Immaculate Heart (11 page)

 

FATHER DOWD (CONT'D)

You have been called, Declan.

 

DECLAN

It was Tess who told you. Not me.

(smiles mockingly)

You can say it, Father: you're surprised she appeared to me at all. That I'm the dodgy one, the one who wasn't supposed to be there.

 

FATHER DOWD

I can say this much, Declan: I'd never presume to know what's going on up in that mind of yours.

 

DECLAN

You're not denying it, Father.

 

FATHER DOWD

Remember Our Lady, Declan. Remember her message. It goes beyond all our petty opinions and hopes and wishes for ourselves.

 

DECLAN

Look, Father. If you want to tell the men in Rome or whatever that I was a part of this, I don't care. You can tell them what I saw, as long as
I
don't have to tell them.

The boy taps his boot on the floor and runs the sleeve of his thermal shirt under his nose. His eyes rove all over the room, anywhere but at the priest. When he speaks again, his tone is less resentful than matter of fact.

 

DECLAN (CONT'D)

You're right about one thing. I may have seen her, and maybe I'll keep on seeing her when we go up the hill sometimes, but beyond that, I've no part to play in all this.

The recording ended abruptly, as if Father Dowd had finally lost his patience and brought his finger down hard on the
STOP
button. I saw the boy rise from his seat, nodding to his inquisitor only to keep from shaming his poor pious mother entirely; and after he'd gone, the priest sat looking out the narrow window into the yard behind the rectory, so mired in his infuriated thoughts that his secretary had to ask three times if he wanted any tea.

 

5

NOVEMBER 9

I walked into the church expecting that Tess and I would be the only people there under the age of eighty, apart from the priest, but I was wrong. There were maybe a dozen parishioners assembled in the first few pews, and most of them were in their forties or fifties. Tess went down on her knees, clasped her hands, and bent her head. I just sat there waiting for the service to start, staring up at the half-size crucifix suspended above the altar and feeling awkward.

Once it began, though, the Mass passed with surprising briskness. Everyone spoke the prayers at a different pace, so that there was a sort of discordant murmuring going on throughout the church. A woman in the pew behind us had apparently memorized the entire Mass, even the priest's parts, though she uttered them so mechanically that she couldn't have put any thought into them at all. There was no music and only two readings, and Father Lynch delivered his homily as if there were someone at the back of the church holding up a stopwatch. I looked over and saw Tess mouthing the Our Father with her eyes closed and her palms open at her sides, as if she were expecting a rather sizable gift. She didn't seem to care that I didn't rise for Communion.

It was over in twenty-five minutes. On our way out of the church, we approached a middle-aged woman already deep in conversation with Father Lynch. As we came near, she looked up at us with pale startled eyes, as if she'd only just realized she hadn't been the only person at Mass.

“That's Mrs. Keaveney,” Tess whispered after we'd nodded to Father Lynch and passed into the vestibule. I stopped short and looked over my shoulder. “Only don't speak to her now. 'Twould be best if you called round to her house later on.”

I walked with Tess to the youth center, and it was still only “half eight,” as the Irish say. “It's a bit early to be starting your workday, isn't it?” I asked. “We could go for coffee at that place up the street?”

“I've plenty of tea and coffee in the office. You're more than welcome to join me.”

I followed her upstairs and took the same seat beside her desk as Tess filled the electric kettle. “Have you much on the agenda today?” She spoke wryly, so I guessed she was still puzzled over why I wasn't just sightseeing like any other tourist.

“Not too much,” I said. “Yesterday was busier. I drove up to Sligo to see Síle—”

“Did you!” Tess smiled as she drew two tea bags out of the Barry's box. “How is she?”

“She seems to be doing well to me. The doctor acted like she was seriously disturbed, but I'd say she doesn't belong in there at all.”

Tess gave me a pensive look as she poured the milk. “Perhaps you're right.”

We looked at each other, and I wondered what she was really thinking.

