"You're a priest, Michael! Watch your language!"
"Oh, it's language that seems obscene, is it?"
"Your overreaction is what disturbs me. A million casualties? Where does that figure come from? What do a bunch of Swiss do-gooders know? Take it easy."
"So maybe it's half a million! Maybe it's only a hundred thousand! Okay? But why the hell are they sending us polio victims? Don't tell me to take it easy!"
"I will tell you to take it easy, Father. And I will tell you to remember who you're talking to."
"I'm talking to you, Tim." Michael checked himself. "You were there last night. You heard what the Vietnamese doctor said. They're going to hide what's happening now. They're going to deny it. Imagine what that will mean to the children. They'll have to bury them alive. They won't even get to field hospitals. They won't get first aid. Tim, somebody has to get over there. Somebody has to find those children and get them out."
"Monsieur Hurot is way ahead of you. Isn't that what Terre des Hommes is doing?"
"But to what effect? You said it yourself, a bunch of Swiss do-gooders. But I'm an American. I'm a decorated veteran; I'm a war hero, and I'm a Roman Catholic priest. I work for Francis Cardinal Spellman. Let the army try to flick me aside!"
O'Shea snorted and waved his cigar. "And let Francis Cardinal Spellman find out what you're up to."
"How can he be against saving children?"
"If they become a dove cause célèbre?"
"They won't. You know me better than that. I'm no dove."
"I was beginning to wonder."
"And my purpose is to help Vietnamese kids, not the SDS and not the Fulbright Committee."
"Don't be ingenuous, Michael. Suppose the army fights you. Suppose they make the not unreasonable case that the sovereignty of the Vietnamese government in caring for its own people has to be respected. Or suppose your worst suspicion is true and there's a conspiracy to keep the condition of wounded children secret and therefore out of treatment. You're telling me that at that point you wouldn't go to Fulbright about it? Or the press?"
"If that was the case, of course I would, and you'd help me, right? But you believe like I do that our military people are decent, and that all any of us need is a little moral clarity. Well, this is a way to get some."
"Don't be racist about it. Maybe Saigon cares about its own citizens too. Maybe the ARVN are decent too."
"I'd like to think that what happened last night was just a foul-up, some timid bureaucrat's decision. There's no set policy on evacuating victims yet, and I want to get there before there is one. If I can find out the facts—how many war-wounded children, where they are, what they get for treatment—and if I can take the facts to the right people, then we won't need a patched-together Swiss airlift. The army itself will get those kids out, on military aircraft and to military hospitals. Hell, Tim, I'm talking about something bigger and better than the Berlin Airlift!"
"But you're not the U.S. Air Force, Michael."
"That's right. I'm the Catholic Relief Service, and I know that people working in this office helped generate this war. By God, people working here now can at least get the wounded taken care of."
"You've just made the case for why you must stay here and take my job. CRS needs you at the top."
"I can't."
"Why?"
"Because half a dozen guys can do this job, and no one but me was on that plane last night. I made a promise to those children, Tim."
"You've made a prior promise, Michael. A solemn one, a vow."
"'Obedience and respect.'"
"That's right."
"Tim, I'm asking you to help me keep that vow. You can do it. You know you can."
"You want to be the new Tom Dooley."
"Why not?"
"Actually, it's not a bad idea. There's only one problem with it. The brass won't let you in, not if they know what you're up to."
"That's why it has to be a Church job. We don't ask the brass, remember?"
"Spelly would. He wouldn't send you over there without checking it out with Washington."
Michael stared at O'Shea. "When the cardinal refused to let me go back before, he made it seem like the issue was how much more good I would do from here."
"And he was right."
Michael shook his head. "He slid one by me, Tim. He just didn't want me over there. He was afraid of what I'd see and what I'd do."
O'Shea thought for a moment, then nodded. "He still would be, Michael."
"That's why I need you, Tim. I'd like to slide one by him."
