The Miracle Part 22

"Mikel, what is it? Does my blindness inhibit you?"

"G.o.d, no-"

"Because it need not. In love, I don't have to see. Feehng is enough."

Her arms were outstretched, and he tore off" his shorts, came to his knees, and fell into her arms, embracing her.

His entire body was shaking as he pressed to her, and she felt it. "You are s.h.i.+vering, Mikel," she said. "Why? Because of the police?"

"Because of you, it's you," he gasped, holding her tightly, feeling the hardness of her nipples, conscious of his own growing hardness.

Her mouth was at his ear. "Don't worry about virginity," she whispered. "I-I'm not exactly one-there were youthftil episodes, but child's play. I've never made love with a man, a beautiful man."

"I-I'm not anything," he tried to tell her m a strangled voice.

Her fingertips were pa.s.sing over his face. "For me you are beauti-fiil, what I want." His hand guided her hand over his features, continued to guide her hand as her fingers touched his neck and the soft hairs of his chest. When his hand released her fingers, her hand continued downward on its own. "You are young and strong and wonderfiil," she whispered, her breath catching.

Her warm fingers had found his hard erection, and her warm fingers curled aroimd his p.e.n.i.s.

"You want me," she whispered breathlessly.

"I want you, darling-more than anything in the world-I want you . . ."

"Love me," she whispered, sinking back on the bed and into the pillow, and drawing him down with her, atop her. "Love me, darling Mikel."

Her knees had come up, and her legs had spread, and he reached to touch the long stretch of sweet pubic hair, to caress the distended c.l.i.toris, to find the wetness between her legs.

His p.e.n.i.s was swollen larger and stiffer than he had ever known it, and he guided it to the moist v.u.l.v.a, and easily slid into it deeply, groaning as he did so, and hearing her short cries and gasps as his hardness rose and sank within her.

Her hands had been clutching his shoulders, but now her arms clamped around his back, and she was squeezing her fleshy thighs against the friction of the perpetual motion of his body, until she lifted her legs higher and entwined them around his back.

They were together now, as one, in perfect unison, rising and falling, she all liquidity below, he perspiring and panting.

He had known many women intimately, enjoyed the couplings, the physical stimulation and excitement and release, but he sensed the difference now. The others had been only one half of lovemaking, physical, nothing more, but what he was experiencing with this young woman was total lovemaking.

There had been no easing in their coupling, only a rising crescendo, she heaving her hips uncontrollably, rolling her b.u.t.tocks, pus.h.i.+ng and pulling him, and he in and out, almost peaking, both peaking, near bursting.

Then bursting.

With outcries and sighs and utter relief. Holding and kissing and loving, each closer than they had ever been to another opposite human being.

Long minutes after, drained, lying on the bed separately but together, hands touching, exchanging endearments, Nfikel realized that his Natale was silent. He looked closely, and saw that she had fallen deeply asleep in her own special darkness, asleep with a smile on her lips. Smiling down at her, tenderly, he drew the blanket up over her shoulder.

At last, he lay back to be with himself. He had not known such a period of peace in years. He marveled at the absence of his anger. There was left in him, pervading his entire being, merely the residue of love he had felt for this young woman.

Gradually, in his drowsiness, he sought the purpose of being in this bed in this town of Lourdes. Reality, the larger reality, slowly surfaced.

It was not easy to superimpose reahty on, even obliterate briefly, the love that he felt. It was difficult to bring harsh hatred and his reason for being here back to his consciousness. But images of his Basque childhood and adolescence, his father's murder, the masters of his slavery, evoked anger and hatred once more.

With regret, he considered the child woman he adored in slumber beside him. What he was feeling contradicted all that he felt for her. She, this dear one, was a person of unblemished faith in a fairy story that she fervently believed could restore her to normality and living. He, by necessity, remained an enemy of that faith that was now misleading his people into compliance with inevitable treachery and certain continuous enslavement. To free his people, he must destroy the symbol of faith that might lead to their deception and endless thralldom. By his act of destruction, he would also destroy forever Natale's foolish hope and her love.

