Which reminded her. She wanted to go to St. Philip’s again and just sit in the pew for a while. The place where there were no qualifiers—no credentials needed to begin a journey, if she understood Jack correctly. Wherever you were in your faith, you were accepted.
She loved that. Not everyone would love it. But there was no need to convince anyone of anything.
Let each man hope & believe what he can. That’s what her beloved Charles had written.
So she left the Inn and went to St. Philip’s in the middle of the day. She went in and sat there by herself for an hour.
Something Rich and Strange
Polly greeted her with a cold stare when she got home; then she wheeled and trotted into the kitchen. Sophie followed.
“I know. You’re hungry.”
“Whereas if you knew that, why where you absent so long?”
After she fed Polly, she went to look up a passage she had recently read in Francis Spufford’s Unapologetic, first published in London and then all over creation. She did not quite know it by heart. But being in the cool, the quiet of St. Philip’s she had remembered the gist of it.
Spufford wrote that “…the international league of the guilty has littered the landscape with specialised buildings where attention comes easier.” He is speaking of certain kinds of churches. The sense is that we can walk into them—as she could walk into St. Philip’s— and be away from “the roar in our own minds as well as the literal clash and grind and hum of things.” Such a space is
…not…a place where only a precious and tasteful selection from human behavior was welcome, but the opposite…the way the place acknowledged absolutely all of human behavior. The calm…is not denial. It’s an ancient, imperturbable lack of surprise. To any conceivable act you may have committed, the building is set up so as to say, ah, so you have, so you did; yes. Would you like to sit down? 25
Sophie thought that this meant the woman in the jaguar-print scarf, should she still be wandering the streets of Tucson, would be included.
And this means, Sophie thought, I would be included. She looked back on her life and listed her sins, her faults, her foibles.
She had been, in her life, insensitive; smug, reckless, willfully blind; she had judged others; she had been jealous; she had hurt people’s feelings; She had spoken up before reflecting; she had not spoken up when justice called for it. If only she could go back and nurture Isabelle all over again. She had been indecisive, and ah—chicken-hearted. She had a spotted scarf around her own throat, after all. Well then?
Well, she would go back to St. Philip’s. St. Philip’s was one of those buildings, one of those places of which Francis Spufford was writing. She might go back with Jack. Without Jack. No matter. She would go back in any case. She would see what happened next.
Now there is a post from Isabelle on Facebook. She is still alive! Her photo is of Cordyceps, a killer fungus that invades mainly arthropods. It blossoms out of the dead body of a tarantula. It has replaced the host’s tissue with its own. “Fruits” have emerged from all the legs of the tarantula. Holy crap. As her daughter would say.
Isabelle writes in the post: “Not to be all goth, but I kind of see this as another example of beauty drawn from suffering.” And, “The Cordyceps looks like antlers. Or coral.”
She has dozens of comments from her friends. Some want to vomit.
One friend of Isabelle’s, a man, a New Yorker, writes—in response— only this:
Full fathom five thy father lies;
Of his bones are coral made;
Those are pearls that were his eyes:
Nothing of him that doth fade
But doth suffer a sea-change
Into something rich and strange.26
Who is this friend?
Champagne?
December. I have been here almost a year.
Sophie counted. The line was twenty-six people deep what with holiday mailings at a local post office. But by and large, people were smiling.
On this day, the high would be 80 or 81. The forecast was for abundant sunshine. Strangers turned and talked to each other.
A man behind Sophie by two or three persons said to the woman in front of him, “Yeah, I don’t miss Wisconsin right now and neither would old Buster, God rest his soul. Good old dog. Old Buster wasn’t so dumb. The day it was a record low—fifty-five below in Couderay—he just thought he had to go out to pee. When I opened the front door and that wind blew into the house at him he stood stock still and then high-tailed it back into the living room and jumped up on the davenport.”
Others began telling more Midwestern weather-stories. Digging cars out of snowdrifts. Ice pellets. Shoveling, shoveling, shoveling—week after week after week. Dead batteries. Deep ruts in the streets. Slipping and breaking hips. Overcast, overcast, overcast.
Someone said to Old Buster’s master, “Don’t you feel bad about your suffering friends back there? Do you ever feel guilty?”
“Hell, no!”
Everyone laughed. They were jolly, gleeful, almost antic. Where was the champagne?
What the Hell
She answered the telephone. “Hello, this is Sophie.”
“Sophie.”
Michael.
“Michael.”
“Yes. One and the same. Half sane.”
“Where are you?”
“I’m in Google.”
What?
“What?”
“Google, Kansas.”
“What?”
