Blood on a Saint (20 page)

Father Burke had read the Riot Act to Monty and Maura when they were in Ireland together the previous summer. An exhausted Burke, following a night on the streets assisting a troubled homeless young boy, had taken Monty and Maura aside in the sacristy of a Dublin church and, without any of his usual irony or sardonic comments, pleaded with them to put their differences behind them. Life was too short to let their troubles keep them apart any longer. He had been particularly forceful about the need for Dominic to have a father present in his life. And Monty could not disagree. He felt the same way. And he was becoming more attached to the little boy with every passing week.

Here was a chance to spend some time with him alone. He called Maura again, and offered to look after the baby himself, letting Tommy Douglas off the hook if he had other things to do. So that was the plan.

Maura was all dressed up and ready to go when Monty arrived at the family home on Dresden Row. Normie was in a scarlet-red party dress, which set off her auburn curls. She held a brightly wrapped present in her hand.

“Whose birthday?”

“Megan’s, from school.”

“How old is Megan? Eighteen now?”

“No! She’s ten, Daddy. She’s
my
friend, not Tommy’s! You’re making jokes again.”

“Oh, right. Have a good time, dolly.”

“Yeah, it’s going to be really fun.”

Monty turned to Maura. “You have to see this.” He pulled a piece of paper from his pocket.

“What is it?” his daughter asked.

“Copy of a letter full of mistakes — the kind I know you would never make, Normie — and it was written to an opera singer named Kiri Te Kanawa.”

He put the letter on the coffee table, and his wife and daughter bent their heads to read it, Normie squinting at the lines.

“Where are your glasses, sweetheart?” Monty asked.

“I’ll get them before I go to the party. Promise. I can read this without them.”

Under the letterhead of the Schola Cantorum Sancta Bernadetta, there was an address in New Zealand, and the document read:

Keeree The Canowa

Dear Ms. The Canowa,

I note with interest you are shedjuled visit to Halifax on 6 February 1993. I have long been an admirer of you’re work, but I shall for the time being restrane myself from lodding you’re talents and acomplishments, and perseed to the purpose of my letter. I am the Director of a Choir school for children here in Halifax, and of the Schola Cantorum Sancta Bernadetta as well. (I inclose a Brosherr describing the Schola.) I intend to arrange for members of both School’s to attend you’re matinay Performance at the Rebecka Cone Auditorium. And I am wondering weather you might be so kind as to except our invitation to drop by the School and recieve a little tribbute from our Student’s. I would be happy to make all the arraignment’s for the visit — transpertation, refreshments and so on. I can be reached anytime at the above Address and phone number. I thank you for considdering my request, and irregardless of your decision, I look forward to hearing you at the Cone.

Sincerely,

Brennan Burke

“
Ir
regardless? Perseed? Every second word spelt wrong. Apostrophes in all the wrong places.” Maura looked up. “Who typed this thing?”

“Befanee Tate. It’s in our list of documents for the wrongful-dismissal case. Unfortunately, the only thing she got right was the address, because Brennan handed it to her. Then he dictated the letter and went on his way. This is the result.”

“Brennan must be wild.”

“I thought he was going to have to be put on life support when I brought up the subject after the discovery exam. The only woman he thinks more of than Kiri Te Kanawa is the Blessed Virgin Mary.”

“What will Kiri think of him when she gets this?”

“You might not want to mention it to him. Could send him over the edge.”

“I can imagine. Well, it’s time we were off, eh, Miss Normie?”

The ladies said their goodbyes then and headed out for the evening, and Monty turned his attention to the baby, Dominic, who was sitting on the dining room floor playing with a train set. He was a handsome little boy with black hair and dark eyes that sparkled when Monty walked into the room. He remembered the feeling he had when Tommy Douglas and Normie would kick up their feet and look positively joyful to see their dad. He had the same feeling right now, and he picked Dominic up and swung him around, bringing out gales of laughter from the little fellow. Then they sat on the floor together and staged multiple train wrecks to the boyish delight of both of them. Dominic gabbed away, using his ever-increasing vocabulary of nouns, verbs, and exclamation points.

