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been built that way. Mike moved his family, Patricia, and Father
Goodwin into 202. This was as depressing an arrange-ment as Jonathan could
imagine. Chances of privacy flew out the window, a crack of a thing
overlooking the hotel's kitchen exhaust. Behind a frayed screen stood
an ancient lavatory and toilet. On the bidet was a handmade sign, FEET ONLY NO
URINATION!
, "Beautiful," Mike growled, throwing luggage down. "Thank God the Sick aren't
here." For pilgrims in need of constant medical attention the Church had built
Our Lady of Sorrows Hospital, which was some blocks away.
In that she did not require nursing or medication, Patricia was
here rather than at the hospital. As
Jonathan wheeled her across the room, thinking of his unasked question, he
longed to be alone with her.
She took the wheels and went over to Mike and Mary. "I don't even mind the
room," she said. "I'm so glad to be at Lourdes."
"All the plastic Jesuses I could do without that part of it," Mike said.
"It won't be like that at the grotto," Mary assured her. She
touched Patricia's face, very much more tenderly than she ever had
before. "You'll see."
Mike leaned over and kissed Patricia's forehead. "You're too good, that's your
problem."
Father Goodwin, who had been dashing up and down the hall in a frenzy of
announcements and schedule changes, stuck his head in the door. "Soubirous
tour in fifteen min-utes! Those interested please gather in the lobby. The bus
will pull out at exactement eight P.M."
"He seems to have recovered some of his savior-faire,"
Mary said acidly. She was behind the screen;
Mike had pulled a bottle of Chivas out of his suitcase and was trying to make
a drink in one of the hotel's cracked plastic cups. "No way," he said, as it
leaked whiskey from at least six different holes.
"Jonathan," Patricia said, "I'd like very much to go."
"Don't," Mary called. "We can arrange a private visit tomorrow."
"I'd like to go on the tour, really I would." That was unfortunate. Jonathan's
one wish was to bury himself in the two-inch foam-rubber mattress allocated to
him and forget his disappointment.
"It won't be very pleasant," Mary said.
"It'll do me good to be with other pilgrims. I mean sick ones."
"I'll be glad to come, darling," Jonathan said. "But I intend to sleep through
the Bernadette bit."
Mary laughed. "You two go along. But if you get tired and want to
come back early, hail one of the
Peugeot cabs. And make sure it's a Peugeot. They're the best."
The tour bus was huge but astonishingly flimsy, as if it might be built of
cardboard. At the rear was a large double door and a pneumatic
chair lift. Jonathan wheeled Patricia onto the contraption. He soon
discovered, when nothing happened, that it was first necessary to
pay the driver an American dollar to operate the lift.
He put the money into the kid's hand. Once inside the bus he had to move
Patricia onto a seat. This was a harrowing operation, involving picking her up
in his arms and carrying her down the narrow aisle from the chair-storage area
in the back. She was not a small girl, and the lifelessness of her
lower body made it difficult. She winced as he slid her into an empty seat.
"I'm sorry, Jonathan."
"I love you."
In answer she kissed him gently on the cheek.
Behind them the lift whined again and again until there were thirty people in
the bus, ten of them the Sick.
Father Goodwin, who no longer seemed to have any pilgrims from his own group,
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was tuning his guitar.
"Uh oh," Patricia said. "More hymns."
They were soon navigating in traffic to the strains of "Dominique." Faces
pressed to the windows. This was, after all, the most famous place of
pilgrimage on earth. Despite the kitsch, this was
Lourdes.
At the end of a shuddering, backfiring trip up a hill the bus came to a
stop.
"Maison Paternelle,"
the driver roared. Then the clatter and confusion of disembarking
began. This time it went more smoothly.
Evidently the first dollar cov-ered the whole journey. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]