by John Moss
With Officer Singh leading, the three of them slipped through and into the building. The crowd was moving in an orderly column down the centre of the nave, so they cut behind the pillars to the side and past the frescoes they had seen before, all of them now beautifully illuminated. The scaffolding was still against the wall beneath the fourth panel that Alexander Pope had been working on a fortnight ago. The plaster had been peeled off entirely. Sister Marie Celeste appeared to be hovering in mid-air, toes pointed like a ballet dancer to display additional stigmata where nails had been thrust through the flesh of her elongated feet. Smaller figures could now be seen toiling at the ordinary tasks of a farming community. She was clearly one of them, yet divinely enhanced, with size and evanescent colour and an ethereal demeanour testifying to her inspired estrangement from the world.
Alexander Pope was standing in front of the window beside the fifth and final panel, which, from the oblique angle of their approach, was nothing more than hand-smoothed white plaster. He seemed an ambiguous presence. He might have been a security guard or Charon at the gates of Hades. He looked haggard, as if he had not rested in a long time, and yet somehow triumphant. Was this, Morgan wondered, what he had secretly been working for all along? The adulation of the masses for the gift of his genius?
Yet no one seemed to be paying him much attention, apart from responding to his solitary posture, facing away from the wall, as a warning not to approach too closely.
When Pope saw them, his wan smile suggested long-suffering forbearance. Miranda gave him an awkward hug, Morgan shook hands, and Peter Singh made incomprehensible gestures meant to indicate he had returned under forces over which he had no control, his pantomime ending with an open-palmed shrug.
“Alexander,” said Miranda. “What on earth have you been doing? Your gentle pilgrims have multiplied.”
“Exponentially,” he responded. “It’s all quite unexpected, and…,” lowering his voice, he continued, “quite undesirable.”
“What do your sponsors think?” Morgan asked.
“Oh, well, you know, I’m not sure.”
“If they wanted a tourist attraction, this could be another Lourdes.”
“No, I think not. One is more than enough. The object of this project was not to arouse shallow religiosity, but to bring an aesthetic wonder back into the world. I have not the genius to create such a work, but perhaps I do, to give it new life.”
“A not-modest undertaking,” said Morgan, mimicking what he heard as mildly condescending locution.
“But humbly undertaken,” Miranda countered, a little defensively.
Alexander Pope seemed unaware of or indifferent to the subtleties of their discourse. “These people interfere with my work,” he declared. “The quiet and calm is deceptive. I would be torn limb from limb as a heretic should I resume my labours by peeling away their sacred image.”
“They seem a gentle crowd,” Miranda interceded.
“Hell hath no fury like a zealot denied.”
“They do not seem zealous,” she responded. “Maybe the zeal is your own, and the fury, your suppressed rage at the intrusion.”
He looked down at her and curled his lips in a tight smile. “I am at a standstill, an impasse.”
“Celebrity is fickle,” Morgan observed, without lack of sympathy. “Fame interferes with what you are famous for doing.”
“It is not about me, Detective, I assure you. I am merely a talented enabler. I reveal what already exists. But they see what they wish, not what is there.”
Alexander Pope blinked several times and leaned back to his full height, gazing over at what, from their side-view perspective, still looked like a blank plaster wall. Morgan was intrigued by the arrogance of the gaunt man peering down at him. Miranda felt sorry for him. He was obviously distressed by his reduced role. The apparition was no longer his to present, but rather his to protect; it was the property of those who saw in it a miraculous vision. Peter Singh found the whole situation entertaining; he was bemused to see this rather austere and pompous man bereft of authority.
“Well,” said Miranda. “Let’s take a look. Lead on, Peter. You have the uniform.”
Singh walked straight into the double columns of people who were shuffling up through the nave and circling at the chancel to pass down in front of the panel before moving out through the vestibule. The crowd parted and let them through. From the far side, they looked across and Pope’s three visitors were astonished to see a brilliantly illuminated portrayal of Mary’s Assumption.
