“Not so angry as I’m going to be for the next hour or two,” said Stephen. “Will you kindly get out of here, Sister, while Father Starkey helps me get dressed.”
Sister Frances retired like a figurine folding backward into a Swiss clock. “The Bishop’s mad,” she whispered to Sister Mercedes in the corridor.
“Angry mad?” asked Sister Mercedes.
“No, the other kind. If he walks on that leg”—the idea undid her—“O merciful saints, protect him. Ssh—ssh, here he comes now.” The nuns cowered into an alcove as the Bishop, trailed by Father Starkey, hobbled past on his crutches.
It was not quite madness of “the other kind” that possessed the Bishop of Hartfield. True, the blaze of anger, touched off by Joe Dockery’s disobedience, crackled toward the powder keg that all Fermoyles kept locked in their endocrine system. Stephen doused it just in time—not, however, until he found himself riding with Amby Cannell and Owen Starkey on a disciplinary tour of duty to the Gates of Heaven Cemetery.
Police outriders, summoned by Monsignor Cannell, cleared the Bishop’s way on motorcycles. And fortunately, too, because the dirt road between Topswell and the cemetery was clogged with a tooting tide of curiosity seekers inching toward the grave from whence sprang dangerous hysteria and unwarranted hope. Father Starkey, noting the tight seam of disapproval sewing the Bishop’s lips, wondered what would happen when His Excellency saw the gimcrack booths at the entrance to the cemetery. As the episcopal Buick slowed down to a crawl, dirty-aproned vendors began leaping onto its running boards. “Hot franks? Peanuts? Holy pictures, Mister? Get your sacred clam shells … only a quarter.”
Sacred clam shells! The seam in Stephen’s lips grew tighter. Disobedience compounded into sacrilege! Ecclesiastic discipline scorned, and the majesty of death defiled!
“Roll up the windows,” said Stephen.
When the Bishop’s car halted at the granite pillars of the cemetery, the hysterical throng witnessed something of a spectacle. They saw a tall pallid man robed in vestments customarily worn by a Bishop making a canonical visitation step gingerly to the ground. On his head sat a biretta; from his shoulders fell the cappa magna in brocaded folds. Before him walked a cross-bearer; at his side, supporting his elbow, was the Vicar-General of the Diocese.
The Bishop himself was on crutches.
Seeing the robed figure, the pious rabble made a natural mistake. They thought the Bishop had come to get his share of the miracle-working dust. As he hobbled through the gates of the cemetery and proceeded down the tree-lined path, an impromptu procession fell in behind him. This was the genuine thing in piety—the Bishop himself leading his flock to the healing shrine.
Marchers in the procession were somewhat surprised when the Bishop stopped at a low green shed, obviously a tool house, and beat upon the door, first with a crutch, then with a long curved staff that one of his clerics handed him. The staff was, in fact, a crozier, the supreme sign of episcopal authority, and the watchers thought that either the door or the staff must break under the Bishop’s pounding.
“Enter without knocking,” said a voice inside the shed. “Come in, I say! I’ll lose my count if you keep up that racket.”
The knocking persisted. “Must I come out and get you?” roared Dockery. He flung open the upper half of the Dutch door, and stood framed there: an opulent figure, derby hat tilted backward, a canvas bag of silver in one hand, and a cigar in the other.
As to what next followed, no two accounts agree. Eyewitnesses say that in trying to remove his hat, hide the silver, and dispose of the cigar, Joe Dockery got all three inextricably mixed. Others aver that he froze rigid with terror and could make no move of reverence, defense, or flight. Some contend that he took off his derby, put the bag of silver on his head, and swallowed his cigar. But whatever he did, his actions dwindled into unimportance when compared with the answers he made to the Bishop’s questions.
“You are Joseph Dockery, grounds keeper of this cemetery?” asked Stephen.
“Yes, Your Excellency.”
“You have given unauthorized interviews which in part are responsible for the present undignified and un-Christian status of affairs here?”
“Yes, Your Excellency.”
“And this morning you refused to obey my orders to shut the cemetery gates?”
“Y-yes, Your Excellency.”
