The Miracle

by Irving Wallace

  Amanda weighed repeating these words to Ken. They might represent overkill. Amanda decided that she might best overlook this passage. She paused before more of her markings and reread the words to herself. Zola's doctor was speaking. "And if Bernadette was only hallucinated, only an idiot, would not the outcome be more astonishing, more inexplicable still? What! An idiot's dream could have sufficed to stir up nations like this! No! No! The Divine breath which alone can explain prodigies passed here." Listening, Father Pierre agreed. "It was true, a breath had passed there, the sob of sorrow, the inextinguishable yearning toward the Infinite of hope. If the dream of a suffiering child had sufficed to attract multitudes, to bring about a rain of millions and raise a new city from the soil, was it not because the dream in a measure appeased the hunger of poor mankind, its insatiable need of being deceived and consoled?"

  Yes, better, Amanda told herself, that would do nicely to bring Ken back to the realistic world. Zola's was a mind that Ken could not ignore or fail to respect. And, somewhere, Zola had referred to the infallible Bernadette as "a mere imbecile." Yes, Zola might do the trick.

  But then, sitting back, she felt a moment of uncertainty. She knew that already Ken's chances with surgery were far less than they had been three weeks ago. Still, clinging to the thought of Zola, she told herself that there was time enough, that every minute counted. Also, she realized that she needed passionately for her own sake to bring Ken back to her reality, the realm of science. She had to fight this her way. She had to believe Zola counted.

  As Amanda sat with the book in her lap, she heard Ken's voice in

  the corridor, and saw him outside the compartment with Father Wood-court.

  The priest was saying, "Well, I'll leave you here, Mr. Clayton. You'll need a few moments rest before we pull into Lourdes. I'll just go on to the last few cars. I'm sorry if I tired you."

  "Oh, I'll be all right," Ken said. "It was worth anything. Thanks for the tour, and thanks especially for introducing me to Mrs. Moore. That was really a thrill."

  Ken watched the priest start off, and finally turned in to the compartment. As he dropped into the seat near Amanda, he tried to smile, but it was a wan smile. His once healthy features were pale, almost ghostly, and Amanda suffered a grip of fear again about his condition.

  "Are you feeling all right?" Amanda asked worriedly. "You shouldn't have taken the tour."

  "Wouldn't have missed it for anything," said Ken.

  He seemed so plainly exhausted that Amanda could not stand it. She took his hand briefly. "Ken, let me give you something. You can use a little relief." She meant a sedative or pain-killer.

  He shook his head. "No. I want my mind perfectly alert when we pull into Lourdes. That should be very soon." With effort, he sat up and suddenly his eyes brightened. "Amanda, something truly exciting happened on the train tour. I was introduced to Edith Moore. I spoke to her."

  Momentarily, Amanda was bewildered. "Edith Moore?"

  "You remember, the miracle woman we heard about in London. She's on this pilgrimage, a few cars down. You should see her. Robust and strong as an Olympic athlete. Five years ago she had the same—or a similar—degenerative bone cancer of the pelvis, very much like mine. The doctors gave her up, she was telling me, and then she made a trip, two trips, to Lourdes, and the second time, after praying at the grotto, drinking the water, taking a bath, she was instantly cured, totally cured, able to walk without a crutch, able to go back to work in London. The destroyed bone area was spontaneously regenerated. Doctors in London and Lourdes have examined her time and again, and they've now agreed that she has been miraculously healed. The official announcement will be made at Lourdes this week. Her cure will be declared a miracle." Ken Clayton sank back in his seat, life returning to his face, his smile broader. "I keep telling myself, if it could happen to her, to Mrs. Moore, it can happen to me. I'm really so happy we came here. I've never been more optimistic."

  "I'm glad," said Amanda woodenly. "I'm glad you met Mrs. Moore."

  "I'm sure you'll have an opportunity to meet her, too, after we arrive, and you'll feel as reassured as I feel." He glanced at Amanda. "What have you been doing while I've been going through the train?"

