Richard Bausch - Before, During, After

Aunt Clara, Uncle Jack, Leander, and Trixie sat on one side of the aisle. On the other side were Iris and Constance. Father Clenon stood with Faulk and Marsha Trunan stood with Natasha.

Father Wuhan seemed ill at ease, and the more he spoke the worse things got. He let go of the attacks and went on strangely about a calamity of his own, gathering assurance as he spoke, speaking in an almost prideful voice of something that happened nineteen years ago: he had killed a boy in an accident, in traffic, in the streets of Johannesburg, South Africa. He described himself, a young man in a hurry, not paying as much attention as he should have to the road he was on. That accident was why he had entered the priesthood, he said, and then as if compelled by some moral imperative to refer to his predecessor’s decision, he avowed that he would never leave it, no matter how complicated the life became for him. He paused significantly before saying he was so very happy about being asked to perform today’s holy ceremony. Then he attempted to connect all the cataclysmic history by citing the blessings of love and forgiveness as a hedge against it, and he asked everyone to learn first to forgive oneself, to see the enormous effect we have upon one another, and to acknowledge the undeniable significance of changing one’s moral compass.

Iris and Aunt Clara began clearing their throats and looking at each other. Leander coughed loudly twice and then blew his nose with a high flatulent sound and took a long time putting his handkerchief away. Then he yawned. Natasha saw Trixie touch his forearm. He leaned back, stretching his legs under the pew in front of him. Soon they were all shifting on the benches, coughing, crossing and uncrossing their legs. At last, Father Wuhan finished with his homily and commenced with the actual ceremony. Natasha looked into his dark eyes and thought of the judgments he had already made. There was something too starchy about him for all his studied humility about an accident he reported like a kind of accomplishment.

When the ceremony was over and Faulk spoke about asking him to come to dinner with everyone, she looked into her new husband’s eyes and murmured, “You’re such a good man. No.”

He nodded. He understood. He had in fact decided that he would speak to Father Clenon about him. He gave Wuhan an envelope with fifty dollars in it and thanked him. Father Clenon, giving Faulk a look of commiseration, begged off going to the dinner and walked out of the chapel with Father Wuhan. Faulk saw him talking, gesturing at the other as they went on down the sidewalk.

“Jesus Christ,” Leander said.

Uncle Jack, walking over to congratulate Faulk, said, “That was certainly bizarre, wasn’t it?”

“I’ve heard some weird things,” Leander began.

Faulk said, “Well, we’re married. We got it done. And we don’t ever have to see him anymore.”

“Sounds like an inconvenience you had to go through,” said Jack, smiling. “It’s always a little like that with the men, isn’t it.”

“You see the look on the other one’s face?” Leander asked him.

Faulk said, “That’s my friend, Dad. His name is Andrew. I think I introduced you to him last night.”

“No offense, there, Son. But did you guys see the look.”

“I saw it,” Jack said. “I think he was embarrassed.”

“I think he was enraged,” Leander said. “And I was bored.”

“No trouble for any of us recognizing that,” Faulk said. And then, seeing the look of embarrassment on his father’s face, patted the old man’s back and said, “Me, too.”

They all went to the River Café on West Poplar for dinner. Natasha admired the way her new husband handled everything, getting Iris situated with her cane and making sure everyone was comfortable. Leander offered another toast and then told a story about his son making a dive off a forty-five-foot cliff into the bottomless water of a reservoir in Maryland. According to Leander, Michael Faulk had been a marvelous athlete as a boy, good at everything. He had played football and baseball and basketball. “A wonder in all three,” Leander said. “But you know, he was also a complete mystery to us all.”

“Dad,” Faulk said.

“I always had the feeling he was hiding inside his own skin.”

“I was,” Faulk said.

Jack and Constance began talking about the invasion of Afghanistan, which was imminent. The president had turned down an offer from the Taliban to put the master terrorist on trial there. They had all heard the news about the poor man, Stevens, in Florida, and the anthrax. There was news that the spores had been discovered as powder on computer keyboards in the tabloid newspaper office where he worked. The suspicion was that the powder had been in something mailed to the paper.

“It’s not contagious,” Iris said. “I read that. I mean you can’t get it from someone coughing on you.”

“Spittle, though,” said Jack. “I think you can get it from the spittle — the — the mucus of the victim?”

“They’re saying inhalation anthrax,” said Clara. “That means it’s inhaled, doesn’t it?”

“But what in the world do you suppose the delivery system was?” Leander asked.

They all talked about the possibilities they had been reading about, the horror of a microbe being rendered into a form that made it potent even through the mail, the technology and skill required to refine it for such a thing.

“Hey,” Faulk said suddenly. “Let’s quit this talk right now.”

“Yes,” said Aunt Clara. “This is our happy occasion.”

“To our happy occasion.” Natasha raised her glass.

After their dinner, they drove in the same caravan downtown to Beale Street and the Rum Boogie Cafe for drinks and music. Aunt Clara and Uncle Jack danced beautifully together, alone in the middle of the small space for it, and then Leander pulled Trixie out there. The four of them looked splendid. Natasha took her new husband by the hand and led him into the gathering crowd of dancers. Faulk claimed that he did not like to dance and was no good at it, but he was very smooth. She told him so, and this made him self-conscious. He moved with her, breathing the perfumed tangle of her hair and looking through the crowd at his father and Trixie. They looked happy. He said into Natasha’s ear: “My dear wife.”

She leaned back slightly to look into his eyes and smiled and then kissed him.

“I’m so happy,” he told her. And for that moment, he found that he was.

“Yes, happy,” she said, resting her head on his chest. The room was spinning slightly, though she’d had nothing to drink. She saw Iris watching them, sitting with the others. Faulk seemed to want to perform for the old woman, turning toward her with Natasha in his arms, and grinning at her applause. Iris wore her brace and held her cane, and even so she stood for a while and moved her upper body rhythmically to the music.

“Let’s sit down after this one,” Natasha said, breathlessly.

He clung to the happy feeling, thinking of the house and all his work on it and the job and the night ahead, the days coming when they would be together, just the two of them.

Natasha, with her ear pressed to his chest, closed her eyes and swayed with him, the loud voices and music all around her. She sighed happily and raised her eyes to his and offered her mouth. He stopped dancing and kissed her, and a cheer went up around them, husband and wife. Then they separated and went on dancing because the band, which was called the Boogie Blues Band, had switched to a fast song. The lead singer started throwing strings of beads from the stage, and now some of the waitresses were doing a choreographed dance together. People stood and clapped their hands and watched and caught the long strands of colorful beads — everyone except Aunt Clara and Uncle Jack, who kept dancing. Constance shouted over the music that it all looked like a dance number from a Broadway show. People clapped in rhythm, standing on the edge of the space where the dancers moved. They were excellent, every step perfectly timed.