same. I shall go on retreat soon and be silent for a week. Pastor, and do penance.»
«Good, Father, good.» Pastor Sheldon rose. «Now I've a small announcement. A new priest arrives here next month. I've thought long on it. The man is Italian, born and raised in Montreal.»
Vittorini closed one eye and tried to picture this man to himself.
«If the Church must be all things to all people,» said the pastor, «I am intrigued with the thought of hot blood raised in a cold climate, as this new Italian was, even as I find it fascinating to consider myself, cold blood raised in California. We've needed another Italian here to shake things up, and this Latin looks to be the sort will shake even Father Vittorini. Now will someone offer a toast?»
«May I, Pastor?» Father Vittorini rose again, smiling gently, his eyes darkly aglow, looking at this one and now that of the three. He raised his glass. «Somewhere did Blake not speak of the Machineries of Joy? That is, did not God promote environments, then intimidate those Natures by provoking the existence of flesh, toy men and women, such as are we all? And thus happily sent forth, at our best, with good grace and fine wit, on calm noons, in fair climes, are we not God's Machineries of Joy?»
«If Blake said that,» said Father Brian, «I take it all back. He never lived in Dublin!»
All laughed together.
Vittorini drank the Irish Moss and was duly speechless.
The others drank the Italian wine and grew mellow, and in his mellowness Father Brian cried softly, «Vittorini, now, will you, unholy as it is, tune on the ghost?»
«Channel Nine?»
«Nine it is!»
And while Vittorini dialed the knobs Father Brian mused over his drink, «Did Blake realty say that?»
«The fact is. Father,» said Vittorini, bent to the phantoms coming and going on the screen, «he might have, if he'd lived today. I wrote it down myself tonight.»
All watched the Italian with some awe. Then the TV gave a hum and came clear, showing a rocket, a long way off, getting ready.
«The machineries of joy,» said Father Brian. «Is that one of them you're tuning in? And is that another sitting there, the rocket on its stand?»
«It could be, tonight,» murmured Vittorini. «If the thing goes up, and a man in it, all around the world, and him still alive, and us with him, though we just sit here. That would be joyful indeed.»
The rocket was getting ready, and Father Brian shut his eyes for a moment. Forgive me, Jesus, he thought, forgive an old man his prides, and forgive Vittorini his spites, and help me to understand what I see here tonight, and let me stay awake if need be, in good humour, until dawn, and let the thing go well, going up and coming down, and think of the man in that contraption, Jesus, think of and be with him. And help me. God, when the summer is young, for, sure as fate on Fourth of July evening there will be Vittorini and the kids from around the block, on the rectory lawn, lighting skyrockets. All them there watching the sky, like the mom of the Redemption, and help me, O Lord, to be as those children before the great night of time and void where you abide. And help me to walk forward. Lord, to light the next rocket Independence Night, and stand with the Latin father, my face suffused with that same look of the delighted child in the face of the burning glories you put near our hand and bid us savour.
He opened his eyes.
Voices from far Canaveral were crying in a wind of time. Strange phantom powers loomed upon the screen. He was drinking the last of the wine when someone touched his elbow gently.
«Father,» said Vittorini, near. «Fasten your seat belt.»
«I will,» said Father Brian. «I will. And many thanks.»
He sat back in his chair. He closed his eyes. He waited for the thunder. He waited for the fire. He waited for the concussion and the voice that would teach a silly, a strange, a wild and miraculous thing:
How to count back, ever backward… to zero.
