There Your Heart Lies

by Mary Gordon

  “You see,” the doctor says, “my brother got the looks in the family.”

  “Which is not true,” the priest says. “My sister is a beautiful woman. And of the two of us, she has the beautiful character.”

  “And he inherited the Irish habit of exaggeration, to say nothing of falsification.”

  “You’re part Irish, then?”

  “Our mother was Irish. Did I not tell you that? It’s why we both speak English.”

  No, Marian wants to say, you told me almost nothing.

  “Shall we have a brandy to help us sleep?” the doctor says.

  “Lovely,” Marian and the priest say, and then they laugh at their simultaneity.

  “I’m Father Tomas,” he says, offering his left hand. And then she sees: he is missing the second and third finger of his right hand. Marian hopes she’s betrayed no reaction.

  “I don’t actually know your sister’s name. She never told me.”

  “That is Isabel. Sometimes she moves so quickly she fails to notice what she’s left behind in her rush.”

  The doctor, Isabel now, carries a wooden tray with brandy and three small glasses.

  “Isabel, you failed to tell Señora Ortiz your name.”

  “Well, she’d have found it out anyway, Tomas. Or are you accusing me of bad manners?”

  With his good hand, he ruffles her messy hair. “God forbid. You know I think you’re perfect.”

  For a few minutes, they speak about the weather, the progress of Marian’s leg, the kindness of the servants. But Isabel has no appetite for small talk.

  “I have to get her out of that house. She’s being poisoned. Pilar, the poisoner. She gave her a tonic that’s laced with phenobarbital. This woman has been drugged for seven years.”

  Never had Marian seen anyone look so distressed. Marian wishes the doctor hadn’t told him. Nobody should be so distressed.

  “I’m so terribly sorry,” he says. “This is a mad country, and I regret that you must be a victim of its madness.”

  “It’s a mad country, and she’s a stupid, tyrannical bitch.”

  “What do you really think of her, Isabel?”

  The doctor rolls up her napkin and throws it at her brother. Marian sees that this is an exchange they’ve often had, and risks laughing. She understands that, for the first time in a long time, she knows it’s all right to laugh. And she has it right: there’s no risk. The lifting of the burden is so enormous that she laughs, she knows much too loudly. And then the three of them are laughing.

  “So, little brother, this is where you come in. I have to let that bitch know I’m on to her. But, of course, I have nothing to hold over her head, and she knows she could report me to the Guardia at any time.”

  “But she’d hesitate doing that because of the mayor. And our uncle. And your brother-in-law.”

  He understands, unlike his sister, that Marian needs more information. “Isabel saved the life of the mayor’s daughter, an appendix was about to rupture, so he protects her. And our uncle is a bishop, and he is feared.”

  “And then, my dear brother-in-law is one of the fat midget’s economic advisers.”

  “Nevertheless, Marian, although I, and particularly my sister, are probably safe from major effects, we are always liable to petty harassment. Particularly from the Guardia.”

  “So this is where you come in, Father,” Isabel says, with a not entirely benevolent inflection. “She knows you collect plants, she knows you’re interested in medicinal plants. I’m going to tell her to give you the tonic so you can analyze it, perhaps use it in your studies.”

  Now Marian feels free to express her puzzlement. “I don’t quite understand,” she says.

  “I don’t want you trapped in that house. I can keep you here for a while because that house is all stairs, and you can’t climb them. But even when you move back, I want to be able to keep an eye on you. Now, Tomas, you know I don’t believe in a benevolent God, or any God at all, or even Providence, and any fate I believe in is only cruel. But I think I can make something happen that will be good for all of us. Tomas, you’re going to have to use your clerical authority. I want you somehow to hint at mortal sin.”

  “I wouldn’t do that, Isabel.”

  “Well, never mind, I will.”

  “She wouldn’t believe you.”

  “She might believe a sinner would know the ins and outs of sin.”

