“Think about it, gentlemen: a perpetual child bride.” That was the first voice again. “She’d be totally dependent on you. She wouldn’t think a thing unless you put the thought into her head.”
“She’d never defy you.”
“She wouldn’t know how.”
Someone made a slurping noise.
“You could do anything you liked to her.” The first voice had changed now, become darker. “She literally couldn’t complain.”
There were a few beats of silence, then a new man interjected: “It must be better than keeping a colored girl!”
Everyone laughed.
Somehow Joseph managed to make his legs obey him. By the time he reached the piazza, he was running. Too fast. His tearing eyes were on his feet, not on what lay ahead. Joseph collided with a man standing at the bottom of the steps and crashed sideways onto the ground.
It wasn’t a man—it was the Bishop! As he struggled to rise, Joseph wobbled uncertainly: left knee to honor His Lordship, both for Penance. Joseph grabbed Bishop England’s right hand to kiss his ring and sank deeply onto both knees. “Forgive me, my lord!”
“Joseph!” The Bishop’s hand caught him gently under his chin, titling up his face, though Joseph did not let himself look up. “Are you all right?” He must have seen Joseph’s tears, the ones that had started before his fall.
“Are you hurt?” chorused a female voice at his side, one Joseph recognized: the Bishop’s sister, Miss Joanna, who had come with him from Ireland.
Joseph murmured, “I know it’s a mortal sin to strike a Priest.” He’d almost knocked over a Bishop.
“Only if that was your intention, lad. Did you run into me on purpose?”
“No, my lord!”
“Then you don’t need Absolution, son. You didn’t injure me.” The Bishop laid a hand on his shoulder like a benediction. “Only be more careful in future.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Will you show me you aren’t hurt?”
Joseph swiped away his tears and rose slowly. He felt a twinge in his hip where he’d struck the ground. The knees of his trousers were stained, too. He pictured May scrubbing them in the yard and felt even worse.
“Should we find your father?” Miss Joanna suggested.
“No. Thank you.” With his eyes lowered, Joseph could see only Bishop England’s leather shoes and the hem of his sister’s grey gown.
“Sure weren’t we speaking of Joseph a few minutes ago, John?”
“Indeed. We were discussing yesterday’s Vespers and how blessed we feel every time we hear you sing.”
“Like a foretaste of Heaven, Joseph.” Miss Joanna touched his arm. “’Tis a gift from God you have: the voice of an angel.” Joseph knew he was blushing. Then the Bishop’s sister added with a sigh: “’Tis truly a shame your mother cannot hear it.”
Joseph nodded haltingly. He’d thought it himself, about so many sounds. Every morning and every evening, Joseph prayed that God would restore Mama’s hearing. But even if He granted a miracle tomorrow, Mama would never know what Joseph’s little brother had sounded like when he giggled. “My lord…when we are in Heaven”—if Joseph ever achieved it—“will Mama be able to hear me then?”
“Yes, son. At the Resurrection of the Dead, we shall all be transformed. We shall have perfect bodies.”
All? Joseph dared to glance up. “Will there be negroes there, too?”
“Absolutely. The Revelation of John the Apostle is clear: he saw ‘all nations and tribes and peoples’ standing before God’s throne, praising Him.”
Side by side? Would the negroes still look like negroes? How then could they be perfect, cleansed of their sin and washed “as white as snow”?
Joseph was unable to voice these questions. He saw someone else standing nearby, waiting to talk to His Lordship. Joseph was reluctant to relinquish him, but he knelt quickly to kiss the Bishop’s ring again and left them. Joseph still felt sore and unsettled from his fall, as if it might happen again. And what those men in the drawing room had said about Mama—and Papa…
Joseph retreated deeper into the garden. Their host had set out lanterns. Along the high wall separating the garden from the neighbors’ yard, a white bench stood out, set between two crêpe myrtle trees with orange leaves. On the bench, a girl was hunched over with her face in her hands. Joseph heard her sobs almost in the same moment he realized it was his sister.
He hurried to her. “Cathy?”
