The Listener Read Free Page B

mother of the lady next door had gone to that place, and after she’d told all about her old goat the doctor had given her some good advice. And there was that girl in trouble, two blocks down the street. Social worker had told her what to do and where to go for help. And there was this widow with five kids. One was one of these juvenile delinquents. The social worker had helped her, too. And there was this man who had cancer and was scared to death. The worker had sent him to a hospital, free, and he was cured. Oh, sure, the guy behind the curtain was a priest. He’d told a feller to confess his crime to the police. Say, was old John Godfrey a Catholic? Somebody said he was a Jew, and there was Jewish scrolls behind the curtain. What did the Jews want, anyways? Don’t you believe it! The guy behind the curtain’s a Christian Scientist. Can cure anything with the Bible, see?
     
    Other opinions, equally sage, were advanced. Oh, there was a recording machine behind the curtain. Some Communist or other. Or maybe the guy was a Socialist, or Republican, or Democrat. You kind of have to watch things these days, don’t you? Propaganda everywheres. Say, did you hear about that lady comes out and goes out of her mind? Had to take her to the state hospital. Me? I wouldn’t go there on a bet! Somebody should burn the place down. Know what real estate values are around there? We need a new school — or something.
     
    A priest said to a reporter, “Have you gone there, yourself, in the proper spirit?”
     
    “What is the proper spirit — sir?”
     
    The priest smiled slightly. “I’m sure you’ll find out, yourself, someday.”
     
    A rabbi said to a reporter, “I haven’t been there as yet, myself. But some of my people have. No, you can’t ask them. They won’t answer you.”
     
    A psychiatrist said, “I don’t know what is behind that curtain, and one of my most difficult patients went there, and he won’t tell me, either. But one thing I do know: he’s cured now.”
     
    There were attempts to break into the sanctuary, because there were rumors that the people who visited it left money ‘in the box’. But for some reason the doors resisted all kinds of pressure and force. And, of course, there were no windows to break.
     

SOUL ONE
     

The Confessed
     
And the priest shall bring her near,
     
and set her before the Lord.
     
Numbers 5:16
     
    Mrs. Merrill Sloane entered the sitting room with resistance. She wore severe tweeds and a sable scarf and carried a leather purse soundly closed. She was fifty years old, gray and sharp of face, neat and trim of figure, and had a hat that was at least five years old and good for another five years. It was of felt, with a dipping brim. Her no-nonsense shoes set themselves firmly on the carpet. She walked and moved with precision and stared haughtily at the others in the room. They did not look at her. Murmuring distastefully to herself, as if ashamed of her own emotions, she took a sealed note from her purse, marched to the slit in the wall near the oaken door, and dropped the note through the opening. She waited. Nothing happened. Men and women of all ages were reading the magazines and slim books of poetry which had been laid on the tables. She sat down, very stiffly. Why had she been so stupid as to come here? Restlessly she removed her gloves and looked at the large diamond on her finger. But she was more concerned with the fact that her hands appeared to be withered and grasping and deformed. All the women in her family had always had soft, smooth, white hands, even in their eighties and nineties. Why were hers so dry and parched, and with such big knuckles? She looked again at the others in the room. It was warm and fresh in here, though it was March outside and there were no windows or any visible source of heat. A spring day! Suddenly she thought of a spring day, and the room blurred before her eyes and she dropped her head. She forgot her silent companions.