Too Much Happiness

vestments, ready to perform some ceremony. Mass?
    Or to hear confessions. But then you would never know when they were there. Didn’t they enter and leave their grilled stalls by a private door?
    I would have to ask somebody. The man who had distributed the baskets seemed to be here for reasons that were not purely private, though he was apparently not an usher. Nobody needed an usher. People chose where they wanted to sit-or kneel-and sometimes decided to get up and choose another spot, perhaps being bothered by the glare of the jewel-inflaming sun. When I spoke to him I whispered, out of old habit in a church-and he had to ask me to speak again. Puzzled or embarrassed, he nodded in a wobbly way towards one of the confessionals. I had to become very specific and convincing.
    “No, no. I just want to talk to a priest. I’ve been sent to talk to a priest. A priest called Father Hofstrader.”
    The basket man disappeared down the more distant side aisle and came back in a little while with a briskly moving stout young priest in ordinary black costume.
    He motioned me into a room I had not noticed-not a room, actually, we went through an archway, not a doorway-at the back of the church.
    “Give us a chance to talk, in here,” he said, and pulled out a chair for me.
    “Father Hofstrader-”
    “Oh no, I must tell you, I am not Father Hofstrader. Father Hofstrader is not here. He is on vacation.”
    For a moment I did not know how to proceed.
    “I will do my best to help you.”
    “There is a woman,” I said, “a woman who is dying in Princess Margaret Hospital in Toronto-”
    “Yes, yes. We know of Princess Margaret Hospital.”
    “She asks me-I have a note from her here-she wants to see Father Hofstrader.”
    “Is she a member of this parish?”
    “I don’t know. I don’t know if she is a Catholic or not. She is from here. From Guelph. She is a friend I have not seen for a long time.”
    “When did you talk with her?”
    I had to explain that I hadn’t talked with her, she had been asleep, but she had left the note for me.
    “But you don’t know if she is a Catholic?”
    He had a cracked sore at the corner of his mouth. It must have been painful for him to talk.
    “I think she is, but her husband isn’t and he doesn’t know she is. She doesn’t want him to know.”
    I said this in the hope of making things clearer, even though I didn’t know for sure if it was true. I had an idea that this priest might shortly lose interest altogether. “Father Hofstrader must have known all this,” I said.
    “You didn’t speak with her?”
    I said that she had been under medication but that this was not the case all the time and I was sure she would have periods of lucidity. This too I stressed because I thought it necessary.
    “If she wishes to make a confession, you know, there are priests available at Princess Margaret’s.”
    I could not think of what else to say. I got out the note, smoothed the paper, and handed it to him. I saw that the handwriting was not as good as I had thought. It was legible only in comparison with the letters on the envelope.
    He made a troubled face.
    “Who is this C.?”
    “Her husband.” I was worried that he might ask for the husband’s name, to get in touch with him, but instead he asked for Charlene’s. This woman’s name, he said.
    “Charlene Sullivan.” It was a wonder that I even remembered the surname. And I was reassured for a moment, because it was a name that sounded Catholic. Of course that meant that it was the husband who could be Catholic. But the priest might conclude that the husband had lapsed, and that would surely make Charlene’s secrecy more understandable, her message more urgent.
    “Why does she need Father Hofstrader?”
    “I think perhaps it’s something special.”
    “All confessions are special.”
    He made a move to get up, but I stayed where I was. He sat down again.
    “Father Hofstrader is on vacation but he is not out of town. I could phone and ask him about this. If you insist.”
    “Yes. Please.”
    “I do not like to bother him. He has not been well.”
    I said that if he was not well enough to drive himself to Toronto I could drive him.
    “We can take care of his transportation if necessary.”
    He looked around and did not see what he wanted, unclipped a pen from his pocket, and then decided that the blank side of the note would do to write on.
    “If you’ll just make sure I’ve got the name.