Grief Street

this, for he was mindful of the occupational hazard of hermits talking to themselves. If allowed to fester, he further believed, such vain and useless chatter would interfere with his thrice daily implorations to God on behalf of the world’s sinners. And so he kept his mouth on a regimen: beyond the regular holy implorations, Father Morrison spoke only the minimum necessary in periodic exchanges with villagers, though a bit more freely in the company of official visitors, who were rare. Whenever possible, of course, nods and hand motions should suffice.
    When offering a purely personal prayer, this, too, was silent communication. He thought of it as analogous to humble writers insisting their names be lowercased. Humility was an important quality to keep earnestly in mind, Father Morrison would remind himself—especially for a man living atop a mountain in a tidy house surrounded by forest greenery and brook and garden; a man whose days were spent in consultation with God as mortal spokesman for all his glorious and wicked children, a man whose worldly debts were the responsibility of some faceless diocesan bookkeeper.
    Thus did Father Morrison feel obliged to pray mutely for his own close needs. Beyond entreating the saints for comfort during occasional sickness or frightful weather, he had but one other selfish prayer: a plea for strength in coping with the irony of a role God had assigned to a naturally garrulous man.
    O Lord, soothe my Irish lips and tongue and teeth, for they all do ache to speak, the hermit would often pray. Or else, if in a sarcastic mood, Provide me courageous and mournful eyes to see such time in my life as I hath offended Thee. Or even perhaps, when petulant. Then it’s true what the scurrilous heathen say — You’re a rum joker, are You?
    Being human, how could he not sometimes resent such a role? From head to toe, after all, Gerald Morrison was God’s very model of a gabber. Every one of his thoughts, from lightest to darkest, animated a face in that one crucial instant prior to their bursting into words, a characteristic that never failed to command his listeners’ attention. He had the stout build and ruddy skin of an outdoors worker— his chest was quite prominent, housing strong lungs—and he was glad for the garden labor of the nearly self-sufficient hermitage; and, too, for the job of tending four goats, two pigs, one cow, and a beehive. Work begat hunger—he was an excellent and bountiful cook—and when he ate, he missed talking most of all. He was, of course, a Jesuit. Like Talmudists of all persuasions he loved books, all the better if they were crammed full of wild and conflicting notions; when he read, or talked about his reading, time was of no consequence. His hips were wide, providing him cushion and ballast for sitting anywhere at all for long periods of time in perfect contentment. Otherwise, too, he had the bottom parts of a natural sitter: short legs and small feet.
    Those who had heard him speak—such witnesses were dying out, for Father Morrison was himself aged, and had been in solitary hermitage now nearly thirty years—would never forget the timbre of his voice. Villagers down the mountain, who had only heard a word here and there over the years, spoke of it in awed musical terms. “Such a common-looking fellow,” seemed the consensus of these privileged few, mostly old men entrusted to bring him mail and assorted supplies once per month, “and yet he has the most elegant voice, smooth and rich as a cello.” In his teaching days at Holy Cross School back in the city, children were convinced that his voice was an echo of God. To be sure the nuns and brothers knew this reaction verged on a sacrilege. But they knew as well that Father Morrison possessed a terrible, swift wit and heaven-sent intelligence. As for himself, on the silent mountain all these years, the hermit looked skyward once each year and asked an unanswerable question, Certainly my voice, at the least, is cast by You — and, it’s said by young and old, so much in Your own image... What, then, is the design of Your wisdom in closing my mouth, in setting me apart from my fellows?
    The hermit raised a hand and waved greeting at the white-haired messenger.
    What’s old Charlie on about? He isn’t due with the load from his store for another week.
    “Father...” Poor Charlie was out of breath and had to wait a second or two before he could speak. He sneezed several times during the