Eminence Page 8

  Koznicki smiled. “Of course it does, dear. We were speaking of how one can tell whether God is truly involved in a wondrous event.”

  “So,” Wanda said, “how?”

  “Won’t you continue, Father?” Koznicki invited.

  “I think this is a fiendish conspiracy,” Koesler said, “to keep me from eating this beautiful dinner.”

  Mary O’Connor nodded and smiled in acknowledgment of the compliment.

  Koesler began with the salad and his explanation. “Let’s start with the notion I’ve already explored with the Inspector: When a miracle, in the technical sense, happens, it is God suspending His own laws, as it were. For instance, nature abides by its own law—the natural law. As far as we’re concerned, the law of nature—natural law—is God’s law.

  “That there are laws of nature seems self-evident. We depend on them for everything from simple math to landing on the moon. Now, there are people who see no need for an intelligent cause for all these laws. But,” he smiled at his dinner companions, “we are not of that number.

  “We believe that the Creator, the First Cause of everything, is the author of nature’s laws. Now, a miracle—again in the technical sense—involves a suspension of this law. Levitation, for example, is the suspension of the law of gravity. And an instantaneous cure is similar. Say almost the entire interior of a person’s body is eaten away by cancer. Something happens and immediately the body is completely sound and healthy. There is no vestige of cancer.

  “Now, nature, as we know it, does not operate at that level. Oh, there are times, of course, when the body heals itself of various infirmities, but not that radically, and certainly not that abruptly.

  “When such a thing happens, we believe that God has intervened, that God has, for the moment, in that specific instance, shelved His own law, the law of nature.”

  “Then the question,” said Koznicki, “is why. Is that what you are coming to, Father? Why does God grant the miracle.”

  “Exactly. Beside the unquestioned favor he grants to the individual beneficiary of the miracle, there is usually, if not always, a secondary reason. And that usually is to give a reason for others to believe—to strengthen the faith of others.

  “There’s one gospel incident that best illustrates this idea. Let me paraphrase the story, if you will.”

  The others smiled permission as they continued to eat. Ordinarily, Koesler was a rapid eater, a penchant he attributed to his days in the seminary with limited fare for hungry growing boys. In that setting there was a direct correlation between speed-eating and survival. But, because he was now so wrapped up in this explication— an endeavor he enjoyed quite as much as eating—he was falling behind the others in their progress through the meal.

  “The incident I’m thinking of took place when Jesus was teaching in a small, private home. There was a wall-to-wall crowd of people listening to Him. But not all His listeners were friendly. Sometimes it seems that His enemies—Pharisees, Scribes, Sadducees—were always in attendance, trying to trip Him up, trying to trick Him.

  “Anyway, this incident occurred at the close of a very busy day. And as Jesus was finishing His teaching, there was a disturbance in the crowd. It seems that four men were determined to present a friend of theirs to Jesus no matter how big the crowd or how many obstacles.

  “So they opened a trapdoor in the roof of the single-story house. Then, after placing their sick friend on a sheet, and raising him to the roof, with each of them holding a corner of the sheet, they gently lowered him through the open trapdoor.

  “The crowd had no choice but to give way; otherwise, the sick man would land right on top of some of them.

  “I often imagine this scene. The people who got there early to be close to Jesus as He taught, now have to back away. I can just hear them grumble, complain, and possibly even get a bit nasty.

  “To go to all that trouble required a great deal of faith. This man was so sick he couldn’t get out of bed. There were times in the Gospels where people were too sick to get out of bed and ask Jesus for help. Sometimes a relative or a friend would come alone and ask. Like the centurion whose servant was sick with palsy—the same illness, by the way, that afflicted the man whose friends now brought him to Jesus.

  “Jesus told the centurion he would come and heal the servant. Then the centurion said the words that are so familiar to us. ‘Lord, I am not worthy to have you come to my home. Say the word and my servant will be healed.’ And because the centurion had such great faith, at that very moment his servant was healed.

