When We Were Saints

by Han Nolan

  "You'd be interested in this, Francis," he said to Archie. "Every year in October they celebrate the feast of Saint Francis of Assisi with the blessing of the animals. It's a real zoo—hundreds and hundreds of people with their pets. It's loud but festive and just what your dear Saint Francis would have wanted, don't you think?"

  When dinner was over the old man invited Clare and Archie to stay the night with him. They walked back toward the park to one of the yellow-brick apartment buildings, with steep steps leading up to a bright green front door. Archie was surprised by the inside of the apartment. He had expected it to feel cramped and to have only one room; instead it reminded him of his own home, with its high ceilings and cheerful rooms and the lingering smell of sweet perfume. Archie wondered if Irving noticed the smell. He was certain Irving wasn't wearing perfume.

  Irving took them from room to room: living room, kitchen, two bedrooms, and a study with a sofa that pulled out into a bed. He showed them his wife's collection of fountain pens—Montblancs, Pelikans, and Watermans, each one laid out neatly in a velvet-lined wooden box—and her collection of hats of all shapes and from every era dating back to the beginning of the 1900s. He had a story to tell about each pen and hat—where it came from, how Sarah had happened to find it or buy it, and where she had used or worn each one.

  Archie leaned against an oak sewing table, overcome with fatigue and dying to be shown to his bed so that he could get some sleep. He didn't know how Clare could stand it. She listened to Irving drone on and on, as if he were giving her the answer to all of life's mysteries. Her eyes were bright and looked eager, and as she listened to his endless stories, she smiled and asked questions that kept Irving talking even more. Archie sagged against the table. He didn't think he could hold himself up much longer yet still they talked.

  At last, when the tour was over, Irving showed them where they could sleep. The spare bedroom would be Clare's room, and Archie would sleep in the study. Archie thought he'd finally get to He down, but then Clare asked Irving if he would like Archie to help him bathe and the man broke down, flopping back onto the flowered sofa in the living room and weeping into his hands. Archie and Clare sat on either side of him, and Clare put her arm around Irving, and the two of them waited for him to calm down and tell them what was wrong.

  Archie waited with his eyes closed and felt himself drifting off when at last he heard Irving sigh and apologize. "I have been too depressed to care for myself," he said. "It's not that I can't bathe; it's that I haven't wanted to. I want to be with my Sarah." He cried again, and Clare patted his back. "It's so lonely without my Sarah, my angel," he said.

  Clare stood up and said she would be right back. She eyed Archie and indicated with her hands that he should put his arm around Irving. Archie sighed and patted the man's shoulder He didn't know what to say. He felt uncomfortable sitting there and looked back through the doorway, hoping Clare wouldn't be long. She returned a couple of minutes later with a large pot of soapy water and a washcloth. She set the pot on the rug and knelt down in front of Irving. "I'm going to just wash your feet, okay?" she said to him.

  The old man nodded and smiled down at Clare as she pulled off his shoe.

  Archie stood up. The smell was too strong for him. He stood in the doorway and watched. Clare pulled off one of Irving's socks and then did the same with his other foot. Then she took the washcloth and dunked it in the water and washed his feet.

  Archie thought that washing the old man's feet was a ridiculous thing to do since his whole body needed washing. He didn't see the point in it at all, even if Jesus did once wash his disciples' feet, and he figured Clare was just trying to be like Jesus. He had never paid too much attention to the Bible stories in his Sunday-school class, but he seemed to remember the whole point of that story was to show how humble Jesus was. What was the purpose of Clare's showing Irving how humble she was? They already had a place to sleep and they were full from their dinner; what more could she want?

  Irving sat back in the sofa and closed his eyes. Clare hummed her one note and washed his feet.

  The sound of Clare dunking the cloth in and out of the water was soothing even to Archie, and after a while of watching the scene and listening to the water in the pot, he wished that it were his feet and not Irving's that Clare was washing.

  Clare finished cleaning the man's feet, then took the small towel she had resting on her shoulder and dried them.

