The Miracle

by Irving Wallace

  Marguerite had got the plum because she might seduce Viron into confiding the truth. Liz had been thrown a bone because nature had prepared her to seduce no one.

  It was all reflected in her rearview mirror.

  She saw the mop of red hair, become orange in the last rinse-and-color job. She saw the predator's beak of a nose that couldn't even be called Roman. The lips were two thin tight lines, the jaw undershot. Despite the fair, unblemished complexion, she was dismayed. She knew that what could not be seen in the mirror was even worse. Her breasts were unfashionably large and they sagged. There was too much hip and

  she was slightly bowlegged. In sum, her five-foot-three frame added up to disaster. The best part of her—and this was the real cruelty of nature —could not be seen: her mind. She was brainy, inventive, tenacious.

  But this mind was also unsparing. Relentlessly, it conjured up Marguerite Lamarche floating through the city room. Marguerite, twenty-eight and four years her junior, had been made to be a model, and had indeed once been a model briefly. She was tall, slender, graceful, with glossy dark hair, the small perfect features of a pretty geisha, full pouting ruby hps, enviable small firm French breasts, long legs. And a banal brain. But who cared? It was just goddam unfair.

  Then the thought came to Liz, as she turned her car into the Avenue Montaigne, that Bill Trask had awarded Marguerite the plum assignment not because he wanted her to seduce Interior Minister Viron but because he wanted to seduce her himself. Maybe already had.

  Liz Finch groaned inwardly. If her assessment was correct, and it probably was, her chances of winning the single API post in the next month were nil. Marguerite would have a big scandal, a beat, to showcase herself to the top brass. Liz would have dregs, such as she was going to now.

  She pulled up before the Plaza Athenee, and braked to a stop. The uniformed doorman opened her door, greeting her with a courteous but not, unhappily, a flirtatious smile. Liz snatched up her work purse, the bulging scuffed brown one, and hurried into the hotel. There were several fat and swarthy Mideastem types lolling about in the spacious lobby, and not one gave her so much as a glance.

  Heading for the elevator in the second smaller lobby, the gallery in which guests had afternoon tea, Liz tried to remember where in the hell she was going. She had intended to go to the Montaigne Room downstairs, but before reaching the elevator, she remembered her destination and halted. When Trask had given her the assignment, he had also handed her the telegram announcing that Maurice Cardinal Brunet, archbishop of Paris, would have an important announcement to make at a press conference in the Salon Regence of the Plaza Athenee hotel at ten o'clock this morning. So it was the Salon Regence, the most important of the hotel's public rooms. Liz spun about and started up the gallery toward the doorway of the salon. She tried to think what the Catholic Church could have to announce that was so important. It would likely be some minor canonical reform. Boring. Dead weight on the API wire.

  Passing through the open glass doors, Liz was mildly surprised at the large turnout this ecclesiastical press conference had attracted. The long, narrow, stately room, with its three grand chandeliers and carved

  brown paneled walls, was packed with reporters. Edging her way to the rear, to the table beneath the huge oil of Louis XV where coffee was being dispensed, Liz realized that there was a general stir in the room, that the conference was about to begin, and that those reporters still standing were taking seats.

  Going for the nearest empty padded chair, Liz recognized Brian Evans, the cherubic Paris correspondent for the London Observer, whom she knew from countless cocktail parties. "Brian," she called out, "whatever is going on here? Look at the crowd."

  Evans came to her side, and said in an undertone, "I have it that the church is going to spring a super big story from Lourdes. No idea what, but since Lourdes doesn't do this often, it could amount to something. That's all I know."

  "We'll see," said Liz doubtfully, and she sat herself down on the empty chair, snapped her purse open, and removed her pad and pencil.

  She was just about organized, when she heard the tall glass entrance doors being shut and became aware that at the far end of the room someone on the small temporary platform positioned before the marble fireplace, someone in a clerical collar and surplice, was concluding a brief introduction. She heard, "Maurice Cardinal Brunet," and saw a bespectacled stout older man, also attired in clerical dress, come to the podium. He was carrying two sheets of paper and he placed them carefully on the lectern. He adjusted his horn-rimmed glasses.

