Absent a Miracle

by Christine Lehner

  The following afternoon Ezra came through the door several steps behind Henry, dragging his backpack behind him. He told me he'd fallen asleep at school.

  "What did Miss Higgins say?"

  "She said she couldn't bear to wake me. Which was really annoying. Because all the kids say I snored on my desk."

  "You never snore," I said. "Talk in your sleep, maybe. Didn't you sleep last night?"

  "Not exactly," Ezra answered with averted eyes. "I didn't. Something was wrong with the bed, and I kept rolling over and over and trying to get comfortable, but I never could."

  "Did you check to see if there were crumbs? Eating crackers in bed will do that," I said.

  "No, Mom," he said emphatically. "There was nothing. I'm not a dope, you know."

  "I know you're not a dope. Look what the dogs and I found in the woods," I said, and brandished the antler.

  Henry took it and held it against his forehead. "How do I look?"

  "Like you have a giant headache," Ezra said.

  "Do you want to take a nap, Ez?"

  "No, Mom. I already did. I told you."

  "I'll change your sheets tonight. Maybe that will help."

  But it didn't. The next morning the bags under his eyes were even deeper. I suggested that he stay home and rest, and maybe drink one of Bogumila's Slavic soporific concoctions, but he declined. And off they went.

  I went upstairs and vacuumed his room extra-scrupulously, because maybe he'd become extra-sensitive to dust.

  Dust was not the culprit.

  15

  Christina the Astonishing

  HUBERT SAT AT HIS vast mahogany table, reading the Daily News and shaking with erratic laughter, like a washing machine with an off-kilter belt. "You look terrible," he said.

  "Thanks."

  "How are things on the home front?"

  "Things on the home front are fine," I said adamantly. "I just bumped into a man on Lex with one leg. Or rather he bumped into me. And it upset me. Don't ask me why."

  "Funny you should say that. I'm reading about a nun who bit off a python's head. The python belonged to a friend of hers and it was sick, so the nun was holding it for her, and then she just bit its head off." Once again, his body shook as he was overcome by the hilarity of this event.

  "Maybe she's in one of those sects that eats snakes and then speaks in tongues," I said.

  "She wasn't. And this was a live snake," Hubert said.

  "That is truly disgusting. And don't pythons have big heads? I bet it couldn't even fit in someone's mouth."

  "You'd be surprised what can fit in someone's mouth," Hubert said.

  "Forget I said that," I said. "I think I'll just go read about some nice saints."

  He grinned. "Then you've come to the wrong place."

  "Very funny. Seriously, do you have any suggestions for me?"

  Of course he did. That was the day I made the acquaintance of Saint Christina the Astonishing. Who, while she may not have bitten the head off a serpent, managed to behave unsociably in other ways.

  Christina's story starts with her death. She was about twenty-two when she had a fit, became catatonic, and was presumed dead. She was duly placed in an open coffin and carried into church for her requiem mass. Just as the mourners sang the Agnus Dei, she bolted up and flew to the church's rafters, where she perched like a bird.

  Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi, dona eis requiem, and finally, dona eis requiem sempiternam.

  Except that Christina was not about to have eternal rest, not then, not for a long time. While she sat up there on the beams, everyone fled the church except the priest and Christina's older sister, who was so devout that she would not leave until the mass was over. At that point, the priest made Christina come down. Perhaps he was a precursor to those heroes of television dramas, those policemen cajoling rejected lovers and bankrupts down from window ledges overlooking the canyons of New York.

  Christina had fled to the rafters because she couldn't bear the stink of the sinful human bodies. Christina told the priest that she had descended into Hell, seen a few friends, gone to Purgatory and seen some more, and then visited Heaven. She said that she was offered the opportunity to stay in Heaven, but she'd chosen to return to earth and save some of the suffering souls with her prayers. All of this had happened while the churchgoers sang the Agnus Dei.