"What, I'm supposed to lie to him?"
Michael said nothing.
O'Shea turned away, swiveling toward the window. "Michael, God ... I don't believe you're asking me to do this."
"Tim, I'm only asking you to let me go."
He swung back abruptly. "Rubbish! You're asking me to sponsor the next Don Quixote! You think you're Tom Dooley? Do you know who you'll be? Father Coughlin! It's always a disaster when priests involve themselves in politics, and that's what you'll be doing. You know it too, otherwise you wouldn't be asking me to cover for you with the cardinal. Good God, Michael! I'm about to be made a bishop!"
"I know that."
"Well, why are you putting me in this position then?"
Again Michael remained silent. He had to look away from his old friend.
O'Shea smoked his cigar. Finally he said quietly, "It's my first stack of real chips, and you want me to bet it all on you." He looked at Michael. "I owe you, don't I?"
"You owe me nothing, Tim."
"Except my life. You don't think I've forgotten that, do you? You've never asked me for anything before."
"I want you to let me go because you think it's the right thing to do."
"It's the most foolish damn thing I ever heard of. You have no business over there. And if you step on toes, it will reflect on CRS and embarrass me, and bring the cardinal down on both of us. Hell, I've just begun allowing myself to look forward to a nice career in the hierarchy. You could finish it before it gets off the ground."
"Tim, you're not responsible for what I do."
"The hell I'm not. At least give me credit for the risk I'm taking." Michael smiled.
O'Shea said, "There's an opening on the Indochina Council of Volunteer Agencies. You'd represent Caritas. We could justify it by saying you're the only one with experience in the field. Actually, it's been a problem, trying to think of whom to send."
"Do you think I'm nuts?"
O'Shea answered carefully. "No, I think you're right, Michael. I think you're courageous and right and your feeling about it moves me. And I'm glad you pushed me. I can handle Spellman. But I'd appreciate it if he didn't read about you in the Times."
"He never reads the Times."
"I'm serious."
"I don't have an ax to grind, Tim."
As Michael stood up to go, O'Shea got off one last shot. "Are you sure you don't want to take twenty-four hours and think it over? Whoever takes this desk..." His cigar hand idled along the edge of it. "...gets made monsignor. You'd be the first in your class, Michael. A leg up."
"For my career in the hierarchy?" He grinned.
"It's priests in power who can do the most good. Don't forget that."
By the time they get there, though, Michael thought, after a lifetime of toeing the line for the sake of their next promotion, they've forgotten what "good" is. From many years before he heard O'Shea's lilting, Irish voice saying on that battlefield, "God will not have his work made manifest by cowards." But O'Shea was no coward. He'd just proved that once again. Michael said, "The sooner you come to power, the better, Tim."
"Monsignor Michael Maguire. I like the alliteration."
"Hell, Tim, a monsignor's a 'Domestic Prelate,' right? A former one yourself, you know what that is. He's the guy that makes the pope's bed."
"No, Father, that's the 'Papal Chamberlain.' The 'Domestic Prelate' makes the cardinal's bed."
&nbs
p; TWENTY-ONE
NICHOLAS WILEY was waiting for Michael at his office.
Goddamnit! Michael thought, when he saw him. He hadn't called Dorothy Day yet. It was more important than ever to get Wiley off the story.
"How you doing, Nicholas?" They shook hands. The kid seemed nervous and ill at ease. "I'll be right with you."
Michael went into his office and closed the door. Now what? Damn!
He crossed to his desk, sat and picked up the phone. He got the Worker number from information, dialed it, asked for Dorothy Day and waited. When she came on the line he said, "Miss Day, this is Father Michael Maguire at the Catholic Relief Service."
"Yes, Father?"
"I'm a friend of Eileen Egan's, Miss Day."
"I know that, Father. She has spoken of you."
"She and I have often talked about the admiration we share for your work."
"Thank you, Father."