But, he saw, it must be done. He owed himself -- and the loss he must endure -- to an even greater love.

Oh, Natale, Natale, when it is over and I have succeeded, try to understand.

But, he knew, she would never understand.

At the same time, it suddenly occurred to him, considering that he had been forced into hiding, that he might never succeed. The police were everywhere, and might continue to be everywhere until the eight days had ended.

How could he blow up the grotto if he did not have the means of bringing the explosives into the domain?

Then, an idea, an inspiration came, a means, something he could do tomorrow. If it worked, he might succeed, and turn away the Virgin Mary forever.

Wednesday, August 17 At ten minutes to nine in the morning, Mich.e.l.le Demaillot, of the Sanctuaries Press Bureau, was briskly leading the way across the Rosary Esplanade of the domain to the Medical Bureau. Following her were the town's latest arrivals. Dr. Paul Kleinberg, and his dependable nurse, Esther Levinson.

It was Kieinberg's first real view of any portion of Lourdes in the daylight. Despite the sight of so much religious statuary, the number of invahds in wheelchairs and stretchers, and his misgivings about the shrine, he had to admit that the parade ground, or whatever it was supposed to be, offered up an aura of pastoral peace and serenity on this sunny summer's day.

Dr. Kleinberg and his nurse had caught the last Air Inter flight from Paris late yesterday, and when they had left the plane at the Lourdes airport it had already been nightfall. The press lady, with her car, had been waiting. During the short drive to their accommodations, Kleinberg, who had come straight from his Paris office to Orly Airport to this Pyrenees village, had been too exhausted to bother to glance out the car window as they had pa.s.sed through Lourdes. At the Hotel Astoria, in the Rue de la Grotte, ordinary single rooms had been reserved for them. After telephoning his wife, Ahce, in Neuilly, to tell her and the boys that he had arrived safely and to let her have the number where he might be reached, he had gone straight to bed and slept without a break for nine hours.

Now, as they walked, Kleinberg noticed how rigid and aloof his nurse was. Knowing her, the orplumed daughter of German parents ga.s.sed and cremated in the n.a.z.i holocaust, he knew how uncomfortable she was when confronted by any sort of fanaticism, poHtical or religious. Kleinberg felt no similar discomfort in these surroundings. His parents had moved from Vienna to Paris long before the rise of Hitler, and had become naturalized French citizens. He himself had been born a Frenchman, and despite a persistent degree of muted anti-Semitism among a minority in France, Kleinberg felt that he belonged and was a part of this land. His knowledge of French culture was broad, although his acquaintance with the Catholic shrine at Lourdes was limited. He had read about Bernadette and the apparitions and the grotto from time to time in newspapers and magazines, and also had read with mild interest about the occasional cures attributed to Lourdes.

Besides such casual reading, Kleinberg's only knowledge of the holy town had come from his careful perusal of three books involving Dr. Alexis Carrel-one of the books was about Carrel, two written by him-each going into the great physician's one visit to Lourdes in 1903. Kleinberg had acquired and read the Carrel books after he had been invited to join the International Medical Committee of Lourdes, which was a.s.sembling in Paris to review and ascertain the so-called miraculous cure of an Englishwoman, Mrs. Edith Moore, suffering from a sarcoma.

Kleinberg had been unable to a.s.sist the committee because of a previously scheduled medical meeting in London, but upon his return to Paris the Lourdes, people had contacted him again. The members of the International Mediced Committee had been favorably disposed toward granting Mrs. Moore's case miraculous status, but had withheld their final approval until they could have the vote of a specialist in sarcoma. Kleinberg was one of the two foremost specialists in France treating malignant growths. The other. Dr. Maurice Duval, whom Kleinberg knew and respected, had been too involved in experimental researches to cooperate. So there was only Kleinberg to bring in as a final consultant, and he had been reluctant to become involved in anything of a religious nature. Yet, learning that Dr. Alexis Carrel had once visited and investigated Lourdes, Kleinberg had given the matter some second thoughts. As a student at the Cochin School of Medicine, attached to the University of Paris, Kleinberg had admired the writings and career of Dr. Carrel. Kleinberg recalled that the scientist had kept an open mind about Lourdes and spent some time there. Kleinberg reread Dr. Carrel, and verified his student recollections. The great Carrel had, indeed, treated Lourdes seriously.

