Tucked up tight against his massive desk, August shuffles his notes for the week’s sermon, reordering them yet again. His mind has been truant all afternoon. The moment he sets it to work, it slips back to the rectory, where a muted drama unfolds.
The housekeeper’s taken to her bed, the cancer so far advanced even the doctor was shocked—how had she been up and about at all, let alone still attending to her duties? August could have told him. With help, of course, the help of a loving and devoted niece.
Now Mathilda works alone. Each morning, August awakens to the sound of her arriving early to make him breakfast. Standing at the bathroom sink, he draws the razor slowly down his cheeks, listening to the pipes moan as she fills the kettle for tea. He dawdles while dressing, emerging from his bedroom only after she’s mounted the stairs to relieve the night nurse and see to her aunt.
She’s up and down those stairs all day. He’s caught glimpses of her through the parlour’s glass door, bearing watered milk or a wash basin, clean syringes or weak beef tea. All that, and she somehow manages the rectory chores before noon, prepares a hot lunch, then crosses to the church with her cleaning box in hand. Day after day, August finds his meals steaming in the empty dining room, as though they’ve been laid out for him by some otherworldly force.
Of course, she can’t stay on long-term. Married or not, she’s too young and—well, people would talk. As soon as her aunt passes, he’ll have to arrange for someone new. He should do it now, really—she’s running herself ragged—but the idea pains him. No, he decides, better to wait awhile. It might seem as though he’s rushing the housekeeper along.
He walks a hand across the green desk blotter, halting at its cushioned edge. Mathilda’s been here recently, last evening perhaps, while he was out on his rounds. The desktop gives off an underwater gleam, papers layered and frilled, the paperweight an enormous black pearl. He shakes his head hard, grabs a random sheet from the pile, grips it in both hands and stares. His leggy scrawl swims. Hopeless. He needs a walk, that’s all. A little air.
He catches sight of her on his way out. She’s standing close by the altar, so close she could lean her hip lightly against it. Her hands move over the monstrance, the left cradling, the right rubbing vigorously to bring out a shine.
The first time Father Felix showed him the monstrance at St. Paul’s, August heard monstrous, and so it seemed to a little boy—the spindly leg of its stand, its spiky head, the pale, translucent pupil of its eye. He learned the proper term soon enough, but it wasn’t until seminary, bent over the fat OED, that he discovered the diverse etymologies of the words. Monstrous from the Latin monstrum, meaning “portent.” Monstrance from monstrare, “to show.” Still, the two remained twinned in his mind, and he found he could never quite strain all the horror from his awe. It didn’t help to find out that, while it now exposed only the host, the monstrance had its origins in those reliquary cylinders that displayed the bodies of martyrs—either whole or in gruesome parts.
Mathilda draws close to the lunula and breathes on the glass, following with a flick of her cloth. August bristles. Surely such intimacy is improper—a mother licking her thumb to rub dirt from a growing boy’s face. He should say something. He will. Only now, she’s no longer cleaning. She’s just standing there, gazing ardently at the body of the Lord.
Vera reaches out from beneath the covers and grabs Mathilda’s hand. “Lord,” she croaks, “you’re an oven. How can you be so warm, girl? I’m frozen through.”
It’s high eighties in the shade. Mathilda’s been rubbing ice along her wrists.
“Hah.” Vera laughs weakly. “I guess you’ve still got blood in your veins.” Her face contracts with a spike of pain. “Ahnnn,” she moans, but when Mathilda reaches for the needle, Vera stops her hand. “No,” she says, “not yet.”
“All right.” Mathilda sits back helplessly. After a moment she begins stroking the pale crustacean that was lately her aunt’s right hand. In a single bedridden week Vera’s seen more than a decade’s decline.
“Fourteen,” Vera says wonderingly.
“I was fourteen when I took over St. Mary’s. The year Mother finally took to her bed with what they used to call nerves. My father was long gone by then. Yours too—he didn’t wait for eighteen before shaking the dust of this town from his shoes.”
Mathilda’s stroking hand stops short.
“Easy now,” says Vera. “It’s not him I’m getting at with all this. Not my own father, either. They were useless, the pair of them.” She sniffs. “On her better days Mother used to tell me how they were both away on the traplines up north, how they’d be back with a couple of fine fur coats for us any day. Poor fool.” Vera’s mouth softens. “Father Rock came on the year after I took over. From the moment he clapped eyes on me, he took me for his pet. That was something, too, not that he was a hard man, but to most he was never what you’d call warm.”
