by John Saul
Knowing Balsam’s background, Monsignor Vernon had felt it unlikely that his old friend would refuse. Balsam hadn’t.
Peter Balsam emerged from the church, recoiling from the hot blast that assaulted him as he stepped into the fierce sunglare. He told himself once again that the fear the town instilled in him was only in his mind. It was just that it was all so different from what he had grown up with, so dry and parched-looking.
He told himself that he should stay, should give Neilsville a chance. He had lived with fear too long, and this time he should overcome it As he walked to the rectory next to the church, he told himself that the discomfort he was feeling came only from his own imagination. But he didn’t believe it, for as he climbed the steps to the porch of the rectory, he again felt something pulling at him, something from outside himself. Something in Neilsville.
He glanced around for the doorbell as he crossed the porch. He was about to knock on the door when he saw a neatly lettered card taped to the inside of the glass panel in its center. “Please come in,” the card read. Balsam obediently tried the doorknob, and entered the foyer of the rectory. To his right stood a small table, and on the table rested a diver bell. Balsam picked up the bell, and shook it gently, sending a clear, tinkling sound through the house. A silent moment passed before he heard the click of a doorlatch somewhere down the hall and saw a figure emerge from a room. Then Pete Vernon was striding toward him, tall, purposeful, one hand stretched out in greeting.
“Peter Balsam,” he heard the priest’s voice boom. “How long has it been?” A moment later, even before he had a chance to say hello, Balsam found himself being propelled down the hall and into the room from which the priest had appeared a few seconds earlier.
“Pete—” Balsam began tentatively, as Vernon dosed the door of what was apparently his study. Suddenly Balsam realized that he was even more nervous than he had thought. Something in his old friend had changed. He seemed taller, and more confident, and there was a brooding quality in his eyes, a darkness that Balsam found unnerving. “It’s been a long time,” he finished lamely. “Thirteen or fourteen years, I guess.”
“Sit down, sit down,” Vernon said. He indicated two large easy chairs that flanked a stone fireplace, and settled into one of them before Balsam had reached the other. As he sank slowly into his chair, Balsam became acutely aware that Pete Vernon was examining him closely.
“I’m afraid I’m a bit rumpled,” he said, grinning uncomfortably. “It’s quite a hill you have here.”
“You get used to it,” Vernon said. “At least I have. Welcome to Neilsville.”
The Monsignor saw Balsam’s grin fade, and his own brows furrowed slightly. “Is anything wrong? The apartment not satisfactory?”
Balsam shook his head. “The apartment’s fine. I’m not sure what it is. It’s hard to explain, but ever since I got off the train, I’ve had this strange feeling. I can’t really put my finger on it I keep telling myself it’s only my imagination, but I keep getting the feeling that something’s—” He broke off, trying to find the right word. He hesitated over using the word “evil,” though that was the word that kept coming to mind. “—that something’s not right here.”
He felt a sudden chill coming from the priest, and realized he’d said the wrong thing. Neilsville had been the Monsignor’s home for nearly fifteen years, and the first thing Balsam had done was insult the place. He tried to recover from the blunder.
“But I’m sure I’ll get used to it,” he said quickly, and only then realized that he had committed himself to stay. The priest seemed to relax again, and smiled at
him.
“And your wife?” he asked smoothly. “Linda, isn’t it? When will she be joining you?”
“I’m afraid she won’t be joining me at all,” Balsam said carefully. “I’m afraid we’re separated. Sometimes things just don’t work out”
“I see,” Vernon said in a tone of voice that told Balsam he didn’t see at all. “Well, that’s most unfortunate.”
Balsam decided to try to make light of it. There was no point in trying to explain what had gone wrong and no sympathy in the priest’s steely gaze. “That depends on how you look at it,” he said, forcing a smile. “From our point of view—Linda’s and mine, that is—it was the marriage that was unfortunate, not the separation.”
Balsam’s smile faded as he watched Vernon stiffen. He had made another mistake: Pete Vernon was a priest, and a failed marriage was nothing to make light of.