"Miss Day, I have a problem, and I need your help."
"Yes?" In her firm, quiet voice, the appropriate deference—no more—was implicit.
"I have Nicholas Wiley here. He wants an interview about a certain CRS project having to do with Vietnamese refugees."
"I know about it, Father. Nicholas told me. He didn't indicate there was any problem."
"I can't have him writing about it, Miss Day. Publicity will bring the government down on this. You understand about finessing authority."
"I understand about speaking the truth to power, not finessing it."
Michael told himself to be careful. With her "Yes, Father, no Father," it was easy to think of the woman as a Legion of Mary type. She was a Catholic Emma Goldman. "I can't give him the interview, Miss Day."
"But he said you promised it to him."
"I did, yes."
"Well then." She said nothing else. A silence fraught with sanctimony.
"I was hoping you'd take my word for it, my word as a priest, that right now publicity would destroy our ability to help these desperate people. I was hoping you would take him off the story."
"I can't do that, Father."
Oh, Christ, he thought, the principles! Which would it be, freedom of the press or the rights of laymen in the Church? "May I ask why, Miss Day?"
"I have no authority over Nicholas Wiley."
"If I can respectfully disagree, your authority over him is absolute."
"Nicholas Wiley doesn't work for me anymore, Father. He's no longer with the Catholic Worker."
"He told me you'd made him managing editor." Was the kid a liar? "He said that only last night."
"He was my managing editor, but he's not now."
"Well, when...?"
"This morning, Father. As of this morning."
"Why?"
"I don't feel free to say. You'll have to ask Nicholas."
Michael was too surprised to respond, and Dorothy Day didn't help him. "Well then," he said finally, "I guess that answers my question."
"Was that all, Father?"
"Yes, Miss Day. Thank you very much."
"You're welcome, Father. And Father...?"
"Yes, Miss Day?"
"Would you pray for us, please? Particularly today we could use your prayers."
"Certainly, Miss Day. I'll put you on the paten at noon." He looked at his watch. The archdiocesan seminarians were touring the U.N. that day, and he was scheduled to say Mass for them at the U.N. chapel. She'd think it an awfully establishment place for worship.
"Why, thank you, Father."
After he hung up, Michael had to stifle his dislike for her. Saints are great in heaven, as Cushing loved to say, but they're hell on earth.
How had Wiley crossed her? Sex? A girl in his bunk? That would get him kicked out on the spot, but he didn't seem the type.
Michael buzzed his secretary and asked her to send Wiley in.
"I guess I'm early, Father," he said, entering. He was holding his brimmed leather hat and still wearing his field jacket. His canvas bag hung from his shoulder.
Michael was aware now of what he'd missed before, the haggard, spent look, the red splotches on his skin, the disheveled clothing. Nicholas hadn't shaved and his long hair was matted at the ends. He'd been caught in the rain. Michael guessed he hadn't been to bed. "Take your jacket off, Nicholas. Have a seat." Michael felt sorry for him suddenly. Whatever he'd done, he hadn't deserved to be turned out in weather like this. The Worker had been his home since the army. "Do you want some coffee?"
Wiley shook his head. "I try to leave caffeine alone." He removed his jacket and let Michael take it. He remained standing.
"I used to have a field jacket like this. I should have kept it, eh? I'd be the counterculture priest." Michael smiled. While he hung up the jacket he asked, "Why do flower children love army clothes?"
"Because they're the color of the earth." Wiley answered as if he'd thought of it before. "When you take the militarist insignia off, the clothes are beautiful." Suddenly he grinned. "Just like soldiers. When you take our weapons away, we're just peaceniks and priests." He flashed a V-sign. "Peace, Brother. I mean, 'Father.'"
"You can call me brother if you want."
"I'd rather call you Mike."
"That's okay too, although Michael is what I go by."
"I've never called a priest by his first name before. I doubt if I could do it."
