Divine Inspiration

by Jane Langton

  CHAPTER 61

  The mouth of fools doth God confess,

  But while their lips draw nigh him

  Their heart is full of wickedness

  And all their deeds deny him.

  Hymn by Martin Luther

  Homer had his hands full. Ninety-eight of his students had written final papers, and they had to be graded by Friday. He could dump half of them on Mary, but forty-nine undergraduate papers were still a hell of a lot of papers. The whole terrifying heap was stacked on the back seat of his car, along with a potted Easter lily, a present from a graduate student who was sweet on Mary.

  He parked his car on Clarendon Street—the sign said NO PARKING, but surely it didn’t mean it. Homer locked the car and peered over the fence at the excavation, where everything still seemed to be on hold. Then he walked across Clarendon to the Church of the Commonwealth. He had an appointment with Alan Starr.

  Alan wasn’t going to like what he had to say, the news about the two churches in which Rosalind Hall had started a couple of merry little fires. He wasn’t going to like it at all.

  As Homer walked into the church he felt the floor shiver under his feet. A huge dull booming resounded from the sanctuary. “My God, what’s that?” he asked Donald Woody, who was shouldering a tall ladder.

  Woody grinned at him. “The thirty-two-foot pipes have come. Listen to that, did you ever hear anything like that? Shakes the whole building. My plaster wall, the cracks keep opening up. I have to keep fixing ’em all over again.”

  Homer ran up to the balcony and found it cluttered with long wooden pipes. “Wow,” he said, “so this is what you’ve been waiting for.”

  “I’ve got to work fast,” said Alan. “They’ve got to be mounted and voiced and tuned before next Sunday. We don’t need the new ones for the concert on Friday and Saturday, but I’ve promised the complete organ for the Easter service. Hey, listen to this.” With his feet on the pedals he played MANY BRAVE HEARTS ARE ASLEEP IN THE DEEP, SO BEWARE, BEE-EE-EE-EE-WARE.

  The floor trembled. “Look here,” said Homer, gripping the back of a pew, “I’m afraid I’ve got bad news.”

  Alan listened soberly to his account of Rosie’s previous involvements with burning churches. As Homer had expected, he brushed them aside. “That’s ridiculous. It’s just a coincidence. Those fires were accidents. They didn’t amount to anything anyway.”

  “And there’s another thing. Mrs. Garboyle tells me Rosie used to practice in the middle of the night. Maybe she was here on the night of the fire. If she came in to use the organ after Martin and Castle left, it would mean they weren’t responsible for what happened. If they had accidentally started a fire, she would have seen it. She wouldn’t have sat here innocently playing scales with flames shooting up around the organ. Does anybody keep a practice schedule? Might her practice times be listed somewhere?”

  “Yes, Loretta keeps an organ schedule. Loretta Fawcett, Martin’s secretary.”

  “Superb! Where is the magnificent Loretta?”

  Alan made a face and got up from the bench. “She’s not very magnificent, I’m afraid. Don’t get your hopes up.”

  They found Loretta at her desk. She was working on her needlepoint cabbage. It was leafy and green and enormous.

  “Good morning, Loretta,” said Alan. “Might we have a look at the organ schedule?”

  “Certainly.” Loretta stuck her needle into the cabbage and groped in the drawers of her desk. After a few wrong drawers she found the right one, and pulled out a piece of paper. “This is for March. April must be in here somewhere.”

  “That’s all right,” said Alan. “I just want to show Homer Kelly how it works. See here, Homer, the days of the month are along the top, and the times of day down the side.” Alan looked up at Loretta. “But it’s hardly filled in at all.”

  “Oh, well, I didn’t put you in because everybody knows you’re there from eight in the morning till noon.”

  “But what about the choir? They’re not marked down for Thursday night.”

  Loretta turned huffy. “Well, everybody knows that too. Look, see this line here? It’s all filled in, midnight to one in the morning, because that’s Peggy Throstle, and not everybody knows about Peggy Throstle.”

  Homer put his big hands on Loretta’s desk and looked at her keenly. “What about last year, Miz Fawcett? Do you have the schedules for last year? For the night of the fire in the church, for instance?”

