The City Below

by James Carroll

  Nick's eyes floated through the space right to Terry's, Nick who never missed a thing. Terry saw the click of recognition in his brother, who then whispered in their grandfather's ear, pointing. And once Gramps saw him, his hand fluttering shyly, Terry felt obliged to go down, which was what ruined everything.

  Didi, with Molly in her arms, was wearing sunglasses, as if she were Jackie Kennedy. Terry instinctively took the shades as a signal —but of what? He hugged his grandfather, who squeezed Terry for all the juice of his daughter's dream come true. "Gramps," Terry whispered, "if you want me to get ordained, you'll have to let me go."

  When Gramps did, Terry turned to Didi. Molly had squirmed out of her arms and was scooting ahead. Didi and Terry embraced. He felt the bulge of her pregnant belly, was surprised at its firmness. He kissed her cheek, then looked at her, but he couldn't see her eyes. Was she crying?

  He reached up and took her glasses off, brushing her cheek as he had once when they were pressed against the cold wall of the Lincoln Memorial. "What's this?"

  Not crying. Her left eye was dry as a stone, but the right one was swollen shut, the flesh around it puffy and purple. "What happened to you?" Terry asked.

  Didi's good eye was thickly lined with Maybelline, which, juxtaposed to her bruise, seemed ludicrous, like her spike heels holding up her lumpish, swollen body. Didi quickly put her glasses back on, turning away.

  But Terry repeated, "What happened, Didi?"

  Nick took Terry's arm, squeezing it hard. "She bumped into the door."

  Didi nodded. "In the night, in the dark, going to Molly." She forced a smile, glanced toward the altar. "Now can we call you Charlie?"

  "Sure," Terry answered, but he locked his eyes on Nick's. "Can I talk to you for a minute?"

  They moved down the aisle a few paces, toward the sanctuary, Squire gripping Terry's arm all the while. Terry turned so that his back was to the others. "What did you do to her?"

  "You heard Didi."

  "Yeah, I heard. But what's the truth?"

  "Truth? What is truth? Isn't that the quesdon Jesus asked?"

  Terry shook his head. "Not Jesus, Nick. Pilate. Pontius fucking Pilate."

  "Mind your own business, Terry."

  "You hit her, Nick?" Terry shook his brother's hand off. "You hit your pregnant wife?"

  "Look, Terry. She is my wife, okay? The mother of my children. I love Didi. You know that Do you really think I'd hit her? Is that what you think?" Squire stared at his brother so fiercely that he had to look away.

  Terry's gaze went automatically to the ornate crucifix hanging above the altar. Who am I fighting with here? The twisted Christ suddenly seemed an enemy. What is my faith in? Who?

  "Terry?"

  Terry shook his head. He looked at his brother. "I'm sorry. I take it back. Christ, if I can't believe you, who can I believe?"

  "Exactly." Squire was thinking of Nicolson, how he would have to make sure the kid never entrusted himself to this poor, conscience-ridden bastard.

  Terry turned and blew a kiss to Didi. He waved at Gramps, who now seemed not to recognize him, then started up the aisle. But Squire grabbed him roughly and hugged him. "I love you, Charlie," he said.

  "I love you too, Nick." And for a terrible moment, Terry thought he was going to cry. Instead, he walked quickly away.

  In the sanctuary, at the sacristy door, he paused to look out across the church one last time. And it was then he saw the figures of Bright McKay and his mother and father coming in the great door. They looked lost. Bishop McKay wore the distinctive high collar of an Anglican divine, and that was more than enough to set him apart. He carried a small suitcase in which his episcopal vestments would be neatly folded.

  Terry nearly started back, but then, would he have to introduce them to his family? He was rescued when one of the seminary professors came in from the vestibule to escort them. Bishop McKay followed the professor to the near side aisle, toward the sacristy, while Mrs. McKay, a large, regal woman whom Terry linked with Coretta Scott King, took Blight's arm. Bright. His eye patch was always a surprise. Terry could never see that patch without his memory slamming open for a second on the image of a man viciously driving his polished shoe into Blight's face, but now Blight's eye called back Didi's. Nick. Squire.

