Tabitha looked out at him from under a bush of airy bangs. He suspected she was raising her eyebrows in disbelief, though he couldn’t see them. Then he caught it. “You’ve got something else on your mind.”
“Look, Mom is more than enough on my mind.”
“No. The sin of pride is my downfall, but I know my strengths, and I can see it in your need. Something else is going on that you’re upset about. Do you want to talk about it?”
“Look. Pastor Huyck, I just came here to tell you about Mom. She’s flaky. Kirk says she’s lost the beginning part, I mean the front of her words. She calls us Abitha and Ogan and Irk. And she’s taken to saying the Ail Mary, which I think isn’t very Radical Radiant of her. Kirk goes, like, she’s lost the beginning part in a different way. He says she doesn’t know where to start, so she can’t move. She opens the Bible and who can tell if she reads it.”
Huyck closed his eyes. “I think it’s you who don’t know how to start. You need to tell me what’s on your mind. I’m all yours, Tabitha.” He had to look over at the anodized aluminum cross to assure Jesus and Tabitha both that he was speaking in a strictly pastoral way.
“Don’t bother about me. I’m talking about Mom, and asking for your help. Isn’t Mom one of your herd?”
“Cows make up a herd. Sheep make up a flock. Mother is not one of my cows.”
“Well, I don’t want her as one of my cows, either. Can’t you do something? Nobody listens to me, I’m a stupid teenager.”
“I’m sure you’re not stupid. God gave you many gifts—”
“I came in last in my class.” She folded her arms across that heavenly bosom, as if pleased to have given an undeniable proof of idiocy. “I’ve come to you for, um. Help. Isn’t that your job?”
“It’s not a job, it’s a calling.” This girl wasn’t stupid, but she was no Miss Teen Challenge, either. “Look, Tabitha, I’d be remiss if I didn’t say that I can tell you are upset. Something else is plaguing you. It’s normal for a teenage girl to be resentful of Mother from time to time. You’ll get over it, because you know the Commandment to honor your father and mother, and the Commandments demand obedience. I had a youth ministry in Little Falls and I know. There’s another bee in your bonnet, and you can either tell me what it is or you can go away and regret that you didn’t get it off your chest.”
Her arms pressed that very chest even more tightly; the breasts nudged upward like water balloons caught in a pressure cooker.
He felt sad and old. “It’s about a man, isn’t it?”
“How would you know?” She sounded so wary that he knew he was right.
“Who is it? Not the name, I mean, but the circumstance.”
“I’ll tell you the name.” She gripped the sides of the Danish Modern chair and leaned forward. “It’s Caleb Briggs, and my friend Linda Pearl says he’s engaged to some Catholic girl who has a job and a condo. And so what if I’m underage. I’m going to grow. How can he dump me without even telling me and get engaged to somebody, when my stupid mother is falling apart?”
“Do you love him?”
“I hate his guts. How could he do this to me?”
“Hey, let’s put the brakes on. Love is gentle, love is kind.”
“Love sucks. And Caleb has no business getting engaged to somebody without even telling me. Without even telling me, do you know what that means?”
“Calm down. Would you care for a soft drink? A Kleenex?”
“I’m not crying,” said Tabitha, groping through the asparagus fern.
“Let it all out.” Huyck handed her the tissues. “Love in its strongest form is a raw and powerful thing.”
“Are you for real?” Tabitha sniffled percussively in several registers. “You’re not even married, are you? What do you know about love? Caleb is a stud machine. And sometimes he’s funny and he doesn’t run over squirrels on purpose. He’s the only thing that makes this stupid life bearable, and what did I ever do to him?”
“Did you give yourself to him?” He realized she wasn’t sure what he meant. “Did you sleep with him?”
“Oh well, are you supposed to know about that? It’s not like this is the police station, you’re not Jack Reeves. I don’t have to prove anything one way or the other, do I?”
“I’m not asking out of … I mean, it just helps to know how to guide and counsel you.”
“It’s none of your business. You’re being creepy.”
