The Cardinal

by Henry Morton Robinson

  “Do I hear what I hear?” Cozy Kernan asked in consternation.

  “Please permit the Vicar-General to continue,” said Stephen.

  Amby read on: “The rectors of the several parishes shall accompany their monthly remittances with a complete statement of expenses. The term ‘expenses’ is here construed to mean the salaries of the rector and his assistants, the upkeep of the parish church, school, and other institutions within the pastor’s jurisdiction.”

  Dan O’Laughlin broke in sarcastically: “Would that include, now, a cup of tea for the cop on the beat?”

  “It would,” said Stephen. “It would also include tea for the rector’s sisters, cousins, and aunts, as well as side trips to Florida and other little perquisites similar in nature. Read on, Ambrose.”

  The Vicar-General proceeded: “The total of such expenses shall be deducted from the monies forwarded to the archdiocesan treasury. The remainder shall accrue to the Archdiocese of Hartfield, a corporation sole, to be expended at the discretion of the trustee, Stephen Fermoyle.”

  Groans … a pushing back of chairs … cries of “Your Grace” … “I must protest.”

  “One at a time, gentlemen,” said Stephen. “Everyone will have a chance to be heard. I think I saw Father O’Laughlin’s hand first.”

  Dan O’Laughlin made a blunt statement to the effect that the proposal was “confisticatory,” socialistic, unheard-of, and not in accordance with canon law. His remarks were vigorously seconded by Michael Kernan, who declared that he would carry the case to the Apostolic Delegate for a ruling.

  “That is, of course, your privilege, Father,” replied Stephen. “I must inform you, however, that the Apostolic Delegate assures me my proposal is quite in accordance with canon law. … Are there any other speakers?”

  As the discussion went forward, younger men arose to defend the Archbishop’s proposal. Most eloquent among them was Father Gregor Potocki, Polish-speaking pastor of St. Ladislaus’, a poverty-stricken parish in the tobacco-growing region west of the Hartfield River. “The proposed change will enable the Archbishop to pump life-giving funds through the outlying, almost atrophied veins of the Diocese,” declared Father Potocki. “In no spirit of hostility to city parishes, but with a simple plea for fairness to all, I believe that the decree should be accepted.”

  Inevitably, but with much opposition from senior rectors, the decree was accepted by the synod on the next day. The resolutions of the synod were published; bound copies were deposited in the chancery archives, others were sent to the Apostolic Delegate, who forwarded them to Rome. In due time Stephen received a letter from the Cardinal Prefect of the Congregation of the Council congratulating him on the introduction of a fiscal system so well adapted to the needs of his Archdiocese.

  UNTIL the new money actually began coming in, Stephen was desperately pressed for cash. In mid-Lent, 1934, he was obliged to borrow fifty thousand dollars from the Hartfield Trust Company to meet current expenses. A week later, half of this money had been spent on urgent needs. Then, quite unexpectedly, Stephen was confronted by an extraordinary opportunity.

  The Argus Press was for sale. Cheap!

  Owen Starkey brought in the news with the morning mail. “I hear Ollie Greenleaf wants to sell his press,” said Father Owen.

  Stephen knew of the Argus Press, of its fully equipped plant quite capable of printing the Catholic newspaper acutely needed in Hartfield. Private attempts to provide such a paper had failed, either through lack of capital or dimness of editorial vision. Of the half million Catholics under Stephen’s jurisdiction, few had the vaguest idea of what was going on outside their own parish.

  Stephen tried to keep his voice casual. “Why does Greenleaf want to sell? Losing money?”

  “No, asthma. This climate’s killing him. He’s got to get away.”

  Momentarily Stephen brushed aside the publisher’s crown, then decided to try it on just for size. “Call him up, Ownie. Say I’ll be down to look at the place after lunch.”

  The printer’s ink in Stephen’s blood caused him considerable suffering that afternoon. With Ollie Greenleaf wheezing at his side, he inspected presses and equipment that had originally cost well over seventy-five thousand dollars. There were two linotypes, a job press, a guillotine-style papercutter, saddle binders, tons of type in all fonts and sizes. And in the middle of the shop stood a flat-bed press that could easily handle a weekly edition of an eight-page newspaper. Stephen could see Vol. I, No. 1, of The Hartfield Angelus (not a bad name, at that) coming off the press right now.