“You don’t say,” Mathilda mumbles, but Vera takes no notice.
“ ‘Brilliant,’ he used to say, when he saw the glow I got on those candlesticks. ‘Like the gold along the roads of heaven, Veronica.’ “She pauses, her eyes shining. “You remember that, Mathilda? How he called me Veronica sometimes?”
“Yes, Aunt.” Mathilda remembers all right. She tried out the pet name herself once, only to be told sharply never to utter it again. It was strictly between the two of them, like a hundred other things.
Vera smiles secretively. “ ‘I’d better watch out, Veronica,’ he used to say. ‘Our Heavenly Father may just scoop you up to keep house for Him.’ “The pain comes again, and this time Vera’s face caves in on itself. “Oh,” she gasps, “I loved him! Even then I was sick with love!”
Mathilda gapes. Her aunt gestures wildly to the bedside table, the inadequate remedies there.
Vera sleeps a little after the needle, wakes with a wildness in her eye. “We never touched, you know, not that way.” She shakes her head fiercely. “Not once.”
“Of course not,” says Mathilda.
“Not that I didn’t think about it.” Vera giggles suddenly, a schoolgirl sound, strange in her ruined mouth. “I did, you know. You won’t believe it if I tell you.”
“Yes, I will.”
“It was a dream I had.” Vera would blush if she had the blood for it. As it is, her face smoothes out, momentarily transformed to marble, a carving of someone very young. “It was kissing, that’s all—him kissing me, and me parting my lips and kissing back.”
Mathilda shifts on her chair.
“I dreamt it nearly every night,” Vera goes on. “After a while it got so I was dreaming it in the daylight too, you know, playing it out in my head.”
Mathilda nods.
“I was in the confessional one day, the penitent’s side, polishing up the leather. Maybe it was the smell of Father Rock in there, I don’t know, but the dream came on terribly strong. I kept pushing it away, rubbing it into the kneeler, the seat, but nothing would make it go. I switched cloths and started wiping the screen, and that’s when I got the idea.”
“The idea?”
“More like a voice, really, speaking to me.”
“A voice? You mean—?”
“Who, Him? I doubt it. It didn’t seem like one of His.” Vera grins darkly. “But I did what it said. I took out the screen.”
“You what?”
“You heard me. I pried out the moulding, and then I could see the screws. I had a butter knife for scraping grease from tight places, so I used that. It took a while, but I got every last one of them out.”
“But,” Mathilda stammers, “but it’s there. You put it back.”
Vera holds up a finger. “It looks like I put it back. The moulding comes free with a fingernail. The screen’s held in with two screws, not even twisted all the way.”
“But why?”
“Why?” Vera shrugs. “So I could take it out whenever I wanted.” She turns her face to the window’s sharp light. “So I could sit in there and look through the frame. And imagine his lips coming through.”
Mathilda’s heart throws itself about in her chest. “Did he ever—” she asks. “I mean, I know he was a priest, but didn’t you ever wonder if he felt the same?”
“Wonder? I know he did.” Vera’s shrunken hand fights its way under the quilt, fumbles with the sheet and emerges with the smallest of books. It’s no larger than a matchbox, well thumbed, bound in leather that used to be red. Though untitled, the front cover bears a golden design—the busts of a doe and buck, simplified and stylized, gracefully entwined.
“My twenty-first birthday.” She hands Mathilda the tiny book. “He made me a cake, believe it or not, fresh strawberries and cream. We ate the whole thing, too, just the two of us. Mother kept her bed.”
“And he gave you this?” Mathilda measures it against her pinkie. “For a present?”
“He left it in the pocket of my apron.”
“You’re sure it was him?”
“Look inside.”
On the fly-leaf Mathilda finds two cramped handwritten words. For Veronica. She strokes the first yellowed page, not daring to open it further.
“It’s from the Bible,” Vera says. Mathilda moves to hand it back, but her aunt’s fingers spring up like a wall. “You read it,” she cries. “Read it and tell me he didn’t feel the same!”