“At that time you demanded some little sign of authority?” Stephen paused for the answer that Joe Dockery could not choke up. “I hereby produce for your benefit, Mr. Dockery, this crozier, this ring, and this pectoral cross. You recognize these, do you, as symbols of the episcopal authority vested in me?”
Joe Dockery found his voice again. “I do, Your Excellency.”
“Good.” Stephen felt sorry for the man. “I have no wish to persecute you, Mr. Dockery. All I want you to do is to obey such legitimate orders as I may give you in the future. Will you promise me that?”
Tears were making quite unmagnificent runnels down Joe Dockery’s face as he nodded, “Yes.”
“Go to the gates,” said Stephen, “and wait there till I come.”
The Bishop turned to his people. “I beg you all to leave these precincts of the dead in dignified and orderly fashion. To those who have come here sincerely hoping for a cure, I urge no weakening of faith in God’s power to suspend miraculously the operation of natural law. I ask that such persons be patient until God’s intention be clearly shown here. At the proper time, and in accordance with ecclesiastic law, you will learn the meaning of what has happened at the grave of Father Flynn.”
Stephen edged his voice with contempt. “And to those who have come through idle curiosity or to vend inappropriate wares, I say—leave this holy place before I invoke action by the public authorities.”
At four o’clock the dead were resting in peace again. Joe Dockery closed the gates in person; news bulbs flashed as he handed the key to his Bishop. And next morning every paper in the United States carried a headline:
Bishop Fermoyle Disavows Gates of Heaven Miracles
Leaves Sickbed to Restore Order in Cemetery
Dr. John Byrne came in around noon next day to find his patient walking about with no sign of limp or hobble. The surgeon’s clinical eyes and fingers searched Stephen’s leg. “Everything clean and healthy.” He bent the leg at the knee. “Good flexure.” He popped a thermometer into Stephen’s mouth. “Temperature normal.” Whereupon Dr. Byrne exulted in the manner of surgeons who have obtained what is known to the trade as “a satisfactory result.”
“Wait till the Harvard people hear about this,” he exclaimed. “Twenty-one days after a major lymphoidectomy the patient puts his entire weight on the leg, walks a quarter of a mile, exposes wound to dangerous infection …” John Byrne broke off his scientific dithyrambics and grinned wonderingly at his brother-in-law. “You can disavow all the graveyard miracles you want, Steve, but you’re standing on one right now. For heaven’s sake, man, get back into bed before God changes His mind.”
A FEW DAYS LATER, while gathering together his personal belongings before leaving the hospital, the Bishop of Hartfield came upon two apparently unrelated articles. One was a little cheesecloth bag containing a spoonful of earth from the grave of Father Flynn. The other was a copy of The New England Medical Journal containing an article entitled “Surgical Management of Chronic Lymphatic Disorders.”
What, if anything, was the relationship between the bag of earth and the scientific article? Must they (Stephen asked himself) necessarily stand in opposition to each other? Was it not conceivable that each in its own way expressed some syllable of the healing Word—that both were manifestations of God’s wondrously inscrutable love for His creature, man?
Offhand, the Bishop of Hartfield was unable to answer these questions. But the more he thought about his own cure, the more he was inclined to distribute credit equally. After some weeks he settled the problem in a manner befitting his financial means and condition of soul. From th
e money turned over by Joe Dockery (who was allowed to keep his job) Stephen contributed one thousand dollars to the Harvard Medical School for the study of lymphatic disorders. And he spent an equal sum in erecting a modest fieldstone grotto over the dust of Father William J. Flynn.
When the Gates of Heaven Cemetery reopened, all unseemly hysteria had evaporated. A few people came to pray at Father Flynn’s grave; departing, they left an occasional coin or crutch behind. The dead slept in majesty under their copper beeches, and in the outside world the miracle of daily life went on.
BOOK SIX
The Red Hat
CHAPTER 1
YES, life went on. Meanly and grandly, by the knife and the Word, with sinister stroke and valiant counterstroke, the world spun round. In Munich a terrible man was shouting “Wir wollen wieder Waffen”; along Manchuria’s eastern marshes, the spear of Japanese aggression sank (with appropriate regrets) into the vitals of China. On the balcony of the Palazzo Venezia, a latter-day Caesar vowed to Romulus, Remus, Horatius Codes, et alii that the eagles of Rome would again sweep in imperial squadrons against Italy’s foes. Avanti Fascismo … Viva il Duce!
