He withdrew his arm and lit cigarettes for both of them. How do couples manage such moments now that no one smokes?
They were silent, staring off at the lake.
Michael hadn't a clue what to say, what to do.
He thought of Nicholas Wiley who seemed wise now, in his moralism, his simplicity. Michael fingered his cross, and it filled him with affection for the kid, a rare longing to see him. He said, "A friend of mine gave me this. He says about the war, 'Just stop it! That's all. Stop it.'"
"When enough people say that to them, they perhaps will."
"Maybe whether they would or not, people should say it."
Inge picked up The Christian Failure, looked at it for a moment, then opened to a dog-eared page. "In nineteen thirty-nine our bishops made a joint statement," she read. "Catholics must 'do their duty in obedience to the Führer, ready for sacrifice and with commitment of the whole being.'" She snapped the book shut. "I wish someone had said 'Stop it!'" She dropped the book into her bag. With her cigarette dangling from her lips, she stood and folded her towel. She dropped it in her straw bag, then withdrew a worn white lab-coat, which she donned as a robe. "I must get back."
Michael pulled on his trousers and shirt and walked with her. Neither spoke. At the entrance to the compound, she stopped. He sensed something stiffen in her, a decision made, a resolution. She held his eyes and said quite deliberately, quite carefully, "I want you to come into An Hoa with me tonight."
That was all she said, all she asked of him, but suddenly his throat was dry and he could hear the blood pulsing in his ears.
They walked in silence. The dark forms of palm trees were silhouetted against the night. The mountains beyond the lake were visible only as the black nothing above which the sky, by comparison, seemed a shade of coal blue. Ahead of them, at a distance of half a mile, were the spires of the church. No lights shone from the village. The country lived permanently in blackout.
"The cool air feels good," Michael said at last. He had to deflect the tension he felt into talk.
Inge said, "You know what happens in Vietnam at sunset, don't you?"
He heard something whimsical in her voice, something girlish, and he was drawn in by it. He was aware for the first time of her cologne. Had she worn that for its effect on him? "What?" he asked.
"The gates of the underworld are said to be opened and the souls fly out, naked and starving. They fly back to their home villages and are eating the food left for them on their family altars."
"Sounds like the Viet Cong."
"Vietnamese feed not only their children, but their ancestors."
"You love them, don't you?"
"Yes. It breaks my heart, what happens. You say that—'breaks my heart'?"
"Yes."
The sound of helicopters in the distance stopped them. They listened as the noise grew louder. They stared up at the dark sky, but saw nothing. The aircraft flew without running lights. Soon the sound of their engines began to fade. It was impossible to say how many there were.
Michael said, "In Saigon, when there is rumbling in the distance, people in the cafés hope it isn't thunder because they don't want it to rain, they'll have to go inside. They listen and then say to one another, 'Oh good, artillery fire. Oh good, bombs.'"
Inge nodded. "Europeans and Americans."
"No. Vietnamese. I've heard Vietnamese say it."
She shook her head. "Someday soon they will bomb An Hoa."
"Why do you say that?"
"Because of the marines across the lake. They cannot have a village here. If there is a big village, always there will be NLF, what their leaflets call 'wicked Viet Cong.'"
"Are you worried for the hospital?" Michael asked, but he was thinking he was worried for her.
"Of course worried. We're in the middle, no?"
They walked on in silence then.
Once in the village they went directly to the church. Inge rapped the heel of her hand on the large mahogany door. In a matter of seconds it opened and a shadowy figure stepped aside for them. Michael recognized the form, even in the pitch-black of the church, of a cassocked priest. Once they'd entered he closed the door softly behind them, then led the way into the darkness. It took Michael a moment to realize why that darkness was wrong; not even the sanctuary lamp, indicating the Presence in the tabernacle, burned.
At an altar the priest lit a candle, then faced them. He was Vietnamese, taller than most of his countrymen but considerably shorter than Michael and extremely thin. His Roman collar hung loosely at his throat. His black hair fell across his forehead. It was impossible to say how old he was—perhaps thirty, perhaps fifty—but a certain fierce vigor showed in his face. His black eyes fixed on Inge Holz, and he greeted her softly in Vietnamese.
She responded with a whisper, and Michael sensed at once the current of their relationship.
The priest faced him. "Mon Père," he said gently, "bienvenu à l'église de Vinh Son."
Michael looked blank.
The priest read his small embarrassment, and said, "Welcome, Father, to the church of Vinh Son." They shook hands.
"Thank you." Now that his eyes were adjusted, Michael looked around. It was a typical Catholic church, the dominating high altar, its gaudy crucifix with painted corpus—Jesus a pale Caucasian—and two side altars, one for Joseph, one for Mary. They were standing in front of Mary's altar, and the candle the priest had lit was a small votive candle in a blue cup. "Vinh Son?" Michael asked.
"Vinh Son," the priest repeated. "Vinh Son Da Sal."