  She dropped her hand over the title of the Zola novel in her lap. "Oh, just reading -- a book."

  Hastily, she stuffed the two volumes into her tote bag. She knew that the timing was wrong. She couldn't undermine her darling's optimism with Zola's harsh reahties, not at this moment, not when Ken was so hopeful and happy after his encounter with Mrs. Moore.

  Turning away from him, Amanda could see out the window that they were still running alongside the river. That would be the Gave de Pau. Gave meant a river from the mountains in this region, she had read. They were passing woods, and the outlying buildings of a town, and in the distance was the spire of what she presumed was the famous Upper Basihca, with an eighth-century castle perched high on a hill beyond it, and farther off, the jagged green Pyrenees. They were definitely approaching the city of their destination, a city circled by nine other venerable French shrine sites.

  She had intended to point it out to Ken, but she saw that his eyes were closed and that he might be dozing.

  Then the sweet and simple rockaby sound came drifting through the loudspeaker again. The Lourdes hymn, first sung in 1873. She listened to the lyrics:

  "Immaculate Maryl Our hearts are on fire That title so wonderous Fills all our desire/ Ave. Ave, Ave Maria."

  They must be in Lourdes.

  Father Woodcourt, followed by Dr. Macintosh, bustled into the compartment to confirm it, and take up their bags.

  Amanda started to awaken Ken Clayton, but his eyes, heavy, were open. "We're in Lourdes, my darling," she said.

  For an instant his eyes brightened once more, and he made a clumsy effort to rise. She took his arm firmly, and helped him to his feet.

  "Lourdes," he murmured as she reached down for her tote bag.

  Assisting Ken, Amanda pushed into the crowded train aisle, oppressive and smelling of sweat, trying to stay behind Father Woodcourt. "Follow me," the priest called back several times.

  They stepped down from the Wagon-Lits onto a station platform crammed with arriving members of their London pilgrimage. Father Woodcourt signaled Amanda and Ken, and some others near them. "We're on Quai Two, the main-line platform," he announced. "We'll cross the tracks and go into the station. Those three cars you see being uncoupled will be taken to the Gare des Malades, the adjoining station for invahds who'll need wheelchairs to go to their own special buses. Now, just stay with me."

  They crossed over the tracks to a doorway above which was mounted a sign, accueil des pfeLERiNS.

  "Means Pilgrims Welcome," said Father Woodcourt. The interior of the main hall of the train depot was no different from many others that Amanda had seen in her travels. modern brown wood benches sat in rows on black rubberized flooring. The single cheerful sight in the hall was an ordinary mural of a Pyrenees mountain landscape.

  The group moved outdoors, past a taxi stand, toward a parking lot lined with buses. "Our bus is straight ahead," said Father Woodcourt. "Can you see the ones with the poles and placards beside them carrying the names of the hotels?" He pointed off. "There we are between the ALBION and CHAPELLE." He headed directly toward the pole with the sign Hotel Gallia & Londres.

  In twenty minutes they had drawn up before the Hotel Gallia & Londres, and were filing off the bus to trudge after Father Woodcourt into the airy lobby. The priest eflSciently herded them together in the middle of the lobby, told them to have patience while he obtained their room assignments.

  Amanda kept worrying about Ken, who had recovered sufficiently to speak up for the first time since leaving the train. "We're here," he whispered, "we're in Lourdes. We made it." Amanda nodded. "Yes, darling, we made it."

  Father Woodcourt had returned with a packet of envelopes clutched in his hands. He called for attention, and there was an immediate silence. "I have the room
assignments," he announced, "and will call out your names in alphabetical order. In these envelopes you'll find a map of Lourdes, several information sheets, the number of your room, and your key." He began reading off the names.

  When he got to the "C's," he called out, "Mr. and Mrs. Kenneth Clayton." With a twinge, Amanda accepted their envelope and the lie of their union, which they had agreed in Chicago would be the best way to travel.

