The Cardinal

by Henry Morton Robinson

  “I’ve just seen Mona,” he announced.

  “The homing bird! Where?”

  “At the Metro Dance Pavilion, a dime-a-dance place on Tremont Street.”

  “How does she look? Did she speak to you?”

  Tears slid down Bernie’s chubby cheeks. “She looked all right. But she wouldn’t speak to me.”

  “Was she alone?”

  “No, a guy was with her.”

  “What kind of a guy?”

  “One of them patent-leather Spanish dancers. He shoved me away.”

  Mona was back in Boston, Gongaro was with her. “You say they’re at the Metro Dance Pavilion?” asked Stephen. “Let’s get right down there.”

  Twenty minutes later, Stephen was following his brother into the butt-strewn lobby of the Metro Dance Pavilion, a second-floor layout on lower Tremont Street. Knots of young men, many with padded shoulders and pomaded hair, were taking a quick drag at cigarettes between dances. Stephen had borrowed a flashy handkerchief from Bernie and tied it Ascot-fashion around his Roman collar. They climbed the stairs. Suppose Mona weren’t there! Or suppose she were! Halfway up the stairs Bernie stopped at a little booth. “Ten tickets please,” he said and handed the box-office man a dollar.

  The dance floor was fenced off by a waist-high railing, broken by a turnstile. Hostesses lolled on settees waiting for customers, while some two hundred couples were fox-trotting to the strains of Margie, brassily rendered by Dinger Doane and his Jazz-bo Babies. A dim orange light made it difficult to see a face clearly.

  Stephen searched the floor for a glimpse of Mona. “Do you see her?” he whispered to Bernie.

  “Here she comes now, with that guy in the tan suit.”

  Stephen saw the couple. The man had an arrogant talent for dancing. He was wearing a cocoa-colored jacket and purple shirt; high-heeled shoes added to his height. In agony Stephen watched Mona dance past, her head thrown back, her delicate body floating petallike in her partner’s arms. She was undeniably lovely; her blondined hair, which at first shocked Stephen, added a theatrical touch to her beauty. She was wearing a pink ball gown glittering with sequins and silver lace; her costume and dyed hair expressed with painful emphasis Mona’s notion of herself as a queen among taxi dancers.

  A deadly emotion gripped Stephen. “Let’s walk out there and take her away from him,” he said to Bernie.

  “We can’t do that, Steve. Bouncers are all over the place. They’d throw us downstairs.”

  The music stopped, the lights went up, and the dancers streamed through exit gates. The floor was empty now save for a man who held up a hand for attention. Unable to get silence, he signaled the drummer, who tore off a mama-papa flam ending in a boom-boom. The master of ceremonies began talking with the false elegance of a prize-fight announcer.

  “La-deez an’ gennelmen! Tonight with your kind permission we offer for your ennertainment a re-fined exhibition of sussiety dancing in the final innerstate a-liminations for a silver loving cup. Your applause will decide the winnah … thank you one and all.” His finger shot a directive at the band leader. “Perfessor Doane will take it from here.”

  The band blared into Dardanella, and two couples glided toward the center of the floor. Stephen had no consciousness of the other dance team; he saw only Mona and Gongaro. He knew little about dancing, but recognized the professional touch that Mona and her partner gave to the showy steps. As the exhibition progressed, partisan applause grew louder. The rivalry between the couples was high; each tried to surpass the other with fancy variations. Mona and Gongaro did a hesitation dip to handclapping and shouts of “Attaboy, Ramón.” The other couple countered with a reverse pinwheel, and took their meed of applause. Then Gongaro let Mona spin free for a solo whirl and caught her in mid-flight with heel-clicking precision. What hurt Stephen most was the Spaniard’s evident command over Mona’s person. Gongaro’s preening self-esteem said: “Alone, this girl is nothing. But with me—watch now.”

  The music stopped, and the two couples stood in the center of the floor while the master of ceremonies approached them, loving cup in his hands. A barrage of applause rattled across the hall as he held the cup over Mona and Gongaro. An equal barrage was let loose when the trophy rested over the heads of the other couple. Again and again, the test was made, till at last, with the cup over Mona’s head, the roof went sailing away.

  Gongaro accepted the prize and strutted ahead of Mona toward a side door.

  “Come on, Bernie,” said Stephen.

