The Passion of Mary-Margaret

by Lisa Samson

  Hattie had roped Jude into helping her with her photo albums. When she showed me into the kitchen, he was cursing as he tried to insert a picture into some paper corners he’d stuck onto the page of the scrapbook.

  “D--- it, Hattie! Why did I let you—” Then he saw me. He stood and all I can say is, when love and fear and remorse mix together in a person’s eyes, it’s a fierce sight to behold. My heart broke for the second time in my life.

  I simply moved forward into his arms.

  He tightened them around me and he put his lips so lightly against my hair, I knew he was hoping I didn’t feel them. But I did, featherweight caressings of a heart so shattered, a life so worn through with holes, it couldn’t stop the wind and the rain.

  It couldn’t hold back the hailstones and sparks from the fire. It could only allow it all to pass through, hopefully unnoticed, but normally, not so.

  I allowed my arms to creep up his back and then my hands to curl around and grasp his shoulders from behind. His clavicles protruded so profoundly I could almost hook my fingers underneath them, and his scapulae grated against my palms, moving beneath his movement forward as he pulled me closer, his back becoming a C around my head and shoulders.

  Hattie left the room; I could tell by the sudden lessening of the decibels of Gerald’s snore as she closed the door.

  “Jude,” I whispered, his name like sweet glass in my mouth.

  “Why are you here?”

  “I wish I knew,” I said, meaning every word. “Why are you here might be the better question.” I breathed in the scent of his shirt. Hattie was, as you might guess, very thorough in the laundry department. The light blue cloth smelled like Tide and the faintest hint of cigarette smoke. “Hattie’s making you smoke outside?”

  He chuckled. “What do you think?”

  I pulled back and examined his face, reaching up to re­arrange a limp curl above his left eyebrow. His eyes were still as blue as the sea. A sea of sorrow, surrounded by a withered life.

  What was gone?

  I searched his eyes further, curling my hands around his shoulders and squeezing. “Jude?”

  He closed his eyes.

  “Jude, what happened?”

  “I was just a little sick.” He opened his eyes again and tried to smile.

  Anger.

  The anger was gone.

  Oh no. No wonder he looked deflated.

  “No. You’re different.”

  I didn’t want to say defeated. But that was it exactly. He looked the picture of that verse in Ephesians. He looked “dead in his trespasses and sins.”

  “Your pride is gone,” I said.

  He let go of me, shrugged, and stuffed his hands in the pockets of his pants. “Mary-Margaret . . .” Then he cleared his throat. “Never mind. Would you like some coffee? Hattie just made some.”

  “That would be nice.” I figured it was time to act normal. Just be Mary-Margaret from over at that strange Catholic school. “Did she happen to bake cookies?”

  “No. But there are a few biscuits left over from breakfast.”

  I was nervous. “I’d love one.”

  “I’ll get it for you.”

  My first thought was, with syphilis? And I realized it would be a long, long time before I’d ever feel comfortable with this man, if I ever would. I might even contract it, become just like Jude. But that didn’t mean that the Sister Mary-Margaretness of me would ever go away.

  He buttered the biscuit, then set it under the broiler for about a minute. It was the best biscuit I ever ate. To this day.

  I realized I, the orphan who’d learned this many times in the twenty-nine years of her life thus far, would take what I could get.

  Jude was frayed and shopworn, having been sold again and again only to be returned for another round in the marketplace. And I was buying this thing for keeps.

  He started to butter one for himself and another one for me.

  “Would you like some grape juice?” he asked, opening the freezer. “I’d like some, I think. I’ll make some up.”

  “Okay.”

  He squeezed the foil-lined, cardboard tube of frozen concentrate, dropping the icy juice cylinder into a hard plastic pitcher, then covered it with water from the rain barrel. He smashed it up against the sides of the pitcher with a wooden spoon, and the ice crystals scraped against the sides. Lightly. A breathy clicking as if he were crushing the grapes into the water.