When it was bedtime, Monty got him cleaned up and changed, and picked out a story book to read. But Dominic had other ideas. He toddled into his closet and began rooting for something; Monty had no idea what.

“Come on, buddy, time to get into bed and have your story. What are you doing in there?”

Dominic began pulling toys off a shelf in the closet and trying to hide them behind his back. He looked up at Monty with his big brown eyes. Monty could almost see the mischief in those eyes.

“What are you up to, you little sneak?”

“Neek, neek!” The little boy clapped his hands together and laughed as if the word “sneak” was the funniest thing he had ever heard. At that age, it might have been.

“Wait till you hear what else is in store for you with the English language, Dominic. Do you know what everybody says about guys like you after you’ve done all your
sneaking
around?” He gave the baby a gentle poke in the belly. Giggles again. “They say you
snuck
around.”

There were peals of laughter, the little face suffused with joy. How simple things were at that age, how uncomplicated the bliss.

“Yeah, Dominic, everybody’s gonna
snarl
and
snipe
and
snap
at you because you
snuck
around pulling all your toys out when you’re supposed to be
snug
in your bed.”

Monty wagged his finger like the old schoolmarm of days gone by and pointed to the bed. Dominic ran in the opposite direction, back to his closet, and began banging on the door with the palms of both hands, then turned to Monty with an evil grin.

“Don’t get
snarky
with me, you little
snoop
. You know you’re not allowed to be
snooping
in there.”

The door opened, and Maura walked in.

“You’re back already!”

“Mama!”

“What’s going on in here, boys?”

Monty put his finger to his lips and mouthed an exaggerated
no
at the baby. “Don’t tell!” Dominic looked at his mother, laughing, then looked away.

“Nothing going on here. Just having a discussion about the vagaries of the English language before putting this little
sneak
down for a
snooze.
”

That set him off again.

“All right, then. You’d better get on with it. I’ll come back in and give him his good-night kiss.
If
he’s good.”

“Oh, he’s a good boy. Aren’t you, Dominic? There’s nothing
snide
or
sneaky
about this little guy. Let’s get you into that bed now.”

Maura quietly slipped out the door, and Monty picked the child up, lifted him high in the air, and wiggled him. Dominic went into a fit of laughter again, and his mother called from the hallway. “He’ll never settle down if you get him all wound up.”

“You heard your mother. Wipe that grin off your face and
snuggle
down in your blankets.”

Monty got him under the blankets and kissed his forehead, then said good night and started to tiptoe from the room.

“Dada! Dada!”

Monty turned to see Dominic with his arms outstretched to him. Nothing in the world could have made him resist. He went back to the child, sat on the side of the bed, and held him in a long embrace till he heard the soft, even breathing of sleep, and left the room.

Chapter 10

Brennan

Brennan was assigned to yard duty on Thursday. He had promised Monsignor O’Flaherty he would materialize before the multitudes and talk about miracles. It was the last thing he wanted to do, and he had succeeded in avoiding it up to now, but O’Flaherty had him down for January 7. The day had arrived, and here he was. At least he didn’t have to discuss the miraculous healing of diseased organs and running sores.

It was cold and there was the occasional snowflake, but there was a crowd of around seventy-five people outside, kneeling at the statue or milling around the grounds or standing in line at the gaudy souvenir stands. There was now a laminated photograph of Ignatius Boyle affixed to a light pole. Brennan walked over to the statue of St. Bernadette and announced that he would be giving a short talk for anyone who was interested in the timely subject of miracles. The people gathered around him.

“The most outstanding theophany — divine intervention — of the modern era occurred in southern Europe in 1917. At Fatima in Portugal. There had been a coup d’état in 1910, and the new government was anticlerical and hostile to the Church. Seminaries were shut down, Church property was seized by the state, it was forbidden to wear a cassock, religious orders were driven out of the country, and religious education in schools was forbidden. Like Ireland in the penal times. Anyway, this was the backdrop to the miracle of 1917.