“Now,” she said as she brought the mugs to her desk, “think of how good it would feel to begin every day the way we've started this one.”

“Do you feel virtuous?” I asked, and suddenly she looked stricken. “Relax,” I said, trying to laugh. “I was kidding.”

Tess looked at me doubtfully as she took her first sip of tea. “So,” she said, “in all seriousness. What did you think of the Mass?”

I shrugged and tried to smile. “It was tolerable,” I said. “I was raised Catholic, but I guess we were always just going through the motions, you know?”

“I know,” she said, a little sadly.

“And I think about all the same stuff on the rare occasions when I do go to church. Like, if Jesus died for our sins, then how come the world is just as full of evil and suffering as it was before? I mean, what was the point of that stuff with the crucifixion and everything? What difference did it actually make?”

“Just think of the state we'd be in if he
hadn't
come,” Tess replied, and I had to smile.

“Okay, here's the most basic point,” I said. “God does terrible things in the Old Testament, right? Really terrible things. He's angry and jealous and vengeful, like some ordinary jerk with a serious case of road rage. He's definitely not behaving like the creator of the universe. An angry God makes even less sense to me than no God at all.”

“I see what you're saying,” Tess replied. “I've wondered about these things myself.”

“And did you come to any conclusions?”

“I
can't
know God,” she said softly. “I can devote my whole life to reading the Scripture, to prayer and contemplation, and I still won't understand why He does what He does.” She drew a breath. “When I think of it this way, it makes sense to me. I'm only me, you know? My understanding is limited by my human brain, my human emotions. My human perceptions and limitations. The same is true of those who put the Bible together. God is too vast to be comprehensible to anyone, in the end. If He were, He'd be a much smaller god than any of us could give Him credit for.”

For a minute or two, we sipped our tea in silence, and I mulled over what she'd said. There was a poignant sort of sense to it.

“Would you like to hear what else I did yesterday?” I asked finally, and Tess nodded. “I talked to Orla.”

I watched her face fall, as I'd known it would. She cleared her throat. “And what did she have to say?”

“She says she doesn't think she saw what she said she saw.”

“Aye,” Tess said softly. “Didn't I tell you as much?” I nodded, and she sighed. “It may have seemed to anyone else like an experience we were all of us sharing, but underneath it, we weren't, not really. Much of the time I felt that Síle and I were the ones who wanted to see her, that Orla and Declan were being carried along despite their will. There was always a reluctance with them.” I watched a smile bloom faintly on her lips, and fade away a moment later. “Síle and I, we never spoke of it outright, but there was an affection there between us. We were accepting of the blessing and the responsibility; we were always together in that.”

“I can hear it in your voice,” I said. “Whenever we speak of her, you still feel that fondness for her.”

Tess gave me another sad smile. “You say you don't think Síle belongs in there, and I want to believe you're right.” She hesitated. “How do I put this? Síle used to have these … well, Orla called them fits, but I never wanted to think of them that way. It wasn't fair to call them fits, because she wasn't possessed—or if she was, I dunno, it seemed like it was the Holy Spirit filling her up, rather than something dark. That's how it seemed to me because of how watching her made me feel. It felt good to watch her. I wasn't afraid at all. And there was the difference. Does that make sense?” She looked to me for confirmation.

“It makes a lot of sense,” I said.

The phone rang, and Tess reached for it with an apologetic smile. “St. Brigid's Youth Centre, Tess speaking,” she said, and listened. “Ah, sure. Of course, of course. I'll be over to you shortly.”

“I'm so sorry,” she said as she put the receiver down. “I've got to begin work now. Next time I see you…” She took a deep breath. “Next time I see you, we'll have a proper chat.”

*   *   *

I went back to Brona's, loaded the next interview tape (
Orla Gallagher, 13 February 1988
) into the Walkman, and brought it with me. The sun didn't seem to be going anywhere for once, so I decided to go for a drive. Paudie had mentioned a passage tomb in a field three or four miles northwest of town, and I wasted half an hour trying to extract the Micra from a series of muddy country lanes before giving up looking for it.