  “But the man who was carried to Jesus was a very different case. Obviously, his friends had brought this desperately sick man for a cure. Instead, Jesus told him his sins were forgiven. Kind of surprising because the man didn’t ask for forgiveness and that doesn’t seem to be the reason he came in the first place.

  “But the enemies hopped on the statement. The Scribes asked the crowd just who this guy thought he was, forgiving sin: Only God can forgive sin.

  “This turned out to be a setup. Because Jesus then said, ‘What is easier to say: “Your sins are forgiven,” or “Get up, pick up your mattress and go home”? ‘But,’ Jesus said to the Scribes and the crowd, ‘so that you will understand that I have the power to forgive sins’—then he turned to the sick man and told him, ‘Get up and go home, because now you can walk, now you are even strong enough to carry the mattress that your friends have used to bring you here.’

  “And, of course, that’s what happened. The crowd, and especially the enemies, probably were bug-eyed—but the sick man was cured.”

  “I think I see what you are driving at,” Koznicki said. He launched into his clarification as much as anything else to give the priest a chance to partake and catch up in the meal.

  “The point being,” Koznicki proceeded, “that forgiveness of sin is something that can happen only interiorly, in a person’s soul. So that when Jesus told the sick man his sins were forgiven, no one, not even the man himself, could know whether that had actually happened. Some questioned that it had. But when Jesus cured the man’s physical illness, he intended that as proof that he had the power to forgive sin.”

  “Exactly,” Koesler said. “‘I claim to have healed this man’s soul. You can’t tell whether I have done it or not. But, what if I heal the man’s body? That you can see. Now, see: This sick man can walk. He’s cured. And I have done it. It was at my word that this man who had to be carried to me is able to walk away using his own power. If I cured his body, and I offered this as visible proof that I have the power to heal his soul, then you can confidently believe I actually forgave his sin.’

  “And that’s what I meant,” Koesler concluded, “when I said that God generally has more than one thing in mind when He bestows a miracle on us. It is, obviously a gift to the one who receives it. But it also is a statement on behalf of the cause for which it was given.

  “Take Lourdes, for instance. A young girl, Bernadette Soubirous, claimed that she had a vision of a lady who professed to be ‘the Immaculate Conception.’ At the very least, if you wanted to believe in the reality of Lourdes, you would believe in an afterlife, since the ‘lady’ whom Bernadette claims to have seen and talked to lived a couple of thousand years ago. It would also be an added incentive to believe the entire Gospel message wherein Jesus promises eternal life.

  “Then, once again, if you wish to accept at least some of the cures, the physical cures, that have taken place at Lourdes, then those miracles are motives of credibility; they are proofs offered by God that what Bernadette claims to have seen and heard really happened.”

  “A wonderful thing happened within the soul of the sick man brought to Jesus,” Koznicki summed up. “And to prove that this spiritual healing actually occurred, Jesus performed an external, physical wonder—a miracle. Just as no one else could see what Bernadette saw. But, to prove that what she claimed was true, God granted external, physical miracles. A miracle is God’s ultimate proof. Would tha
t be a fair appraisal, Father?”

  “I think so.” Koesler was eating steadily now and gaining on the others. His ancient seminary experience was coming to the fore. “This has hardly been a theological treatise. But I think it is a pretty good basic way to understand the various implications of miracles.”

  Koznicki grew thoughtful. “Then that casts a new light on this priest who seems to have worked a miracle today. This ‘Father Robert.’“

  “Yes, I think it indeed does,” Koesler agreed.

  “It would pay to check out what this priest is selling,” said Wanda.

  “Absolutely,” said Koesler. “Apparently, a woman’s sight was restored. Was it a miracle or not? If it was a miracle, then why did God grant it? Does it have anything to do with this priest’s mission? And what is his mission?”

  “And if it is not a miracle . . . ?” said Koznicki.

