The Son, The Sudarium Trilogy - Book Two (11 page)

2:27

Claudia came out of her room at the Hotel Ovientense and for the third time that morning slipped down the narrow staircase and glanced into the small dining room on the second floor, where a complementary continental breakfast buffet was laid out for the guests. The first two times she turned and went back up to her room immediately. But this time, she paused in the doorway, consciously composed herself and made her way to the buffet table. It had already been sadly picked over, the inevitable consequence faced by those arriving late in an establishment patronized by hungry students on a spring break and other budget-minded travelers. She managed to retrieve a croissant from the breadbasket, a yogurt and a bruised peach. The trickle of liquid from the coffee urn barely filled her cup, before drying up. She added a dash of cream, then scanned the room for a place to sit. Every table was occupied, as she had noticed before entering. So she went directly to the table in the corner where the young man was sitting alone writing in a notebook.

“
Está libre
?” she asked, indicating the chair facing him. He looked up, registered a moment of surprise, then responded that, yes, the seat was free. He rarely evaluated women’s looks, as his peers did. Some were more attractive than others, of course, some younger, some plumper, but that’s usually as far as he allowed his analysis to go. In the close proximity of the dining room, however, he couldn’t avoid noticing that this woman had silky blond hair that fell to her shoulders, fine Nordic features and a pale pinkish skin. Her body was encased in hip-hugging jeans and a low cut t-shirt that stopped just above the belt, partially exposing a firm stomach. It was standard gear for student tourists these days, although a bad idea for most whose corporal shortcomings invited less, not more exposure. On Claudia, the attention-grabbing outfit looked perfectly appropriate. Without a trace of make-up, she was a walking advertisement for the natural beauty of youth, a fact that most of the men in the dining room acknowledged by watching her take her place at the young man’s table and by momentarily fantasizing that the empty chair had been opposite them. Claudia was so accustomed to stares that only their absence would have surprised her.

The young man closed his book and took a sip of coffee, before giving her an embarrassed smile.

“
No quiero molestárte
,” she said in heavily accented Spanish.

“
No es niguna molestia
,”

“
Lo siento. No hablo español muy bien
.”

“
De dónde eres
?”

“
Estados Unidos
.”

“We can speak English then.”

“Oh thank goodness,” she sighed, leaning backwards, so that the t-shirt stretched more tightly across her upper body. “I haven’t had a decent conversation in weeks. Spanish 101 only goes so far. I mean, after ‘
Dónde está el bano
?’ and ‘
La cuenta, por favor
,’ I am pretty much speechless.”

“I am sure there are plenty of people here who would be happy to speak English with you.”

She ran her eyes quickly over the men at the other tables and just smiled knowingly at the young man as if to say that she had no interest in talking to anyone else. There was no flirtatiousness in the smile, but he felt flattered by the unspoken words nonetheless.

“There’s not much left on the buffet table,” she said. “Did you manage to get enough to eat?”

“Honestly? No.”

“Still hungry?”

“Honestly? Yes.”

“So am I. There’s a nice little sidewalk café across the plaza. Would you like to join me for a real breakfast?”

He hesitated. Breakfast with an attractive young woman had not been on his day’s agenda. “Only if you let me treat,” he said.

“It’s a deal,” she said. “Let me run upstairs first and get my things.”

In her room, she quickly tossed a sweater, her sunglasses, a map of Oviedo and a tube of sunblock in her backpack. Then, after checking that the battery was charged, she put her camera in the exterior pouch and buckled it shut. She was back in the dining room in five minutes, her backpack slung casually over her shoulder. “Ready?”

No one pretended not to look, as they left the dining room together. They made an attractive couple. After all, this is why young people traveled to Europe. For the chance encounter that would make the surfeit of castles and museums worthwhile.

At the entrance to the hotel, they took a left on Calle San Juan, which rose slightly before feeding into the plaza.

“I’m Claudia, by the way.”

“Nice to meet you, Claudia.”

They walked for a moment in silence.

“Don’t you have a name?” she said, half jokingly.

“Oh, yes, sure…” He hesitated. “Mano.”

“Mano? Lake ‘hand’ in Spanish?”