Vincent de Sales, Michael realized, as the French pronounce it. He nearly laughed. Saint Vincent. Good old Saint Vincent, patron of the order to which Carolyn had belonged, patron of the hospital in which Molly was born. Vinh Son! When he told me this story, he smiled. By then the Church was like a haunted house to us, and certain saints like ghosts.
The Vietnamese priest was staring at him intently, taking his measure. Finally he said, "You know of the Struggle?"
It took Michael a moment to realize what he was referring to. He said cautiously, "The Struggle; I know the word. It is used to mean 'resistance.'"
"Not 'resistance,'" the priest said softly. "In Vietnamese 'Struggle' is to rebel with all one's life-force."
"It refers to the Buddhist Struggle, no?" That movement had brought Diem down in '63 and lately it had shown signs of quickening once more.
"It is not only Buddhists who seek a third way between the Communists and the generals. Some of us do also." The priest studied Michael.
Michael showed him nothing.
"Inge told me perhaps you would like to learn. I thought to approach you as a brother priest."
Michael suddenly thought, This might be a trap! He said warily, "Every Vietnamese priest I've met is loyal to the Saigon government."
"But of course they would appear so to you. We are loyal first to God, second to the Church and third to our people. The government does not command a priest's loyalty." He smiled. The strength of his conviction communicated, but he was speaking gently. "It is the same for priests everywhere, no? Even in America?"
"It should be."
"It is so with you?"
Michael said carefully, "My government commands my loyalty as a citizen, not as a priest." He looked at Inge quickly. She was staring at him, waiting for him to declare himself. But still he felt wary. He said, "The Buddhists are tools of the Viet Cong." It was a provocative statement, one he didn't really believe, but he felt instinctively that he had to stiff-arm this priest. Why had he brought him here? What did he want? "Communists do not command my loyalty either."
"Nor mine, but the NLF is not run by Catholics. My government is. That puts me in a special position, you agree?"
Michael did not answer.
The Vietnamese priest continued to smile, inappropriately, Michael thought. Then he realized that his smile was his disguise. The priest said, "I attended seminary in Paris. My thesis was on Tocqueville. You know what he sa
id about the Ancien Régime? 'Our government resembles the Mass for the Dead: there is no Gloria, since there is nothing to sing about; no Credo since there is nothing we believe in common; a long offertory where much money is collected, and in the end, no Benediction.'" The priest's smile was gone.
"What do you mean, 'run by Catholics'?" Michael asked. "The time of Diem is passed."
The priest made a gesture with his hand: Maybe yes, maybe no. "You remember the Ngos' Can Lao?"
"The secret organization?"
"Yes. Police, spies, provincial leaders, generals, a shadow government, all Catholics. It was the source of their power. Those men did not disappear when Diem and Nhu were killed. They simply withdrew somewhat, to wait. And now it seems the time of waiting is over."
"Why?"
"Nguyen Van Thieu," the priest said simply.
Thieu was the new chief of state. With Air Vice-Marshal Nguyen Cao Ky he had been running the government for less than a month.
"Thieu is a convert to Catholicism, a devoted, pious man, and many of the former Can Lao members see in him a new Diem. They have secretly begun a new organization, the Nhan Xa, called in English 'The Revolutionary Social Humanist Party.' Many of the old alliances have simply been struck again. Their purpose is the old one, to save Vietnam not just from Communism but from Buddhists. They are the ones who have convinced Lodge and Westmoreland that the Struggle for a Third Way is Viet Cong. Your government would love to have Catholics in power again. They will welcome Nhan Xa."
"What about Ky?"
"Ky is a comedian. Only Americans think of him."
"But Thieu only came to power this month. None of the others have lasted."
"He will last, I promise you, until the war is lost, or until he is dead."
"Or until the war is won."
"It won't be won."
"If Nhan Xa is secret, how do you know about it?"
"The leader is my own bishop, Nguyen Van Thuan. In our country a bishop has no secrets from his priests. Do you know him?"
"No."
The priest nodded. He was accustomed to such ignorance. "He replaced Thuc."
"Diem's brother."
"That is correct. You believe Diem's family was removed from power in nineteen sixty-three."
"It wasn't?"
"You know the myth of Hydra, the monster slain by Hercules? It had nine heads, and when one was cut off, it was replaced by two others. My bishop, Thuan, is the son of Diem's sister. The Ngos are the hydra family of Vietnam. They still control the Church. With Nhan Xa, they will control Thieu. They will control America."
And it all began, Michael thought, in the Maryknoll seminary where Ngo Dinh Diem had spent his years in exile as Cardinal Spellman's ward. Jesus Christ! he thought. Am I the only one who knows this? Michael looked at Inge again. This must sound to her like the resurgence of the Nazi party. Well, wasn't it like that? Michael remembered that, once, his horror at what the Ngos were doing had taken him, furiously and so imprudently, to Spellman's residence. And Spellman had coopted him completely.
Michael faced the Vietnamese priest. "Why have you brought me here?"
