“He’s lucky he’s got you for a pastor,” said Mrs P.
“Oh, I don’t know,” Joe said, but didn’t argue the point. He returned to the study and poured half of the beer — more than half — into Father Felix’s glass. “Hey. How’d that man get on second?”
Father Felix observed the television screen closely and nodded, as if to say yes, Joe was right, there was a man on second.
“The official scorer has ruled it a single and an error, not a double,” said the announcer.
“Who made the error?” Joe said, more to the announcer than to Father Felix.
“According to our records, that’s the first error Tony’s made this season,” said the announcer.
“What’s so wonderful about that?” Joe said to the announcer. “He’s an outfielder.”
Father Felix got up and, as was his habit from time to time, left the room.
After a bit, Joe went to see if anything was wrong, but Father Felix, who used the lavatory off the guest room, wasn’t there. Then, listening in the hallway, Joe heard the old monk’s voice among the others in Bill’s room, and returned to the study. Sitting there alone, finishing off Father Felix’s beer, Joe asked himself, What’s wrong with this picture? Nothing, really, he told himself. The curate was entertaining in his room so as not to interfere with the game, the visiting priest was a fair-weather fan, if that, and so, really, nothing was wrong — it meant nothing, nothing personal that the pastor sat alone. He didn’t like it, though.
17. PRIESTLY FELLOWSHIP CONTINUED
FOR SOME TIME, Mrs P. had been bringing things into the study and arranging them on the library table, which had lost its somewhat refectory look (Bill’s idea) when Mrs P. covered it with an ecru lace tablecloth. Joe, when he might have spoken up for the bare honest wood (Bill’s idea), hadn’t, and now it was too late.
“Should I call the others, Father?” Mrs P. sounded apprehensive — the others were getting kind of loud in Bill’s room.
“No, I’ll do it.” But when Joe imagined himself at Bill’s door, looking in on a scene he’d been more or less excluded from, he decided to phone. “Bill?” What the hell was this? Either Bill or Father Felix should’ve answered, or Hennessy or Potter, but not Conklin.
They came into the study like conventioneers, carrying glasses, and formed a circle that did not include Joe, who, on hearing Conklin say that his mustache was considered “cruel” by women, wanted to hit him. Then they were roughhousing, saying “Pass that to thy neighbor!” “Fine young men,” said Father Felix, laughing to see such sport. “Uh-huh,” Joe said, and moved in on them, ending a series of blows. Conklin, fist raised, appeared to entertain the thought of starting another series, beginning with Joe, but changed his mind, which was just as well, though it still made for nervous laughter at Joe’s expense.
“Let’s eat,” Joe said. “Father Felix has to leave early.”
“Oh, don’t worry about me.”
Joe bumped them over to the food and stationed himself at the end of the table, by the wine, ready to pour and, if possible, to enter the conversation. To Father Felix, first in line, first to reach the wine, Joe said, “Just like the monastery,” referring to the nice display of food on the monk’s plate.
“Yes.” Father Felix had been saying (to Hennessy) that some days were perhaps better than others to visit the monastery if one wished to eat there. “We have a cafeteria now.”
“Wine, Father?”
“What kind is it?”
Joe, speaking through his nose, named the wine.
“On second thought, no,” said Father Felix, perhaps wisely, and moved off with his plate, holding it carefully with both hands but in a sloping manner.
Hennessy was next, and he also refused wine. But he complimented Joe on his building program, calling the rectory “a crackerjack,” which suggested to Joe that the works of Father Finn were still being read and might have figured in Hennessy’s vocation, as they had in his own. “You should see the office area,” Joe said to Hennessy. “Maybe, if there’s time later, I could show you around the plant.”
“Oh, no!” said Conklin, next in line, and turned to Potter in disgust, but Potter was talking to Bill, and Hennessy (“Maybe later, Father”) was moving off, and so Conklin, after more or less insulting Joe, had to face him alone.
“Wine, Mr Conklin?”
“Si, señor.”
Maybe it went with the mustache, but Joe wondered whether a priest should be so addressed, whether “reverendissimo” or something wouldn’t be more appropriate, whether, in fact, Conklin had meant to pay him back for the “mister.” At the seminary, as Conklin would know, there were still a few reverend fathers who made much of “mister,” hissing it, using it to draw the line between miserable you and glorious them — which hadn’t been Joe’s intention. After all, what was Conklin now, and what was he ever likely to be, but “mister”? It didn’t pay for someone in Conklin’s position to be too sensitive, Joe thought.
And listened to Potter, who was saying (to Bill) that he’d had a raw egg on his steak tartare in München and enjoyed it. “Mit Ei, they call it there.”
“You can enjoy it here,” Joe said. “Mrs Pelissier!” he cried, not pronouncing her name as he usually did, but giving it everything it had, which was plenty, in French.
Joe and everybody (except Father Felix) urged Potter to have a raw egg on his steak tartare, as in München—Mit Ei! Mit Ei! But Potter wouldn’t do it, although Mrs P. produced a dozen nice fresh ones, entering the study in triumph, leaving it in sorrow. Joe almost had one himself, for her sake. Potter came out of it badly.
Joe was hoping the BarcaLounger would clear when he set forth with glass and plate, but Conklin was in it, and it didn’t, and so he went and sat near Hennessy and Father Felix. “Never cared for buffet,” he told them, and got no response. (Hennessy was saying that the monastic life was beyond one of his modest spiritual means, Father Felix that one never knew until one tried.) Joe tried the other conversation. (Potter was building up the laity, at the expense of the clergy, as was the practice of the clergy these days.) “Some of your best friends must be laymen,” Joe said, and was alarmed to see Potter taking him seriously: that was the trouble with the men of Bill’s generation — not too bright and in love with themselves, they made you want to hit them. “But what about the ones who empty their ashtrays in your parking lot?”
Potter smiled—now he thought Joe was kidding.
“Not much you can do,” Conklin said. “Judah took possession of the hill country, but he couldn’t drive out the inhabitants of the plain, because they had chariots of iron.”
“That so?” said Joe, thinking, What is this? He tried his wine. “Not bad,” he said to Potter and Bill (who still had their drinks from Bill’s room), but he didn’t get through to them. Potter was a talker.
“What kind is it?” said Father Felix.
Joe, speaking through his nose, named the wine.
“Grape,” said Conklin, coming back from the table with the bottle from which only he and Joe had partaken so far, and sitting down with it, in the BarcaLounger. “Anybody else?”