  They circled the edge of the dance floor and pushed open the door through which Mona and Gongaro had disappeared. In a bare greenroom the dancers were being paid off by the master of ceremonies. He was handing Gongaro twenty-five dollars when he saw Stephen and Bernie.

  “What you guys want?” he challenged.

  “We want to speak to our sister,” said Stephen.

  Mona looked up in terror, saw Stephen, and tried to run from the room. In three quick steps he had her by the wrist. “Monny darling … please. …”

  Gongaro stepped forward. “What’s the big idea?”

  “The big idea,” said Stephen, “is that we haven’t seen our sister for quite a while, and we want to talk with her.”

  The dancing man shrugged a padded shoulder: “From where I stand, she don’t look like she wants to talk to you.”

  It was true. Mona’s eyelashes, beaded with mascara, were lowered. Her visor of defiance was down. “Take me out of here, Ramón. These men are bothering me.”

  Gongaro had no intention of getting his neck broken. “I’ll get The Bite.” He darted out and returned with a stocky musclebound character—an ex-wrestler, to judge by his necklessness and gorilla-length arms.

  “Who’s causin’ the trouble here?” he demanded.

  “Him.” Gongaro pointed to Stephen. “He won’t let go of my partner.”

  “Oh, yes he will,” said The Bite. “Leggo of the lady’s arm, mister.” He shot out a heavy paw, grabbed Stephen by what seemed to be an Ascot tie (a favorite hold with bouncers), and jerked. The silk handkerchief came off, revealing the Roman collar underneath.

  “Geeze, he’s a priest.” Having broken the taboo against striking a clergyman, The Bite’s poor brain collapsed in apology. “I didden’ mean nothin’, Father. Honest, I didden’.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” said Stephen. “Everything’s going to be fine if you’ll leave me alone with my sister here for a little talk.”

  “Sure, sure, Father. Breeze, everybody.” The Bite pointed at Bernie. “Who’s he?”

  “My brother.” Stephen spoke to Bernie. “Get George over here on the double.” Glad to avoid the scene about to take place, Bernie vanished.

  Alone with Mona in the bare room, Stephen loosened his grip. “Forgive me, Monny; I had to hang onto you. Tell me, darling, where’ve you been?”

  Silence, stubborn and willful, was Mona’s answer.

  “Please, darling.” Stephen tried to put his arms around his sister, but she flung his hands down, the flares of her nostrils dilating.

  “Don’t try being a big brother any more. It worked last time. But it won’t ever work again. Ever, ever, do you hear?”

  “I hear you, Mona.”

  “Oh, you hear, all right. But you don’t understand. How could you?” Contempt and anger quivered in her throat. “You don’t know what love is.”

  The hopelessness of convincing Mona that he knew the power of love overcame Stephen.

  “You mustn’t say that, Mona,” he pleaded.

  “I’ll say anything I damn please. I’m through with you, and all the mealymouthed things you stand for. Let me go to hell in my own way, will you?”

  “But this isn’t your way, Mona. I watched you dance tonight. I saw how happy you were, and what a gift you have. That gift shouldn’t be wasted on cheap exhibitions. Dancing is one of the arts, and you could make a career of it.”

  “I don’t want a career.”

  “What do you want, Mo
na?”

  “I just want Benny Rampell,” she said obstinately.

  “Come home with me tonight,” bargained Steve. “I’ll help you get him.”

  “No one can help me get him now. It’s too late.” Grief at irrecoverable loss shook her. “He married someone else.”

  Thundering against the walls of the bare greenroom, mourning above the cheap rhythms of Dinger Doane’s music, Stephen heard the echo of Job’s mightiest line. “No man can deliver his brother unto God” The folly of interfering with other people’s lives, the awful presumption of touching with one’s finger the value of another human heart, brought Stephen to his knees beside his sister. What could he say to undo the wrong he had done her? Small comfort now to offer Mona the solace of religion or to explain that he had acted in accordance with the dictates of his Church. He spoke humbly, his forehead against her shoulder:

  “No one can unmake the past, Monny, or strike out human errors of judgment. It was a mistake on my part, a terrible mistake that will leave marks of grief on both of us for the rest of our lives.” His lips touched her cheek. “Next to your suffering—and Benny’s perhaps—mine will be greatest.” He was pleading now. “Celia’s courage is failing; Din mourns for you. Can you keep on hurting them, Monny?”

  Ferments of filial love and self-destruction worked in Mona’s heart. Stephen let them rise in silence, then made the absolute minimum request.

