Tell Me Just One Good Thing You’ve Done
The San Sebastian Chronicles, Part XXII
“All ready, then?” Lady Paz called out from the balcony of the gray airship.
It had taken us some time to get our provisions pared down to what could be carried on our backs and one mule. There had been some incriminations when it was deduced that my plan of eating and drinking as much as we could of our heavier foodstuffs was of no help with regard to the load-bearing capacity of the ship, as the mass of cheese and wine was merely transferred from the mule’s packs to our stomachs. I was embarrassed to have admit that this result had not occurred to me beforehand and had to accept blame for the stupor of our overindulgence, which caused a not insignificant delay in rearranging the mules’ packs and loading the ship.
Continued from…
But we were finally done and had assembled on the grass before the stairs leading up to the board-deck structure appurtenant to the ship. There, Ugo bid us to wait, though the mist was thickening to a drizzle and the clouds had dipped to become nearly a fog.
Lady Paz then emerged from her duties in the house, and spoke again from atop the stairs. “Attention, gentlemen, as we agreed, given the holy and laudatory nature of your journey, and in consideration of the fact that I have found no contraband in your luggage, I have agreed to waive the fare for your journey up the mountain in exchange for a favor. That favor being that each of you shall now simply tell me one good thing you have done in your life. With the priest’s presence here, perhaps we can consider this exercise the obverse of a confession. Father, perhaps you can propose a new sacrament to Rome: Instead of privately confessing our sins, the faithful publicly announce their antitheses.”
“Yes, and… I should need to further consider that,” said Father Koblenza.
We all looked around at one another. “Who shall go first?” Lady Paz asked. She pointed to me. “Hauptsergente? You are the leader of this expedition.”
A swallow then arose in my stomach as it dawned on me that I had not given this task any thought at all until just now. I suppose I had just assumed, as many of us might, that I would have a million good deeds to choose from, but now that the moment was here, I was dumbstruck. “Shall I… say it to you privately?” I asked, stalling.
“No, aloud, for the group.”
“Yes, alright. Well, I. I have. That is, I once. I once. Well, I give, I give money each week in church.”
“I see. And have you ever foregone a purchase or done without anything as a result of your tithe?”
I could safely say I had not, though I didn’t.
“One good thing, gentlemen. What about you, the Undercorporal. Desotto?”
He seemed unworried. “I say without boast that I cared for my mother many days when she was ill before her death. God rest her soul. And I did have to take leave from my work, so it did come at some expense. But of course, I did not think twice of it! I also assisted my brothers in the administration of her affairs thereafter.”
Lady Paz nodded. “My condolences for your mother, Undercorporal. Mine has also passed from this Earth so you have my sympathies.”
“Thank you.”
“But I must ask, did you ever consider not doing so, not caring for your mother on her deathbed?”
“I — ”
“That is, did you ever consider telling her, ‘No, mother. I am too busy at work and have engagements with my drinking mates at the tavern for the next few days.’”
“Of course not!”
“Yes, of course not. But I dare say, counting comforting one’s own mother at the end of her life as a good deed — indeed your best deed — would seem to be a low bar would it not? If only a monster would fail to do it? Atilla loved his mother very much, I am told. Theodoric the Great no doubt cared much for Ereleuva.”
“I, well — Do you take me for a Goth, woman!?”
“Again, all of you, I am looking for only a single good deed. Just one. You have your whole life from which to choose. Your Lordship?”
Gus stood at ease, as always, and said, “Yes, Lady Paz. Well, having had the opportunity to give it some thought, I can say, not wishing to boast, that I always tried to follow the teachings of Christ and his apostles, and as for specifics, once in al-Hind, my guide and I were ambushed by brigands. Thugees, you see. Most vicious. They had found their way into our group by intrigue and pounced on us at night. We fought them off, but my guide was injured grievously by a blade. I could have left him behind as he begged I do. But, at great risk, and though he was most cumbrous, I carried him to a nearby village where he was administered to by a local priest or doctor of a sort. I left him in the doctor’s care, and when I returned after scaling a nearby peak he had fully recovered. I am not a doctor myself, but both he and the shaman were adamant that had I left him behind he would have died, leaving behind many children.”
“I see. As a Christian, can I assume you have, unlike the Hauptsergente, given of your wealth to the poor, at least as much as you can while still retaining the power to earn it?”
“Yes, well, I pay my taxes. No light lift, that. Especially with the current government. Only on what’s outside the trusts, I will say. We don’t like to talk about money, though, our sort, do we? A bit shabby.”
“Do you earn it? Money?”
“Well, it earns it, I suppose. I’m told anyway. It’s all managed in Geneva and London.”
“Do you give of it?”
“Ah, yes. Well, like the good sergeant, when I go to church I do give some. Mostly on Christmas. Easter sometimes… when it… falls on a Sunday. And if, of course, there is an Anglican chapel nearby; I do travel a lot in heathen lands, you see. I’ve commissioned some portraiture and statuary...”
“Really?” I couldn’t help myself.
“Oh, yes,” said Gus, “all kinds. Not so much recently. Trying to economize for the war.”
“Of course,” I said.
Lady Paz waved, “Yes, yes. Pardon me, Gus, but this quest in India, why were you there?”
“Why?”
“Yes, why?”
“I was there to do some mountaineering.”
“For your own glory, then.”
“Well, I wouldn’t — ”
“And you had employed this guide to aid you on your quest?”
“Of course. He was a skilled guide of the sort one can only find in the locality.”
“What of his circumstances?”
“He, em, I believe was from a well-to-do family there. A higher sort of middling caste. They did have a house and some jewelry.”
“And how did your pay compare to what he stood to make otherwise.”
