“So, who is this friend of yours, Father?”
“A priest,” said Dan. “He’s the abbot in fact.”
“Hey, Abb-ott!” Noah shouted, laughing.
“You grew up on a lot of old TV, didn’t you?” Paul said.
Noah, shrugged under the weight of the bags. “We didn’t have cable.”
Even as they approached the giant wooden door it swung slowly open and there was a young man in a brown robe looking pleased and delighted.
“It’s just like magic,” Noah commented.
“I thought you knew,” said the young friar. “It is magic! Com’on in. Father’s been waiting for you. He told me to go out and check for you. We’ve just started the evening prayer.”
“Behold!
The brother at the podium read.
I shall send my messenger to clear a way before me. And suddenly the Lord whom you seek will come to his Temple; yes, the angel of the covenant, for whom you long, is on his way, says the Lord of Hosts.
Who will be able to resist the day of his coming? Who will remain standing when he appears? For he will be like a refiner's fire, like fullers' alkali.
He will take his seat as refiner and purifier; he will purify the sons of Levi and refine them like gold and silver, so that they can make the offering to the Lord with uprightness.”
“The book of Malachi,” Dan whispered to Paul. “It’s Saint Andrew’s Day.”
Paul didn’t know what that meant, but figured this was not the time to ask.
The offering of Judah and Jerusalem will then be acceptable to Yahweh as in former days, as in the years of old.
I am coming to put you on trial and I shall be a ready witness against sorcerers, adulterers, perjurers, and against those who oppress the worker,, the widow and the orphan, and who rob the foreigner of his rights and do not respect me, saysthe Lord of Hosts. “I am sending my messenger, and he must prepare a way before me. And suddenly there will come to His temple the Lord, whom you are seeking, and the messenger of the covenant in whom you are delighting. Look! He will certainly come,” The Lord of Hosts has said.
It was plain, but beautiful. These abstract stain glasses must have been fairly new, as was the air conditioning and both mitigated the power of the sun, that painted the plain stone floors in soft rose and blue and gold triangles and bars of light.
The light went over the wide stone floor before where they and a few others sat with little booklets in hand, and across from them was an altar where the priest or the brother had just read. On either side of this great chapel were rows of seats where men in brown sat, and one stood up to sing:
Happy is the man who does not walk
in the counsel of the wicked,
nor has stood in the path of sinners,
And in the seat of ridiculers has not sat.
He was old, about seventy maybe, reminded Paul of his grandfather. He looked happy more than holy, and after he spoke the whole other side of the chapel responded:
But his delight is in the law of the Lord,
And meditates on his law day and night.
And then to one side, the brothers chanted, their voices rusting bass and tenor leaves:
And he shall be like a tree planted
by streams of water,
That gives fruit in due season
And whose leaves do not wither,
All that he does shall succeed…
Paul was not stupid. He knew these were psalms. At church, on Sunday, when he was a child, one person, sometimes if they were lucky someone who could sing, stood up and sang three verses of one. The whole parish sang a tired sort of response. It was all very boring which religion had always been to him. Now, as they went into the next Psalm, Paul looked around at the statue of Mary with candles flickering under her feet, at another saint he didn’t know, at the very old stations of the Cross: Jesus Falling, Veronica wiping his face, Jesus coming to Golgotha. Calvary was what everyone called it. He knew what Calvary was. But Golgotha, that was the true name, a very biblical name that you only heard in church. Now one of the monks or brothers or what have you came to light incense, and gradually it came to his nose, along with the psalm. How had he never been intrigued by this? Far from not believing, the truth was he had never really cared. How could he have been so deaf? Listen to the beautiful croaking of monk voices. Or how could he be so blind? Or smell-less, for that matter? Was that a word? With the burning of the incense that trailed toward them, it was.
O LORD, I call to you; come quickly to me.
Hear my voice when I call to you.
May my prayer be set before you like incense;
may the lifting up of my hands be like the evening sacrifice.
Set a guard over my mouth, O LORD;
keep watch over the door of my lips.
Let not my heart be drawn to what is evil,
to take part in wicked deeds
with men who are evildoers;
let me not eat of their delicacies...
When it was over, most of the brothers, crossing themselves, murmuring, embracing or shaking hands, left the pews with the youngest helping the very oldest. Their stalls must have been spacious, for some turned sideways toward the altar and knelt to pray. The old man who had led one side, came toddling toward them a wooden cross swinging from around his neck and a glimmer in his eyes. He approached Dan, shook the hell out of the young priest’s hand, and then said to Paul and Noah, “I’m Abbot Julian. Welcome to our home.”
Paul wanted to say a bunch of things, all of which he thought would sound extremely silly, so he just kept shaking Julian’s hand with an ecstatic, stupid look on his face. Next Julian shook Noah’s hand. Noah seemed subdued for once. And finally Julian said, “So… that Bag… Is that the package Barb and Bob said would be coming down here?”
Paul blinked suddenly, and Julian laughed.
“You know…?” Noah began. “About the Bag…? And the Contact?”
Abbot Julian laughed so loud that he embarrassed himself and covered his mouth. Then, with a twinkle in his blue eyes he leaned in and whispered:
“I AM the contact.”
“So how’s old Saint Barbara’s?”
“Same as ever,” Dan said.
“And Barb and Bob. Is Barb still raising hell?”
Dan grinned, “She’s raising a little less hell.”
“Well, that’s still too much,” Julian laughed and folded his hands together.
“How did you two get involved?” Julian turned to Noah and Paul.
“Well, we’re friends of Fenn. Do you know Fenn?”
“Of course I know Fenn. And his cousins. His whole family. They’re DuFresnes.”