  “Come home tonight just for a visit, Monny. You won’t have to stay. We’ll say you’ve got a grand job in New York.”

  The conflicting ferments in Mona’s soul almost neutralized each other. Then the urge to self-destruction triumphed. “You might as well get off your knees,” she said. “I’m not going home with you. I was a fool to come back to Boston. This time I’m going away and won’t ever be back.”

  She walked to the door of the greenroom and opened it. Outside, Ramón Gongaro was waiting.

  “Come, pigeon,” he said masterfully. “We will dance.”

  CHAPTER 4

  PAUL IRETON’S NICKEL was soon spent.

  He swung off the trolley at the Medford carbarns and from military habit surveyed the terrain. He knew he was standing midway between two of the largest parishes in the Diocese—St. Vincent’s to the west and the Immaculate Conception about a mile to the east. Somewhere between the two, and within the dotted lines drawn by the Cardinal’s own hand, Paul Ireton must organize a parish of his own. By a series of diplomatic and financial maneuvers he must wean some two thousand Roman Catholics away from deep loyalties to their old pastors; he must persuade them to attend services in temporary quarters and, lastly, he must gently extract from them funds to build a new church. Because any man in his right mind would be slightly apprehensive about such operations, Father Ireton spent a bad sixty seconds wondering where and how to begin.

  The month was June; a summer sun poured straight down on Father Ireton standing amid the network of car tracks, and dabbing with his handkerchief at a drop of sweat in the cleft of his blue-black chin. The light breakfast he had eaten five hours ago was quitting on him. As a minor ascetic gesture, Paul had intended to eat no lunch; but a swallow of liquid, he decided, would vastly benefit the parched membranes of his throat. Across the street he saw a row of stores: a barbershop, its red and blue pole symbolizing arterial and venous blood; an apothecary with red and blue vases symbolizing the same thing; a chain-store grocery, a bakery, and a fruit stand shaded by a wide-striped canvas awning. The shrill whine of a peanut roaster came pleasantly to Father Ireton’s ear. He crossed the car tracks to the fruit stand, stood in the grateful shade of the awning, and delivered up all his senses to the wares spread before him.

  Oranges were piled in pyramids, bananas hung ripely; figs, tamarinds, dates, and lemons tempted his taste buds, and a jar of pickled limes started the saliva in his dry throat. He was taking a bag of peanuts from the copper roaster when he heard a clinking of ice against glass in the cool interior of the fruit shop.

  The proprietor, in a dirty Panama hat, was ladling lemonade into a green-glass pitcher held by a customer wearing the uniform of the Boston Street Railway Company. The ladler was Nick Papagyros, and the pitcher holder was Bartholomew (“Batty”) Glynn, chief dispatcher of trolleys and theologian at large to the Medford carbarns.

  “Six for the price of five, Nick?” Batty was asking.

  Nick laughed at the whimsy of the thing. Old joke from old customer. Seeing the priest, Batty Glynn raised his hat with easy respect. “Five for the price of six would be cheap for Nick’s lemonade, Father. It’s the best tipple this side of Rainingpouria.”

  “I’ll have a glass,” said Paul.

  Mr. Papagyros poured a tall one for his new customer. Paul lifted the sweet citrus juice toastwise to the dispatcher, who responded with a gigantic tug at his green-glass flagon. Cool lotion of ice in his mouth, Paul nodded appreciatively. So much nice gulping pleased Mr. Papagyros. A modest man, he wished to assign credit where credit was really due. He picked up a lemon, bit into it and smacked his lips appreciatively.

  Paul Ireton was not an easy mixer, but after such pleasures some talk was bound to follow. He handed Mr. Papagyros a quarter and asked:

  “Do you happen to know of any vacant stores around here?”

  Hairy fist in change bag, Nick shook his Panama doubtfully. “No stores empty. Business too good for vacancies,” he explained.

  “A hall then?”

  “How big a hall would you be looking for, Father?” asked Batty Glynn.

  “Oh, something big enough to accommodate three or four hundred people at Sunday Mass.”

  “Sunday what?”

  “Mass,” said Paul quietly. “I’m starting a new parish here.”

  Batty Glynn’s eyes popped like grapes. This was the weirdest heresy since the days of the Albigensians. Strict orthodoxy prompted his next question. “Does Pat Barley know about it?”

  “Yes. He’ll announce it from the altar next Sunday.”

