The Good Shepherd

by Thomas Fleming

  Cronin held up a plastic mask connected by a hose that ran down beside the bed to an oxygen tank.

  “I haven’t had one in two years,” Dennis gasped. “An awful time to pick -”

  “Stop talking,” Matthew Mahan said. “It’s my fault, not yours. I’ve just been examining my conscience, with the help of this heretic, and realized I’ve been working you like a galley slave.”

  Dennis smiled forlornly. “I was doing all right until last week – 3:00 a.m. every night.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “Now, Matt. Who can tell you anything?” asked Bishop Cronin.

  “Why don’t you go down and get something to eat,” the Cardinal said. “I’ll take over here.”

  With a wink at Dennis, Cronin departed. Matthew Mahan took his seat beside the bed. “How did things go on your tour?” Dennis asked.

  “Good enough. The laborer was worthy of his hire. Now they can say they’ve seen Rome with the world’s most expensive guide.”

  “They’ll find that out next year when -” Dennis began, but he ran out of air before he could finish the sentence.

  “Clap that on your mug,” said Matthew Mahan, handing him the mask. “I’ve got some pills over here you’re supposed to take. Bill Reed thought there might be an allergic factor. They’re antihistamines.”

  Dennis nodded. “The same ones I used to take back home. If they work, I may be all right by tomorrow morning.”

  He gulped down the pills with a glass of water and lay back on the pillows again. “I’m really sorry -” he started to say.

  “Do I have to start acting like the Pope and order you to shut up?”

  Dennis smiled feebly. He was in no shape to disagree.

  “I was supposed to go over to the Vatican this afternoon to see Cardinal Antoniutti or one of his boys about our nuns,” Matthew Mahan said. “In fact, before I left this morning, his office called to see if I could have lunch with him. It shows what the prospect of some red silk on your head can do for you in this town. But while I was saying mass this morning, I decided not to go.”

  Dennis managed to look surprised without saying anything.

  “If we can’t solve that problem on our own, I don’t deserve a red hat - or a bishop’s crosier, for that matter. The whole thing boils down to me doing a better job of explaining myself to those ladies. I haven’t tried to do it, really. Instead, I played the authority game to the hilt, I’m afraid. I’ve got to show them that I want the same things that they want for those poor people downtown. If I can’t do it, if I haven’t done it, it’s my fault.”

  Dennis was glad that he was forbidden to say anything. What could he do but agree - and that might start an episcopal explosion.

  Dennis noted the Cardinal’s hand moving back and forth across his stomach. “I’d better take some of my own medicine,” he said. “They’re giving a reception for us over at the embassy tonight. The four other American Cardinals arrived today. They all headed for the North American College. They’re all graduates, except Cooke, and he would have gone, except for the war.” He shook his head and smiled wryly. “One of the many clubs I don’t belong to, I’m afraid. During the council, I got awfully tired of inside remarks about the house on Humility Street. They’re a little like West Pointers when they get together. They’ve even got their own language. You’ll probably hear some of it in the coming week. They kid each other by saying, ‘Now you’re a real bag.’ That’s what they called themselves when they got decked out in their regulation cassocks, with the sky-blue piping on them. Don’t let them put you down with any of that junk. Personally, I think more college in America and less in Rome would make better bishops in the long run.”

  Dennis suddenly had difficulty breathing again. Was it what Matthew Mahan had just said, or some unlistening physiological mechanism that was determined to strangle him for reasons of its own?

  “Well,” Matthew Mahan said, “I’d better stop scandalizing you. But it’s the truth. It’s one thing to be loyal to the Pope on a spiritual basis. Letting the Curia run the American Church is another matter. On that point, I agree with old Davey. But I don’t feel we have to wreck the papacy to get our freedom.” He patted Dennis’s arm. “Go to sleep now, and I’ll read.”

