The Letter Killeth (11 page)

“Fred, I am paid far more than I am worth as it is. I sit in an endowed chair. I have a discretionary fund. There is nothing I need.”

It occurred to Fred that Roger might be drawing the wrong inference from the clothes he was wearing: the same baggy sweater and corduroys with their wales all but gone. “My family has always given generously to Notre Dame. I mean my father. I'm afraid I've let that sort of thing go.”

Small amounts of money, given to quite specific purposes, seemed more effective. Large sums, very large sums, seemed to satisfy some need of the giver rather than the recipient. Fred was struck by the way new buildings at Notre Dame bore the names of their donors. The pharaoh principle, more or less. Thank God his father had not been in the grip of that kind of vanity.

“In any case, I appreciate the thought. Money isn't what Notre Dame needs most just now.”

“And what is?”

Roger was wedged into his chair; his napkin was tucked into his collar and lay like a pennant on his massive chest. He looked at Fred. “Let me tell you a story.”

It was Roger's story, orphaned early, raised by his older brother, dubbed a prodigy, and finished with college and graduate school when most boys were finishing high school.

“Swift as my passage through college and university was, delighted as I was to be able to pursue a dozen interests at once, from the beginning I felt something was missing. You have to take a course in Dante from a professor, and a good professor, too, who shares none of Dante's religious beliefs, to know what I mean. A man can teach Shakespeare well and yet not inhabit in any way the world of the poet's real beliefs. So, too, with Chaucer, Milton, Browning. It is of course far worse in philosophy. Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, certifiably mad, read as guides to what? The tail end of modernity makes clear that it was rotting from the head down.”

“So what happened?”

A radiant smile. “I read Chesterton. I read Belloc. I read Claudel. I read Maritain. Then I knew what was missing. I became a Catholic.”

“And came to Notre Dame.”

“Eventually. It was a bit of a shock to find almost the same assumptions and outlook that I was fleeing here. It would be too much to say that people were ashamed of the faith; the fact is, many of my colleagues haven't the least inkling of the tradition in which the university allegedly stands. They have been trained as I was and simply accepted it as the way things are. It is tragic. A whole patrimony is ignored or, when taken into account, treated in the way I found so dissatisfying.”

“And you are offering an alternative.”

“In a small way.” He patted his middle. “Insofar as I can do anything in a small way.”

Roger tried discreetly to learn just what it was Fred did with his life, how he spent his days. He dodged the questions, again characterized himself as one of the idle rich. Much as Roger impressed him, stirring as what he had said was, Fred was not prepared to speak of his religious enthusiasms.

In the lobby, dressing to face the elements, Roger wrapped an
Observer
into his clothing and then, attended once more, went outside to where his golf cart awaited him. Fred waved him off and went up to his room. A message. He checked it out and groaned. Bastable.

7

Hugh Bastable was in a rage. He paced from his study through the dining room and into the living room of the town house overlooking the St. Joseph River to which he and his wife, Florence, had moved with the idiotic notion that they would end their lives pleasantly near the institutions that, with the passage of years, seemed to have been the scene of the best years of their lives. They had come fleeing what seemed the debacle of their family. Young Hugh—he was thirty-seven now—had come out of the closet, as he put it (“The water closet!”) and was now tossed about by the zeitgeist. Myrtle, their daughter, had married, three times so far, and had one neglected child for each of her discarded spouses. Florence subsided into silent resignation, but Hugh disowned them both, sold out, and moved to South Bend with Florence.