  Finally, he pulled down two glasses. After he poured it into one, I took a deep breath. “Let’s just share. No sense in dirtying up another glass.”

  “Oh, but that’s okay. I know Hattie won’t mind—”

  “No, Jude. I want to. Remember when we were younger and we’d split a milkshake at the drugstore because that’s usually all the money we had? Come on, for old time’s sake. It’s not going to kill us or anything.”

  I remembered how he’d always say, “Well, if I can’t kiss you, at least I can get your germs off the straw.” Until I let him kiss me, of course.

  Oh, Jude. His name always winged through my head like a sigh. Sometimes pleasurable, sometimes weary, sometimes both.

  “I won’t be talked out of it.”

  “I heard you quit the order.” He set down the glass.

  “Who told you?” I took a sip and handed it to him.

  He took a sip, I believe, without thinking about it. “News gets around. One of the visitors from town.”

  “Who?”

  “I’m not sayin’, Mary-Margaret. You know me better than that.”

  “Yes, I do.” I made sure he knew what I meant by taking his hand. “I want you to come live in town. There’s a place near the docks that’s available.”

  “I don’t have any money.”

  “It’s for free.”

  “What’s the catch?”

  “You have to marry me, Jude.”

  He froze. In fact, I think the bay froze, the island froze, the world froze in wonder. Not at my severe mercy, but at, what seemed on its face, my sheer stupidity.

  “I think you’d better go now,” he whispered.

  Well, at least we shared the cup.

  I reached forward, took his biscuit, and bit down. I handed it to him. He bit down too.

  “All right, I’ll go.”

  At least we shared the bread.

  So here I sit now in Heathrow Airport, the slick, polished floors, lights, skylights, and chrome not exactly conducive to napping.

  I’m generally convinced Brother Joe wasn’t serving with John. Certainly he would have mentioned him. And whether or not he was still in Swaziland—he was ninety-seven after all—remained a mystery. My first stop would be the Cathedral of the Swaziland diocese in Manzini. Perhaps I could talk John into taking me there right away.

  I bought an interesting memoir that’s supposed to be funny and heartwarming, not tragic, but I suppose I’m more in the mood to tell my own story, which, while not tragic, certainly isn’t heartwarming in the usual sense. So I write.

  Religious Sister Marries Syphilitic Male Prostitute.

  Dandy. Just utterly dandy. Who wants to read a story about that?

  Sounds like an idea that only Jesus would come up with, doesn’t it?

  “Well, yes it does.”

  You’re back!

  He came and sat beside me.

  “I figured you’d need the moral support. This is quite a journey you’re on.”

  What is it I’m supposed to find out? I already know who my father is. Is he alive? Must I meet him face-to-face?

  “Now, my dear, do you really think I’m going to answer that?” He smiled.

  Jesus just put his arm around my shoulders. Had I not been at Heathrow, I would have nestled into him like a child. I always still feel like little Mary-Margaret when he’s with me.

  So this will be a mystery then?

  “It’s usually my way, T—, to be a little mysterious about the details. You’re just not used to it like most people. I told you earli
er you’ll get exactly what you need when the time comes.”

  Will it be dangerous?

  “No. That I can tell you. You won’t find yourself in physical danger.”

  Spiritual?

  “That, of course, is always up to you.” He shrugged. “Of course, we do what we can . . .”

  I laughed. I love you so much. But you know that. You know everything.

  “Nevertheless, I never get tired of hearing you say it, my dear.”

  He sat with me for a while and asked me to pray for several people who walked by, giving me tiny peeps of their stories. And I felt afresh the collective pain of humanity, the weight he must bear being so in love with his creation, and seeing us destroy each other.

  I’m sad. I know you’ve overcome the world, but sometimes, Lord, it just doesn’t feel like it.

  “I know, T—. But all will be redeemed.”

  It better be, I thought, not toward him, but well, it just popped into my head. Oh my!

  He laughed. “No, my dear. You’re exactly right. Or my word isn’t true.” And then he was gone.