  Irving opened his eyes and smiled at Clare. "You're a strange child," he said.

  "Sarah would want you to take care of yourself," she replied.

  "Perhaps you're right, there."

  "I am right. Don't you think we were meant to meet, Irving?"

  He nodded. "I think maybe so."

  "And I think I am meant to tell you this: Take care of yourself. Sarah will wait for you, but you're not finished with your life. You've given us dinner and a place to stay for the night. What would we have done if you hadn't been there in the park? You don't know it yet, but there are people who need you, just like we did tonight."

  "What people? I'm all alone. All my friends are gone."

  Clare took Irving's hand. "Find out. Go find out who needs you, Irving."

  Chapter 24

  WHEN ARCHIE AWOKE the next day, he could hear Clare and Irving in the kitchen, talking. He sat up in bed and looked at the clock on the desktop. It was almost eleven. The clock, like most the furniture in the room, was an antique. He thought that maybe it was broken, but he got up anyway, feeling slightly dizzy. He recalled his dreams from that night and was glad to be awake. All of the dreams had had a dark overtone to them, a gloominess or in a couple of them, a menacing feel.

  One dream was more than just slightly menacing and dark. In it his grandparents were dressed as nuns guarding the entrance to a tall stone building. They marched back and forth in front of the gate with rifles over their shoulders. When Archie tried to enter they both aimed their rifles at him and told him he was not worthy enough to pass through the holy gates. When he asked them what he had to do to become worthy enough, his grandmother answered, "You must die." Then his grandfather shot Archie, and Archie awoke, sitting up straight in bed and staring wide-eyed into the darkness, wondering where he was. He had been so frightened by the dream, it took him a long time to get back to sleep. He tried praying, but the fear would not leave him and he could not find God in his prayers to comfort him.

  While Archie made his bed that morning, folding up the lace-edged sheet Irving had given him and putting the sofa back together he decided he couldn't wait to get to the Cloisters. He felt sure that all the dark and dangerous feelings in his dreams and prayers would disappear once he got there and saw the crying Virgin. Clare had said it was a holy place. Archie knew he needed to be surrounded by holiness, and he hoped that he and Clare could get away from Irving fast and get to the Cloisters.

  The dream had also left him worried about his grandmother. He hoped that Nattie Lynn or Clyde or whoever found his note wouldn't tell her he was gone. He hoped she was getting better and not worse. He recalled that last visit with her and felt a pressure in his stomach. What would he do without her? Before he left the study, he said a prayer for her.

  When he went into the kitchen, he saw that Irving had bathed and was dressed in clean clothes. He looked like a professor hi his khakis and corduroy jacket. He was spreading cream cheese on a bagel while Clare sat on the counter close by, advising him not to put any on hers. Clare was dressed in the same pair of jeans and the same blue shirt she had worn the day before, but he could tell that she, too, had taken a shower because her hair was still wet and uncombed.

  They both looked up when Archie entered, their faces beaming. Clare hopped off the counter "Francis! Did you have a good sleep?"

  "Yeah, sorry if I slept too long."

  "You needed to after all that driving," Clare said. "But we have already had quite a morning, haven't we, Irving?"

  Irving nodded. "That we did." He handed Archie
a plate with a bagel and cream cheese on it.

  "Thanks," Archie said.

  Clare opened the refrigerator. "We went grocery shopping this morning because dear Irving's cupboards were bare, and while we were at it, we found Irving a job."

  "Bagging groceries?" Archie asked.

  "Tell him," Clare said to Irving, setting a carton of orange juice on the table and slamming the refrigerator door shut.

  Irving caught the bagels that popped up in the toaster and dropped them onto a plate. "We ran into a neighbor of mine at the grocery store, and I introduced Clare to her Her name is Lizzie Alward. She has two sons, one ten and one seven—Joel and Jacob." Irving spread cream cheese onto the hot bagels. "They go down to the synagogue a few blocks away after school to get tutored and to play games, because their mother works. It's an after-school program, you see?"

