Tender Victory

by Caldwell, Taylor;

  He and the children were permitted a small sandwich and milk in the dining room. Pietro had served as altar boy for the first time that morning. He was full of fascinating news, and explanations. He spoke with authority. Johnny said, “To listen to you, a person would come to believe that you instructed Father John Kanty yourself. Did you really tell him what to say, and where to stand?”

  Pietro laughed. Kathy said, “He tells so many stories.”

  Jean was about to deflate Pietro thoroughly, for he had been at Mass too, then reflected this was no kindness for a coming priest. He said instead, “Pietro did very well. Not perfectly, of course, but well. He stumbled only once or twice, and was a little late, but only once or twice. But after all, he’s new.” He laughed at Pietro. “When I am a priest, you can be my altar boy.”

  “When I am the great singer, I shall send you a ticket,” replied Pietro, condescendingly. “I have seen pictures of the Metropolitan Opera. There is a high balcony. You will like it up there.”

  Max told of the Thanksgiving service in the synagogue. “So many people,” he said. “The rabbi was pleased. They put out iron chairs to sit on, in the back, and the upstairs was filled too. So soon we shall have a very big synagogue. The rabbi spoke of it, and said we should give thanks. Dr. Klein sent all of us his love.”

  “No one,” said Kathy, “can speak like Papa. People wiped their eyes.” She beamed at him lovingly.

  “I love Papa,” said little Emilie, nestling her head against Johnny’s arm. Her big blue eyes shone on him, and his heart felt the familiar ache. But, surely, she was looking much better. There was a little bright color on her cheekbones. He was afraid to pray. He was afraid to touch her face, for fear that the color was fever.

  They all went out to look at their trees. They looked, too, at the great purple mountains and the effulgent sky. Johnny was filled with rich content. He could not remember when he had been so happy. Now, if only Lorry were in town, everything would have been perfect. Her eyes were very vivid, all at once, in his inner sight. He sighed, and deliberately tried to forget.

  At quarter to three Dr. McManus arrived, growling as usual. The children swarmed about him, while he pretended to fight them off. He had brought a large box of candy in the shape of pumpkins and turkeys for them. They were entranced. He went out into the kitchen, holding the box high over his head, while their hands reached for it. He gave it to Mrs. Burnsdale to put on an upper shelf. “None until after dinner,” he said. He too looked at the turkey and the pies with satisfaction. The children, disappointed, left the kitchen. The doctor leaned against the refrigerator and smirked tolerantly at Mrs. Burnsdale.

  Mrs. Burnsdale said, “Don’t you touch those tarts!”

  The doctor chewed one happily. “Homemade,” he said. He stared at Mrs. Burnsdale, who wore a very neat black dress with a round white collar and cuffs. Johnny had given her that modest opal pin on the dress for her birthday in October. It was set in silver. She was wearing her very best “foundation” and her stocky figure had full and pleasant curves. Her gray hair was freshly waved, and had silver highlights, and her face glowed with natural color. “You know,” said the doctor, “you’re a very good-looking woman, Mrs. Burnsdale. How old are you? Fifty-seven? I’d say you’re five years younger since you came here. Climate must agree with you.” He looked at the dish of tarts, then put his hands in his pockets. “Best cook I ever saw. You wouldn’t consider marrying me, would you?”

  Mrs. Burnsdale laughed heartily. “Well, you ask me when Mr. Fletcher gets married and the kids are grown up! Doctor, you’re a card.”

  “You’re not up on modern slang,” said the doctor. “‘Card’ dates you. I’ve been learning slang from Pietro and that Lon Harding and his bunch of young delinquents. It’s interesting. I think they’d call those tarts real frantic, or something. So, I have to wait until Johnny’s married, eh? And then I’ll be a doddering old—well, something, and you’d be marrying me only for my money. Whereas if you marry me right away I’ll have my whole youth to give you.”

  Mrs. Burnsdale’s eyes danced; a bloom of youthfulness covered her moist face. She said, “That reminds me. I’ve got another list.”

  “Not today you haven’t,” said the doctor, and bolted.

  The dinner was a mighty success. Johnny looked at the young faces about him, at Mrs. Burnsdale, and at the doctor, and he marveled that God had been so exceedingly good to him, and had brought him to this city which had needed him and which he now loved, and in which his children were tentatively sinking their frail and injured roots.

