J. Powers - Morte D'Urban

“Let me understand you,” said Father Urban.

“Yes?” said Wilf, with a laugh — as if he didn’t see what was so difficult to understand. “Oh, I can return the varnish for credit, if that’s what’s bothering you, Father. Or we can keep it and use it elsewhere — where it won’t be so noticeable.”

“That isn’t what bothers me,” Father Urban said. “Don’t you need a machine of some kind for sanding a floor?”

“Not necessarily.”

“Do it by hand, you mean?”

“Why not? It isn’t as if there were only one or two of us.”

Father Urban had nothing to say to this, and the other two, of course, had nothing to say at all.

“You can rent machines,” Wilf said. “But there’s more to it than that. This paint may look dry, but it really isn’t. It takes paint months to dry — to really dry. You bring in a sander, and kick up a lot of dust, and the walls and ceiling would pick it all up — and then where would we be?”

“God, I don’t know,” said Father Urban. “But I’m for varnishing the floor.”

“You don’t see so much varnish nowadays. You take the floors in your nice new homes, they’re not varnished. You just have the natural beauty of the wood.”

“Yes, but are you sure we’ve got the wood for it?”

Wilf stared down at the old floor, as did the others.

“What is this stuff anyway?” said Father Urban. It looked like the kind of wood he’d seen on back porches.

“It’s fir.”

“Is that what they’re using in these new homes?”

“Mostly they’re using oak and maple.”

“Not fir?”

“No.”

“Well, there you are.”

“I was just thinking it would look better some other way.”

“You’d soon change your mind if you saw this old floor treated like something it obviously isn’t. It’s always been varnished. It wouldn’t look right any other way. It’d look— funny .”

Wilf was silent, staring down at the floor.

Father Urban stole a glance at Brother Harold and decided to take a chance on him. “What’s your opinion, Brother?”

“It’s up to Father Wilfrid.”

“At one time I was considering asphalt tile,” Wilf said. “You see a lot of that in your new buildings. Pretty expensive, though, and we don’t own a blowtorch.”

“Blowtorch?” said Father Urban.

“You heat your tile with a blowtorch as you lay it.”

Father Urban shook his head. He didn’t feel that Wilf should be trusted with a blowtorch.

“It’s really quite simple.”

“Yeah? Well, I’m for varnishing it. This is an old floor and should be treated as such — in my opinion.”

“One thing is certain,” Wilf said. “We don’t want it to look— funny .”

“No,” said Brother Harold.

“No,” said Jack.

“No,” said Father Urban.

And so they varnished it.

The following morning, it was dry to the touch, and so they put down the tarpaulin and newspapers and gave the trim around the windows and doors another coat — the original ivory trim no longer peeked through the blue. Finding themselves with time on their hands, and blue paint to spare, they did over a few rocking chairs. (“They’ll go in better now.”) Then the paint for the wall arrived from Minneapolis — very little time had been lost — and they finished the job. However, when they took up the newspapers, there was a certain amount of adhesion. (“Drying conditions are never ideal in cold weather.”) But the newsprint, where it stuck to the floor, was easily removed with thinner — as was the varnish. Wilf, touching up these places, and going beyond them, seemed in danger of repeating the mistake he’d made earlier, in the case of the ceiling, but he caught himself. “We’ll leave the rest to the shoes of retreatants,” he said. “And with throw rugs…” He stood back, brush in hand, and said, “Well, what d’ya think?” But before anybody could say, he went on. “Of course, these bright lights show up everything.” Yes. The salmon pink walls and ceiling spoke to them eloquently of the fat and lean days. “But with proper lighting… Well, what d’ya think?”

“Looks fine to me,” said Jack.

“Yes,” said Brother Harold.

Father Urban made a suitable noise.

“It’s been a long haul,” Wilf said, “but we made it.”

Made what ? So many times Father Urban had been tempted to take Wilf aside and say, Look. Why not talk to a few people who make a business of this sort of thing? Get some estimates. Then tell ’em how it is with us at the moment, say we’ll take care of ’em as soon as we can put this place on a paying basis, and make ’em feel a part of that . Actually, in this kind of an operation, it’s unhealthy not to be in debt. If you want me to do the talking, I will. The point is we can do better than this. Now how about it? But Father Urban hadn’t taken Wilf aside and said this. Father Urban had scarcely complained. Seeing what he saw, and knowing what he knew, and doing nothing about it — it wasn’t easy, not for him. In this way, though, if there was any purpose in his present situation, it would be revealed to them all, for better or worse. He was only one of the hands. Let the captain sail the ship. Malice might play a part in such an attitude — a desire to see the ship go down with all aboard, himself included — but wasn’t it, except for that, the right attitude for one in his position?

AND THEN FATHER Urban weakened, but not as he’d been afraid he might. No, even though they were ripping up the old linoleum in the kitchen and the bathrooms at Major, and laying tile with a blowtorch (Wilf did find a place in Olympe that would rent him one, and allow him to apply the rent on a new one, should he decide to buy later), Father Urban didn’t take him aside, or rebel, or complain. No, Father Urban weakened in another way. He agreed to address the Great Plains Commercial Club at its annual Poinsettia Smorgasbord, and thus he put himself in a position to serve the Order as no other man could.

“I was hoping something like this would happen,” said Wilf, tying in the invitation with the interview he’d given the Duesterhaus Farmer on the subject of personnel changes and other improvements at the Hill. The Farmer , a weekly, had printed quite a lot about Father Urban (“whose presence at St Clement’s Hill will come as a pleasant surprise to many in Duesterhaus and surrounding trade area”) and very little about Jack (“also well known”), and so perhaps Wilf was right in taking credit for the invitation.

The Poinsettia Smorgasbord, held in the Greenwich Village Room of the General Diggles Hotel, was the only Club event to which members (professional as well as businessmen) brought their wives. It certainly lived up to its billing as a very nice affair. First came the cocktail period (Father Urban, assured that soft drinks were being served to those who preferred them, said, “Oh, fine. Well, maybe a little scotch and soda — Johnnie Walker, Black, if you please”), then came the smorgasbord itself, and then came Father Urban who, as the toastmaster said afterward, gave them all a very rich experience. In the course of Father Urban’s talk, which he called “Christmas down through the ages, a travelogue in time,” he not only related stories from history and legend but sang snatches of carols from far-off lands. Never once did he strike a partisan note. Jews could have heard him, and perhaps a few did, without taking offense. He closed with a rousing recitation of “The Night Before Christmas.”

Unfortunately, the members of the Club were in the habit of hearing from atomic scientists and foreign-policy experts, and so there was a question period. Right away some fool wanted to know what the speaker thought of “this here campaign to put Christ in Christmas.”