In dustier parts of the vineyard, ordinary men toiled daylong, each for his penny. Specifically:
IN NEW YORK, not far from Carnegie Hall, a coffee-dark young man carrying a scuffed violin case pushed open a door bearing the brass plate: w. PFUNDT—VIOLINS BOUGHT SOLD AND REPAIRED. Against a showcase containing instruments insured for half a million dollars leaned Wilhelm Pfundt—uninsurable himself because of fatty heart and Buerger’s disease, but otherwise in good repair. The violin dealer was, in fact, a very triumph of repair work: a nine-pound truss kept his tripes in place, and a leather harness did likewise for his wobbly sacroiliac. These supporting devices, together with a hearing aid, a double row of dental crockery, and a pair of improbably convex eyeglasses made Herr Pfundt the living proof that anything—including the human frame—can be wired, clamped, glued, braced, and strapped together again, long after its first sweet integrity has disappeared.
“Nu, nu, Junge”—molasses and vinegar were mixed equally in Herr Pfundt’s greeting—“what have we in our little box today? A left-handed Cremona, or an Amati by way of the woodpile?”
Rafael Menton opened his leatherette case, marveled privately at the perfection of the Eve-shaped instrument he had created, then held it up for the dealer’s inspection.
“My Bergonzi model,” he announced, plucking the A string as a lover might caress a lobe of his sweetheart’s ear.
Herr Pfundt’s approach to the fiddle was rather more clinical; indeed, his whole manner suggested a pediatrician examining a baby with rickets. He tapped the slightly swollen belly curve of the violin, peered at its tawny amber varnish, then, observing the first rule of successful dealership, handed it back to the maker. “Stradivarius will not turn over in his grave today,” he grunted. “Well, nu … wie viel?”
“Three hundred dollars.”
“For a baseball bat with strings you ask three hundred dollars? Take it out to Yankee Stadium. Or better yet”—Herr Pfundt modulated into a Dutch-uncle role—“look at a real Bergonzi.” The dealer indicated a pale orange-colored instrument in his showcase. “A true masterwork made by a pupil of Stradivarius. It is for instruments with a golden voice like this that fiddlers pay money.”
The young luthier stood his ground. “Play both violins in Carnegie Hall—mine will outsing yours in everything but reputation. Please, Mr. Pfundt, just draw a bow across the open strings.”
The dealer picked up a bow and made scraping noises vaguely resembling Träumerei. Then blowing into his hearing aid as if to clear away static, he peered again at the purfling and F-holes of the violin.
“You are a promising workman. Vielleicht, you could make a good umbrella stand. … One hundred dollars.”
Angry protests met the offer. “Listen, Mr. Pfundt, it took me two hundred and fifty hours to make this violin. The back is curly maple, cut from a special tree. The varnish is a secret formula—no other American maker has it. I’ll take two hundred and fifty dollars—that’s only a dollar an hour for my labor—and not a penny less.”
He was putting the violin back in its case when Herr Pfundt’s sense of dealercraft prompted a new tack. “Patience makes everything possible,” he soothed. “If you won’t sell, so perhaps you will swap. I have something here that may interest you.”
The dealer opened a cupboard and produced the shattered skeleton of a violin. “A lost Cremona,” he said, placing the instrument in Rafe’s hands. “Ganz verloren for two hundred years. Last week it comes to me—legally, you understand—from a source I cannot reveal. Repaired by a man of your skill, it should be worth”—Herr Pfundt made indefinite, large gestures—“who knows how much?”
Rafael examined the decrepit violin. Its neck was broken, the top badly cracked, and the back entirely missing. Yet across its grandeur of proportion and delicate carving, the master’s hand still moved.
Few men in the world, perhaps only the two bending over the ruined instrument, would have dreamed of restoring it. But here they were, the necessary ingredients conjoined: Rafael Menton, the artist-luthier, sick for the feel of greatness, and Wilhelm Pfundt, the living proof that patchwork reigns, though Parthenons crumble.
“Put a back on that, and you’ll have something with a voice and a reputation,” said the dealer.
