A priest today, not a minister, a young and modern-minded one who wore a black turtleneck instead of a Roman collar, jeans instead of trousers, and played a guitar instead of read from the Bible, a Woodie Guthrie song I liked just fine except that I didn’t see its relevance here, given the occasion I mean, the world maybe going to blow up soon.
But that was my problem. I sit in a courtroom and mentally wander off about where I’ll have supper tonight. I sit in a church and think not of Jesus but about what comely ankles the woman in front of me has, which I happen to notice right below me whenever we’re kneeling down. Or I stand in front of a church and play music critic, thinking not of the holocaust that might soon befall us but of what a poor choice of songs the young priest chose for the occasion. I’m a regular pip, I am.
There were probably two hundred people here. There’d been no word from the Russians. Everybody was in a “what if” mode. What if the Russians did this, would we then do that? And so on.
The ceremony ended with everybody singing the Our Father, the priest leading us in the Protestant version because this was a Protestant town and he wanted to be polite, which was understandable.
As I walked back to my office, I heard somebody groan behind me. It was a very particular sounding groan. More like a moan, I guessed. I’d heard one like it only once before. When my Uncle Bill was having a heart attack.
I turned to see Abe Leifer again, only this time he was grasping at his left arm and starting to pitch forward to the sidewalk. His face was dead pale. His mouth was open in to scream but he had neither the time nor the strength for it. He grew whiter by the moment.
We were near the corner, where there was a police call box mounted on the support column of the street light. I ran to check Abe first.
Then I was shouting at a farmer in a John Deere cap, “Use that call box! Get an ambulance!”
He looked confused at first. Then he looked as if this might be some sort of gag, with a cameraman hiding somewhere. Candid Camera, the show that trapped people into doing dumb things and filmed them doing them.
I was no expert at mouth-to-mouth but I gave it a try.
Beth Leifer sat on one side of her mother and I sat on the other. This was the waiting room outside the surgery.
Helen Leifer would be all right and then she would not be all right. Beth was a pretty, thirtyish woman with intelligent gray eyes and a smile that was as gracious as a papal blessing. Her husband Del and I shot baskets a lot on the outdoor court at our old high school. Beth wasn’t smiling now, of course. She was trying to keep her mother in an optimistic mood. I was pretty sure she was trying to accomplish the same thing with herself. The doctor, a man named Fred Knowles, was big, cold, gruff. He’d interned with Himmler.
There was a clock down the hall. Abe had been in surgery more than an hour now.
I said, “I’m going down the hall to the bathroom, Beth.”
“We’ll be fine. Take your time. Get a cup of coffee if you like.”
“Would either of you like one?”
“I’d sure appreciate one. Mom can share mine.”
“I’m not even sure I could hold down coffee, the way my stomach feels.” Helen and Abe had been married forty years. Impossible to imagine what Helen was going through now.
On the way to the cafeteria, I passed the Volunteers office. I saw Peggy Leigh, the volunteer coordinator I’d met the other day. I waved to her. She waved me into the office. She was behind her desk, talking on the phone.
I roamed the small room. One wall was covered with photos of various volunteers, including the candy-stripers. Deirdre certainly looked fetching in her crisp nurse-like blue-and-white uniform.
Next to this was a board that listed the monthly schedule for the candy-stripers. I looked at Deirdre’s name. She sure put in a lot of hours here. But as I started to note the particular hours, something didn’t seem right. I was still studying them when Peggy Leigh said, “How would you like to be a celebrity for a night, Sam?”
“I gave up tap dancing years ago.” I turned away from the scheduling board.
She smiled and I knew she was on a mission to get to me volunteer for something.
“Tuesday nights, we have guest speakers come to the cafeteria and give a little spiel to the patients who’re interested. You being an investigator and all, I’m sure they’d be fascinated.”
“You know, Peggy, now that you mention it, I am a pretty fascinating guy.”
“C’mon, Sam, I’m serious. You could probably tell a lot of stories about your work.”
“Names changed to protect the innocent, of course.”
“However you want to do it.”
“Could I do it next month?”
“That’d be fine. Second Tuesday all right?”
“Barring anything unforeseen.”
“My daily horoscope said this was going to be my lucky day.”
“I’ll probably have to make stuff up, Peggy.”
“Sure, Sam, sure.”
Her phone rang.
I nodded goodbye and went and got two coffees and brought them back to where the Leifers sat in the waiting room.
We drank in silence. Helen seemed to have shriveled inside her massive storm coat. Beth was starting to show the effects, too. Tears in her eyes. Hands trembling every once in a while. I tried to think of something to say. There wasn’t anything. I’d never gone through this kind of waiting before. But someday I’d have to, just as some day somebody would be waiting on me. Wife or child. Maybe my kid sister Ruthie if we ever lived in the same town again. There’s something holy about this kind of grief, the grief of waiting. Everything is cleansed but for the love you feel. The terrible wonderful holy burden of the kind of love that binds you forever to a particular person.
We sat through a shift change, some down-the-hall radio reports on the missile crisis that didn’t seem to be abating, and numerous offers of food from nurses.
The doctor came out at about seven o’clock. He’d undergone a personality transplant. He was almost tender now. He spoke mostly to Helen, as was appropriate I suppose. “Things are looking a lot better now. He suffered a heart attack but it wasn’t as critical as we first thought it was. I’d say his chances for recovery are very good and without any kind of permanent damage. We’ll have to raise some hell with him, Helen, about those donuts he likes so much.”
She smiled through relieved tears. “The donut shop is right next door to his business. It won’t be easy.”
He took her hand and then Beth’s. “You can see him in a little while. What I’d suggest now is that you two go down to the cafeteria and have some supper. I’ll talk to you in the morning again.”
He nodded to me and walked away, long, quick strides.
They both hugged me. I hugged them back.
“Say a prayer for him, Sam, please.”
“I will, Helen. I promise.”
Beth kissed me on the cheek. What nice soft lips.
I grabbed a couple of burgers and a Pepsi and ate in my office. In ten minutes, I got two calls. The first was from the Judge.
“There’s something funny going on, McCain.”
“And that would be what?”
“That would be Ross Murdoch getting out of jail on bail and then disappearing.”
“You mean jumping bail?”
“I’m not sure what I mean other than the fact that Irene Murdoch called me and is very frightened. She said she’d never seen Ross the way he was this afternoon when he got home from jail. She said he acted as if he was in some sort of stupor. Deirdre said she thinks he’s suffering from terrible depression about everything.”