The light withdrew suddenly on my way back to Ballymorris, and as the downpour started, I found myself taking the turn for the grotto. Mag O'Grady's little white truck was there, sure enough, but this time I didn't get out of the car. I put on the old-fashioned earphones, and when I pressed the
PLAY
button, I saw Orla sitting before the priest twenty years younger, her cheeks still full with lingering baby fat and her skin as pale as it ought to be.

 

ORLA

She was so beautiful I could hardly look Her in the face, Father. I told Her … I told Her I didn't feel worthy.

The priest reacts more skeptically than he did with Teresa. There is no hostility, as with Declan, but the sense of rapport between questioned and questioner is noticeably lacking.

 

FATHER DOWD

And what did she say to you?

 

ORLA

She blessed me and said She knew that from now on I would
try
to be worthy, and that was all She could ever ask of me.

 

FATHER DOWD

What about Declan? D'you reckon he feels unworthy, too? I spoke with him last week, as you know, and I can't say he was as cooperative as you and Teresa have been.

 

ORLA

He means well, Father, he really does. He just doesn't know how to feel easy about any of it. He's so used to everyone givin' him a hard time for how he looks.

 

FATHER DOWD

You'll understand when you're older, Orla, that “givin' a hard time” to a young person is all to a purpose. With every word you speak, every gesture, every impulse you give in to without reflection, you're building your character. At the end of your life, your character is all you have to show for yourself. Do you see that?

The girl's manner is still respectful, but she crosses her arms and sits taller in her chair.

 

ORLA

I see, Father. But I don't believe that when two people don't see eye to eye, one of them has to be wrong for the other to be right.

 

FATHER DOWD

(sighing)

Someday, when he's much older, Declan may look in the mirror, and he won't like the man he sees. And by then it will be too late.

 

ORLA

I don't see that, Father. Declan wants a different sort of life for himself, and I don't see how that's wrong.

 

FATHER DOWD

You don't see it
yet
.

An icy note enters into the girl's voice for the first time, and if the priest notices, he doesn't follow suit.

 

ORLA

I thought we were meant to be talking about Our Lady.

 

FATHER DOWD

It's all of a piece, child. Why d'you suppose she came to ye, and not to me?

 

ORLA

I don't know, Father.

 

FATHER DOWD

I don't pretend to know, either. But I
can
say she's asked a great deal of ye, and ye must try your very best to be worthy of the blessing, as you yourself have said.

The priest grows animated, gesticulating with both hands.

 

FATHER DOWD (CONT'D)

Ye are the messengers! The bringers of peace in our own time! Do you see that?

The priest's fervor rises to the point where the girl has to lean back in her chair to keep from being overwhelmed by it.

 

FATHER DOWD (CONT'D)

This is what Declan must grow to understand: now isn't the time to turn in on yourselves. Your friends and schoolmates may behave as they like, but ye haven't that luxury now. Ye've been called, and the call must be answered.

 

ORLA

I don't know, Father. I'm not sure of what I saw, and if I can't be sure, then it wouldn't feel right to go out into the world and talk about it.

The priest stares at her, shocked by the sudden about-face, and when he speaks again, there's a subtle note of panic in his voice.

 

FATHER DOWD

How d'you mean, you're not sure? Didn't you say you saw her? Didn't you say she was the most beautiful woman you ever laid eyes on?

 

ORLA

If I really saw what I thought I saw, I think I would feel differently about it. I would
want
to go out and speak of it.

 

FATHER DOWD

A heart in doubt: that
is
a sign, Orla. So is reluctance, and the not feeling worthy. Tess feels it, and I can see you feel it, too. It means you understand deep down that this glory, the glory ye must speak of and spread to anyone who is ready to listen: 'tis God's glory, not yours. 'Tis a beautiful thing, to understand that.