  Dennis fell asleep a few minutes later. His dreams were bizarre. They always were whenever he took antihistamines. Helen Reed was in almost all of them, sometimes naked, sometimes clothed. Most of the time she was laughing about him, or at him. But once, she appeared with a tragic expression on her face. O withered is the garland of the war, she sighed over and over again. Every time she said it, he grew angry. Suddenly, his anger became panic. She would always be there beyond the reach of his fingers, the touch of his lips. He was a dry stick, a man fashioned in the shape of a cross, doomed forever to stumble through the world while the faithful chipped relics from his meaningless timber. Please.

  He awoke to find the oxygen mask over his nose and mouth and Matthew Mahan’s face so close to his face that it was a visual collision. The Cardinal’s steady blue eyes seemed to penetrate his own to the very depths of his soul. Did he know? More panic.

  “It’s all right, Dennis, it’s all right,” he said gently. “You must be getting better. You haven’t had any trouble for a couple of hours. Were you dreaming?”

  He nodded, the oxygen still hissing coolly down his throat.

  “It must have been a bad one. You looked scared.”

  He glanced at his watch. “There, that’s two minutes.” He took the mask off and hung it over the bedpost again.

  “Haven’t you gone to dinner yet?” Dennis asked. He was pleasantly surprised to hear his voice so clear. The pills were working.

  “Oh, I’ve been to dinner and came back a good while ago. I put the world’s oldest heretic to bed. I don’t want him dropping dead on me in the middle of Rome. How could we ever explain the odor of sanctity arising from the likes of him?”

  Bewildered and appalled, Dennis looked over at the other twin bed. It was empty.

  “I put him in my room.”

  “Really - you shouldn’t be losing this much sleep, either,” Dennis said.

  “I can afford to lose sleep a lot more than I can afford to lose a good secretary.”

  If emotion was the real cause of his asthma attack, Dennis thought gloomily, he should be strangling to death now. God, or whoever was in charge of his peculiar pilgrimage (the ironic angel?), certainly had a sense of humor. How does the sour young snot who is already actively involved in betraying his benefactor respond?

  “Really, I feel fine,” Dennis said desperately. Why don’t you try to get some sleep?”

  “It’s five-thirty in the morning,” Matthew Mahan said. I’m going out to say mass at six. Don’t worry about it. I’ll get a nap after lunch.”

  “What will you be doing today?”

  “Oh, I’m still playing tour guide. We’re going to St. Peter’s this morning.”

  “Don’t take Bishop Cronin along, unless you want to shock the true believers.”

  “Oh, don’t worry, I’ve had his tour of St. Peters. He’ll be on duty with you all day. I hope he didn’t shock you too much.”

  “It was interesting. I’m not sure what Mr. and Mrs. McAvoy thought about it all.”

  “Good God, I didn’t realize they were with you.”

  “Mr. McAvoy just got a little more conservative. But Mrs. McAvoy seemed inclined toward getting radicalized. She was that way before she went on the tour. Humanae Vitae has really got her upset about the Church.”

  Matthew Mahan nodded glumly. “She and most of the intelligent women in the diocese.” He sighed. “Anyway, I’m looking forward to our visit today. I was consecrated there by Pope John, at Bernini’s altar, the cattedra.”

  “Was that before or after you heard Cronin’s lecture on it?” Dennis asked.

  “Before. He didn’t emerge as a full-fledged radical until the council. He says that Pope John liberated the Church’
s unconscious - including his own.”

  “Why were you consecrated in St. Peter’s?”

  “Because I couldn’t get consecrated at home. Old Archbishop Hogan was a terrible man. He made a habit of cutting to pieces anyone who started to get too much publicity or power.”

  “How did old Hogan take the news?”

  “How do you think? On the way home, I was supposed to stop over in New York with Mike Furia and a couple of other people. Mike’s company has a suite in the Waldorf Towers, and we were going to see a few baseball games and a play or two. A telegram was waiting for me at the Waldorf desk. His Excellency the Archbishop ordered me to return to the diocese immediately and assume my episcopal duties.”

  “What were they?”

  “He gave me every confirmation in the diocese for the next three years. And all the fundraising, of course. And the seminary. Matthew Mahan looked at his watch again. “It’s almost six. I’d better get over there to say mass.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “To the Church of St. Peter in Chains. Have you ever been there? Don’t miss that statue of Moses by Michelangelo in the nave. Take some time to study it. When you get a chance, tell me what you saw.”