  Archie nodded. He had already begun on his bagel. He had never had one before, and he liked the chewiness of it.

  "I'm going to be a tutor" Irving said. "What do you think of that?" Irving turned around and handed Clare her plain bagel. "I start today at two-thirty."

  Archie saw that Irving had tears in his eyes, but he knew they were different from the tears of the night before. His whole face looked different than it had the night before, when it was gray and drawn-looking. His eyes had been red and had held a pained expression. Now his face looked pink and his eyes clear and bright. It was as though he had had an infusion of some magic health elixir overnight.

  Irving sat down next to Clare and said, "I hope I do a good job of it."

  Clare patted his hand. "Of course you will. And when we come back tonight, we'll hear all about it, won't we, Francis?"

  Archie smiled, but he didn't say anything. He had mixed feelings about returning that night. He was glad to think they had a place to stay and food to eat, but he felt jealous of the time Clare spent with the old man. He felt jealous of the attention she gave him and jealous that she was the one who helped Irving; she was the one who could talk to him and draw him out. Archie decided that if Clare had spent her whole life surrounded by people much older than she was, the way he had, then she, too, would have little tolerance for Irving's endless stories. Telling himself that made him feel better and as soon as he had finished his bagel and glass of orange juice, he nudged Clare and said they should get moving. Then he noticed her plate with the bagel still sitting on it. "You haven't eaten even a bite out of your bagel," he said.

  Clare smiled and looked from Archie to Irving. "I'm too excited to eat; I'll take it with me."

  Archie would have argued with her but he was excited, too, and wanted to leave as soon as possible, so he agreed to her wrapping it up to take with her.

  Still, it was more than an hour later before they were able to leave. Clare washed the dishes and insisted that Archie bathe before they left. Then she combed out her hair and helped Irving wash a load of laundry. She said they couldn't take off until she had put the load into the dryer.

  At last they were free, and as soon as they were out of sight of Irving's apartment and walking toward the truck, Archie asked Clare, "What was that all about? I thought we were on a pilgrimage—you know, visiting a holy place and doing lots of praying. I thought we were supposed to be on our own. I know we need a place to stay, but you don't have to go overboard with it. And anyway, how did you know that guy would be in the park? It's like you knew he'd be there and you had this whole thing planned out—you'd talk about your dead aunt and he would cry and tell you all about his dead Sarah, like you knew his wife had just died. And then he asked us to dinner and all. How. did you know he'd do that?"

  They had reached the truck, and after Archie and Clare had both climbed in, Archie turned to her and added, "I guess what I'm wanting to know is how much of what you did last night was just so we could have a place to stay?"

  Clare looked at him with surprise. "Francis, I didn't know he'd be there and I didn't know his wife had died. I wanted to swing on the swing, that's all. My aunt used to take me there. But then I saw him and I knew something tragic had happened. Didn't you?" She gazed at him with her wide violet eyes looking so innocent, and Archie felt a little ashamed.

  "I guess," he said, "but how did you know he would come over? How did you know about that poem—that swing poem? Is it because of the crying Virgin—the gifts?"

  "I don't know. It just turned out that way. Haven't you noticed that when your heart is on God, things just happen—they just work out like that? I was just loving him. People respond to love. Everybody responds to love."

  Archie wanted to roll his eyes. Clare made everything sound so simple, and maybe for her it was, but for Archie, everything seemed hard. Why was he feeling so angry and mean-spirited? Where was God? He began to wonder what had made him believe his grandfather and think he ever was or ever could become a saint. No, it was Clare he had believed. She was the one who'd said he was chosen and called by God. He still wanted that feeling of God he'd felt on the mountain, but he believed more and more that the possibility was hopeless. He put the key in the ignition and started up the truck and prayed to the emptiness inside him that the Cloisters would change everything, just like Clare had said it would.

