Pilgrim

  “There are no miracles,” she said quietly, “only God’s will.”

  She looked at Perro—a dog. At Manolo—a man. At the departing deer, the drifting pelicans, the languid trees. At nature.

  She looked at her own hand, where it rested open by Manolo’s shoulder. Flesh. Bone. Nerve ends. Fingernails. She looked at Las Aguas. At water.

  These are the true miracles, she thought. What other miracles are needed?

  7

  Emma pushed the chair away from the desk where she had been reading. Pilgrim’s journal lay open before her. Closing it, she faced the windows and rested her hands on her belly.

  Good morning, child, she said—though not aloud. She had been truthful when she had told Carl Gustav there were unique modes of speech between mother and child. The child pressed upward with an elbow perhaps, or a foot. It was not a kick, merely a signal. Emma loved to think of the rose-coloured light in which it swam—its whole world a liquified Petra. Many years before, her father had taken her there—to Petra. The very air was pink, she remembered, and beyond the ruin itself a world of desolate rock and desert was spread on every side.

  There is no desert here, she told the child. We live in a garden.

  Teresa was right. It was all a miracle, every inch and minute of it.

  The clock struck.

  Eleven-thirty.

  Good heavens! Lunch in half an hour and she was not even dressed.

  She returned the journal to its hiding place—closed and locked the drawer.

  Perhaps Carl Gustav would not come home to eat. He had failed to do so increasingly of late, claiming the journey was interruptive and the lunch hour too long. He would dine instead in the commissary at the Clinic. This way he could be back at work in less than an hour.

  “But I miss you,” Emma had said to him.

  Jung had not replied.

  Half an hour later, Emma was back downstairs, in a pleasant, pale blue morning dress and standing in the kitchen with Frau Emmenthal.

  “What will you give us today?” Emma asked.

  Frau Emmenthal was hovering at the stove, stirring with a wooden spoon something that smelled delicious in a large iron pot. In her other hand she wielded an antique Viennese fan given to her by her grandmother, who once had been a kitchen maid to royalty. When she spoke, she enunciated every word, as if she were reciting a menu in a restaurant.

  “Potato and leek soup. Baked salmon and green salad. A platter of peeled tomatoes garnished with onions, and I also have some freshly baked Parker House rolls.”

  “What are Parker House rolls?” Emma asked.

  “American. I read about them in a magazine, all about different kinds of bread. There’s a famous hotel in Boston called the Parker House, and they serve them there. Will you want some wine, or the usual?”

  The usual was buttermilk.

  “The usual,” said Emma, and sighed. “I’d love the wine, but I’d better not. Still, if the Doctor comes, he will want it.”

  “I’ve got some chilled Riesling.”

  “That would be fine. Where’s the girl?”

  “Lotte? Setting the table.”

  “Heavens! That will take her an hour, at least!”

  Lotte was a vacant dreamer, in Emma’s opinion, and her mouth was always open. She had been attempting to cure Lotte of this. It was too embarrassing when guests came. And unfortunately, the children teased the poor girl to such a degree that at times Lotte burst into tears and ran from the room.

  Thank heaven, for everyone’s sake, the children were away with Emma’s parents in Schaffhausen, where the house was big enough to accommodate an army of children in a single wing. Their grandmother adored them and always introduced them to a host of new experiences and people. She would expose them to a world of folklore and of fairy tales, of secret gardens and medieval castles. She would show them the Rheinfell, where the river dropped more than seventy feet in a sequence of spectacular cascades—which, even in memory, still thrilled Emma to the bone. Grandmama Rauschenbach would also take them boating on the river so they could get out and stand on the great rocks at the base of the falls. These had been the joys of Emma’s own childhood and she was glad they were all still available to her own children. Most of all, she was happy to be rid of The Brood, as she called them, in that particular moment of her pregnancy. The Brood had reached the “difficult” age.

  Ah, yes—but then, when wasn’t being a child difficult? From the moment we break the cawl and give our first cry, we are all at odds with wherever we are and whoever is in our company.

