Father Under Fire

by Neil Boyd

  ‘On the contrary,’ Mr D’Arcy said, ‘the Catholic clergy went along with it. As they did in Silesia.’

  I was out of my depths, knowing little Church history and having no idea where Silesia was.

  ‘It is true,’ Mother Stephen said, saving the day, ‘that in a few places, Pope Benedict XIV’s encyclical Magnae nobis of 1741 was neglected.’

  ‘Indeed it was,’ Fr Duddleswell echoed. ‘In a very few places.’

  ‘But,’ Mother Stephen continued, making it plain that her learning needed no assistance, ‘Pius VIII and Gregory XVI reaffirmed that for Catholics to allow any child of theirs to be brought up as non-Catholics is against the law of God.’

  ‘As much against God’s law,’ Fr Duddleswell added, ‘as for a father to marry his own daughter.’

  Fatty Pinkerton was all this time puffing hard on his cigarette and throwing out the occasional ‘Iniquitous’, ‘Bigots’, ‘Pressurizing non-Catholics to become Romans.’

  Fr Duddleswell picked up the last point. ‘’Tis true that most conversions to Catholicism, about 14,000 a year, are the result of mixed marriages.’

  ‘That proves it,’ Sobb said. ‘Catholics take no account of the consciences of people outside their communion.’

  ‘Indeed we do,’ Fr Duddleswell replied. ‘If these good people are troubled in their consciences they should not sign the document.’

  ‘But that will only mean,’ Sobb said, ‘that they cannot marry Catholics.’

  Fr Duddleswell smiled superiorly. ‘The fact that they do sign, sir, shows that Methodists do not take the matter as seriously as Catholics. After all, you do not suggest that your people are so weak-kneed as to marry the person of their choice against their consciences?’

  ‘We are suggesting,’ Mr Tinsey whistled, ‘that Methodists are Christians and that Catholics refuse to accept that fact.’

  ‘And,’ Pinkerton added, his resolution worn thin, ‘the Catholics threaten their own flock if they disobey. As usual, with hellfire.’

  That was the moment when Billy Buzzle jerked awake. ‘Did I miss much of your Boss Man’s speech?’

  ‘All of it,’ I assured him.

  ‘Oh dear,’ he whispered. ‘That was lucky.’

  The mention of hellfire turned Mother Stephen’s thoughts to her Foundress, who, I recalled, had left her husband and children to found an orphanage. I hoped that Pinkerton was unaware of this.

  ‘Our holy Mother Foundress once had a vision of thousands and thousands of lost souls descending into the fiery pit.’

  Billy leaned across me to console her. ‘Shame, Mother.’

  Mother Stephen, grateful for sympathy from any quarter in that frosty room, said, ‘A great shame.’

  ‘Did the doctor give her something for it?’ Billy asked.

  Pinkerton, blind to Mr Probble’s warning glance, said, ‘Why can’t the Catholic Church treat Catholics as adults and let them decide for themselves whom they want to marry instead of talking about them endangering their faith and risking hellfire?’

  ‘Myself,’ Billy said, ‘I like the idea of Hell.’

  ‘How very interesting,’ Mr Pinkerton said. He believed all opinions, however crazy, are free and equal.

  ‘Yeah,’ Billy laughed, enjoying being the focus of attention, ‘think of the good company.’

  Mr Probble wagged his head courteously. ‘I hadn’t thought of that.’

  ‘All the gamblers and drinkers go there, don’t they?’

  The Methodists nodded vigorously.

  ‘And just you imagine,’ Billy went on, ‘no more chilblains, no one strumming away on harps and a great big sign up,’ – he made the appropriate gesture – ‘FRYING TONIGHT.’

  Billy laughed and, in spite of myself, I laughed, too.

  To impress Mother Stephen, Fr Duddleswell enquired sternly, ‘Father Neil, would you mind telling me why you are gurgling like a jackass?’

  ‘Because he’s got a sense of humour,’ Pinkerton said, ‘and you haven’t.’

  ‘No, dead serious,’ Billy said, trying to stifle his amusement with scant success. ‘I prefer Hell to being up there with all those clouds and clergymen.’

  Pinkerton laughed to spite Fr Duddleswell.

  Billy put on a straight face. ‘Father O’Duddleswell, since my dog wasn’t allowed in, can I ask a silly question?’

  Fr Duddleswell pointed at Pinkerton. ‘It cannot be any sillier than his.’

  ‘The Bishop does not approve of silly questions,’ Mother Stephen remarked and Fr Duddleswell, remembering his plight, agreed with her.