“My goodness,” said Morgan.
“My God,” said Miranda. “It may not be a miracle, but it’s magnificent. Alexander, I had no idea.”
“It is very beautiful, isn’t it?”
“It is the Virgin Mary on her way to Heaven,” Officer Singh observed.
“Actually,” said Alexander Pope, “it is Saint Marie Celeste. These people,” he said, lowering his voice to a discreet whisper, “most of them have never heard of Sister Marie. For them, it is Mary. They want miracles, but they want them familiar. Nothing too taxing on the imagination.”
“I would think your pilgrims are wonderfully imaginative,” said Morgan. “These people invest a beautifully rendered apparition with supernatural powers. Faith outruns reason; surely that’s imagination. Just not yours or mine.”
Miranda listened to Morgan with some surprise. He was the one who’d admonished her for saying she was an agnostic, when clearly, he would say, she’s an atheist, the same as him. And here he was, rising to the defence of the spiritually desperate. Yet she looked at the faces in the stream flowing by and saw no desperation, only a kind of suspended worldliness, a wishful innocence, a haunted yearning to touch with their eyes a vision of God.
“It is beautiful, Alexander,” she said. “Did you do it?”
Taken aback, he stammered, “No… I… How… I have not started on that wall. The plaster… perhaps it is what lies underneath. Somehow the image shows through.”
Miranda laughed. “I didn’t mean literally. But, like, did you orchestrate the phenomenon? Did you make all this happen?”
“No, absolutely not. I’d rather get back to my work.”
“But what do you think?” Morgan asked. “Where did the picture come from? Is it by the same artist who did the others? Maybe the plaster covering peeled away in the night —”
“And was cleaned up by the pilgrims,” Miranda added, wanting to be part of the resolving discourse.
“It is possible,” said Peter.
The other three looked at him as if he had overstepped an invisible boundary. He brushed an imaginary speck of lint from his chest and repeated, “It is quite possible.”
“No,” said Alexander Pope. “It is not. The plaster on this one is the same vintage as the shrouds I have removed from the other four panels. It is not the same age as the original frescoes.”
“Is it possible for a fresco to bleed through?” Morgan asked.
“Perhaps, but not spontaneously. Perhaps over years the colour might seep, but not like this. It would not be such a clear replication.”
“Do we know what lies underneath?” Morgan continued.
“No, although logic suggests it would be the ascension of Marie Celeste, affirming her rise to the heavenly order. That in itself would have made the picture blasphemy in the eyes of the Church. Only Rome confers sainthood; God merely affirms the decision.”
“And this is clearly Sister Marie,” said Miranda. “You can follow her progress. In the fourth panel, she is beatific, but still of this earth. Here she has broken free of mortality; she’s not just floating, she’s soaring. Her stigmata have faded away. Her eyes are no longer raised heavenward — they look straight ahead and are radiant. Her dress is sky blue and her hair is the colour of sunlight. Alexander, she is breathtaking, stunning, a portrait of the truly divine. But it is clearly Marie Celeste.”
“Are we assuming this is by the same person?” asked Morgan.
“O
h, it is, Morgan. It has to be.”
“I’m inclined to agree,” said Alexander.
“And I as well,” said Peter.
Abruptly, Pope pulled away from their little enclave and pushed through the crowd, back to the base of the panel. When the others joined him, he said, “Sorry, I thought they were getting too close. They weren’t actually. They seem to be self-policing. Still, I worry.”
“You look absolutely exhausted,” said Miranda. “Why don’t you take a break, go out to your van for a nap, take a run into Penetang and have dinner? We’ll stand guard for a while.”
“I have a better idea,” said Morgan. “Close the place down for the night.”
“They’ll riot,” said Officer Singh.
“No they won’t. Believers climb mountains on bloodied knees for a glimpse of the shadow of God. Waiting overnight in a car will be welcomed as penance for imagined sins. They’ll feel they’ve earned their revelation if they have to wait.”
