Chapter 1

Bump in the Road

"You know what I was, You see what I am: change me, change me!"

– Randall Jarrell

Father Dewey Fischer guided his battered Renault onto the ramp leading into St. Gervais. He’d been on the road for two hours, traveling from his parents’ house in Anoka, where he’d been vacationing since his ordination.

As he sped off the ramp onto the two-lane, he noticed a yellow "Bump in the Road" sign off to the right. You can say that again, he thought. He fancied himself an activist priest and was somewhat cynical about his new assignment. He’d volunteered for duty in the inner city, but the Bishop had decreed that he was needed in St. Gervais, where Father Emil Czech was having problems adapting to the modern church.

"It’s up to you to put a bolster under the old boy," the Bishop had said, nibbling a croissant, then sipping from a cup of herbal tea. The Bishop, a skinny Buddha with an ever-present twinkle in his eyes, one green one and one blue one, wore wire-rimmed glasses to complete the wise sage image.

As the Bishop prattled on about sublimating one’s desires to the greater good, Dewey heard music, something that happened often when he was in a stressful situation. This particular tune was a circus accompaniment, the kind of ditty the calliope played when the daring young man on the flying trapeze uncorked a triple spin into the waiting arms of his burly catcher. Dewey’d like to spin the Bishop up over his head and crash him into a turnbuckle, a maneuver Governor Jesse Ventura had abused Kenny Jay with in his younger days. Dewey’s Uncle Mike, a retired priest, had assured him that the church was begging for young priests brave enough to minister to the prostitutes, drug addicts, and muggers of the inner city. But no!

A couple of blocks ahead, Dewey could see St. Boniface, the golden cross on the steeple gleaming in the early-afternoon sun.

When he reached St. Teresa’s Boarding School, he pulled into the parking lot, got out and stretched. A small, round-faced man, only 5'9", with his hair combed back in the kind of vampire look that had been popular of late, he seemed to draw women like bratwurst vendors drew clients at a Viking game. Teaching religion to the fair sex might be a problem for Dewey.

"You’ll enjoy working with girls," the Bishop had chuckled as he’d ticked off St. Gervais’s merits on his well-manicured digits. "Boys can be a real trial. Spit wads and that, you know. And hyperactive as a swarm of African bees."

"But I don’t want to be a small-town priest," Dewey had said. "I want to be out there, ministering to the underclass."

The Bishop hissed, his way of laughing. "There are plenty of those in St. Gervais, young man. You’ll see. Tell you what we’ll do. We’ll try it for a year, and if you still find St. Gervais less than stimulating, we’ll see about the inner city."

Dewey ground his teeth, something he’d been doing in his sleep ever since he’d been informed of the Bishop’s cock-eyed intentions. "I’d rather not," he said. "I can’t see working under a small-town pastor. I’ve heard horror stories."

The cheerful Bishop winked at him with his blue eye. "Know what you mean. You should have seen some of the ogres I had to work under. Drunken sots. Skirt chasing lechers. A little Irishman with a Napoleonic complex. Believe me, I know where you young fellows are coming from."

"I’ll try it for two weeks," Dewey said.

"No, no, you’ll do your year, and in a week or two you’ll find there’s no other place you’d rather be than bucolic St. Gervais."

"I’ve heard about these small towns. Stubborn Germans who resist every change in the church."

"You’re rationalizing, my boy. Afraid you won’t be able to give a coherent sermon in the face of stifling ennui. That it?"

"I hear there’s a church in St. Gervais that still embraces the Latin mass."

"That’s true . On the other side of the river from St. Boniface. Beautiful. Just beautiful. One really feels as if Christ is there in the pew next to one."

Dewey shifted in his chair, leaned toward the Bishop, tried to meet one of his eyes. "I’ll be teaching religion, supervising weddings and funerals for people who forget they’re Catholic six days of the week. I hate funerals."

The Bishop leaned back, crossed his fingers over his paunch. "Such lovely music, though. And the little children dressed in their Sunday best." The Bishop paused for a moment, looking up into the flourescent lights as if in search of divine inspiration.