  Frau Emmenthal said: “I can serve the soup cold this evening if you would prefer…”

  Emma said: “perhaps that would be best. It is noon already, and it seems Herr Doktor Jung will not be coming.”

  As she left the kitchen, Emma saw Lotte returning from the dining-room with an empty tray in her hand. As soon as the girl saw Emma, she closed her mouth.

  Well, there’s one good thing, Emma thought. She’s learning.

  At the stove, Frau Emmenthal pulled the large iron pot to one side, and fanning herself at a furious rate, she sat at the kitchen table and said to Lotte: “Riesling, please. In a very large glass. And be quick.” Then she added: “you may also have a little. We are a family in some sort of trouble, it seems—since Herr Doktor is so little at home—and we must prepare ourselves to face the worst.”

  8

  During the salmon course and before the salads, Emma read what turned out to be the final chapter in the lives of Teresa and Manolo. It would change her view of life, though of course she did not realize this until later. In what Mister Pilgrim had written, she was to learn something about herself and the subject of faith—and about her husband and the lack of it. We have both rejected Jesus, she would afterwards write to her mother, but only I have invested my faith in someone other than myself.

  An old man who had long ago been retired was sometimes hired to replace Manolo when Manolo and Perro were brought to El Cortijo Imponente for their vacaciones. His name was Orlando and he had two dogs called Negro and Blanco for obvious reasons—except that Blanco was black and Negro was white. Orlando had thought this was a convenient way of keeping the other dog in mind when one of them went missing. Looking at Negro, he would think Blanco. And vice versa. Not that they ran away, but they could go off to round up sheep and be gone for as long as half a day.

  Some years before the time of the shepherd whom Manolo had replaced, Orlando had been in charge of the flock at Las Aguas and he claimed to have known Manolo’s father, who had since departed for another part of the kingdom—el raino, as Orlando referred to Don Pedro’s domain. “He was not a good man,” Orlando would say, always referring to the absent in the past tense. “He was not a good man, a good husband or a good father. He was entirely full of self. I did not like him. My dogs did not like him. The sheep did not like him. He had a careless spirit. People and sheep might sicken and die—but Manolo’s father was always looking the other way, with a smile on his face and wine in his throat.”

  Not that Manolo was unaware of these faults, but it was good to have them confirmed whenever he found himself wishing that his father would return. As for his mother, Manolo searched in vain. “A woman somewhere, not here,” Orlando would tell him with a sigh. “She died young, that is all we know.” This was at least a fitting conclusion to the life of a person Manolo would otherwise have anguished over, forever wondering where and how he might meet her. That she was dead meant he had no obligation to her. He could even pray to her without reciting her given name. Madre, he would say, por favor. He never prayed to his father.

  And so it was that Teresa rode out to Las Aguas, bringing with her a second burro and returning to El Cortijo Imponente with Manolo and Perro on the 13th of July, 1533—a Monday.

  She had asked that Manolo be treated as an equal, not as an employee, and had this way secured a cot for him in a storeroom beyond the kitchens. The only problem with this was that Manolo did no
t feel comfortable in a bed, having slept without one since the age of nine. Also, he could not bring himself to use the earth closet, fearing that he would fall in. He therefore slept in the stables and used the animal gutters as his toilet. One of Teresa’s cousins, a girl of seven, saw him urinating in the kitchen garden and instantly announced that men were different from women. They can hold it in their hand, she told her sisters. Don Pedro was not amused and told Manolo that he must use the stables for all his personal needs.

  Otherwise, Manolo gloried in the attention that was showered on him. His clothing was mended and washed—two new pairs of trousers and two new shirts were added to his wardrobe and a new pair of sandals. Also a blanket. Also a bath with soap and warmed water in which Perro joined him. The result of this was a great deal of laughter—more than Manolo could remember in his whole life.