So Paul Kleinberg had agreed to accept the invitation of the International Committee, and go to Lourdes to review the incredible cure of the woman named Edith Moore.

"Here we are," he heard Mademoiselle Demaillot announce.

Where were they? Kleinberg stopped, and looked about to orient himself. They were on a sidewalk on the opposite side of the Rosary Esplanade. They were at the double doors of the entrance to a building made up of rugged large stone blocks. Above the entry, white lettering on a blue sign, were the words: medical bureau/secretariat.

"Let me take you inside," the press lady was saying. "I'll introduce you to the bureau head. Dr. Berryer, then leave you with him."

Kleinberg and Esther followed Mademoiselle Demaillot inside and found themselves in a s.p.a.cious anteroom, with two office doors on the right. The press lady gestured off to the second door. "Let me tell Dr. Berryer's secretary you've arrived."

After the press lady had disappeared into the office, Kleinberg and Esther took their bearings. The walls of the anteroom were decorated with what resembled the artifacts of a medical museum. After a quick glance, Esther avoided a closer look at the artifacts, and immediately occupied the comer of a sofa, sitting tight-lipped, eyes on the floor. But Kleinberg was more interested. He began to go around the anteroom, studying the displays.

The large display on the nearest wall was a framed, gla.s.s case and bore the name de rudder at the top. Closer inspection of the gla.s.s case revealed two copper casts of a man's leg bones, one showing the tibia seriously broken, the other showing it fully healed. Kleinberg read the explanatory legend. Pierre de Rudder, of Jabbeke, Belgium, had fallen from a tree in 1867, and in the fall had broken the tibia in his lower left leg. The bone had a three-centimeter separation or gap at the fracture point, and would not heal. For eight years, de Rudder had been a cripple. Then, after a visit to a rephca of the Lourdes grotto in Belgium, de Rudder had been instantly and miraculously cured, his sundered bone totally put together again. After his death, twenty-three years later, three doctors had performed an autopsy on de Rudder. They had found that the three-centimeter gap had, indeed, closed. 'The broken bone edges fitted closely. The bone preserves a very obvious mark of the fracture, but without any foreshortening." De Rudder had been declared Lourdes' eighth official miracle cure in 1908.

Kleinberg wrinkled his nose, and saw his unconscious reaction reflected in the gla.s.s of the case, and a.s.sessed that his reaction was more of surprise than of doubt.

Since their escort had not yet reappeared, Kleinberg continued to wander around the anteroom, studying the framed photographs on the three walls, and the printed histories of most of the officially recognized miraculous cures of invalids who had sought help from the Lourdes shrine. The earhest was dated 1858. The last one framed and hung was a picture of Serge Perrin, who had suffered "recurring organic hemiphlegia, with ocular lesions, due to cerebral circulatory defects." He had been miraculously and fully cured at the age of forty-one in 1970, and his miracle cure officially recognized in 1978. Kleinberg knew there had been more cures since then, but perhaps the Medical Bureau had not yet had time to mount them.

Kleinberg heard his name called, and wheeled around.

The press lady was advancing toward him. "Dr. Kleinberg, it appears that Dr. Berryer will be a little late for your appointment. There is a message, and I contacted him by phone at his meeting, and he promises he will be here in ten or fifteen minutes, and offers his apologies."

"No matter," said Kleinberg.

