feeling one here, but it’s not God’s.”
“What do you mean?”
“As Father Chang discovered, and as Michael Story informed me, it’s impossible to take down a member of the LA triad. But now in one fell swoop the entire organization is brought to its knees in a matter of days by a plague which led to the discovery of a deadly counterfeit pharmaceutical ring. Father Chang had spent months pursuing leads on this, going so far as to fly to Indonesia and beyond. One of his contacts, an investigating blogger named Kirk Asmara, was even likely murdered over this, and he kept going until he was silenced as well. But then—”
“But then God stepped in,” Whillans said. “God, so offended by the murder of his own priest, stepped in.”
“You believe that God would kill a few dozen of his own beloved people out of revenge for the murder of a priest?”
“I am saying that what came to pass came to pass. You may never know the great cost in lives that might’ve come if not for the sacrifice of those people.”
Luis stared at the old man in surprise. “That feels like the church’s response, not your response, Father. How is that the God we’ve discussed at length?”
“The God who has never allowed terrible things to happen before? That God?”
“You seriously expect me to believe that God gives that much of a damn that, no, not the extermination of indigenous peoples, not a Holocaust, not mass starvation, but the murder of one of his own priests is enough to wake him and begin playing a more active role in human affairs? That’s bull. And if you weren’t so high on painkillers right now, I think you’d agree.”
Even as the words came out of his mouth, Luis was shocked by their bitterness. To his surprise, Whillans was not. The pastor leaned across to Luis, putting his forehead against his.
“You are right,” Whillans said quietly. “I am on immeasurable amounts of painkillers. I know you believe my relationship with Bridgette puts me outside of God’s grace. And I know, most importantly of all, whether you will admit to it or not that you are furious with God for taking me away from you.”
Luis said nothing, but real and honest tears began to form in his eyes.
“But spare a thought for the Almighty,” Whillans continued, his words barely a whisper. “His name is cursed ten times as much as it is praised. Yet still there is great beauty, kindness, fellowship, and love in this world. And that is his doing just as much as the pain. My body is on fire. I have the smallest window into the torment of the Nazarene. Forget not that God loved his son more than any others, yet still he stayed his own hand and made his child suffer to benefit mankind.”
Luis nodded, two slow streams of tears sliding down his face. Whillans kept his forehead against Luis’s for another second, then leaned back and rose.
“You may be right in all of these things you believe, but you must also believe that God, for whom you are an imperfect instrument, will reveal all to you in time.”
With that, Whillans offered Luis a weak smile and exited.
For three days Tony had sat at Jun’s bedside on Grand View as Dr. Soong helped her cling to life. For three days he’d hidden out as his entire life and the lives of his brethren crumbled to dust.
When he’d called the Dragon Head to announce that he’d been present when a priest and a young doctor with a tenuous link to the CDC discovered that SARS-infected pills had been found in one of their own facilities, he’d hardly expected acclaim. What he hadn’t expected was indifference.
“Is that all?” Yang’s assistant had asked.
“Yes,” Tony had replied.
“Thank you, Mr. Qi. We are very grateful for the information.”
Which meant that they weren’t grateful at all.
He’d gone up to Grand View to do whatever he could and fallen asleep there. The next morning he got a call from the general manager at the Century Continental informing him that they were cutting back staff due to the outbreak-related cancellations and he’d be among the first to go. He’d thanked the general manager and then decided to add he was “very grateful for the information.”
The real problem was that at some point Chen Jiang had reached out to Kuo Kuang and informed him how dire the situation had become for the woman carrying his son. He’d told her to tell Dr. Soong to perform a Cesarean section to save the baby. When he’d protested, saying that this was unconscionable, likely even murder, Kuang told Soong in no uncertain terms that he would have a doctor flown in from Hong Kong to do it if Soong refused. Soong reluctantly agreed.
“What we need to do now,” Dr. Soong told Tony, “is to get her as strong as possible over the next day or so. We can buy her eight to ten hours more before Kuang gets so frustrated he really sends that doctor. The flight is sixteen hours. That gives us almost another day. By the time we do the operation, she just might be fit enough to live.”