  When Father Woodcourt had finished with his handouts, he asked for attention once more. "Each of you has all the information you

  require on your information sheets—your room number, the hours for breakfast and dinner, which are included in your demi-pension rate, and other hotel instructions." He cleared his throat. "Those who wish to can go directly to their rooms to rest, have a wash, unpack—if your baggage is not already in your room, it will be there shortly. We will dine downstairs, the floor below the lobby, and after that, for those who are up to it, we wOl observe the nightly candlelight procession in the domain, and tomorrow we will participate in it as a group. Meanwhile —" He paused, and resumed. "For those of you who would prefer enjoying a visit to the grotto before going to your rooms or dinner, I am prepared to lead the way. How many would like to go to the grotto before doing anything else? Hold up your hands."

  Amanda observed that two-thirds of the group had lifted their hands high. And among these was Ken, standing beside her.

  "Ken, no, you're not up to it, I won't let you," Amanda whispered fiercely. "You've got to rest. You can do the grotto tomorrow. It won't go away."

  Ken gave her an indulgent smile. "Honey, I've got to see it now, do my prayers there right now. The very thought of it makes me feel better. I'll see you before dinner."

  Dismayed, Amanda watched him hobble off with the majority who had chosen to accompany their priest to the grotto. Almost alone in the lobby, except for a cluster of pilgrims waiting for the elevator to return, and discussing their plans to attend Mass tomorrow on Assumption Day, Amanda opened the envelope in her hand. Mr. and Mrs. Clayton had bedroom 503 on the fifth floor. Gripping her tote bag, Amanda joined the cluster at the elevator. She simply couldn't understand this Ken Clayton, weary to the bone yet plunging forth to hike to a cave in a hill and fervently devote himself to prayer there, exhausting himself to seek salvation, expecting to be saved as that Mrs. Moore had been saved. The sensible Ken she had known in Chicago, the smart and sharp lawyer, would have seen through the Mrs. Moores and all the other miracle cures at once. That Ken would not have expected miracles, would have understood that sudden cures were not miracles but psychosomatic in origin. Such cures could not happen to everyone, especially to those like Ken who were truly and most seriously ill.

  The elevator had come, and Amanda, with difllculty, had squeezed in it with the others. The ascent was slow, starting and stopping, and she and an aged and hunched male pilgrim were the last to get off on the fifth floor. There was only one direction to go, and Amanda went up the corridor until she found room 503. She inserted her key and opened the door. At least now she could rest and luxuriate until Ken's return.

  What met her eyes as she took a few steps into the double bedroom made her blink, because it was so unexpected. The Gallia & Londres hotel had been advertised as a deluxe three-star hostelry, but what lay before her eyes was an abomination. The room was as confining for two persons as a room could possibly be. It was hardly a room. It was a drab cell. Twin beds, covered with vomitus green bedspreads, filled, or seemed to fill, the entire space. To the left, at the foot of the beds, there was a small table, a side chair, and next to it a bureau. There were simply no other furnishings in the room, and no adornments except a niche on either side of the headboards holding statuettes of Jesus and the Virgin Mary. Across the room there were tired drapes on either side of a window. To get to the window and open it for air, Amanda had to press sideways between the table and foot of the beds. Raising the window, she could see a long procession of people marching in the afternoon sun on the other side of a park. They were singing now, and what assaulted her ears once again was the refrain of the Lourdes hymn.

  Amanda worked her way to a door leading into a closet of a bathroom containing a short tub, toilet, bidet, sink. The paint on the medicine cabinet was chipped, and the light over it flickered eerily on and off.

  Sitting on the edge of the nearest bed, Amanda wanted to cry. This was no place for them, certainly not for Ken, who needed comfort and rest and quiet. This cell, pretending to be a room, would never do, never.

  She tried to think out what could be done. There were no better accommodations in this "superior" hotel. All other accommodations in the town had been spoken for days ago. There was nowhere to move to, unless something could be found outside the town, something more— more acceptable.

  That instant she remembered. The luxury hotel that she had stayed in for two days and one night the summer she had been given a trip to France after graduation. The place had been magnificent, memorable, and she had heard during her visit there that it was not too far ft-om the shrine at Lourdes.

