Authors: Unknown
A sharp gust of wind swept up the narrow side street, chilling Janice to the bone. She drew her coat collar tightly around her throat and walked briskly towards Fifth Avenue. Her thoughts remained with Bill, gently reiterating the image of his kind and generous face, smitten now by shock and bewilderment, challenging the evidence of his eyes, defending his reason, struggling to survive.
The heavy-laden clouds were reluctant to commit themselves as Janice walked up Fifth to the corner of Fifty-first Street and waited with an army of people for the light to change.
Looming above her, across the street, stood St Patrick’s Cathedral - its Gothic lines plunging upward, springing like a fountain at the leaden clouds. The weird transplant from the Middle Ages, nestled incongruously in the midst of Manhattan’s steel, glass, and pollution, seemed to Janice less an anachronism than a monstrous joke that the Catholic Church had played on the city.
Walking past its complex grey stonework and carved metal portals - several of which were open and draped with purple velvet bunting - Janice had the sensation of walking past a colossal genie, squatting imperiously with his fly open, inviting the world to enter and partake of his magic and miracles.
Groups of tourists were entering the church through the open doors at the southern end; at the same time other tourists were emerging from the doors at the northern end, maintaining a constant equilibrium within the church. Janice walked up the steps and merged with the stream of people going through the doors at the southern end.
Entering the nave, she sensed a stillness that absorbed the hollow sounds of shuffling, pushing, whispering humanity as it sluggishly circled around the cavernous hall. Just inside the doorway was a marble font of holy water, the basin stained with greenish rings of sediment denoting various water levels throughout the years of its use. The couple in front of Janice, an elderly man and woman, dipped their fingers into the water and crossed themselves. Janice walked by it without partaking of its solace.
There in the semi-darkness Janice was moved counter-clock wise down the side aisle along with a group of tourists craning their necks towards the various points of interest. To her left was the central apse of the cathedral, ringed by lines of stained glass windows caught in the upward drive of buttressed walls that seemed to rise to the very heavens. The main altar and sanctuary dominated the centre of the cathedral, with long rows of pews falling back from it. Except for several prayerful people occupying the pews, there was no service in progress at this hour.
To the right of the side aisle were a series of lesser chapels, each devoted to a particular saint. In the chapel of St Joseph was an open coffin, draped in purple, with the body of some church dignitary lying in state and solitude. Janice saw the tip of the corpse’s nose peeking out of the coffin and was momentarily mesmerized. The people behind her gently, insistently pushed her onward.
Soon Janice found herself alongside another small chapel. A few candles burned at the altar, shedding a gloomy light on the carved inscription in the marble balustrade: saint Andrew.
Janice’s face grew warm, her eyes and mouth hot. She stepped out of the path of those moving along behind her and took a step into the chapel.
At first, in the dim light, she thought she was alone. But when her eyes adjusted, she realized that a man was standing in a far corner, his head bowed in meditation.
Janice stepped up to the altar. She felt her hands shaking as they reached out to the cold marble railing. She wondered what it would be like, kneeling again, after so many years. Slowly, she descended to the platform, feeling a shock of pain as her knees pressed into the hard surface. A wave of guilt swept over her for feeling pain. It was a sign of her apostasy.
St Andrew looked down at her with forgiveness, but Janice wasn’t deceived. The face was made of plaster; the forgiving eyes were formed by an artist’s hands. God’s face, she was certain, would not be so forbearing and understanding. Thinking of God brought the face of Father Breslin to her mind. He had been the monsignor of St Andrew’s parochial school, which she attended as a child. His stern, wrinkled, flushed face had been the terror of the classrooms. His commanding voice, booming down a hallway after some hapless child, was like a preview of God’s wrath. Janice shivered in remembrance and turned her attention back to the face of St Andrew. She recalled how the nuns’ expressions would soften when they spoke of him, telling the students of his humility and modesty and lack of pretensions as he roamed across the lands preaching the. Gospel of Jesus. And how, when he was sentenced to death in Achaea, he insisted on being crucified on an X-shaped cross so as not to duplicate the passion and death of Our Blessed Saviour. How easily they spoke of death, the sisters, and how easily the children had accepted it.