  ‘No, Mr Buzzle, of course you cannot ask a silly question.’

  ‘You mean,’ Billy complained, ‘because I’m not wearing a clerical collar I can’t ask silly questions.’

  ‘You, sir, are not a clergyman,’ Mother Stephen said.

  Billy responded instantaneously. ‘Neither are you, sir.’

  ‘Mr Buzzle,’ Fr Duddleswell said, controlling his mirth with difficulty, ‘would you have the good manners not to insult Mother Superior while she is in the room.’

  ‘Okay, Father O’Duddleswell, but I thought you invited me so I could ask questions.’

  Mother Stephen turned on the chairman. ‘You invited him?’

  ‘In the hope he would see the light, Mother.’

  ‘I have,’ Billy said, ‘I’m not coming no more.’

  ‘Swear,’ Fr Duddleswell muttered grimly.

  Billy roared. ‘Who at, mate?’

  ‘Never you mind.’

  All the time these squabbles were going on, Rabbi Epstein had been silently gazing at his joined fingertips. The fingers were long and thin, translucent almost. As I looked at this lonely, seemingly lost little man, I called to mind a piece of doggerel we used to recite among ourselves at school: ‘Get a bit of pork, Stick it on a fork, And give it to a Jewboy, do.’

  ‘Rabbi,’ Mr Probble said, attempting to draw him into the conversation. ‘Have you any strong feelings about mixed marriages?’

  The Rabbi shot upright as if his thoughts had been far away. His eyes as he spoke were dim, lustreless.

  ‘What say the Talmud?’ he murmured. ‘Pardon. A dog speak gooder English.’

  ‘It is perfectly intelligible,’ Mr Probble said, ‘and that’s the main thing.’

  ‘A happy coupling of male and female,’ the Rabbi said, ‘is hard for the Almighty like the parting of the Red Sea.’

  ‘He managed it,’ Pinkerton said cheerfully.

  ‘Once,’ the Rabbi conceded. ‘I also remember that Abraham loved Sarah.’

  Mr Probble was perplexed. ‘Am I to take it, Rabbi, that you are agreeing with Father Duddleswell?’

  ‘Reverend Father does not know what his talk is about.’ Fr Duddleswell had time to open his mouth but not to utter before the Rabbi added. ‘But he is quite right.’

  ‘Of course,’ Mr Pinkerton sighed.

  ‘Father Duddleswell a funny man. He does not get married. But God say, Multiplify and fill up the earth.’ The Rabbi clapped with his fingertips. ‘How he so wise for an ignorant?’

  ‘You are married, Rabbi?’ Mr Sobb asked.

  ‘Of certainly. I am a man.’ Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Fr Duddleswell gulp. ‘My wife … my wife is Edzia.’ He seemed to have difficulty in speaking her name which he pronounced with a full Slavonic flavour. ‘My Edzia. Like a fruitful vine. Our children, olive shoots around my table. Seven children, Beautiful, them all.’

  ‘You certainly multiplied and fill the earth.’ Fr Duddleswell’s voice had genuine admiration in it.

  ‘Yes,’ the Rabbi said. ‘Filled the earth.’

  Mr Probble felt it was his duty to bring the conversation back to the topic of mixed marriages. ‘You said, Rabbi, that you agree with our Catholic hosts.’

  ‘Not always. Not about, for an example, the divorce. Kings and patriarchs got divorces.’

  This was so far from what he had been discussing the consensus was we should let it pass.

&n
bsp; ‘After all things,’ the Rabbi added, ‘you all think God Himself got divorced.’

  This was news to everyone around the table. ‘All right, Rabbi,’ Pinkerton said mischievously, ‘let’s have it. Who do we say God married and divorced?’

  ‘Us,’ the Rabbi said.

  That one word, softly spoken with a Slavonic sizzle at the end, flattened the rest of us. There was no bitterness in the word though it seemed to me in retrospect that, voiced by this black stick of a man, it somehow expressed the sorrow of millions.

  Mr Probble coughed clerically. ‘We were discussing –’

  ‘A mixed-up marriage,’ the Rabbi concluded for him. ‘Suppose – God will forgive – my Edzia turn Christian. At the bed’s side she kneel at night. “Are you sick, Edzia?” I say. “No, Zorach.” “What have your knees done to you, Edzia,” I say, “that you are trampling them under foot?” “I am praying, Zorach.” Then perhaps my Edzia make the cross on herself. I jump fast to the door like a goat. “Why you frighten me like so, Edzia?” “I am praying, Zorach, in the name of my Saviour, Jesus Christ.” “Now you remind me of your Saviour and his cross, Edzia,” I say, “when I am trying to tumble asleep? That I want like an egg with blood in.”’

