When We Were Saints

by Han Nolan

  "Oh, I knew," Clare said. "That's why I'm here, actually." She took a step toward Archie and said, "You feel like walking?"

  Archie shrugged. "Okay. Want to hike up the mountain?" Archie stuck his thumb out and pointed behind him.

  "Sure." Clare rested her bicycle against the barn and hung her helmet on the handlebars.

  Archie led the way, speaking over his shoulder. "If you had a mountain bike, I could take you on some pretty twisted trails. They're not that long, but you can really bomb down this one steep one; it's got a pretty decent run out at the end. Oh, or would you rather walk around the fields, or go through the woods?"

  Archie knew he was talking too much and sounding like an idiot, but Clare made him nervous. He liked her. He liked the way she looked at him, as though she liked him. No, it was more than that. She looked at him as though she knew all about him and loved him anyway. He'd never seen that loving expression before in anyone's eyes, not even his grandmother's. He wondered what she could have to say to him.

  Archie glanced back to see if Clare was following, but she moved ahead of him as if she climbed Caswells' Mountain every day of her life and was showing him the way. She pulled a rubber band off her wrist and put her hair into a ponytail. Archie watched it swish back and forth in front of him as she walked, and he smiled. Then he noticed a price tag sticking out of her shirt, and he wondered if he should say something. It was just the two of them and he didn't care, but he had to introduce Clare to his grandmother later and maybe she'd be embarrassed if she got home and realized she had been going around with a price tag hanging out.

  Archie told her about the tag, and Clare stopped and reached back for it. She pulled it off and laughed. "My mother bought me a whole new wardrobe before I left to live with my father."

  "Wow," Archie said.

  Clare turned around to face him, and he saw a hint of sadness in her eyes. "She likes to know that I'm dressing appropriately at all times." She sighed and turned back around, and Archie heard her murmur "Dear Mama."

  Clare continued up the mountain, taking long strides up the steep rock-strewn path. Archie scooted to catch up with her until they were walking side by side.

  "Archibald, I have come here because I believe you and I were meant to be," Clare said, knocking into Archie's side every now and again as the two of them tried to keep to the narrow path.

  "Meant to be what?"

  "Partners, soul mates, pilgrims on the same journey."

  Archie cut his eyes sideways at Clare. What was she talking about? "No offense," he said, "but I'm not interested in any partners or pilgrims or whatever;"

  "We were predestined, Archibald. It's not about what we want; it's just the way it is."

  Archie stopped walking. "Wait a minute. What are you talking about? And why did you give me that card?"

  Clare stopped walking, too, and turned to face Archie. "I was told to give it to you and so I did."

  "Who? Who told you?"

  Clare smiled but didn't answer his question. Instead she said, "Do you know that my father had a vision about me just before I was born?"

  "How would I know that? I don't have visions and I don't read people, like your father. I'm not a prophet and I'm nobody's soul mate. Sorry." He turned around as if to go back down the hill. The shining eyes he had thought were so beautiful moments before were creeping him out. The girl was crazy. No wonder she looked at him the loving way she did. She was nuts!

  Clare grabbed his arm and stopped him. "My daddy had a vision that I would someday illuminate the world—the world, Archibald. That's why he named me Clare."

  "Well, that's real nice. Maybe you should go work for General Electric, become a lightbulb or something." Archie couldn't help himself. He wanted to get away, and he thought insulting her would be the quickest way to do it. He felt let down, disappointed. He realized that for a little while, when they'd been talking about the cow and she was looking at him and smiling with such love and gentleness in her eyes, that he had felt a surge of excitement. He thought maybe he'd met someone who could become a good friend. He needed a good friend.

  Clare laughed at Archie's remark and didn't look insulted at all. "That's a good one," she said. Then she got serious again. "Your granddaddy's dying words were for you. He said you are a saint. Last words are important, especially ones made by a prophet."

  Archie turned serious. "Do you know that all my granddaddy's predictions were of gloom and doom? They were all about sin and repentance."

