Paul Theroux - My Secret History

“Him!” he said, waking up. “Feeney!” And out of the side of his mouth, “He’s a crackpot!”

It was funny hearing him say this with all his vestments on.

I said, “I sometimes think I’m a crackpot.”

“Oh, no. You’re an ace, Andy. I like you. We’re intimate friends.”

This made me beam eagerly, and perhaps he guessed that I wanted to know more. Yet I was angry with myself for noticing that he had said innimit .

“You fibbed for me. You’re a great altar boy. You’re bashful. And I love the way you told me how much your gun cost you.”

“Forty dollars?”

“Fotty dawlas,” he said. He thought I talked funny, too!

That was the strangest thing about the altar boy roster — all my masses were being said by Father Furty, and they were all early, and I was the only server. I could not explain it, but I was glad about it. It meant that I would be on time for the morning shift at Wright’s Pond, and my afternoons would be free — to shoot bottles at the Sandpits, or to see Tina. And there was the bonus of the funeral. I had not wanted to appear too grateful for fear of seeming too greedy; but I looked forward to another funeral, and finally a wedding.

All this also meant that I would be seeing Father Furty. I had begun to depend on him, not just seeing him but confessing my sins to him. These days I was much more truthful in the confessional and felt better afterwards. I had stopped feeling that I was probably going to Hell, and I sensed that I would most likely end up in Purgatory. The punishment in Purgatory was that you did not see God. It was a punishment I felt I could bear, and in fact on some days I was relieved by the prospect that I would not be seeing God in Purgatory; I had so often felt punished — ashamed and afraid — in the glare of God’s sight.

This change in my mood I attributed to Father Furty. He made me feel I could face things. I was worthwhile and mature. Sometimes I was funny! He could be stern in the confessional, but he criticized the sin and made me see how it was avoidable. He always left me with hope, and just as he had surprised me by telling me I was his friend, he urged me at confession to pray for him.

I hoped he was my intimate friend, as he had claimed. He had the sort of good-humored friendliness that sometimes seems to hide real feeling — he was simply too generous and openhearted and gentle a man to reveal his doubts. He was never unkind or offhand; I loved him for that, but it prevented me from knowing him well. I must have disappointed him often; but if so he had never let me know it. He always made it seem as though I were doing him the favors, not the other way around.

“Sorry to get you up so early,” he said when he came into the sacristy on those mornings for the seven o’clock mass. He had puffy eyes and looked as though he had not slept. He sometimes looked punished, like a prisoner serving time, which was why his cheery nature was so surprising.

“What shall we pray for?” he said, before he began putting on his vestments.

I said, “The conversion of Russia?”

“I’m beginning to think that’s something we might leave to Saint Jude,” Father Furty said, and winked at me. “Let’s try for something we might verify fairly soon — a lovely day and good weather this weekend.”

He often looked frail. He was one of those people whose physical appearance is different morning and evening. He altered throughout the day, starting out weak and trembling. He strengthened and grew pinker as the hours passed. By late afternoon he was healthy and talkative. His hands were steady. The next morning he was small and trembly again.

“Got to see the dentist today,” he said after the first seven o’clock. “I’ve always been plagued with dental problems.”

Dennist , he said; and dennal . Pronounced that way they did not sound quite so bad to me.

“Still reading Danny,” he said before we entered the church another day.

I had the paperback in my back pocket. I suppose he saw the bulge in my cassock.

“I’m up to Panders and Seducers,” I said.

“Abandon hope, all ye who enter here,” he said.

When I turned around, he winked at me.

“Pull the chain,” he said, and out we went, on the bell.

Intro-eebo ad-ahltaree-dayee ah-dayum-kwee-lah-teefeekat yoo-ven too-tem mayum .

Early mass on a weekday was restful — very few people in the congregation, a half a dozen or so, scattered here and there, just shadows and occasionally a groan. They were anonymous people, they never sat in the front pews, they took communion but always with their faces averted. They knelt and prayed with their heads bowed.

“Not many people this morning,” I said one day after mass, just making conversation.

Father Furty said, “Enough of them to show us the way.”

He implied that he needed them — and all the other priests I had known seemed to imply the reverse of that: You need us! The Pastor’s line was usually: I’m leaving you sinners behind!

At early mass there was no sermon. Father Furty whispered the prayers, the few people in the congregation groveled and muttered in the humblest way, and I breathed the responses.

Soorsum corda .

Habeymoos a Dominoom .

At the congregation there was only the briefest tinkle of cruets and the lightest ring of bells. It was all muffled and peaceful, but also like a secret ritual. I always remembered what Father Furty had said on his boat: “Real flesh, real blood.”

I kept the wine cruet in one hand, the water in the other: he took a drop of each, and they ran down the inside of the gold chalice like two tears.

When he offered the host and then leaned over the altar to say, “This is my body,” he closed his eyes and became so still that it sometimes seemed as though he had died.

He was always saying, “Stick around — what’s the hurry?” And the second morning he took me to Holy Name House for breakfast. There he introduced me to Father Hanratty and Father Flynn, who were very skinny — Adam’s apples, popping eyes, narrow ankles — and they were full of talk.

“More toast, Betty,” Father Hanratty said to Mrs. Flaherty. “Father Furty tells us you’ve got a great appetite. But what does he know about anything? He’s a foreigner!”

Father Furty was sipping coffee and smoking his first Fatima of the day.

“He’s from New Jersey,” Father Flynn said.

“God’s country,” Father Furty said.

“Ah, you reminded me!” Father Flynn said, and laughed and shook his finger in excitement. “The Boss received a postcard yesterday from his brother in Ireland — you’ll never guess the message!”

“Don’t tell me you read it,” Father Hanratty said, but he was more interested than angry.

“If you weren’t meant to read postcards they’d be in envelopes.”

Father Furty said, “You’re keeping us in suspense.”

“Postmark, Cork. Message, ‘Greetings from the land of faith.’ I swear it! Have you ever heard such a thing?”

Father Furty laughed, but gently — it was still early morning and he was not yet himself. He said, “That’s enough. You’ll confuse the boy.” He turned to me. “You won’t get any intellectual stimulation here, son. They’ve never read Danny. Father Flynn here reads the racing sheets, while Father Hanratty struggles with the Boston Globe . And of course they read the Boss’s postcards.”

“And what do you read, Billy?” Father Flynn said.

“Eldridge’s Tide and Pilot Tables,” Father Furty said. “And I see that High Water in the harbor this Saturday is at the civilized hour of twelve noon. You’ll be coming along, won’t you, Andy?”