The Night Church Part 19

Patricia's only comment after the meeting was over was that Lourdes suddenly sounded more tempting.

"It says it's in the Pyrenees in the brochure," she said in the cab on the way home.

"What of it?"

"Well, you can take me mountain climbing." She didn't laugh this time, and neither did he.

Chapter Twelve.

JONATHAN HAD HOPED that their journey would bring them a measure of peace. Instead, it only drew them deeper into their fears.

The flight itself was extremely pleasant. Jonathan was amazed to find that SkySaver Airlines had provided a beauti-ful L-1011 for the journey. There were a number of different pilgrimages on the plane, of which the Holy Spirit group was by far the most privileged. They occupied the first-cla.s.s section, and had been pampered as if they were flying on the best of the scheduled airlines. Behind them in economy Jonathan had glimpsed seats jammed nine abreast and peo-ple eating out of bags they had brought from home, but the curtains were kept closed, so there was no need to dwell on their plight.

The Holy Spirit group was young and well dressed. Where they had come from Jonathan did not know.

Father's usual parishioners were old people, mostly widows. Although the rear of the plane was jammed with stretchers, and there was even a staff doctor aboard, the Holy Spirit group had no sick.

Patricia was the only one among them with any defect or disease. The two of them sat together hand in hand for all the hours across the Atlantic. Jonathan watched the limitless waves pa.s.sing below, and let himself be lulled by the sound of the plane's engines. He toyed with the rescue-instruction card, flipped through a gift catalog. They had drinks before their dinner of lobster tails, and cognac afterward.

Then he slept. Unconsciousness brought him a new and terrible dream, worse than any that had come before. Like a man struggling against a stubborn current, he fought it, and like such a man, knew his efforts were pointless.

The serpent would have its way. Jonathan must dream his dream.

He sat astride a white, undulating female body. Each shiver-sweet pulse of his hardness wounded her more. When he jerked his thighs she would scream, and when she screamed his whole being would explode with pleasure. He jerked harder and harder until she was shrieking through bloodied lips and he could feel her swooning beneath the power of his pa.s.sion.

Jonathan screamed. He could not bear to look into those agonized eyes.

And yet they pleased him, and he did did keep on. keep on.

Even as she screamed her voice faded into wind-noise. He grew cold. The wind mourned and wailed, and the wail became a whine. Jonathan realized he was awake. The pitch of the engines had changed.

They were nearing Tarbes-Ossun-Lourdes Airport. He flickered his eyes open and looked at Patricia.

"You were groaning," she said. "Was it a nightmare?"

He didn't want to think about it. He twined his hand in hers and settled back in the seat.

Father Goodwin began to make an attempt with his guitar, and that diverted Jonathan. The priest stood in the aisle, his needle-thin fingers worrying the strings of the beaten old instrument. "Hail Queen of Heav'n, the Ocean Star, guide to the wanderer here below . . ."

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Father nodded and smiled encouragement at his fashion-able pilgrims as the plane swam on through the lambent French evening. He raised his eyebrows, he strove for a joining of voices.

Jonathan could almost hear him thinking: Sing. Please sing. "O gentle, chaste, and spotless maid, we sinners make our prayers through thee." Sing, you beautiful zombies.

Still nothing. Father Goodwin withdrew, nodding and smiling. People had barely glanced up from their cognacs.

From the economy cabin came a renewed burst of song. Father shifted uncomfortably in his seat. All during the trip the other pilgrims had been alternately singing and saying the rosary.

Across the aisle Mike slept heavily, his mouth slack, one ma.s.sive arm dangling into the aisle. Beside him Mary re-mained engrossed in Marnham's Lourdes: A Modern Pil-grimage. Lourdes: A Modern Pil-grimage. She was partic.i.p.ating avidly in the family absurd-ity. And why not? It was an absurdity she had created. Jonathan thought of her as far too sophisticated to suggest this ludicrous journey, but she had insisted it would be good for Patricia. She was partic.i.p.ating avidly in the family absurd-ity. And why not? It was an absurdity she had created. Jonathan thought of her as far too sophisticated to suggest this ludicrous journey, but she had insisted it would be good for Patricia.

Perhaps she was right. At least it was a change of scene.

"What was your dream, darling?" Patricia asked.

In the past few days she had grown more and more like a wife. Usually he reveled in it; to be known intimately was a wonderful new experience for him. But he wanted to spare her the savagery of his dreams.

"Jonathan, you didn't answer me."

"I was hoping I wouldn't have to."

"You can tell me, darling."

"I don't remember."

She didn't press him but he still wished she hadn't asked. Thinking about it forced him to face the fact that there was something he could not share with her, nor even explain.

"You're shaking," She slipped an arm behind his neck. The gesture had conspiratorial quality. Her other hand she laid on his chest. She placed her lips so near his ear that they touched and tickled deliciously. "I'm here with you, Jona-than. We're safe. We're thousands of miles from any dan-ger."