  “I had a call from Dr. Stevens this morning,” he said as he demolished a drumstick, “from Florida. He had had something he calls a virus, and he is down there recovering. He’s an old man now, and I think he’s tired.”

  “Who wouldn’t be, in this world?” asked Dr. McManus, thoughtfully eying the chestnut dressing. “Thanks, think I will,” he said to Mrs. Burnsdale as she scooped out more of the crumbling, hot fragrance. “What do you mean, ‘old man’? He isn’t much older than I am, and I don’t think I’m old.”

  “You’ve never been a minister,” said Johnny. Dr. McManus gave him a sudden keen glance. Was it imagination, or were there really deeper lines in Johnny’s face, older lines? Johnny continued, “It’s a terrible responsibility, I know, to be a doctor, and have to care for the bodies of patients, and to wonder if you’re doing the right thing. But to be a clergyman is an even more terrible responsibility. For you have to heal and minister to men’s immortal souls. You know how eternally you can hurt, if you make a mistake, or you’re careless, or in doubt yourself, or become mechanical in your ministrations. Father John Kanty told me that familiarity is the pit into which any clergyman can fall, to his awful harm and the harm to his people. The message, though never changing, fixed in eternity, is yet ever new, ever living, ever born in every instant, can never be slighted by hastiness, by taking for granted.”

  “You fellers remind me of Sisyphus,” said the hardhearted doctor. “Every day you try to roll the big stone of your message to the top of the hill, sweating and bleeding in your tender consciences, and every morning it’s down at the bottom again, and the people going along unconcerned at the top of the hill. At least when I take out a gall bladder it’s out, and when I fix a leg it’s fixed, and that’s the end of it. If I had to repeat the same performance on the same people every day—well, I’d think I’d gotten into hell or a perpetual nightmare.” He looked at the dressing on the platter again, but Mrs. Burnsdale shook her head sternly. He grumbled.

  “One of these days,” said Johnny, “we’ll get the stone to the top. One fold, one Shepherd. Pietro, you know we don’t suck our fingers.”

  “No?” said the mischievous little boy. “It’s—appreciate.”

  “Appreciation,” said Johnny absently. He paused, looked at his plate. “Is Miss Summerfield home for Thanksgiving, doctor?”

  “No. Haven’t heard from her lately,” the doctor lied airily. “Why the interest?”

  Johnny colored slightly. “Well, after all, I know her, she was good—she did such a wonderful thing—the children adored her.”

  “Ah,” said the doctor, deftly slipping some dressing onto his plate when Mrs. Burnsdale’s attention was on Pietro. “Just the children. By the way, Pietro’s right. In Italy, where the people are civilized, it is considered a compliment to the cook to lick a finger or two delicately. That doesn’t mean the whole hand,” he said to Pietro.

  “What is this football?” asked Max, who had become a devotee of the large and handsome radio the doctor had given the family a few weeks ago. “It is all exciting, and running and kicking.”

  “It’s a game,” said Johnny enthusiastically. “I was a quarter-back.” Kathy looked aloof and superior, but the three boys listened with sparkling attention. Max, however, had one small doubt. “But the people who watch, and the men who play—is it a waste of time?”

  “Not at all,” replied Johnny, with some irritati
on. “Remember, there is much room in life for joy and laughter and gaiety, Max, as well as for study and prayer. Besides, God wants us to enjoy His world.” He was immediately contrite, for Max’s face had become confused and a little lost again. “Enjoy it, son,” said Johnny, more gently. “You are learning to play, but you must learn a little more. I’ll buy you a football and teach you three boys to play. By the way, Kathy,” he said, noting the girl’s smug expression, “I hear you’re doing pretty well, yourself, on your Sunday school softball team. I also hear that you’ve thought up some very funny ideas about new rules, not in the book. You’re a tyrant, Kathy.”

  “I improve things,” said Kathy loftily, as she reached for another tart.

  “You’re not improving your figure with all that overeating,” said Mrs. Burnsdale. “Besides, you abide by the rules of a game. Remember that, miss.”

  Even little Emilie was eating well. When anyone’s eyes met hers she gave them her radiant, blue-eyed smile. But the doctor studied her closely, and relapsed into melancholy thought.