What had he expected to find? Florence had returned from her one and only visit to St. Mary's in wordless shock. And Notre Dame! What in the name of God had happened to Hugh's alma mater? During his active years, he had paid little attention to what was happening to the Church in the wake of Vatican II. The truth was that he hadn't been much of a Catholic, too busy, too successful, too whatever. There were disquieting moments when he wondered how responsible he was for the directions his children's lives had taken. But self-knowledge was not prominent among his gifts. He needed an external enemy, and by God he had found it. Day after day, he fed his discontents, and reading the benighted
Observer
was a reliable negative stimulus. Today's issue had provided a sympathetic portrait of the professor whose car had burned near the library. Izquierdo! Was the poor fellow the victim of some bigoted student, the reporter asked? That the man was an atheist and was noted for heaping abuse on the faith in his classroom was conveyed without the least hint that there was something odd about this. Surely this was the last straw.

The difficulty was that the past three years had provided one last straw after another, and nothing seemed outrageous enough for the university to finally shape up. Bastable had scanned the story and then faxed it to a dozen kindred spirits around the country. He sent out a spam e-mail to his classmates. Florence had diligently put together an almost complete list, with e-mail addresses, that facilitated the sending of such missives. He awaited a call from Fred Fenster. But what was to be done? Bad publicity? What worse publicity could be imagined than that chuckleheaded tribute to the campus atheist? Hugh had long since canceled his pledge of support to the university. But how could you punish an institution that was the beneficiary of endless floods of generosity from the most diverse sources? To make things worse, football, after having been in the pits for years, had suddenly been turned around, and the Fighting Irish were once more at the top of the heap. Which meant more money. Was even God against him? Without three hours a weekday of Rush Limbaugh he doubted that he could go on.

No one in the administration would take his calls any longer. His letters to the
Observer
were countered by half a dozen disdainful and mocking replies, most from the faculty. One insolent young woman had suggested that Hugh Bastable was an all too fair example of the alumni the university had once turned out.

To his surprise, Fred Fenster called in person. He came in out of the cold wearing a bum's overcoat and a shapeless beret. When Florence took his wraps, there he was in a flannel shirt, a baggy sweater, and old corduroys. The man could buy and sell half his classmates, singly or collectively, and he looked as if he needed a handout.

“You got my message?”

“My, it is cold out there.”

Florence offered hot chocolate, and Fred lit up like a kid. Hugh took him off to his study, what he liked to think of as his command center. On the radio a taped Rush raved on.

“Who's that?”

“You're kidding.” Hugh turned it off. “Well, what are we going to do?”

“I don't know about you, but I'm going to Florida.”

“We sold our place.”

“Oh, I rent.”

“Where?”

“Siesta Key.”

“What do you do, just sit in the sun while Rome burns?”

“I walk a lot. And read.”

Bastable shook his head. “Well, I can't blame you for wanting to get away from here.”

“I had a nice visit, actually. I had lunch today with Roger Knight.”

“I should look him up. What's he like?”

“My son is taking another class from him. I can see why.”

“He's not an atheist?”

Florence came in with a cup of hot chocolate for Fred. She put Hugh's Bloody Mary on the desk.

“I also went down to the Catholic Worker House.”

“Is that still going on?”

“Oh yes.”

“Bunch of Commies.”

Fred laughed. “What will you say if Dorothy Day is canonized?”

Hugh sought consolation in his drink. St. Dorothy Day? But he could believe it. He could believe anything now.

“Sometimes I think I've lived too long already.”

“You're that ready to go?”

“What do you mean?”

“I'm going to stop at Gethsemani on my way south.”

The river was all but frozen over now, and swirls of snow were blowing across the surface. The trees outside the window seemed black hands groping in the wind. It took an act of faith to think they would ever leaf again.

“You ought to join. You live like a monk.”

“You could come along.”

“Ha!”

“What do you know about Holy Cross Village?”

This was a retirement community run by the Brothers of Holy Cross, houses, apartments, terminal medical care.

“It's right up there on top of the cliff.” Bastable pointed.

“I checked it out. Maybe that will be my monastery.”

Bastable was excited. “You mean settle here permanently? Great. Why, together we could—”

Fred took one hand away from his mug and held it up, shaking his head. “You know the most effective thing you could do?”

“What?”