She reached out for a taper, but her hand shook so, she could hardly gain a light from a burning candle. When she did manage to light the taper, she found it impossible to bring it to the wick of the new candle. It remained in her hand, trembling before her eyes transfixed by the bright and leaping flame.
Ice cools; fire burns, she thought, as she watched the sputtering fire travel down the length of the taper towards her waiting fingers. It would cause a blister to form. And well it should. For fire burns.
A hand covered her own - strong, yet gentle. A voice said, lightly and with humour, ‘You certainly have an ardent devotion to St Andrew.’
The trembling of the flame was stilled as the hand - a man’s hand, the wrist encircled by a white French cuff held together with black button links - swiftly and surely guided the flaming taper to a new candle and lit it. A breath blew out the taper.
Janice felt herself trembling anew as the hand disengaged itself from hers. Staring at the floor and the black wing-tipped shoes, glowing under ages of wax, her eyes moved up the black worsted trousers shining at the knees, to the breviary held under the same arm as the straw hat, and up to the face. Like Father Breslin’s, it was wrinkled and flushed, but not stern, and the voice was not booming or frightening.
‘St Andrew is my namesake.’ He smiled. ‘I never visit New York without stopping in and having a chat with him.’
Janice could only stare at the elderly priest, into the helpful face that seemed to be offering. He had taken her hand. Suddenly, he had taken her hand. It had been as if God’s hand had closed over hers. A flood of faith rose up in her. Was this man sent to her? The sisters had always said that God never forgot His own… Was it possible? It was no less possible than all the other mysteries that surrounded her life in recent weeks.
Janice felt the wet of tears on her face and saw a disturbed look enter the priest’s eyes.
Smiling, she stammered, ‘I went to St Andrew’s Church when I was a child.’
‘And where was that?’
‘Portland.’
‘You’re a long way from Portland.’ He noticed that her hands were still trembling uncontrollably, and Janice saw that he noticed.
‘Is there any way of getting back?’ he asked gently.
The next thing she knew, she was weeping like a child into her hands. The priest seemed disquieted and looked around nervously to see if they were being observed. He removed his neatly ironed handkerchief from his pocket and offered it to her, but Janice quickly took her own from her purse and tried to smile.
‘I’m sorry, Father,’ she apologized.
The old priest paused as he considered, then asked, ‘May I be of service to you?’
Janice attempted to rise, but her knees were frozen. The priest saw her dilemma and took her arm. Needle-sharp pricks of pain coursed through her legs as she tried to stand on them, and she swayed uncertainly. The priest continued to support her and slowly guided her towards a bench in the corner of the chapel.
‘Shall we sit down?’
Janice allowed herself to be seated, grateful for the positive act of assistance he was offering, yet knowing that any possible conversation with the priest was unthinkable.
‘Father, I don’t know if I have any right to be asking for help. I’ve been away from the Church for a long time, and I’m not a practising Catholic - I’ - her mind sought the correct words -‘I haven’t been to the sacraments for many years …’
‘How long?’
‘Fifteen … sixteen years…’
The priest was pained. ‘And why are you here now?’
‘I’m in trouble.’
His eyes softened. ‘Isn’t that the way of it? Trouble always brings us to our knees.’
‘I don’t know how to tell you. I don’t even know how to say these things to myself, Father.’ She thought of Hoover and the difficulty he had in saying them. ‘It seems so ludicrous when you put it into words …’ She paused and shook her head. ‘But then … I see what it’s doing to us … my daughter, my husband … turning us around in all kinds of circles …’ Her eyes sought the priest’s eyes. ‘Father, may I ask you?’
‘What is it?’ There was a strained, fearful note in the old man’s voice.
‘I know our faith doesn’t believe … in reincarnation … and yet things have happened that cause me to wonder if it may not be so.’
The priest measured her closely. It was the last thing he had expected to hear.
‘What things?’
‘My daughter…’ Janice started, then stopped, and re-plotted the direction of her thoughts. ‘A man’ - she began again - ‘has come into our lives. He … he has told us - my husband and me - that our daughter is … the reincarnation of his daughter who has been dead for many years.’