  So, now I think I will read that book and perhaps head on over to the duty-free shop and buy a Cadbury Dairy Milk chocolate bar the size of a place mat. With any luck I’ll have some left by the time the plane lands in Johannesburg.

  Finally, when my plane was called, he whispered a final “I will be with you always” into my brain. At the gate, the airline employee looked down at my ticket “Why, you could have boarded sooner, ma’am, you’re in first class.”

  “What?”

  She pointed to the words First Class on the paperboard ticket.

  It’s happenings like these that tell me I’m not crazy. Then again, computers always make mistakes.

  So now I’m settled in my seat and it’s time to keep going on this tale while I’m still awake.

  I’m not good at communicating on a romantic level, which is what I figured was expected of me if Jude was to be convinced.

  Then again, Jesus knew my capabilities. But one day in midJuly, I finally got Jude to come off that lighthouse. I had rowed out every day previous trying to wear him down. If he didn’t break soon, I’d end up looking like a bodybuilder from my neck to my waist. I pretended I never asked him to marry me and he never brought it up.

  We rowed around the bay, drifting at times. We even flew kites from the lighthouse. We held hands and he let me read to him. I read Of Human Bondage.

  “It’s a great book, Mary-Margaret, but that guy should have thrown her overboard the first time she dumped him.”

  And so in mid-July I moved into the apartment over the tackle shop, settling in with some used furniture from the parishioners at St. Francis who were desperately trying to understand my decision and failing miserably. They still loved me, though. And Sister Thaddeus still had tea with me on Thursdays, happy about my teaching position at the Consolidated School. Jude and I set out to Baltimore to buy supplies for my art classes. I knew exactly where I was going to go, my favorite art store, Towson Art, and my favorite art store owner, Carl.

  Jude accompanied me with one request. “Let’s not go down to The Block, Mary.”

  We were just climbing into Gerald’s motorboat. After landing we’d get into the car of Regina Bray’s sister. She was only too willing to let us take it if it would bring art supplies to the school.

  My mouth dropped open. “Jude, why in the world would I go down there?”

  And I think, for the first time, Jude really, I mean truly and actually, realized that most of the people in the world don’t find themselves in the red-light district; that those on the margins, and those who like to fancy themselves so, if only for a few hours, find themselves in places like the Gayety or the Two O’Clock Club.

  Road trips provide wonderful space for talking. Give people a couple of hours or more in a car and you never know what’s going to be said side by side and not face-to-face. This time, however, I had a lot to say, and Jude wouldn’t be able to plead a relapse and head into his bedroom. He’d been doing that out at the lighthouse during my visits, particularly when I began pressing him for information about his illness. Thank goodness his hair was growing back again.

  We’d been driving for a while in a white, wood-paneled station wagon. I had just cleared Salisbury when I figured now was as good a time as any to say what needed to be said.

  I gripped the steering wheel and glanced over. He was looking out the window at the farm that happened to be whizzing by, sitting with a bone-straight back as though the white vinyl seats were made of oak. The Eastern Shore of Maryland is flat and highly suitable for farming. It’s lovely, not breathtaking, but gentle and fruitful. But then, sisters, you live here too, and I suppose you’d know that. I’m tending to think, as I write this, that some of you are on unfamiliar territory, and yet I would think you noticed the landscape on your way over from Washington DC or Baltimore. In the summer, as on that day with Jude, you’ll pass stand after stand selling fresh produce.

  Now, I don’t mean to be proud, but white Maryland sweet corn, the kind we call Silver Queen, is quite possibly the best corn on the cob you’ll ever eat. Uniform kernels, so sweet that the sugar juice bursts from the kernel, mixes with the butter and salt, and if you weren’t holding the steaming cob, you’d clap.

  You might even give it a standing ovation if it’s your first bite of the stuff. Unfortunately, it ruins you for corn anywhere else.

  Other strains become mere vehicles for melted butter.

