A New Song

by Jan Karon

  Worse, what would his parishioners think about their priest vanishing to Mitford in the face of a highly disturbing situation?

  He dreaded still more a final thing he must do. Before baring his concerns, however, he imagined their conversation. Perhaps he’d bring it up as they lay in bed.

  “Cynthia,” he might say.

  “Yes?”

  “You’re growing . . . attached to Jonathan.” A simple observation, not a criticism.

  “Really? Am I?”

  “Yes.”

  He’d considered the whole issue very carefully and knew it wasn’t jealousy. It was fear, fear for her feelings, which ran as deep as the ledges of the continental shelf.

  “What is your point, exactly?”

  “I see how much you care for him. And you know he’ll be going home soon.”

  “Well, yes, Timothy. Of course. Is there some reason I shouldn’t care for him?”

  What might he say, then? That he thought it best for her to start letting go, to prepare herself in some way he couldn’t fully suggest or understand? Though Jonathan had come to them only weeks ago, his wife had bonded with the boy as if he were her own. But then, hadn’t he grown to love Dooley in the very same way? He remembered his dark fears that someone would snatch the boy from him. . . .

  In the end, he decided to say nothing at all. Jonathan would be going home, and that would be the end of it.

  He was relieved, terribly relieved, that he hadn’t brought it up; that he would even think of doing such a thing seemed strange and insensitive.

  “Banana bread!” crowed his wife, dumping a panful onto the counter.

  “My mommy, my mommy, she makes bread,” said Jonathan, nodding in the affirmative.

  “One loaf for us, one loaf for the neighbors,” she announced. “But wait, I forgot—we don’t know the neighbors.”

  It was true. A couple of times, they’d waved to the people in the gray house, who seemed to come and go randomly, and the family next door hadn’t shown up for the summer at all; one of the shutters on the side facing Dove Cottage had banged in the wind for a month.

  Neighbors, he mused. It was an odd thought, one that made his brain feel like it had eaten a pickle.

  He heard the music as he stepped off the porch into the backyard.

  No idea what it might be. But one thing was certain: it was strong stuff. . . .

  He listened intently as he trotted to his good deed. The steady advance of the brooding pedal tones appeared to form the basis of a harmonic progress that he found strangely disturbing. Above this, an elusive melody wove its way through a scattering of high-pitched notes that evoked images of birds agitated by an impending storm.

  The effect, he thought as he heaved himself up and over the wall, was confused, almost disjointed, yet the music seemed to produce an essential unity. . . .

  Clutching the bread in a Ziploc bag, he stood at the foot of the window from which his neighbor usually conducted his audiences, and listened as the music moved toward its climax.

  He might be one crazy preacher, but he didn’t think so. In fact, he’d come over the wall as if it were the most natural way in the world to go visiting. He was feeling pretty upbeat about his impetuous mission—after all, this was his neighbor for whom he was now praying, and besides, who could refuse a loaf of bread still warm from the oven?

  When the music ended, he shouted, “Well done! Well done, Mr. Love!”

  Floorboards creaked in the room above. “Father Kavanagh . . .”

  “One and the same!”

  “Your dog isn’t here,” snapped Morris Love.

  “Yes, and what a relief! I brought you some banana bread. My wife baked it, it’s still warm from the oven, I think you’ll like it.”

  Silence.

  If his neighbor didn’t go for the bread, he’d just eat the whole thing on the way home.

  “She said to tell you it’s a token of our appreciation for your music.”

  Silence.

  “What was that piece, anyway? It was very interesting. I don’t think I’ve heard it before.” He was a regular chatterbox.

  Silence.

  He began to as feel as irritable as a child. He’d come over here with a smile on his face and bread in his hand, and what did he get for his trouble? Exactly what he should have expected.

  “Mr. Love, for Pete’s sake, what shall I do with your bread ?”

  “Leave it in the chair,” said Morris Love.

  “Do what?”

  “Leave it in the chair!” he roared.

