Authors: James Morrison
“Have you ever seen anything like it?” asked Father Gabriel, taking back the tube.
“No,” said Pete. “I never have.”
Father Gabriel set the tube carefully on the table. “Thank you very, very much, young lady.”
“That's another dollar,” said the girl, pointing at Pete. “He looked too.”
When they got back, the superiors were waiting for them. “Where have you been?” demanded the Bishop. “We've been waiting here for hours.”
“I didn't know Your Eminences were coming,” said Father Gabriel, spreading his arms in welcome. “Your Eminences did not tell me when to expect Your Eminences.”
The Abbot stepped forward. “Well?” he rasped.
“I was away doing the work assigned to me by Your Eminences. Then I went to the dentist. That took some time. Then, if the truth be told, we went to the beach. Each life needs a little ease. All work and no play, you know. And
finally we had a glimpse of infinity. It was quite a day.”
“What nonsense is this? Do you mean to be impertinent?”
The Abbot was a tall man, bald except for curly tufts of gray hair bubbling over both ears. The Bishop was short and grossly obese, which lent a special air to his sermons against gluttony.
“The thought never crossed my mind, Your Eminence,” answered Father Gabriel.
“Perhaps you need to be reminded of the high office of the church,” said the Bishop. “The church, that turned the cannibals to faith. The church, that brought light to every dark corner of the earth.”
“I assure Your Eminences, I have never
lost sight of those accomplishments,” said Father Gabriel.
“One would never know it from how you conduct yourself,” said the Abbot. “The time you kept us waiting we have put to good use. We have looked the place over from top to bottom. We left no stone unturned. We have never seen such sloth.”
“It's not bad enough to bring in the police,” said the Bishop. “No, that embarrassment to the church is not enough for you. An abbey is like a garden. You have not tended yours well. The weeds are in every crevice.”
“Could Your Eminences be more specific?”
“It is an aura,” said the Abbot. “And it is everywhere, like a rank smell. An aura
of something terribly wrong. Something . . . unseemly.”
“We feel it in our bones,” said the Bishop. “There is nothing godly here. And we have seen the chaos with our own two eyes.”
Pete thought Father Gabriel might be considering correcting him, since the total number of eyes was actually four. Instead, after a pause, Father Gabriel said, “Surely Your Eminences will agree that it is out of chaos that order comes.”
“We are not here to discuss theology,” snapped the Abbot. “We find grave fault in you. Measures will need to be taken, Father Gabriel. Definite measures.”
It was then that a man came running into the foyer where they stood. He
was whooping and howling. He twirled about the room, spinning on his feet. He waved his arms and cried out in broken words. His shouts formed a language of their own. He leaped into the air over and over, and flung himself against the walls. Finally, he scurried in a circle, tripped over the loose board, and fell flat on his face, out cold.
Everyone stood silent for a long moment. The Bishop and the Abbot looked stunned.
At last the Bishop spoke in a low, quaking voice. “Who is this man?”
Before an answer came, the Abbot cried, “This man is touched with the spirit of the Almighty Holy Ghost. Did you see him take to the air? Did you hear his gift of tongues? He is in the image
of Saint Joseph, whose holy fits began three hundred and sixty years ago this very dayâon the glorious Feast of our blessed Saint Francis!”
“Father Gabriel, perhaps we have been too hasty,” said the Bishop. “Revive this man, that he might tell us of his inspiration.”
Just then the door flew open. Brother Louis stood in the doorway. He glanced at Brother Walter lying on the floor. Then he said, “The barn's on fire. But I caught the intruder. I've got him tied to a tree.”
The straw fed the flames, and the wood was very dry. The door had fallen shut and, as was its way, it was jammed and would not open. Pete threw himself against it over and over. “Neb, Neb's in there,” he screamed. “Please, please, somebodyâhelp her, save her.” Brother Louis ran to the tool shed and came back with a hatchet. He began to chop furiously at the door, but flames crept out from under it, then shot up, and soon they had worked their way from the ground and flared in all directions as they consumed the wood and raced toward the roof, where they thrashed at the darkness above. It was no use. Father Gabriel pulled Pete away from the
fire and held him there. Brother Louis dropped the hatchet to the ground and fell to his knees with a terrible moan. The walls of the barn fell in. Plumes of smoke shot into the sky.
The police arrived first. Officer Stingo and Officer Lund reported to Father Gabriel. “There's an animal trapped in the barn,” Father Gabriel told them.
“Firemen are on the way,” said Office Stingo. “But it don't look good, sir.”
“Could somebody please tend to Brother Walter?” Father Gabriel asked. “He's just inside. He tripped on a loose board.”
“I warned you about that, sir,” Officer Lund said sternly.
They turned to the bearded man tied to a tree by his neck. The butt of a burnt-out
cigarette was clenched between his teeth. He told them he had no name. “No worries,” said Officer Stingo with the pride of one who had finally got his man. He grabbed the stranger's wrist and held up his hand. “He has fingerprints. Those are even better.”
