Punish the Sinners

by John Saul

  “Well,” the Monsignor said finally, breaking what was fast turning into an embarrassing silence, “suppose we go back to the rectory for a few minutes? There’re a few things we should talk about, and I have some excellent sherry. If it isn’t too early?”

  “Fine,” Balsam agreed distractedly, not really hearing the question.

  They returned to the rectory in silence, Balsam wondering how his friend could have changed so much in so few years. He had remembered Pete Vernon as someone who tended to take life as it came, and make the most of it. Now he seemed to have turned completely around, and taken on an odd stiffness, almost an awkwardness, he’d never had in their school days. Well, Balsam told himself as they reentered the study, I shouldn’t have expected him to be the same. We all change, and he has a lot of responsibilities. Balsam decided he was simply going to have to change his perspective with respect to Pete Vernon. Then he smiled to himself slightly as he realized that the change in Pete would certainly make it easier for him to remember to call him “Monsignor.”

  The priest handed him a glass of sherry, then picked up a folder from the desk that sat in one corner of the room, bringing it with him when he returned to the chair opposite Balsam. The two men sipped their sherry in silence for a moment, then the priest spoke.

  “I have something here that intrigues me,” he said, tapping the folder. Balsam looked at him inquiringly.

  “The synopsis of your thesis,” Vernon continued. “I keep going over and over it and I get the distinct impression that whoever wrote the summary left a lot out.”

  Suddenly Balsam relaxed: he was on familiar territory.

  “I can well imagine,” he said. “You have no idea how much trouble that thesis caused. For a while there, I thought I was going to be tossed out of St. Alban’s.”

  Vernon fingered the folder. “I can well imagine.” He read the title of the thesis aloud: “ ‘Suicide As Sin: An Investigation of the Validity of the Doctrine.’ It almost sounds as if you were challenging the Doctrine. Were you?” He looked pointedly at Peter.

  Balsam shrugged his shoulders. “That depends on what you mean by ‘challenge.’ All I set out to do was take a look at the Doctrine of the Chruch in light of what psychologists now know about the phenomenon of suicide,”

  “And that’s not challenging the Doctrine?” the priest asked.

  “Not in my mind,” Balsam said. “But I’m afraid at St Alban’s they didn’t see much difference between my investigation and an actual challenge.”

  “I don’t suppose they did,” the Monsignor commented. “In fact, neither do I.”

  “Well, I suppose the best way to explain it is in terms of a trial. What I was doing, I thought, was conducting a preliminary hearing to see if there was enough evidence for a trial.”

  “And was there?”

  Balsam shrugged. “Who knows? I found a few conflicts between the Doctrine of the Church and the science of psychology. As to the resolution of the conflicts, I’ll leave that to better minds than mine.”

  Monsignor Vernon suddenly leaned back in his chair and seemed to relax. For the first time, Balsam realized that the subject of his thesis had disturbed the priest. He decided that a little explanation was in order.

  “It’s just always seemed to me that the Doctrine of the Church with reference to suicide is a bit inhuman,” he began.

  Monsignor Vernon smiled thinly. “The Doctrines of the Church are concerned with God,” he said. “That which may seem inhuman isn’t necessarily un-Godly.”

  Balsam’s brows arched. Spoken like a true Inquisitor, he thought. Aloud he said: “It just seems to me that anybody who is deranged enough to want to kill himself can’t be called rational, and certainly deserves the same considerations the Church gives to what we like to call ‘morons and savages.’ “

  “Your analogy doesn’t work,” Vernon replied stiffly. “Morons and savages are not responsible for themselves, not because they are morons and savages per se, but simply because they have no capacity for understanding the Doctrines.”

  Balsam decided not to press his point. “Well, as I said, it’s going to have to be left to better minds than mine to decide whether or not the Doctrine should be changed. I took no stand whatsoever in the thesis, which is probably why it passed.”

  “And you came to no conclusions of your own?” the Monsignor pressed.

  Balsam shook his head. “As far as I’m concerned, all I did was raise more questions. I don’t think I’m qualified enough in either psychology or theology to come up with any answers.”

  Monsignor Vernon nodded his head slowly, as if digesting what Balsam had just said. When he spoke again, it took a moment for Balsam to see the continuity.

