The Cole Trilogy: The Physician, Shaman, and Matters of Choice

by Noah Gordon

  “It is, isn’t it. Except I don’t smoke tobacco.”

  “I don’t either.”

  They talked about music. It turned out each of them had a passion for Mozart and admired Ozawa and mourned the loss of John Williams as conductor of the Boston Pops.

  Abbie played the oboe. R.J. told her about the viola da gamba.

  Eventually, though, the coffee was finished.

  R.J. smiled, pushed back her chair, and Abbie Oliver nodded and said thank you. She went back out into the rain while R.J. paid. By the time R.J. came out, the woman had retrieved her sign and was walking in front of the clinic, and they avoided one another’s eyes as R.J. climbed the front stairs.

  42

  THE EX-MAJOR

  She had planted her garden during stolen half hours late in the afternoons, after returning home from her office. Several times she had worked through the dusk and into the darkness, and she had been forced to put her small tomato and green pepper plants into the earth during a misty rain, not good gardening practice for several reasons, but the only time she had available. It was catch-as-catch-can gardening, but something within her responded to the process, enjoying the gritty promise she felt whenever there was dirt on her hands.

  Still, the garden thrived. She was harvesting greens from it late on Wednesday, bent over the raised beds, when a car with Connecticut license plates hesitated at the entrance of her driveway and turned in.

  She stopped picking and watched as the driver left the car and walked toward her with a limp. Slim, but with a thick waist. Middle-aged, high hairline, iron-gray hair and brushy mustache.

  “Dr. Cole?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m Joe Fallon.”

  For a moment the name meant nothing, and then she remembered David telling her of the rocket attack that had wounded him, killing a chaplain whose name she didn’t remember, and hitting the third chaplain in the troop carrier.

  Involuntarily she looked at his legs.

  He was perceptive. “Yeah.” He lifted his right knee and rapped his knuckles against his lower leg, a solid thunking. “That Joe Fallon,” he said, and grinned.

  “Were you the lieutenant or the major?”

  “The major. The lieutenant was Bernie Towers, may he rest. But I haven’t been a major for a long time. Haven’t been a priest for a long time, for that matter.”

  He apologized for dropping in on her without notice. “I’m on my way to a retreat with the Trappists at the monastery in Spencer. Due there tomorrow, and I saw on the map that I could come by here with only a little detour. I’d like to talk with you about David.”

  “How did you find this place?”

  “I stopped at the firehouse and asked how to get to where you lived.” He had a nice smile, an Irish charmer’s smile.

  “Come into the house.”

  He sat in the kitchen and watched while she washed the greens.

  “Have you eaten?”

  “No. If you’re free, I’d like to take you to dinner.”

  “Very few restaurants in the hills, and a long way to drive. I was about to make a very simple supper, eggs and salad. Would you care for some?”

  “It would be very nice.”

  So she tore lettuce and arugula, cut up a store-bought tomato, scrambled eggs, toasted frozen bread, set the food on the kitchen table. “Why did you stop being a priest?”

  “I wanted to get married,” he said, so easily that she knew he’d answered the question many times before. He bent his head. “For what we are about to receive, we thank you.”

  “Amen.” Ill at ease, she stifled a desire to eat too fast. “What do you do now?”

  “College professor. Loyola University, Chicago.”

  “You’ve seen him, haven’t you?”

  “Yes, I have.” Fallon broke toast, dropped it into his salad and pushed it around with his fork to soak up the dressing.

  “Recently?”

  “Fairly recently.”

  “He got in touch with you, did he? Told you where he was?”

  “Yes.”

  She tried to blink back the tears of fury that sprang into her eyes.

  “It’s complicated. I’m his friend—maybe his best friend—but I’m just good buddy Joe. So he could let me see him in … an emotionally frail condition. You are terribly important to him in a very different way, and he couldn’t risk it.”