"I was just as apprehensive as you are. Would I be able to handle the burden of the people’s problems, physical and psychological? Would I be able to share in their joy, their weddings, their births, especially when I would never actually be able to experience that joy firsthand?"

"That’s another thing. You’ve got me teaching religion to a bunch of pubescent girls. Why don’t you just throw me to the lions?"

The Bishop shot him a multicolored look. Any second now Dewey was sure the Bishop would allude to his disrespectful tone.

Instead he said, "You would bring up the sex-abuse hassle. A day doesn’t go by that some gadfly doesn’t sting me in the backside with that hornet’s nest. But you should have come to terms with celibacy before you were ordained, thrashed it through with your spiritual adviser at the seminary."

"I thought I had."

The green eye wandered a bit. "I’m afraid sexual desire will plague you to your dying day. I’m sixty-three and there are times . . . that Julia Roberts girl for one." He shook his head as if to dispel an impure thought. "Celibacy is such a thorny issue. Each of us must learn to deal with it in our own way. I have a feeling the next pope will put that one on the front burner."

"You do?"

"We’ll try this for a year, shall we?" the Bishop said, slapping Dewey on the knee so hard his skin felt scalded. "And after that, we’ll see about finding you your ghetto parish."

The Buddha had worn Dewey down.

Dewey winced at the battered right fender of the Renault. He couldn’t even remember how it got there. Had to find the money for new wheels. Perhaps Uncle Mike, living the easy life of a retired priest in Tucson, Arizona, could come up with the dough. Pay me back for that bum steer about serving in an inner city parish, Dewey mused. He got back in the car, pulled out of the lot, and cruised toward the town’s one and only stoplight, where the flickering yellow numbers on the First National read one-sixteen. He wasn’t due at St. Boniface for another hour.

He’d use the time to check out the river. His best friend, Gordy Culp, who’d been raised in St. Gervais, said the best view of the Mississippi was from the abandoned railroad bridge.

When the light turned green, he swung left. Up ahead he could see a four-lane bridge crossing the river and behind it there were two points of interest: a mural on two sides of a warehouse of lumberjacks straddling logs down the river, and the greenish-black onion domes of the Polish church, the one with the Latin mass.

Dewey turned right just before the bridge, urging the sputtering Renault down River Road.

About a quarter mile down, the rusting railroad bridge hovered over the water. Some trick of nature, the glare of the sun on the blue surface, painted a cross on the water, and Dewey thought about how this might be an omen. The river was instructive, a metaphor for life; it waxed and waned, flooded and nourished. He’d always had a fondness for water. In high school he’d spent summers working as a lifeguard at a Lake Minnetonka beach.

When he reached the railroad bridge, he abandoned the car and teetered out onto the tracks, ignoring the "No Trespassing" sign, and stood watching the muddy Mississippi snake its way south toward the dam, widening some as it flowed.

Dewey sat down on the ties, dangling his feet over the side, and tried to imagine how the Mississippi might have looked a hundred years before. Logs floating down the river, sometimes creating jams that needed to be dynamited, but eventually arriving in the Twin Cities, where they’d be sawed and finished to furnish wood for the treeless farms on the Great Plains.

The lumber barons had reaped bushels of money, and spent it

on huge Victorian mansions, some still standing. The Bishop had told him to be sure to take the tour of the old homes as soon as he found time. Mrs. Culp, Gordy’s grandmother, was a descendant of one of the lumber barons. He should get to know her as she was a stalwart in support of St. Boniface.

That would be another drawback: begging money from reluctant donors. He’d rather walk barefoot across a bed of snapping water moccasins. He stared down at the muddy water, hoping to spot a hint of aquatic life in the murky water. He’d loved fishing as a small boy, but hadn’t gone since before high school. Something silvery down there in the depths.

A horn sounded. Dewey glanced over to the left. A squad car was parked next to the rails, its bubbletop flashing blue. "Hey, Bud," the cop yelled. "Want to come on off of there?"