  “I should tell you that there has been a lot of concern expressed in the parish about the course you’re going to teach,” he said. “I’m afraid there’s a strong feeling that psychology has no place in a religious school. Frankly, I had some doubts about whether or not I’d chosen the right man for the job.”

  “And?” Balsam prompted him.

  Monsignor Vernon smiled grimly. “Let’s just say I feel a bit better about it now. A few minutes ago I was about to give you a strong warning against teaching our students anything that is contrary to the Doctrines.”

  Which warning you have just given me, Balsam said to himself. “And you don’t think you have to now?” he asked, trying to keep his voice level.

  “I think you’ll do just fine,” Vernon said, standing up. “But I think I was wise to put St. Peter Martyr in your room,” he added. Balsam wondered if he saw a light in Vernon’s eye. He decided he didn’t.

  “Maybe I’d better study up on St Peter Martyr,” he said. “Since we’re going to be roommates.”

  Vernon clapped him on the shoulder and Balsam felt himself being steered toward the door. “Maybe you should,” the priest agreed. “He was a fascinating man. Believe me when I tell you that he never had any trouble at all in determining what was, and what was not, in conflict with the Doctrines of the Church. If you ever have any doubts about what to teach your class, consult St. Peter Martyr. Or me, for that matter. The sin of pride aside, I have almost as fine a sense of right as St Peter did.”

  “I’ll keep it in mind,” Balsam said dryly, and wondered if the priest had heard him. They were near the front door now, and Monsignor Vernon seemed lost in thought.

  “You know,” he said, as he opened the front door, “I was just thinking. I have a study group—pretty informal, for Neilsville—that you might be interested in joining. Particularly if you want to find out more about Peter Martyr. He’s our favorite saint. Or have you drifted completely away from such things?” He looked with a sudden intensity into Peter Balsam’s eyes. Balsam met the priest’s gaze for a moment, then broke away from it

  “Not completely,” he said uncertainly. “But I think it’ll have to wait I’ve got a lot of preparing to do for my classes.”

  “More than you know,” Vernon said in a tone that made Balsam look inquiringly at him. Seeing the confused look on Balsam’s face, the priest continued. “We decided it should be the junior class that got first crack at the psychology course,” he said. “And in the junior class we have four girls who will undoubtedly all want to take your course.”

  “The four who were playing tennis?” Peter asked, acting on intuition.

  “Those are the ones,” the priest said darkly.

  “Should I be worried about them?” Balsam asked.

  “That’s up to you,” Vernon replied. “But a word of warning. They’ve been almost inseparable since they were tiny, and most of the sisters have found the only way to handle them is to split them up. Otherwise they band together, and your class becomes nothing more than a gossip and note-passing session. A drawer in my office contains nothing but the notes that have been confiscated from them over the last nine or ten years. Someday I’m going to read them all, just to see what they always think is so important that it can’t wait until afte
r class.”

  Balsam felt a twinge of concern run through him. Teen-age girls had always made him uncomfortable, and the prospect of confronting a close-knit band of them terrified him. But he wouldn’t let his fear show.

  “Thanks for warning me,” he said, “but my instincts tell me it should be interesting to have all four of them in a psychology class “

  “And you always follow your instincts?” Monsignor Vernon asked.

  Balsam looked at him steadily. “No,” he said quietly. “Not always.”

  “Good,” the priest said. “Then you should fit in well here.” And before Balsam could reply, the priest had quietly closed the rectory door.

  For a long time, Peter Balsam stared at the dosed door of the stone house. What did he mean by that?

  But there were no answers in the stone façade of the rectory. Slowly, Peter Balsam started down the slope that would take him back into the heart of Neilsville. As he walked, he didn’t see the town at all. All he saw was an image in his mind. An image of the statue in his classroom; the statue of St. Peter Martyr. It was a warning, he was sure. But of what?

  From his window in the rectory, Monsignor Vernon watched Peter Balsam make his way down the hill. It would be all right, he decided. He hadn’t been sure, but now that he had talked to Balsam, he knew. Now that Peter Balsam was in Neilsville, everything was going to be all right again.