“I shouldn’t have said that,” he said quickly. “Of course the whole thing has been very painful, and I’m afraid it will take time.” A lot of time, he thought to himself, but the priest seemed mollified.
“Of course,” Vernon said, his voice suddenly taking on a fatherly quality Balsam had never heard before. “If there’s anything I can do … “ He trailed off and then he suddenly shifted in his chair. When he spoke again, it was with annoyance.
“I wish you’d told me all this before,” he said. “Such things make a much bigger difference in towns like Neilsville than they do in bigger cities. It isn’t going to make things easier for either of us.”
My God, Balsam thought, is he going to fire me before I even get a chance? Aloud he said, “I don’t really see why my marital status is anyone’s business but my own.”
Vernon smiled tolerantly at him. “I’m afraid you have a lot to learn about Neilsville. Here, such matters are everybody’s business. Well, I don’t really see that there’s anything to be done about the situation, I mean, here you are, and Linda isn’t here, and that’s that, isn’t it?”
Balsam hoped his sigh of relief wasn’t audible. “Pete,” he began, but broke off when the priest held up his hand.
“Since we’re talking about the less pleasant aspects of Neilsville, there are one or two more things I should tell you right now. First, while we’re old friends, and it’s perfectly natural for you to call me Pete, in this parish we tend to be a bit on the formal side. Everybody, and I mean everybody, calls me Monsignor. It may seem stiff to you, but there are reasons for it. So I’d suggest that you try to get into the habit of using my title yourself.” He smiled wryly at the look of stupefaction on Balsam’s face. “I wish it weren’t necessary,” he said, “but Pm afraid it is. If people overheard you calling me Pete instead of Monsignor, they’d take it as a sign of disrespect”
“I see,” Balsam said slowly, hoping he’d matched the tone that Vernon had achieved earlier with the same phrase. “Doesn’t that sort of thing tend to isolate you from everyone?”
Vernon shrugged helplessly. “What can I do? That’s the way things have always been done here, and that’s the way the people here like it We have a duty to our flock, don’t we?” Before Balsam could reply, the priest stood up. “Suppose I take you on a little tour?” he suggested. “We might as well get you used to the lay of the land.” He smiled warmly, but Peter Balsam suddenly wondered just how much of that warmth was real.
Monsignor Vernon led Peter Balsam from the rectory across the tennis courts to the school building. The four girls who had been playing doubles stopped their game and stared at the two men. Peter Balsam grinned at them self-consciously, while the priest studiously ignored them.
The fifth girl, absorbed in trying to serve balls against the wall of a handball court, didn’t seem to notice them at all.
“They really gave me the once-over,” Balsam commented when the two men were inside the school building.
“It was me they were staring at,” Monsignor Vernon said stiffly. “They do it on purpose. They think it embarrasses me.”
“Does it?” Balsam asked mildly, and was surprised when the priest grasped his arm and turned to face him.
“No,” he said, his dark eyes boring into Peter’s. “It doesn’t bother me at all. Will it bother you?”
“Why should it?” Balsam asked in confusion, wondering why the priest was reacting so strongly.
The Monsignor dropped his arm as quic
kly as he’d grasped it. “No reason,” he said shortly. “No reason at all.”
But as they began their tour of the school, Peter Balsam was sure that there was a reason. He told himself it was nothing more than a function of their common background. Growing up in the convent, neither of them had ever learned how to deal with teen-age girls. And now, in their mid-thirties, it was probably too late for either of them to learn. So, in their own ways, each of them coped with his discomfort—Balsam by grinning foolishly, and Vernon by ignoring them completely. As they began their tour of St Francis Xavier High School, Peter Balsam put the entire incident out of his mind.
On the tennis court the four girls gave up their game and gathered together. Judy Nelson, a few months older than the other three, was snickering.