The purr of the engines dropped a couple of octaves. They were landing. A sharp bank revealed lights glowing in wrin-kled valleys, and off to the east a splash of color that must be Lourdes. Soon they rocked and rumbled down the runway, coming to a halt near the gate. Next stop, G.o.d willing, was the Gethsemane Hotel and a night's rest.

Jonathan was still not sure how Patricia was going to react to being here. She might, despite all she said, be holding out some small hope of a miracle. If she was, then she would be disappointed. Mother had been insensitive to this aspect of the trip, and Jonathan had told her as much. Patricia was an ideal breeding place for forlorn hopes. She was not recon-ciled to that wheelchair, no matter how she acted.

"Lourdes," Patricia said as the plane stopped at the gate. "My first footstep on foreign soil." Jonathan managed a weak smile into the rich and glorious beauty of his lover's face.

She looked long at him. Patricia of the green eyes; Patricia of the madonna smile. Her lovely b.r.e.a.s.t.s were elusive beneath her blouse. Her curves were suggested by the folds of her dress.

So far they had only been intimate that once. Subsequent attempts to get sufficient privacy had been squelched by a friend of Patricia's, a former Our Lady nun who had needed lodging while she found a place of her own. She had moved into Patricia's living room. G.o.d willing, old Letty Cochran (formerly Sister Saint John) would be gone by the time they got back.

To make matters worse, Mother and Mike seemed to have reached a new height of s.e.xuality. As never before Mother was seducing him. She was almost frantic. And she certainly knew how to make Mike happy. Not a night pa.s.sed that Jonathan wouldn't hear her in their bedroom crying out with delight, a sound which evoked in him the most painful combination of loneliness and excitement. He would lie just across the hall, fevered, sweating, erect in the empty air.

"Do you think it all really happened?"

"What?"

"Lourdes, of course. The cures."

"Perhaps. I don't know. There's something to faith heal-ing, that much we know. Psychological cure, like the pla-cebo effect."

"Something could could happen, then. That's what you're say-ing, since the doctors say my paralysis is psychological." happen, then. That's what you're say-ing, since the doctors say my paralysis is psychological."

Oh, boy, here it came. How dare they bring her here just to let her get hurt like this! Mother had been irresponsible. "The odds are against it, darling."

"But not a hundred percent."

"I thought you were the one who considered this an insult to your intelligence."

"Oh, Jonathan, now that I'm here-don't you think there's just a tiny, outside, million-to-one sort of chance?"

He could have wept. "I'm afraid I'm too much the scientist to calculate odds. Psychosomatic cures are known, but they are extremely rare."

"But if I believed-if I really really believed-maybe that would be enough?" believed-maybe that would be enough?"

He wanted to say no, but that just wasn't true. "There's a remote possibility. But please don't cling to it."

She sat rigid, staring into the middle distance. Without the sound of the engines the plane was filled with the moans and coughs of the Sick in the economy section. On the flight Jonathan had worried a good bit about the possibility of contagion. Would it be possible to get one of the bizarre diseases represented back there? The Sick who came on pilgrimage were the abandoned of medicine. Hardly a com-mon disease-except of course for the cancerous and the diabetic and the stroke victims. Among the most bizarre victims there was a case of dystonia musculorum defor-mans, a man of twenty-five twisted to Gordian complexity, peering through his gla.s.ses at a tattered volume of Proust.

But the Sick were far to the rear. The Holy Spirit pilgrims didn't need to trouble themselves.

"All bearers to their pickup points, please," a priest's voice called over the intercom. There was a general shuffling among the economy pa.s.sengers. Soon stretchers began to go past, hauled by relatives and volunteers. The worst of the Sick, a form swathed from head to toe in white, was pro-pelled down the aisle first. No information about this indi-vidual's disease had been forthcoming.

"There goes the corpse," Jonathan muttered to Patricia.

"Our Lady doesn't raise the dead, dope."

Just then the corpse gave out a long sigh.

"It's a miracle!"

"Shh!" Patricia's pale cheeks flushed. How painfully, delicately beautiful she was.

The complete procession of stretchers took ten minutes to pa.s.s.

At last those not under constant medical care could leave the plane. Jonathan went and got Patricia's wheelchair and they were soon on their way.

The greater part of the airport was a hodgepodge of victims and their retinues. It took an astonishing amount of effort and skill to move the truly sick, and people did not bring colds and rashes to Lourdes. Only the abandoned entered here . . . and their relatives and priests and lovers and friends. The airport resounded with a sort of low, penitent murmur. Despite all of Jonathan's negative feelings about the place, he saw at once that there was great faith here, and despite himself was moved.

His group was ushered by a woman with a clipboard into a special customs area. Here there were no crowds and no Sick. The Holy Spirit pilgrims were grouped with others like them, healthy, well-dressed people who seemed to have little relation to the struggling faithful on the other side of the ropes.