“The moral implications aside for a moment—and not far aside, mind you, we’ll get back to them—are you adequately protected? I mean birth control? I mean condoms? There are all sorts of nasty infections out there, communicable in the most tempting of ways …”
“Pastor Huyck, you’re very nice to be so nosy. But I have Linda Pearl Wasserman to advise me on all that stuff, and she’s the county expert. I’m sorry I came here. I’m going to kill him, by the way, and then you can forgive me my sins before Jack Reeves throws the switch on the electric chair. It’ll be a day of celebration in this damn town.” She began to cry again.
“Are you pregnant?”
“Oh, wouldn’t that be the last straw.” She began to laugh. “I gotta get outa here. Pregnant! As if.”
“The door is always open, Miss Scales. Miss Scales. Tabitha. Sit down for a moment. We’re not done.”
Tabitha didn’t obey him. What a handful for her poor mother. “If you can come and see Mom, we’ll forget about the rest of this. And if you tell Caleb Briggs I said anything, I’ll run over you next. I’m a really bad driver. You should see my insurance rates.”
“Tabitha,” said Huyck. “I know the breakup of your romance with Caleb Briggs is awful for you. But you mustn’t avoid it. You should go to him and release him. If he is engaged, he should enter into marriage with a clean slate. Go and finish things.”
“Are you giving me permission to murder him because he’s marrying a Catholic?”
Huyck became the tiniest bit fed up. “You must face your demons down, young lady. Embrace your mother, and face your demons down. That’s my charge to you.”
Tabitha considered Caleb, hunky tattooed Caleb naked in bed, laughing so hard that he snorted Genesee beer through his nose. Frankly, she would rather embrace her demon and face her mother down. But Pastor Huyck clearly wasn’t going to be much help in adding that crime to her list of civil infractions.
As she left, she dropped a couple of hairnets in the box of clothes for the poor. She found herself thinking. “Peace on earth, goodwill toward men.” Maybe she’d try the Salvation Army next.
Pastor Huyck watched her out his window. The shoulders were down as if Tabitha Scales were a niece of Job, but her little Christian bottom maintained a definite sashay to it almost despite itself. He would have to stop by and check in on that Mother Job herself. Charity required it.
16
JEREMY HAD LEARNED not to mention Willem sightings to Sean. Some things were better left unheralded. Sean had enough on his plate without being reminded about Jeremy’s obsessions. Once or twice, when Jeremy’s reticence had slipped, Sean’s affection for Jeremy took a turn for the sour. “Don’t go looking for sympathy from me. That Willem plays you like a violin. You deserve what you get. That cock-tease. You slut.” Sean’s ire tended to ruin the mood, which was maybe what he intended. And maybe what Jeremy needed.
Luckily the next evening, on their second trip to the convent, Marty kept the news on, so Jeremy more easily avoided discussing the events of the week. When Marty finally turned it off, he said, “Did you hear they think that some relief pilot on that Egypt Air flight might have grabbed the controls and plunged the plane into Paradise?”
“Save us from holiness of every stripe and savor,” intoned Sean. “Amen.”
As Jeremy had been told to expect, Sister Jeanne d’Arc answered the door. “Who is it?” she called out. Scoliosis prevented her from being able to peer through the security screen.
“What, they’re expecting the Chippendales?” murmured Sean.
“It’s Jeremy Carr?” said Jeremy in a carrying voice. “Sister Alice said…?”
The door swung open. “Fellows with cellos,” said the nun, noting the bass that Marty was draped around. “A return engagement.”
“Sorry about the misunderstanding last time,” said Jeremy. “Glad your colleagues approved the idea of our making a second go of it. A quick hello, then we’re off to rehearse.”
“And we’re not performing a concert,” added Sean. “Not a note of it.”
“Don’t mind Sister Alice,” replied Sister Jeanne d’Arc. “She gets in a muddle; she’s young. Can’t help it. Too much on her mind. Come along.”
“Don’t forget we also elected to return,” said Sean. “By a slim margin.”
Sister Jeanne d’Arc made a face at that, and considering the face she started out with—a kind of pouchy, plastic turnip with a high sheen—the effect was startlingly lively. “So we’re truced then.” She locked the door behind them with a key large enough to serve as a stage prop in a theater for the nearsighted.