“We really bugged him that time,” she said. “He always tries to pretend we don’t exist”
“Only during the summer.” Penny Anderson shuddered. “During the year you can’t get away from him.” If any of the girls heard her, they didn’t respond. They were still watching the two figures as they disappeared into the school building.
“Did you see what happened when I waved to him?” Karen Morton asked. “I thought he was going to freak. I hate the way he stares at me.”
“Everyone stares at you,” Judy replied, trying to keep the envy out of her voice. “And the way you flash your body around, who can blame them?” Judy was pleased to see her Mend blush.
“She can’t help it,” Janet Connally defended Karen. “We can’t all afford to get new clothes every week.”
Karen Morton flushed again, unsure whether her overdeveloped figure or her poverty was the most shameful, and wishing someone would change the subject To her relief, the fourth girl in the group did.
“That must have been the new teacher with Monsignor,” Penny Anderson said. “My mother picked him up at the train this afternoon and took him to his apartment. She says he’s weird.”
“Then he’ll fit in here just fine,” Judy commented. “If you ask me, this whole town’s weird.” She shuddered a little, but the other three girls ignored it: Judy had hated Neilsville as long as they could remember.
“Are you going to take his course?” Penny asked Judy.
“I wouldn’t miss it,” Judy said, a conspiratorial look coming over her face. “Let’s all take it.”
“I don’t know if my mother will let me,” Penny said doubtfully. “She doesn’t think they ought to be teaching psychology.”
“Nobody does, except Monsignor,” Janet put in. “And I keep wondering why he wants it so badly. I mean, it seems like the last thing he’d want us to know anything about.”
“Maybe he had to put it in,” Karen suggested. “Maybe the Bishop insisted.”
“Oh, who cares?” Judy Nelson said impatiently. “The point is, if we can all get into that class, and they don’t split us up like they usually do, we can get away with anything. I mean, a new teacher, who isn’t even a nun? It’ll be too much. After the first week he won’t know what hit him.”
“It would be fun,” Penny agreed. “But I’ll have to work on Mother.”
“And speaking of mothers,” Judy cut in with a grimace, “I have to meet mine down at Osgood’s to buy a new dress. You want to come along?” The question was addressed to the group, but only Karen Morton responded:
”I’ll come. We’ll find you something sexy to wear to the party Saturday.”
“As if she’d let me buy something sexy,” Judy groaned. “She thinks I’m twelve years old.” The two of them wandered off, leaving Penny and Janet alone on the court. After a moment, Judy spotted the fifth girl still silently serving balls to herself on the handball court. She nudged Karen, then turned and called to her friends, loudly enough for the other girl to hear, “You coming, or are you just going to stand there and watch the elephant play?”
Janet Connally’s eyes widened in surprise at her friend’s meanness, but she said nothing. She just tugged at Penny’s arm, and began walking away. At the other end of the court Judy Nelson was giggling at her own wit.
The object of Judy’s wit, Marilyn Crane, wanted to shrink up and die. She’d heard the crack, as she knew she was intended to, and she tried to hold back her tears.
It wasn’t her fault she was clumsy, she told herself. It was just the way things were—the way things had always been. All her life, ever since she was small, she’d been too big, and too homely. All her life her mother had read her the story of the ugly duckling, and tried to convince her that someday she’d grow up to be a swan. But Marilyn knew it wasn’t true.
She tried to swat another ball neatly against the concrete wall, but missed. She glanced quickly around, relieved to see that she hadn’t been observed.
She scooped up her balls and stuffed them into a can. She would have done it much earlier, but the foursome had arrived, and Marilyn hadn’t wanted them to think she was leaving just because they were there. Staying had been even worse, since what little skill she had developed over the summer had immediately escaped her with the arrival of an audience. With the stoicism she had developed over her fifteen years of life, she had stuck it out. Now, finally, she was able to make her escape.
She decided to go into the church. It would be cool in there, but more important, in the church she knew she could find solace from her confusion. It was only there, sitting in the chilly gloom, that Marilyn felt she belonged, that no one was laughing at her, or making cruel remarks just loudly enough for her to overhear.
