The Last Gentleman

of tuberculosis had climbed out of bed, washed his pajamas in the sink, hung them out to dry, returned to the bed, pulled the covers up to his chin to hide his nakedness, and died.
    â€œHold it, son,” Sutter stopped Jamie fondly and almost jokingly, as if Jamie were a drunk, and motioned the engineer to the cabinet. “Jamie here wants to move his bowels and doesn’t like the bedpan. I don’t blame him.” The priest helped Sutter with Jamie. After a moment there arose to the engineer’s nostrils first an intimation, like a new presence in the room, a somebody, then a foulness beyond the compass of smell. This could only be the dread ultimate rot of the molecules themselves, an abject surrender. It was the body’s disgorgement of its most secret shame. Doesn’t this ruin everything, wondered the engineer (if only the women were here, they wouldn’t permit it, oh Jamie never should have left home). He stole a glance at the others. Sutter and the priest bent to their task as if it were nothing out of the ordinary. The priest supported Jamie’s head on the frail stem of its neck. When a nurse came to service the cabinet, the engineer avoided her eye. The stench scandalized him. Shouldn’t they all leave?
    Sutter conducted Jamie back to bed fondly and even risibly. Suddenly the engineer remembered that this was the way Negro servants handle the dying, as if it were the oldest joke of all.
    â€œHold it now, son. Look out. There you go.” Leaning over the bed, Sutter took hold of Jamie’s chin, almost chucked it. “Listen, Jimmy. This is Father Boomer. He wants to ask you something.”
    But the youth goggled and closed his eyes, giving no sign of having heard. Sutter took his pulse and stepped back.
    â€œIf you have any business with him, Father,” he said dryly, “I think you’d better conduct it now.”
    The priest nodded and leaned on the bed, supporting himself on his heavy freckled fists. He looked not at Jamie but sideways at the wall.
    â€œSon, can you hear me?”—addressing the wall. The engineer perceived that at last the priest had found familiar territory. He knew what he was doing.
    But Jamie made no reply.
    â€œSon, can you hear me?” the priest repeated without embarrassment, examining a brown stain on the wall and not troubling to give his voice a different inflection.
    Jamie nodded and appeared to say something. The engineer moved a step closer, cocking his good ear but keeping his arms folded as the sign of his discretion.
    â€œSon, I am a Catholic priest,” said Father Boomer, studying the yellow hairs on his fist. “Do you understand me?”
    â€œYes,” said Jamie aloud. He nodded rapidly.
    â€œI have been asked by your sister to administer to you the sacrament of baptism. Do you wish to receive it?”
    The engineer frowned. Wasn’t the priest putting it a bit formally?
    â€œVal,” whispered Jamie, goggling at the engineer.
    â€œThat’s right,” said the engineer, nodding. “I called her as you asked me to.”
    Jamie looked at the priest.
    â€œSon,” said the priest. “Do you accept the truths of religion?”
    Jamie moved his lips.
    â€œWhat?” asked the priest, bending lower.
    â€œExcuse me, Father,” said the sentient engineer. “He said ‘what.’”
    â€œOh,” said the priest and turned both fists out and opened the palms. “Do you accept the truth that God exists and that He made you and loves you and that He made the world so that you might enjoy its beauty and that He himself is your final end and happiness, that He loved you so much that He sent His only Son to die for you and to found His Holy Catholic Church so that you may enter heaven and there see God face to face and be happy with Him forever.”
    Without raising his eyes, the engineer could see the curled-up toe of Sutter’s ThomMcAn shoe turning to and fro on the radiator trademark.
    â€œIs that true?” said Jamie clearly, opening his eyes and goggling. To the engineer’s dismay, the youth turned to him.
    The engineer cleared his throat and opened his mouth to say something when, fortunately for him, Jamie’s bruised eyes went weaving around to the priest. He said something to the priest which the latter did not understand.
    The priest looked up to the engineer.
    â€œHe wants to know, ah, why,” said the