"Maybe you'd prefer to wait in his private office? I'll show Madame Levinson to the examination and X-ray rooms, where you'll find her after your interview. Then I must leave you both."

"Thank you. Mademoiselle Demaillot."

He allowed her to show him into Dr. Berryer's office, and watched her leave. Once he was alone, he set down his medical bag, and again tried to get his bearings. It surprised him to see how small and Spartan was Dr. Berryer's office. No more than eight feet by eight feet, with a desk and chair in the middle, two chairs for visitors, a cranmied bookcase. All neat, no disarray. Kleinberg noticed a mirror, and planted himself before it to see if he was presentable. He frowned at the brown receding hairline, at the smallish hooked nose made more prominent by the sunken cheeks. The bags under his eyes had been earned, and were all right, and his sharp chin was still one chin at forty-one. He straightened his knit tie, squared his narrow shoulders, and decided that he was as presentable as he would ever be.

He took a chair to await his tardy host, and realized a feeling of unease, which he had not felt outdoors. It was the displays in the anteroom that had thrown him off a trifle, all those miracles, all so unscientific and alien to his nature. He wondered how one like Dr. Alexis Carrel had coped with it.

Dr. Carrel had been severely criticized by fellow scientists for deigning to pay attention to a religious center that claimed miracles and for having confessed that he might have actually witnessed a miracle himself. Carrel's colleagues in science-persons who had once respected him as a member of the faculty of medicine at Lyons University- turned against him for having given credence to Lourdes by visiting it and by having given serious consideration to the inexplicable cures that were going on there. Carrel's colleagues condemned him as "a credulous pietist."

Dr. Carrel had defended his interest in the so-called miracles in the press: "These extraordinary phenomena are of great biological, as well as religious, interest. I consider, therefore, that any campaign against the miracles of Lourdes is unjustified and opposed to the progress of medical science in one of its most important aspects."

Actually, rereading the controversy so many years later, Kleinberg could see that Carrel had been uncertain about the cures at Lourdes and had incurred the anger of the clerical community just as he had provoked the scientific community. For one thing. Carrel had been unhappy about the Medical Bureau. "There is a rosary on the examining table, but no medical tools." Carrel had been equally unhappy about one of Dr. Berryer's predecessors, Dr. Boissarie, who had published best sellers about his medical study of the cures. "He has written these works as if he were a priest rather than a physician," Carrel had complained. "He has indulged in pious consideration rather than scientific observations. He has shunned rigorous a.n.a.lyses and precise deductions."

But the sudden-miraculous?-cure of a French girl, Nfarie Bailly, swept most of his reservations aside. He had tried to defend what he had witnessed before the scientific community: "At the risk of shocking both believers and non-believers, we shall not discuss the question of belief. Rather, we shall say that it makes little difference whether Bernadette was a case of hysteria, a myth, or a madwoman. . . . The only thing that matters is to look at the facts; they can be investigated scientifically; they exist in a realm quite outside of metaphysical interpretation. . . . Science, of course, must be continually on guard against charlatanism and credulousness. But it is also the duty of science not to reject things simply because they appear extraordinary or because science is powerless to explain them."

This from the man who had become a giant at the Rockefeller Inst.i.tute for Medical Research, who had won the n.o.bel Prize in 1912 for suturing blood vessels, who had experimented in 1935 with an artificial heart designed by Charles Lindbergh.

Sitting there in the stillness of Dr. Berryer's office in the Medical Bureau, Kleinberg closed his eyes. Do not reject things simply because they appear extraordinary. Dr. Carrel's own words. At once, Kleinberg felt more relaxed, less disturbed about the miracles heralded in the anteroom and by his very presence in the playground of the Virgin Mary and the site where he was to reafl&rm the miraculous cure of a woman named Edith Moore.

Kleinberg heard the office doork.n.o.b turn, and came to his feet as a preoccupied, squarish older man barged into the room.