For an instant Jonathan's eyes met the cute little usher-ette's. She blushed and lowered her head, practically bowed. She hurried away.

"Who was that-a fan of yours?" Patricia asked.

"Never saw her before in my life."

"She acted like you were a movie star."

"Now, now, don't get jealous."

Across the rope hard-edged officials were screaming, "Customs! Douane!" Douane!" They were searching every bag, even looking under the sheets covering the Sick. They were searching every bag, even looking under the sheets covering the Sick.

On this side of the rope people got through instantly, with a polite smile and a perfunctory tap of the bag.

Their luggage was not even checked with chalk marks. Their pa.s.sports were not stamped. And the customs inspectors lowered their eyes when the Banion family pa.s.sed, more like servants than officers of the law.

"No big deal," Mike said happily. "Maybe they know I'm a cop." Jonathan wasted no time rolling Patricia out to the cab station. He really wanted time alone on the way to the hotel. He managed to get one of the ungainly-looking Peugeot cabs especially customized to take wheelchairs.

Once inside silence descended between the two of them. He had an important reason to want to be alone with her. So important, in fact, that he was having a hard time saying it. He wondered how she would react when he asked her to marry him. It had been much on his mind, and he had decided to ask her here at Lourdes. Maybe the good news would soften the hurt she was going to experience when the grotto failed her.

"Gethsemane Hotel," he said to the driver. Would it afford an opportunity of privacy, or was this to be his only chance? He wasn't sure he had the nerve right now.

He had decided to dare marriage because he was con-vinced the serpent was a side effect of a poorly tested drug. And he intended to enter psychotherapy for his dreams. Maybe he could become exactly what he wanted to be-a good husband to the woman he loved. It seemed so simple.

Why, then, was he afraid to ask his question?

He thought of the dream of an hour ago, the sweet, dying flesh.

The driver pulled out into traffic. Jonathan watched Patri-cia's fingers twisting in her flat, lifeless lap.

"Look," she said, "the crosses."

So those were the famous crosses of Lourdes, on the hill called Calvary just above the grotto. Beyond was the great Basilica of the Rosary and farther away the town itself, glowing with evening light, suggestions of neon shimmering in the summer haze.

Patricia smiled, and Jonathan almost sobbed. More and more he was feeling pity for her. He must not do that.

She had the softest eyes he had ever seen, so utterly without anger in them.

"I wish we could thank Mike and Mary in some way. I want to give them a present."

"Get cured."

She looked at him, surprise and confusion following one another across her face. How could he have been so brusque? Did he want to make her angry at him ... or was there some deep, s.a.d.i.s.tic thing thing in his soul that was actually sneering at her? In a voice dull with hurt she said she had come here only to pray. in his soul that was actually sneering at her? In a voice dull with hurt she said she had come here only to pray.

"I know, darling. I'm sorry. It didn't come out the way I intended. I guess it's just that I'm frustrated. I want the best for you, Patricia. I love you so!"

Her eyes searched him. There was perfume coming from the blond glory of her hair. He noticed the neatness of her nails, and the care she had obviously taken with her makeup. Even after the long flight Patricia appeared fresh. He felt weak and coa.r.s.e and mean to pity her. She must be suffering incredibly just now.

But no, she was smiling, she was brushing away the wetness in the corners of her eyes.

"At least I could get something for Mary since all this was her idea."

"A plastic Virgin, maybe? A rosary? Or how about a Virgin-rosary combo? That would be generous."

She managed to laugh a little at that. "Don't be sarcastic, you evil man. We have have to find something appropriate." to find something appropriate."

The basilica now loomed on the far side of the quick-flowing River Gave. The cab made a turn and pa.s.sed under the railway tracks and they were abruptly in Lourdes. Jonathan noticed the driver flashing his lights at a small group of dark-suited men on the corner. The men doffed their hats. Traffic choked the streets-tour buses, taxis, private cars, trucks.

The commercial density of Lourdes was totally unex-pected. Every inch of sidewalk was faced by a storefront jammed with religious kitsch. There were exuberant fes-toons of rosaries-brown, red, yellow, green, pink, white. Scapulars and miraculous medals were piled in mounds and pinned to cards in clumps of hundreds. Whole armies of plastic Madonnas of the Grotto disappeared into the glaring interiors of the shops. Our Lady danced and jittered in neon, praying hands flickered into images of the Sacred Heart and back again, and crucifixes were everywhere, each twisted tin Jesus identical to all the others.

The neon banished night. This was a religious Las Vegas, where piety and greed had twisted together like mutant chromosomes. As the cab proceeded slowly down the street, an endless, shrill babble of hymns from storefront loud-speakers came in through the windows with the choking diesel exhaust and the smell of frying junk food.

Patricia had gone pale. Her hands were tightly clenched. She was motionless, staring straight ahead.