  “Couldn’t risk letting me know he was alive, all those months? I know what Sarah meant to him. What her loss must have done to him. But I’m a human being too, and he showed no regard. Certainly no love.”

  Fallon sighed. “There’s a lot you can’t be expected to understand.”

  “Try me.”

  “It began for us in Vietnam. There were these two priests and a rabbi, like the beginning of a bigot’s joke. David and Bernie Towers and me. All day long the three chaplains would try to offer comfort to the maimed and the dying in the hospitals. In the evening we’d write letters to the families of the dead, and then the three of us would go out on the town, tear up the pea patch. We lapped up a whole lot of alcohol.

  “Bernie drank as much as David and me but he was a special priest, like a rock where his vocation was concerned. I was already having trouble keeping my vows, and it was to the Jew I turned for talk and understanding, instead of to my fellow priest. David and I became very close over there.” He shook his head.

  “It’s strange, really. I’ve always felt I should have been the one to be killed instead of that wonderful priest Bernie, but …” He shrugged. “A mysterious way. His wonders to perform.

  “When we got back to the States, I knew I had to leave the priesthood, and I couldn’t face it. I became a real lush. David spent a lot of time with me, got me started in A.A., straightened me out. And then when his wife died, it was my turn to help him, and now it’s my turn again. He’s worth it, believe me. But he’s a man who is not without problems,” he said, and she grunted in agreement. When she started to take the things away from the table, he stood and helped. She put coffee on, and they went into the living room.

  “What do you teach?”

  “History of religion.”

  “Loyola. Catholic school,” she observed.

  “Well, I’m still very much a Catholic. Did everything by the book, like an old soldier. Asked the Pope’s permission to renounce my priestly vows, and the request was granted. Dorothy—my wife now—did the same. She was a nun.”

  “You and David … you’ve stayed in close touch ever since the army?”

  “In close touch most of the time. Yes, we’re members of a small but growing movement. Part of the larger group of theological pacifists. After Vietnam we each knew we never wanted to see war again. We gravitated to certain kinds of seminars and workshops, and it became obvious that there were a number of us, clergymen and theologians of every religious stripe, who all felt pretty much the same.” He broke off as she went to pour the coffee and bring it back. When she gave him the cup he took a sip, nodded and resumed.

  “See, all over the world, and ever since humanity was born, people have believed in the existence of a greater power, and they have yearned desperately to break through to the deity. Novenas are said, b’rokhot are sung, candles are lit, donations are made, prayer wheels are spun. Holy men rise, kneel, prostrate themselves. They call on Allah, Buddha, Siva, Jehovah, Jesus, and a wide variety of weak and powerful saints. We each have our unique vision of God. We each believe our candidate is the genuine article and all the others are fakes. To prove it, we’ve spent century after century killing the followers of the false religions, telling ourselves we’re doing the holy work of the one true God. Catholics and Protestants still kill one another, Jews and Moslems, Moslems and Hindus, Sunnites and Shiites. And on and on.

  “So … after Vietnam we began to recognize kindred souls, men and women in religion who believed we could each look for God in our own way without waving our bloody swords. We were attracted to one another, and we�
��ve formed a very loose group—we call it the Peaceful Godhead. We’re working to raise money from religious orders and foundations. I know of a piece of land and a building that’s available in Colorado, and we’d like to buy it and set up a study center where people of every religion can meet and talk about the search for true salvation, the best religion, which is permanent world peace.”

  “And David is a member of … the Peaceful Godhead.”

  “Indeed he is.”

  “But he’s an agnostic!”

  “Oh. Forgive my impertinence, but it’s obvious that in some ways you don’t know him at all. Please don’t take offense.”

  “That’s true, I’m aware I don’t know him,” she said sullenly.

  “He talks a great agnosticism. But deep where he lives—and I know whereof I speak—he believes that something, a greater being than he, is directing his existence and the world’s. It’s just that David can’t identify the power in terms precise enough to satisfy him, and so he drives himself nuts. He’s perhaps the most religious man I’ve ever met.” He paused. “I’m certain, after talking to him, that he plans to try and explain his actions to you in person someday soon.”

