Tony Hillerman - Finding Moon

The door of the other penitential cubicle opened and another woman emerged, this one elderly. She walked slowly toward the main altar and knelt. The door remained open, inviting another penitent. None appeared.

Moon’s thoughts drifted back to Halsey. In retrospect their rapport seemed odd. Conventional wisdom says opposites attract. But, except physically, he and Halsey were very much alike. They would not try to defeat the world but they would survive. Their cuts would heal. Halsey was no more ambitious than he was. The three stripes on Halsey’s sleeve were there by default. The same with Moon’s rank as sergeant. The army was all right with Halsey. It was stupid, senseless, inefficient, full of the absurdities that Halsey collected and treasured. He’d found a home in the armored division. And so had Moon. And both for the same reason: the draft board lottery came up with their number. Halsey could have qualified for a deferment. Why hadn’t he? A lot of trouble, he’d said. And he was curious. What else would he do? Fate had decreed it. The two of them had sat in the post exchange night after night drinking bad PX beer and discussing such questions. Going into town together in usually fruitless searches for women. Exchanging boyhood embarrassments, triumphs, and defeats, looking under it all for some hint of meaning.

The man in the white shirt emerged from the penitential doorway and departed, leaving it open. If the priest in the center cubicle was indeed Father Julian he would be idle now, looking out to see if another customer was waiting. Moon was aware that the priest was probably looking at him right now, wondering if he’d come in. Well, would he? Moon wasn’t sure. It was a long, long time since he had had a talk like the ones he and Halsey had shared. He hadn’t realized how he hungered for them. He glanced back, saw that now the center door was open too, and a small priest, his cassock hanging loosely on his skinny frame, was limping down the aisle toward him.

“I decided that you might not be coming in,” said Father Julian. “I decided I would bring you a personal invitation.”

“You recognized me,” Moon said, because he could think of nothing else.

Julian made a deprecatory gesture. “Biggest man in the cathedral,” he said. “I wouldn’t be surprised if you’re the biggest man in Manila.”

Moon laughed. “You exaggerate,” he said.

“How big are you?” Julian said. “Six and a half feet, I’d say. Maybe two hundred sixty pounds.”

“You’re still exaggerating.”

“But not by very much, I think. Anyway, I am happy to see you. I had hoped-” Julian paused, thinking.

“That I’d finish the story?”

“Oh, that. Yes. That would be interesting. But I had hoped, too, that you would tell me something that would jar my mind from its lethargy and I would somehow think of something wise to say to you. And you would say, ‘Yes! Yes! Of course! This dinky little priest is absolutely correct. I should forgive myself for this awful sin of which I am so proud. And then I will allow God to forgive me.”

Father Julian had seated himself in the pew beside Moon, and he looked at him sideways now, grinning.

“We priests sometimes entertain such grand delusions. It is something that happens to us when we receive the Holy Orders, when the bishop ordains us.”

“It happens to all males, I guess,” Moon said. “I used to enjoy some grand delusions.” But when had that been? As a child, of course. But not much after that. He had time enough to think about it because Father Julian seemed to be thinking about it too. At least he wasn’t talking. He sat, head slightly down, smiling slightly, a minuscule nod in agreement with whatever was passing though his mind. Relaxed. It skipped Moon back to post exchange evenings he and Halsey had spent.

“It’s not a séance,” Halsey had said after they’d finished a second beer without a word spoken, “because a séance requires some effort. And some outside interference from a spirit. I’d call it nonverbal communication-the ultimate in intellectual inertia.” And Moon had said, But we don’t communicate, and Halsey had said, “Sure we do. When the First Sarge came in a minute ago you raised an eyebrow. I looked. You smirked. I remembered how he tried to take the wrong gal home last time we were here. I nodded. We communicated.” And Moon had said, Just call it comfortable silence.

And the silence now was comfortable. Father Julian, having heard his quota of sins for the day, seemed to feel no hunger to hear more. Moon was in no hurry to provide them. They talked about why Julian had gone into the seminary, and why he’d returned to it after dropping out. They talked about American journalism, and Manila journalism, and, eventually, about what Moon was doing so far from Durance and the cold, clean air of the Colorado high country.

“That’s odd, don’t you think?” Julian said. “That your brother didn’t tell you he had a daughter? Didn’t he tell your mother either?”

“Maybe he did,” Moon said. The thought had hung at the edge of his consciousness for days, but it was the first time he’d allowed himself to really consider it. “if he did, she didn’t tell me.”

Julian seemed to notice how forlorn that sounded. He looked at Moon, expression sympathetic. “Maybe he thought you would disapprove. Big brother-little brother, you know. The infant born out of wedlock. Woman of a different race. All that. Maybe he told your mother to keep it a secret.”

“Possibly,” Moon said. “Who knows? Maybe she knew all the time. Maybe not telling me was her idea.”

“And why would that be?” Julian said, but he was asking himself more than Moon, and Moon had no comment.

A woman came in through the side door, lit another candle before the alcove altar, and knelt. From somewhere far out in Manila Bay came the sound of a tugboat hooting; from Quezon Boulevard the sound of a siren; from somewhere behind them, someone coughing. Silence.

Julian sighed. Chuckled. “This is going to sound Freudian, I think. What I’m about to say. But is there something between you and your mother? Some rift? Some-some problem?”

“Well, yes,” Moon said.

And as he said it he knew that this was what he had come for: to talk to another human being about how he had brought about the defeat of Victoria Mathias. To make this confession.

“Women have more trouble forgiving, you know. You told me that. Your experience from ten thousand weeks of hearing their confessions. I’ll tell you what I did to my mother.”

Julian held up his hand. “Wait. Think about it for a moment. I am curious. I would like to hear it. But do you really want to tell me?”

Moon thought about it. “Not exactly,” Moon said. “I don’t want to but I need to.”

Julian nodded.

“I have to go back a ways,” Moon said.

Julian nodded again. “Go back as far as you need,” he said. “Nothing awaits me but an empty room.”

But where to begin? “She was a small woman. Still is, for that matter. But I was thinking of when I was a boy. Little. Very neat. Very pretty. Our house was neat too. We lived in Oklahoma. In Lawton. We owned a little printing shop. My dad was a great big guy, like me. People called him Marty. For Martin. Looking back on it, knowing what I know now, I know he drank too much. Like me. When I was twelve he got sick. Very sick. They put him in the hospital and the doctors decided he had pneumonia. They treated him for that. Turned out they were wrong.” Moon paused, tried to keep the bitterness out of his voice. “He got sicker and sicker, and finally they discovered he had tuberculosis and it had spread into his spinal column. They called it Pott’s disease, and whatever it was it killed him, and it took a long time doing it.”