Dewey jumped up, realizing there was no platform on the bridge, only rotting ties, and he suddenly experienced vertigo. "I can’t seem to move, Officer," he wailed.

#

Once escorted back onto dry land, Dewey introduced himself as the new assistant at St. Boniface and apologized for trespassing on railroad property. "I just wanted to get a better view of the river," he said.

"You and just about every kid in town." The cop’s khaki uniform was frayed at the collar and his hound-dog eyes and thick mustache gave him the dauntless presence of a Yosemite Sam cartoon. They shook hands. "One of ‘em fell off once and drowned, and guess who got the blame?" the officer said. "I’m Jim Miller, deputy sheriff. If you’re going to be working for Father Czech, I’ll be one of your parishioners then."

"What’s he like?" Dewey asked.

"Scary as hell in the confessional, I tell yah. Sorry, I didn’t mean to be using any bad language. Me and the missus we really take our religion seriously. We’ve got us six girls to raise."

"That’s okay. I’ve used that word once or twice myself."

"Will you be hearing confessions next Saturday?" the deputy said, grinning.

#

Dewey steered the Renault back toward St. Boniface, scanning the stores as he sailed down Broadway toward the lights and Bank Square. Fletcher’s Supermarket past the bridge on the right, sweet corn on sale. A barbershop just before the light. What was that name? Hendriksons, the sign read as he passed. Across the street, a pawn shop, kind of unusual in a town this size, he thought.

After a right, two clicks down from the lights, he spotted a vet’s clinic. Maybe he’d get a dog. He turned left at Sixth Avenue, just before St. Teresa’s, drove two blocks down and parked next to a brand-new Lincoln Continental in the rectory driveway.

Retrieving his suitcase from the trunk, he trotted up the steps and pressed the doorbell. He waited a few minutes, then rang again. Still no answer. Maybe the bell didn’t work. After he’d opened the screen door and raised and dropped the knocker three times, the door opened, and a short fireplug of a man wearing an apron grinned up at him. He had black hair and a receding, Richard Nixon hairline, and beneath the apron, weight lifter’s arms, blanketed with Brillo-pad hair, bulged imposingly. "Yes, can I help you?" the man said.

"I’d like to see Father Czech if I could. I’m his new assistant, Dewey, I mean Duane, Fischer."

"Come in. Come in. I’m Father Czech. I suppose you’re wondering what I’m doing in this apron?"

Dewey smiled. "Now that you mention it."

"Mrs. Hanover, my housekeeper, quit on me, and the dishes were beginning to pile up. I didn’t want my new assistant to think I was a slob."

"If you have a towel, I’d be happy to dry."

"I’m afraid they’ll have to wait. The reason I took so long to answer the door . . . I was on the telephone. A young girl has gone missing, and I’m needed to comfort the family." He glanced down at his expensive-looking gold watch. "You’ll have to handle the interview for me."

"Interview?"

"Catholic Aid is sending over a girl who’s interested in the housekeeping position. If she has two arms and legs and doesn’t smell too bad, you be sure to hire her." With that, the pastor untied his apron, got his coat and fedora from a hook near the door, and handed Dewey the apron.

"This girl that’s missing, Father. Is there anything I can do?"

"Don’t worry yourself. I’m sure it’s nothing. Andy Leyk is a very headstrong girl. She’s run away before. Took off for the Cities. Wanted to see the Megamall, but her folks said no. Scared her about as much as excommunication scared Luther. That’s what you’ll have to deal with here I’m afraid. Parents who have no concept of effective discipline."

And then he was gone and Dewey found himself alone in the drafty rectory. The place was about as inviting as a Transylvanian castle. Like a little kid at summer camp for the first time, his clothes felt like garage sale bargains his mother had foisted off on him, and his shoes pinched as if they were two sizes too small. He was about to throw a tantrum when the doorbell rang.