While Vera dozes fitfully, Mathilda fondles the little book. She averts her face before finally opening it, as though something might leap at her from the page. And leap it does, the moment she takes courage and turns her eyes to the diminutive text.
I sleep, but my heart waketh: it is the voice of my beloved that knocketh, saying, Open to me, my sister, my love, my dove, my undefiled—
Mathilda gasps, her eyes skipping down.
My beloved put in his hand by the hole of the door—
She flicks to a previous page.
My beloved is like a roe or a young hart: behold, he standeth behind our wall, he looketh forth at the windows, shewing himself through the lattice.
“Awooooo—” Vera wails like a ghost in her sleep.
Mathilda claps the little book shut and shoves it frantically down the front of her dress.
Away down the inching Communion queue, August catches glimpse after shifting glimpse of the flowery hilltop that is Mathilda’s Sunday hat. Unlike most, it’s actually pretty—tiny violets between dark cloth leaves. She moves closer. Nectar and velvety petals. He can smell them now, artificial though they are.
Defrocked. The word rises unbidden, unaccompanied by the dreadful image it normally evokes—a great dark bird with its magnificent wings cut away. Suddenly a frock is something whispery in the fingers, perhaps that pale blue one she often wears.
Her husband steps up to the rail, extending a disturbingly wide tongue. He takes the host the way a child takes a cookie—grinning stupidly and munching it down—then draws aside like a thick curtain to reveal his young wife.
Not the blue after all, but a green one he’s never seen. Before he can stop them, August’s eyes peel the dress away, fabric dropping in loose coils to reveal delicate, almost edible flesh.
Can he have fallen so far in a single month?
He blinks hard, but naked Mathilda remains, eyes downcast, lips parting to receive the host. Naked, that is, but for one small thing. It’s barely a hat at all, really, it’s so unobtrusive, as though the violets are part of her, having pushed their way up through her scalp.
Next in line, a bent old man clears his throat, its phlegmy rattle yanking August back. The dress returns in an instant, curling darkly to hide her glorious form. August’s hand convulses, hoists a wafer and places it on her waiting tongue.
She won’t touch her meat. She’ll cook it dutifully, but for a week now Mathilda’s eaten around whatever Thomas provides, lamb chops or roast chicken, tender little veal rosettes. He’s not blind. She’s never had a big appetite, but at least she used to try—pick at her spare ribs and push them around on the plate.
It eats at him. Every untouched cut.
“Mathilda,” he says one evening as she lifts a forkful of peas to her mouth, “you’re not eating.”
Her mouth full, she chews and swallows before answering. “Yes, I am.”
“You know what I mean. You’re not eating your meat.”
She lays down her fork. “I can’t stand it,” she says quietly. “I can’t.”
“What do you mean, you can’t stand it?” He tries to laugh, ignoring the rushing sensation in his neck. “A butcher’s wife who can’t stand meat?”
She looks up at him, the longest, straightest look she’s given him yet. “Is that what bothers you?”
“What?” he splutters. “No, I’m—I’m only thinking of your health.”
“Well, you won’t for long.”
She lowers her gaze. “Is that a threat?”
“What?! What the—no! I just—I meant your health will suffer. You’ll get sick, is what I meant, if you keep this up.” He shakes his head. “Jesus.”
“Please don’t.”
“Don’t what?”
“Take the Lord’s name in vain.”
“Sorry.” He saws a chunk off his T-bone. “Mathilda, honey, I just want you to be healthy, you know, strong. For your own good.” He takes a deep breath. “Maybe for a baby one day soon.”
She shoots her chair back from the table. “I don’t feel well.”
“Honey, what is it?” He reaches for her hand, his touch making her flare.
“It’s this meat,” she says hotly. “Mounds and mounds of it. It’s disgusting. It’s making me sick!”
His fingers draw back as though burnt.
“Doesn’t it bother you?” she demands. “Cutting up all those animals, hacking them up into bits?!”
“Mathilda,” he says, keeping a choke hold on his tone, “human beings eat meat. It’s God’s will.”
She blanches, her face contorting like that of an outraged child. “Since when?” she shouts, bursting into tears. “How do you know? Who says?!”
“The Bible.”
She stares at him. “What?”
“Whose offering did God honour?” he asks quietly, glaring at his steak, gripping the rim of his plate.
