"Like what?"
"Makes rope taste better." Again, a half smile as he watched her hand holding the cigarette. It trembled. He saw the cigarette wavering in quick, erratic jumps, and without pausing, he took it from her fingers and put it up to his mouth. He lit it, his hands cupped around the match.
He puffed. Gave the cigarette back to Chris, his eyes on the cars passing over the bridge.. "Lots easier. Breeze from the traffic," he told her.
"Thanks, Father."
Chris looked at him appraisingly, with gratitude, even with hope. She knew what he'd done.
She watched as he lit up a Camel for himself. He forgot to cup his hands. As he exhaled, they each leaned an elbow on the parapet.
"Where are you from, Father Karras? Originally."
"New York."
"Me too. Wouldn't ever go back, though. Would you?"
Karras fought down the rise in his throat. "No, I wouldn't." He forced a smile. "But I don't have to make those decisions."
"God, I'm dumb. You're a priest. You have to go where they send you."
"That's right."
"How'd a shrink ever get to be a priest?" she asked.
He was anxious to know what the urgent problem was that she'd mentioned when she telephoned. She was feeling her way, he sensed--- toward what? He must not prod. It would come... it would come.
"It's the other way around," he corrected her gently. "The Society---"
"Who?"
"The Society of Jesus. Jesuit is short for that."
"Oh, I see."
"The Society sent me through medical school and through psychiatric training."
"Where?"
"Oh, well, Harvard; Johns Hopkins; Bellevue."
He was suddenly aware that he wanted to impress her. Why? he wondered; and immediately saw the answer in the slums of his boyhood; in the balconies of theaters on the Lower East Side. Little Dimmy with a movie star.
"Not bad," she said appraisingly, nodding her head.
"We don't take vows of mental poverty."
She sensed an irritation; shrugged; turned front, facing out to the river. "Look, it's just that I don't know you, and..." She dragged on the cigarette, long and deep, and then exhaled, crushing out the butt on the parapet. "You're a friend of Father Dyer's, that right?"
"Yes, I am."
"Pretty close?"
"Pretty close."
"Did he talk about the party?"
"At your house?"
"At my house."
"Yes, he said you seemed human."
She missed it; or ignored it. "Did he talk about my daughter?"
"No, I didn't know you had one."
"She's twelve. He didn't mention her?"
"No."
"He didn't tell you what she did?"
"He never mentioned her."
"Priests keep a pretty tight mouth, then; that right?" "That depends," answered Karras.
"On what?"