  Choking with asthma and grief, Ollie Greenleaf said he was willing to let the whole thing go for twenty-five thousand dollars.

  Supreme self-restraint kept Stephen from closing the deal then and there. “I’ll sleep on it, Mr. Greenleaf,” he said, tearing himself away from the shop. As he left, two other prospective buyers were on their knees examining the flat-bed press.

  Little sleep came to the Archbishop that night. Fantasy wrestled with fact as the circulation of The Hartfield Angelus mounted from fifteen to forty thousand between midnight and two A.M. At that point, a temporary cooling process set in. Undoubtedly the Diocese needed a newspaper; undeniably the Argus Press was a bargain. But to spend one’s last twenty-five thousand dollars on a printing press! What would the Holy Father say about that?

  Stephen came out of his bedroom next morning with the question still unanswered. At the Secret of the Mass he prayed for guidance. At breakfast, reading the Item headlines: “Legislature Opposes Bus Transportation for Parochial Students,” he felt anew the necessity of having a diocesan newspaper to state the Catholic side of the case.

  Stephen had practically decided to buy the Argus Press when Father Gregor Potocki, drawn and haggard about the eyes, entered the Archbishop’s study for the day’s first conference.

  “Your Grace,” said Father Potocki, “the tobacco co-operatives are falling apart. Something must be done about them.”

  It wasn’t an ultimatum; merely a statement of fact. Father Potocki had valiantly undertaken the tobacco project during the early part of the depression. His plan—a bold one—envisioned a shift of Polish Catholics from industrial city slums to the tobacco-growing counties west of the Hartfield River. Clear advantages, human and economic, stood to be gained by such a migration. The Poles were natural farmers; gainfully employed at tobacco-raising, they would become self-sustaining citizens. Furthermore, as Father Gregor pointed out, Polish-speaking pastors moving about their rural parishes could give their compatriots the personal and sacramental attention certainly not given to them in large cities. On paper the plan was most attractive; in practice it had worked out disappointingly.

  Stephen knew exactly where the hitch had occurred. Tobacco greedily drains phosphates and potassium from the soil; to produce a marketable crop, tons of commercial fertilizer must be poured back onto every acre each year. The price of these chemicals, rigidly maintained by a fertilizer combine, was a barrier that Father Potocki had never been able to hurdle. His optimism and eloquence had persuaded about a hundred Polish-American families to settle in the rather bleak fields comprising St. Ladislaus’ parish. But tobacco would not grow on optimism alone. Fertilizer, curing sheds, and modern tools were needed. Unable to buy these, the tobacco co-operative had languished. And now, as Father Potocki had said, they were falling apart.

  To hearten the courageous young priest, Stephen asked for an itemized statement of what was actually required to keep the St. Ladislaus project afloat.

  “State your minimum needs, Father,” said the Archbishop, “and, mind you, I mean minimum.”

  Father Potocki consulted no memorandum. “We need one thousand tons of commercial fertilizer, two hundred thousand feet of shiplap for the repair of curing sheds, and a tractor for plowing and cultivating. The total is twenty-one thousand dollars.”

  Can’t anything be had for less than twenty thousand dollars these days? thought Stephen. To avoid the scrutiny of Father Potocki�
��s haggard eyes, Stephen walked to the window of his study. He knew that unless planting began immediately, discouraged Polish farmers would drift back to city slums. He also knew that if he didn’t close with Ollie Green-leaf that afternoon, the Argus Press would be snapped up by someone else. Stated in simple terms, the Archbishop’s problem came down to this:

  Was a diocesan newspaper more important than a few Polish families? Honestly now, how about it?

  Stephen had little knowledge of Poles. They gibbered in an outlandish language, ate cabbage, and quite successfully resisted American ideas of sanitation. In the choir of Stephen’s affections, the Poles trolled most unmusical staves.

  On the other hand, how simply wonderful to have a newspaper! How very much in keeping with the time spirit—how desirable (“imperative” was not too strong a word) to record the daily activities of the Diocese, to link parish with parish—to inform, educate, publicize—and, quite incidentally, be publicized in return! There would be a literary column, a sports page (mens sana in cor pore sano), aggressive editorials condemning birth control, Communism, and improper movies. Other papers would quote from the columns of the Angelus. All over the United States, people would hear about Archbishop Fermoyle’s progressive program in matters of—ah, well, read all about it in The Hartfield Angelus… Subscribe now.