"Because I want to tell you what I and some brother priests are going to do."
"You trust me?"
"Of course. We are eleven Catholic priests. Who can we trust if not a fellow priest? On July twentieth in all of Vietnam, in Hanoi as well as Saigon, in Haiphong and Hue, we Vietnamese will mark the Day of National Shame. On that day it is ten years since the Geneva Agreement divided our country in two. And on that day we priests from parishes all over South Vietnam will go to Saigon in behalf of our people. There will be many Buddhists in the streets, many demonstrations. The government will say the demonstrators are Viet Cong. But no one can say that about Catholic priests. We will make a simple prayer, a procession, a Way of the Cross. We will go from the president's palace to the American embassy, and we will be saying what the Buddhists say. The National Shame is what we have allowed to happen in our country. We can relieve our shame only by protesting the source of it: 'No More America in Vietnam!' No more American soldiers in our cities. No more American bombs on our villages! No more American murder of our people!"
Michael was not breathing. The priest's indictment filled him with shame. "And you are telling me this because..."
"We want you to join us."
"Making twelve."
The priest smiled. "Unintentional."
But Michael's thought was, One of the twelve was Judas. He remembered Nicholas Wiley. Judas and Peter; what made them different was how they handled their shame.
Inge Holz spoke finally, saying to Michael, "I told Pham that you are ready. If this offends you, then is my fault."
What Michael noticed was her use of the priest's name. She did not call him 'Father.' He looked from one to the other. "But I am an American. That seems wrong, given what you're saying."
The priest nodded. "In a way, that's true. But there are good reasons. You are a priest like us, and that emphasizes that we are speaking as Catholics. As priests we all object to government, you to yours, we to ours. And as priests we all proclaim the Gospel's independence from narrow, political causes of whatever kind." He paused. "And there are other reasons too. If you are with us, then the police will hesitate to move against us. We do not want our procession to be interrupted before the people see us."
Inge Holz said, "If you are not with them, the police will put them off the street at once and we may never see them again."
The Vietnamese priest ignored her, as if that was not his concern. "And your participation will attract the attention of news reporters from Europe and America. We do not burn ourselves, like the bonzes. They might therefore ignore us."
Tim O'Shea's one request to Michael: "Don't let Spelly read about you in the Times."
Michael could think of a dozen reasons to say no, good ones. But his impulse—and it was to say no, to be sure—sprang from none of them. He was afraid.
"We are asking you to join us on the Day of National Shame, and on each day after that when we will repeat the procession until the war ends or until they stop us."
Michael stared at him. The gaunt, shadow-ridden priest seemed all at once an upright cadaver. Shall these bones live? But it wasn't Suu Van Pham who'd been reduced to bones. Michael saw that his own belief in his own mission, his own identity, his own position was completely collapsed. He looked out on an infinite stretch of ruins, a vast plain littered with dried, lifeless bones, the remains of all he'd once sworn by and lived for. The futility of his effort to alleviate suffering by working, timidly, within the structures of Church and government was undeniable now. The absurdity of his own life slammed him, and he felt for the first time ever disgust at what he'd become. A clerical camp follower, yes. The army's holy whore. The cardinal's. His self-loathing was surpassed only by his despair.
Dear reader, such a moment would have undone you and me, would have finished us. We'd have gone off, regarding the Vietnamese priests as foolhardy, self-aggrandizing martyrs. We'd have claimed to prefer organizing quietly among Catholic clergy and developing what we would call "authentic" opposition, "practical" dissent. We'd have refused, citing if not our vow of obedience to America's Sunshine Prelate or our obligation to the poor refugees served by the CRS, our debt of loyalty to Tim O'Shea. They couldn't undo his consecration because of us—he was a bishop forever—but they could keep him an auxiliary forever too.
And we'd have been nearly right; there were honorable reasons for men like us to say no to Suu Van Pham. Honorable reasons to pretend that nothing had changed, to insist that the invitation from this ghost of a priest was not, at last, an annunciation, a conscription, an act of God. You and I, dear reader, would have slipped away, wishing the Vietnamese dissenters well, promising to pray for them. And only we'd have known what cowards we were and how we'd just destroyed ourselves.
But Michael Maguire was not like the rest of us, any more then than he had been in Korea or would be
later. His capacity for fear, and for retreat, matched ours, but when forced by events to face the truth, at last, he did so willingly. I would have deflected the truth. Perhaps you would have. Michael embraced it. Confronted with that vast plain of dry bones, the bones of the slain, the bones of his own savaged dreams, he stood with upraised arms and cried, "Live!" In him despair became hope, collapse became conversion, and fear was changed into the source of action. Such transforming will is the hero's gift, and he had it. And we remember him through these pages because, oh, we need it.
Michael nodded at Suu Van Pham. "I am honored that you should ask me to join you. Adsum, Pater," he said firmly. It was the ancient declaration that each of them had made at ordination. "Send me," it means. "I am ready."
Prince of Peace Page 43