"Dr. Kleinberg?" the man said, offering a handclasp. "I'm Dr. Berryer, and pleased to meet you. Forgive the delay, but bureaucratic matters can often take more of one's time than medicine."

"No need to apologize," said Dr. Kleinberg affably. "I'm delighted to be here."

"Do sit down," said Dr. Berryer, going around his desk and standing over it to review the various messages waiting for him.

Kleinberg sat down again, and waited as the head of the Medical Bureau swept his messages into a comer, and settled into his swivel chair.

"So glad you could make it," said Dr. Berryer, "knowing how busy you must be."

"I repeat, I'm delighted."

"Is this your first visit to Lourdes?"

"I'm afraid so."

"Well, the Moore examination today shouldn't take up much of your time. You'll be able to have a look around. Do you know anything about Lourdes?"

"Very little, a layman's knowledge," said Kleinberg. "I've seen a few articles on it. Of course, I read the International Committee's summary report on Mrs. Moore. And I've read Dr. Alexis Carrel's memoir on his visit here."

"Ah, poor Carrel," said Dr. Berryer with a forced smile. "For the rest of his life, after leaving here, he waffled between belief and disbelief at what he had seen."

"Understandable, for a man of science."

"I, for one, have never had trouble reconciling religion and science," said Dr. Berryer. "Pasteur had no problem about that. Neither did Einstein. At any rate-" He had folded one hand across the other on top of his desk. "-since there is a little time before Mrs. Moore arrives and you are occupied with her, perhaps I can bore you with a brief fill-in on how we work here -- medically . . . that is, scientifically -so that you will feel more at home."

"I'd be pleased to learn what I can."

"Let me give you a bit of background on the process you are specifically involved in, the process ascertaining cures," said Dr. Ber-ryer. "You are acquainted with this process?"

"Only vaguely," said Kleinberg. "It would be interesting to know more."

"Very well. Briefly then. To give you a better understanding of why we summoned you in the case of Edith Moore and her sudden cure."

"Her miracle cure," said Kleinberg, with a friendly curl of his lips.

Dr. Berryer's eyes, almost sunk behind the pufiy cheeks, fixed on his visitor. His tone became less conversational, more pedagogical. "I am not here to define a cure in Lourdes as miraculous. As a doctor, I can merely define such a cure as unusual. It is for the Church to decide if any cure is related to a divine intervention, one that can be recognized as a sign of G.o.d. Our doctors afl&rm that a healing is inexphcable in the realm of science. Our clergymen confirm it can be explained as the work of G.o.d. In the Medical Bureau, those are the ground rules."

"I understand."

"The Church has always been less generous than our doctors in its claims. From the time of Bernadette to this day, the Church has claimed less than seventy cures to have been genuinely miraculous. But our doctors, even after rigorous examinations, have been more generous in announcing unusual cures. There have been about five thousand confirmed cures to date. About sixty times more cures than miracles. Why all have not qualified as miracles I cannot say. The clergy has its own standards. While millions and millions of visitors have come to Lourdes since 1858, most have been pilgrims seeking spiritual comfort or tourists wis.h.i.+ng to satisfy their curiosity. The number of actual invahds who arrive each year represents a small minority. The statistics break down as follows-about one medical cure for every five hundred patients who arrive here, and about one miracle for every thirty thousand patients who show themselves."

Listening, Kleinberg realized that Dr. Berryer's voice had flattened out, lost its inflections, settled into a lecture given many times over.

"Now as to the criteria governing a cure," Dr. Berryer went on. "The illness must be serious, inevitable, incurable. The illness must also be organic, not functional. An organic illness involves a lesion at the organic level, whereas a functional illness-"

Mildly annoyed. Dr. Kleinberg interrupted. He was being treated to a layman's lecture, and not as a medical colleague. "I am acquainted with your criteria, doctor," he broke in.