“They’re Houghtons,” Paul felt the need to correct him.
“They are now,” said Julian. “But Lula Houghton, well, she was Lula DuFresne when she was growing up and she grew up down south in Jamnia, Ohio. Where I used to be stationed at. I was there for years. At Saint Claire’s before I came down here.”
“Well, how do you know Bob and Barb, anyway?”
Julian said to Dan, “We went to school together. Me and Bob. And then Barb in college. She went to Our Lady of the Snows back in the day. And, oh my, my you should have seen her! I almost left the priesthood.”
“You were a priest in college?”
“I went to minor seminary,” Julian said. “See,” he said to Paul and Noah, “back in the day when Catholic families still had a hundred kids they’d give a few away. Well, not really. But sort of. They’d say, Mikey over here has a talent for being a priest—whatever that means—and send him to minor seminary. That was Catholic school that kind of turned out junior priests, like being pre-med. We were pre-priest. Before that I lived in Ohio. That’s how I met Bob. And then they sent me to Citeaux which was all boys. Bob again! And Barb down the street at Snows. Good Lord, the hell we raised!” Julian slapped his knee. “Bob was into everything he shouldn’t have been. But I couldn’t be. See, I was already sealed for God.
“We kept in touch. We always keep in touch. The older you get the more you realize how few people in this world you really like. I godfathered one of their kids. Saw them turn all respectable, or… something like it. And I guess I got respectable too. So, here we are.”
“Why are you doing this?” Noah asked suddenly. “I mean… If that doesn’t sound like… a bad question. I mean, a holy man, doing this for us?”
“Noah!” Paul moaned.
“No,” Julian’s face creased with a large smile and he waved it away. “No, see… that’s just it. Remember, I wanted to be in the thick of things back then. Fifty—almost sixty years ago when we were so… young. But I was already holy and set aside. So, when my old friends called me and said a few years ago, Julian, how would your respectable, holy, old ass like to do something like this, I was in. Oh, the three of us were in on something… else. That’s another story. But that’s how I became the contact, as you say.
“That old business was a rush to the blood. Just when other folks are taking out their dentures to sit by the fire, we’re going strong! So, anyway, I get a call from Barb, and she’s still got that naughty girl thing she had back in 1948 for God’s sake! And she says, would you like to… well, you know, anything that starts with Barb Telford Affren saying, ‘Would you like to…?’ I can’t possibly resist.”
Julian shut his mouth and sat back, folding his fingers together.
“And now we get to my cut,” Julian said, rubbing his hands together and grinning. “what’s my cut in the profits?” he said, relishing the word, ‘Cut.’
Noah said nothing.
“I live better than an old man who as a young man took a vow of poverty to God ever should. My cut’s the adventure. Remember that, because we head out at six tomorrow morning.”
Julian came into the chapel to change the votive candle before the Blessed Sacrament and saw Paul Anderson sitting in the first set of pews. He removed the old candle and put down the new one, debating if he should say anything, then, at last, he went up to him and sat down.
“If I should go, then I will go,” the old priest said.
“No, no,” Paul said. “Company’s good.”
Then he said, “I was just thinking, you know, tonight… that service. It was so beautiful. And … I was thinking about how much I never paid attention to. And then also all the stupid things I‘ve spent my life paying attention to. It’s like I’ve gotten everything wrong. Hell—I mean, heck—”
Julian placed a hand on Paul’s and said, “You meant Hell.”
Paul smiled and said, “I guess I did. And I guess I’m thinking I’m pretty sure I’ve wasted my whole life.”
“Your whole life? How old are you?”
“Father, I’m twenty-seven.”
Gently, Julian cuffed him on the back of the head.
“Oh, Lord! To be twenty-seven again. To be sixty-seven again! You don’t even know you’re just a pup.”
“You don’t know some of the things I’ve done. I think I’ve screwed up the last decade of my life.”
“Only the last decade? Look, I know a little something about something. I think, I I know you’ve had some racy times, but I think sometimes when people have those racey times they think they’re worse than they are. Whatever you did, and I’m sure a young man handsome as yourself has done what they call, sins of the flesh, it doesn’t hold a candle to meanness, selfishness, coldness. To having a closed heart.”
Paul shook his head.
“But that’s just it,” he said after a moment. “See, you’re right. I don’t know how much you know but I’ve done some risky stuff. And if it was just fun and… flesh, it wouldn’t matter so much. But it changed me. I could feel myself turning into that cold person, that heartless person, the person who… couldn’t see or really feel. Who couldn’t be touched. That was it. That’s the thing.”
“No,” Julian said. “The thing is that you saw it, and you stopped it. You said you wasted a decade. I’ve seen people waste their whole lives. Waste them here in church, thinking they were God’s favorites and going to their grave mean as anything.”
“But they thought they went to heaven?”
“Maybe they did. Who am I to say? Maybe they went to their type of heaven where even God wouldn’t be good enough to get into, and maybe that’s what hell is.”
Paul said: “I never thought much about heaven. Really, the only attraction it held was that it wasn’t hell. I still… don’t know what to think about it, or,” Paul shrugged and looked around, “God or… anything. Tonight I felt so good and so right, but… What is it, Father? You know, the big picture? Heaven?”
Julian said nothing immediately. His tongue stuck out and was caught firmly between his lips while he thought. It took a while for him to speak.
“I know this is going to sound trite.
“You know, like some of that New Age business. But I think heaven is you. Being all… cold… and frozen. And then being cracked open and letting yourself be touched. I think what’s touching you is God. And if you don’t bother with defining it too much, or trying to measure up... If you just accept it, you’ll be all right. You’ll be more than all right.”