  Terry pushed the thought away, hard away. Genius that he was, Bright sensed Terry's distant, brooding presence, and he raised a hand in a cheery wave. Terry waved back, relieved to feel such uncomplicated affection. But then Bright did something that staggered Terry: he clenched his fist and stiffened his arm, turning his wave into a defiant salute.

  They put Bishop McKay on a velvet padded chair on the gospel side of the sanctuary, next to Monsignor Loughlin. A plush double prie-dieu stood like a railing in front of them. At the parts of the Mass that called for kneeling, they came forward side by side, their elbows nearly touching, which pleased Terry because he was sure Bishop McKay's presence offended Loughlin.

  Through the early prayers and readings, every time Terry found the nerve to look over, the bishop's gaze was fixed upon his prayer book. When the time came for Terry to approach the lectern, he followed the emcee dutifully, then read the passage as if in a trance: "...respectable men whose word can be trusted."

  He resumed his place in the long line of men kneeling on the lowermost sanctuary step. He watched as acolytes brought the carved oaken cathedra forward, placing it in the center of the top step. Then the two chaplains, one of whom was Father Collins, led Cushing to the chair. Instead of sitting, the cardinal removed his red skullcap and knelt at the chair with his back to the people. That was the ordinandi's cue to prostrate themselves. The cantors began the Litany of the Saints. "Lord have mercy," they sang, and everyone replied, "Lord have mercy." The soft music floated into the dark air. "Holy Mary, Mother of God," the choir sang, and all joined in "Pray for us..."

  He lay prone on the cold floor surrounded by three dozen others in the same posture, like war protesters pretending to be napalmed Vietnamese.

  "Saint Stephen ... pray for us. Saint Perpetua ... Felicity ... Francis ... pray for us ... Saint Dominic ..."

  His mind was blank, his chest empty of feeling at last To lie prostrate at such a time was, ritually, to be dead to the world, but he was dead to everything.

  "All holy men and women ... pray for us."

  His head rested on his forearm, and it was a simple matter to move his hand to his mouth, to put his forefinger between his teeth, to bite as savagely as he could.

  "Lord be merciful," the sweet-voiced cantors sang. "Lord, save your people..."

  The pain in his finger awoke his memory, and suddenly he was no longer on the marble sanctuary floor but on the rough wood underlayment of Boston Garden, certain he was dying.

  "From all evil..."

  "Lord, save your people."

  "From every death..."

  A minute later John Kennedy was dead.

  "By your death..."

  "Lord, save your people."

  And Martin Luther King was dead, and Bobby. "Is everybody all right?" Bobby's last words rang in Terry's head. The only picture behind his eyelids was that of the bruising black hulk of Daisy Greer cradling the bloody Kennedy on that floor.

  "Bless these chosen men and make them holy."

  The voices faded above his head, the last notes drifting away and leaving a weighty silence behind. Then movement around him, coughing, the rustle of garments as his classmates came up to their knees, as Cushing put on his skullcap, took his seat, received his miter.

  And for an instant Terry thought he might not move, would just stay where he was, a dead man in whose case there was no resurrection. But then he too rose to his knees. And finally his eyes locked on Bishop McKay's.

  The bishop's expression was entirely impassive.

  I am just pretending, Terry nearly said. I refused the oath. I never took it.

  "Most Reverend Father, Holy Mother Church asks you to ordain these men, our brothers, for servi
ce as deacons." It was Father Collins speaking, words from an index card.

  Cushing asked, "Do you judge them to be worthy?"

  "After inquiring among the people of Christ, and upon the recommendation of those concerned with their training, I testify that they have been found worthy."

  Terry's eyes remained fixed on Bishop McKay, who seemed more exotic than ever, his Geneva-style, tonguelike collar, his deep purple robes, his ferocious black skin, his unrelenting hard face. It was like looking into the cold stare of the Pantocrator, the Greek Christ whose eyes are famous for following sinners everywhere.

  The cardinal was saying, "We rely on the help of the Lord God and our Savior Jesus Christ, and we choose these men, our brothers, for the order of deacon."

  The class was cued to say here, "Thanks be to God," and all did but him.