“I’ll swap you even, Mr. Pfundt. My Bergonzi for your Guarnerius.”
“Not so fast, young man. For this Cremona I must have your Bergonzi—mit two hundred dollars.”
“I haven’t got that much money, Mr. Pfundt.” It was the somber truth. After ten years as a full-fledged luthier, Rafe Menton could not lay his hands on fifty dollars in cash.
Lardy benevolence greased Herr Pfundt’s next proposal. “So work it out in repair jobs for me. If fiddle dealers cannot trust each other …”
That very afternoon, returning to his murky shop under the Second Avenue El, Rafe Menton began piecing together the fragments of a three-hundred-year-old masterpiece.
REGINA BYRNE was nine now, and nine was different from eight. At eight you thought of boys as cat drowners and bird stoners. At nine there was another reason for boys’ existence: they either noticed you or they didn’t, and it desperately mattered which.
To solve the mystery of why boys noticed girls, Regina took to gazing in the mirror.
“I am gruesome,” she told herself.
Regina’s Spanish-dark braids and olive skin weren’t gruesome at all; they simply were not the most popular combination at St. Bridget’s Parochial School. If Regina could have written her own beauty ticket, she would have ordered an ensemble like Vivian Bursay’s: golden-blond hair, baby-blue eyes, and strawberry-pink complexion. No wonder the boys rassled on the sidewalk for the privilege of strapping Vivian’s roller skates onto her dainty feet. None of the young gallants who streamed out of the boys’ side of St. Bridget’s had ever struggled for the privilege of strapping on Regina’s skates. Gladly she would have exchanged all the love she got at home, all the acclaim showered on her when she played the piano at school concerts, for some overt proof of Charlie Dunne’s devotion.
Heavy with the impossibility of such hope, Regina turned for comfort to her cancellations. The ritual worked like this:
Counting the letters that didn’t cancel, you got nine. According to the rules, you now subtracted one—and you had the enigmatic result, H, the eighth letter in the alphabet. Hate or Happiness—which did it stand for? L clearly meant Love, and M betokened Marriage. But H demanded a deeper reading. If it truly meant Happiness, Charlie Dunne would have to co-operate a little more actively. Pull a braid maybe, throw a snowball at her—anything to show that he was aware of her existence. The first step, then, toward lifelong bliss with Charlie Dunne was to attract his attention by some compelling deed.
The nature of this daring deed sprang full-blown into Regina’s mind when she saw the tortoise-shell cat in the
window of Miss Fifield’s thread-and-needle shop.
Around the cat’s neck was a red-leather circlet of tiny bells.
Just what I need, thought Regina. With criminal coolness she entered Miss Fifield’s little shop and said: “I want a spool of Number Forty Clark’s O. N. T. black thread.” While Miss Fifield turned around to pull out a tray of spools, Regina leapt at the cat’s collar. She unfastened the tiny buckle and whipped the red-leather circlet into her pocket. Shrugging a puzzled shoulder, the cat dozed once more.
“That will be five cents,” said Miss Fifield, putting the spool into a paper bag. Regina paid her nickel and minced out of the store, a perfect little lady. Outside the shop she started to run; not until she was home did she pull the collar out of her pocket. She shook the bells. “Lovely, lovely,” she said, stirred by the beauty of their sound. “Just the thing to make H come truly true.”
Regina’s bid for Charlie Dunne’s attention was somewhat delayed by the strict separation of boys and girls in St. Bridget’s School. Her moment came, however, on the last day of preparation for Holy Communion. Boys, herded into the Gospel side of the basement church, girls ranged on the other, were rehearsing under the direction of Sister Superior herself, who had come in to coach her angelic little charges in the proper manner of approaching the sacrament.
“Clasp your hands as though carrying a spiritual bouquet,” said Sister Superior. “Wait until the boy or girl in front of you takes six steps before you leave the pew. Walk with grave piety to the feast our Lord has prepared for you, then kneel at the altar rail. Now let’s try it one at a time.”
Simultaneously from the first pews, a boy and a girl filed to the altar. “No giggling, Eustacia … hands higher, Frederick. …”
When Regina’s turn came, she started for the altar. There was a slight quiver of bells about her as she walked. A titter ran along both sides of the aisle.
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