by John Saul
He reached the top of the hill and made his way into the cool, dark church. Just inside the entrance he dipped his fingers in the font and genuflected, then moved down the aisle, genuflected once more, and sank into a pew. For a few moments Balsam simply sat, absorbing the serenity of the church, letting his eyes adjust from the glare of the summer afternoon to the soft light filtering through the stained glass of the clerestory windows.
Slowly he became aware that he was not alone. A few pews ahead of him, near the alcove dedicated to the Blessed Virgin, a girl sat motionless, her head bowed. He recognized to as the girl who had played alone on the handball court
Her lips moved silently in prayer, and her fingers worked at the beads clutched in her hands. Balsam watched her for a few minutes, then began to feel as if his stares were intruding on her privacy. Self-consciously, he forced himself to concentrate on his own meditations, and ignore the lonely presence of the girl.
Thirty minutes later they met at the door of the church. He hadn’t seen her rising from her pew at the same time as he had risen from his own, and he had almost forgotten her presence. But as the two of them emerged from the shadows of the church into the white-hot afternoon, and the somnolence that he always felt in church left him, Balsam smiled at the girl. She looked at him uncertainly, and seemed about to hurry away, so he spoke.
“Hello,” he said.
Marilyn Crane looked at the man mutely, and tried to find her tongue.
“You seem to come here as often as I do,” Balsam continued. “It makes a nice break from the heat of the day, doesn’t it?”
Her eyes widened, and Balsam wondered if it was possible that the girl hadn’t noticed him yesterday and the day before, as the two of them silently sat in the church. Apparently she hadn’t
“I’m Peter Balsam,” he said, offering her his hand.
Marilyn Crane stared blankly at the proffered hand. Then, as if coming out of a daze, she grasped it and introduced herself.
“I’m Marilyn Crane,” she said. “You’re the new teacher, aren’t you?”
Balsam nodded. “Are you going to be one of my students?”
She smiled shyly and bobbed her head, almost as if she was apologizing for her presence. “Latin Three,” she said. Then she added, as an afterthought: “And the psychology course, I hope.”
“You hope?” Peter repeated. “All you have to do is sign up for it”
“I don’t know if I can,” Marilyn said softly. ‘I asked my parents if I could take it, but they said they’d have to talk it over.”
“Well, you can tell them for me that I promise not to put any crazy ideas in your head,” Balsam said, grinning.
Suddenly the girl seemed to relax, and the two of than began slowly walking back down the hill toward town.
“How did you know that was what my parents were worried about?” Marilyn asked suddenly, when they were halfway down the hill.
Balsam tapped his head. “I’m a psychologist,” he said darkly. “I have ways of knowing things.”
Marilyn looked at him sharply, then, as she realized he was kidding her, she laughed, a hesitant, hollow sound. Listening to it, Balsam was sure he knew the reason it sounded strange: this child rarely laughed.
“You spend a lot of time in church, don’t you?” he said mildly.
Marilyn nodded. “I like it there. It’s so cool, and quiet, and I can be by myself but not feel lonely, if you know what I mean.”
“I know exactly what you mean,” Balsam replied. “I feel the same way.”
Marilyn looked at him wonderingly, and for the first lime in her life felt that there might actually be someone else in the world who understood how she felt
“I usually pray to the Sorrowful Mother,” she said “For some reason, she always seems to make me fed better.”
Balsam didn’t respond right away, and Marilyn glanced quickly at him to see if her words had put him off. But no, he merely seemed to be thinking about something, so she continued walking beside him in silence. It was a nice silence, she thought Not like the silences that so often fell over groups of her acquaintances as she approached.
Had Peter Balsam been aware of the silence he probably would have broken it But he was thinking about what the girl had said, or, more accurately, of the way she had referred to the Blessed Virgin. The Sorrowful Mother, she had said. It had been a long time since Balsam had heard that appellation applied to the Holy Mother. He wondered briefly how she had happened to use it, but quickly decided not to question her about it. Not yet, at least The child seemed nervous, like a rabbit on the alert, ready to shy away at the least provocation. And Balsam felt that it was important that she not shy away. Important for him, and important for her.
“Well,” he said finally as they approached the corner of Third Street, “this is where I get off.” He pointed down the street “I live down there,” he continued. “In the new apartment building.”
A look of comprehension came over Marilyn’s face, and she bobbed her head. Peter suddenly realized that she had been afraid he was rejecting her. He smiled at her, saying, “Come over and see me if you want to. Tm always home, or most always, and my name’s on the mailbox.”
“Oh,” Marilyn gasped. “I—I couldn’t do that—” she stammered.
Balsam looked blank. “You couldn’t?” he asked. “Why on earth not?”
Now Marilyn appeared totally flustered. “I—I don’t know,” she floundered. And suddenly Peter understood. There had never before been a teacher in Marilyn’s life who didn’t wear a habit or live in a convent. What he had just suggested was so totally beyond her experience as to be almost incomprehensible.