  He considered this for a moment, then determinedly walked over and sat down. He was tired of darting away from his irate neighbor like a hare before the hound. Wasn’t the trip over worth a moment of small talk, of mere civility? He’d give it a quick go, then he’d be gone.

  “Mr. Love, I couldn’t help but notice the sign, Nouvelle Chanson. How did the house come by that name?”

  “My grandmother gave the house its name. She sang with the Met, and counted Rose Bampton and Lily Pons among her friends. Melchior was my grandfather’s close acquaintance.”

  “Aha.”

  “When my grandparents built this house in 1947 as a summer home, she hoped for a new beginning for their marriage—a new song, if you will.” Morris Love’s manner was impatient, though decidedly less hostile. “But it didn’t work that way.”

  Father Tim waited a moment. “How did it work?”

  “My grandparents could only live the old song.”

  “The old song . . .”

  “Little acts of unspoken violence, Father, and bitter hatred towards one another.”

  Morris Love was actually talking with him. He realized he’d been holding his breath, and released it carefully. “Who taught you to play the organ?”

  “My grandfather. Once he had made his fortune, he began to study the organ. In the forties and fifties, several great organ masters spent summers here, instructing him. By the time I came along, he was respectably accomplished and began to teach me at an early age.”

  “Someone said he had an organ built especially for you. . . .”

  “Yes. When I was six years old.”

  “Is that the organ you play today?”

  “That was a toy, Father, a mere toy. I play my grandfather’s custom-built Casavant, which was further customized for me.”

  “I’ve never seen a Casavant, though I may have heard one without knowing it. It’s among the finest in the world, of course.”

  “More accurately, it is the most magnificent of instruments. Casavant came here to do an acoustical analysis, and worked with the architect to complete this room. My grandfather was a man of exacting preferences.”

  “I suppose the key covers are of an exotic wood?” It was a small thing, but he’d always been interested in the key covers on old keyboard instruments.

  “Only the sharps, which are ebony. The naturals are purest ivory, and of exceeding beauty in their age.”

  This was pretty heady stuff; he could imagine the splendid hulk of it reigning over the room above. He dove in headfirst. “I’d like very much to see it sometime, and hear you play . . . without walls between us.”

  He listened to the beating of his heart in the long pause that followed. He’d stepped in it now, he’d pushed too far, and just when he was getting started.

  “That would be . . . inappropriate.” There was something wistful in Morris Love’s voice, he was sure of it. Lord, speak to his heart.

  “Mr. Love, may I call you Morris? And please—call me Tim.”

  “I have never addressed a priest by his first name. I find it a repugnant modern custom.”

  “You’ve known priests, then? You went to St. John’s?”

  “Only for baptism. The priests at St. John’s often came here, some to pray over me, others to drink my grandfather’s French wines. The only joy I ever found in those visits was their occasional gifts of sheet music purloined from the church.”

  “Your mother
and father . . . were they—”

  “Out! Out!”

  He jumped. The shock of hearing the inevitable made his scalp prickle. The tone and repetition of that furious decree were nearly more than he could tolerate. Feeling an invasive weariness in his spirit, and not knowing what else to say or do, he stood to leave.

  “Father . . .”

  “Yes?”

  “You may call me Morris.”

  “Morris,” he said, suddenly hoarse with feeling. “Please don’t let the squirrels get your bread. I hope you like it. Try warming it in the oven for breakfast, that’s what we do.”

  He examined an odd intuition, then addressed a question to the window. “Tourette’s?”

  “Yes. A mild form.”

  “I’ll come again,” he said. But there was no reply.

  Marion Fieldwalker looked up from the checkout desk.

  “Why, Father Tim! We’re tickled to see you!”

  “I’m looking for a medical encyclopedia, Marion. Something comprehensive.” Given the cost per pound for shipping, he’d decided against dispatching his own to Whitecap.

  “You’ve come to the right place. One of our retirees studied at Harvard Medical School, and gave us a wonderful one. It takes a crane to lift it!”