The boys followed her. “We’re obedient this week,” she informed them. “We’ve vacated the sunroom for you. Those sisters who can tolerate a social life are finishing up some light housecleaning. Would you like to see the chapel while I signal your arrival?”
“Rather late in the day for housecleaning, isn’t it?” asked Marty.
“At this hour we’re usually in bed with lamps lowered. Those of us who decided to stay up and have a glass of milk with our guests, well, we needed to do something to keep ourselves alert. So we’re Murphy-soaping the pews. Idle hands are the Devil’s workshop, or so it was once thought.”
“I don’t need to see the chapel,” said Sean.
“You know it then?” Sister Jeanne d’Arc’s eyes brightened.
“I know chapels well enough to know I’m not going to no chapel of love.”
“Don’t deprive yourself. Ours is the most beautiful chapel in the province. The ceiling is covered with carved angels with spread wings. Copied from some parish church in East Anglia, we’re told. We have the reference somewhere in the archives. Over a hundred angels hovering. You’ll come see it, won’t you.” Not a question.
She arrived at the double doors of the chapel and glazed herself with holy water, and then began to tug with both hands at the right-hand iron doorknob. Her muttered “I can do it,” prevented Jeremy from helping. Maybe getting the heavy door open was an act of corporal mortification, or served as physical therapy.
The chapel was dimly lit with light fixtures that reminded Jeremy of a Frank Lloyd Wright bank lobby. They hung from the ceiling like citronella candles, dark blue glass cylinders set in bronze cups. When their eyes became accustomed to the gloom, the guys could see some of the old nuns bobbing up and down along the pews, left to right and right to left, like mechanical targets in a shooting gallery. There was a mumble of prayer that died away as the sisters noticed the visitors.
“Voilà, je vous présente the Chapel of the Sacred Heart.” Committing the sin of pride, old Sister Jeanne d’Arc, Jeremy was tickled to notice.
The room was a good size; it could hold several hundred. The walls were paneled halfway up in oak or walnut, interrupted by pilasters and heavy mosaic entablatures of the Stations of the Cross. Above the walls ran Palladian window frames with colored glass showing the Life of Christ in a fashion evoking late Victorian illustration, right down to the crosshatching on Pre-Raphaelite faces, though at this hour on a November evening the colors were flat and oily. A choir loft ran along the back, and the altar area was fitted with white and green marble fixtures and walls that made Jeremy think of an expensive Hollywood bathroom. The style was less Gothic than he had expected, except for the Crucifix on chains over the altar. Spanish baroque? The Christ in torment looked like something done by an artisan in the West Village.
“Holy Je-sus,” mumbled Sean.
“Pray for us,” intoned Sister Jeanne d’Arc. “Note the ceiling, now.”
There it was, an entirely improbable flock of angels, all sprung from the same nest, of the same parentage. Divine replicands, spored or cloned or multiplied in the Highest sort of mathematics. The whole ceiling was a rookery for angels. Their chins sported an acorn rotundity, and the noses a knobbiness, but the angel eyes were painted instead of carved. The heads bobbed at intervals like the knots in a chenille spread. The wingspans, oddly flat, looked as if carved out of sheets of balsawood, but the wingtips met each other like ducks in formation in an Escher print. Ducks flying to be angels, and back again.
The angels were set at on a bias, so that their heads all faced the center seam of the pitched roof and slightly forward, altar-ward. It gave the grandeur of the room an angularity that seemed modern, surprising; it made the room appear to be suspended in motion, as if the angels were dragging the space beneath them toward the sanctuary.
“How many of you are there?” Marty sounded as much in awe as Jeremy had ever heard him.
“Depends on which you’re counting. One hundred and fourteen angels, and seventeen nuns. Back in the old days, the heyday of the Order, this chapel wasn’t even big enough; we had to seat the postulants and novices in the crypt. Do you want to have a look-see?”
“I’m definitely not for crypts.” Sean sat in a pew and lowered his head. Jeremy knew it to be a parody of being lost in prayer and hoped the nuns couldn’t tell.
