Chris filled her plate from the steaming buffet and scanned the room for Mary Jo Perrin. There.
On a sofa with Father Wagner, the Jesuit dean. Chris had spoken to him briefly. He had a bald, freckled scalp and a dry, soft manner. Chris drifted to the sofa and folded to the floor in front of the coffee table as the seeress chuckled with mirth.
"Oh, come on, Mary Jo!" the dean said, smiling as he lifted a forkful of curry to his mouth.
"Yeah, come on, Mary Jo," echoed Chris.
"Oh, hi! Great curry!" said the dean.
"Not too hot?"
"Not at all; it's just right. Mary Jo has been telling me there used to be a Jesuit who was also a medium."
"And he doesn't believe me!" chuckled the seeress.
"Ah, distinguo," corrected the dean. "I just said it was hard to believe." "You mean medium medium?" asked Chris.
"Why, of course," said Mary Jo. "Why, he even used to levitate!" "Oh, I do it every morning," said the Jesuit quietly.
"You mean he held séances?" Chris asked Mrs. Perrin.
"Well, yes," she answered. "He was very, very famous in the nineteenth century. In fact, he was probably the only spiritualist of his time who wasn't ever clearly convicted of fraud." "As I said, he wasn't a Jesuit," commented the dean.
"Oh, my, but was he!" She laughed.: "When he turned twenty-two, he joined the Jesuits and promised not to work anymore as a medium, but they threw him out of France"--- she laughed even harder--- "right after a séance that he held at the Tuileries. Do you know what he did? In the middle of the séance he told the empress she was about to be touched by the hands of a spirit child who was about to fully materialize, and when they suddenly turned all of the lights on"--- she guffawed--- "they caught him sitting with his naked foot on the empress' arm! Now, can you imagine?"
The Jesuit was smiling as he set down his plate.
"Don't come looking for discounts anymore on indulgences, Mary Jo."
"Oh, come on, every family's got one black sheep."
"We were pushing our quota with the Medici popes."
"Y'know, I had an experience once," began Chris."
But the dean interrupted. "Are you making this a matter of confession?"
Chris smiled and said, "No, I'm not a Catholic."
"Oh, well, neither are the Jesuits." Mrs. Perrin chuckled.
"Dominican slander," retorted the dean. Then to Chris he said, "I'm sorry, my dear. You were saying?''
"Well, just that I thought I saw somebody levitate once. In Bhutan." She recounted the story.
"Do you think that's possible?" she ended. "I mean, really, seriously."
"Who knows?" He shrugged. "Who knows what gravity is. Or matter, when it comes to that."
"Would you like my opinion?" interjected Mrs. Perrin. The dean said, "No, Mary Jo; I've taken a vow of poverty." "So have I," Chris muttered.
"What was that?" asked the dean, leaning forward.
'"Oh, nothing. Say, there's something I've been meaning to ask you. Do you know that little cottage that's back of the church over there?" She pointed in the general direction.
"Holy Trinity?" he asked.
"Yes, right. Well, what goes on in there?"
"Oh, well, that's where they say Black Mass," said Mrs. Perrin.
"Black who?"
"Black Mass."
"What's that?"
"She's kidding," said the dean.
"Yes, I know," said Chris, "but I'm dumb. I mean, What's a Black Mass?"
"Oh, basically, it's a travesty on the Catholic Mass," explained the dean. "It's connected to witchcraft. Devil worship."
"Really? You mean, there really is such a thing?"
"I really couldn't say. Although I heard a statistic once about something like possibly fifty thousand Black Masses being said every year in the city of Paris." "You mean now?"
marveled Chris.