  Alive again, Christina behaved like one deranged or tormented. She climbed trees and rocks and, still attempting to escape the miserable smell of her fellow humans, crawled into ovens. Even by the lax thirteenth-century standards, she was considered mad, and her neighbors often tried to confine her. But Christina always got away. Finally she climbed into a baptismal font and sat in the water, peacefully. She quieted down after that and lived her remaining years, almost half a century, in the convent of St. Catherine at Saint-Trond.

  I asked Hubert, "Do you really believe she levitated?"

  "Stranger things have happened."

  "That's not what I asked."

  "Someone believed she levitated. Several people did. I also believe we can make ourselves believe all sorts of improbable things. And that improbable is not the same as impossible."

  "Pardon me," I said. "But did you answer my question?"

  "Frankly," said Hubert, "what I find hard to understand—even believe—is not so much the levitations and apparitions as the suffering. The fondness for suffering. The seeking out of suffering. Have you encountered Lydwina yet? She may not have slept in her coffin, the way Mariana did, but she was the 'prodigy of human misery.' "

  "What's so hard to understand about that? Suffering is the human condition, is it not?"

  "Spare me your platitudes," Hubert said. "What is so saintly about suffering, I'd like to know. I worry that the church has veered in a terrible direction, glorifying suffering and misery. I understand all too well it's about identifying with Christ's Passion and death on the Cross. Because, you see, when we sanctify mere suffering and martyrdom, we lose the ability to be horrified."

  "Did Martin suffer before he died?" I asked.

  "Yes," he said. "And now we'll have no more of that subject."

  "Sorry," I said. "I just thought—"

  "Don't be. And don't." He turned abruptly and knocked over several books stacked on his desk. I couldn't see their titles but at least two were in Latin. They fell to the floor in a heap and out spilled dozens of memorial cards, those small black-edged cards with a photograph and the dates of the deceased, and sometimes a prayer and sometimes not. Now they dotted the carpet. Every photograph I could see was of a youngish man. I expected Hubert to spring to life and quickly scoop up the cards and remove them from sight, but he looked at them and blinked, as if he were equally surprised to see them.

  "Are those yours?" he said.

  "No."

  "I didn't think so."

  I didn't want to read about any more saints that day. It seemed that there was not a single thought in my head that was not selfish, gossipy, jealous, or just plain frivolous, and the saints were making me nervous. Afternoon light was piercing the dusty window beside Hubert's desk. Like gnats and mosquitoes briefly identified in the beams of headlights, here the dust motes flew in and out of the shaft of light, and for a time had a separateness and an existence so solid we could name every individual speck. And each speck, once named, would never again merge anonymously with the mass of generic dust motes. For better or worse.

  On my way out I slammed into the corner of Hubert's desk with my thigh. The sharp corner drove into my leg with such force that I gave a cry of pain that sounded—to me, hovering just at the edge—like a growl. I turned away in order to catch my breath, my stolen breath.

  "You're bumping into all sorts of things today," Hubert said.

  "I think I should go home now," I said.

  Hubert handed me a book beautifully bound in green leather. "Read about Melangell before you go, she's a favorite of mine."

  "Any particular reason?" I asked.


  "Just read."

  Saint Melangell was the daughter of an Irish prince, a virgin, of course, who spent fifteen years alone in the forest. Until Prince Brochwel Ysgythrog came hunting, in hot pursuit of a hare. The hare took refuge under Melangell's skirts, and from there it turned and brazenly faced the dogs. Brochwel urged his dogs on—he really wanted that hare—but they drew back, whimpering. Brochwel brought his horn to his lips, but it was mute. Then he saw Melangell, who told him of having lived in solitary prayer without once seeing another human face. Brochwel was so moved by her story that he gave her all the land around. She stayed for another thirty-seven years. Hares always found a safe haven there.

  I held out the beautiful book to Hubert and said, "Do you believe this?"

  "About Melangell's hare. Of course I do."

  "Not that. The part about being alone in the forest for fifteen years. Fifteen years!"

  "People were not always so addicted to social intercourse as they are now," Hubert said.

  "Human nature hasn't changed all that much in fifteen hundred years. A mere speck of time. And if she hadn't seen anyone in fifteen years, how could she still have a skirt for the hare to hide in? It would be in shreds."