“Actually, it’s short for ‘hermano,’ you know, brother. It’s what my sister used to call me when she was little. But she couldn’t pronounce the whole word. She’d point at me and say, ‘Mano, Mano,’ letting everybody know I was her brother. Then she would giggle with delight. Well, it stuck. I’ve been Mano ever since.”

“Maybe I should call you Brother, then?” she said with a hint of mischief.

“No, ‘Mano’ will be just fine.”

“Okay, this way, Mano,” she said, pointing across the plaza. She didn’t know if there was a “nice little sidewalk café” in that direction or not. But this was Spain and chances were in her favor that they would stumble across someplace charming sooner or later and she could pretend it was what she had in mind all along.

The plaza was deserted at this hour, except for a guard who was unlocking the metal gates of the cathedral. They swung open with a hollow clanking noise that attracted Mano’s attention. In the clear morning light, the cathedral seemed less ethereal than it had at twilight. Although it was surrounded by other, smaller buildings, it seemed lonely in its splendor, a leftover of time. Workmen, hundreds and hundreds of workmen, all of them anonymous, had labored to build the structure. He felt it was their labor, their sweat, their tireless faith that he was seeing. What had been raised in God’s honor spoke to him in the morning light of mankind’s industry. The stones of the tower had been recently been cleaned so that they had a golden glow. And his thoughts went to those who had painstakingly treated each stone, scrubbed and burnished hard rock as if it were wood. Cathedrals were supposed to be God’s home on earth and all he could see in his mind’s eye were the armies of craftsmen, who may or may not have believed in a divinity, but definitely believed in the fruit of their hands.

“Want to take a peak inside?”

“I’m sorry?” For a split second Mano didn’t know who was talking to him.

“Would you like to go into the cathedral now?”

“No, I’d rather eat first,” he said, the spell broken.

Claudia led him along the stone walkway that zigzagged around the right side of the cathedral. The majestic harmony of the façade disintegrated into jumble forms and styles that indicated the structure had been expanded and modified over the ages. Smaller chapels abutted larger ones, unidentifiable wings jutted outward, while the Renaissance collided with the Middle Ages with little concern for appearances. Birds swooped wildly overhead and the walls were gritty with soot. The impression of retreating in time was so strong that Mano half expected to come upon a leper in rags, thrusting a clay cup in his face and begging hoarsely for “Alms!” His eyes searched every window, every stone protuberance, knowing that
it
lay somewhere behind the thick walls, somewhere under the red tiled roofs, somewhere within the mammoth sprawl. He was both drawn to that unknown spot and repelled by it.

Then the walkway widened and the birds ceased their furious squabbles. As if emerging from a storm, Mano and Claudia found themselves in a tranquil plaza behind the cathedral.

“There it is,” cried out Claudia, pointing to an island of magnolia trees, where a waiter was putting up the umbrellas over a half dozen café tables in preparation for the morning’s customers. Were it not for the overwhelming presence of the cathedral, the plaza could have been that of any small town. Mano purposefully chose a chair that allowed him to turn his back on the holy structure.

After the waiter took their order, they hesitantly settled into the patterns of small talk. He told her he was a writer, traveling around Europe gathering material. For a novel. His first novel, actually. What was she doing here? Taking pictures. She was a budding photographer and, like him, gathering her impressions of Europe, hopefully for a book.

“I’d like to see your photographs some time.”

“I’d love to show them to you. What’s your novel about?”

For the first time, he fumbled for an answer. “I don’t like to talk about my writing, you know, until it’s finished.”

“I didn’t mean to pry.”

“No, it just that it’s still taking shape. I find if I talk about it, I don’t write it.” Was that convincing enough? he wondered. This kind of role-playing was new to him.

“Change of subject,” announced Claudia playfully. She talked about where she’d been and where she was going and how expensive Europe was, if you didn’t watch your Euros. “My father keeps urging me to come home. He says I’m depleting the family savings,” Claudia said, doubting he’d say anything about his own family. She already knew his story – she had reams of photographs to show for it – but she enjoyed watching him dodge the real facts, make up new ones, in order to avoid the truth. That was part of a game she’d played so much of her life that it came naturally to her. Now she was playing the game with a neophyte. How long could he go on, before he tripped himself up?

“I suppose you have a girlfriend, a
novia
, back home?” she said teasingly.