  Don Pedro himself supervised the creation of new sticks for Manolo’s use. A very old man whose name was Ferdinand cut the crutches from scrub oak and bound the rests with oil-soaked linen which hardened into linseed pillows and gave off a pleasant odour whenever Manolo leaned on them. His palsy had left him exhausted until the sticks were completed, because the shaking drained him of so much energy.

  Like many people with such a condition, Manolo depended on concentration to overcome the violence of his limbs—defecating, urinating, playing with Perro and eating were activities remarkably free of agitation. For the rest—while walking or while conversing—he was still a prisoner.

  Teresa was unnerved by his presence. She had not thought to be so. He was a shepherd. She had met him by chance. He was lame. Disabled. If she was honest, for all his beauty he was grotesque. But she liked him—had been drawn to him immediately. It was not the nakedness.

  She repeated this several times. It was not the nakedness.

  He was not Adam. She was not Eve. The Sierra was not the Garden of Eden. It was the hinterland. The other place. The wilderness. La tierra ferez. She was on her way to God—to His Majesty. Men must not—could not—would not stand in her way.

  On the Tuesday, Manolo moved his quarters to the stable. On the Wednesday, his new crutches were completed. That night, Manolo had a dream in which—miracle of miracles—he was able to walk with ease and grace and completely without help of any kind.

  The rest of the dream was jumbled—and completely beyond Manolo’s comprehension.

  He was in a strange place, wearing cumbersome clothing, and all about him was a milling crowd of people—none of whom he recognized. Some were dressed as soldiers—but not like any soldiers Manolo had ever seen. Others were more familiar—priests of some kind, their voices raised in holy song. Many in the crowd carried crosses, while others had filled their arms with gifts—paintings in gold frames, rich clothing—even furniture, some of the pieces so heavily decorated that Manolo wondered how they were meant to be used.

  At one moment in the dream, he found himself staring at four angels—all dressed in white with enormous wings and carrying the figure of an infant on their shoulders. It must have been the Saviour, Jesus Christ Himself, in swaddling clothes.

  Suddenly, a silence fell. And a stillness—one that was soon broken by the crackle of flames. Manolo turned and stared with disbelief. A mountain of fire towered above him, its blistering heat forcing everyone to move back. He twisted away from it only to be confronted by a man’s eyes, fixed and menacing, staring at him from beneath the wide brim of a dark hat. This was not a man he had ever seen before.

  Manolo began to run—an experience so entirely foreign to him, he might as well have been flying. He ran through streets that had no identification—past buildings that had no names and through a seemingly endless series of gates that all stood open, until he found himself above a precipice—and woke.

  He sat bolt upright in the straw of his stable-bed. His skin and shirt drenched with sweat, and his limbs trembled in the cold night air.

  All he could think was: there was fire and I ran and walked and had no sticks…

  The next morning—Thursday, the 16th of July—Teresa awoke to find Manolo in her bedroom. It did not occur at once that something untoward might be about to happen. She had no fear of him.

  “Teresa…”

  His tongue was thick with sleep and with his disability. Her name came out as Manolo might have said tierra—earth.

  “Yes?”

  “I need thee,” he said.

  He was crouching on the floor in a spill of light from the window.

  Teresa sat up, holding the edge of the sheet against her shoulder. “I am here,” she said. “What is it?”

  Manolo’s new sticks rested in the crook of his left elbow. His right hand wavered near his face, as if he would touch himself but could not. There was nowhere, it seemed, he could make contact with himself. His nose eluded him—his mouth, his chin, his eyes were so far distant they might have been joined to a body other than his own. His ears were the closest he could come, and he held them—one and then the other—fiercely between his fingers. The impression given was that Manolo had caught a free-floating head in the air and brought it to a standstill.

  Teresa had been schooled in the “needs” of men. It was a word she profoundly distrusted, knowing that man’s “needs” had more than likely killed her mother and been instrumental in bringing Tia Aña to her present disorientation. Nonetheless, as most women did of her class and kind, Teresa had no hatred of men, merely disdain. And pity. They were helpless creatures, caught in a circle of desire that began and ended with themselves—me, my and mine. Women knew only thee and thine. They were mothers, servants, cooks and nurses. One day, someone’s death—their own or another’s—would free them. That was the whole of a woman’s life. Waiting for one’s own or someone else’s death. And all the while, attending the living.