“I paid him quite well. Quite well. That is to say, I don’t just throw it away. Don’t want to come off as an easy mark for grifters. But generally what is asked. Let me see, I suppose a year’s salary it might have been for him, and in pounds sterling at that. Much preferable to the rupee even in the darkest Himalaya.”
“How long was your quest?”
“Six weeks was his engagement, but look here — ”
“So a man is nearly killed helping you in a quest for your own vanity and glory, for a price he could not rightly refuse, though he could have survived without your employment, and you claim that taking him to a doctor is a good deed? Would he have been on this exploit but for your thirst for fame in the foothills?”
“No, I suppose not, but they were not foothills, and I must object to — ”
“Again, quite a low bar we’ve set so far. Should I remind you all that you are free to give me the most good thing you’ve done. We’re not aiming for the least good thing as if we were taking a school exam on a pass-fail basis. American?”
I’d seen Johnny getting shifty at the other side of our semicircle.
“Well, ma’am, I — ”
“Remember, you are free to say that very best thing you have done in your whole life. Anything at all. So long as it’s true.”
“Well, I, I came here. To risk my life to volunteer to free this little country from oppression. I think that’s good.”
“And then mutinied!” I cried out.
“Yes, how long did your volunteering last before you endeavored to skulk off under cover of darkness?” said Desotto.
“Hey there, Dee-soe-toe, I didn’t know your little country was going to switch sides andwhatnotandleavemehighanddry,” Johnny protested.
There was then some shouting back and forth until Lady Paz spoke again.
“Perhaps you too were seeking glory in your volunteering, American? There seems to be some disagreement as to your motives. Do you have anything else?”
“Well, I obey my mother and father. How’s that?”
“Did they want you to come here?”
“Okay, except for that, but I am a grown man. Can vote ‘n’e’erything.”
“Bugle man, what about you?”
“Well, I take care of my wife and children.”
“I’m sorry, you have a wife and children, Tomasso?” I said with a laugh. I’d always thought he was only just out of school, if he’d ever gone. Moreover, he was a cowshit of Olympian proportions.
“Yes, I cannot believe this. Tomasso, you think goats and sheep are, respectively, males and females of the same species!” said Desotto between peals of laughter. “Same with cats and dogs!”
“Not anymore, Desotto. That was a misunderstanding,” Tomasso said proudly. “As for my family, Lady Paz, I take care of them. I send them all my pay. I make sure they are fed and clothed. And I raise my children in the Faith. And I do not hit them, nor my wife. And I am faithful to her.”
“Anything else, bugler?”
“Bugletrist. And now that you have mentioned it, I try to do the best bugling I am capable of.”
At this Desotto and I could not help but laugh again. Perhaps a little too loudly.
“Oh, boys. Please,” said Lady Paz. “Actually, I am inclined to accept as a good deed fully developing one’s talent — ”
“Talent!” I screamed. Desotto and I were nearly doubled over.
“Shut up, you two!”
“Bugler, anything else?”
“Bugletrist. Well…”
“Your whole life, remember.”
“I can’t think of anything more good than taking care of my family.”
“Congratulations on your bugling.”
“Bugletry — ”
“But as for minding your family as your good deed. Let us consider that. You don’t hit or, presumably, eat your children, so you are a step above some hamsters. You don’t hit your wife and are faithful to her so you are in good company among wolves, swans, beavers, barn owls, voles, American bald eagles, French angelfish, most penguins, and some invertebrate octopods. And you feed and otherwise care for your children, much like nearly every member of the kingdom Animalia. Trust that I am keeping mockery at bay when I say congratulations are in order for your good deeds, but again, it seems to me that we should aim to outperform certain monogamous worms in our moral achievements.
“The good Father next, Koblenza?”
The priest did not hesitate. “I work all of my days and nights for the love of Christ and His Church at a pittance of pay. I have no possessions. I have kept my chastity, despite the lewd liquor advertisements that blanket the towns all around. I spent my youth in study and my adult life in service to others. I minister to the sick. I preside over holy matrimony. I absolve sin. I ensure the sick and dying leave this world in grace. I perform masses and minister the Holy Eucharist. I teach the Faith and science and other rational knowledge to children, including the sergeant and Desotto here when they were youngsters. And I preach the Gospel of the Lord wherever I go, by words if necessary.”
“And you’ve never abused your position?”
“No. I can say not.”
“Never engaged in simony?”
“No.”
“Traded absolution for favors of the flesh?”
“My God, woman, no!”
“Lead anyone astray, spiritually?”
“I would hope not.”
“Preached heresy?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Apostatized?”
“Condoned apostasy?”
“Never!”
“Encouraged sin or abetted scandal?”
“No.”
“But you are here for something?”
“Yes, but are we doing arithmetic of deeds to derive a net positive result or simply giving you one good deed as I believed the bargain to be?”
“You are a Jesuit, aren’t you? Fair enough. Presuming your faith is true, those are some good deeds done. Perhaps so even if it is all a myth, though I need to consider that further. Acceptable for now. As for the rest of you, I will let you board. But I would suggest, perhaps you should consider performing one good deed in your life, maybe even a very good one. I would dare hope that’s not too much to ask for a lifetime. Possibly even each of you could do just one good thing before I pick you up for your return, if you are not too busy serving yourselves, something that might even set you apart from our furry, feathered, and tentacled relations on this Earth, who are incapable of even perceiving the existence of good and its antipode, evil. One is all. Perhaps you can start by making sure the head on the ship stays clean and in working order — I’ve seen your recent gluttony first hand.”
Lady Paz then turned to the world’s two worst smugglers. “You two paid the fare, so you get a pass. Not that I had much hope for you anyway.” She clapped her gloves together. “Alright then, everyone onto the ship!”
“You ‘eard ‘er,” Ugo roared. “Onto the ship, the sun soon sets!”
Continued…