“Say a novena.”

Bastable just stared at his classmate, but for all he could tell Fred was serious. Say a novena? Did he really think …

Bastable stopped the thought. Of course he believed in the efficacy of prayer. The trouble was you couldn't count on it. You had to do things. But suddenly he felt helpless. Do what? Get into a rage daily and harangue Florence about what was wrong with the world? He had a fleeting image of what he had become, but he dismissed it.

“Okay. I'll say a novena. What will you do?”

“I told you. I'm going to make a retreat with the Trappists.”

Bastable gave up. “You can say a few prayers to Dorothy Day.”

“Good idea.”

8

“What are you talking about?” Crenshaw demanded, when Jimmy Stewart asked if campus security had found anything interesting when they checked out Izquierdo's office.

“The inspection of the car turned up nothing. The professor himself was of no help. But you found nothing?”

“That is all in Phil Knight's hands.”

Jimmy thought about it, then let it go. If Crenshaw wasn't interested, then he and Phil could find out who Oscar Wack had found examining Izquierdo's office. That it wasn't imaginary seemed proved by the presence of the pogo stick in the wrong office. Why had he thought of that young guy in the space-cadet helmet when Wack had described the supposed investigation going on in Izquierdo's office?

More snow was falling. What a winter this was. Phil had asked him out to watch a game, but the weather made that less attractive. Of course he would go. The thought of watching the game alone suddenly brought home to him what a lonely life he led. Not that he was given to self-pity. It hadn't been a shot in the arm to his self-esteem when Hazel told him she was going. He found himself unable to think of any good reason for her to stay. Her complaint was that he was too wrapped up in his work, but of course it was because they had no kids that her life was boring. He had suggested adoption, but she just made a face and wouldn't talk about it.

When he put down the phone after talking to Crenshaw, he wondered if that was his destiny. Get his pension and then apply for a job at Notre Dame security. Any real problems were foisted off on South Bend anyway, or lately on Phil Knight. He looked around his office and thought of Oscar Wack. Is that the way he looked to other people, a quirky bachelor? Geez. He got up, put on a storm coat, and headed for the elevator. He would waste the time before going to Phil's in a bar on Grape Road.

Downstairs he ran into Piazza, stamping snow from his shoes and looking around as if trying to keep time to the Muzak. He was in uniform; he preferred being in uniform, saying it saved on clothes. Piazza was always being kidded about using the prowler he took home as the family car. But he couldn't have got half his family in the thing, there being seven little Piazzas. They kept him on patrol duty because it was safer and because that was what his wife wanted. Sitting at a desk would have kept him out of harm's way, but Piazza would have none of it.

“Look, I was a clerk in the army. I had my fill of that.”

He looked as if he had had his fill of lots of things, a real roly-poly. But then his wife was a terrific cook.

“Come watch the game tonight, Phil.”

“I wish I could, Lou.” And he did. It was hectic at the Piazzas', with all those kids, but the place was what a home should be.

“Big date?”

“I'll never tell.”

“Ho ho.”

Outside and through the snow to his car. Had Lou been kidding? Did others think he led an interesting life, now that Hazel had gone to California? There were times when he really missed her, even the nagging. He should give her a call. Of course she was still single. They had been married at St. Hedwig's, a big Polish wedding with a huge supper and dancing until all hours. How could you ever feel unmarried after a shindig like that? And of course they were Catholics. At first he had thought that Hazel would miss him the way he missed her and they would get together again. That was still possible, but the more years you added to a separation the more likely it was it would go on. Separation. That was all her pastor, old Senski, would permit her, and he had been against that. It had been something to watch the expression on the priest's face while Hazel tried to explain how awful her life was.

“You think I never get bored? What if I decided to just toss in my cards and go?”

“Well, at least you get to Florida in the winter.”

“Take her to Florida,” Senski had advised Jimmy.

“I don't want to go to Florida. I want a life of my own.”