He blushed. “Not really.”

“Honest?”

“Well, not any more. It’s over.”

He was surprised how quickly the words came, how easily he could shed the truth. It was as if a great weight were slipping off his shoulders and he were free to lead a whole new life. He need never go home. He could be the vagabond writer, drifting from country to country. He no longer had to be his parents’ son. Or anyone’s son, for that matter. Prompted by this beautiful woman, who listened to him so attentively, he felt he could be whatever he wanted. He could create Mano for her, mold him to excite the expectations he read in her eyes.

He had always been standoffish, and now he was discovering the pleasures of intimacy. The more involved he got in the story of this new Mano, the more it added to the sexual tension Claudia was beginning to feel between them. He was inventing himself for her. She watched him all the closer, wondering what his hair felt like, his burnished skin and the lankiness of his body. They circled one another seductively, both of them wearing masks, sensing it and, for the moment, not caring.

The waiter slipping the check on the table brought the couple back to the reality of the plaza and the looming presence of the cathedral.

“Shall we take a peak inside?” asked Claudia, realizing as soon as she asked it that the question was presumptuous. She was pushing things, forcing a relationship that had to come naturally, if her plan were to succeed. She should have asked if he wanted company, or, better yet, if he preferred to see the inside by himself. He had to think he was leading her, not the other way around.

“Sure,” he said. “Let’s go.” It would be better not to be alone with the dark thoughts that were already stirring in his head. Instead, it would be Claudia and Mano, whom he was liking more and more. Mano, the writer. Mano, the adventurer in a foreign land, the man without obligations.

Mano, who for the first time in his life had just had breakfast with a desirable young woman.

2:28

Sally contemplated the notebooks and the manila envelopes spread out on the kitchen table, and wondered where to begin. It had been far easier than she’d anticipated, no problem at all. When she’d taken breakfast up to Miz O’s bedroom earlier that morning, the old lady had waved it away it with an imperious gesture. She’d had “a bad night” and was going to try to make up the sleep that had eluded her, although the chances of that, she wheezed, were slim. Half an hour later, the old lady’s snoring could be heard all the way down in the kitchen. Knowing the Miz O was out for at least a couple of hours, Sally had hurried back upstairs, flipped the latch on the unlocked locker at the foot of the bed. It contained the manila envelopes that had arrived regularly over the recent months and a series of spiral notebooks, labeled from 1 to 13. Sally scooped up as much as she could comfortably carry, slipped back downstairs and installed herself at the kitchen table.

She picked up the notebook marked 1. It seemed to be the beginning of a diary. The first page, at any rate, announced in large block letters YEAR ONE. What followed were entries of varying lengths, some only a paragraph or two, others several pages long, each one preceded by a date: February 12, March 22, June 3. For some months there were few or no entries. Other months were chronicled daily. Sally marveled at the handwriting – the precise, flowing script you’d expect from a schoolteacher or a clerk. Someone whose business it was to avoid confusion and correct mistakes.

She flipped through the pages at random, ignoring the interior voice that said she was prying and telling her to put the notebooks and envelopes back where they belonged. It was for the old lady’s good, she reasoned. She couldn’t let Miz O continue to wallow in guilt and self-hatred. Perhaps she could even engage the old lady in helpful conversation, if she knew where to begin. Her attention was caught by a series of exclamation marks, dotting the entry for April 9, Year 1.

She adjusted her glasses and read:

…The blood is ours!!!!!

To write this fact may be the single most joyous moment of my life. And to have been chosen to be there, to aid in it all!!! How brave Jolene must have been to divert the guard in the cathedral so the men could make their way, unseen, to the Camara Santa!! How fortunate that the mission was accomplished without difficulty!!! My part was small. I stayed in the plaza, watching for anyone or anything that might have interfered with the mission. Of course, nothing did. When Jolene exited the church and crossed the plaza, we did not even acknowledge one another. We were like actors in a film, playing our parts perfectly. But I could tell from the look on her face that our goal had been achieved. We had a sample of the precious blood.!!!! The stage is now set for a new dawn!!!…

Camera Santa? Precious blood? Sally flipped ahead, hoping for clarifications. But there were none, beyond an expansion of the euphoria that had resulted from “the mission.”