  "I have a brief statement to read," he said in French, in a loud, hoarse voice. "After the statement, I will entertain ten minutes of questions from the floor."

  At once, he began to read his statement:

  "Everyone in this room surely knows the story of Saint Bernadette of Lourdes, the story of the blessed Bernadette Soubirous and her visions of the Virgin Mary at the grotto of Massabielle in Lourdes during 1858. In response to prayers at the grotto and the use of water from the spring found by Bernadette, cures of the disabled and ailing began almost immediately. In time, there have been nearly seventy sudden cures that the church has declared to be of miraculous origin. As a result, Lourdes is recognized as the leading miracle shrine in the world.

  "In addition to the matters of faith which the Virgin Mary discussed with Bernadette, there were three secrets that were conveyed to her, and, indeed, Bernadette kept these three secrets to herself up to her very death. However, as it has recently been learned, Bernadette confided her secrets to a journal that she kept after she departed Lourdes to become a nun at the Convent of Saint Gildard in Nevers, and which she left in the safekeeping of a family relative in Bartres.

  "Bernadette's journal has now been found. Its holograph contents have been scientifically authenticated.

  "We now know that, in this journal, in her own hand, Bernadette recorded the three secrets told her by the Virgin Mary. Two of the secrets, minor ones, personal ones, have already come true. The third secret, the one imparted to Bernadette during the seventh apparition of the Virgin Mary on February 23, 1858, has not yet come true."

  The cardinal paused and then resumed. "Bernadette recorded a date and time when she was told it would come true, and that time is three weeks from this day in this very year. At the instigation of His Holiness, Pope John Paul III, and with the approval of the Holy Father, that third secret conveyed to Bernadette by the Virgin Mary is being revealed to the world today.

  "The Mother of Heaven's secret was this—

  "That She, the Virgin Mary, would reappear at the grotto of Massabielle in Lourdes in the twentieth century. 'She told me,' wrote Bernadette, 'that She would reappear as I had seen Her, would make Herself known to another and effect a miracle cure. She told me not to reveal this secret to anyone while I was on earth, but before I ascended to heaven, I could leave word of Her visitation in writing if I wished. Therefore, I make this record in my private journal so that one day it will be read by others.' Then Bernadette noted the year and date of the Virgin Mary's reappearance. The year is this year, and the date is three weeks from now, and during the period of eight days that follow, between August 14 and 22, henceforth to be known as The Reappearance Time.

  "This is the Holy Father's news for the world.

  "The Blessed Virgin Mary is returning to Lourdes."

  Liz Finch sat, her pencil in a hand which had frozen over her notepad. She sat unmoving, her mind utterly boggled.

  Behind her desk, on the third floor of the API building on the Rue des Itahens, Liz Finch finished writing the weird news story, ran it off on the printer beside her word processor, then gathered up the pages and took them over to Bill Trask's glassed-in office.

  Trask, in rolled-up shirt sleeves, his bulk solid in a wooden swivel chair, was marking possible leads in a copy of the latest edition of Le Figaro. As ever, Liz could not take her eyes off Trask's hair. He affected to comb his hair the way his journalistic idol, H. L. Mencken, had
combed his in Baltimore in the 1920s. It was unbecoming. She wondered what his probable paramour Marguerite thought of it.

  Stiffly, Liz handed the story to Trask. "All done. Have a look."

  Trask read the lead and lifted his eyebrows. "No kidding," he muttered. He read on and raised his eyebrows again. "This'll bring half the world pouring into Lourdes."

  Trask was deep in the story once more. He read the second page and the third. He handed it back to Liz. "Good, very good. I like it. No changes. Put it through."

  Liz hesitated. "You think it deserves this much space?"

  "Sure. Why not? It's big news."

  Liz was feeling defiant. "It's crap, Bill, and you know it. Surely you don't believe a bit of this nonsense, do you?"