  He picked up the face mask. “Need a whiff before I go?”

  Dennis shook his head. “Your Eminence,” he said as the big man in black strode to the door. Dennis’s throat was tight, but his chest was remarkably free. “Thank you - for - for staying up with me.”

  Matthew Mahan turned in the doorway, his lips curving into that cocky Irish grin. “It’s the least I could do. After almost killing you.”

  Five minutes later, Bishop Cronin was in the room, telephoning for two continental breakfasts. “By God,” he said, “you’re cured. It’s a miracle, nothing less than a miracle.”

  “I hope you’re kidding,” Dennis said.

  “What do you mean, you irreligious young fool? Here we are in Rome, where there’s not a foot of ground that can’t be claimed by some damn crazy martyr who didn’t have brains enough to keep his head down when the centurions were out hunting Christians or some Italian hysteric who floated four feet in the air at the thought - the mere thought - of perpetual chastity.”

  “Okay, who shall we give the credit to?”

  “I’m torn between St. Patrick and Pope John, to be honest. I think we’d better give it to the latter. You fell on your kisser square across his coat of arms, a gesture of devotion which is typically Italian, to say the least. If we credit St. Patrick, we’d be in danger of summary vengeance by the maddened populace. After all, what was he? A mere leader of men, who preached into oblivion the oldest religion in Europe - I mean the Druids, lad - put together the best - I mean the holiest - national church in Christendom. What’s that compared to flying through the air or having the Virgin Mother appear to you, speaking pure Aramaic? No, we’ll give the credit to old Pope John. For one thing, he’s an Italian, and they don’t know what to do with him. They blame it on all the years he spent out of Italy, you know, as papal legate in Bulgaria and Turkey and France. He didn’t get back to Italy until he was seventy-three or so, too late to rebrainwash him.”

  Breakfast arrived, and Dennis decided he was hungry. He smeared a piece of fresh Italian bread with butter and marmalade and took a large swallow of coffee. “I can’t get over the nursing care I’ve gotten,” he said. “The Cardinal sitting up all night with me -”

  “I knew he would. I’ve had two heart attacks now, each of which carried me to within a handshake of St. Peter. Then for reasons best known to the Almighty, I was sent spinning back to my hospital bed, and who do I find sitting beside it at 3:00 or 4:00 a.m., looking like an undertaker about to bury his last client but himself. How can you help but love a man like that?”

  Yes, Dennis thought gloomily to himself, how, how?

  After leaving Bishop Cronin with Dennis, Matthew Mahan took a quick shower and shaved. Freshened, though a little lightheaded, he stepped into the hall and headed for the elevator. He was looking forward to saying mass at the Church of St. Peter in Chains. He wanted to combine what he had experienced there two nights ago with the words of the consecration. Out of this might come stronger, clearer insight.

  He had not taken more than ten steps when a woman appeared in the hall about 100 feet ahead of him. She had high, delicate cheekbones, a sensual, rather arrogant mouth, and dark hair elaborately done in Empire style. A white evening dress fell from beneath her maroon cloak to the tops of her high-heeled silver sandals. She stared coolly down the hall at him for a moment, and her hand went instinctively to her hair, which was in some disarray. A mocking smile played across her lips. She turned and walked ahead of him to the elevators.

  Well before he reached the door, Matthew Mahan knew that she had come from Mike Furia’s room. He was shaken by a strange combination of emotions. First anger, then a kind of fear. Was there anyone he could trust, anyone who did not betray him in one way or another? A new brutal loneliness assailed him. But now there was nothing, not even the faintest touch of the sweetness he had felt with Mary Shea. It was the bitter isolation that Jesus must have felt alone in the High Priest’s dungeon exposed to the whips and rods and insults of the temple police. All through his mass, Matthew Mahan struggled to accept the pain as Jesus had accepted it.