  That would be the place to stay, perfect for poor Ken, perfect for both of them. It would make their few days here -- and it would be no more than a few days, at most -- it would make that miserable time endurable.

  What in the devil was the place called?

  Eugenie-les-Bains, that was it.

  She would telephone the hotel there at once, immediately, for a

  reservation this very evening, and make the change the moment Ken came back from the grotto.

  Sergei Tikhanov came to Lourdes late in the afternoon by way of Lisbon, Geneva, Paris -- all short flights.

  As he sat in the taxi that had brought him from the airport into Lourdes, he was conscious of the two changes in his person. One was the small blue counterfeit passport in his suit jacket's inner pocket that identified him as Samuel Talley of New York, a citizen of the United States of America. The other was the shaggy false mustache that covered the tell-tale brown wart on his left upper lip, and hung down the sides of his cheeks and masked a portion of his mouth. The mustache, he had decided, was more than sufficient disguise. Without it, his face with the trademark wart, so widely publicized throughout the world for so many years, might have made him recognizable to someone.

  The airport taxi was slowing, and the French driver, catching his eye in the rear-view mirror, addressed him. "Here we are, monsieur."

  Tikhanov looked out the window to his right, saw that they were on a street called Avenue du Paradis, and there was a parking lot and a wide muddy river flowing beyond it. He turned to his left to see that they had come to a halt in front of the entrance of the six-story brick-red hotel with the name emblazoned above the top story: NOUVEL HOTEL STREET - LOUIS DE FRANCE.

  Since newspaper accounts had made it clear that Lourdes would be overcrowded during this dramatic week, and that all accommodations had been booked by official pilgrimages within a few days of the announcement of the Virgin Mary's reappearance, Tikhanov had worried about finding a place to stay. Fortunately, the concierge at Geneva's Hotel Intercontinental, a longtime acquaintance named Henri whom he had always generously overtipped, had been someone who might lend a hand. Tikhanov had told Henri that a close friend, an American in New York named Talley, a religious gentleman, was planning to visit Lourdes during the Reappearance festivities. The only problem was that his friend Talley had been too late to sign on with a pilgrimage and had been unable to obtain a hotel reservation on his own. Knowing that Tikhanov was well traveled, Talley had wondered whether he had any contacts who might discover a hotel room in Lourdes for a week or two. Tikhanov had said that he had not been able to promise his friend anything, since he himself had never visited Lourdes nor did he intend to do so. But he had assured his friend that he would ask around, and upon arriving in Geneva, it had occurred to Tikhanov to see whether Henri could make any suggestions.

  It turned out that Henri had been ready to cooperate with one suggestio
n. Henri had, a few years earlier, accompanied his grandfather to Lourdes and they had stayed at the Hotel St.-Louis de France and formed a friendship with Robert, the head concierge. In fact, even as Tikhanov waited, Henri had telephoned Robert in Lourdes, to put in a word for Tikhanov's friend—what was his name again? Talley? Ah yes, Mr. Talley from New York—but then Henri had learned that Robert was ofif on a vacation and would not be back at his desk until the first day of The Reappearance Time. "No matter," Henri had reassured Tikhanov. "Just have your friend present himself in person the day Robert is back, have him invoke my name, and Robert will remember and give Mr. Talley a room. There is always an extra room, believe me.

  Believing him, Tikhanov had felt relieved. But now, stepping out of his taxi before the hotel, he was less certain. In life, as in diplomacy, Tikhanov was always cautious, always leaving back doors open, even in the most minute matters. Right now, he decided to keep his taxi on hold. As the driver stepped down from the front seat to remove the suitcase from the trunk, Tikhanov told him, "Not yet. Just wait a few minutes. I must be sure I have a room. They might send me somewhere else."

  His condition, as he had come to think of his muscular dystrophy, nagged him today, and Tikhanov went up the outer dark-gray steps slowly. The ground floor lobby was modest and modern, an elevator and staircase directly ahead. Behind the counter, musing over a ledger, was a bespectacled, uniformed concierge.