  Chapter 25

  WHEN ARCHIE AND CLARE got out of the truck in the Cloisters parking lot, Archie noticed several school buses and cars already parked there. He hadn't expected crowds of people, and he felt disappointed. Then he turned around and looked up at the stone building and felt a little better. It looked like a castle. It didn't have a drawbridge or turrets or even the cutouts at the top where the king's men would fire on the enemy below, but it had a tower and castlelike windows and a great stone wall surrounding it. They headed toward the entrance, and Archie's heart pounded in his chest. This was it. He took Clare's hand and squeezed it. Clare squeezed his hand back and laughed. "We're here at last," she said.

  They entered through a set of heavy wooden doors into a stone hallway that led to a long stairwell. The stairwell smelled damp and sweaty, the way Archie's socks did after he'd put in a hot day of work on the farm back home. A slender bald-headed man who looked to be in his sixties sat close to the entrance. He appeared bored, but when he saw Clare he stood up and smiled broadly. "Clare Simpson! Where have you been keeping yourself?" he said, holding his hand out for Clare to shake.

  Clare took his hand and then hugged him. "My old friend Maxwell! It's so good to see you." Clare turned to Archie and introduced him to Maxwell. Archie smiled and shook his hand, surprised that Clare knew the man. She and Maxwell talked for a few minutes, and Maxwell said how sorry he was her aunt wasn't still around. "Everyone here misses her. She was the bright light in this place, I can tell you," Maxwell said. Then he asked if the director knew she was coming, and Clare told him she hoped to surprise him.

  "I don't know if he'll be in today, but you can ask upstairs," Maxwell said. "Tell Robert at the admissions desk who you are. He's new since you were here. He'll let you go through, though." He winked and Clare gave him another hug.

  Clare and Archie climbed the steps to the main floor of the museum. Clare introduced herself to Robert, but then a guard standing nearby heard her and rushed over and Clare repeated the same greeting she had given Maxwell, but she called the man Will. Two more people working in the gift shop across from the admissions counter ran out of the shop, delighted to hear Clare's voice. Everyone hugged Clare and shook Archie's hand, and like Maxwell, they said how much they missed her aunt.

  When Clare had finished explaining why they were there, saying she wanted to give Archie the grand tour of the museum and they would be staying for several days, Robert gave them each a small tin tag to wear on their shirts. It was round and had an M on it. Clare told Archie the M stood for the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

  Archie examined the tag and then looked up at Clare. "It costs money to get into a museum? I thought it was free."

  The people gathered around them laughed, and one of the women from the gift sho
p said, "For Clare it's always free. This is her home." The woman hugged Clare again, and Clare said, "Bless you, Ally. I've missed you all so much."

  After a few more minutes talking with her old friends, Clare took Archie's hand and led him through the arched stone entrance of the Romanesque Hall, and everyone else returned to their posts.

  When Archie reached out and touched the stone entryway, Clare told him it had been built in the twelfth century, and brought over from Europe to become part of the Cloisters. Archie ran his hand over the stonework and imagined the stones once belonging to some ancient and great mountain. He was torn between his admiration for the structure and a secret sadness that it was not still part of a mountain. "Wow!" was all he could manage to say.

  "There are even grander more elaborate entryways inside," Clare said, leading the way into the first hall.

  Archie followed her and saw to his left a fierce lion painted right onto the wall. Clare called the wall painting a fresco. It looked oriental and like something from his nightmares. It also looked as if it could have come straight out of a comic book. He looked at the plaque on the wall. The painting was from the thirteenth century, and yet it was something he was sure he would have painted himself if he had wanted a beast in his stories. He wished he had his drawing pencils and his sketch pad with him.

  Farther along the hallway, guarding the entrance to another room, were two more lions, both sculpted in stone. Clare told him that the lions were sleeping with their eyes open. "In medieval times people believed lions in myths represented great Christian virtue because they could sleep like that, with their eyes open."

  Archie reached out and touched the fat head of one of them. It was like touching his dreams, as if his dark dreams had brought the beasts to life. Clare took his hand and led him through open-air hallways with pink-marble arches, and Archie imagined himself a monk gliding along. "I have to show you something," Clare said.