  She felt sad, frustrated. She had felt that Sarah and David had offered her a warm and quiet life after a stormy and unhappy one. But Sarah was dead. And David was … away, chased by demons she couldn’t even imagine and not caring enough for R.J. even to contact her. She wanted to talk about it with this man, but found that she couldn’t.

  They carried their own cup and saucer to the sink. When he moved to wash the dishes, she stopped him. “Don’t bother to do that. I’ll do them after you’ve gone.”

  He was embarrassed. “Well, there’s something I’ll ask you. I’m on the road all the time, telling the different religious orders about the Peaceful Godhead, talking to foundations. Trying to raise money to establish the center. The Jesuits pay for some of my travel, but they’re not notorious for lavish expense accounts. I’ve a sleeping bag … I wonder if you’ll let me camp in your barn.”

  She gave him a wary, searching look, and he chuckled.

  “Rest easy, I’m safe as safe. My wife is the best woman in the world. And when you’ve already abrogated one important set of vows, you become very careful about the other vows in your life.”

  She showed him the guest room. “Heartrocks everywhere in your house,” he said. “Well, she was a fine young person, Sarah.”

  “Yes.”

  She washed the dishes, he wiped. She gave him a bath towel and a washcloth. “I’m going to be in and out of the shower quickly, and to bed. You take as long as you wish. About breakfast …”

  “Oh, I’ll be long gone by the time you wake.”

  “We’ll see. Good night, Mr. Fallon.”

  “Sleep well, Dr. Cole.”

  After her shower she lay in the dark and thought of a lot of things. From the guest room she heard the soft drone, the rise and fall of his evening prayer. She couldn’t make out words until the end, when his satisfied voice rose a bit in relief: “In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.” Just before she slept, she remembered what he had said about having already abrogated one important set of vows, and it crossed her mind to wonder if Joe Fallon and his nun Dorothy had made love before receiving the Pope’s dispensation.

  In the morning she was awakened by the sound of the motor of his rental car. It was still dark, and she fell back into sleep for another hour, until the alarm went off.

  The guest room was as before, except that the bed was made tighter than she usually accomplished, and with military corners. She unmade it, folded the blankets, put the sheets and the pillowcases in the hamper.

  She and Toby had begun to meet early Thursday mornings for an hour of paperwork before she drove to Springfield. That morning they went through the forms that required her signature, and then Toby gave her a diffident little smile.

  “R.J. I think maybe … I think the laparoscopy worked.”

  “Oh, Toby! Are you certain?”

  “Well, I’ll let you tell me for sure. But I believe I already know. I want you to do the delivery when the time comes.”

  “No. Gwen will be here long before then, and there’s no better obstetrician. You’re so lucky.”

  “Grateful is what I am.” Toby began to cry.

  “You stop that, you damn fool,” R.J. said, and they hugged each other until it hurt.

  43

  THE RED PICKUP

  On the afternoon of the second Thursday in July, driving away from the Family Planning Clinic, R.J. saw in the Explorer’s rear mirror that a battered red pickup truck also had pulled away from the curb. It stayed behind her in traffic as she crossed the city of Springfield, heading for Route 91.

  She pulled over onto the grass at the edge of the highway and stopped her car. When the red pickup sailed past, she drew a deep breath and sat there for a minute or two until her pulse slowed, and then she drove the Explorer back onto the road.

  Half a mile down the highway the red pickup waited by the roadside. When she passed, it moved onto Route 91 behind her.

  Now she was trembling. When she came to the turnoff to Route 292 that would bring her onto the winding back road up Woodfield Mountain, she didn’t take it, instead staying on 1-91.