At first he thought the girl was one of the students from St. Teresa’s, but when she said, "Hello, I am Viktorija Gashi," in a kind of Ingrid Bergman accent, he realized the petite young woman was the housekeeping candidate from Catholic Aid.

"Yes. Won’t you come in? Father Czech told me you were coming. I’m afraid I don’t know where anything is. I just got here myself. I’m Father Fischer."

Viktorija entered and stared up at the rather high ceiling as if she were a tourist gawking at big-city skyscrapers. She turned to him. "You do not look like a priest."

She was tiny, couldn’t have weighed a hundred pounds. Her short cinnamon hair was combed back in a kind of ducktail, and her hazel eyes and fleshy lips could have graced the cover of a movie magazine. The guys on his high school wrestling squad would have said she was "brickhouse."

"I’m just out of the seminary," he said. "Let’s try the sitting room, shall we?"

The sitting room had a definite dog motif. A print of a golden retriever splashing through a duck pond dominated one wall. On another, the same dog clamped a pheasant in its jaws. On a third, the retriever watched as his master fired his twelve-gauge at a V of mallards.

The girl sat in Father Czech’s LA-Z-BOY before the dead embers in the fireplace, and Dewey found an ottoman, which he dragged close to her. "Tell me about yourself, Viktorija," he said.

"Father did not tell you I am from Kosova?"

Dewey cupped his chin in his palm, held her hazel gaze. She reminded him of someone. "A refugee?"

"Yes, I am in this country at the pleasure of the Leyk family. I must pay for my needs."

It came to him whom she reminded him of. Anastasia Romanov, or rather her double, the woman the DNA scientists said was an imposter. Anna Anderson, younger version of course. "Leyk. Is that the family with the missing girl?"

"Yes, they are frantic. But I did not want to miss the interview as I have been–how you say?–moochering. Or is it mooching? I do not know the American slang well I am afraid."

"You speak excellent English. Did they tell you what kind of salary Father Czech was willing to pay?"

Like a schoolgirl who’d been asked if she liked school, she shrugged. "I would be satisfied with whatever you wish, but I must tell you first that I am of a different faith."

For the first time he noticed the nasty scar through one of her eyebrows. "Kosova . . . Islam?"

"Yes, Father Fischer."

"Call me Dewey. Well, I think that’s great. I want you to tell me about your religion. We Catholics are very ecumenical."

"Then the job . . . it is mine?"

"Come, you can start now. When I got here, Father Czech was washing dishes. We’ll finish up for him, and you’ll tell me all about Kosova."

As they entered the kitchen, Viktorija let out a little gasp. Father Czech had not made much of a dent in the pots and pans and dishes stacked practically to the ceiling. Dewey found

some yellow rubber gloves in a cabinet next to the sink, ran hot water, and added some dishwashing liquid. "I’ll wash, you dry," he said. "Tell me about your faith. I took comparative religion in the seminary, but I’m afraid I’ve lost most of it."

She shook out the dish towel. A green shirtdress cinched by a tooled leather belt called attention to a tiny waist and well-developed dancers’ legs. "Let me see," she said. "We pray five times a day, you knew that I am sure. Then there is the zakat, a welfare tax; everyone must be provided for. We must also fast during Ramadan, similar to your Lent. And there is a profession of faith: There is no god but Allah and Muhammad is his prophet. And . . . oh, yes, we do embrace some of Christian and Jewish dogma, but we have only the one God. Your Jesus, he is a prophet to us."

"Interesting," Dewey said, handing her a plate.

She stared out the window, the green shirtdress accentuating the rounded tops of her shoulders, her skin as tan as any sun worshipper’s.

Dewey bit down on his tongue, hard, drawing copper-tasting blood. "Ah, do you believe in hell?" he said, worrying an especially tough mustard stain with a scouring pad.

He noticed that the hazel eyes bulged just a bit, not unattractively. "Oh, yes. We contend, as you Christians do, that Satan was once an archangel who fell from grace. But we hold that this resulted from his refusal to honor Adam, whom Allah had raised to a higher position. We believe that pride is the worst sin man can commit."