  Mrs. Burnsdale stood up briskly. “If anyone thinks I’m going to wash these dishes all by myself he and she are mistaken, I can tell you that. All you kids do is talk. Well?”

  “The direct type,” said Dr. McManus.

  Kathy jumped up, heaving a happy sigh of repletion. Pietro and Max rose with less alacrity. “It is woman’s work, dishes,” said Pietro.

  “Who told you that?” demanded Kathy. “You get the funniest ideas. You ate off the plates, didn’t you?”

  “It’s a man’s duty to pray, a woman’s duty to work,” said Max, not too hopefully.

  “Get,” said Kathy to him. She said to Jean, “Are you going to try to play the grown-up man again? You can sit in a chair in the kitchen and scrape and wipe, too.” She handed Jean his two canes with an uncompromising air, and helped him out to the kitchen.

  The doctor said, “I pity the man who will marry that girl. She never heard of equal rights, but she’s already inventing them.”

  Emilie was taken upstairs for her afternoon nap. Johnny stood by her bed. She held his hand tightly, and looked up at him eloquently, for she had no words to tell her love. Johnny bent over her and kissed her gently, and he prayed, and again there was that mysterious lack of answer. He went downstairs to join the doctor in the parlor, and the lines in his face had grown deeper.

  “Never mind your pipe,” said Dr. McManus. “Try a cigar. Dollar apiece.” He looked about him, satisfied. “Things have taken on a pleasant air around here. By the way, I’ve been trying to get you a new furnace. But all I hear is shortages. Maybe some people are hoping for another war. Anyway, I’ve been promised a new furnace by February.”

  The sky had darkened, a wind had risen, and now the atmosphere was cold and ashen. A few flakes of snow drifted by the windows. The two men smoked in silence.

  Then the doctor said, feeling suddenly oppressed, “This is the best Thanksgiving Day I ever spent. Thanks, Johnny.”

  But Johnny did not hear. He was filled with an intense and imminent foreboding and despondency. He looked at the snow, which he had always loved, and now he felt that all the world had emptied for him, and he was utterly desolate, as he had been in his dream. In his mind he looked for that patch of radiant blue, but it did not appear.

  22

  December was a month of drizzle and smog. Little Emilie’s improvement ceased, and she began a rapid decline. “The fellers who make the smog don’t care,” said Dr. McManus wrathfully. “They live up there in the foothills and mountains, and their offices are air-conditioned, so what does it matter to them? I talked to the mayor and others a couple of months ago, but they’re not of my political party, and they hinted I was a busybody. Well, one of these days we’re going to have a real inversion, and a few dozen old folks and children and invalids are going to die, and then we’re going to get action. Not until then, though. Just like they put up traffic lights after people get killed, one after another, at an intersection. Proof, they want. Well, they’ll get it. In the meantime, let’s see what we can do for this baby.”

  The Press did not complain, nor the Press-owned morning newspaper. They did publish a few mild complaints in the “People’s Column.” There were no editorials. In the meantime, the people coughed miserably on the streets, in their factories and offices and shops, and children developed bronchitis and asthma. The wet streets of Barryfield gritted underfoot with the fine drifting of soot, which could not escape under the stifling clouds of moisture. The mountains disappeared, until people almost forgot they existed. If the sun occasionally appeared, it was a diffused ball of cloudy saffron, which threw a sickly yellow on the clouds at sunset, and smeared the dirtied houses and other buildings with sulfurous shadows.

  Air conditioners were still in short supply. “When’s that goddam war going to end?” asked Dr. McManus. “It’s been over for a year. I’ll manage to get an air conditioner somehow!”

  He did. He brought it to the parsonage, and it was installed in the girls’ room for Emilie, who lay gasping and blue on her small bed. “It’ll help a little,” said the doctor. “We’d better have the filters changed regular, though. The smog fouls them up fast.” He gave the little girl an injection of adrenalin. She had peered frantically at the needle until the doctor had said with rough affection, “Come on now. You know this is going to prick, and that’s all.” He made a gargoyle face at her, and while she coughingly laughed he deftly slipped the needle into her tiny and emaciated arm. Then, before she could cry, he stuffed a lollipop into her mouth. “Keep her in bed,” said the doctor. “That adrenalin wasn’t the best thing for her heart, but it was a toss-up between her lungs and her heart, and what could I do? Give her five of those pills of Tim’s every day, instead of three.” He patted the pallid little cheek. “There’s my girl,” he said gruffly, lifting her higher on her pillow. He smoothed the long curls with a tender hand, wiped away the tears still on her cheeks. She began to breathe more easily, and sucked noisily.