She glanced up, recognized him, and hid her face again.
Joseph sat beside his sister on the bench. “What’s wrong?”
“Theodosia Lockwood!” Cathy choked out. “She said it was about time I got better hair! She said I need it, because my real hair looks like a colored girl’s!”
“That’s ridiculous.” Joseph remembered he had a handkerchief and offered it to his sister.
“I know!” Cathy blew her nose loudly.
“Did you tell Theodosia that our grandmother was a Spanish noblewoman—and that’s where you got your hair?”
“No,” she moaned. “The other girls started laughing at me, and I ran away.”
“Do you want me to talk to them?”
Cathy drew in a shaky breath and sat up straight. “No; I should do it.” She glanced down at the sodden kerchief, then at Joseph. “Do you want this back?”
He chuckled and shook his head.
His sister blew her nose one last time and tucked the handkerchief into a pocket. “Thank you.” Cathy stood up and raised her head to its usual angle. “I’m going to tell Theodosia that my hair isn’t nearly as ugly as her teeth.”
Joseph smiled in spite of himself. He knew he should advise his sister to behave like Christ and turn the other cheek. But he also knew Cathy wouldn’t listen. He watched her stride back to face her enemies.
Joseph stayed on the bench until Mama appeared. They moved closer to a lantern, but it was still hard to see all her signs clearly. Joseph gathered that the Grands had gone home and Hélène was falling asleep. Papa was also ready to leave because Mrs. Prioleau was after him again. Joseph laughed. The old woman always wanted to describe some new rash.
‘Have you seen Catherine?’ Mama asked him.
Joseph nodded, but he decided not to tell Mama what Theodosia Lockwood had said. It would only upset her.
He turned when he heard hushed voices behind them. Two boys climbed onto the nearby bench, and then one boy hoisted the other to the top of the garden wall. Even in the half-light, Joseph recognized them: brothers a few years older than himself and also French Creole. More than once, they’d disturbed Mass by making ridiculous noises. Now, the first boy hauled the second atop the wall with him, until they were both wobbling on the ledge.
Scowling upward, Mama clapped her hands to attract their attention. When she succeeded, she made a sharp pointing motion at the ground.
The brothers turned back to each other and sniggered. Joseph caught the words: “That’s the dummy!”
Joseph’s face grew hot. He was glad Mama couldn’t understand. She clapped her hands again, louder.
“Only if you say ‘please,’ dummy!” one of the boys taunted, speaking as if to a child. His brother found this hilarious.
Then the boys ignored Mama entirely. They stuck out their arms to balance like unsteady tight-rope walkers as they peered into the next property. Each lot was supposed to be its own private domain. It was bad manners to look through your own windows on the side that faced your neighbors. What the boys were doing was disgraceful as well as dangerous. Joseph wondered if he should say something, but surely the brothers wouldn’t obey him either. Should he run and find Papa?
Then, Mama commanded the boys with words. Her syllables sounded broken, and they startled even Joseph. He’d never heard her speak before. Even laughing seemed to embarrass Mama. He thought she was trying to say “Get down right now!”
In response, the boys on the wall broke out in unsuppressed guffaws and nearly fell off. First o
ne brother then the other imitated her sounds, distorting them even worse. Though Mama couldn’t hear them, she understood that the boys were mocking her. She clamped her mouth shut, drew in a few unsteady breaths, and turned back toward the house.
Before he followed her, Joseph shouted up at the brothers: “She was trying to keep you from breaking your worthless necks!” Sometimes he wasn’t very good at behaving like Christ either.
Joseph and Mama found Papa carrying Hélène, her arms around his neck. Hélène waited till Mama wasn’t looking, then she squinted an eye open and grinned at Joseph. She wasn’t sleepy at all. She’d simply found the perfect excuse for a hug—with Mama right there.
When they reunited with Cathy, Joseph raised his eyebrows in question. His sister nodded and smiled. She didn’t need words either.