  Loretta looked blank. Swivelling on her chair she made a pawing motion at the empty shelves behind her desk, then turned and whisked away the crumbs of yesterday with a sweep of her arm. “Oh, I don’t keep the old schedules. Out they go! Out with past history! No room for useless old stuff. Get rid of it before it multiplies, that’s what I always say.”

  Homer was disappointed. He had been hoping to provide proof that Martin Kraeger was innocent. Then maybe all those old fusspots in his congregation would calm down.

  Alan too was chagrined, having hoped to prove to Homer that the fire could not have been started by Rosie.

  Silently they parted company. Homer found his way outdoors and headed for his car, depressed by Loretta Fawcett’s cavalier attitude toward history. No room for useless old stuff! Nothing mattered to Loretta but the passing moment, this instant right now, this fleeting second. Now, as I put down my right foot. No, now, as I put down my left foot. No, forget about my left foot, the only important moment is now as my right foot comes down on this manhole cover in the street.

  Homer paused in his metaphysical speculations on the nature of history and the passage of time, and stopped to listen. He could hear a throbbing noise coming from somewhere, deep down under the iron disk of the manhole cover. What was going on down there? Was it part of the past or part of the future? Well, what did it matter? Only this instant mattered, right now, as he put his left foot up on the curb.

  He found a meter maid standing beside his car. She had a pad of ticket forms in her hand. “Oh, please,” said Homer, “I’m really sorry. I’ll never do it again.”

  Heartlessly the meter maid wrote out a ticket for fifty dollars and handed it to him, grinning.

  CHAPTER 62

  … a fine understanding … that seeks after truth, and loves that which is plain and upright, is worthy of all honour and praise.

  Martin Luther

  Mary Kelly was restless. She had finished grading her half of the final papers. She was free to return to the problem of Kay Kraeger’s vicious attack on her ex-husband. Mary had followed the Pansy track as far as Kiddy Kamp, but now—it was the Tuesday before Easter—she was stuck. She dropped into the Church of the Commonwealth to report her stalled progress to Martin Kraeger.

  It was spring on Commonwealth Avenue. The trees along the narrow park were like tall flowers, their branches airy and transparent, their gold-green tassels hanging like strands of gossamer. The tassels were pollen cases, and the pollen lay beneath the trees like a bright shadow. Beyond the trees on either side of the avenue the houses were distinguished presences, their windows dark, their occupants invisible. Mary imagined majestic personages sitting in great chairs, gazing at the light.

  Kraeger wasn’t in church. Loretta Fawcett didn’t know where on this earth he was. “If you ask me, he’s neglecting his duty. He’s never in his office. He doesn’t answer the phone. And there’s, like, people in trouble probably, trying to reach him, people on their deathbed.”

  Loretta was partly right. Martin was in a crisis of passive despair. The things that usually occupied his time seemed empty and futile. His unpopularity was clear. There were conspicuous absences in the pews on Sunday mornings. After the service, people shook his hand feebly, failing to meet his eyes.

  His only escape from the sense of approaching doom was to sit in the sanctuary when Barbara Inch was putting the Good Friday soloists through their paces. Only then was there worth in the world, only then did chaos part to reveal a marvel flowering in the wilderness.

  For h
er part Barbara was acutely aware that Martin Kraeger was sitting below her, listening to everything that went on in the balcony—the plea of one of the tenor soloists to cut out all the da capo parts from the arias, and her reply, “Why not? The purists will hate us, but everybody else will be grateful.” He heard the kidding between the two bass soloists, he heard the soprano muff an entrance over and over.

  Hour after hour Kraeger sat with folded arms, while through all the reworking of tricky places and the breakings off and startings again, the burden of the music of the Passion according to St. John threaded its way. What is truth? sang Pilate. What indeed, wondered Martin Kraeger.

  But this morning there was no rehearsal. In Loretta Fawcett’s little office Mary could hear only an occasional hooting note from the organ. Martin was elsewhere.

  She wandered into the corridor, and at once found another restless soul, Barbara Inch. “Oh, good morning,” said Mary. “We’ve met before. I’m Mary Kelly. Homer and I came to see you, to ask about Rosalind Hall. Remember?”