  This was the eighteenth day of the smog. All the children, and Johnny too, coughed wretchedly, and blew their noses and wiped their eyes. But Christmas was coming, and even smog could be forgotten in view of the excitement of the children’s first Christmas. Emilie, relieved by the air conditioner and the attentions of both Dr. McManus and Dr. Kennedy, became excited. Johnny entered into a conspiracy with the children which gave them much giggling delight. He encouraged them to make out lists, and optimistically considered that one hundred dollars would be more than enough for gifts, for everybody. On Saturdays, the four older children went with Mrs. Burnsdale on mysterious errands of their own, for they had their own small allowances now. They came back with wildly excited stories of the shops. Pietro pranced dramatically to describe the wonderful rocking horse, costing only fifty dollars, which he had decided would be his main present.

  “Fifty dollars!” said Johnny, with dismay.

  “What is fifty dollars?” asked Pietro, with a high, fine flourish of his arms. Only about a week’s pay, thought Johnny.

  “A doll like an angel, almost as big as Emilie,” said Kathy. “Only twenty-five dollars. I shall have the heart broken if I don’t get it.”

  Max was more modest, for his important present. He wished a complete modeling set; price, ten dollars. There went eighty dollars at one clip, Johnny reflected. Jean was set on a bicycle, which he could use in the spring. The cheapest was thirty dollars. Emilie, listening rapturously to the other children, wanted everything, and Kathy wrote a list for her.

  “Christmas,” said Johnny, “is Our Lord’s Birthday. It doesn’t consist mainly of presents.”

  “But He gave us the best of presents—salvation—didn’t He?” asked Pietro with his sly and gleaming smile. “Can Papa not be like Our Lord, and give what he can?”

  “There’s the matter of cash,” Johnny suggested.

  “Pouf,” said Pietro. “What is cash?”

  “Only a matter of life and death for most
people,” said Johnny, annoyed.

  He was more annoyed with Mrs. Burnsdale, who calmly collected the lists and turned a bland ear to Johnny’s protests. “Let the children have their fun,” she said serenely. “And a rude awakening on Christmas morning,” said Johnny. He was desperately worried. In all conscience he could not withdraw any of the children’s money for gifts. Besides, there were future Christmases, too.

  Pietro said one day, “Sister Maria Bernadine said when we think only of gifts, and not the meaning of Christmas, we do wrong. She forgets,” said the little one with a wise smile, “that the Magi brought gifts to the Christ child. Gold!” He rolled his eyes and rubbed his hands very tellingly.

  “And myrrh and spices,” Johnny reminded him.

  “Hah!” said Pietro. “What could they buy? The Holy Family couldn’t have gone to Egypt without that gold, could they? That donkey cost money, and so did their dinners. Could they have eaten the myrrh and spices?”

  “I never gave it a thought,” said Johnny, amused in spite of himself.

  “I think many things,” said Pietro mysteriously. “And all wrong, too,” Kathy added. She was beginning to give Johnny worried glances.

  Mrs. Burnsdale gave the lists to Dr. McManus. He squealed when he read them. “No!” he said. “It’s ridiculous.”

  “You never had any children before,” she said. “Think what fun you’re going to have buying all those things.”

  “I definitely withdraw my offer of marriage, madam. You’re too loose with my money.” She gave him a box of cookies made especially for him. “I suppose,” he said, “the parson’ll think that the trash dropped from heaven, the way he thinks his dinners do. It’s time he knew the facts of life.”

  The doctor wrote to Lorry Summerfield, his usual weekly report, “I don’t think I’ll write to you any more. You ought to be here for Christmas. Never mind Mac.”

  One evening he said to Johnny, “I haven’t seen your noble ‘project,’ confound the word!—but I’d like to inspect the parish hall for the first time and see what you’ve done.”