“How did he know where to look? And how did he know today where to look and what to look for?”
Brother Hilarius said to me, “Speak it plain, Brother Benedict. Say it right out.”
“He had to have help from one of us,” I said.
What a miserable evening we spent. There was silence in the refectory throughout the evening meal. And silence from the kitchen as well; Brother Leo could not be heard tonight, chewing out his current slaveys in his usual style.
No calisthenics tonight, no boxing matches. No discussions, no chess. No one even had the heart to turn on the TV. We brooded separately, most of us alone in our rooms, and how strange it seemed to see all those doors closed; almost always, we left them open.
At first, most of the others had argued against what I had to say, or at least they’d tried. But what counterargument was there? The original lease had been stolen, that no longer seemed in doubt. Frank Flattery had without question burned the copy and its supporting documents, and so must have known in advance of their existence. Would he have risked exposure to come inside these walls on a fishing expedition? No, he would have come in here only because he already knew there was a serious threat to the Flatterys’ interests.
How could we suspect one another? And yet, how could we not? And suspicion of one meant automatically suspicion of all, since if it was impossible to believe in the guilt of any of us then it must be equally impossible to believe in the innocence of any one of us.
Say Brother Jerome. Impossible? More or less impossible than Brother Quillon? And was Brother Quillon more or less impossible than Brother Zebulon?
Oh, it was all impossible.
Defeated by it, our community destroyed by an idea more thoroughly than it could ever be destroyed by Dimp’s bulldozers, we separated into silent, unhappy, mistrustful lumps of matter. No one could meet anyone else’s eye; no one wanted to look at a suspicious face, or be caught with one. And everyone slunk around as though we all were guilty.
While I was the guiltiest of all. Which was ridiculous, I know, but there it was. Although I hadn’t been the one to betray us to the Flatterys, I had been the one to bring the bad tidings and I felt guilty for the effect they’d had. Sitting in my room after dinner, listening to the miserable silence all around me, I dearly wished I’d kept my deductions to myself.
I didn’t do much sleeping that night. If I hadn’t already had the Father Banzolini dilemma to think about, and if I hadn’t already had the Eileen Flattery dilemma to think about, and if I hadn’t already had my own future here to think about, and if I hadn’t already had the onrushing destruction of the monastery to think about, I had this damned traitor in our midst to think about.
In the theological sense, that “damned.” Oh, very much in the theological sense.
“Brother Oliver,” I said, the next morning.
He looked as sleepless and bleary-eyed as I felt. He was sitting on his three-legged stool before his latest Madonna and Child, but his hands were empty and he had half-turned away from his painting to brood at nothing in particular. Now he squinted up at me in the cold clear winter light that he was wasting, and sighed, and said, “Yes, Brother Benedict?” In his tone, he seemed to be asking me what dreadful news I had to bring him this time.
I said, “May I have your permission, Brother, to Travel?”
That caught his interest, though only marginally. “Travel?”
“I was thinking last night,” I said, and he sighed again in agreement. I went on, “I feel responsible for the way everybody feels, I was the one who told you all that it had to be one—”
“Oh, no, Brother,” he said. Rising from the stool, trying to rouse himself to express concern, he rested a hand on my arm and said, “You shouldn’t blame yourself, Brother. You merely pointed out to us something that was there for all to see. I should have seen it myself, but it was just so, so—” He made a helpless gesture, by way of finishing the sentence.
“Yes, I know,” I said. “But I want to do something, I want to make amends somehow.”
“There’s nothing to make amends for, Brother.”
“I want to do what I can,” I said.
Again he sighed. “Very well. And what is it you want to do?”
“See Eileen Flattery.”
He reared back in astonishment. “See her? What on earth for?”
“I believe she was telling me the truth the last time I saw her,” I said. “I don’t believe she was being two-faced, like her brother and her father. I believe she really would try to help us, if she believed her father was in the wrong.”
“Help us how? What could she do?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “But if I went to her, if I told her what her brother has done, that might put her on our side. At least I could try.”
He thought about that. “And what about... your own quandaries, Brother?”
“Under the circumstances,” I said, “I believe I could sublimate them.”
Again he patted my arm. “Bless you, Brother Benedict,” he said. “You have my permission, and my thanks.”
I was an old hand at Travel by now, practically a commuter. Although this was my first experience outside the walls completely on my own, I strode off across 51st Street with barely a qualm. I made it to Penn Station without incident, re-excavated the Long Island Railroad without difficulty, and boarded a train for Sayville almost at once.
In the first part of the trip, in the two-level train with the tiny compartments, I shared the ride with a Santa Claus who drank something sweet-smelling from a pint bottle he kept in the pocket of his red Santa Claus coat. The white beard and red nose and huge paunch all seemed real enough, but instead of a deep ho-ho-ho sort of voice he had a raspy cracked-pottery sounding thing, as though he’d been left outside in the damp for too many nights. Drinking, wiping his mouth on his red sleeve, offering the bottle to me — I shook my head, thanking him with a small smile — he said, “Tough racket.”
“I’m sure,” I said.
He glugged again, offered the bottle again. “Change your mind?”
“Thanks just the same,” I said.
He shrugged, screwed the cap on the bottle, and stuffed it away in his pocket. “Fuckin little kids,” he said.
“I suppose so,” I said.
He nodded, brooding at his reflection in the window. We were still in the tunnel, with only blackness outside the train. Then he looked at me again and said, “What do you do off season?”
“I beg your pardon?”
He gestured, with a thick-knuckled hand. “You know. After Christmas.”
Understanding the misunderstanding then, I smiled and said, “I go on being a monk.”
He looked interested. “Oh, yeah?”
“A real monk,” I said.
Then he got it, too, and he grinned widely, showing stumpy brown teeth inside the snow-white beard. “No shit,” he said. “You’re a real monk?”
“That’s right,” I said.
He laughed at that, with his hands on his knees. It wasn’t a Santa Claus laugh, but it was a laugh. “A real monk,” he repeated.
I nodded, smiling back at him.
He leaned forward, tapping my knee. “Whadaya think,” he said. “Maybe I’m the real Santy Claus.”
“Maybe you are,” I said.
He tugged at his beard. “This ain’t fake, you know.”
“I can see that.”
“Damn right.” He sat back, studying me, pleased with himself, and abruptly said, “So whadaya want for Christmas?”
“What?”
“Sure,” he said. “Whadaya want for Christmas?” His grin was huge.