Zerchi slammed the door and tried to start the car, but the officer’s hand flashed in through the window, hit the CANCEL button, and removed the key.
“Attempted kidnapping?” one officer grunted to the other.
“Maybe,” said the other, and opened the door. “Now let go of the woman’s baby!”
“To let it be murdered here?” the abbot asked. “You’ll have to use force.”
“Go around to the other side of the car, Fal.”
“No!”
“Now, just a little baton under the armpit. That’s it, pull! All right, lady — there’s your kid. No, I guess you can’t, not with those crutches Cors? Where’s Cors? Hey, Doc!”
Abbot Zerchi caught a glimpse of a familiar face coining through the crowd.
“Lift the kid out while we hold this nut, will you?”
Doctor and priest exchanged a silent glance, and then the baby was lifted from the car. The officers released the abbot’s wrists. One of them turned and found himself hemmed in by novices with upraised signs. He interpreted the signs as potential weapons, and his hand dropped to his gun.
“Back up!” he snapped.
Bewildered, the novices moved back.
“Get out.”
The abbot climbed out of the car. He found himself facing the chubby court official. The latter tapped him on the arm with a folded paper. “You have just been served with a restraining order, which I am required by the court to read and explain to you. Here is your copy. The officers are witnesses that you have been confronted with it, so you cannot resist service—”
“Oh, give it here.”
“That’s the right attitude. Now you are directed by the court as follows: ‘Whereas the plaintiff alleges that a great public nuisance has been — ’ “
“Throw the signs in the ash barrel over there,” Zerchi instructed his novices, “unless somebody objects. Then climb in the car and wait.” He paid no attention to the reading of the order, but approached the officers while the process server trailed behind, reading in monotonous staccato. “Am I under arrest?”
“We’re thinking about it.”
“‘ — and to appear before this court on the aforesaid date to show cause why an injunction — ’“
“Any particular charge?”
“We could make four or five charges stick, if you want it that way.”
Cors came back through the gate. The woman and her child had been escorted into the camp area. The doctor’s expression was grave, if not guilty.
“Listen, Father,” he said, “I know how you feel about all this, but—”
Abbot Zerchi’s fist shot out at the doctor’s face in a straight right jab. It caught Cors off balance, and he sat down hard in the driveway. He looked bewildered. He snuffled a few times. Suddenly his nose leaked blood. The police had the priest’s arms pinned behind him.
“ ‘ — and herein fail not,’“ the process server jabbered on, “‘lest a decree pro confesso — ’“
“Take him over to the car,” said one of the officers.
The car toward which the abbot was led was not his own but the police cruiser. “The judge will be a little disappointed in you,” the officer told him sourly. “Now stand still right there and be quiet. One move and you go in the locks.”
The abbot and the officer waited by the cruiser while the process server, the doctor, and the other officer conferred in the driveway. Cors was pressing a handkerchief to his nose.
They talked for five minutes. Thoroughly ashamed, Zerchi pressed his forehead against the metal of the car and tried to pray. It mattered little to him at the moment what they might decide to do. He could think only of the girl and the child. He was certain she had been ready to change her mind, had needed only the command, I, a priest of God, adjure thee, and the grace to hear it — if only they had not forced him to stop where she could witness “God’s priest” summarily overruled by “Caesar’s traffic cop.” Never to him had Christ’s Kingship seemed more distant.
“All right, mister. You’re a lucky nut, I’ll say that.”
Zerchi looked up. “What?”
“Doctor Cors refuses to file a complaint. He says he had one coming. Why did you hit him?”
“Ask him.”
“We did. I’m just trying to decide whether we take you in or just give you the summons. The court officer says you’re well known hereabouts. What do you do?”
Zerchi reddened. “Doesn’t this mean anything to you?” He touched his pectoral cross.
“Not when the guy wearing it punches somebody in the nose. What do you do?”
Zerchi swallowed the last trace of his pride. “I am the abbot of the Brothers of Saint Leibowitz at the abbey you see down the road.”
“That gives you a license to commit assault?”
“I’m sorry. If Doctor Cors will hear me, I’ll apologize. If you give me a summons, I promise to appear.”
“Fal?”
“The jail’s full of D.P.s.”
“Listen, if we just forget the whole thing, will you stay away from this place, and keep your gang out there where they belong?”
“Yes.”
“All right. Get moving. But if you so much as drive past here and spit, that’ll be it.”
“Thank you.”
A calliope was playing somewhere in the park as they drove away; and looking back, Zerchi saw that the carousel was turning. One officer mopped his face, clapped the process server on the back, and they all went to their cars and drove away. Even with five novices in the car, Zerchi was alone with his shame.
29
“I believe you’ve been warned about that temper before?” Father Lehy demanded of the penitent.
“Yes, Father.”
“You realize that the intent was relatively murderous?”
“There was no intent to kill.”
“Are you trying to excuse yourself?” the confessor demanded.
“No, Father. The intent was to hurt. I accuse myself of violating the spirit of the Fifth Commandment in thought and deed, and of sinning against charity and justice. And bringing disgrace and scandal upon my office.”
“You realize that you have broken a promise never to resort to violence?”
“Yes, Father. I deeply regret it.”
“And the only mitigating circumstance is that you just saw red and swung. Do you often let yourself abandon reason like that?”
The inquisition continued, with the ruler of the Abbey on his knees, and the prior fitting in judgment over his master.
“All right,” Father Lehy said at last, “now for your penance, promise to say—”
Zerchi was an hour and a half late getting to the chapel, but Mrs. Grales was still waiting. She was kneeling in a pew near the confessional, and she seemed half asleep. Embarrassed within himself, the abbot had hoped that she would not be there. He had his own penance to say before he could hear her. He knelt near the altar and spent twenty minutes finishing the prayers Father Lehy had assigned him as penance for that day, but when he moved back toward the confessional, Mrs. Grales was still there. He spoke to her twice before she heard him, and when she rose, she stumbled a little. She paused to feel at the Rachel face, exploring its eyelids and lips with withered fingers.
“Is something wrong, daughter?” he asked.
She looked up at the high windows. Her eyes wandered about the vaulted ceiling. “Ay, Father,” she whispered. “I feel the Dread One about, I do. The Dread One’s close, very close about us here. I feel need of shriv’ness Father — and something else as well.”
“Something else, Mrs. Grales?”
She leaned close to whisper behind her hand. “I need be giving shriv’ness to Him, as well.”
The priest recoiled slightly. “To whom? I don’t understand.”
“Shriv’ness — to Him who made me as I am,” she whimpered. But then a slow smile spread her mouth. “I — I never forgave Him for it.”
“Forgive God? How can you — ? He is just. He is Justice, He is Love. How can you say — ?”
Her eyes pleaded with him. “Mayn’t an old tumater woman forgive Him just a little for His Justice? Afor I be asking His shriv’ness on me?”