  While Batty Glynn marveled into his flagon, Mr. Papagyros came up with a suggestion: “What’s that place—Mattakeesis—how you say it?—Mattakeesis Hall?”

  “No, no,” said Batty decisively. “’Twouldn’t do.”

  “Why not?” asked Paul.

  Ever the purist, Batty set forth his objection. “A colored congregation used to meet there, Father. The police had to clean them out.”

  Paul gave proper weight to Batty’s piece of information. “I’d like to see it anyway. Would you mind telling me how to get there?”

  “Your request,” said Batty solemnly, “has the force of an edict, Father.” With his toe the dispatcher-theologian started to draw a diagram in the sawdust on Nick’s floor. Then he had a better idea. He consulted the butter-gold watch that had never lost more than two seconds a week for twenty years. “I’m on my lunch hour, Father. I’ll take you there myself.”

  My first convert, thought Paul. If this pompous ox could be led, others would follow.

  A short walk brought them to a three-story building bearing the legend MATTAKEESIT 1886 on the crest of its lugubrious brick façade. Long ago, Mattakeesit Hall had been the bon-ton thing in Medford—the smart rendezvous for social affairs, top-cut weddings and dances. Until 1910 it had served the K. of C. as their meeting place, but when they moved to their new home, Mattakeesit Hall had been cut up into offices for chiropodists, dollar-a-filling dentists, fortunetellers, and similar gentry. Holy Rollers had held services on the top floor until their noisy rituals attracted police attention. And it was this top floor—dusty, littered, and long unused—that Sol Seidelbander, the renting agent, now showed to Father Ireton.

  A glance told Paul that it would do. Having said Mass in trenches, tents, garages, and at the tailboard of commissary trucks, he felt no queasiness about celebrating it in Mattakeesit Hall. The dirty floor and grimy windows could be cleaned; the taint of Holy Rollerism (if any) could be removed by blessing. After all, it was the Mass that mattered. Where Batty Glynn�
�s eyes saw only dirt and debris, Father Ireton beheld a well-swept upper room and the faces of his people.

  “What rent are you asking, Mr. Seidelbander?”

  “With heat in winter, twenty-five dollars a month.”

  Paul gave Mr. Seidelbander the full treatment of his severe gray eyes. “I’ll take a year’s lease … on one condition.”

  Sol Seidelbander, who hadn’t had a penny from the hall in five years, said he’d listen to any reasonable proposition.

  “The proposition is this,” said Father Ireton. “Instead of paying the first month’s rent in advance, I’ll give you my note for thirty days.”

  The renting agent knew a customer when he saw one. “Why bother about notes, Father? The word of a Catholic priest is good enough for me.”

  BATTY GLYNN put the news on the grapevine. Every trolley that left the carbarn carried headlines, full reportage, and editorial comment supplied by Eyewitness Glynn. He told his story a dozen times that afternoon, larding it imaginatively until his hearers might have thought that Batty Glynn himself was the Cardinal’s right-hand bower. His best and final version was reserved for the ear of Motorman Dennis Fermoyle as the latter sat down for a pipe and chat after stabling his sixteen-wheeler for the night.

  “Courteous and reserved he was,” said Batty, “as he lifted his glass of lemonade to me, and I drank back at him without the faintest notion of who he was or what he was doing in Nick’s shop, except that I could see that he had ecclesiastical business uppermost in his mind. Well, Din, when the nature of that business came out you could have knocked me over with the fumes from your pipe. ‘I’m looking for a place to say Mass,’ he said. ‘Say what?’ I asked. ‘Mass,’ he said, ‘and would you be knowing of any vacant stores or halls in the vicinity?’ Then before I knew it I was leading him down to Mattakeesit Hall, telling him at every step what a bad name it had. But when he saw it—I was standing right behind his shoulder—a kind of determination stiffened him, and he said to Seidelbander, ‘I’ll take it.’” Batty paused in his circumstantial narrative: “Then came the queerest part of all. He didn’t have the first month’s rent in his pocket, so he had to throw himself on Seidelbander’s mercy for thirty days’ indulgence, as you might say. Can you tell me now why a rich diocese obliges a new pastor to start off penniless?” The question being rhetorical, Batty continued without waiting for an answer. “Anyhow, that’s the way it happened, Din. Beginning next Sunday we’ll all be hearing Mass in a former den of Holy Rollerism. Off with the old, on with the new. Barley must be bitter about it.”