  Hubert said, "Must you be so literal?"

  "Me? Literal?" I was hurt. "Willing suspension of disbelief is my mantra. Willing suspension of disbelief. Willing suspension of disbelief. But fifteen years. That really troubles me."

  "She had Inner Resources," Hubert said. Now that shook me.

  Perhaps Waldo could compose a limerick on this subject. Melangell might prove a challenging rhyme, but I was convinced that hare and prayer were made for doggerel.

  Under Grand Central's vast stellar-studded dome, evoking colliding planets, dive-bombing meteors, and careening asteroids, I only recalled colliding with Gunnar and his briefcase full of bombshells. Stellar too was his remarkable ability to find mushrooms in the woods, right there on the forest floor. Once we'd walked under towering tulip trees and he'd spotted the brown honeycomb-capped morels mere feet from our feet. As soon as he pointed them out, they were completely obvious. Until that moment, they'd been completely hidden. They recalled to me things that existed only in the imagination: Hansel and Gretel's witch's cottage, priapic gnomes, hares hiding in the virgin's skirts. But until the moment of Gunnar's bending down to gently snap off the morels at their base, I could no more see the fairy-tale gathering of Morchella esculenta than I could see in the dark.

  It was dark when the train pulled into VerGroot. I called Waldo to see if he could pick me up at the station.

  "Are you wearing high heels again?" he asked.

  "No. That won't happen again soon," I said.

  "Or maybe it will. Maybe there will be a solution to the problem of altitude and ankles."

  As we sat down to eat, Posey called. I told her I'd met an old friend of hers, Camilla Hyde. I didn't say it had been days earlier. I didn't mention my sweaty terror that she also knew the Dillys and the sordid tale of Waldo and Edith. Then Posey surprised me, which was a good thing.

  "Her?" Posey sputtered, a rare occurrence. "Good grief, she went over to the dark side."

  "Posey, isn't that a bit melodramatic? She's only a Catholic. And I don't even know that for sure."

  "You misunderstand me, Alice. I don't know quite how to say this. She's a Satanist. Whatever that means. But I have it on the best authority."

  "How can you be sure of something like that?" I asked. With my free hand I indicated horns and then a tail for Waldo and the boys. They looked puzzled. "I didn't think there were Satanists anymore. I thought they were defunct, or debunked. Like alchemists."

  "All I know is what I heard. And it wasn't pretty. A baby was involved. An infant. I would give her a wide berth if I were you."

  "She said she played Ping-Pong with you."

  "That was before I knew. And I beat her," Posey said.

  "I find this very strange," I said. "She's very attractive."

  "Of course she is," said Posey.

  "But this isn't why you called, is it? Here's Waldo."

  From our end of things, it wasn't hard to figure out the intended topic; certainly no more than one python in America could have had its head bitten off that day by a person, any person. Apparently it had made the Maine papers.

  "I know all about it," I told them. "It was a nun."

  "Posey didn't say anything about a nun," Waldo said.

  Ez said, "I would spit it out."

  "I should hope so," I said.

  "People do eat snakes, you know. And locusts."

  Ezra said, "They eat locusts in the Bible. Locusts and honey. You know, the one who lost his head."

  Waldo was pleased to hear this. Clearly I needn't worry about the boys' religious education if Ezra knew the diet of John the Baptist in the desert.

  "Well, none of you better bite the head off a python," I said. "Then your grandmother would have to read about it in the paper. Imagine her surprise."

  "Her glee," suggested Waldo.

  "I would do it under an assumed name," Ezra said. "Because I think perversions should be private."

  Again, Waldo and I looked at each other. Ezra? While I'd often heard the little boys at VerGroot Elementary yelling to one another, "Pervert! Pervert! Wears a purple undershirt!," this seemed very different from the exclamatory and insulting use of the word; this seemed indicative of depths to Ezra of which we'd had no idea.