  “That would be a horse of a different color,” said Koesler. “One thing for sure: If it goes much further than this, the archdiocese is going to have to get involved, make some sort of decision, issue some kind of directive. Which means that one of our priests will have to get out on the firing line, administer the investigation, conduct the examination. If it comes to that, I certainly would hate to be in his shoes.”

  “Amen,” said Mary O’Connor.

  She had a premonition.

  CHAPTER

  7

  They rode in silence. It was not the easy quiet achieved perhaps only by extremely good friends or lovers during which communication continues wordlessly. This was the sort of stillness wherein people turn inward and become oblivious to others.

  Lieutenant Alonzo Tully was driving. Alice Balcom was the passenger.

  She had taken a taxi to get to the doctor’s office. She had a car but had not driven for many months.

  She had phoned Tully when she was finished at the clinic. He had driven from Headquarters to the far east side to get her. Now they were taking Eight Mile Road to the far west side and home. East side, west side, all around the town. The fact that this was rush-hour traffic only intensified the pressure. The car windows were open. There was enough of a late afternoon breeze to make them feel barely comfortable, but just barely.

  Alice was first to feel the need to break the silence. “How did it go today, honey?”

  Tully shrugged, not taking his eyes from the heavy traffic. “Not a day to write home about. Spent a thrilling hour or so at the morgue watching Willie Moellmann carve up David Powell.” He paused, searching for something—anything—that might prove diverting in this grinding day. “Two other homicide autopsies going on while I was there. One by knife, the other by car. Kind of odd having all three be homicides. Figure accidental death would be more common. But three killings all together . . . that’s different.”

  He didn’t wish to amplify. Things with Alice were bleak enough without detailing violent deaths. But what else was there in his work?

  They fell silent again. Again it was a strained quiet. There was the feeling that each had something in mind, something that should be discussed. But for their own reasons neither wanted to broach a serious subject.

  “How about the investigation?” Alice asked finally. “The Powell kid?”

  “By the numbers. The board of review figures to come in with a decision tonight—tomorrow at the latest.”

  “That’s pretty fast, isn’t it?”

  “Uh-huh. They can drag on. Especially if there’s the slightest complication. A day is about as fast as it can go. I’ll get my gun back tomorrow morning. Lucky I thought to bring the spare with me this morning while they were testing the .38.”

  That gave Alice something to think about. Before getting to know Tully as well as she did now, she had been only vaguely aware of how virtually inseparable are a police officer and his gun. She’d read about off-duty officers intervening in a crime scene and invariably having their guns ready whether they used them or not. Now she knew that had Tully gone to work this morning with only his regular revolver and had the officials taken it from him to test, he would have been considered more helpless than a blind man without a guide dog.

  If he had been rendered gunless, it would not have been for long. One of his buddies would have driven him home to pick up the spare. If he had not had another gun, the buddy would have taken him to the practice range to borrow one. That he might drive himself either home or to the practice range would never enter the mind of anyone in the Department. There was always the outside chance that at any moment he might be called upon to function as a police officer and in that instance there always was the possibility that he might need a gun. And he would not have one.

  Try as she might, Alice could not think of many occupations that required an implement as much as a police officer seemed to need a gun.

  “Outside of that,” Tully continued, “it’s been a day of answering phones and chewing the fat. I never knew a day could be this long.”

  “And I didn’t make it any easier for you, did I?”

  Tully glanced briefly at her. “It’s not your fault, Al. God knows it’s not your fault. In fact, I’ve wanted all day to apologize about Saturday night. I shouldn’t have come crying on your shoulder. You got enough on your mind.”

  She reflected her surprise as she turned toward him. “My God, Zoo, you’d just killed somebody! If you didn’t need to get that off your chest, you wouldn’t be human. It’s about time I could do something for you. The rest of the time, you’ve had to take care of me like a baby.”

  “Men don’t cry.”

  “Of course not. Just human beings do.”

  His only response was a grunt.