  “Bingo!” he said.

  While he was here, he wanted to take a look at Dostoyevsky’s Notes from the Underground, the memory of which resonated profoundly with what he was learning about his neighbor.

  It was a work that made him squirm for its dark despair, yet he flipped through it diligently, sneezing from the dust and mold. Out of curiosity, he turned to the card at the back. Aha! One other reader had visited these pages before him, twelve years ago.

  Amused, he inscribed his name on the card, Timothy A. Kavanagh. For posterity!

  “I am a sick man,” wrote Dostoyevsky’s fictional diarist. “I am a spiteful man. I am an unattractive man. . . .

  “The more conscious I was of goodness and of all that was sublime and beautiful, the more deeply I sank into my mire and the more ready I was to sink in it altogether . . . in despair there are the most intense enjoyments, especially when one is very acutely conscious of the hopelessness of one’s position. . . .

  “I was rude and took pleasure in being so. . . .

  “I might . . . be genuinely touched, though probably I should grind my teeth at myself afterward and lie awake at night with shame for months. . . .

  “Now I am living out my life in my corner, taunting myself with the spiteful and useless consolation that an intelligent man cannot become anything seriously, and it is only the fool who becomes anything.”

  Not light summertime reading. He closed the musty book, relieved to look through the window to the bright and cloudless day.

  Seated at the antiquated library table, he ran his finger quickly along the text.

  “. . . characterized by rapid, repetitive, involuntary muscular movements called ‘tics,’ and involuntary vocalizations . . .

  “Phonic tics are diverse and consist of syllables, words (e.g., ‘okay’), short phrases (e.g., ‘shut up’, ‘no, no’), and full sentences. Tics are sudden, involuntary, repetitive. . . .

  “Tics intensify during periods of stress and anxiety and are frequently misinterpreted as ‘nervous habits.’ . . .

  “Many suffer depression . . . often become withdrawn and even suicidal . . .

  “. . . evidence that Tourette’s syndrome is not an emotional or psychological problem, but a chronic, hereditary neurological disorder.”

  “I’d like to check this out,” he said, toting the large tome to the desk.

  “Oh, my goodness, that doesn’t check out. It’s reference.”

  Marion must have noted the disappointed look on his face.

  “But we’ll make a special exception for clergy,” she said, smiling. “Would you like a wheelbarrow to help you carry it to the car?”

  He didn’t have to go looking for Jeffrey Tolson. Shortly after he unlocked the church on Tuesday morning, Jeffrey Tolson came looking for him.

  It wasn’t stone from which his face had been carved, thought Father Tim, it was ice. He noted that Jeffrey wore the open-necked white shirt with full sleeves that he’d worn on his earlier visit.

  He felt the towering wall between them as they sat in the office. He had no sermon to preach. He’d let Jeffrey Tolson do the talking he’d come to do, then he’d lay his cards on the table, plain and simple.

  “I intend to come back to my church,” said Jeffrey Tolson. A muscle twitched in his jaw.

  “Your church?”

  “My grandfather’s church, my father’s church, and my church. Yes.”

  “Being born into this church body confers no special distinctions or ownership. You’ve hurt a great many people here, Jeffrey.”

  “There is such a thing as forgiveness, Father.”

  “Are you asking forgiveness from the people of St. John’s?”

  Jeffrey crossed his legs and moved his left foot rapidly back and forth. “If that’s what it takes.”

  “Then you’re admitting you sinned?”

  “No. I’m admitting I made a mistake.”

  Father Tim looked carefully at the man before him. “There’s a bottom line to asking forgiveness. And it’s something I don’t see or sense in you in the least.”

  “A bottom line?”

  “Repentance. Forgiveness isn’t some cheap thing to be gotten on a whim. It’s purchased with a deep desire to please God. It’s about renouncing. . . .”

  “I have renounced. We aren’t living together anymore.”

  “You’re speaking of the flesh; I’m speaking of the heart.”