  “We don’t need to bring sin into it.”

  “Why not? She will.”

  “You know what our mother would say: ‘You must show that you are that much better than they.’ ”

  “I always hated that as a child. I hate it now. But I’m going to go on. I think what could be a good thing for us all is for you to hire Marian as your assistant. She can help you collect and catalog specimens. You need someone who knows both English and Spanish…and do you have Latin, Señora Ortiz?”

  “Enough,” Marian says. “Please call me Marian.”

  “If we have to bring the bishop in, we will. And I am, of course, Isabel.”

  “I know he’ll think it’s an excellent idea.”

  “The old hypocrite.”

  “Isabel, he’s a good man in many ways, within his limits. And I would not have my life as a botanist except for him.”

  “Yes, yes, but that doesn’t make up for everything. Never mind. Does your father-in-law really need you in the ironmonger’s?”

  “I don’t think so. I just think he lets me work there to be kind. And I’m not bad at bookkeeping. But I can do that anywhere, anytime.”

  “He is a kind man, poor sod; God knows how he got the bad luck to end up with her. The story is that she had a great love who disappeared and ditched her, and she married poor Ramón out of desperation. And then he learned what desperation might be. You know, he had smallpox as a child, and he must always have felt unattractive. Whatever you want to say about Pilar, she’s good-looking. Maybe he thought he hit the jackpot. Instead of the pisspot.”

  Marian wonders if Tomas will remark on Isabel’s language, or her lack of charity, but he says nothing.

  “So then it’s settled,” Isabel says.

  “Isabel, I think you’ve forgotten something,” Tomas says.

  “What?” Isabel says, impatient, ready to be off.

  “You haven’t asked Marian.”

  She puts back her head and laughs. “Oh, that little thing,” she says.

  Marian doesn’t know how she can convey the extent of her gratitude, the extent of her amazement at the prospect of a new life. Of any life at all.

  “I’d be more than honored,” she says.

  “Good. Now we have to beard the lion. You’d better wear your cassock, Tomas. Bring the biretta too, just in case.”

  Tomas says, “This has exhausted me. I’m going to bed.” Marian wonders if he’ll bless them, the leave-taking of every priest she’s known. But he doesn’t. He kisses his sister; he lays his unmutilated hand on Marian’s head and wishes her a good rest.

  Isabel sits down and lights another cigarette. “It’s not just good for you and Tomas, don’t think that. I need someone to talk to, someone I can feel free with. With Tomas, one has to be careful not to be too dark. You’ll be giving me a great gift.”

  “I’ve done nothing,” Marian says.

  “Well, perhaps we’ve all simply done what we were meant to do. By whom, of course, I have no idea.”

  •

  Marian had thought that the touch of Tomas’s hand on her head and the effects of the brandy would put her right to sleep. But she can’t sleep; she’s excited. And Isabel has warned her that sleeplessness might follow being taken off the drug. But for the first time in a long time, she is hopeful, and the new feeling pierces through the old dead skin of hopelessness that had become so customary that it was no longer noticeable.

  It happened so fast. Too fast? She had been carried to the doctor’s surgery, the doctor had given her an injection, and when she awoke, her leg was in
a cast. Then she’d been carried to another part of the house—a servant explained that some patients were taken there to convalesce. She had been fed and bathed. She had slept, been fed, and bathed again. And then, arriving like an army on the march, the doctor: We will speak English. And without consultation or hesitation: We will change your life.

  She’s afraid. Having been offered this possibility when she thought no possibilities were open to her, she can’t bear the idea that it will be taken away. That she might have to go back to her old life. The old fog. She has always been afraid of her mother-in-law. Will the doctor, Isabel, be strong enough to counteract Pilar’s strength? An iron woman. A woman of stone.