The names that cropped up meant nothing to her, nor did many of the entries, which spoke apparently of scientific matters beyond her understanding. A later entry exulted that:

Dr. Johanson and the other scientists have succeeded in isolating the DNA!!!!”

Sally figured it had something to do with the precious blood in the earlier entry, but couldn’t connect the two in her mind. As she ran her eyes casually through Year Two, Year Three, then Year Four, she began to think she’d embarked on a wild goose chase. Year Five and Six contained only a few entries each, none of any significance that Sally could fathom. In Year Seven, however, matters started to get interesting again.

February 12, Year 7

We have found the girl. Or as Judith says, ‘The girl has found us!’ It is hard to believe so much time has passed since the mission in Oviedo. The blood has been in our possession for seven years now. It took so long for all the scientific procedures to be completed that I was about to give up all hope. Then this angel came to visit us. That is what Judith calls her, ‘our angel,’ although I believe her name is Hannah. I am to be one of her guardians, as it were. I watch her going in and out of the office in Boston. Always watching. Making sure no one disturbs her and alerts her of the situation. Of course, no one ever does. What a joy it is, to be of use again. These years of waiting have been like what I imagine purgatory to be. Existence without any purpose. But now she has come. Hannah! The angel!

Sally recalled someone named Hannah being part of Miz O’s ravings. Whoever she was, she was clearly the focal point of the entries now, the diary minutely recording her life and her pregnancy. Sally found it curious that there was no mention of a father. But there was little doubt that the girl’s impending motherhood was regarded with reverence.

October 12, Year 8

…She floated into the art gallery as if on a cloud, I am sure of it – her feet never touched the ground. It was our reward, Judith said. For all of us who had worked so hard. Those who had acquired the blood, the scientists, Dr, Johanson chief among them, who extracted the DNA, those who had planned every aspect of the mission for years—all us could now see her and be at one with her. And, of course, with Him. My heart was beating so fast that I was not thinking straight. I will always regret my actions. It was just a simple request. Normal under the circumstances. But I broke the rules when I asked if I could touch her stomach. It was stupid of me. I don’t know how I could have been so selfish. Everyone else was playing their part perfectly, admiring the paintings on the gallery wall. But not me! What possessed me? I could have ruined everything. It was the devil trying to work through me, of course.

Tonight when I got home, I took out the thin-knotted cords. The ones I had not used in so long. And I punished myself. I hope that will be sufficient…

The welts on Miz O’s legs and back! The thought that they might be self-inflicted had never occurred to Sally before this. Suddenly, she felt squeamish about reading the diaries. She was learning things she wished she didn’t know. She pulled back from the kitchen table and told herself there were better ways to spend the day. But the lure of the diaries was too strong and her resolution barely lasted a minute. She couldn’t help reading every page now.

December 3, Year 8

When I heard about Judith’s injuries at the hands of that girl, Hannah, how Judith had fallen (was pushed) down the porch stairs by the “angel,” I rushed to the house in East Acton to see if I could help. But I was banished from the scene. Again I had broken the rules. Nobody was supposed to go to that house who was not authorized. But it was just my concern for Judith that drove me. It didn’t seem wrong at the time. But, of course, it was. I used the cords again. The cords are the only thing that help.

The account of the next few months lapsed into high drama. Hannah had disappeared. There was a time when they were not sure if the child was well or even if it had been born. Then once Hannah and the child had been found, there was much discussion of reclaiming the infant. And how. But what struck Sally as significant was that the handwriting was changing. The script was less precise, less elegant. You could tell that it was the same person who was writing; certain letters, the t’s and the y’s, for example, retained their unmistakable flourish. But overall the penmanship deteriorated from month to month, as if the writer had suffered a stroke, say, and was unable to regain total control of her hands.