  After mass, he met the somber gaze of Moses with a new, more anguished understanding of his sadness. He said a silent prayer to Pope John, asking him for guidance. Slowly he became convinced that he must do something. He could not look the other way as he had done more than once during the war in France and Germany. Then he had told himself that men who faced death every day had to be forgiven a great deal. When he saw lines of G.I.s outside a local whorehouse, he had always turned down a side street before he got close enough to recognize anyone. Maybe Mike Furia had been in one of those lines. Maybe Father Mahan should have descended on the customers in the style of a few chaplains he had known and lectured them angrily, ordered them to disperse. But for every convert that technique made, there were a dozen enemies. Besides, all that was long ago in a different world.

  Mike Furia was more than a face in the congregation, a soul he was ordained to shepherd. He was a personal friend, a man with whom he had shared his life, who had often sought his advice, his help. To be silent now would be more than cowardice; it would be betrayal of Mike’s soul.

  Pressing another 1,000-lira note into the sacristan’s hand, Matthew Mahan left the Church of St. Peter in Chains and walked down through the tunnel to the Via Cavour. The streets were beginning to fill with people. The explosion of motor scooters and motorcycles, the roar of accelerating autos, filled the air around him. He walked on past pawnshops and palazzos. At one point he found himself staring dully at the Fountain of Trevi, practically deserted except for a quartet of determined young Americans who looked ready to pass out from lack of sleep or too much marijuana, yet did their best to raise their voices above the splash of the water. They were singing a kind of lament. The only words Matthew Mahan could catch were “goin’ home, goin’ home.” It suited his mood, but he declined their invitation to join them.

  By the time he reached the Hotel Hassler it was almost eight o’clock. Mournfully, with nothing to reassure him but a kind of grim determination, he knew what he was going to do. He would have to risk his friendship, his episcopal dignity - yes, even his self-esteem - without the slightest confidence of success. His stomach twinged. It was well past time for his breakfast mush, but that would have to wait. Up to the fifth floor in the elevator he went and down the hall to knock on Mike Furia’s door.

  “Hey,” Mike said as he opened the door, “I just had breakfast delivered. Do you want to join me? I’ll call for another order.”

  “Thanks, Mike,” he answered, “I’ll just drink your leftover milk.”

  “Okay,” said Mike, returning to the dresser where his bread was already broken and his coffee steaming in his cup. Matthew Mahan took a glass from the bathroom and
poured a few ounces of warm milk into it. He sipped it, while Mike munched on the roll and washed it down with coffee. The intense concentration he gave to swallowing the hot liquid made it seem a kind of primitive rite. He gasped with pain and pleasure. The massive body, the big dark face with the somewhat hooded eyes, was strangely threatening.

  “What’s up?” Mike said. “How’s Dennis?”

  “Fine, thank God. Listen, Mike, you’re not going to like what I’m about to say, but I’ve got to say it. I couldn’t face myself in the mirror or consider myself a priest if I didn’t say it.”

  Mike Furia put down his coffee cup and stared at him, completely baffled. Two furrows appeared on his wide, tan forehead. He hunched his huge shoulders and leaned forward in his chair, so that he looked even bigger than he already was. “I’m listening,” he said.

  “On my way out to say mass, I almost bumped into a woman coming out of this room. She - she obviously spent the night here.”

  “Well, I’ll be a son of a bitch.” Mike jumped to his feet and strode across the room, turned and walked back half the distance. “Matt,” he said, “it’s none of your goddamn business.”

  Matthew Mahan shook his head. “Mike, it is my business. What kind of a friend would I be, what kind of a priest would I be if I let you lose your soul in front of my eyes without saying a word?”

  Mike’s eyes could not have been more icy, more contemptuous.

  “What possible - value - what good can a woman like that do you? Do you even know her name?”

  “Of course I know her name. She’s a dress designer. One of the best in Rome. She’s separated like I am, and she can’t get married again because Holy Mother Church will put her in jail here in Italy.”

  “I’m sorry,” Matthew Mahan said humbly. “I thought - I thought she looked a little like a call girl.”

  “I have them, too, when she’s not available. I haven’t taken a vow of celibacy like you, Matt. I thought you understood that.”