  The Rabbi’s simple, domestic dialogue did far more for our cause than Fr Duddleswell’s position paper or Mother Stephen’s grasp of Church history.

  The meeting broke up soon after that. ‘Enchanting afternoon,’ Mr Probble said, as he hastened to join the Gadarene rush of his colleagues.

  ‘Father Duddleswell,’ Mother Stephen said, ‘I will pray before our Foundress’s tibia for those unbelievers.’ She stretched out an icy hand. ‘I must congratulate you on the hard line you took.’

  Fr Duddleswell touched the hand briefly as if he was afraid of frostbite. ‘I will be content, Mother, if you simply tell the Bishop that I gave ’em Hell.’

  ‘How better to help them on the way to Heaven.’ The speaker was Billy Buzzle, the last to leave.

  ‘As for you, Mr Buzzle,’ Fr Duddleswell fumed, ‘good riddance to bad rubbish and be sure not to come again.’

  ‘Don’t be like that,’ Billy said in a conciliatory tone. ‘I’m going next door this minute to tell my Pontius the good news.’

  Fr Duddleswell steeled himself for a saucy remark. ‘Oh, yes?’

  ‘You’ve convinced me at last there’s an everlasting fire.’

  ‘I am glad of that, Mr Buzzle,’ Fr Duddleswell said, visibly warming towards his neighbour. ‘But which of me arguments finally converted you?’

  ‘No particular argument,’ Billy replied. ‘It suddenly occurred to me, if there’s no Hell, where will you and Mother Stephen go?’

  Rabbi Epstein made such an impression on me that the following day I spoke to Mrs Hughes’ class of ten-year olds about the Jews.

  ‘It’s wrong to blame the Jews for Jesus’ death on the cross,’ I told them. ‘Our Lord Himself was born a Jew, so was His Mother and all his disciples. Only a few Jews in the world ever knew Him and fewer still trespassed by rejecting Him. And yet, over the ages, many Christians thought it right to persecute Jews when, of course, they can’t all have been responsible for crucifying our Lord.’

  I’m no teacher and my language was obviously not simple enough. After I left, Mrs Hughes asked the children to write in their theme books what I had taught them. Later, she showed me what Robert had written: ‘The Christians trespassed and the Jubes got prosecuted.’

  Canon Mahoney, miraculously restored to the perpendicular after what I took to be a diplomatic illness, joined us for lunch at The Clinton Hotel.

  After hearing Fr Duddleswell’s account of how he had routed the Protestants with minor assistance from me and the occasional annoying interruption from Mother Stephen, the Canon heaved an audible sigh.

  ‘It’s more healthy by far, Charlie, to make a Novena to the Virgin for ’em. She has the patience, y’see. What is the flicking Bishop thinking of? He’s Irish, he should know better.’

  ‘Truth is, Seamus, Bishop O’Reilly never comes across Protestants, except in his prayers, like. He thinks they are reasonable craters like you and me.’

  ‘They have heads on them as dark and empty as a church at night, Charlie.’

  ‘That is no fiction but a plain fact.’

  ‘No sense of the sacred, Charlie. Their sort would piddle on the Burning Bush.’

  ‘They would, Seamus, they would.’

  So far it was banter and little more, even though it annoyed me considerably. Then the Canon grew more serious.

  ‘They didn’t appear to grasp, then, Charlie, that if the theological issues are not settled before a mixed marriage they never will be.’

  ‘I can just imagine it, Seamus. A husband and wife having a debate every night before they slip in between the sheets about what they are going to do there and what faith the kiddies will be baptized in.’

  Canon Mahoney wearily pushed his wine glass towards me. ‘Fill it up again, Sonny. We have to cheerify ourselves somehow.’

  ‘At least the Rabbi was on our side, Seamus.’

  ‘In the matter of mixed-up marriages,’ I said.

  ‘Excuse. I doubt that you remember me well, Father Boyd.’

  In the murky hallway, I took in the slight figure of the Rabbi at a glance. The broad-brimmed black hat that seemed to be slipping off the back of his head; the bushy beard; the grey-tinged side-curls; the owl-like glasses; the black overcoat, smooth as the skin of a seal fresh from the sea, that dropped straight down and hid his shoes.

  Even with six holes in the head, who could fail to remember well Rabbi Zorach Epstein?