“Well,” he said briefly. “Don’t worry about it And don’t forget to give my message to your parents. I think the psychology class is going to be very interesting, and I’d like to have you in it”
As Marilyn looked dumbfounded, Peter smiled at her once more, and started down Third Street After he had gone a few yards, he turned and waved, and suddenly Marilyn waved back. Peter Balsam continued down the street toward his apartment
For a few seconds longer, Marilyn watched the retreating figure of the new teacher, then continued home. Suddenly the world did not seem so bleak to her. She liked the new teacher, and she would talk to her parents again about taking his psychology course. Then she suddenly stopped, and there on the sidewalk of Main Street, Marilyn Orane crossed herself, and silently repeated a prayer of thanks to the Sorrowful Mother for bringing Mr. Balsam to Neilsville. Then she opened her eyes and continued walking. Across the street, Judy Nelson watched her from the drugstore window, and smiled.
The bell rang at precisely seven-thirty. Peter Balsam opened the door to find Margo Henderson smiling at him with a brightness that was almost too cheerful He held the door for her to come in, and closed it firmly behind her. As the door clicked shut, the smile faded slightly, and she laughed nervously.
“I feel like a wicked woman,” she said, shrugging off the light jacket she had thrown over her shoulders and glancing quickly around the apartment “Do you happen to have a spare drink around here?”
“Scotch or bourbon?” Peter said, wondering if he should offer her wine instead, and wishing he’d thought of a clever retort.
“Scotch, with about ten splashes of water.” She gave the room a more careful inspection while Peter mixed two identically weak highballs. “I like this,” she declared as she took one of the glasses from him. “Books and plants—the two things I can’t live without” She tasted the drink. “And you make perfect drinks, toa Maybe we should get married.”
Peter choked on the mouthful of scotch-and-water he had been about to swallow, then realized she had been kidding. As his face reddened, Margo laughed again.
Tm sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean to kill you off.” She patted him on the back until his coughing subsided. He sank to the couch and looked at her. And then, when he saw the twinkle in her eye, he suddenly began laughing.
“I am so glad to see you,” he declared. “You haven’t any idea.” Then he looked at her quizzically. “What did you mean, you feel like a wicked woman?”
“This is the first time in my life I’ve ever asked a man for a date. Now, maybe you have women calling you all the time, but for me this is a new and daring experience. In fact; I’d give odds such a thing has never been done in Neilsville before.”
“Well, “I’m glad you called,” Peter said. “If I sounded a little strained earlier, it was just out of surprise that the phone rang at all. I’d been staring at it, feeling very plugged into the world, when I realized nobody in town was likely to call. And then it rang, and here you are. Where are we going for dinner?”
Tm not sure,” Margo said, suddenly pensive. “I’d thought about Clyde’s, where the food is good and the music isn’t too offensive, but then it occurred to me that it might be the better part of valor to go out of town.”
“Out of town?” Peter repeated blankly.
Margo nodded. “Maybe I’m being paranoid, but considering you’re brand new in town, and teaching at St. Francis Xavier, and I’m divorced, and … well, all things considered, I think we might do better to go somewhere where neither one of us will be recognized. If you aren’t starving, I thought we might drive over to Moses Lake. It’s forty minutes away, but I know a good Italian place there.”
Balsam started to protest, but then he remembered the frown on Leona Anderson’s face when he had accompanied Margo off the train, and the remarks Monsignor Vernon had made about the “formality” of Neilsville. “Formality,” he thought, was the wrong word. He was getting the distinct impression that Neilsville was downright narrow-minded.
“Fine,” he agreed, finishing his drink. Then he smiled at Margo mischievously. “Do you want to meet me around the corner, or shall we risk walking out to your car together?”
“Not to worry,” Margo said sheepishly. “I parked in the alley.”
The restaurant hunched shabbily in the middle of an asphalt parking lot, lit garishly by a sign advertising the name of the place—Raffaello’s—and, in much larger letters, Olympia Beer. But inside it had been decorated in checkered red-and-white tablecloths that somehow managed not to be cute. And the food had been delicious. Peter leaned back in his chair, picked up the cup of cappuccino in front of him, and looked at Margo. He decided she was really quite beautiful.
“Feel better?” she asked him, winking over the rim of her glass as she drained the last of her wine.
“What makes you think I wasn’t feeling good to start with?” Peter countered.
She shrugged slightly. “I don’t know,” she mused. “There was just a look about you. Like something was panicking you. I supposed at first it was me, but I’ve changed my mind. I think it was Neilsville.”
Balsam nodded guiltily. “You hit it right on the head,” he admitted. “I have to confess that I’ve been getting pretty nervous about the whole thing. At least until yesterday. Yesterday I finally decided to take a chance and walk on a street other than Main. Behind the scenes, Neilsville doesn’t seem quite so bleak as it does on Main Street”
“I guess most towns are like that,” Margo agreed. “You don’t really get a feel for them fremi the downtown area. You have to see where the people live. And even then, it’s not easy. People in small towns aren’t as friendly as they’re supposed to be. Unless you’re a native, of course. It you’re not, forget it You’re a newcomer for at least twenty years.”