“Three young shepherds said that they had a vision of the Virgin Mary, that she appeared to them regularly at the same spot on the thirteenth day of every month. The three were Lucia dos Santos, who was ten when this happened, and her cousins Francisco and Jacinta Marto. He was nine; she was seven. The kids claimed that Mary had told them a secret, and they were not to reveal it to anyone else. Lucia’s mother repeatedly called her a liar, scolded and beat her to get her to admit she had made it up. Lucia wouldn’t back down. A ten-year-old girl, with her mother against her. Then the authorities got into the act. The government wanted the superstitious peasants shut down. And they wanted to know about this ‘secret’ the apparition had imparted to the children. Why this interest in the secret, if the apparition didn’t exist? But anyway. The police rounded up the children, brought them to jail, and shoved them into a cell with some of the local ne’er-do-wells. The kids had a bit of fun there at first. One of the prisoners played the harmonica, and another danced with Jacinta. But the frolicking was short-lived. The children were taken out of the cell and brought before the senior administrator, who demanded to know the secret the lady had imparted to them. The children refused to tell. The man threatened to boil them in oil.”

“Oh come on! That’s laying it on a bit too thick, isn’t?” someone called from the crowd.

“Look it up,” Brennan responded. “That threat didn’t get them anywhere, so they took Jacinta away and left the other two with the administrator. A guard returned sometime after that and told Lucia and Francisco that Jacinta had been put in the oil and cooked. The two little kids believed it, and believed they were next. But still they wouldn’t tell. Then Francisco was taken to be ‘boiled,’ leaving Lucia by herself with the boss. In the face of what she believed was certain death, she refused to reveal the secret. The authorities had to admit defeat; the three were eventually released.

“I make no comment on the secrets of Fatima,” Brennan said, “or on the timing of what were very political messages recounted much later by Lucia. But I have no doubt whatsoever about the miracle of the sun. This was a miracle announced three months in advance. ‘It’s happening at noon on the thirteenth of October at Cova da Iria. Be there.’

“At least fifty thousand people witnessed the event. That’s the estimate given by Avelino de Almeida, who was there to report on the event for his paper, the liberal, anticlerical
O Seculo
. The paper had been mocking the claims all along, and Almeida expected that nothing would happen. Most historians say there were seventy thousand people there.

“Of course there were the usual claims that this was a situation of mass hypnosis or religious fever. Well, if so, it affected the anti-religious press as well as the supposedly gullible peasants, because they all saw it at the same time. As did a devout socialist who had gone to debunk the whole thing, but instead ended up in a state of shock in a hospital for three days afterwards. It was also seen by many who could not have been part of any kind of group hypnosis, people miles away from the site.

“So here’s what happened. The seventy thousand people, rich and poor, educated and simple, pious and skeptical, trooped to the site. It was bucketing rain the night before, and the ground turned to muck. Everyone’s clothing was soaked through. But the people stuck it out, determined to see the promised miracle. The three children were brought by their very nervous parents. Twelve noon came, and nothing happened. People waited. Nothing. The children’s families were terrified that, if nothing happened, the crowd would turn on the kids and tear them apart.

“Then just around one thirty — which, by the way, was solar noon in Portugal at that time of year — the rain stopped abruptly and the sky cleared. The sun appeared as a clear-edged disc. A scientist present, Dr. Almeida Garrett, described it in unscientific terms as looking like a gaming table. It kept its heat and light but you could look directly at it without hurting your eyes, without damaging the retina. The
O Seculo
reporter, Avelino de Almeida, likened it to a silver disc. Then it began to turn on itself at a dizzying speed, throwing out light in all the colours of the rainbow. All those brilliant colours were reflected in the faces of the people, their clothing, and the earth itself. This went on for some time, then the object seemed to detach itself from the firmament. It turned blood red and came hurtling towards the ground. People were terror-stricken. But it veered away.