  She thinks of the old children’s game. Rock, paper, scissors. Rock breaks scissors. Scissors cuts paper. Paper covers rock. Her mother-in-law is the rock. Isabel, so sharp, so determined to cut through things with her every word and gesture: she is the scissors. And Tomas—is he the paper, his role to cover over, perhaps with the authority of the Church? She doesn’t like the analogy. Rock paper scissors, scissors paper rock, paper scissors rock. It’s an endless game, and it can never be finished, never really won.

  •

  Señora Ortiz has been told to arrive at eleven o’clock. At ten minutes to eleven, the servant—whose name, Marian has learned, is Teresa—arrives, carrying a pitcher of orange water and, next to it on a wooden tray, four glasses. Isabel and Tomas settle themselves in two chairs near Marian’s bed. They place the third chair between them, but farther from Marian, closer to the center of the room.

  “Don’t tell me you’ve got the jitters,” Tomas says.

  “She’s everything about this country I hate.”

  “She won’t defeat you.”

  “Why, do we have God on our side this time?”

  “We have each other.”

  —

  Señora Ortiz is wearing her best clothes; a tight-fitting wool suit and black suede shoes with thick high heels and open toes. A small hat, pressed close to her head, in the shape of a crescent moon.

  “Father Tomas, I hope you’re feeling well.”

  “Yes, thank you, Pilar. And you? And Ramón? And little Ignacio? We were hoping to see him here.”

  “He’s very susceptible to germs. I didn’t want to bring him to a place where he would be exposed to possible infection.” She still has not addressed Isabel, but her remarks jet out and land on the doctor like a squid’s ink.

  “Let’s get to the point,” Isabel says. “Your daughter-in-law says you’ve been giving her a tonic.”

  “She’s anemic.”

  “In fact, Pilar, she’s not. The tonic has had a soporific effect; perhaps that’s partly responsible for the fall. What’s in the tonic?”

  “A traditional Spanish medicine.”

  “That would interest me, Pilar,” Tomas says. “As you know, I’m particularly interested in medicinal plants. I’d appreciate it if you’d allow me to analyze it.”

  Señora Ortiz snaps her head back: an animal afraid that the trap set for her will not be one she can avoid.

  “I’ll get it to you at some point, Father. I’m rather busy now.”

  “Good, good, thank you, Pilar. What I was hoping, Pilar, is that it would suit you if I could hire your daughter-in-law as my assistant in working on this botanical project I’ve been trying to complete for years now. I really need someone to help me with collecting and categorizing plants. It has to be someone who knows both Spanish and English.”

  Señora Ortiz’s eyebrows come together, as if a wire had been inserted into the skin of her forehead and then pulled tight.

  “It seems to me, Pilar,” Isabel says, “that Marian should stay here until her leg is healed. I know how busy you are, with the pharmacy, and your grandson, and I’m sure you don’t need the extra burden of having to care for someone who can’t go up and down stairs by herself. Of course, her son will miss her.”

  “Ignacio is fine with me,” Señora Ortiz says, opening her mouth as little as possible, as if begrudging, Marian thinks, even the sound of the child’s name in this room.

  “Perhaps you’d like some time to think it over, Pilar.”

  Señora Ortiz stands up and takes a snowy handkerchief out of her pocketbook. She wipes her mouth with it, replaces it, and shuts her pocketbook with a vengeful click.

  “That isn’t necessary, Father. I think you’ve worked it all out for yourselves.”

  “God will reward you, Pilar,” Tomas says.

  “May I have your blessing, Father?”

  “Of course,” he says.

  Señora Ortiz falls to her knees, a gesture of such habituation that she needs nothing to lean on. The sight of such rote abjection sickens Marian, and she sees the reflection of her disgust on the face of Isabel.

  Father Tomas blesses her with his wounded hand, but lays the good hand on the top of her head.

  “You know where to find me if I’m needed,” she says. She places a dry kiss on Marian’s forehead, and it’s all Marian can do not to wipe the spot as soon as the lips are removed.

  “I’m wondering, Father, if I might ask the favor of your accompanying me to my door.”