But Tony spent those next hours watching Jun deteriorate, not recover. At one point he wished he’d pushed Dr. Soong to operate immediately, as Jun might’ve survived an earlier operation.
But how could I have known?
When Kuang’s wrath did boil over and a doctor reportedly sent, Dr. Soong went to Tony and announced that they’d have to do the operation, or it would likely cost both their lives.
“I’m sorry, Tony,” Dr. Soong had said.
It put it in perspective for Tony. He realized he’d actually believed when he slayed the monster that put Jun in this condition—in this case the facility that had made the tainted pills—it would have some kind of magical curative effect on Jun. Instead, she just got worse and worse, likely to become the outbreak’s final victim.
Dr. Soong arrived on Saturday night with an anesthetist Tony had met before, as well as a nurse. The baby was to be taken from the house immediately and brought to a safe location, where it would be treated until it could be flown back to Hong Kong.
Like a prized orchid or specially bred hound, Tony thought.
“Jun? Can you hear me?” Dr. Soong asked the patient. “We need to give you some medication right now. We’re worried about the baby.”
Tony looked at Jun’s face for any sign of understanding, but she didn’t respond. She’d been in and out of it for days, unable to eat or drink, kept alive with intravenous feeding, saline, drugs, and machines to preserve her failing organs for a little while longer. Tony wondered if she knew it was palliative care rather than any attempt to get her better.
She must, he thought.
“Let’s get started,” Dr. Soong said to his team.
The operation itself took less than fifteen minutes. Jun wasn’t put completely under but felt no pain. For Tony it was one of the strangest things he’d ever witnessed. He hadn’t really known what to expect but thought it would be like those anatomy models that allowed a user to take apart a body by layers until they reached a baby. Instead, the Cesarean was much like opening an envelope, reaching in to pull out the child, then resealing it after.
Rather than be disgusted, Tony marveled at the science of it.
The baby was in perfect health as far as Dr. Soong could tell. Phone calls and texts were exchanged. Dr. Soong’s team, the baby itself, and Chen Jiang left. Tony was a little surprised to see Jiang leave Jun’s side, then realized that of course the baby, not Jun, had been Auntie Jiang’s charge the whole time anyway.
Once they were alone with Jun, Dr. Soong took Tony aside.
“At this point it’s a foregone conclusion,” he explained after reeling off Jun’s vital signs. “She’ll be gone in a few hours.”
Tony nodded dumbly as if of course he knew this to be the case.
“So, I have to go now, but call me when it’s over and I’ll come back,” Dr. Soong continued. “I’ll take care of everything. Okay?”
“Okay,” Tony managed to say.
He wondered if Dr. Soong knew he had a thing for Jun. Maybe the doctor wanted to give them a few last hours together. Or maybe being threatened with his life had caused Dr. Soong to reassess his involvement in Tony’s ongoing enterprise.
Whatever the case, as soon as he was gone, Tony climbed back into bed next to Jun. She was a mess of bandages, tubes, and sweat-soaked sheets, but Tony wasn’t going to let her leave the world on her own. If somewhere in her drugged-into-unconscious mind she could still feel his hand around hers or his breath on her neck, he would be there with her. It was only seconds before he was asleep, too.
Three hours later he awoke to her moaning in pain.
“Tony, the stitches itch so badly. I feel like I’m going insane.”
“I’m sorry,” he said. “Do the painkillers help?”
“Since we’re not worried about the baby anymore, I say we just load me up. Wine’s probably out of the question, isn’t it?”
“Yes, I think so,” Tony said, getting out of bed to retrieve water and the heavy prescription painkillers the doctor had brought over from Hong Kong.
He refused to hear the lightness in Jun’s groggy voice. The bounce that had been missing for days that was suddenly back. It was obviously a false positive, that moment of clarity before she fell off the cliff. He would not allow himself hope.
She fell back into a stupor moments after taking the pills. Then two hours later, just before daybreak, she awoke again saying that she was hungry. This time Tony didn’t know what to make of her request and called Dr. Soong.
