The Jew's Wife & Other Stories Read Online Free PDF

from the identity of the priesthood itself. He did not
want to be relieved of his vocation; he could not imagine life
without being able to say mass and forgive sins. And he certainly
did not want to philander. What he did want was time off from the
world’s idea of who he was, an idea that made it impossible for
anyone to treat him as a normal human being—not his housekeeper,
not the milkman, not even his own mother.
        The high
metal brow of some kind of oversize vehicle appeared in the waves
of heat shimmering above the concrete road. He mouthed a silent
prayer, one he had learned in grammar school but had survived all
the theology he had received since. In a sense, it was no longer
canonical because it addressed the deity as Holy Ghost, while
Vatican II had altered His title to Spirit. But the prayer had
served him well, especially when he had to make his mind up
fast.
        It
turned out to be just another of those mammoth trailer-trucks that
had plagued him on the Turnpike. He greeted it with relief. He was
always quick to caution parishioners against believing in omens,
but it was hard not to see this as a sign. He picked up his valise
and walked back into the store.
       “ Do any other
buses stop here besides the one to Philly?”
        The old man
completed a column of accounts he had been worrying with a pencil
stub. Then he looked the stranger over as if for the first
time.
       “ What sort of
bus did you have in mind?”
       “ Just one that
goes some place other than Philadelphia.”
        The storekeeper
glanced down at the black valise, then returned to his account
book. Another consequence of anonymity, Father Walther realized,
was suspicion.
       “ There’s
one to Atlantic City. But you missed that by a couple
hours.”
       “ When’s the
next?”
       “ Tomorrow
morning.”
        This gave him
pause. It was one thing to take a little detour on the way back to
his parish; it was quite another to risk marooning
himself.
       “ How far
is it to a real bus depot—where I can get a bus to other shore
points?”
        The old
man again looked up from his figures, now as if at a pesky dog that
refused to go away.
       “ Take
this here road five miles north. Then go right at 537. That’ll take
you into Camden.”
        Father
Walther regarded the man mutely. How was he supposed to take a road
anywhere without transportation?
       “ There’s no bus
to Camden?”
       “ Nope.”
       “ A car
service?”
       “ None I know
of.”
        What did
ordinary people do in such circumstances? It was hard to imagine
himself as a layman stranded on a deserted highway in the
boondocks. He suspected that ordinary people, certainly a man of
his own age and some knowledge of how the world worked, didn’t find
themselves in this kind of predicament in the first place. Kids, he
knew, hitchhiked. Sometimes he picked one up, always careful to
give him (and sometimes even her) a homily about the dangers of
thumbing rides from strangers—a silly tack to take, now that he
thought about it: if they shouldn’t hitchhike, even priests
shouldn’t pick them up. If a cleric could shed his identity just by
removing his roman collar, surely a murderer or child molester
could just as easily disguise himself as a priest.
        He
crossed the road and looked down the road as far as where it bent
around a stand of scrub pine trees. Directly across the way was the
general store. He could not see in through the screen door, but he
knew the old man could see out. He didn’t need any spectators for
his first attempt at hitching-hiking, so he moved a few yards up
the road.
        Another
tractor-trailer passed him, then a panel truck, then nothing at
all. The sun made his hair, already graying at the temples, hot to
the touch. His vinyl valise was softening like macadam. The old man
came out of the store and surveyed the road without appearing to
notice the sweltering