“I thought that only happened in New England,” Peter laughed.
Margo shook her head. “Small towns are small towns, wherever you go,” she said. Then she changed the subject. “How did you find your friend the Monsignor?” she asked, and Peter thought he detected a trace of acid in her voice.
“Not the same as I remembered him,” he admitted. “But I don’t suppose I was the same as he remembered me, either.”
“Mmmm,” Margo mumbled, avoiding his gaze.
“You don’t like him, do you?” Peter said suddenly.
“I don’t know.” Margo was pensive. “I suppose Monsignor is something of a reflection of the town. And Pm not going to try to tell you that the town hasn’t been hard on me. At least the Catholic part of it” She looked across the table at Peter, wanting to say something more, but not wanting to risk offending him. But he seemed different from the rest of the Catholics she knew, and she decided to take a chance. “There’s something evil about them,” she said hesitantly. “Or maybe that’s the wrong word. But ever since I was divorced, and pretty much excommunicated from the Catholic community, I’ve noticed something. I can’t put my finger on it, but Pm sure it’s there. They stare at you. They talk about you. They make you feel like a freak. And your friend Monsignor Vernon is the worst of them. Every time I see him, I feel his eyes on me, boring into me, as if he’s examining me, and finding me lacking. And the rest of them aren’t much different.” She suddenly felt embarrassed, as if she’d said too much, and tried to put on a cheerful face. “I’m doing all right, though,” she added quickly.
Balsam shook his head in wonder. “I don’t know,” he said slowly. “It all seems so strange to me, almost medieval.”
“It is,” Margo said bitterly. Then she brightened. “Let’s talk about something more cheerful. Have you seen your classroom yet?”
Balsam grinned crookedly at her. “I thought we were going to talk about something more cheerful,” he said.
“Well, there must be something cheerful to talk about,” Margo laughed. “Neilsville isn’t all that bad.” She paused thoughtfully, then brightened. “Let’s not talk about Neilsville at all. Why don’t you tell me about you?”
Peter hesitated a split second, then decided there was no reason not to tell her about his childhood.
At least the part of it he could remember, the part after he was taken to the convent
He began telling Margo about growing up with the Sisters, then deciding to enter the priesthood.
“And that, I suppose, was the first of the mistakes,” he said.
“Mistakes?”
“Sometimes it seems like my life was a series of mistakes. I only entered the priesthood because it seemed the natural thing to do. But I soon found out it wasn’t for me, so I left the seminary and went to St. Alban’s.” He grinned. “Remind me to model my robes for you sometime.”
“You still have them?”
“In the bedroom closet I guess nobody ever throws things like that away. Anyhow, I took a degree in psychology, and then went to California on a counseling job. But it didn’t work out any better than the priesthood. So I decided to go back to St. Alban’s, and get a master’s degree. And I got married.” A frown creased Marge’s face. “Didn’t I tell you that?” He hurried on. “I thought I had. Not that it matters. I’m separated.”
“Does Monsignor Vernon know?”
“I told him. He didn’t seem too pleased.”
“I’ll bet,” Margo agreed. “What happened? To your marriage, I mean?”
“I’m not sure. Looking back on it, I don’t think Linda and I ever should have gotten married in the first place. I suppose we needed each other at the time—we were both pretty lonely people. Anyway, she found someone else not to be lonely with.”
There was a note of bitterness in his voice, and Margo decided not to press the mattar. “What brought you to Neilsville?”
“Monsignor Vernon. I got a letter from him, asking me if I could teach both Latin and psychology. When I wrote back and told him I could, he offered me the job here. So here I am.”
“And you don’t like it” It was a statement not a question.
Peter moved uncomfortably in his chair. “I don’t know. I get what they call bad vibes from the town. If’s as if there’s something going on here, something under the surface, that’s always about to erupt, but never does.”
Margo stared at him. “That’s it, exactly,” she said. “That’s exactly how I feel. But I thought I was the onl
y one.”
“Well, now there’s two of us.” Peter smiled. He readied for the check and stood up.
An hour later, when they pulled up in front of his apartment house, he took her hand, squeezed it, and opened the car door.
“Next time,” he said, “it’s going to be your turn. I want to know as much about you as you know about me.” Then he got out of the car, closed the door firmly, and turned to go into the building. Margo waited for him to turn and wave. When he didn’t, she felt slightly disappointed.
As she drove home, Margo decided she liked Peter Balsam. She liked him very much. Next time, she would tell him about herself. And she was sure there would be a next time, even if she had to call him again. But she didn’t think she would. Next time, she was sure, Peter would call her.
Later, as she was preparing to go to bed, Margo suddenly remembered that there was something Peter hadn’t told her. On an impulse, she reached out to pick up the phone, but it rang before she touched it. It was Peter.
“I hope I didn’t wake you up,” he said.