“How do you propose we go about this?” said Miranda.
“Simple. We close the door. Put up a sign that says ‘Visitors Welcome,’ followed by a clear indication of hours, say ten a.m. to four p.m. Make them feel welcome, but control their access. Let those in here file out. Close the other door. Alexander then has eighteen hours to do what he wants. Daily.”
“Let’s do it,” said Peter Singh.
“Agreed,” said Alexander Pope. “A very good idea, Detective. And with Officer Singh in his uniform, and you two looking like police —”
“We don’t,” said Miranda.
“A compliment, my dear. You both carry yourselves with unmistakable authority.”
Miranda looked at Morgan’s habitual rumpled demeanour and laughed.
When the building had been cleared, the four of them stood in front of the revealed apparition. From the centre of the nave it was not quite so distinct as it had been from farther away. The closer they got to it, the more blurred it seemed, until right beneath it the lines were quite vague and the colours, while still somewhat opalescent, were subdued. As Miranda had noticed before, when they moved to the side, the bright illumination virtually washed the colour away and the entire panel glowed in a white sheen.
It is interesting, she thought, that the people filing through, while they could see it more clearly from across the nave, did not really respond until they were closer. Close up, perhaps, it was less an aesthetic experience. In the dramatic blur, when they could almost reach out and touch the holy apparition, there might be satisfaction of a deeper kind, one she did not fully apprehend.
They heard a shuffling noise in the shadows. Miranda wheeled around. Two of the original pilgrims moved quietly into the light and walked by them, brooms in hand. These were true believers in Saint Marie Celeste, who somehow had access to the building through the sacristy. It did not occur to Miranda or Morgan, or Alexander Pope, or even Peter Singh, to interfere.
Stepping up onto the chancel where the altar would have been, they turned and looked down into the empty church, each of them imagining what it must have been like when Marie Celeste was alive. There was something quite moving about the empty building, restored to meaning by a picture on a wall. Three more acolytes appeared from the shadows and busied themselves cleaning and dusting. It was eerie, Miranda thought. And satisfying, somehow. And strangely affirming.
She was the first to notice. “Do you smell something?” she asked.
“What?” said Peter Singh.
“Fleur de Rocaille,” said Morgan.
“What?” said Miranda.
“It’s a perfume.”
“I know it’s a perfume. Is that what you smell?”
“Lucy used to wear it.”
“Who’s Lucy?” asked Peter.
Morgan ignored him. Miranda answered, “His wife.”
“What is it?” said Alexander. “I’m not sure I smell anything.”
“Oh, you do,” Miranda insisted. “A strong odour of violets.”
“Yeah,” said Morgan. “Violets. Was it here all along or did it just come in with the pilgrims?”
“I think it was here. It was masked by all the people, but it’s here.”
“The smell of saints,” Morgan observed, his voice suggesting he found his own statement at the edge of credulity. “When they’re dead, their bodies exude the odour of violets.”
All five pilgrims had gathered at the edge of the chancel and stood watching them, listening.
“Well, what do you think it is?” Morgan said to the one closest.
“I think it is Saint Marie Celeste,” he responded in a matter-of-fact tone. “We sometimes smell violets when we work here at night. She is buried beneath where you’re standing.”
Miranda instinctively took a step to the side, the way she would in a cemetery when she became aware she was standing over a grave. But here there was no marker. Just slabs of limestone, each big enough to cover a body.
Morgan smiled at the man. It was the first time he had heard one of them speak. “Do you think she is still here?” he asked. “Perhaps the Church removed her body.”
“No,” the man answered. “It was the Church who left.”
Morgan nodded.
“They left; but this is a holy place. You cannot change what the Lord has done, though you speak with the words of the Lord.”
“Undoubtedly,” said Morgan. “So where do you think she is? About here?” he said, indicating a slab at his feet.
“No,” said the man, stepping up. “Under this rock, here.”
“Shall we look?” said Morgan.
“If you wish,” the man responded.