Momentarily thrown off" his verbal rut. Dr. Berryer stammered slightly. "A, yes-yes, of course-well, now-Mrs. Moore's hip sarcoma -- an organic illness, certainly, and a permanent cure. The last hip sarcoma cure we had, before Mrs. Moore's, dates back to 1963. I have no doubt-and certainly as a specialist in this area, you will agree -- that the cure of such sarcoma will be less unusual in the future, as medicine progresses."

Kleinberg nodded. "Great advances are being made ahready. Dr. Duval in Paris has conducted successful experiments on animals to arrest and cure sarcoma medically."

"Exactly, Dr. Kleinberg. At one time, medicine could not deal with tuberculosis. But today, there are medical means to treat tuberculosis, and so that is one serious illness which depends less on the grotto. But in the present state of science, many sufferers continue to look to the grotto, to prayers, the water, as a means of recovery. Edith Moore, aflSicted by hip sarcoma, was such a one." He paused. "You know how she was cured by a visit to the baths during her second visit here? You know her instantaneous cure was confirmed by sixteen physicians, both in London and in Lourdes."

"I do."

"Now as to the process that followed. First, the Medical Bureau here. In the beginning there was no Medical Bureau. There was Dr. Dozous, a.s.sisted by Professor Vergez of Montpelier, to sift all claims of cures. There were twelve cases considered, and seven of these were determined by Bishop Laurence's canonical commission in 1862 to be cures that could be attributed to the work of G.o.d. The word miracle was not then in use for such cases. After that, as visitors to Lourdes increased, as more patients claimed cures, something had to be done. Dr. Saint-Maclou, who had settled here, established a reception center for visiting doctors to inspect evidence of cures. That was in 1874 and the center was called the Office of Medical Verifications. Gradually, the Verifications Office was enlarged to the present-day Medical Bureau. Shortly after 1947, the National Medical Committee was established and in 1954 this became the International Medical Committee, the one you were invited to sit in on earher this year."

"And the International Medical Committee has the last word?"

"Medically speaking, yes. The process goes as follows-our Medical Bureau in Lourdes confirms a cure, and then pa.s.ses the dossier on to the International Committee. There are about thirty members on the committee, physicians from ten different countries, all appointed by the bishop of Tarbes and Lourdes, and they meet for one day a year, as they recently did. During the most recent meeting, the dossier of Edith Moore was presented. The member doctors discussed it at length. A vote was taken, with a two-thirds vote usually enough for approval. After that, the dossier was returned to the bishop of Tarbes and Lourdes. Since Mrs. Moore's diocese was in London, the approved dossier was sent to the bishop of London. He, in turn, appointed a canonical commission to judge if Mrs. Moore's cure was miraculous. As you know, Mrs. Moore's cure was approved by all hands-"

"Yes."

"-but it was not officially announced because the International Committee did not have a sarcoma specialist at their meeting. You were invited, but you were away. Dr. Duval was invited, but he was occupied with his experiments. The International Committee then cast its favorable vote subject to your confirming its judgment. Rather than convene the committee again, it was agreed that if you came to Lourdes and saw Mrs. Moore in person, then the official announcement could be made."

"Well, here I am, ready, willing, and able," said Kleinberg.

Dr. Berryer considered the white digital clock on his desk. "I made an appointment for Edith Moore to meet with you. She should be in the examining room in about a half hour." He stood up. "I know you've studied the report on the case, but that was a summary, and you may prefer to see the diagnosis of each doctor involved."

"That would be useful," said Kleinberg, rising while Dr. Berryer went to the bookcase and removed a handful of manila file folders.

"I'll take you to the examining room, and leave these with you. You'll have time enough to browse through them before your patient arrives."

Kleinberg followed Dr. Berryer out of the office to the examining room. In the undecorated room, between the leather examining table and a wooden cabinet against the wall containing medical instruments, Esther Levinson sat in a chair, leafing through a French magazine. As they entered, she came to her feet, and Kleinberg introduced his nurse to the head of the Medical Bureau.

Inside the door. Dr. Berryer handed the layer of folders over to Kleinberg.