  As he made his way down Main Street, the sense of foreboding that had come over Peter Balsam on his arrival in Neilsville rose again, and he wondered what had happened to his resolve. He had intended to tell Pete—”Monsignor,” he corrected himself—that he wasn’t going to stay. But he had not done it. Instead, he had let himself be led by the priest, just as he had always let himself be led. Ever since they had been boys together, it had been like that Almost as if Pete Vernon held some kind of power over Peter Balsam.

  As if the slightly older Vernon knew something that Balsam did not

  Once, indeed, Pete Vernon had said something that had stuck in Peter Balsam’s mind: “Our lives are entwined,” he had said. “They always have been, and they always’ will be.” Balsam had dismissed it at the time, told himself that the older boy was only trying to get his goat But now, nearly twenty years later, here they were, together in Neilsville …

  He became acutely aware of people staring at him as he walked along the sidewalk, and he resisted the impulse to return their stares. He concentrated, instead, cm looking the town over.

  Perhaps without the heat and dryness of the desert Neilsville could have been pretty. Its frame buildings, which would have been attractive set among the maples of the Midwest, looked only stark here in the arid country between the Cascades and the Rockies. They seemed to be waiting for something, some force of nature that would weld them together into a community. But it hadn’t happened. Each store, each house, stood huddled into itself, and as Peter Balsam walked among them he wondered if it was only he who felt the odd sense of rejection that seemed to personify the town. Surreptitiously, he began to examine the people of Neilsville.

  There was a sameness to them that he had seen nowhere else. They all seemed to be of a type, slightly older than their years—not a healthy kind of age, a wise kind of age, but rather a tiredness. A fear? The same wariness that he had perceived in the buildings was in the people—as if they were waiting for something to happen, and whatever it was, it was not going to be pleasant

  He caught several of them staring at him. They didn’t turn away in embarrassment when he confronted them. Instead, they met his eyes, and their lips tightened. Only then would they turn and whisper to their companions. Balsam wondered what they were saying to each other, but he could not hear.

  He stopped at the comer of First and Main to wait for Neilsville’s lone traffic light to change, and realized that he was standing in front of the office of the telephone company. He went in. Behind the counter, an elderly woman sat pensively at an empty desk. She looked up at him.

  “I suppose you’ll be wanting to order a phone?” she asked.

  Surprised, Peter nodded. “How did you know?”

  “Around here,” the woman drawled, “everybody knows everything.” She pulled a form out of the top drawer of her desk. “It’s Balsam, isn’t it?” she asked. Peter nodded. Without asking him any more questions, the woman began filling in the spaces on the order form. Finally she pushed it toward him for a signature. As he checked over the information she had gleaned from God-knew-where, she suddenly spoke.

  “You used to be a priest, didn’t you?”

  He looked up, startled.

  “Not actually,” he said. “I started studying for the priesthood, but didn’t finish.”

  “One of those,” the woman muttered. Then, as Peter signed the order for the telephone, she spoke again.

  “I understand Margo Henderson got off the train with you.”

  Peter decided to ignore the disapproving note in her voice.

  “Yes, she did. Very pleasant woman.” More than pleasant, he remembered. Beautiful. And at the same time he remembered Margo Henderson with pleasure, he remembered the woman Pete Vernon had sent to meet him at the station with annoyance. Anderson, her name had been. Leona Anderson.

  “Divorced,” the woman behind the counter said, jarring Petar back into reality. He realized she was still talking about Margo.

  “Well,” Peter said, smiling, “there are worse things to be.”

  “Are there?” the woman said, not returning his smile. “We’re mostly Catholic in Neilsville, you know.”

  “But not entirely,” Peter said. “I understand there’s a public school as well as St Francis Xavier’s. And I think I noticed a few other churches, too.”

  The woman behind the counter looked him up and down, and Peter felt her gaze taking in his curly brown hair. Apparently she didn’t approve of that, either. “There’s room enough in Neilsville for everyone. If they behave themselves.” Her tone said she didn’t think Peter would.

  “That’s strange,” he said. “Someone else said the same thing to me earlier today. A woman named Leona Anderson.”

  “Leona’s a very wise woman.”