  “Of course I remember.”

  “We’re coming to hear the St. John on Saturday night. You don’t happen to know where I can find Mr. Kraeger, do you?”

  “No, I’m afraid not. Sometimes when we’re rehearsing he comes to listen. But there are no rehearsals today. There’s just one more on Thursday night, and we’re not ready. There’s so much to get done.” Panic-stricken, Barbara hugged her arms to her breast. She glanced anxiously at Martin’s office door. “I hope he’s all right.”

  Her voice was strained. Mary sensed an ally. “How about a cup of coffee? Have you got time to walk over to Boylston Street?”

  Barbara seemed pleased. “There’s a coffeemaker in the music room.”

  They sat down amid the cellos and basses, the tangle of music stands, the leaning rows of folding chairs. Barbara poured two cups of coffee and brought them to the table, shoving aside a choir robe.

  Mary got down to business at once, probing carefully. “What do you think about the rumor that’s going around, about Mr. Kraeger and his little daughter?”

  Barbara showed her colors at once. “It’s ridiculous. Anyone who knows him can see how silly it is. His wife sounds like a dangerous woman.”

  Mary smiled. “Good. I was hoping you’d say that. I agree completely. Homer and I are trying to help.” Grasping her coffee cup, she leaned forward and told Barbara what she had learned about Kiddy Kamp from Millie Weideman, whose daycare center had been closed after Kay Kraeger’s malicious insinuations.

  Barbara gazed intently into her coffee cup. “You know there’s always gossip around a church. Jeanie Perkupp told me Mrs. Kraeger’s made trouble before. Her son worked in the same office with her once. He told Jeanie that Kay was always accusing people of one thing or another, trying to get them fired. She finally got herself fired.”

  Mary sipped her coffee. “That’s very interesting. Perhaps there’s a pattern, some kind of repeated—what do you call it?—neurotic conduct.”

  Barbara jumped at the idea. “Let me help. I’ll see what I can find out about her. I’ll have plenty of time after Easter Sunday.”

  “Good. We’ll track down her entire history. I suspect she’s a professional predator who gets her kicks by smashing crystal vases.”

  “That’s right,” said Barbara, thinking of the crystal vase that was Martin Kraeger.

  CHAPTER 63

  God shows His power in our weakness; He will not … break in pieces the bruised reed.

  Martin Luther

  “Hi.”

  Alan winced. The whining voice on the phone was Debbie Buffington’s. “Oh, hello, Debbie.”

  “I got to see you right away.”

  “I’m sorry, not now. What about next Monday?”

  Debbie whimpered. “Just for a while. Can I come over? Like right now? I know where you live.”

  Alan tried to control his irritation. “How do you know where I live?”

  “I followed you. When you used to take Charley, I followed you half a block behind. That house on the alley beside the church, One-fifteen Commonwealth, where that girl used to live. I looked her up in the phone book.”

  “Look, I’ve got a deadline. Honestly, I won’t be free until Monday.”

  “Oh, shit, nobody works like that.”

  “Well, I do. Right now anyway. I’m sorry.”

  Debbie turned plaintive. “Like I don’t know what to do. Wanda and me, all we’ve got is this bag of Fritos. I haven’t got a cent.”

  “Didn’t you call the welfare office? Child support? Aid to mothers with dependent children? Emergency services? I gave you the phone numbers. Didn’t you call them?”

  “Oh, shit, bunch of bureaucrats.”

  “Bureaucrats with money for people in trouble. Look, have you got a pencil? I’ll give you the numbers again.”

  The day had begun badly. It went on badly. Harold Oates was missing. He hadn’t slept in Rosie’s bed for days. Would he show up for tonight’s rehearsal? Damn Oates anyway.

  And then Alan was stunned to find the church milling with people. The vestibule was full of middle-aged men and women talking at the tops of their lungs. Through the glass doors he could see another mob thronging the aisles in the sanctuary. They were all carrying folders, opening them to show what was inside. Someone was hooking up a microphone on Martin Kraeger’s pulpit. It was some kind of a meeting.

