The Jew's Wife & Other Stories by Thomas J. Hubschman

Author:Thomas J. Hubschman
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: fiction, short stories

When he awoke for good his headache was mercifully gone, but he had little appetite for the midday meal—potted beef, soggy potatoes and hard peas. There was apple juice to wash it down. The entire house—retreatants, masters and any other clergy attached or passing through—dined together in one room, a wood-paneled hall which looked like a boarding-school refectory. Thirty or forty people were assembled, all male, at about a dozen tables. They were waited on by young Latin Americans whose own status was not clear: seminarians or hired help?

He was seated across from the two retired pastors who, along with the other, younger priests, made up his retreat group. There was no rule of silence as there was at some retreat houses. Conversation abounded, priests being a garrulous lot. The Italian, who had apparently inured himself to the rigors of clerical food, kept up a steady stream of talk without missing a beat with his knife and fork. He was a small, sinewy man, slightly hunched over from some chronic affliction, but as animated as a monkey.

“You from-a dese parts, Fadda?”

Father Walther named his parish and pastor. The older priest nodded vigorously and shoveled in more stew. “You know him?”

“Never hadda da pleasure.”

Father Walther inquired where the man’s own parish had been.

“Jersey City.”

It turned out the priest, Father Barese, had taught at St. Francis but not during the years Father Walther attended.

“It’s a smalla world.”

“Where are you from originally? In Italy, I mean.”

The older man shifted a piece of grizzly meat to the good side of his mouth, grimacing like a gargoyle.

“Bari!” he replied triumphantally.

Father Walther laughed. But Barese’s dinner companion didn’t get the joke. He not only didn’t get it, he shot a disapproving look at the Italian that suggested something obscene was being discussed. He looked older than his tablemate, which would put him at least into his upper seventies. His own name was Deelan. Father Walther suspected that Deelan looked down on immigrants much as his own father used to, although the economic and social position of the Walthers hardly warranted their looking down on anyone.

“I knew Coglin,” Deelan said, referring to the pastor of Holy Name. “We were at Darlington together.”

“Is that so? I’ll tell him I ran into you.”

“The rest of us are dead.”

The man made a face as if his comrades had fallen dishonorably. Father Walther waited for him to say more, but the former pastor only stared at the wall opposite him, his mouth working angrily.

His own father had shown the same anger toward the end of his life, as if he had discovered some elaborate hoax had been played on him. It was shocking to see a similar bitterness in a priest, even in an old, not to say senile, one.

“I eata no eggs. No sirree. Too mucha cholesterol,” Barese offered with a wink. “Makes you arteries a-hard. Make you-a feeble-mind.” He touched his finger to his temple with his knife hand. Deelan glared at him suspiciously. The Italian waited until his companion’s attention was back on his plate, then winked again at the curate.

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