Dewey submerged another couple of plates from the slowly diminishing stack. "I can’t say I really believe in hell."

"Maybe you would if you had been in Kosova when the Serbs came."

"Is that how you got that scar?" he said.

The hazel eyes flashed daggers. "From the shka, that’s what we call the Serbs. When they came, the Christian police plundered our homes. The shka shot our cattle; set fire to our lovely red-roofed houses. Raped the women and young girls. I cannot go home again because of this. In Kosova, widows they do not remarry, rape victims are shunned by husbands and families."

Dewey didn’t know what to say. He wiped his palms on his apron, reached out a hand to her, but she took a step back. "I had heard that Muslim women had a rough time of it, but I had no idea . . ."

"It is not as bad as it is in some Muslim countries. In Iran

women they are required to cover their faces and most of their bodies. We in Kosova have lived for centuries with the Orthodox Christians and have assumed some of their ways. But I was promised to a man before I was old enough to know about sex. Nehat Bedini."

Dewey squirted more dish soap, ran more hot water. They had already reduced the stack of dishes by half. "And what became of him?"

She wiped her hands on the dishtowel, knuckled one eye, and blinked it clear. "When I came of age, my father decided it was time for us to marry. I refused Nehat and was rejected by my family. I went to live with a favorite teacher, who found me a job as a veterinarian’s assistant."

"And how did you come here?"

"I had an American pen pal, Audrey Leyk. She is Andrea’s married sister. The Leyk family invited me to come to America when the Serbs came. But I have only a visa. I must find a husband if I want to stay. You must introduce me to your eligible friends." She smiled and playfully punched him on the shoulder.

The touch stung like a cattle prod, and Dewey dropped the dish he was about to hand her. It shattered in a thousand little pieces.

"Did I frighten you?" she said.

"Nah, I’m just a big klutz."

"Klutz? This is more of the American slang?’

"It means a clumsy person."

Dewey found a broom and began to sweep up the broken dish.

Ever the amateur psychologist, he asked her about the rape, about whether she had any PTS symptoms.

"PTS?" she asked. "I am not familiar with this term."

"Post traumatic stress. Soldiers get it. Anybody who’s been through a hellish experience like yours."

She clasped her hands together as if she were holding onto herself for comfort. "I have not been raised to be–-how you

say?-- candid with a man."

"I’m a priest, Viktorija. You know about our sacrament of confession?"

"Andrea, she tell me how every Saturday she say the same sins over and over again."

"Hmmph. I don’t know if I like that."

The hazel eyes widened. "I did not mean to offend."

"Kidding, Viktorija, kidding. Now go ahead and tell me about those PTS symptoms. I promise I won’t faint."

She hugged the tops of her bronze shoulders. "Nightmares. I have nightmares. There are slithering, filthy snakes. They are on the floor and the walls and the ceiling. They strike and strike again, and I feel the venom enter my bloodstream. I wake up sweating and shivering."

This time he held her in his arms–breathing in her scent, a kind of musky, child-of-the-earth smell–patted her back until she stopped weeping.

They went on to dispose of the dishes, not talking much, Viktorija sneaking the occasional peek at him out of the corner of her eye. Snakes, Dewey thought. Simple enough for even an amateur psychologist to interpret. Yes, she was right; there really was a hell.

#

That night Dewey and Father Czech were treated to a delectable Hungarian goulash, the pastor disdaining conversation as he shoveled it in. His golden retriever, Mutt, lay at his feet, eyeing the pastor accusingly, until the old priest granted him a tidbit, and Mutt licked his palm clean.

When they were finished eating, Father Czech patted his stomach and sipped at his wine. "That’s the best meal I’ve had since the year I spent in Rome. You’re a Godsend, Viktorija."

She’d come in to collect the dishes. "Thank you, Father. If it is all right, I will be going then, after I finish the dishes. I am feeling worried about my adopted sister Andrea."

"The Leyks think highly of you. I’ve been over there all afternoon. I tried to reassure them that Andrea was just off on another one of her adventures."

