CHAPTER 15

It is said: “Preach thou, I will give strength.”

Martin Luther

It was the day called Epiphany, the sixth of January, the feast honoring the journey of the Wise Men to Bethlehem. This year it happened to fall on a Sunday. Thus the annual special service celebrating the window of the Three Kings in the south wall of the Church of the Commonwealth was better attended than usual.

The congregation was a mixed lot, as always. They sat elbow to elbow in their heavy winter coats, glancing up at the window now and then. It was a cloudy day. The colored glass was muddy, the chalices dim, the naked infant indistinct.

Looking down at the crowded pews from the balcony, Alan studied the occupants—male and female, old and young—and wondered why they were all there. Some had come for friendship, some sought metaphysical enlightenment from Martin Kraeger, some were sturdy regulars from way back, some were James Castle groupies—disappointed this morning to find a string quartet fiddling in the balcony. A few were elderly Brahmins like Edith Frederick who had lived in the Back Bay all their lives. The surrounding universities were responsible for the students and professors, the hospital complex for doctors, nurses and health administrators. There were couples from the suburbs who had paid fifteen dollars to park their cars, and homeless people grateful for the steaming radiators under the sanctuary floor and the five-thousand-gallon oil tank in the basement.

Martin Kraeger preached to them all. He did not need a microphone. His voice was strong, almost a bellow. In the pulpit he often quoted a remark of Martin Luther’s, I cannot pray without at the same time cursing, because all his sermons contained this paradox. On the one hand the nation was in decline and the planet was going to hell, but on the other, his own wit and his huge laugh and the strength of the good will that flowed from his combative spirit urged his congregation to plunge into the fight.

They emerged from one of his services mauled but refreshed. A sermon by Martin Kraeger wasn’t a twisting of the arm, it was a wrenching, a powerful shove. They went out from the glowing darkness of the sanctuary into the daylight, feeling dazed, discovering that the trees along the divided street had taken other shapes, the cars were not the sort they remembered, the traffic lights were different shades of red and green.

This morning Kraeger’s sermon was not a moral harangue, it was a psychological study of three sorts of journeys—those that tracked unmistakable stars, others following erratic and wandering lights, and a third sort probing for secret smoldering fires underground. It was a good sermon as sermons went, poetic and full of meaning of some sort or other, although perhaps there had been too many metaphors.

After the service Alan took four envelopes out of his pocket and paid the string quartet, handing over the checks he had requisitioned from Jenny Franklin.

On Sunday afternoon he took Charley for another ride in the stroller. It was a warm and blustery day. The winter streets were dry, the sidewalks still negotiable for the little wheels of the stroller. Alan gave Charley a giddy flight of wild bumps and bounds down Mount Vernon Street, and the baby screeched with delight. In the Public Garden they flew over the bridge across the Duck Pond and rushed in the direction of Arlington Street. There they had to stop because three men were blocking the sidewalk.

They loomed over the baby, three derelicts with ruined faces. The tallest had a red nose and dirty denim trousers. “Gawd,” he said, bending down, breathing gin into Charley’s face, “he sure is cute.”

“What’s his name?” said the man in the green Day-Glo jacket.

“Charley.”

“Mine’s Tom,” said the tall man, beaming proudly at Alan. “This here’s Dick.” He clapped the shoulder of the man in the green jacket.

They were harmless, Alan could see that. They only wanted to put their old faces close to Charley’s, as one might smell a flower. “I suppose you must be Harry,” said Alan, smiling at the third man, who was kneeling in front of the buggy.

The man looked up at him with small red eyes and grinned evilly, exposing three missing teeth. “Harry it is. I was christened sixty-four years ago by a Christadelphian Baptist.”

The words came hissing out through the vacant teeth, but his accent was not like Tom’s or Dick’s. It was a soft whiskey baritone with cultured vowels.

“Hey,” said Tom, “tell you what. I got something for the baby. Gawd, he’s cute.” He pulled down the zipper of his jacket and extracted a limp stuffed animal of no particular species.

Charley took it, turned it upside-down and hugged it to his breast.

“Well, thank you,” said Alan, wondering how to get away.

“Jeez,” said Dick, “I got something too.” He rummaged in a sagging pocket and pulled out a lollipop to which a good deal of lint was stuck.

Alan felt a parental twinge of doubt, but he made no protest as Charley took the lollipop, perceived at once what it was for, and stuck it in his mouth.

Harry had a gift too. Getting to his feet with difficulty, he groped in his coat and produced a shiny silver object. He put it to his lips, and a clear sweet note threaded its way down the street. Charley let go of the lollipop stick and held up his hand. “Wait a minute, kid.” Removing the lollipop from Charley’s mouth, Harry inserted the whistle. “Now blow.”

My God, the germs, thought Alan. He watched anxiously as Charley sucked on the pipe, then blew a tentative breathy note.

“Smart kid,” said Harry. “Maybe he’ll be a flutist.”

It was the first time Charley’s intelligence had been praised by the outside world, and Alan felt a surge of pride. You hear that, Wanda?

Tom poked Charley’s stomach with a dirty finger, Dick patted his woolly cap, Harry winked at Alan, and they shambled away into the Public Garden.

“The three kings in person,” murmured Alan to the winter air.

Charley sucked in his breath and blew a tremendous blast.

At the main office of the Massachusetts Department of Social Services on Causeway Street, Mrs. Marilynne Barker was harassed by another phone call about the infant Charley Hall.

“Mrs. Barker? This is Diana Weatherby calling. I am an attorney. How are you today?”

There was a pause while Mrs. Barker controlled her temper. An inquiry about her health by a total stranger meant a dumb phone call. “I’m just fine. Why do you want to speak to me?”

“Well, we have a court order, you see, requesting information about a foster child named Charles Hall. We need to know where he is residing.”

The smell of rat was very strong. “Tell me, Ms. Weatherby, when did you pass the bar?”

“When did I—? Oh, last year, I mean the year before that.”

“Okay, what’s the second amendment to the Constitution?”

There was a gasp at the other end.

Mrs. Barker snickered and hung up, congratulating herself on preventing another criminal interference with her system of foster care. Why on earth were these phony people so inquisitive about young Charles Hall? Was there a disgruntled father hiding in the wings somewhere? No, there wasn’t any father. The father was dead. Could it be some infertile couple desperate to steal a child? But why this particular child?

Mrs. Barker got back to work, but she couldn’t get young Charley off her mind. The truth was, his foster home was extremely marginal. Probably she never should have accepted that dreary young woman Deborah Buffington as a foster mother. It might be a good idea to drop in on her one day with a surprise inspection.

Not today, of course, or tomorrow. For the moment Mrs. Barker was overwhelmed. As an administrator she shouldn’t have had a case load of her own at all, but Social Services had been drastically cut back. They were trying to do twice as much work with half the former staff. It was impossible.

But this morning she had foiled an intruder. She had done one good deed this day. For once her occupation seemed more like the humane and compassionate calling she had expected it to be in the beginning.