  They already knew where she lived, but she didn’t want to lead them onto lonely, untrafficked roads. Instead she stayed on Route 91 all the way to Greenfield and then took Route 2 west, following the Mohawk Trail up into the mountains. She drove slowly, watching the truck, trying to commit things to memory.

  She stopped the Explorer in front of the Shelburne Falls barracks of the Massachusetts State Police, and the red pickup truck stopped across the road. The three men in the truck sat and looked at her. She wanted to walk up to them, tell them to go to hell. But people were shooting doctors, and she got out of the Explorer and ran into the building, where it was dark and cool in contrast to the bright early summer sun outside.

  The man behind the desk was young and tanned, with short black hair. His uniform was starched, the shirt ironed with three vertical creases, sharper than a Marine’s.

  “Yes, ma’am? I’m Trooper Buckman.”

  “Three men in a pickup truck have been following me all the way from Springfield. They’re parked outside.”

  He got up, walked out the front door while she followed. The place where the truck had been parked was empty. Another pickup truck came down the highway at a good clip and slowed when the driver saw the trooper. It was yellow. A Ford.

  R.J. shook her head. “No, it was a red Chevy. It’s gone.”

  The trooper nodded. “Come on back inside.”

  He sat down behind his desk and filled out a form, her name and address, the nature of the complaint. “You’re certain they were following you? You know, sometimes a vehicle just happens to be going the same place you are, and you think it’s a tail. It’s happened to me.”

  “No. There were three men. Following me.”

  “Well now, most likely a couple good ol’ boys had a schnapps or two under their belt, Doctor, you know? They see a pretty woman, follow her for a while. Not a nice thing to do, but no real damage.”

  “It’s not like that.”

  She told him about her work at the clinic, about the protests. When she finished she saw he was looking at her through a great coldness. “Yes, I imagine there are people don’t like you all that much. So what do you want me to do?”

  “Can’t you notify your patrol cars to watch for their truck?”

  “We have a limited number of cars and they’re on the main roads. There are country roads in every direction, into Vermont, down to Greenfield, south all the way to Connecticut, west all the way into New York State. A majority of the people in the country drive pickup trucks, and most of them are red Fords or Chevrolets.”

  “It was a red Chevrolet with running boards. Not new. There were three men in the cab. The driver wore rimless eyeglasses. He
and the man near the passenger door were thin, or at least average. The man in the middle looked fat and had a good-sized beard.”

  “Their ages? Color of hair, color of eyes?”

  “I couldn’t tell.” She reached into her pocket and pulled out the prescription pad she had scribbled on. “The truck had Vermont license plates. The number is TZK-4922.”

  “Oh.” He wrote it down. “Okay, we’ll check it out, get back to you.”

  “Can’t you do it now? While I stay here?”

  “It’s liable to take some time.”

  Now she returned his dislike. “I’ll wait.”

  “Up to you.”

  She sat on a bench near the desk. He made certain he didn’t do anything about her for at least five minutes, then he picked up the telephone and called a number. She heard him repeating the Vermont license plate number and then thanking somebody and hanging up.

  “What did they say?”

  “Have to give them time. I’ll call back.”

  He busied himself with paperwork and ignored her. Twice the telephone rang, and he had brief conversations that had nothing to do with her. Twice she got up restlessly and went outside to look at the highway, seeing only the traffic, heightened by people driving home from work.

  When she returned the second time, he was talking on the telephone about the pickup’s license plate.

  “Stolen plate,” he told her. “It was removed from a Honda sedan this morning at the Hadley Mall.”

  “So … that’s it?”

  “That’s it. We’ll put out a bulletin, but by now they have some other number plate on the truck, you can be sure.”

  She nodded. “Thank you.” She started to leave and was struck by a thought. “They know where I live. Will you kindly telephone the Woodfield police department and ask Chief McCourtney to meet me at my house?”

  He sighed. “Yes, ma’am,” he said.

  Mack McCourtney went through her house with her, room by room. Cellar and attic. Then the two of them walked the wood path together.