Рэй Брэдбери: The Machineries of Joy

Father Brian delayed going below to breakfast because he thought he heard Father Vittorini down there, laughing. Vittorini, as usual, was dining alone. So who was there to laugh with, or at?

Us, thought Fathez Brian, that's who.

He listened again.

Across the hall Father Kelly too was hiding, or meditating, rather, in his room.

They never let Vittorini finish breakfast, no, they always managed to join him as he chewed his last bit of toast. Otherwise they could not have borne their guilt through the day.

Still, that was laughter, was it not, belowstairs? Father Vittorini had ferreted out something in the morning Times. Or, worse, had he stayed up half the night with the unholy ghost, that television set which stood in the entry like an unwelcome guest, one foot in whimsy, the other in the doldrums? And, his mind bleached by the electronic beast, was Vittorini now planning some bright fine new devilment, the cogs wheeling in his soundless mind, seated and deliberately fasting, hoping to lure them down curious at the sound of his Italian humours?

«Ah, God.» Father Brian sighed and fingered the envelope he had prepared the previous night. He had tucked it in his coat as a protective measure should he decide to hand it to Pastor Sheldon. Would Father Vittorini detect it through the cloth with his quick dark X-ray vision?

Father Brian pressed his hand firmly along his lapel to squash any merest outline of his request for transferral to another parish.

«Here goes.»

And, breathing a prayer. Father Brian went downstairs.

«Ah, Father Brian?»

Vittorini looked up from his still full cereal bowl. The brute had not even so much as sugared his corn flakes yet.

Father Brian felt as if he had stepped into an empty elevator shaft.

Impulsively he put out a hand to save himself. It touched the top of the television set. The set was warm. He could not help saying, «Did you have a seance here last night?»

«I sat up with the set, yes.»

«Sat up is right.» snorted Father Brian. «One does sit up, doesn't one, with the sick, or the dead? I used to be handy with the ouija board myself. There was more brains in that.» He turned from the electrical moron to survey Vittorini. «And did you hear far cries and banshee wails from, what is it? Canaveral?»

«They called off the shot at three A.M.»

«And you here now, looking daisy-fresh.» Father Brian advanced, shaking his head. «What's true is not always what's fair.»

Vittorini now vigorously doused his flakes with milk. «But you. Father Brian, you look as if you made the grand tour of Hell during the night.»

Fortunately, at this point Father Kelly entered. He froze when he too saw how little along Vittorini was with his fortifiers. He muttered to both priests, seated himself, and glanced over at the perturbed Father Brian.

«True, William, you look half gone. Insomnia?»

«A touch.»

Father Kelly eyed both men, his head to one side. «What goes on here? Did something happen while I was out last night?»

«We had a small discussion,» said Father Brian, toying with the dread flakes of corn.

«Small discussion!» said Father Vittorini. He might have laughed, but caught himself and said simply, «The Irish priest is worried by the Italian Pope.»

«Now, Father Vittorini,» said Kelly,

«Let him run on,» said Father Brian.

«Thank you for your permission,» said Vittorini, very politely and with a friendly nod. «II Papa is a constant source of reverent irritation to at least some if not all of the Irish clergy. Why not a pope named Nolan? Why not a green instead of a red hat? Why not, for that matter, move Saint Peter's Cathedral to Cork or Dublin, come the twenty-fifth century?»

«I hope nobody said that,» said Father Kelly.

«I am an angry man,» said Father Brian. «In my anger I might have inferred it.»

«Angry, why? And inferred for what reason?»

«Did you hear what he just said about the twenty-fifth century?» asked Father Brian. «Well, it's when Rash Gordon and Buck Rogers fly in through the baptistry transom that yours truly hunts for the exits.»

Father Kelly sighed. «Ah, God, is it that joke again?»

Father Brian felt the blood bum his cheeks, but fought to send it back to cooler regions of his body.

«Joke? It's off and beyond that. For a month now it's Canaveral this and trajectories and astronauts that. You'd think it was Fourth of July, he's up half each night with the rockets. I mean, now, what kind of life is it, from midnight on, carousing about the entryway with that Medusa machine which freezes your intellect if ever you stare at it? I cannot sleep for feeling the whole rectory will blast off any minute.»

«Yes, yes,» said Father Kelly. «But what's all this about the Pope?»

«Not the new one, the one before the last,» said Brian wearily. «Show him the clipping. Father Vittorini.»

Vittorini hesitated.

«Show it,» insisted Brian, firmly.

Father Vittorini brought forth a small press clipping and put it on the table.

Upside down, even. Father Brian could read the bad news: «POPE BLESSES ASSAULTON SPACE.»

Father Kelly reached one finger out to touch the cutting gingerly. He intoned the news story half aloud, underlining each word with his fingernail:

CASTEL GANDOLFO, ITALY, SEPT. 20. - Pope Pius XII gave his bles sing today to mankind's efforts to conquer space.

The Pontiff told delegates to the International Astro-nautical Congress, «God has no intention of setting a limit to the efforts of man to conquer space.»

The 400 delegates to the 22-nation congress were received by the Pope at his summer residence here.

«This Astronautic Congress has become one of great importance at this time of man's exploration of outer space,» the Pope said. «It should concern all humanity…. Man has to make the effort to put himself in new orientation with God and his universe.»

Father Kelly's voice trailed off.

«When did this story appear?»

«In 1956».

«That long back?» Father Kelly laid the thing down. «I didn't read it.»

«It seems,» said Father Brian, «you and I, Father, don't read much of anything.»

«Anyone could overlook it,» said Kelly. «It's a teeny-weeny article.»

«With a very large idea in it,» added Father Vittorini, his good humour prevailing.

«The point is ―»

«The point is,» said 'Vittorini, «when first I spoke of this piece, grave doubts were cast on my veracity. Now we see I have cleaved close by the truth.»

«Sure,» said Father Brian quickly, «but as our poet William Blake put it, „A truth that's told with bad intent beats all the lies you can invent.“»

«Yes.» Vittorini relaxed further into his amiability. «And didn't Blake also write

«Most appropriate,» added the Italian priest, «for the Space Age.»

Father Brian stared at the outrageous man.

«I'll thank you not to quote our Blake at us.»

«Your Blake?» said the slender pale man with the softly glowing dark hair. «Strange, I'd always thought him English.»

«The poetry of Blake,» said Father Brian, «was always a great comfort to my mother. It was she told me there was Irish blood on his maternal side.»

«I will graciously accept that,» said Father Vittorini. «But back to the newspaper story. Now that we've found it, it seems a good time to do some research on Pius the Twelfth's encyclical.»

Father Brian's wariness, which was a second set of nerves under his skin, prickled alert.