At home, May met them in the hall with a lamp, and Mama noticed Joseph’s stained knees. Papa set down Hélène and followed Joseph into his bedchamber. Joseph disrobed to his long shirt, and Papa confirmed that Joseph’s only injury was the bruise already forming on his hip. Papa said he had a salve in his office.
Joseph didn’t want him to leave yet. “Papa…can Mama speak?”
“Did she?”
Joseph nodded haltingly and explained about the boys on the garden wall.
“That is why she stopped speaking,” Papa said quietly, “and why she tried so hard. Adult cruelty is usually more subtle, that’s all.”
“Does she remember how to speak from before she went deaf?”
“Perhaps a little. She tried to learn again at the Institute in Paris.” Papa sat heavily in Joseph’s chair, and Joseph settled on the edge of his bed. “The Abée de l’Épée founded the Institute on sign—he called it the ‘natural language’ of the deaf. But many of the men who came after him have dismissed sign as primitive and refused to learn it. One of them was a doctor named Itard. He insisted that deaf children should speak.” Papa stared out Joseph’s window at the dark piazza, but he seemed to be seeing the school all those years ago. “That was what your mother wanted: to appear ‘normal.’ She and so many other pupils struggled for years to form sounds they couldn’t hear. Of course their speech was imperfect, and when they tried to read other people’s lips, they could understand only fragments. Your mother was in tears almost every day. She could read and write French and sign beautifully, but she thought she was a failure.” Papa shook his head. “I wanted to strangle him, that Itard. He was the worst kind of physician.”
Joseph frowned. “Because he wouldn’t learn to sign?”
Still Papa addressed the window. “Itard also tried to ‘fix’ the deaf children. He shocked their ears with electricity. He forced probes through their noses. He burned their skin with poultices. He purposefully took a hammer and fractured their skulls! He accomplished nothing but suffering. He killed a boy, trying to make him hear again—and your mother was heartbroken because Itard was experimenting only on the male pupils. So she begged me to fix her.”
Joseph held his breath. What a terrible choice. But if there was a chance she could be cured… “Did you try?”
“No!” Papa cried, staring at him as if Joseph hadn’t been listening.
Before Joseph could respond, they heard a timid knock. The door crept open, and Mama peered around it. ‘Is he all right?’ she signed.
Papa nodded and stood. To Joseph, he said: “I’ll find that salve.”
Chapter 9
In a higher world it is otherwise, but here below to live is to change, and to be perfect is to have changed often.
— John Henry Cardinal Newman, Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine (1845)
Joseph wondered what color he was. He suspected he had passed pink quite some time ago and turned downright crimson. Not only his cheeks but his entire body felt as if it were on fire, and it had nothing to do with the temperature of the air.
“Do you have any questions?” came Papa’s voice from the other side of his desk.
Joseph shook his head and kept his eyes on his shoes. He’d thought that painting of the Virgin’s breast was the most dangerous thing in Papa’s office. He’d been wrong. Spread out between them now were half a dozen proximate occasions of sin: distressingly detailed anatomical diagrams.
“I know I’ve made you uncomfortable, son, and your modesty does you credit. I considered waiting another year. But your body is starting to change, and you’ve such a keen, curious mind. I would rather give you the truth early than have you grow up gathering lies the way other boys do. And believe it or not, what I’ve just told you is a fraction of what you’ll need to know before your wedding night.”
Already Joseph’s head was swimming. Mama said taking pleasure in anything except God was a sin. But Papa spoke as if a husband’s pleasure was inevitable and his wife’s pleasure was his responsibility. How could a man ask a woman to let him do—that to her unless he made it pleasant?
“Would you like to borrow any of these books?”
Joseph shook his head again. Perhaps too quickly: Papa understood that he really wanted to nod.
He chuckled. “If you can’t stop thinking about women’s bodies, son—even if blood has gone somewhere besides your cheeks—that isn’t a sin. It’s perfectly natural. It’s necessary!”
If such a thing was possible, more blood rushed to Joseph’s face. There was none left to go anywhere else.