  With effort, Trask sat up in his chair. "Honey," he said, "I'm not here to believe or not to believe. Most of the 740,000,000 Catholics in the world believe it. Most of the five million persons of every faith who go to Lourdes every year believe it. The five thousand who claim they've enjoyed cures at the grotto believe it. The almost-seventy lucky ones whose miracle cures have been confirmed believe it. That's good enough to make the encore appearance of the Virgin Mary news, and that's all I'm interested in."

  "Well, I still say bullshit," said Liz, "and I'm glad to be through with it."

  She had turned to leave the office when Trask stopped her. "Hold on, honey." He waited for her to face him. "You're not through with it, Liz. You're just starting with it. I'm sending you to Lourdes for a play-by-play account. That's your next major assignment."

  It was a body blow and Liz winced. "How do you want me to warm up for this. Bill? By doing a profile story on Cinderella or Goldilocks and the Three Bears? Please don't waste me on this. Bill. Some stringer can do it, for all that will happen. There's just no story. Why don't you give me something I can get my teeth into—like—well, like the Viron scandal."

  Trask's countenance was expressionless. "I'm sure Marguerite is competent enough to handle Viron. She has Viron. You have the Virgin. Don't try to rewrite me, Liz. Just get me an eyewitness piece on the return of the Virgin, and you'll have a big one, big enough to make everyone happy."

  She was tempted to go to the mat with Trask, tell him he was only insuring her dismissal by sending her to that holier-than-thou hick town in the Pyrenees. Whereas he had given Marguerite a sure thing, and it wasn't fair, wasn't fair at all.

  But she could see only the top of his head now, the formidable Mencken hairstyle, and she knew that he was done with her and bent to his work. She saw that it was no use fighting further.

  Sensing her presence, he growled without looking up, "Get going, young lady. File it. There are plenty of poor souls out there waiting to be saved."

  "Fuck them all," she said under her breath, and turned to leave, and dehver the news, wondering who on earth could possibly believe it.

  Chicago and Biarritz

  It was a half-block's walk from the parking lot to Dr. Whitney's twenty-third floor suite of offices in the high rise in Chicago's Loop, just across from the elevated, and although the drizzle was light this morning, it had been enough to saturate Amanda Spenser's jaunty blue rain hat and blue raincoat. In the hall, going toward Dr. Whitney's suite, Amanda removed her soggy rain gear, and paused briefly in the ladies' room to see if the hat had messed her neat bobbed brown hair. It had, indeed. She patted her hair into place, took off her tinted blue-rimmed prescription glasses which she used for driving, wiped them dry, tucked them into her purse, and headed for her appointment with Ken Clayton's physician.

  Once inside the tasteful reception room, the fabrics on the furniture all a restful pale green, Amanda hung her hat and coat on the wooden coatrack and went directly to the gray-haired receptionist behind the counter.

  The woman was expecting her. "Miss Spenser?"

  "Right on time, I hope."

  "Oh, yes. But I'm afraid the doctor is running a few minutes behind. He'll be with you shortly. I know he's eager to see you. If you don't mind taking a seat—"

  "Not at all."

  "By the way, how is Mr. Clayton?"

  "Still somewhat weak, but well enough to go to the office every morning and work a half day."

  "I'm glad to hear that. He's such a wonderful young man. One of the most charming I've ever met. We all wish him the best, Miss Spenser."

  "Thank you," said Amanda, taking a magazine from the wall rack, any magazine, in this case a medical magazine. Sitting, settling back, she thumbed through it. Pharmaceutical ads on every page. Then an article with color pictures and charts on diabetes. Amanda had no patience for it. She kept the periodical open on her lap, but blankly stared through it.

  Yes, Amanda thought, the receptionist was right. Ken was extremely charming. Amanda had been charmed an hour after meeting him two summers ago. There had been a barbecue on the patio of the palatial residence of the elder Claytons', Ken's parents, on Chicago's North Shore. An informal outdoor dinner mostly for the members of Bernard B. Clayton's prestigious law firm, in which his son, Ken, was a partner specializing in estate planning. One of the firm's juniors had brought Amanda along.