  He forced himself to look at Cushing, at Father Collins at his elbow. Both had the hangdog morning droop of drinkers.

  This is what I've chosen for myself? He felt a blast of his old ache, the huge ambition he'd felt as a boy looking out on the towers of Boston from Bunker Hill. I'm going to be one of these? Father Collins? Monsignor Loughlin? The most he could ever hope for was to be a Cushing.

  Collins took a folder from the nearest server, opened it, and intoned loudly, "Let those who are to be ordained deacon come forward." He paused, but did not look up before saying with a resonance that carried across the packed cathedral, "Terence Cronin Doyle."

  This was what they'd rehearsed. He was to approach the cardinal now, insert his folded hands into those of His Eminence, and swear "as a sign of interior dedication to Christ to remain celibate for the sake of the Kingdom, in lifelong service to God," and swear "respect and obedience to you, my Ordinary." Like the others, he knew the words by heart.

  Respect? Obey?

  Terry came to his feet and brought his steepled hands to a point just below his chin. His finger was bleeding between the second and third knuckles. He was to say " Adsum," a last Latin word remaining in the ritual, meaning so much more than "present." Let it be done to me, it meant, according to your Word.

  "...whose word can be trusted..."

  To have stood was to have come suddenly awake. The fog of stupefaction lifted. To be a Cushing? Suddenly it hit him like the Light of Christ: to be a Cushing, even, was not enough. These men with their hangovers and their lies, their broken hearts —this was the aim of his ambition? To be one of them?

  Bishop McKay had still not dropped his eyes, and the feeling was, I cannot move until you do. Peripherally, Terry took in Monsignor Loughlin's mean stare. Its malevolence was like a stink.

  Is everybody all right?

  The man next to Terry, still on his knees, elbowed him, a blow to Terry's hip. Bishop McKay lowered his eyes to his book Terry gathered the long white robe clear of his feet, preparing to mount the stairs.

  Instead of declaring his intention, the affirmation he'd rehearsed in his mind for six years —"So help me God" —he looked up at the cardinal and shrugged, helpless. He knew what a coward this made him.

  "I'm sorry," he said reflexively. Though his words were not loud, they rang out like a shot, carrying back to the congregation. Terry covered his mouth.

  The ruddy-faced, wet-eyed Cushing —and here was what Doyle would always remember —nodded as if he understood, as if, after all, he would be doing the same thing.

  Terry mounted two steps, but instead of continuing up to the ceremonial level, he faced away and crossed the sanctuary, his heels resounding on the marble floor. He made no effort to muffle them. This sound carried, he was sure, all the way back to his grandfather, to Didi, to Nick. It carried to heaven, where his mother could hear. And it carried to Bright.

  Bright and Bright's father would think he was doing this because he was so pure. I cannot tell a lie. Honesty. But Nick would know the deeper truth. Not Nick, but Squire. Squire knew everything. It was not God Terry wanted to believe in, much less the Church, but himself. God and the Church, as they'd turned out, were not enough.

  1975

  11

  THE FIRST TIME Terry took Joan into Charlestown was nearly a full year after they married, and several weeks after they moved up from D.C. She had met none of his relatives. If he seemed in no hurry to have her do so, she had not pressed the issue. She was busy, and so was he. Given what happened, both in the city and in the family, the visit turned out to be a classic case of bad timing.

  They'd rented a flat on Howland Street in Cambridge, a neighborhood of modest three-deckers near the Somerville line. It was a mixed area, with students and young professors living side by side with families whose fathers were bus drivers and Boston Gas men. But to Terry, their apartment could have been a mansion on Brattle Street, because in the geography of Boston, it was as far from Bunker Hill as their basement efficiency in Georgetown had been. To Joan it didn't matter either way, because with this move, a dream she'd never really dared to have was coming true.

  She was an art conservator whose work at the Corcoran on the drawings of painters had given her the makings of a reputation, but nothing to justify what had happened. When they were still in Washington, Terry had come home from the senator's office one day in July. His mood had tipped her off that something was happening, but she was still surprised when, over coffee, he'd said, "You'll never guess what Ted did today."

  "What?"

  "He called Derek Bok."

  "Who?"