  "You have been called, Archibald. Do you dare refuse the call?" A gnat hovered near Clare's eyes. She blinked but didn't brush it away.

  "I don't know what I 'dare' do. I don't know what you're talking about. What do you want from me?"

  "Archibald, I am your answer: You've been searching, haven't you? You want answers. Why did your grandfather call you a saint? What did he mean? I am your answer. I am part of your journey to sainthood. Come on, let's walk and I'll tell you more." Clare set out again, taking the lead up the hill.

  Archie didn't know why he followed her except that she seemed so sure of herself, so certain, and he was so unsure about everything. He did want answers. He ran to catch up to her and when she saw that he was with her she smiled at him—and the smile was so welcoming and her eyes held such joy at seeing him that Archie relaxed a little and listened to what she had to say.

  "Before my aunt died I used to visit her and she had these books about the Virgin Mary and Jesus and the saints—stuff like that. I read them all. So I've known my destiny since birth practically."

  "What 'destiny'?" Archie slowed down, but Clare kept marching up the hill.

  "There is a Saint Clare. She was canonized—made a saint—in 1255. She was the female partner to Saint Francis of Assisi. Before she was born, her mother had a vision. And do you know what it was? That she would illuminate the world." Clare glanced back at Archie, her eyes shining. "I'm Saint Clare and you, Archibald, are Saint Francis. Those words on the card were his. Not his exact words. I translated them. He was Italian. But it's his thought—and yours, Archibald. Am I right?"

  Archie caught the branch that flew toward his face after Clare brushed past it, and he sped forward to catch up with her He grabbed her arm. "Look, I don't even know this Saint Francis. I'm not Catholic. I don't know any of this stuff, okay? My grandfather was just blathering. Sometimes he got his words mixed up. He once called a pencil a peanut! I'm sure what he meant to say was that I am a sinner, not a saint. He just got the words mixed up. Or he was just cursing me or mocking me, that's all."

  "Saint Francis is one of the best-known and best-loved saints in the world!" Clare said, ignoring his words. She took Archie's hand from her arm, and she held it as she continued walking, pulling him along with hen. "He was just a nobody like us till he got sick, and when he recovered, he went to pray in the church of San Damiano. That's where he heard Christ say to him, 'Repair my falling house.'"

  "Sounds like he was still sick, then, if you ask me," Archie said.

  "Archibald, listen." Clare smiled at him and squeezed his hand as if to say, "I understand your discomfort, but I'm here with you; it's okay." And Archie felt okay. He felt really okay. Out of the blue, just like that, with a squeeze from her hand, he felt more okay than he had felt in a long time, since before Armory had moved away and before his grandfather's illness. Archie continued up the mountain, walking hand in hand with Clare as if they'd walked that way for years, and he listened.

  "In order to do what Christ had told him to do, Saint Francis sold everything he had, even the clothes off his back, and went to work on rebuilding the church. His father was so mad, because he was rich and his son was turning his back on all that; so his father disowned him and Saint Francis became like a pilgrim, traveling all through Italy, preaching about living simply and repenting."

  Archie shook his head. "Okay now, I don't know what this is about, but I'm not going to tell people to repent, especially when I'm just as much a sinner as anybody. My
granddaddy was always telling people to repent, and meanwhile he was rusting out his brain on liquor every day. He never had a vision sober,"

  Archie's eyes widened and he stopped in his tracks, pulling his hand away from Clare's. He hadn't intended to tell Clare about his grandfather; It was an unspoken promise in the family that no one would tell. Archie wasn't even supposed to know about his granddaddy's drinking. Did his grandparents think that he believed his grandfather was just filled with the Holy Spirit every time he staggered down the driveway shouting prophecies at the top of his lungs? Archie knew it was spirit all right, but it wasn't holy. He had let the information slip out in front of Clare without thinking, and he felt exposed and suddenly afraid, believing somehow that his grandfather would know and punish him for telling.