By the time the fire trucks got there, the barn was nothing but a heap of blazing wood. A photo appeared in the next day's papers. It had been taken from a distance. No one knew by whom. It showed many men running this way and that, surrounding the fire, hoisting thick hoses that coiled about the yard like serpents. It showed the Bishop and the Abbot huddled together in a corner of the picture, with expressions of fear and confusion. It showed a wild-haired,
snickering man tied by his neck to a tree, which raised concerns about proper procedure among citizens who wrote letters to the editor. It showed a small group of monks standing in a circle with kindly, troubled looks on their faces and, in the middle of the circle, kneeling among them, a young man whose whole body was wracked with such grief that, had it been seen more closely, it might have been unbearable to witness. No casualties were reported.
The photo showed a scene of great turmoil. If it was true that order came from chaos, then all should have been well by the morning. But it was a very long night.
Pete left the next day just before dusk. He had brought little with him and took little away. He had left his Bible on the table in his cell, which was otherwise empty now.
What Father Gabriel had told him was that his mother had been there, soon after Pete arrived. She had not come to see Pete, but to see Father Gabriel. She wanted him to tell her that he would take good care of Pete. He assured her that he would. Then she told Father Gabriel about Michael. She told him she had letters from Michael to Pete. She did not know what to do with them, but she had saved them. She kept them hidden from Pete's father. She could not condone
them or what they meant, she said, and she was sure Father Gabriel would agree. Even so, Father Gabriel told her, Pete should have them. He suggested that she send them along, but they never came.
Pete's plan was to walk down to the village and sleep that night in the park. The next morning he would get a bus. Father Gabriel had given him money for the ticket. If his mother still had the letters, he would read them. He could scarcely imagine what they might say. But there were several. That meant something. He had not given up.
Was it possible that Pete could find him? Should he try? He would have to decide. He could not believe that Michael
would still be waiting. He hoped not. He hoped he had lived. So many years had gone by.
That afternoon he had heard Father Gabriel speak one last time. He spoke of Christ's wounds, his torn hands, his crown of thorns. “Do you know what love is?” he asked gently. “It is the suffering of those nails. See Christ on the cross.
See
him. Learn from that how to love.” He ended as he always would now, by putting in a good word for the Hindus. The men listened closely and lifted their heads and said, “Amen.”
“That was lovely,” Pete said afterward.
“It's just words, of course,” said Father Gabriel. “But we'll see. We'll see.”
“Brother Louis wasn't there.”
“He's taking it hard about the mule.”
“Neb was a donkey,” said Pete. “I think Brother Louis may be a true believer.”
“I think so too,” said Father Gabriel. “It's a pity, isn't it?”
Soon Pete would sleep under the stars, as he and Michael had imagined they might. He stopped near a patch of dandelions by the path. Neb loved dandelions. Pete picked one. He felt the tears coming again, but he resisted. He would always mourn her, but he had had enough of sadness for now. He sucked the sap from the dandelion's stalk. It tasted sweet.
He put the flower in his pocket and started down the road.
Neb watched him go. She was sitting in a ditch at the edge of the woods with her legs folded under her. The ditch was shallow enough that she could see over a ridge up the hill if she lifted her head a little. Her heart leaped up when she saw him, as it always had. But she did not bray. If he knew she was there, she thought he might stay. She let him go.
She had only cried twice before. It felt strange. For a long time she had lived with an old woman. She had loved the old woman and thought she was kind. But the woman gave Neb's child away. Still, Neb had not cried then. It was only
later, when she realized her child would not be coming back. That was when she cried, and it was when she first knew that she could tell the future.
It came in handy. It was how she had known to kick loose the planks at the back of the barn, so she could still get out if the door stuck. She had known this would happen. It was the man who beat her who had let her out of her stall. That she had not predicted. It was after he nabbed the scoundrel who'd set the place on fire that he had set her free. If it hadn't been for that, she would have been a goner. She thought maybe she should forgive him for everything else he had done. But no. On second thought, she wouldn't. After all, he hadn't kept the door from shutting.
A little black cat had come wandering by that afternoon. It saw Neb sitting in the ditch and came up to her and nipped at her sides. Neb guessed that it thought it might get some milk. When it found it couldn't, it nestled beside her. Now Neb felt it pressed against her, purring. The poor little thing had patchy fur and a tattered ear. Something had chewed its ear off. It was so small. Neb had no idea how they survived, these little things. She figured she would take care of the cat for a while.
She hadn't slept all night. She was tired, but she was thinking too much. She thought again of the old woman. The second time she cried it had been for her. It was very strange, because Neb thought her heart had turned against the
old woman after she had given away her child. But it was something Neb heard her say long after that, when Neb herself was given away.
“Be good with her,” the old woman said to the people who took her, as Neb was being led off. “She was all I ever had.”
What else could you do, Neb thought, but cry.
In the distance, up the hill, Pete stooped to pick a dandelion. Seeing this reminded Neb that she was hungry. But she did not think she should stir just yet, because it might wake up the cat.
She watched Pete going down the road until he disappeared. She knew she would not see him again. He had been a good friend. She hoped everything
would work out for him. She knew it would. She knew it, not just because she could tell the future, but because she had faith. She had faith in him.
It was not long after dark that she finally fell asleep.