  Very enticing.

  Against such enticements Stephen heard only one voice of protest. It came from a bespectacled, white-skullcapped man whose picture hung behind his desk.

  “We must encourage young priests to forgo brilliant urban careers in order to serve neglected millions who till the earth.”

  Well, here was a young priest begging for an opportunity to help his neglected flock of earth tillers. Multiply Gregor Potocki by ten, then by ten hundred, and the problem of Catholic action in rural America would be solved.

  Stephen remembered his promise to Pius XI. “I shall do everything in my power, Holy Father, to further the teachings of Quadragesimo anno.”

  Thrusting aside the publisher’s crown, Stephen put his hand to the co-operative plow. He sat down at his desk, wrote a check for twenty thousand dollars, and handed it to the Polish priest.

  “Buy fertilizer and equipment with this, Gregor. And when the tobacco crop begins to come in, I hope you will take me through your fields.”

  ON EASTER MONDAY, under the rays of an auspicious sun, spring planting began in the parish of St. Ladislaus.

  Tractor-drawn plows turned over gleaming furrows. By hand the seeds were sown and covered with loamy earth. Fertilizer spreaders scattered rich chemicals between the furrows. April rains and May sun brought green shoots peeping. Now before the beaming sun became too hot, vast tents of gauze netting were spread over the tobacco fields. Through June and July the broad leaves flourished. When Stephen visited St. Ladislaus’ in August, a bumper crop of fine shade-grown tobacco was being harvested. Men were cutting the tender top leaves. “Bogo Pomorzek” (God gives), they would say, as Stephen and Father Potocki passed. “Pomorzek bogo” (Give to God), replied Father Potocki.

  Women and children carried the leaves to the curing sheds, where they were bound into bunches and suspended from rafters. Charcoal braziers glowed upward from earthen floors; ruby gleams rising to meet the overhanging green bathed the interior of the curing sheds with light that changed from aquamarine to amber as the tobacco dried out.

  Early in September, buyers from the cigar factories came to St. Ladislaus’; the entire crop was auctioned at excellent prices. Thirty thousand pounds of prime shade-grown tobacco were bought as wrappers for domestic cigars. Another ten thousand pounds, cheaper in grade, were sold as “filler.”

  After paying part of its loan to the Archdiocese, and setting aside five thousand dollars for next spring’s fertilizer, the St. Ladislaus cooperative distributed profits amounting to $13,200 among ninety-one Polish families.

  No great matter for jubilation, one might say—four months’ hard work at a day-labor wage. But the people of St. Ladislaus’ parish seemed to think otherwise. On October 1, they held a harvest festival to praise the Giver of earthly bounty, and invited their Archbishop to attend the festivities.

  In the largest of the curing sheds, a long table was heaped up with salami, sauerkraut, and loaves of black bread. From a huge kettle simmering over an open fire, women ladled cabbage soup enriched by ham bones. With Ambrose Cannell at his side, Stephen blessed the steaming caldron, then took his place at the head of the long table. A fifteen-year-old boy, his golden hair brass-colored by sun, offered bread to the Archbishop. The boy was slender, strong; his hands beautiful as fragments of Pheidias.

  “What is your name?” asked Stephen.

  “Conrad Szalay, Your Grace.”

  “Do you work in the tobacco fields, Conrad?”

  “Yes, Archbishop. In summer I help with the curing. In winter I go to high school.”

  Father Potocki spoke up proudly. “Conrad is an excellent violinist, Your Grace. Later, he will play for us.”

  The harvest dinner began. Stephen’s preconceptions of the Polish race vanished with the cabbage soup. He had never seen human beings so spontaneously gay as Father Potocki’s people. They devoured Gargantuan quantities of sausage, sauerkraut, and black bread, laughing, gesticulating all the while, not like Americans, Irishmen, or Italians, but in the barbaric, half-Eastern manner of Slavs. Then, instead of falling asleep like Germans or Swedes, they leapt from the table to tread out bouncing krakowiak measures to the accompaniment of flute, fiddle, and accordion.

  As the moon climbed they leapt higher. After an hour there was a pause while the dancers flung themselves on the ground to get their breath. Then a cry went up: “Conrad… Conrad Szalay. … Play for us, play, Conrad.”

  Gregor Potocki leaned toward his Archbishop. “Now Your Grace will hear something.”