  Alice was quite sure she knew how he felt and why he felt as he did. Zoo was a strong man, almost the quintessential strong silent type. But much of this macho exterior was no more than skin-deep. He was in a tough profession. Cops stereotypically were impervious to emotions that came quite naturally to most other people. If an officer had to kill someone in the line of duty, the public expected the cop to shrug it off, have a beer, forget about it. No matter that if such a calamity happened in anyone else’s life, everyone would understand—even expect—some ensuing emotional breakdown.

  But, dammit, she knew her man. She knew how precious life was to Tully, even though he regularly dealt in death. He would live up to the public’s expectation, but he had to let go somewhere, to someone. She could handle his vulnerability. It was between them.

  She was grateful she’d had the temporary stamina to absorb the deep emotion that poured out of him Saturday night.

  Alice had never been a mother, but as a woman she sensed what it is to not have the latitude to be ill. If the family is down with the flu, mother has to nurse them no matter how rotten she herself feels. No matter how sick she was and had been for some time now, Alice had to rely on what was left of some inexplicable inner resource in order to be Tully’s needed reservoir.

  And God knows she had been and was sick. Though what ailed her, again, God only knew.

  Tully didn’t want to ask, but it was inevitable. “How’d it go with the Doc?”

  He couldn’t see her eyes tear, but they did. “Not so good. He still doesn’t know what it is.”

  “The tests?”

  “I can only tell you that an upper and lower GI are no fun.”

  The sound that came from deep in his throat was an affirmation. “Nothing?”

  “Apparently not. Let’s see: that makes a chest X-ray, the GI studies, cardiogram, blood tests, CAT scan, and sigmoidoscope . . . and they haven’t found what’s wrong with me.”

  “You forgot the gallbladder.”

  “Oh, yes, the gallbladder. It’s getting so I can’t remember them all. But nothing, nothing, nothing. I’m beginning to wonder if the doctor thinks I’m a kook.”

  “Just because your illness might be in your head doesn’t make you a kook.”

  “Now you?”

  “I’m just supposing. Hey, babe, I’m on yo
ur team.”

  “Oh, I know you are, Zoo. But it’s all so discouraging. Dammit, it’s not just in my head. I can feel the spasm in my throat and I know there’s a lump there whether anybody else can detect it or not. I know it’s hard for me to swallow. This is how I feel. I don’t need anybody to tell me I’m imagining it all.”

  “That’s not what the Doc is getting at, Al. He believes you when you tell him about not being able to swallow and having indigestion and nausea. And it’s a fact that your bowels have been acting up something fierce.”

  “The pain is unbelievable.” The mere memory made Alice tense her muscles.

  “It’s just that he can’t find any organic disease in your stomach. He can’t find any physical cause for all your pain and misery.”

  The tears were flowing freely but still silently. She was able to stifle any sobbing. “So, we’re back to it’s all in my head.”

  “Maybe not. Personally—and I don’t claim to be any doctor—but I think it’s your sleep—or your lack of sleep.”

  “Zoo, I can’t help that!”

  “Honey, that’s a form of torture. You keep somebody from sleep long enough and that person’s gonna break down, no matter how strong he or she is. They do it in those dictatorships all the time. Keep people in a cell with a light that’s never turned off. Make sure the person can hear screams of others being tortured. Having to listen to it is worse than getting it yourself. But, most of all, what they want to do is keep you from sleeping. If they can, you’re gonna end up one sorry person. And one real sick prisoner.

  “And that’s what you’ve been going through: one long, sleepless torture. No wonder your insides are all out of whack.”

  “It’s not that I can’t get to sleep.”

  “I know, I know . . .” He almost smiled. “It’s something like that old saying: You can sleep okay all day and into the evening; it’s just the wee hours of the morning that throw you.”

  “Don’t make fun of me, Zoo.”

  “I’m not pokin’ fun, honey. But why can’t you turn it around like most folks do? You don’t get real good sleep in those naps in the daytime and it seems to me you’re robbing yourself of good restful stuff by staying up most of the night.”