"My mother manages, and she's a lot more old-fashioned than you are. Why don't you sit down?" Michael pointed to the large vinyl couch, the room's only piece of furniture aside from the desk and chair. They both sat on it, in opposite corners. Michael hiked his leg up, taking his ankle in his hand and facing the young man. He was aware that his own clothing, his trim black suit and clerical collar, was the sartorial opposite of Wiley's jeans, workboots and blue shirt colorfully embroidered with, in point of fact, flowers.
"Nice office," Wiley said.
The office was smaller than O'Shea's, the linoleum floor was bare and the walls were unadorned except for a Mexican straw crucifix above the couch. But the window looked out on midtown, facing north. Even in the haze the great green patch of Central Park stretched before them like a carpet. There was definition to the clouds now, as if the storm was breaking. "I like it," Michael said.
"Great view."
They looked at the city in silence.
"You were wrong before, Father, about me being a flower child. Flower children have no politics."
"How would you describe your politics, Nicholas. As Catholic Worker?"
"I'm against the war. That's the main thing."
"That's not 'politics.' Everyone's against the war, especially the people who have to fight it."
"Our GIs throw prisoners out of helicopters when they refuse to talk. I'm against that."
"We don't have to argue about the war, Nicholas. Why don't you tell me about the Worker? What happened?"
For a moment Michael thought Wiley was going to cry, such a forlorn look crossed his face. But he said, "The Worker's nowhere, Father. People dying in Vietnam, and on Chrystie Street nobody even talks about it." He reached into his canvas bag and pulled out a pair of tattered photographs that had been clipped from newspapers. He held them out to Michael who took them.
One showed a boy the trunk of whose body was mutilated by burns; the skin was gone and the bloody tissue was exposed. The other showed an old woman staring at the camera without affect, and holding in her arms a charred log. After a second look Michael recognized the log as an infant. "I've seen photographs like this, Nicholas."
"I can't get their pictures out of my head, Father. I go to sleep at night, their faces are in my head." His helplessness was unconcealed now. "I wake up and I wonder if I didn't dream up the war, my private nightmare. But then those pictures are still in my bag and the morning paper always says we're escalating. Sometimes I think it's making me nuts."
Michael hesitated. The kid was clearly asking for help, but he was already in therapy. Michael knew he should steer him back to the doctor. But
it struck Michael that Wiley, in his emotion, was to him what he himself had been only minutes before to O'Shea. He remembered how touched he'd been when Wiley gave him the wooden cross he was wearing even then inside his shirt. "What's been going on with you?" he asked.
"A lot."
"I gather."
"It shows?" Wiley smiled thinly.
Michael nodded. "Mildly. But I just talked to Dorothy Day. She told me there'd been a problem, but she didn't say what it was."
Alarm crossed Wiley's face. "Why were you talking to her?"
"I'll tell you that in a minute, but why don't you tell me what happened first. I get the feeling you'd like to talk about it."
Wiley stared at his hands. They were large hands, and the flesh around both thumbnails had been gnawed. He did not speak.
Michael waited.
After a long time, Wiley whispered, "She kicked me out." When he raised his head to look at Michael, water spilled out of his eyes.
"Why?"
"Because..." His mouth twisted with a misery that throttled his capacity to speak. He continued to look at Michael as the tears came and then he began slowly at first, soon violently, to sob.
Michael slid next to him, to put his hand on his shoulder.
At last when he could speak he told his story. "Last night you wouldn't talk to me, but Doctor Levine did. He explained how those poor kids had been substituted for the wounded ones. I couldn't believe it. And I watched you and Monsignor O'Shea going around being polite to everybody and helping that Vietnamese doctor, I just couldn't believe it."
"We were trying to help those children, Nicholas. Even if they weren't the ones we expected, we couldn't just send them back."
"I know. But last night it just seemed to me like you were letting them get away with it. I kept thinking, what did they do to the kids who were supposed to be here?"
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