“Are you sure you’re not imagining this?” the doctor asked.
Tony held the phone up to Jun so she could ask herself. This time Dr. Soong replied, saying he’d be right over.
“How do you feel?” Tony asked as soon as Dr. Soong hung up.
“Weak,” Jun said. “You stayed.”
“I did.”
“Is that why I’m alive?”
“I doubt it. You’re very strong.”
“Is the baby healthy?” she asked.
“I think so,” Tony said, having no real idea.
“Do you know what Kuang named it?”
“No.”
Jun fell silent for a moment. Tony took her hand.
“Jun, I—”
Jun slid her hand from his grip. “Tony. I will stay with you for a while if you’d like. But we are not actually compatible. I have known men like you who want to adore ‘someone.’ It wears off. Your needs, whether you realize it or not, are bottomless. I could try to fill them for a while, but it would be temporary, and I would grow resentful. You would wonder why I was pulling away and pursue me twice as hard. But you’d be looking for something that was never real in the first place, a false face. I say this to you because I am so very grateful to you for your care. And I think the best thing I can give you in response is my honesty. I think that deep down you are a good man, but you are also a broken one, again whether you know it or not.”
Tony had never been more embarrassed in his entire life. He rose from the bed, bowed deeply to Jun, mumbled something in apology even as she protested, and walked out of the room. He waited for Dr. Soong to arrive. Smiled and let him know how relieved he was. Then walked out the front door, never to return.
XXII
When Luis woke up on Sunday morning, he did so with his sermon fully formed in his head. He wrote a couple of notes to himself on the first piece of paper he found but then hurried on to prayer and breakfast. He was energized, his worries concerning the SARS outbreak from the night before diminished as his focus was solely on Saint Peter Claver. It was now four days following the discovery of the manufacturing facility, and there had been no more cases. It was all over. Time to move on.
When Luis reached the chapel, he found Father Pargeter and Father Passarella already setting up.
“Where’s Father Whillans?” Luis asked.
“In his office,” Father Pargeter said, but in a voice that told Luis the pastor wasn’t looking well. “Good luck today, Father.”
“Thank you, Father,” Luis replied.
Luis hurried to the administrative office and found Whillans behind his desk, with Bridgette seated beside him. This was a surprise, as Bridgette generally used the time that Whillans was presiding over Mass to get other work done.
“She wanted to hear you speak,” Whillans said, gauging Luis’s confusion. “We’re hoping to make you as nervous and uncomfortable as possible.”
Luis would’ve laughed if his pastor’s appearance wasn’t so changed in the few hours since he’d seem him. His skin was the color of a birch and he hadn’t shaved, which he never failed to do. He’d lost so much weight that he looked as if he could wriggle out of his too-wide Roman collar if he tried.
“Thank you,” Luis managed to say.
“People know,” Bridgette said quietly. “About you, that is. I’ve been asked a number of times if it’s true. ‘The priest who rescued the workers in Camarillo this past spring. Is he the same man who stopped the plague?’”
As Luis reddened, Whillans raised a hand and laughed. “You make him sound like Moses. Are you Moses, Luis?”
“Swaddled in back issues of La Opinión, dropped in an empty case of bootleg DVDs, and shoved down the Los Angeles River—that’s me,” Luis said. “Blood of my ancestors in the foundation of Dodger Stadium.”
Whillans laughed now, as did Bridgette. “It’s not funny, though,” Whillans said. “That last part is probably true.”
“Probably is,” Luis agreed.
“Not to make you more nervous, but you may see a few more cassocks than usual out there this morning,” Whillans said. “A few pastors from surrounding parishes are coming. If you needed more reasons not to screw up, well, there you have them.”
Luis laughed for real now and headed out.
As the parking lot began to fill, the celebratory atmosphere of the Sunday Mass took hold throughout the campus. The relief everyone felt at the termination of the plague was palpable. There were more parishioners than usual. Luis caught several eyes watching as he moved between the chapel and the rectory, now in his cassock, and realized they weren’t looking at just another man in the collar. They were looking at him.