  Clare said, "It's okay, Archibald. Come on—we're almost near the top." Again she smiled and looked at him with so much compassion and acceptance, his fears fell away. He blinked several times, surprised that he had to fight to hold back his tears. He didn't even know what he was feeling so tearful about—his grandfather's drinking, or Clare's loving acceptance of him?

  Clare walked ahead and continued her story. "You see, Saint Francis set up a monastery and so did Saint Clare, only hers was for women, but they both took a vow of poverty and chastity and humility." Clare paused, glancing back at Archie. "Come on with me, Archibald."

  Archie started walking again.

  "He lived like Christ," Clare said when Archie had again caught up. "Now, weren't you always taught that nobody could be as good as Christ, and that we're all sinners, and only Christ was without sin? But the pope, I forget which one, a recent one, said that this Saint Francis was the best representative of Christ there ever was. What do you think, Archibald? Do you think it's possible for us humans to live a sin-free life? I mean never ever sin? Could we do that?"

  Archie answered, "I don't know. Maybe it was easier not to sin way back in the Middle Ages." They had reached the top of the mountain, and together they stepped out into the clearing.

  "I don't think so. Hey, it's pretty up here," Clare said, turning to look around her.

  Archie looked, too, feeling proud of his mountain. The sky appeared large and close, and the grass and wildflowers were beginning to poke up through the ground.

  "It's so beautiful, isn't it?" Clare said, sounding delighted. She ran toward a large rock near the center of the mountaintop. It was where Archie liked to sit and think and eat his lunch. It was where he'd sat when the light changed, and the wind blew, and everything came alive and became part of him, and he a part of everything. Clare reached the rock and climbed on top.

  "I'm queen of the hill!" she shouted, laughing. "Come on up!"

  Archie joined her and they stood together on the rock, looking out at the pines where Archie had fallen to his knees in worship. They were silent for a minute and then Clare spoke. "Saint Francis is also known as the patron saint of the ecologists, because he loved the earth and the animals. He spoke to them, and he believed they spoke to him. He called the sun and the wind his brothers, and the moon and water his sisters. See, he felt a kinship with all the earth." Clare turned to Archie, who stood with his mouth open. She put her hands on his shoulders. "You know exactly what I'm talking about, don't you? You know."

  Clare looked at him, her eyes shining, and Archie nodded.

  Chapter 8

  ARCHIE DIDN'T KNOW what to make of Clare and her strange stories. Was it possible that this Saint Francis had had the same spiritual experience as he, and wrote those words on the card afterward? Was it possible that he and this girl were somehow really soul mates? What did that mean? What did any of it mean? How could he be a saint? His grandfather hadn't meant those words, not the way Clare seemed to believe they'd been meant.

  He gazed out at the trees. They looked somber and still in the dull morning light. Ever since his experience, he'd had a different feeling toward trees, as though they were people, or at least living spirits. When he'd driven his grandmother to town the day before, he had seen men working on the side of the road, sawing branches and limbs off an old oak tree, and Archie had wanted to cry out for them to stop. He'd felt the pain of the saw as if they were cutting into his own limbs. He'd felt a sudden grief he didn't understand, as though his grandfather's death had happened just that morning and not months earlier. He'd felt the pain most severely in his stomach, in the now familiar spot just above his belly button.

  He felt the same spasm of grief every time his grandmother set down a plate of food. Until that morning he had never said anything about it to her but each day it got harder and harder to face each meal and eat it. He would look down at a chicken breast and see the whole chicken, live and blinking at him. He'd see the pig, and the cow, and the lamb, all of them alive, and he couldn't bear to eat. When Archie was twelve his grandfather had taken him hunting, and he'd been proud to bring home his first buck, and his grandfather had been proud of him, too. A few months later he took over for his grandmother the job of selecting a chicken for dinner and wringing its neck. He had seen those as steps on the way to manhood; now the idea of hunting deer and killing chickens was physically painful to him, and he knew he couldn't do it anymore.

  Clare broke into his thoughts. "Tell me what you know, Archibald. Tell me why you stare at those trees as though you're seeing Jesus Christ himself standing before you."

