“I was actually near there once, as a boy. I swam with my cousins in the Erie Canal. When they opened a lock upstream we jumped off one of the bridges and rode the current down and then hitched a ride on whatever boat was heading back. You must have done that a thousand times.”
“I didn’t swim much,” Hector said. “I never liked the water.”
“I remember now. That was some of the foulest water I’ve ever seen. All sorts of things floating in it.”
“Yeah,” Hector said, seeing again the blackness inside his father’s gaping mouth. “That’s right.”
“Will you be going back?”
“To Ilion? No.”
“Then to somewhere else in the States?”
“I don’t know.”
“You must be having a time of it here in Korea,” Tanner said. “Like most of the servicemen.”
“I’m not in the service anymore.”
“Yes, I know that. I suppose I meant all you young men.”
Hector didn’t respond, keeping focused on the task. Tanner didn’t press him and they worked steadily with their scrapers on the long section of wall, working from opposite ends and moving toward the center. Soon enough flecks of white paint dusted them from head to toe, the two men looking as if they’d shoveled out an ash pit. Tanner took to the work with ease. He was still wearing his minister’s gray shirt and white collar and in the gaining heat he perspired heavily. But he wasn’t laboring. He was athletic and rangy and he clearly welcomed the renewed physical activity after his extended travels; back in Seattle he sculled his one-man shell every morning on Lake Union. He was twenty years older than Hector-some thinning showed in an otherwise full head of hair-but there was otherwise an animation and sturdiness about his constitution that was not unlike the younger man’s, though unlike Hector’s, Tanner’s was drawn as much from the force of his will as from an innate, brute vigor: his obviously steel self-belief primary still, despite the story of his miraculous recovery.
Tanner reached the midpoint of the wall even before Hector, whose efforts ticked by as always at a constant, unremitting meter. Tanner stepped back, removing his wire spectacles and wiping his brow with his sleeve.
“From your surname I assume your family is Catholic?”
“My dad. My mother was lapsed. They’re both gone now.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
“Yeah.”
“And what about you? Do you consider yourself Catholic?”
“I’m nothing.”
“Surely you must have been christened.”
Hector nodded.
“I was just curious. It’s not important, but I suppose I was wondering how much time you’d spent in church.”
“Why’s that?”
“Again, it’s not material, but I want to ask if you would be able to construct a chapel for us. The outdoor pavilion is perfectly fine now, but I don’t see how it will be useful come winter. Had Reverend Hong any such plans, about what to do?”
“If he did, he didn’t tell me about them.”
“I’m glad we’re talking about it, then. I was thinking that perhaps you could build a small chapel, just one big enough to house all of us.”
“I doubt I could get the lumber to build anything but a shed.”
“What about converting a space?”
“There’s really nothing that would work, except maybe the main classroom.”
“No, that won’t do,” Tanner said. “I feel strongly that if possible we should have a chapel that’s just a chapel. Where we solely hold prayer services and read Scripture and sing our hymns. Nothing else, no classes or eating. It doesn’t have to look churchlike. A room with benches is all we would require. Nothing large. The closer we are, the better.”
Hector pictured the big Catholic church in Albany where they went for Easter, and then the one on West Street in Ilion where his father would regularly take him and his sisters on Sunday mornings, and sometimes for the Vigil on Saturday afternoons. It was massive and impressive to his boy’s eyes, built from blocks of granite and with a medieval-style tower, and within its soaring buttressed wooden ceiling above the nave, the supports and walls were clad in a limestone that shone brilliantly in the daytime from the light that streamed in through three high, narrow stained-glass windows over the main entrance. It was a very long structure with dozens of rows of burnished mahogany pews. On certain stifling summer days the air would be unbearable and his father would often doze off for a while, and if they were sitting toward the back Hector could slip beneath the pew in front and lie down on the cool stone floor until just before the sermon was over. There was a separate small chapel off the nave, devoted to the Annunciation, and Hector was surprised how well he could recall it now, the narrow space like a miniaturized chapel with its smaller altar and cross and off to the side a statue of a remarkably beautiful Irish-faced Mary, who could have been one of his wild sisters.
“There’s the vestibule between the girls’ and boys’ sleeping rooms,” he told Tanner. “I think it was open space between the buildings that was enclosed at some point. I wouldn’t have to do much except maybe install a woodstove, if I can find one. I suppose I could salvage enough boards from the base for some pews.”
“Yes, that sounds fine. That might just hold all of us.”
“Not me.”
“Have you not attended any of the services here?”
“No.”
“And Reverend Hong never minded?”
“I do jobs here. He knew that.”
“Well, you should know it’s likely he won’t be returning in three months. He’s done a good job and the Church will be asking him to go to Minnesota after his time in Seattle, to help begin a new ministry. He doesn’t know this yet. A good number of the children, from all our orphanages around Korea, will be adopted into families there.”
“Are you telling me I ought to get going? Because I’ll move on whenever you like.”
“I wasn’t suggesting that.” Tanner said. “Of course, it’s up to you. However, I would ask you to stay on for a while. There’s clearly much work to be done around the property before the weather turns. Reverend Hong went over it with me, particularly the refurbishing of the kitchen and the new septic tank, as well as patching the roofs of all the structures. And now this chapel. I’d ask you to see these projects through, if not for me, then for Reverend Hong. For the children.”
He looked directly into Hector’s eyes. “May I be frank with you? All right, then. Although I’ve only been here a week I will tell you directly that I think your presence otherwise is detrimental to the children. I took the liberty of interviewing some of the staff aunties. Please don’t blame them, but I was quite forceful in my queries. Again, I have nothing against you, personally. Your life is your own, and I didn’t come to Korea to mold your habits or your character. But I am certain that the children don’t need to see you return every morning after long nights in town. Or be so aware of your public drinking. Or your obvious indifference to our assembly and worship. So I disagree with Reverend Hong when he says that because the children are accustomed to you there should be no concern. They are rootless in every regard, and this may be their last chance for a new beginning, and so why would I wish any influences on them that weren’t wholly benevolent? Do you think I should?”
“No.”
“So you can understand. You agree.”