  Alan couldn’t work on the Contra Bombarde while somebody was giving a speech. “What’s all this?” he asked an excited-looking man.

  “American Philatelic Society, annual meeting.”

  “Philatelic? You mean stamps? It’s a meeting about stamps?”

  The stamp collector’s shiny lenses snapped with reflected light. “We always rent this place in April. You interested in stamps?”

  “I’m afraid not.”

  The stamp collector was undeterred. Under Alan’s nose appeared a sheet of green sixty-five-cent Graf Zeppelins. “Perfect condition. I’ve been offered three thousand. I’m holding out for five. Interested?”

  “But it’s Thursday. I’m supposed to have the organ to myself all day.”

  Alan went to Loretta Fawcett and complained. “Look, Loretta, it wasn’t on the schedule. I always have Thursday mornings, and I signed up for the afternoon too, remember?”

  “Oh, sorry, I forgot. I mean it just slipped my mind. I mean, everybody knows about the stamp collectors. They come every year.”

  “But, oh God, Loretta, I need the time. Well, never mind.” It did no good to bawl her out. He was just going to have to work through the next three nights.

  The stamp collectors were gone by five o’clock, and at once Alan bounded up into the balcony and got to work. He had only a scant two hours. At seven, people began to gather for the final rehearsal of the music for Good Friday.

  Reluctantly Alan slid off the organ bench and stood aside, watching the instrumentalists fumble among the chairs, set up music stands, breathe into flutes and oboes, tune violins and cellos. The chorus arranged itself noisily in the rear. The soloists arrived. They were wearing jeans and sloppy sweaters like everyone else, as though they were no better than ordinary mortals, in spite of their glorious voices.

  Barbara Inch called to Alan over the heads of the tenor section, “Have you seen Harold Oates? He’s late again.”

  “Oh, Jesus,” said Alan. “I’ll see if I can find him.”

  He plunged down the balcony stairs, narrowly avoiding a woman carrying a priceless antique gamba, raced next door, let himself into 115 Commonwealth Avenue, and found Oates collapsed on the sofa, snoring loudly. The room was yeasty with the smell of beer.

  “Hey, Harold, wake up. You’re supposed to be next door. Come on, wake up.”

  Oates didn’t want to wake up. He rolled over and hid his face in the cushions. Only when Alan hauled him to a sitting position did he wake up and belch. Alan worked him over, mopping his face with a wet washcloth and helping him into a clean shirt, but O
ates kept closing his eyes and slumping.

  “Oh, God, Harold, can’t you stand up? Wait a sec, I’ll make some coffee.”

  By the time Oates shuffled up the balcony stairs with Alan urging him from behind, he was more or less sober. Alan watched him blunder through the chairs of the violinists and take his place at the organ, while Christ in the garden of Gethsemane asked of the chief priests and Pharisees, Whom seek ye here?

  Alan held his breath. There, it was all right. Oates was coming in at the right place without hesitation. He sighed with relief.

  GOOD FRIDAY

  “O Haupt voll Blut und Wunden”

  Chorale harmonized by J. S. Bach

  O sacred Head now wounded,

  With grief and shame weighed down,

  Now scornfully surrounded

  With thorns, Thy only crown!

  How pale art Thou with anguish,

  With sore abuse and scorn!

  How does that visage languish

  Which once was bright as morn!

  CHAPTER 64

  I always loved music; whoso has skill in this art, is of a good temperament, fitted for all things.

  Martin Luther

  The next night Oates was not merely late, he was nowhere to be found. The church was packed. Every pew was filled, and Donald Woody had found a miraculous new source of folding chairs for the overflow crowd at the back.

  In the balcony the chorus members were lined up in their black robes. The instrumentalists held fiddles on their knees, and flutes, English horns and oboes across their laps. The soloists were somber and distinguished in black gowns like those of the choir. They waited.

  Barbara’s patience was giving out. She grasped Alan’s arm. “Where is he?”

  Alan had been dodging next-door, looking for Oates, running up to the balcony to report. “I don’t know where the hell he is. He’s not at home. I’m afraid he’s back on the bottle.”