  “I’d be pleased,” Father Tomas says. No one meets anyone’s eye.

  Isabel paces up and down.

  “I hope she doesn’t talk him into anything. He can be easily threatened. He can be easily made to feel moral responsibility for something that has neither morality nor responsibility attached.”

  —

  They hear the door close, and he walks into the room. “You must understand she’s not really a bad person.”

  “Tomas, you wouldn’t have thought Caligula was really a bad person. But go on. I take it this was not said to you under the rubric of the sacrament.”

  “No, she made the point that she was not confessing because she had not sinned, but she thought, of all of us, I would understand because I was the only one who had been, in her words, ‘true to his baptism.’ She’s not a bad person, but I do believe she’s guilty of the sin of idolatry. But, thank God, I’m not her confessor, so it’s not my responsibility.”

  “What the hell are you talking about, Tomas? And you’re wrong. She is a bad person. Look at what she did to Marian.”

  “Idolatry. The worship of a false god. In the Middle Ages, it was grounds for being burnt as a heretic.”

  “Some customs should be revived,” Isabel says.

  “Isabel, stop,” Tomas says, and remarkably, she bows her head, chastened.

  “She worships the Church, not God, and she worships fascism. And I think, Marian, that she worships your child as if he were not a child of God, but a little jeweled god himself.”

  “I find the way they are together disturbing,” Marian says. “And there’s no way I can be with him because of the way she is with him.”

  “I know, Marian. I know you’re right. I’m very sorry. But by her lights, what she did to you was to protect you and, particularly, little Ignacio. She was afraid if she didn’t sedate you, you’d be indiscreet, that you’d say things that no one should be saying, that because you were American, you wouldn’t understand the need for silence, and that they’d take your child away from you and put him in an orphanage. She’s not wrong; they did do that, they still are doing that to the children of people they call ‘reds,’ and it’s very easy for them to label you a red, therefore outside the protection of the law. Really, Marian, she believes that what she did was the best thing to protect you and Ignacio.”

  “It is grotesque, Tomas, that you don’t think it’s evil, what she’s done,” Isabel says.

  “I’m very reluctant to use the word ‘evil’…I’ve seen what happens when people use it casually. It’s real, I know it’s real, but probably rather rare. Mostly, people are in impossible positions, and they act impossibly.”

  “Well, she’s not going to act impossibly anymore.”

  “Because your intelligence and imagination are more powerful than her idolatry.
Try and pity her. She has lost her son; she lost him before he died. She felt quite alone in the world until this little boy, and now she’s in danger, in her worship of him, of loving him in a way that will distort his growth.”

  “What can I do for him?” Marian asks.

  “First, you must save yourself. Or allow my sister to save you. You will be with us every day, you will help me in my work, Isabel will bring you back to health. You see, my sister is a formidable woman. I often think if she’d been in charge of the Republican army, she’d be running the government from Madrid.”

  “Except for one little problem, brother. The lack of a penis.”

  Isabel lights a cigarette, enjoying, Marian can see, her role as the bad girl, the daring big sister. Marian feels she has been caught in a whirlwind. What is the right thing to be feeling? Outrage? Relief? Anger at Tomas’s pity of the woman who has caused her and her son such harm? When the whirlwind stops, she is left with a feeling of amazement. For this brother and sister. One who can make things happen. One who insists that we forgive.

  •

  Now she wakes in the mornings knowing that she is alive, that there is a difference between aliveness and deadness, and that she is on the side of the alive. Now colors take on their old vividness; things have points; things have edges, have outlines; there are spaces between them through which light strikes, clear, an arrow or a knife. Why had it meant nothing to her that at the edge of the town there is the sea, the Mediterranean? Mare Nostrum. Our sea. She had never thought of swimming; now she will think of it. She will have to buy a bathing suit acceptable to the priests and the Guardia. Perhaps that means it will be impossible for swimming.