Paul Theroux - My Secret History

“I can see two Faneuil Halls,” Mrs. Cannastra said.

“Are you sure that’s bug juice?” Mrs. Corrigan said.

Mrs. Cannastra grinned at her with purple-stained teeth.

“I’ll bet you’re starving,” Mrs. Bazzoli said to Tina.

Tina said no, she wasn’t.

“I would be if I were you.”

Mrs. Bazzoli must have weighed two hundred and eighty pounds.

“I’ve just been down with renal colic,” Mrs. Hickey was saying.

All this time, Father Furty quietly steered us to the outer harbor, and when we began to approach another island — Deer Island, he said — he asked me to kneel at the bow and make sure there were no rocks in the way.

“All clear so far,” I said.

At last we reached a ruined jetty and moored Speedbird to the still-standing posts.

“Let’s set up them card tables,” Mrs. Prezioso said.

They pushed three together on the afterdeck and covered them with a paper tablecloth, which was held in place with all the bowls of food.

“Shouldn’t we say a prayer?” Mrs. DuCane said, and looked triumphant as the others froze in the act of loading their plates.

Mrs. Cannastra had been saying to Father Furty, “Go ahead. It’s bug juice, Father.”

He held it but did not sip it. Instead he turned to Mrs. DuCane and said, “This is a form of prayer. Be happy. This is a way of praising God.”

“I hope you like onions!” Mrs. DePalma said, heaping a plate with salad. “This is for the Father.”

“I was doing one for him,” Mrs. Hogan said, with a note of objection in her voice.

Mrs. Bazzoli said, “I know he likes coleslaw. That’s why I got this one ready. Hey, it’s an Italian helping!”

They all still wore their big earrings, and their small hats were skewered to their piled-up hair, and some wore tight gloves — the kind they wore to church. They bumped arms at the tables — it seemed each woman was taking charge of Father Furty’s lunch by readying a plate for him, making a mound of food.

“I can’t eat all of that,” he said. “But it’s swell of you to think of me. Listen, this one will do me fine.”

He took Tina’s plate. She had not intended it for him, so there was very little on it — a Swedish meatball, a sesame seed roll, and a few spoonfuls of green salad.

“Eat,” he said, and pulled the roll into three hunks. And raising his paper cup he said, “Drink.”

He had dragged his captain’s chair to the end of the row of tables, and the women fitted themselves in, five on each side. They sat down and hunched forward, so their long slanting breasts lay supported by their upthrust bellies.

Tina and I sat on the rail — there wasn’t any spare room at the tables. In fact, the tables and the women filled the whole of the stern section of the boat. But though they were hemmed in, and the breeze made the tablecloth flap and tear against the women’s knees, it seemed much more formal than a picnic. It was more like a ritual — polite and pious.

“This is a real sit-down dinner,” Mrs. Prezioso said.

“Pass the pickles, Mrs. Pretz,” Mrs. Hogan said.

Father Furty said, “Let’s hope the Boss doesn’t find out.”

No one understood except me.

“That’s what we call the Pastor,” he said. “Sometimes we call him the Keeper.”

The secret words seemed scandalous to them, and they laughed hard, congratulating themselves that they had heard it from Father Furty himself.

“I think someone’s going to be a stool pigeon,” he said. He was grinning. “Who’s the fink?”

Mrs. DuCane said, “Certainly not me!”

But the others looked quickly at her and didn’t say anything, so the mere fact that Mrs. DuCane opened her mouth seemed to single her out as the guilty party.

Father Furty didn’t mind — he was still smiling. He took his paper cup in two hands and lifted it as if in praise. Then he swallowed in anticipation — holding the cup away from his face — and finally gulped some, and chewed a hunk of bread.

“I love to see you digging in,” he said. He really did seem to be enjoying himself, and yet he had only drunk the bug juice and had eaten practically nothing.

“Just feeding our faces,” Mrs. Skerry said. “Isn’t that a sin?”

“Oh, no, nothing like that,” Father Furty said. “This is innocent pleasure. This is glorifying God. Hey, let’s have a smile, Hazel — God’s not your enemy!”

Hazel was Mrs. Corrigan’s name, but it was odd to hear it spoken in such a friendly way by a priest. Yet he didn’t look like a priest. He looked human — like a man, like a manager who had decided to turn the company banquet into a picnic.

“At least it’s not a sin,” Mrs. Bazzoli said, and moved a drumstick to her mouth. “I’m never sure about sin.”

“I’ve seen plenty of bad, but I’ve never seen evil,” Father Furty said. “Bad yes, evil no. And I’m from Jersey!”

“More bug juice?” Mrs. Cannastra said.

She leaned over to pour it out. Father Furty protested but he took it all the same. His face had begun to swell and grow pinker.

I could tell that Tina was shocked — the way non-Catholics reacted when they saw a priest acting human: eating and drinking and calling women by their first name. Yet I was grateful to him. By being human he made me feel pious — not holy but doing my duty, and maybe still in a state of grace.

“This is my last one,” Father Furty said. “But I want the rest of you to drink up and dig in!”

He winked at us but looked a little ill, and when he got to his feet he seemed unsteady.

“Let’s have a song,” he said.

“A hymn?” Mrs. Hickey said.

“A song,” Father Furty said, and began to sing.

I was sailing along, on Moonlight Bay ,

I could hear the voices singing

They seemed to say:

You have stolen my heart

So don’t go way—

He kept on, with the women joining in, then he sat down and smoked Fatimas and flipped the butts overboard.

“How’s Danny?”

“I’m up to Circle Eight. Thieves.”

“That’s swell,” he said and seemed genuinely pleased once more.

“They’re in a pit, all tied up,” I said, encouraged by his interest. “But instead of rope, it’s snakes twisted around them.”

“Oh?” And now he seemed surprised.

“There’s a man called Vanni Fucci in the pit. His sin was stealing a treasure from a sacristy — snakes all over him! He’s not even sorry. In fact, he—”

Father Furty was very interested, and I saw that I had gone too far to stop. He squinted at me to continue.

“This guy, um, gives God the finger,” I said, and to cover my embarrassment at having said this went on, “By the way, the bottom of Hell isn’t hot, Father. It’s all ice.”

He thought a moment, then turned to Mrs. Cannastra. “Hell on the rocks,” he said.

“Sounds like a drink,” she said.

“Sounds like all drinks.”

He was still smiling, and I thought: This is all I want for now. I was happy being with Tina, the sun crackling on us and the water lapping the boat with a bathtub sound. For once I felt I was doing the right thing, and enjoying it, too! I was also glad that none of these women were paying any attention to Tina or me. I had never loved her more. It was because we were here.

There were more songs. Mrs. Skerry sang “Galway Bay,” and Mrs. Bazzoli and Mrs. DePalma sang an Italian song that they said was about the sea, and I kept hearing the words medzo mar .

There were rumbles of thunder from the direction of Revere, and a black cloud enlarged like a stain over Nahant.

“We’d better start back,” Father Furty said, and then the sun was gone. He felt his way along the rail to the cabin, his shirt lifting and flapping.