  "I'm afraid if I tell, it will never happen again—the thing that happened, and I think—no, I know—I want it to happen again more than anything else I've ever wanted." He was surprised that those words had come out of his mouth. He didn't talk that way. That wasn't him. He felt his heart beating faster. He knew he would say more to this strange girl.

  Clare jumped down off the boulder with a grunt. Archie followed, landing hard, too.

  "Yes, Archibald, I know. You're not the only one it's happened to." Clare grabbed his arms. "You've been given a gift, to see the world as it really is," she said, her stare and the sound of her voice intense. "You have heard the call. How will you answer?"

  His eyes widened. "Has it happened to you? Have you felt the whole earth suddenly come alive? The trees and the grass, everything moved to the beat of my heart; we all had the same heartbeat, we were all one live being. Even the cows chewed their cud to the rhythm of my heartbeat. I didn't even have a body anymore, and the trees were spectacular—I can't even tell you. It's like they spoke, and they had this power and energy, and, I don't know, there was this love energy between us. It's wrong to worship trees. That's like that druid cult, worshiping trees and plants and things. But I can't help myself. I want it to happen again."

  Clare shook his arms and smiled. "Yes! It can happen again. It will happen again. The Bible says God is in all things. It's not wrong to worship what's holy, and if God is in all things, then the trees are holy. You're worshiping God in them, not the trees. Everything is holy."

  Archie took a step closer to Clare, excited to at last have someone with whom he could share his story. "Yes! I—I know that. I felt it. I felt that holiness."

  "Archibald, it's happened to me, too. Many, many things have happened to me." She let go of Archie's arms. "See, we're meant to be together. I think that long ago most people had this kind of experience. I think it was natural. But see, now we live inside all day long and we don't know nature anymore. We don't know ourselves anymore. I think once upon a time we were all holy and we knew it, and we recognized it in one another"

  "Yeah, maybe back with Adam and Eve," Archie said.

  "But I believe we can know it again. I believe we can be holy again. We just have to break down the barriers we've built between the natural world and us. We have to break down the barriers between God and us."

  "Just?"

  "I know, it's not easy, but there are plenty of others who have done it. Jesus, for one, and the Buddha and Muhammad and the saints and probably others. Us, Archibald! We two are going to find the way to God. We will find a way to live so that every mo
ment is like that moment you had up here with the trees. Every moment will be holy and we will be holy and we will see holiness in all things."

  Archie stared wide-eyed at Clare. Her words, her energy, excited him. She knew what had happened to him up there on the mountain. She understood. It had happened to her.

  Clare lifted her arms up to the sky. "We will live like Jesus. Jesus said the kingdom of heaven is within. We will go in search of that kingdom within. We will be pilgrims in search of God and God's pure love and holiness. We will be united with the universe. We will be saints!"

  "How? How can we do this?" Archie asked, caught up in the spell of her words. He felt sure that she would know. She had the answers.

  Clare lowered her arms and took Archie's hands in hers and said, "Saint Francis de Sales said, 'Sanctity does not consist in being odd, but it does consist in being rare.' You are rare, Archibald. Do you understand this? You are rare. We must live in God, not in the world, if we are to be saints."

  Archie was eager to understand. "What does that mean? I don't get it. I live in the world because here's where I was born. Of course I live in the world. You say not to live in the world but in God. How? What does it mean to do that?"

  "Being of the world is living in sin, Archibald. Doing sinful things and participating in a life that isn't dedicated one hundred percent to God. That's not us. We're different, you and I. We're rare. God has called us. God has chosen us. You have been chosen, Archibald. You can't turn your back on God's call."

  Archie nodded. He knew that what he had experienced up there on the mountain was rare. He was sure it had never happened to Armory. The thought of Armory brought back the memory of their last day together down in the basement with the still, and Archie lowered his head and said, "You're the only one who believes that my granddaddy meant what he said, that I'm a saint. Even if I did have that experience, how can I believe? You don't know me—the stupid things I've done."