  The golden-haired lad who had offered Stephen bread stepped into the circle of firelight by the soup caldron. Tuning his instrument, he was a modest, unassuming boy; tucking the cheap violin under his chin, he became a gypsy baron playing for an encampment on the edge of the steppes between Poland and Russia. Taking a krakowiak theme, Conrad improvised on it with pyrotechnic skill. The sadness of a dismembered nation, the grief of a passionate, melancholy people, wailed through his improvisation. Then, as if remembering the presence of cultivated men, he broke off abruptly and bowed to Stephen.

  “Variations on The Scarlet Sarafan, by Wieniawski,” he announced.

  Amby Cannell leaned toward his Archbishop. “A concert piece, full of technical difficulties.”

  The technical difficulties of the Wieniawski showpiece troubled Conrad Szalay not at all. Accompanied by an accordion, he shook The Scarlet Sarafan like a boy rifling a plum tree; double stops and harmonics were thrown off in a prodigious display of virtuosity.

  “Good Lord!” breathed Amby Cannell. “That technique! Where does it come from?”

  At the end of the impromptu concert, Stephen arose and walked toward the young violinist. The Archbishop’s knowledge of music was far from professional; he could only express his pleasure and gratitude by shaking the boy’s hand.

  “You have a tremendous gift, Conrad. Will you come and play for me some time?”

  The boy blushed. “Whenever Your Grace wishes,” he said simply.

  Ambrose Cannell’s compliment showed more musicianship. “You play beautifully, Conrad. I don’t know which I liked better: your improvisations on the krakowiak theme or your masterly handling of Wieniawski. Who taught you to play?” he asked curiously.

  The boy glanced at Father Potocki, who in turn beckoned to a gnarled, bent creature standing behind the young virtuoso.

  “May I present Max Lessau?” said Father Gregor. “This is the teacher who has perfected Conrad’s talent.”

  “Perfected he is not yet,” said the gnarled one, who seemed quite unimpressed by the hierarchy’s presence. “All through the Sarafan I heard pigs squealing. Half the blame must be put on the instr
ument. What is it but a varnished cigar box?” In the dimming firelight Max Lessau resembled a musical Vulcan criticizing the smithy work of a promising apprentice. “Still, time and hard work may choke the pig-squealing with butter—eh, Conrad?”

  With a decently courteous nod to Stephen and Bishop Cannell, the gnarled maestro limped off.

  “And who is Max Lessau?” asked Stephen, as Father Potocki accompanied his superiors to their car.

  “It’s a strange story, Your Grace. Max is a Jewish peddler who comes among our people, selling holy pictures, statues—you know the kind of thing—from a black oilcloth pack. Only he wasn’t always a peddler. As a young man, Max was a child prodigy—gave concerts in Warsaw, Paris, Berlin. Then at twenty-seven, arthritis stiffened every joint in his body. Career, fame, mode of support, all vanished. He came to this country around 1915. Couldn’t speak English, so he turned peddler. One day he heard Conrad scraping on a three-dollar fiddle and offered to teach him how to play. For the past ten years, Max has hammered daily at his pupil. You heard the results tonight.”

  Sorrowfully, Father Potocki shook his head. “The sad part of the story is that Max Lessau’s getting old. Peddling saps his strength. It’s only a question of time before he’s completely crippled.”

  On his way back to Hartfield with Ambrose Cannell, a quiet happiness—the afterglow of his evening with Father Potocki’s people—warmed Stephen’s heart and mind. Laughter, dancing, music—were not these timbrel thanksgivings acceptable and pleasing to the Giver of all bounty? And what a paean of praise that young violinist had drawn from his instrument. Not perfect yet, as the gnarled Max Lessau had said…

  Stephen spoke to his companion: “Amby, what would you say if we established a scholarship in music—called it the St. Cecilia Prize—and gave it to some deserving student?”

  “I’d say it was a God-marked idea, Your Grace.”

  That was the beginning of an award for musical study granted annually by the Archdiocese of Hartfield. For three years it went to Conrad Szalay, who practiced seven hours a day under the direction of his crippled teacher, Max Lessau. The pig-squealing (heard only by that savage perfectionist) was drowned in the melting butter of Conrad’s flawless technique. After a year, his varnished cigar box was replaced by a two-hundred-and-fifty-dollar German trade fiddle, but Max Lessau still grumbled.