"I am sure that this is not so, or she would have confided in me."

"I hope you’re wrong," Father Czech said, wiping his mouth with a linen napkin.

"You go ahead and leave," Dewey said, "I’ll handle these dishes. I’m getting kind of good at it, after this afternoon."

"Me too," Father Czech said. "You go ahead, daughter."

After she left, Father Czech leaned back in his chair and lit a cigar. "I didn’t want to upset her, but they’ve found blood stains, in that abandoned farmhouse north of town. There were hundreds of townspeople out there scouring the woods, until young Miller, the deputy sheriff, got the idea to search the house. No body, though. I hope the boy didn’t botch the forensic evidence."

Dewey poured himself another cup of coffee, added a touch too much cream. "If that’s Jim Miller, I met him this afternoon at the railroad bridge before I came here. I wanted to get a better view of the river, and he chased me off, I’m afraid."

"The boy spends more time patrolling that bridge than he does catching criminals." The pastor splashed a dollop of wine into a tumbler and offered it to Mutt, who happily lapped it up, then trotted over to his rug next to the fireplace, where he went to sleep. "I should outline your duties before we go to bed. You’ll do the eight-thirty mass on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and hear confession before mass on those days as well. And you’ll teach religion to the ninth and tenth graders at St. Teresa’s. That’ll be enough for now, until you get your feet wet, so to speak. That was a pun, wasn’t it, you talking about almost falling in the river and everything?"

"I didn’t say anything about that."

"You didn’t? Oh, must’ve been Jim Miller then. Anyway, tomorrow you and I will stop in at the Leyks, if they haven’t found Andrea yet, then we’ll do a tour around town, my usual haunts. Fletcher’s Supermarket to see my girlfriend, Alicia. The Brass Rail for a hand of cribbage."

"You’ve got a girlfriend?"

"Purely platonic, I assure you. You develop a special attachment for some of your clients. Once during confession she asked me if I ever had impure thoughts. Nobody ever did that before! Didn’t know what the hell to say, had to take her back into the sacristy and give her the old birds and the bees talk. I baptized her, presided over her first communion, confirmation, and high school graduation, and I hope to marry her. Ah, to a suitable young man, I mean. She and I are mucho simpatico, as they say. I’m trying to talk her into going to college."

"How about Andy Leyk?"

"She avoided me like the plague. Lots of them do. Somewhere along the line I got the reputation for being a holy terror. Must’ve been that time I marched down to Happke’s Drugs and ordered Joe to get the dirty magazines off the rack."

"Did he?"

"Damn right he did, Dennis. In those days the parish priest was the law."

"My name is Duane, Father. Dewey for short."

"Oh, I thought you said Dennis. Maybe I called you that because you favor Dennis Day so much. He was one of Jack Benny’s sidekicks. I don’t suppose you’ve ever heard of him. He was a pretty good Irish tenor."

"Sorry, no, I haven’t."

Father Czech puffed on his cigar so vigorously that the ash flamed red, the smoke curling toward the ceiling, like soothing incense. "Too bad. They don’t make television like that anymore. After work tomorrow we’ll meet with the parish council. You got anything going in the morning?"

"I was just going to say. There’s an orientation meeting at the diocesan offices for all the newbies at eight."

"They want to make sure you line up some golfing buddies. Friendships staunch some of the loneliness. You’ll be back by noon and we’ll do the tour. Your room is on the third floor, up that staircase there and just to the right at the top." He flicked ash into a saucer. "Mine is down here; there’s another bedroom, but the snoring would surely burst your eardrums. There’s a study up there that faces out on the backyard oaks. Nice view. You can work on your sermonizing there."

"Thanks, Father. I believe I’ll hit the hay then."

"Bed’s made up. Did it myself. I’ll be down here, guzzling wine and watching ‘Murder She Wrote’ on cable. Love that show."

Dewey wasn’t sure if Father Czech was kidding about the wine or not. The pastor had already had three glasses.