“Morgan!” said Miranda. Turning away from him to address the pilgrim, she asked, “What do you think of the…,” she paused, nodding in the direction of the wall panel, “… the Virgin Mary?”
“It is a picture of Saint Marie Celeste,” the man said in a quiet voice. “It is only a picture. Her remains are beneath this stone — of no use to her, now — and she is with Mary in heaven.”
Alexander spoke up. “Would you have no objections if we took a look?”
“None at all,” said the man. “It is your building. But only what is in it. The unseen… that is ours. Do as you wish.”
Morgan and Alexander exchanged looks. Like boys engaged in a conspiracy, Miranda thought.
“Is it legal?” she said.
“Yes of course,” said Morgan. “Alexander has the authority. If he says it’s okay, it’s okay.”
Alexander stepped down and walked over to his scaffold where he reached underneath and retrieved a crowbar and a smaller pry bar. Together, he and Morgan prodded the cracks between the slabs, relieved to find as they pushed accumulated detritus away that there was no mortar between them.
“We might as well start with this one,” said Morgan, looking at the pilgrim for confirmation.
Miranda breathed deeply, inhaling the odour of violets into her lungs. She exhaled slowly, trying to prevent herself from hyperventilating. She was very uncomfortable with their ghoulish behaviour, and yet oddly curious.
The two men got their bars under a corner of one slab and lifted. It was five to six inches thick. Peter Singh rushed over to the scaffold and retrieved several four-by-fours, one of which he slipped under the raised corner. They moved around the slab, prying and lifting, until it rested on the beams. The odour of violets had become intense, almost sickening. The pilgrims moved close. Everyone except Miranda leaned down without orders being given and grasped the edge of the limestone and simultaneously lifted, walking it off to the side.
Miranda gasped. As the shadow of the stone slid across the opening and light flooded the cavity in a small stone crypt, she could see a woman’s body dressed in sky blue lying on rock, with only a smooth boulder beneath her golden hair to support the head. Her skin was the colour of alabaster and her lips were as bright as blood. Her eyelids curved softly over closed eyes. Her lashes flickered in the bright illumination as if they were g
oing to flash open, and her lips were poised as if she were about to speak. She was full-bodied and lithe in her absolute stillness, sensuous and innocent. All gazed at her in a profound hush, the mystery rendering them silent.
Then Miranda spoke. “It’s Shelagh Hubbard,” she said.
chapter thirteen
Yonge Street
The old church took on new life, swarming with Provincial Police. Peter Singh watched closely as they poked and prodded into every corner and shadow, assessing infinitesimal details of forensic interest, from dust motes to cobwebs. They had questioned him and Morgan and Miranda separately, hoping to find some anomaly in their description of events that might yield unexpected insights. They questioned Alexander Pope at length, but he seemed bewildered, as if his sacred trust had been violated. They interviewed the five pilgrims, finding them forthright and elusive, and of little value, it seemed, to the investigation. The pilgrims were told to go home, which they did.
Peter Singh observed all the activity in utter amazement. How did he have the great fortune to witness such an astonishing turn of events? Detectives Morgan and Quin had read the scene at the abandoned car like a novel, but they had been wrong, for their villain was here in a cold, stone crypt and very dead. Yet, inexorably, they had been drawn here — he seemed to have forgotten it was at his suggestion — and the body had been revealed. They had been redeemed, and he marvelled that he had been with them. He was inextricably a part of the plot.
“It must be disappointing for them,” Miranda observed as they left through the sacristy.
“I don’t think so,” said Morgan. “As far as they’re concerned, Shelagh Hubbard never existed. What they have seen tonight is the body of a saint, and it is exactly what they expected: smelling sweetly of violets and un-decomposed. I’d say the evening has been a singular success from their point of view.”
“Do you really think they believe it was her?” said Peter Singh, spreading his hands out to indicate a body lying in state. “We have told them it is not.”
“And who would you believe?” said Morgan. “Us or God?”
“God?”