“As you wish.” Sister Jeanne d’Arc led Jeremy and Marty up the central aisle. The other nuns bobbed their heads in silent greeting as the guys passed, but kept on with their labors. The smell of lemon wax surged with almost medicinal urgency. Jeremy guessed that they would return to find Sean waiting in the hall. His lungs weren’t all that forgiving these days.
Sister Jeanne d’Arc pointed to the terrazzo floor. “Beneath the chapel on the left side is the boiler room,” she said in a whisper, “but beneath, on this side, runs the oratory and crypt. Partly for heat conservation and partly, I think, due to sensible planning for the future, the Superior General approved this scheme of floor grilles at intervals along the side corridor.” Sister Jeanne d’Arc pointed to a perforated iron panel set flush in the floor. About the dimensions of a coffin cover. Through the ornamental fretwork, the light fell on some sort of a sarcophagus in the crypt. “Seating for an additional forty-five below,” said Sister Jeanne d’Arc. “When we were at peak numbers, we had dispensation from Rome to house the overflow down there, and thanks to the grilles the community technically could still attend Mass as a single body. Come down; this is where we stockpile the Mother of our community, Mother Regina Sainte-Foi.”
Jeremy thought, why do the living adopt such a giddy tone when referring to the dead? As if there’s escape for any of us. Is it anything other than black humor, the glib callow relief of being alive still?
The stone steps dropped into a musty, ill-lit area that seemed more like a wine cellar than an auxiliary chapel.
“Mother Regina, requiescat in pace.” Sister Jeanne d’Arc blessed herself with two fingers and tapped the lid of the sarcophagus with two fingers as if requesting Mother Regina’s attention. “No one is sure if she’s actually buried here, and we daren’t ask for permission to look. There was a confusion when she died about whether she’d intended the Order to have its primary headquarters in Canada or in the States, and there were Sisters on both sides of the border who had strong opinions about it. The pertinent paperwork that verifies Mother Regina’s exact spot of final rest has gone walking, as they say in the video rentals. But we believe she must be here, for she helps keep the roof over our heads.”
“Nuns rent videos?” Marty put his hand on his chest as if suffering a touch of angina.
The sarcophagus stood on a stone dais directly beneath the foremost grille. The spiky remains of some wildflowers littered a nearby plinth, and soft damp dust felted the horizontals. The sisters upstairs had resumed their prayers, and Jeremy guessed it was the rosary in Latin. Through one of the gril
les he could hear Sean clear his throat and cough ostentatiously and get up to leave.
“It’s almost an ossuary,” said Sister Jeanne d’Arc. “A chapel of bones. A charnel house. Isn’t it wonderful?”
Marty said, “You have black Masses down here?”
She shot him a look. “That’s not even funny, young man.”
“This place is seriously clammy. You’ve got some standing water over here,” Jeremy pointed out.
“Even sanctuaries require maintenance,” said Sister Jeanne d’Arc, “more’s the pity. Alas, thanks to the lake effect, lots of rain and snow dumps on the chapel roof above those precious angels. We’ve never been entirely watertight. Sister Maria Goretti had to squirm out the window from the side of the choir loft and climb up there recently with another stretch of tarpaulin we got from the Army-Navy shop.”
From his childhood Jeremy recalled reruns of The Flying Nun, that paper airplane of a religious woman, but if he remembered correctly, Sister Maria Goretti was shaped more like a giraffe. “Sister Maria Goretti goes out on the chapel roof? No way.”
“Not till there’s no other choice,” admitted Sister Jeanne d’Arc. “But we can’t let the angels get water-damaged; they’re irreplaceable.”
“So, I assume, is Sister Maria Goretti.”
“She caught a tickle; it was a blowy day.” Sister Jeanne d’Arc made a dismissive motion with her hand. “She’s offering it up. She’s in bed tonight, feeling lowly. Anyway, we’ve done what we can for the time being. I’ll have to come down here with a mop and bucket and get this puddle. Keeps you hopping. Shall we?” Suddenly she seemed tired of the tour guide business and she genuflected at the edge of the crypt as if considering just staying behind and saving herself the trip up the stairs.