There was another change. The sense of elation and excitement that permeated the earlier passages gave way to a horrible regret, a heaviness of spirit. There was no further mention of “the angel,” or a glorious mission fulfilled, just a growing frustration, bordering on depression. And the continuing self-flagellation. Then:

March 18, year 9

I don’t know how to write what is in my heart and head today. After months of the cords every night, she came to me. Teresa. Saint Teresa of Âvila. She stood before me and with her own hands stopped me from flagellating myself. I thought, Good! I have reached the end of contrition. But no! It is just the beginning. She spoke and said, ‘It is wrong what you have done!’ I answered that I knew all the things I had done were wrong and I was trying to atone and I would keep atoning. ‘No!’ she said in a stern voice. ‘The child is wrong, not you! The child is the work of the devil. And you are the only one who can understand this. You are punishing yourself. But you are punishing yourself for the wrong act. This deed, this great and horrible deed, must be stopped. The child must not live. This is your true purpose, Olga. (She said my name - ‘Olga!’) You are the one who has been chosen to put an end to this blasphemy.’ Blasphemy! – the word will ring in my ears until the day of my death….

March 20, year 9

I went to them today, Judith and Eric. I said we must find where Hannah and the priest have taken the child. Immediately! I told them about Teresa and tried to explain how we have all been misled. They didn’t believe me. They looked at me, like I was possessed, like I were some kind of criminal. I feared them, as I fear them now, for I saw the devil in their eyes…

March 22, year 9

I write this now so it will be understood by all who read it for ages to come. Teresa said to me last night, ‘Do not concern yourself with the thought that a child will die. That must never enter your mind. Because he – it- is not human.’ Such were her words. I must obey them.

Stunned, Sally closed the notebook and pushed it away from her, as if the madness it chronicled were contagious. The talk of a child dying chilled her blood. Had Miz O actually murdered someone? Was that what was eating away at her conscience, all these years later, turning her into a helpless lunatic? Or was it just a made up story? Surely Miz O had come to her senses. Sally realized she didn’t even know when Year 9 was.

March 23, Year 9

I am alone now on this journey. But I have the strength of Teresa with me. I will find the child.

June 9, Year 9

The move to Lowell is complete. And on the same street no less. I can even see the house from my window. The house that will lead me to him. Not even Eric and Judith would have thought of this. Now I wait. Teresa says, “Patient endurance attends to all things!” I can be patient. I can wait for years if I have to. Ah, to have a purpose again.

Sally went to the front door and peaked out through the curtains at the houses up and down the street - the same houses she walked by every day. She wondered which one Miz O was referring to in the notebooks. These houses, so similar and anonymous, now seemed to her ominous and full of mystery. Sally realized that not a single neighbor had ever paid a visit. Miz O lived a life very much alone here.

She picked up the last of the notebooks. The cover page revealed that it chronicled Year 26 and Year 27. The ink was not as faded as it was in the earlier entries and the pages had not yellowed. The entries, Sally speculated, had quite possibly been written since she had come to work for Miz O. The penmanship certainly looked shakier than ever.

August24, Year 27

All these years of waiting for a clue. Finally it is here. But it comes when I am riveted to this bed. How I wish it could have been me to find the child and put an end to this blasphemy with my own hands!!

Pathetic, withered hands! (So much time has gone by!) But Teresa reminds me, “Pain is never permanent.”

September 18, Year 27

Hallelujah! Hallelujah! The child has been found. She has found him for me. She is sure of it. Teresa has guided her. Maybe I will be finally liberated from this bed once the mission is carried out. My mission. Now hers. Ours!!! How happy I am. We have outwitted the devil. The blasphemy will be destroyed at long last.

Miz O had always said she had a story to tell. But Sally wanted to believe the notebooks contained nothing more than the ravings of a woman, living in a delusional world. Otherwise the story was too horrible to contemplate.

As a last gesture, she turned her attentions to the pictures in the manila envelopes. They all showed an attractive young man, who seemed to be unaware that his photo was being taken. The most remarkable series of shots caught him as he was being pulled from a mound of earth, as if somehow he had been buried alive. But most of the photos were far more mundane and showed him talking with people, going about his daily life, interacting with what appeared to be relatives or members of his family in what seemed to be a foreign country. Certainly not Lowell, at any rate.

As she shifted through the photos, a simple fact slowly dawned on Sally. At first, she denied its importance. But it wouldn’t go away. The more she mulled over the consequences, the more frightened she became. If the child were alive today, if he were not just the figment of Miz O’s feverish imagination, he would have to be in his late teens or early twenties. The man in the pictures was about twenty. Someone seemed to be tracking him with a camera, hunting him down.