  Now, this abused and damaged man crouched near her window. She had befriended and loved him. He might have been her child. A foundling. An orphan in need of shelter—nothing more. But nothing less. He was dear to her. Beloved.

  Manolo said: “thou hast created miracles, Teresa. Thou hast saved my life and brought my dog to me.” His words—perhaps because of his desperate need to speak them—found their right order.

  “Perro. Yes,” said Teresa.

  “Last night I dreamt another miracle and I believe thou canst make it also come true. Thou canst make me well,” Manolo said. And smiled. “I speak already well because of thee. Thou hast caused my sticks to be reborn. Thou hast fed and clothed and sheltered me.”

  Teresa nodded. “Yes,” she said. “And with love, Manolo.”

  “Take thou my curse,” he said. “Destroy it. Thee and thy God. Make me as I was in my dream.”

  Teresa closed her eyes. Oh, please, she thought. Do not do this. There can be no miracles.

  Manolo moved forward. On his knees—a supplicant.

  “I cannot,” said Teresa. “You must not expect it. It is wrong.”

  “To be upright is wrong?”

  “Oh, no! No, no, no. Oh, no. To be upright is to be given…” She was going to say dignity, but decided not to. “I cannot,” she said. “You must understand. I cannot.”

  “But thee found me and saved me.”

  “No, Manolo. You were delivered to me by the horseman who had harmed you. I was merely there.”

  “Thee brought Perro.”

  “No, again. Perro came. It was his own doing.”

  “But thee and thy God. Thee spoke with Him.”

  “Perhaps. But I am incapable of more than prayer.”

  I am not a saint.

  Teresa knew that a saint does not think in terms of miracles, only of the needs of others. It is the supplicant who seeks to bridge the gap between earth and heaven in order to survive some human disaster—the loss of one’s sight, the death of one’s child, the prevention of slaughter. The saint’s only means of intercession is to indicate the path to salvation. The rest is up to God.

  All this, Teresa knew. She also did not
wish to be a saint. She wanted only to know His Majesty and to do His work—whatever that work might be.

  She had already suffered so many times from the collapse of her nervous system that she stood in awe of her own resilience. She could not resist the question as to why she had survived. Her interpretation of this was simple: something must be wanted of me. Not expected—but wanted.

  Was that something—or part of that something—the gift of Manolo’s ability to walk and to use his arms like any other human being? She doubted it.

  Not that Manolo’s needs were insignificant or that he was in any way unworthy. No one is insignificant when it comes to the indignity of pain. And no one is unworthy. Teresa knew and believed all this. But…

  Was she to be the medium? Was this to be her destiny? A destiny even Jesus Christ Himself had rejected. Every one of His miracles had been couched in His own reluctance to effect it. The miracle is not in me but in the supplicant’s belief that God makes all things possible.

  She looked at Manolo.

  There he crouched in the early sunlight, his hair newly washed and gleaming, his fingers knotted against their escape into meaningless gestures, his prized white shirt—a gift from Doña Aña—stained already with the perspiration of his earnestness and his eyes like embers about to burst into flame. It was unbearable to think of his anguish and to witness its effect on him.

  All at once, he drew himself on his knees to her bedside. He looked like a child who knelt at prayer.

  “Bless thou me,” he said, “for I would walk as other men. As I walked in the night as I dreamt.”

  But only the anointed may bless. And women are never anointed. Except, of course, the Blessed Virgin—and today, Teresa all at once remembered, was the saint’s day of Our Lady of Mount Carmel. She could have performed the laying on of hands—but not Teresa.

  “I cannot,” she said to Manolo, “for I have not the grace.”

  “Then why did thou come to me from nowhere? I found thee praying in a tree.”