In church, Marilyn would be close to the Blessed Virgin, and the Blessed Virgin always brought her peace.
Indeed, when she sat in the church, staring up at the statue of the Madonna, it was almost as if the Virgin were alive and reaching out to her. Marilyn wanted to reach back, to touch that presence who brought her peace.
But each day, for Marilyn Crane, there was less and less peace. One day, she knew, there would be none at all. And on that day, she would finally touch the Sorrowful Mother, and her own sorrow would be transferred to the Mother of God.
Marilyn slipped into the church, and silently began praying for forgiveness of all her sins.
2
As they moved from room to room, exploring St. Francis Xavier’s High School, Peter Balsam began to feel increasingly uncomfortable. Most of the parochial schools he had seen had begun to take on the same casual flavor as the public schools, emphasizing secular subjects rather than religious training. But here in Neilsville, the classrooms were stark, decorated only with a small statue of the Blessed Virgin, placed in identical niches in each of the rooms. As the tour progressed, Monsignor Vernon became aware of Balsam’s discomfort.
“I told you we were formal around here,” he said with a tight smile. “I suppose you think we are a bit backward.”
Once again, Peter tried to make light of his feelings. “I was just wondering how St Francis Xavier himself would feel about all this,” he said. “As I recall, the old boy was pretty famous for his lack of formality. In fact, he tended to be pretty merry about most everything, didn’t he?”
Monsignor Vernon paused a moment, his hand resting on the doorknob of the only room they hadn’t yet inspected. He looked at Balsam for almost a full minute, and when he spoke it was obvious that he was choosing his words carefully.
“Let me put it this way,” he said. “Despite the fact that St Francis Xavier was a Jesuit, this is obviously not a Jesuit school. The fact of the matter is that Neilsville, and the people of this parish, myself included, tend to feel much more at home with the Dominicans than with the Jesuits. Do I make myself clear?”
Balsam tried to keep his smile genuine, and his voice easy. “Perfectly,” he said. “Although I have to admit that I tend to associate the Dominicans with the Inquisition. I’ll do my best to get over it”
Monsignor Vernon stared at him once more, then a smile began playing around his lips. “I hope you will,” he said, his voice taking on a warm heartiness. He unlocked the door of the
last classroom, then stood aside to let Peter enter. “This room is going to be yours.”
Balsam looked around the room with more curiosity than he had felt in any of the others. It seemed the same: square, overlooking the schoolyard, a blackboard on one wall, desks perfectly lined up in five rows of six desks each, with his own desk squatting forbiddingly in one corner, so placed that none of the students could ever be obstructed from his view. At the back of the room, as in all the other rooms, there was a niche for the ever-present statue of the Virgin Mary. But in this room the niche contained a different statue. Balsam stared at it for a moment, then turned to Monsignor Vernon. He was surprised to see that the beginnings of a smile had grown into a full-fledged grin.
“I don’t get it,” Balsam said finally, moving closer to the statue and examining it carefully. “Who is he?”
“That,” Monsignor Vernon replied in the jovial voice Peter Balsam remembered from their college days together, “is St. Peter Martyr.”
When Balsam still looked blank, Vernon continued, “That’s the Dominican you’re going to have to get used to. While St. Francis Xavier may have been famous for his merriment, St. Peter Martyr was equally famous for his vigilance in the matter of heresy.”
“Heresy?” Balsam repeated, still not seeing the point.
The grin faded from Monsignor Vernon’s face. “My idea of a joke,” he explained. “I thought, since you’re going to be teaching pyschology, and some of the modern psychological theories seem pretty heretical to the Church, that it might be amusing to put St Peter Martyr in here. To keep an eye on you.”
Balsam shook his head sadly, then looked closely at the man who had once been his Mend, trying to determine if the priest really had thought it would be amusing to put the statue in his room, or whether he was trying to say something to Balsam, to warn him about something. It was impossible to tell.