  It was happening more and more, these little peeks into the mysteries of boys that in every case seemed like the tip of an iceberg, an iceberg full of secret knowledge and longings that would go away with them as they traveled from this safe haven of ours, with its dogs, Legos, and family dinners, to a larger world that neither required nor accepted a mother's note to excuse infractions or absences.

  These boys already knew things we hadn't taught them; already they imagined things we couldn't understand, and they dreamed of things we could only imagine.

  In the town forest, the boys ran ahead of us: limbs, limbs, and more limbs. It had not departed, the picture of Waldo and his Australian lover slurping raw oysters under Grand Central. Her face (which was like mine) softened and elongated to become a brain worm burrowing into my psyche. And like any good parasite, it did not kill its host. It merely sucked energy, sucked happiness.

  So, if Waldo didn't know this Sheila, whom did he know? Maybe if I brought it up then, as we walked in the woods we loved, as Flirt and Dandy leaped over the pine-needled forest floor and chased small woodland creatures, Waldo would explain, really explain, and I would come to know where Gunnar had gotten those crazy ideas of his. As long as I wasn't saying anything, too much was possible.

  I knew I would bring it up. Sooner or later. So why not in this place, at this moment? Why, oh, why would Waldo want anything but the life we led together?

  Did Waldo have unmet longings I had no inkling of? And ditto me? Did I have unmet longings?

  Flirt found a massive mud puddle and dove into it. Other dogs passed indifferently by the same mud puddles that called out inexorably to Flirt. She swooped up through the mud until it coated all her fur, and then she swooped down, so that no spot was missed. How could one help but admire her determination to achieve this pleasure, this satisfaction of the senses? That kind of determination, that sense of mission, even just Flirt seeking the coolness of a mud puddle, always impressed me. And mystified me. Because I feared I didn't have it, that determination. What did I want as much as she wanted the mud?

  Was this what it was like for Waldo, with his Sheila? Or only with Edith?

  "There's something I've been meaning to ask you, Waldo," I said.

  "Shoot," he said. "But we should probably turn around now."

  "You never want to turn around," I said.

  "I have stuff to do."

  "Do you love me as much as ever?" I said. It was not the question I'd meant to ask.

  "That depends what you mean by ever,' he said. Then, noticing the stricken
look on my face, he said, "Of course I do. Ever, whenever, whatever. I love you, Al."

  I slipped my arm though his, as if everything were resolved, as if everything were the same. As ever. We turned around.

  It was the question I'd meant to ask.

  16

  Travel Is Broadening

  THE SUMMER BEFORE I met Waldo, Annabel, Audrey, and I had backpacked around Europe for two months. This was in the early eighties, and I'd had a different lover in seven different countries, almost every country we visited. But not all. Each one of those lovers spoke a different language. They also ate different food for breakfast, and approached personal hygiene differently.

  Before that summer I was barely a sexual being. I was a sexual pupa. All summer long I chomped at the edges of my sac, and then Waldo came along and I crawled out and promptly fell off the branch. With Waldo I was passionate and passionately monogamous. There was only Waldo. Of course I told him everything about my past. I was pleased to have a past to tell. But when I described for him my summer's adventures, they came out sounding like bits of fiction, like wishful thinking set into an itinerary. But it's all true, I insisted, you can read about it in Audrey's journal.

  It was an educational summer. In England we'd hiked with Niles and his friends, all of them afflicted with speech impediments. In Flanders there was Franz, who lusted more for Memling's virgins than for me. Jan was the Dutch veterinarian. I've forgotten the name of the boy in Denmark; he paled (as did they all) beside Annabel's Boris, the itinerant storyteller with whom she toured for two weeks while Audrey and I soldiered on. We stayed with Ulrich in Munich; he lived with his grandmother and his grandfather, the professor of Egyptology. Giorgio, in Rome, was a low point.

  Our abuela met us at the train station in Barcelona, which was the first surprise, because Mami had told us that Abuela was completely dotty by now. But there she was, dressed all in black. Even her straw sun hat was covered with dark purple grapes and black ribbons. It was the kind of hat that caused little children to point and stare, and dogs to bark.