  “I’m sure she is,” Peter agreed dryly. She had also struck him as a very unpleasant woman, who had made her distaste for him plain, from the look in her eye as she introduced herself to the moment she delivered him to his apartment. “When will the phone be put in?”

  ‘Tour days,” the woman said without consulting a calendar. “That’s how long it takes to process the order.”

  Since there seemed to be no room for argument, Peter thanked the woman for her services and left the office. She watched him go. When he was out of sight she picked up the telephone on her desk and quickly dialed a number.

  “Leona? That man Balsam you told me about. He was just here, ordering a phone. I think you’re right, and you’d better talk to Monsignor. I don’t know what it is, but there’s something wrong about that young man. If you ask me, trouble just came to Neilsville.”

  3

  Four days Iato: Peter Balsam was beginning to feel a little easier about Neilsville. He had created a space for himself: his books were neatly arranged on the brcks and boards that nearly covered one wall, and he had spent more than he had intended cm the plants that now hung from hooks in the ceiling and brackets on the walls. And, of course, there was the telephone. He stared at the green instrument on his desk, and wondered why the installation of the phone that morning had made him feel “connected.” It wasn’t as if he had anyone to call, nor was there much likelihood that anyone would call him. And then, surprisingly, the telephone rang. He stared at it uncomprehendingly for a moment, then picked it up and spoke a tentative hello, ready for whoever had called to discover he had dialed a wrong number and hang up.

  “Peter Balsam?” A woman’s voice, vaguely familiar, somewhat shy.

  “Yes,” Peter answered, wondering if he should recognize the voice.

  “It’s Margo Henders
on,” the woman continued. “From the train?” Balsam felt a surge of pleasure run through his body.

  “Hello,” he said again, this time with warmth.

  “That’s better,” Margo said. “For a minute I thought you didn’t remember who I was.”

  “I didn’t,” Balsam admitted. “Actually, I thought it was going to be a wrong number. I just had the phone put in this morning. It usually takes a few days before anybody can get the number.”

  “Not in Neilsville.” Margo laughed. “You’re the most interesting thing to happen in years.” She paused for a second, and Peter was about to respond when she plunged ahead. “I was wondering if maybe you’d like to take me out for dinner tonight,” she said.

  Peter was momentarily nonplussed, then recovered himself.

  “I’d love to,” he said. “But I have a problem. No car.”

  “That’s no problem. I happen to have a very serviceable Chevy. If you’re not too proud to allow yourself to be picked up by a woman, I’ll see you about seven-thirty.”

  “Well, fine,” Peter said, not really sure if it was fine or not, but willing to give it a chance. “Do you know where I live?”

  “Let me see if I can figure it out,” Margo replied. “H you don’t have a car, you must be within walking distance of St. Francis Xavier’s. So you must live in that new apartment building on Third Street, just off Mam.”

  “A regular Sherlock Holmes,” Peter said.

  Margo chuckled. “Not really. See you at seven-thirty.”

  Balsam was about to say something else when he realized he was holding a dead phone in his hand. He stared at it, wondering why she had hung up so abruptly, then decided she had probably been calling from work, and someone had been waiting for her. With a shrug, he turned his attention to other things.

  An hour later, Peter Balsam found himself walking slowly up the hill to St. Francis Xavier Church. As he walked, he noticed that Neilsville, though still bleak, no longer seemed as threatening as he had originally thought. Familiarity, he thought: he was getting used to the town. He was no longer seeing only the strangeness of the structures in Neilsville. Now he was noticing their uniqueness as well. Some of the houses, he was beginning to realize, were rather interesting in their own way. Yards were, for the most part, neat and well tended, as if the people of Neilsville, knowing that the surrounding landscape was always going to be barren, had decided to create some green oases within the desert. But it wasn’t until his third day in Neilsville, when he had decided to venture away from Main, that Peter had discovered this softer side of Neilsville. Now he walked purposefully along, enjoying the shade of the tree-lined streets and enjoying, too, the privacy the side streets afforded him. On Main Street, he had been too aware of the constant stares of the people of Neilsville as they tried to size up this stranger in their midst. But on Elm, if people watched him from their windows, Peter Balsam was blissfully unaware of it.