  After that, Amanda and Ken began seeing each other regularly, and within a year were living together in Amanda's five-room apartment off Michigan Boulevard. Everyone said they made a perfect couple. Ken, at thirty-three, was five foot eleven, with a shock of unruly black hair, collar-ad masculine features, brawny and athletic (a champion at handball). Amanda at thirty was equally trim (tennis her game), actually comely and fair, brown eyes wide set, a broad tip-tilted nose, a generous rosy mouth, a svelte figure, abundant bosom, shapely legs. And a brain, a brain as fine as Ken's.

  Strangers were always surprised to learn that Amanda was a well-paid, full-time clinical psychologist, dividing her crowded days between a carefully limited private practice and an associate professor's post in the department of behavioral sciences at the University of Chicago. Her interest in psychology had been inspired by reading Alfred Adler at an early age. Her role model had been the psychoanalyst, Karen Homey, for Amanda the greatest woman in the field. The fact that the famed John B. Watson had got his Ph.D. at the University of Chicago helped direct her to that school, and learning that Carl Rogers had once been director of the University of Chicago Counseling Center encouraged her to serve there for a period, which in turn led to her current private practice.

  She was busy, and so was Ken, and they had time for each other only on late evenings and weekends. They spent more than half of their togetherness in bed. They were sexually compatible, and made love at least four times a week, and it was divine because Ken was thoughtful and experienced.

  A year ago, secure in their relationship and their need for one another, they had decided to get married. Bernard and Helen Clayton, both devout Catholics, had wanted a formal church wedding, and Ken didn't care one way or the other, and neither did Amanda, whose Minnesota father had been a nonpracticing Catholic and her mother of no remembered religion at all.

  The marriage had been planned for August of this year.

  But then, one early evening, in the midst of a handball game. Ken collapsed. His right leg had given way, and he had folded up. His leg, actually his thigh, was causing him unremitting pain. This had been less than six weeks ago. Dr. Whitney, the Clayton family physician, had dispatched Ken on a round of specialists, examinations, tests, X rays.

  Finally, the verdict was in. A sarcoma, a bone cancer. Deterioration of the bone tissue involving the head of the right femur, or thigh. Gradually, the disease would worsen. Ken would lose mobility, require crutches, eventually a wheelchair. Most likely, the cancer would be fatal. The options for a possible cure were threefold: surgery, radiation, chemotherapy. Was the condition operable? It was. Dr. Whitney began to investigate the chances of successful surgery. The prognosis was gloomy, the odds weighted against success, but still there were odds, and there was no alternative.

  So surgery was settled upon. It was to be performed almost
immediately. The Clayton wedding date, the marriage of Ken and Amanda, was indefinitely postponed.

  Amanda considered her feelings. She felt like a widow, and she was not yet a bride.

  But still there was the surgery. That was the hope.

  "Miss Spenser," she heard the receptionist say. "Dr. Whitney can see you now."

  The receptionist was holding the hall door open. Amanda, clutching her purse, was on her feet and through the door. She went down the short corridor, and turned into the doctor's private office, shutting the door behind her and wondering for what reason he had summoned her. It seemed a portent of some unhappiness.

  Dr. Whitney half rose from his desk chair. "Miss Spenser," he said, and gestured her to a chair across from his desk. Dr. Whitney was one of those physicians whose very aspect inspired confidence. He had a square, nicely aging face, a few good wrinkles, a furrowed brow and

  hair whiting at the temples, not unlike those pseudomedicos in television commercials whose presence bespeak experience, wisdom, and authority.

  As Amanda sat, Dr. Whitney lowered himself onto his leather chair, closed the manila folder on his desk, and went right to it. "Miss Spenser, I thought it best if we could talk face-to-face. I wanted to discuss Ken's surgery. I hope this sudden call didn't inconvenience you?"

  "Nothing is more important than Ken's surgery."

  "I know he told you about it, that it is the primary option we have."

  "He told me a little. Just that there were no guarantees, but that there was a fair chance, and that he was going to go through with it. I was glad he was going ahead. I encouraged it." She hesitated. "What are his chances?"