  Our beefsteak tomatoes are nothing to sneeze at either. As a child, before I came to live with the sisters, Grandmom and Aunt Elfi would let me eat as many as I wanted. And I did, slicing up the meaty red flesh, salting them, and sitting out on the back stairs that led up to our apartment, the late-July sun beating down on the back of my neck as I forked up mouthful after mouthful, the juice collecting in the plate and dripping down my chin to mingle with the sweat on my neck.

  Of course I ended up with canker sores lining my mouth from all that acid. But I didn’t care.

  You’ll also see a seafood stand or two. The thought of steamed crabs, too expensive for Mercy House and her inhabitants, makes you want to cry you want some so badly. And the smell of the spicy steam as it escapes the vats, along with the sight of those hard crabs, red and encrusted with spices, will send you running for a pitcher of beer, some mallets, and a stack of old newspapers to lay out on the table.

  Enough ruminating about produce and food. I guess it’s hard for me to tell the next part of the tale and I’d like to put it off, but I should move on.

  “Jude, I know you have syphilis.”

  He turned his face toward me. “You’ve got to be kidding me. You’ve known all this time?”

  “I heard about it from LaBella before I found you at the lighthouse.”

  “What have you been doing then, Mary-Margaret? And why would you ask me to marry you knowing this?”

  “I . . .” I tried to think of a response that wouldn’t be a lie. “I think you need somebody, Jude. And it might as well be me.”

  That was pretty darned close to the truth anyway.

  “So . . . you see me as a mission or something. That’s just great.”

  “No. I do”—and could I have hesitated just a few seconds more to make it even less convincing—“love you—”

  “Oh yeah, right! You can barely get the words out of your mouth. Mary-Margaret, I’m not a dope. The disease hasn’t climbed into my brain yet.”

  “So you’ve read about it?”

  “All that I can.”

  “Me too.”

  “That doesn’t surprise me. How did you end up talking to LaBella?”

  “I went to her house.”

  “I gotta hear this.”

  I told him the story as we zipped up Route 50 toward Easton, marshlands and estuaries glimmering in the summer heat, the waning rainfall pulling the green from the long grasses growing closer to the road.

  “You’re a busybod
y, you know that, Mary-Margaret?”

  “Yes, I do. But tell me. All those comments you’ve been making for years about wanting to . . . well—”

  “Get in your pants?”

  “Well, I was trying to put it a little more delicately, but, yes.

  That. Well, now I’m giving you invitation—” Pictures of the chancre came to my mind and turned my stomach, but I smiled anyway.

  “At quite a hefty price.”

  I scoffed. “Oh goodness, Jude. As if you have so many other offers.”

  He looked back out the window, hand gripping the door handle.

  “Don’t make a jump for it. I swear I’ll run you down,” I said.

  To my relief, he laughed. “I was just thinking how ironic life is. If this had happened when we were much younger, it might have made all the difference in the world. But now—well, I don’t know—it seems impossible.”

  “Why? I mean, you’ve taken penicillin, haven’t you?”

  “Mary-Margaret, next chance you get, pull off the road, will you? I’ve got something to tell you. You’re not going to understand it, and you’re really not going to like it.”

  I figured that maybe some conversations truly needed to happen face-to-face, not side by side. So I pulled off into an Esso station and came to a stop under a large maple tree toward the back of the station’s lot. I turned off the engine and we opened our windows, the smell of tar mixed with freshly cut hay borne in on the breeze rolling off the fields to our left. A mother yanking on the hand of a small boy disappeared into the restroom.

  I faced him. “Okay, what is it, Jude?”

  He placed his hands on his thighs, just above his knees, and squeezed. Of course, with the weight he’d lost, his legs looked almost like old man legs, hard bone knees from which the gabardine of his slacks draped. I wanted to cry at such reduction. “I’m not getting treatment for the syphilis. It’s why I can’t marry you.”

  “Lord have mercy,” I whispered.

  If hearts stopped at bad news, I guess we’d all be dead. However, it felt as if mine did. For just a few seconds. I reached forward and clutched at the dashboard with my left hand. “But you know you can’t do that, don’t you?”