  "The president of Harvard. He called him up while I was sitting there. It was what he did when I said no."

  "No to what, sugar?" Joan smiled, but she felt the tug of her irritation. He had news, and she didn't like his playing it out slowly.

  Terry brought his eyes right to hers, her green eyes into which, still, he could so easily fall. Sometimes when he looked at her, she seemed an utter stranger. He forced the marvel on himself again, that she was his. She was wearing a plain brown French T-shirt, a subtle showcase of her small, braless breasts.

  "No to going to Boston. He offered me the top job, running the office."

  "In Boston?"

  "Yes."

  "But sugar, that's great. I mean, that he would ask you. You'd be the chief? You said no? My God, why?"

  It hadn't occurred to him she'd react so positively, but once more he saw how they were different. He said, "Because I wouldn't go without you."

  "Me?" She stared at him for a moment, then got up to go for the coffeepot.

  He eyed her as she crossed to and from the stove. She was wearing blue jeans that emphasized her long legs with which, when they had sex, she clamped his waist.

  She poured for both of them, replaced the pot, and sat.

  "Yes, you," he said.

  "Terry, this town is full of couples who—"

  "Come and go from each other. Your parents, for example."

  "We should have such a good marriage."

  Terry arched an eyebrow. "I should join the Foreign Service? You should become a horsewoman?"

  "I am a horsewoman," she said lightheartedly, but making a point "And you're a rocket on the launching pad, sugar. You can't say no to Senator Kennedy."

  "I didn't. Relax. I didn't say no. I'm taking the job. Back to Beantown."

  "Good. Christ, Terry, you had me confused."

  "I could happily have never gone back there. Valley of the small potatoes—you know how I feel. But running the shop, speaking for the man—it does put me at a new level." Terry grinned suddenly. "Out from under Bright."

  "Blight's your rabbi. Why would you—?"

  "Because even if it's a warm shadow, it's a shadow. Seven years is long enough. From Boston, I'll report directly to Ted."

  "So we'll be commuters for a while. That's okay."

  "No. I mean, that's what I started to say. You're coming. You'll want to come."

  She stiffened.

  "The call to Bok. It was Ted's idea, not mine. I told him you couldn't leave the Corcoran, not when you'd just been promoted. He
asked me two or three questions, then boom! 'Get me Derek Bok' And Bok said yes, Joan."

  "What do you mean?"

  "The Fogg. He said he was sure there'd be something for you at the Fogg. I followed it up. You have an interview Tuesday."

  "The Fogg?"

  Terry nodded. "Agnes Mognan. I spoke to her."

  "Agnes Mognan?"

  "Herself. She's heard of you. She's seen your catalogue."

  "Jesus, Terry." Joan pulled back. "I like to make my career leaps on my own pony, thank you."

  "Fine. Suit yourself. You call Agnes Mognan and tell her you're staying at the Corcoran."

  "I didn't say that I didn't say that."

  "Nobody's made any commitments, Joan. That's all I meant."

  "Except you. You have, right?"

  "Yes. I'm going to Boston."

  "With or without me?"

  He looked away, recognizing the trap in her question. She was protecting herself, he knew, from how much he needed her. Too fucking much. His only chance of getting her to come, even to Harvard, was if he said he didn't care if she did or not. "Right, with or without you." He looked at her. "It's important, Joan, what Ted has asked me to do. Busing may explode again in Boston. Ted thinks I'm the one to handle things for him if it does. This is my shot."

  I am important, he was saying, I am a man of the world. Public duty, ambition to serve, and loyalty to Kennedy come before everything, even you. I am a man like your father. I am the man you want. I don't need you, not really. He said it with his eyes, his body, his mouth, but in his heart there was this other thing, the pull of gravity, drawing him down again, hands on his ankles, Boston. Without her, could he do anything there except sink once more into what he really was?

  They had met at a Georgetown party. Joan had sensed the difference in him right away. Bison hunters, good old boys, and self-inflated blowhards—she'd grown up in D.C. and had long since had it with the kind of men that came there. When she began to think that he really had no side game, that he was what he seemed, she let her interest show. "Come with me, sugar," she remembered saying as they left the party, "before the bad girls get you."