Joseph heard Papa closing books. “Or, if you can’t imagine yourself doing such a thing, that’s perfectly natural too. Just come to me when you’ve changed your mind. Will you do that, Joseph?”
He nodded. At the edge of his vision, he watched Papa stack the last volume. Joseph felt both relief and disappointment.
Papa’s hands lingered on the book, but he seemed to have forgotten its contents. “I know I’m gone more than I’m here…”
Jealousy stabbed Joseph in the stomach. When Papa was home, Joseph wished he wouldn’t spend so much time talking to their slaves. But Joseph understood why Papa often left early and returned late. “Your patients need you. I know that.” Joseph looked up. “Your work is important.”
“You are important too, Joseph.” Papa held his eyes till Joseph realized it was true.
The mantle clock chimed then. Papa raised his eyebrows. “Tempus fugit, indeed. If you’re sure you don’t want to ask anything, I need to pay a call on a botanist friend. I promised your mother I would find out why there are black spots on the leaves of her roses.”
“May I come with you?”
Papa seemed to hesitate. “My friend’s garden is up on the Neck. It will be a long, hot trip.”
“I don’t mind.” Joseph did have a question to ask.
Papa glanced toward the parlor. He looked worried. “I suppose your mother and sisters are still over at the Grands’.”
Right now, the thought of being in the same room with a woman—any woman—was terrifying. But Joseph didn’t want Mama to fret. “Should I tell them I’m going with you?”
“No—don’t.” The response was surprisingly quick and sharp, more like a prohibition. Papa tried to soften it: “Henry can tell them when they come back.”
Papa brought his medical satchel—he took it everywhere, whatever his plans—and they retrieved their hats from the hall. Henry had already harnessed their old mare to the chaise.
“Thank you, Henry!” Papa called with a wave as the black man closed the gate behind them.
When they’d turned onto Coming Street, Joseph asked: “Papa, did you ever serve at Mass?”
“No…”
“Yesterday, Father McEncroe spoke to our class—about how we might think we have nothing to give to Our Lord, because we’re only boys, but we do: we can assist His Priests. Father McEncroe said we should ask our parents first. I haven’t talked to Mama yet, but I know she’ll say yes.”
“Of course she will,” Papa answered without taking his eyes from the mare.
“M-May I, Papa?”
“I was hoping you were go
ing to ask me something about women,” he murmured. “You’re already in the choir. Why do you want to be an altar server too?”
Joseph stared at Papa. Because God made me, and you, and everything—because He DIED for me—and I’ve done so little to thank Him! Because Holy Communion will help me fight my wickedness! He was deciding what to say aloud when Papa interrupted his thoughts:
“Oh, Joseph—I’m so sorry.”
He followed Papa’s eyes. They had passed outside the city and were approaching the Lines. The walls were empty, but Joseph looked away quickly. He would see those twenty-two hanging negroes until the day he died.
“I came this way without even thinking…” Papa urged their mare past the ruins.
“It’s all right,” Joseph murmured, even though lying was a sin.
“Hélène told me how you comforted her that day. I have never been prouder of you, Joseph. Your mind is exceptional—everyone tells you that. We should also tell you how impressive your heart is.”
“You were prouder about my comforting Hélène than you were at my Confirmation?”
Papa sighed. “If you want to be a server, you have my blessing. But there are more important things than saints and Sacraments, Joseph.”
If lightning struck them right now, would Papa go to Hell?
“You are certainly your mother’s son. She wanted to become a nun. Did you know that?”
Joseph shook his head. “Why didn’t she?”
“I wish I could say she chose me instead. The truth is, no order would accept her. Can you believe that? Your mother is the most devout woman I know. And who would keep the Great Silence better than a deaf-mute? Those nuns were blind: they couldn’t see past medieval ideas that deafness is proof of God’s displeasure, that it ‘prevents faith.’ One Mother Superior said your mother could live in their community as an act of charity, but not as a postulant. Those nuns humiliated her. I told your mother: ‘You are perfect just as you are. Take your vows with me.’ That is the Church you are so eager to serve.”
Necessary Sins Page 9