  Jeffrey Tolson’s face blanched. “As choirmaster here for fourteen years, I’ve heard a good deal of Scripture. You aren’t the only one equipped with the so-called truth. I seem to recall that St. Paul said, ‘Forgive one another as God in Christ forgave you.’ ”

  “Do you believe Christ is the divine Son of God?”

  Jeffrey Tolson shrugged. “I suppose so. Not necessarily.”

  “We’re told that everyone who believes in and relies on Him receives forgiveness of sins through His name. It’s not really about asking me or the vestry or anyone at St. John’s; it’s about hammering it out with Him.”

  Jeffrey drummed the desktop with the fingers of his right hand.

  “To repent means to turn, to turn from whatever binds or enslaves you. What, for example, do you intend to do about your family?

  “Janette has the house and the car, she has a successful sewing business, and as soon I get work on the island, I’ll see that she gets a check every week.”

  “As soon as you get work?”

  “You’re not from Whitecap, so it probably never occurred to you that getting work on the island is either difficult or impossible.”

  He heard the sneer in his visitor’s voice, and made every effort to keep his own voice even as he spoke. “You could go across to work, like half the population here.”

  “I’d prefer to work on the island. Commuting is expensive and inconvenient.”

  “Let’s see if I have this right, Jeffrey. You abandoned your wife and children to enter into an adulterous relationship with a married woman, left the island for several months during which your contribution to your family was a grand total of one hundred dollars; you grieved everyone in the church and your choir in particular, and now you state that you don’t necessarily believe Christ to be the Son of God, yet you wish His forgiveness.”

  Jeffrey Tolson opened his mouth to speak, but Father Tim raised his hand. “In addition, you wish to wait ’til you find work that’s convenient, while your wife, currently hospitalized and without income, soldiers on with the fallout as you trot back to God’s house, whistling Dixie.” He was livid. “When you can return to this place with a humble spirit, confessing your sins and longing for His gift of forgiveness, you’ll find a willing heart to hear you.” He stood from his desk, shaken
.

  Jeffrey Tolson stood also, his face white with anger. “I’ll come for my son tonight. Have his things ready.”

  “You’ll come for your son? I don’t think so. Jonathan was given into our care by Janette. It is Janette who directs his coming and going, and that, you may rest assured, will hold up in a court of law.” While he didn’t know for certain that it would, it certainly seemed that it should.

  He thought he might be punched out on the spot, but didn’t care; he felt reckless, invincible.

  “You can’t stop me from attending St. John’s.”

  “You’re absolutely correct, I cannot. But I don’t advise it.”

  Jeffrey Tolson uttered an oath. “Father Morgan, unlike yourself, was a peacemaker. You’re no Father Morgan.”

  “Thanks be to God!” he said, holding his office door open.

  “Father, before you take your days off, wouldn’t you like to put in your order for a new sport coat?”

  He looked at Jean Ballenger’s newly trimmed bangs, which were curling upward like the lashes of a film star. “A new sport coat?”

  “For Janette, to help her get started back in business when she comes home. I’m going to order a paisley shirtwaist; Marion’s ordering a red dress, she says she wears too much navy; and we thought you might like to order a sport coat.”

  “Well . . .”

  “Something blue would be good on you.”

  He had three blue sport coats, but he didn’t say anything.

  “Penny Duncan is ordering a wrap skirt, even though she doesn’t have gobs of money to throw around and sews like a dream herself! Don’t you think that’s sacrificial?”

  “I do.”

  “And Cynthia could order a suit in linen or piqué, maybe something with a nice peplum, I think she’d look stunning in a peplum.”

  “How much is a sport coat?”

  “I don’t have any idea.”

  “Why don’t you get back to me on that?”

  “Oh, I will!” she said, making a note on her pad. “I just think it would be the Christian thing to do, don’t you?”

  He grinned at the earnest Jean Ballenger trotting down the hall to solicit orders from the Busy Fingers group, which was currently living up to their name, big-time.