He was by a window when the first clergy from the other parishes arrived, but he stepped away before they emerged from their vehicles. The moment felt heady, and he swelled with unwelcome pride. He found a corner in the sacristy and knelt in prayer, though he couldn’t quite find the words.
Lord, please guide me through whatever this is.
Then it was time. The organ played, the choir. Whillans led his priests in and took his position at the pulpit to welcome everyone. He’d used a walker to get from the office to the sacristy but had set it aside to make the final twelve steps across the altar. Luis envisioned him toppling over, cracking his head, or a dozen other mortal scenarios, but Whillans seemed to pull strength from the parishioners and always moved with confidence.
The greeting was followed by the first reading, which was followed by the psalm, then the gospel. Finally, it was Luis’s turn.
Without introduction Luis rose and moved to the pulpit.
“I’d like to direct you to Ezra 9:9,” Luis began. “‘For we are slaves. Yet our God has not forsaken us in our slavery but has extended to us his steadfast love before the kings of Persia, to grant us some reviving to set up the house of our God, to repair its ruins, and to give us protection in Judea and Jerusalem.’”
The congregation waited for context in silence. Ezra was hardly the most common book cited on a Sunday. Luis took a breath, then went on.
“Today is the Feast of Saint Peter Claver,” he continued. “If you have heard of him, it’s generally because you know he baptized hundreds of thousands of African slaves in Colombia in the early to mid-1600s. If you know anything else about his story, it’s that when he was old and infirm an unknown ex-slave was hired to look after him but instead abused him horribly. Peter Claver,
however, never spoke up and said, ‘Don’t you know who am I?’ in an attempt to win favor or gratitude.”
There was uncomfortable movement among the congregants. Luis found himself looking at Father Siu-Tung from St. Jerome’s, his face colored with a hint of distaste.
“My sermon today,” Luis continued, “is about that unknown ex-slave.”
There was active discomfort now from both the assembled clergy and even, Luis could tell, the other priests of St. Augustine’s nearby. When he caught sight of Father Siu-Tung again, the parish pastor gave a loud cough.
“Many of the lives of saints are parables,” Luis said. “So let’s ask ourselves, is this true? Or is this a parable? What we know to be true is that, yes, Peter Claver baptized hundreds of thousands of slaves, seeing it as his duty despite the Vatican’s ongoing support of the transatlantic slave trade. The part about the abuse—well, if that’s been added, let’s ask ourselves why. Why does the church, after anointing Peter Claver as a deeply holy man for his commitment to African slaves, then invent a story of how he was abused by a former one? References to the abusive ex-slave go back centuries. I find it convenient. Too many Catholics at the time believed wholeheartedly in the subjugation of blacks for the church to actually take a stand and suggest all people were equal in the eyes of God, as Claver did. By adding the ungrateful ex-slave who didn’t recognize the saint in their midst, you maintain the status quo. The priest is good. He helped when his fellow man needed it. The Africans took the help when they needed it, then didn’t reciprocate. That’s the takeaway.”
Multiple coughs from the pews now, including Siu-Tung’s familiar one. Luis glanced up once and was surprised by what he saw. Other parishioners, the nonclergy, were engaged. Even the kids who more often had their heads down as they stared at their phones. Whether they were interested or wondering where on earth this blasphemous lunatic was going, Luis didn’t know.
Go big or go home, he thought.
“Now, let’s imagine that the ex-slave story is absolutely true,” Luis said. “This is still someone who has been ripped from his home in chains, likely torn from family, friends, and ancestral land. He’s endured hardship and misery. And now in this foreign land he’s been granted his freedom but is still servant to an old and dying man of the same nation that brought him there in the first place. For one moment put yourself in that man’s shoes. Feel his anger. Now, imagine if somebody told you, ‘Oh, wait. This is a man who baptized slaves. Who has brought his image of God to replace yours. If you accept it, he’ll allow you water and maybe even food.’ Has your anger abated?”