  I stretched out my hand to him. ‘Shalom aleichem, Rabbi.’

  He took my hands and kissed them both. No words. His moist lips on my skin expressed better than words his thanks for my feeble effort at friendliness.

  ‘Have you come to see Father Duddleswell?’ I asked, a trifle embarrassed.

  ‘You are young, Father,’ he said inconsequentially. ‘I once was young also.’ He spoke as if had never a hope of making me believe it.

  ‘Yes, I am, I suppose.’

  Behind his glasses, the brown eyes twinkled. ‘Only the old know the young are young. If the young knew it, they would never grow old.’

  I murmured something about liking the sound of that.

  ‘My mother, peace be with her, say that always, Father. Yes, I come for to see Father Duddleswell.’

  I explained that he was out visiting the parish. He might be away for five minutes or an hour, he left no word.

  ‘I make good watchman.’

  I gathered he intended waiting so I invited him up to my room.

  ‘How is your wife, Rabbi?’

  ‘Edzia? Well. Perfectly now.’ His eyes seemed to turn inwards at the mention of her name. ‘She lives with me always.’

  ‘Of course,’ I said lamely. It took me a few moments to grasp that this was his way of telling me his wife was dead. Had she died since the Conference a week before?

  This was his story as I pieced it together. His narrative was not wholly consistent nor his language clear.

  Rabbi Epstein and Edzia had lived with their seven children in the Warsaw ghetto not far from the Vistula. In 1939, as the Germans threatened Poland, the Jews began to flee for their lives. No section of the population was more relieved than they when, on September 3rd, the British entered the war on Poland’s side.

  The Rabbi had joined the crowd outside the British Embassy in Warsaw soon after the Declaration. Everyone was chanting and singing, ‘England is on our side. England is with us. Soon we will chase the Nazi barbarians from our land.’

  When, a few hours afterwards, planes with Swastikas on flew low over the city dropping bombs the Poles could not believe their eyes.

  Meanwhile, Rabbi Epstein had gone home, lit his kerosene lamp and called for salt pretzels.

  He sat perched on his chair now as he remembered.

  ‘“What is up and doing, Zorach?”
my Edzia say. “Drink a glass of coffee, Edzia,” I tell her. “Soon our salvation comes. Mr Neville Chamberlain say so. Mr Lord Halifax say so. Prepare the borscht for supper. And, Edzia mine, stop your crying like it is Yom Kippur.”’

  Next day, not realizing the danger, the Rabbi went north-west to visit a sick relative in a village near Palcz. The speed of the German Panzer advance was staggering. Polish horsemen with muskets took on tanks and armoured cars. The whole district was overrun. The Rabbi, fortunate to be sheltered by a sympathetic Polish family, was cut off from his wife and children.

  All through the bitter winter of 1939/40, he lived in a cemetery. At night, his friends brought him food and drink and he was able to take exercise. During the day, wrapped in sacking, he hid in a tomb that had been hollowed out for him and furnished with a mattress, blankets and a small oil lamp.

  By the Spring of 1940, the Nazis were satisfied the Jewish extermination in that area was complete. The friendly Gentile family further risked their lives by hiding the Rabbi in an alcove of their house. They walled it up, leaving only three loose bricks through which they passed food and water and he handed out his refuse.

  There he learned his family’s fate. Everyone of them had been killed in ‘the camp’. He did not, and, I felt, could not name it. I remembered his words at the Conference, referring to his children, ‘Filled the earth.’

  The Rabbi had no details, except in the case of his eldest son, Samuel. The S.S. had tortured him to make him divulge his father’s whereabouts. The lad of sixteen was hung from a butcher’s hook. He dripped blood for hours but did not say a word, except to pray the psalms. Afterwards, the camp Commandant joked that Samuel was the first koshered Jew he had come across. If the rest of the family were hungry, let them eat him.

  ‘A sergeant say, “But Herr Commandant, Jews does not eat swine.” “Not even their own?” says the Commandant.’

  The Rabbi removed his glasses. There was a deep weal on the bridge of his nose. Without his glasses, he looked white-faced and blind like a statue. He wiped his eyes with the back of his sleeve.

  ‘You know, Father Boyd, before I left home on my voyage, I had row with Sammy. “Sammy,” I say, “mend your roads. Behave yourself or I not speak with you no more. Remember you are my firstborn son, Respect your daddy.” I spoke wickedness without meaning wickedness, as fathers does. Sammy remembered. He respect his father and he did not even squeak.’