The old man shut his eyes and lowered his head, as in prayer. After a moment, he softly asked, ‘Is your husband a Catholic?’
‘No, Father.’
‘Your daughter, was she baptized?’
‘No, Father.’
‘How old is she?’
‘Just over ten.’
He looked up at her through eyes that were incredulous - that had seen so much, yet apparently knew so little, and attempted to penetrate the mask of tears, seeking insight into the mind and soul of the strange, tormented woman before him.
‘And you believe what this man has told you to be true?’
‘Things … strange things have happened that convince me that it may be true, Father.’
Again, the priest shut his eyes and placed his hand over them, feeling bewildered, under pressure to give earnest attention to a matter that struck him as entirely absurd.
‘You must know the texts. The Gospels do not substantiate such a belief. We don’t hold with such beliefs. We believe in endings, and beginnings, and middles. A life doesn’t travel around in circles. There’s a movement, there’s a drive to our life, there are goals … we’re going somewhere!’
Janice wept. ‘I know, Father, and yet this has come into our lives… and I’m troubled …’
The priest looked at her suddenly with eyes that had hardened.
‘You’re so troubled,’ he said sternly ‘Do you think you be in this trouble if you had held on to what you were given? To what God gave you? Christ promised from the very beginning that His spirit would be with the Church. And the Church has reacted wisely for two thousand years - the only human institution to have withstood time and space and revolutions - and has given us something solid to hold on to.’
‘I’m all mixed up, Father.’
‘Because you’ve been listening to the world. You’re floating here, you’re floating there, you must stop listening to all these alien forces; you’ve got to get hold of yourself, get back to basics, get back to what God has given you … you have to get back to home.’ The priest’s face had reddened, and his hands were shaking. ‘You must get meaning into your life, a point!’
‘Until this man came, there was a point to my life, Father.’ Janice sobbed into her handkerchief.
‘You can’t entertain these alien thoughts … they’re evil thoughts… Our Lord said, ‘If your eye scandalizes you, cut it out.’ So this man has come into your life, he is evil! You mustn’t pay attention to him! You must cut him out of your life! He is a danger to you’
‘It’s my daughter, Father … she is the one in danger … she has these terrible dreams that punish her … and he is the only one who seems able to relieve her.’
The priest raised a halting hand to her tearful face.
‘You must return to the institution that Christ dwells in. It will help you ward off the powers of error, to withstand lies and deceits and all the snares of the evil one.’
He gazed at the woman sitting next to him, weeping bitterly, and his voice softened. ‘As a girl you were told to avoid the near occasions of sin, and you have let this man and his force invade you. You must turn your back on him; you must give yourself to the truth, the one Holy Catholic Faith.’
The priest rose, concluding the interview.
‘I would suggest you go to your parish priest and make a confession and throw yourself on God’s mercy. Open your hand to Christ.’
He reached down to the bench and picked up his breviary and straw hat, but did not leave. He seemed unable to escape the strange and disagreeable situation and remained gazing down at the weeping young woman, who could only nod her head in agreement to his parting advice. He tried to put it from him, to simply walk away from it, but could not. A feeling of profound failure seized him. What did he know of the matters she had brought up, the problem she had laid at his feet? Reincarnation? A never-ending cycle of lives? It was childish, if not wicked. And yet how implicitly he believed in the miracles recorded in the Bible, how carefully he regulated his life by the messages. The old priest suddenly felt very confused and … useless.
‘My dear woman, let me bless you,’ he said with heartfelt compassion, gently pressing the palms of his hands against the sides of Janice’s wet face. ‘May Almighty God bless you,’ he intoned, drawing the sign of the cross in front of her eyes, ‘in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, amen.’
Janice didn’t watch him leave. She stayed there alone, in the shadow of St Andrew, waiting for her anguish to abate and her mind to compose itself before quietly rising and joining the stream of tourists circling the cathedral.
At ten minutes past three Janice left the protective sanctuary of the church and stumbled through the portals back into the bleak and alien world without.