“Abel’s. Abel’s offering, not Cain’s. God wanted meat, Mathilda, not rabbit food. Abel gave Him lamb.”
“What would you know about it?” she mumbles. “You’re Presbyterian.”
Thomas explodes. “You think Catholics are the only—?!” he yells. “Dammit, we read the Bible! Not to mention all the crap I had to learn for the privilege of marrying you! Corpus Christi—isn’t that what they’re serving down there? The poor bastard’s body and blood?!”
Mathilda leaps to her feet and hammers up the stairs, slamming the bathroom door behind her.
“Mathilda!” Thomas howls, his voice breaking over her name. He’s gone too far. Lost hold of the reins, felt the old man grab them and gallop away.
Surely, to be tempted is no sin. August stares sleeplessly into the convergence of beams above his bed. Even the saints were tempted, he reasons, even Christ Himself. His hand fumbles at the scrolled base of the bedside lamp, twisting the little serrated knob to spread a circle of light over his shoulders and head. Better.
Beside the lamp, a precarious tower of books, the top volume winking glossy black letters from its yellow spine. Confessions. There—Saint Augustine was tempted. More than tempted. He succumbed, lost the path and found it again, then had the tremendous courage to record his travails. August reaches out greedily, sitting up a little, shoving a pillow in at the small of his back before cracking the book.
My soul being sickly and full of sores, it miserably cast itself forth, desiring to be scraped by the touch of objects of sense.
August nods eagerly. That’s what it is, a sickness.
Don’t scratch. Aggie bending to lift him from the slippery baking-soda bath, pulling white cotton socks over his small hands. They’ll get infected if you do. He faced himself in her long mirror, three years old, a scrawny, pot-bellied child, enough like a plucked chicken without the pox.
He skips ahead.
I defiled the spring of friendship with the filth of concupiscence—
His eyes cloud over with chagrin. It’s true, he thinks savagely. A fine young woman confides in her priest, and he rewards her with sinful thoughts and a lustful gaze. Well, no more, he resolves with a sudden righteous surge, no more. Encouraged, he flips forward.
His concubine gone, the saint laments, my heart which clave unto her was torn and wounded and bleeding.
Duo in carne una. A red ribbon of Genesis crosses the backs of August’s eyes. Wherefore a man shall leave his father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and they shall be two in one flesh.
One flesh? Then how a sickness? Vaguely upset, he finds himself jumping again to a fresh page.
The eyes love fair and varied forms—
He jumps again.
For pleasure seeketh objects beautiful, melodious, fragrant, savoury, soft.
“Fragrant,” he says aloud. “Savoury.” His mouth dries out. Suddenly desperate, he rifles madly through the book, as though searching for some memento left pressed between pages—a dark violet, a brittle, hand-shaped leaf. The word Thou catches his eye. He thrusts his face close to the type.
Thou flashedst, shonest and scatteredst my blindness. Thou breathedst odours and I drew in breath and pant for Thee.
Words inscribed hastily, no doubt, an outpouring of the saint’s sensual regard for his God. August should be transported, should feel himself brimming over with the wine of devotional love. He realizes this, even as he feels keenly the lack.
Locked in the bathroom, Mathilda reads feverishly long after Thomas has given in to a heavy, disenchanted sleep.
“ ‘His eyes,’ “she murmurs, “ ‘are as the eyes of doves by the rivers of waters, washed with milk, and fitly set.’ “She looks heavenward. His eyes. For a moment they float above her, ringed like targets, the colour of rainy slate.
She turns hastily to what is fast becoming her favourite line. “ ‘I am my beloved’s,’ “she whispers, “ ‘and my beloved is mine: he feedeth among the lilies.’ “She can see him—not all of him, just his naked shoulders and face—crouched in a fiery meadow, the red goblet of a wood lily at his lips. The image is terrible, wonderful. It spurs her on to more mysterious parts, the passages that move her in a manner she can’t begin to understand.
“ ‘His countenance is as Lebanon, excellent as the cedars.’ ”
Pages later she stumbles on another, deep and inviting as a country well. “ ‘The mandrakes give a smell—’ “She pauses. Mandrakes. Are they animals or plants? Their smell skunky or sweet, fetid or delicate or divine? In the end it doesn’t matter. The word itself thrills her to the marrow of her bones.