"I"ll leave you two alone," said Martha. She closed the door and her footsteps wandered off down the hall.
Donegal and the young priest eyed each other warily.
"You look like h.e.l.l, Donegal," the padre offered jovially. "Feeling nasty?"
"Skip the small talk. Let"s get this routine over with."
The priest humphed thoughtfully, sauntered across to the bed, gazed down at the old man disinterestedly. "What"s the matter? Don"t want the "routine"? Rather play it tough?"
"What"s the difference?" he growled. "Hurry up and get out. I want to hear the beast blast off."
"You won"t be able to," said the priest, glancing at the window, now closed again. "That"s quite a racket next door."
"They"d better stop for it. They"d better quiet down for it. They"ll have to turn it off for five minutes or so."
"Maybe they won"t."
It was a new idea, and it frightened him. He liked the music, and the party"s gaiety, the nearness of youth and good times--but it hadn"t occurred to him that it wouldn"t stop so he could hear the beast.
"Don"t get upset, Donegal. You know what a blast-off sounds like."
"But it"s the last one. The last time. I want to hear."
"How do you know it"s the last time?"
"h.e.l.l, don"t I know when I"m kicking off?"
"Maybe, maybe not. It"s hardly your decision."
"It"s not, eh?" Old Donegal fumed. "Well, bigawd you"d think it wasn"t.
You"d think it was Martha"s and yours and that damfool medic"s. You"d think I got no say-so. Who"s doing it anyway?"
"I would guess," Father Paul grunted sourly, "that Providence might appreciate His fair share of the credit."
Old Donegal made a surly noise and hunched his head back into the pillow to glower.
"You want me?" the priest asked. "Or is this just a case of wifely conscience?"
"What"s the difference? Give me the business and scram."
"No soap. Do you want the sacrament, or are you just being kind to your wife? If it"s for Martha, I"ll go _now_."
Old Donegal glared at him for a time, then wilted. The priest brought his bag to the bedside.
"Bless me, father, for I have sinned."
"Bless you, son."
"I accuse myself ..."
Tension, anger, helplessness--they had piled up on him, and now he was feeling the after-effects. Vertigo, nausea, and the black confetti--a bad spell. The whiskey--if he could only reach the whiskey. Then he remembered he was receiving a Sacrament, and struggled to get on with it. Tell him, old man, tell him of your various rottennesses and vile transgressions, if you can remember some. A sin is whatever you"re sorry for, maybe. But Old Donegal, you"re sorry for the wrong things, and this young jesuitical gadget wouldn"t like listening to it. I"m sorry I didn"t get it instead of Oley, and I"m sorry I fought in the war, and I"m sorry I can"t get out of this bed and take a belt to my daughter"s backside for making a puny whelp out of Ken, and I"m sorry I gave Martha such a rough time all these years--and wound up dying in a cheap flat, instead of giving her things like the Keiths had. I wish I had been a sharpster, contractor, or thief ... instead of a common laboring s.p.a.cer, whose species lost its glamor after the war.
Listen, old man, you made your soul yourself, and it"s yours. This young dispenser of oils, substances, and mysteries wishes only to help you sc.r.a.pe off the rough edges and gouge out the bad spots. He will not steal it, nor distort it with his supernatural chisels, nor make fun of it. He can take nothing away, but only cauterize and neutralize, he says, so why not let him try? Tell him the rotten messes.
"Are you finished, my son?"
Old Donegal nodded wearily, and said what he was asked to say, and heard the soft mutter of Latin that washed him inside and behind his ghostly ears ... _ego te absolvo in Nomine Patris_ ... and he accepted the rest of it lying quietly in the candlelight and the red glow of the sunset through the window, while the priest anointed him and gave him bread, and read the words of the soul in greeting its spouse: "I was asleep, but my heart waked; it is the voice of my beloved calling: come to me my love, my dove, my undefiled ..." and from beyond the closed window came the sarcastic wail of a clarinet painting hot slides against a rhythmic background.
It wasn"t so bad, Old Donegal thought when the priest was done. He felt like a schoolboy in a starched shirt on Sunday morning, and it wasn"t a bad feeling, though it left him weak.
The priest opened the window for him again, and repacked his bag. "Ten minutes till blast-off," he said. "I"ll see what I can do about the racket next door."
When he was gone, Martha came back in, and he looked at her face and was glad. She was smiling when she kissed him, and she looked less tired.
"Is it all right for me to die now?" he grunted.
"Donny, don"t start that again."
"Where"s the boots? You promised to bring them?"
"They"re in the hall. Donny, you don"t want them."
"I want them, and I want a drink of whiskey, and I want to hear them fire the beast." He said it slow and hard, and he left no room for argument.
When she had got the huge boots over his shrunken feet, the magnasoles clanged against the iron bedframe and clung there, and she rolled him up so that he could look at them, and Old Donegal chuckled inside. He felt warm and clean and pleasantly dizzy.
"The whiskey, Martha, and for G.o.d"s sake, make them stop the noise till after the firing. Please!"
She went to the window and looked out for a long time. Then she came back and poured him an insignificant drink.
"Well?"
"I don"t know," she said. "I saw Father Paul on the terrace, talking to somebody."
"Is it time?"
She glanced at the clock, looked at him doubtfully, and nodded. "Nearly time."
The orchestra finished a number, but the babble of laughing voices continued. Old Donegal sagged. "They won"t do it. They"re the Keiths, Martha. Why should I ruin their party?"
She turned to stare at him, slowly shook her head. He heard someone shouting, but then a trumpet started softly, introducing a new number.
Martha sucked in a hurt breath, pressed her hands together, and hurried from the room.
"It"s too late," he said after her.
Her footsteps stopped on the stairs. The trumpet was alone. Donegal listened; and there was no babble of voices, and the rest of the orchestra was silent. Only the trumpet sang--and it puzzled him, hearing the same slow bugle-notes of the call played at the lowering of the colors.