“Topeka changed its name for a month to try to get Google’s attention, to try to woo them to try out their superfast broadband there. Wooing Google. It’s a stunt, Sophie. Actually, I just stopped here on my way to Arizona.”
To where in Arizona.
“To where in Arizona?”
“I’m not sure.”
“Where have you been?”
“Riding my Harley. Hiking. Camping. Free. Free, in the name of God, from the albatross of a reified church.” A pause. “What’s new with that Jack dude.”
“New?”
“Yes.”
“What do you mean?”
“What do I mean.”
“Michael—”
Sophie heard a clatter, a clash, a shout. “Michael, where are you?”
“I told you. Topeka-Google.”
“Are you in a bar?”
“Are you dating him?”
“Dating? Michael, I am in my seventh decade. I am a confirmed woman-on-her-own.”
“Is that right.”
“I have other interests now.”
“Yes,” he said. “I think I know. You’re essentially still in love with the transcendent, right? I know, I know—and the immanent, blah, blah. That’s your secret. That’s why you never remarried. Who could compete with The Christ? Or with his father for that matter. Which one is it? Is it the son or the father who squeezes everyone else out? Who could compete with some kind of an eternal pan-en-theistic evolving? Tell me that.
“Or maybe. Just maybe. Wait a minute. I’ve got it! I think I’ve got it!
“Maybe it’s not a man at all. Maybe it’s feminine. The third person: she. The Spirit. The spirit of wisdom. Ha. I’ve got it. Your namesake. Sophia.”
“Michael, are you drinking?”
“What do you think I’m doing? Sierra Nevada Pale Ale. And then there’s your writing. That helps with the squeezing out. Anybody who would even like to be just your friend has got to stand in line and then be turned away at the door or else be caught up in some kind of weird triangle.”
“Michael, that’s not fair.”
“Yeah, yeah. But the point is that no man on the planet is going to get your complete attention. You know what I think? I think you should have gone into the convent. The Poor Clares. The Discalced Carmelites.
Something. You should have been Sister Luke in Africa. The way you hide out. Sure you don’t want to visit from behind some kind of goddamned grille when I get back there?”
“You are coming here?”
“I don’t know.”
The doorbell rang. Michael said, “The doorbell. Call me back, Sophie. You have my cell number.” He was gone.
What if she didn’t want to call him back, this good and frustrated man who had stepped out of his old life with such haste. But who now was telling her what to do. Call him back. Not.
She hated, in her older age, having anybody tell her to do anything. Especially if they didn’t say please.
Sophie opened the door. Jack stood there.
She did not ask him in. She eyed him.
His expression under the visor of his Madera Canyon cap was that of a drunk trying to pretend he hadn’t had a few too many beers. Where had he been? At “Coach,” the sports bar? All these men stepping into bars. She couldn’t blame them. During her life she had only gradually become aware of the peculiar stresses and torments men had to manage. Some of them were fortunate enough to accommodate a maelstrom and arrive at a relative state of grace under pressure.
He had an organized, an arranged face, even more closely guarded than usual. Did she know him that well now? Did she know him so well that that she could read those facial muscles—the obicularis oculi, the risorius, the depressor anguli oris, the nasalis, and so on—as one would read a sentence, interpret the syntax: the verbs the lift of his eyebrows, the half-smile; the modifiers the slight pressing of lips together, the shifting of his jaw to the right. And where is the subject? Always on the move. Elusive. Evolving. Oh, oh—this is beginning to sound like he has depth. But of course.
And his hands. She could also read his hands. Now, for instance, now they were uncharacteristically behind his back. She had never before seen him put his hands behind his back. He was motionless.
He said, “Well, Sophie,” and dropped one arm to his side. In his hand was what looked like a wide red grosgrain ribbon. “Well,” he said again.
He had clearly, she decided, not been in a bar. At the other end of the red ribbon was a dog. At his side, an actual dog with bright eyes appeared. “Sit,” he said.
The dog sat. Sophie saw that the dog did not want to sit, but it sat. The terrier sat. For it was a white terrier.
“Jack.”
“Yes?”
“You got yourself a dog?”
“I have a dog here.”
“What do you mean?”
“I got this dog and I have been training it. It’s housebroken.” Jack reached down and separated leash from collar with a click. The dog jumped up and put its paws on Sophie’s knees.
Jack said, “Down.” The dog’s paws dropped to the ground and it looked up at Sophie.
“What is his name?”
“He is not a he. He is a she. No name yet. Nameless. But in training sessions she’s sometimes called Porfin.”
“Called what?”
“Porfin.”
With that the dog lifted its ears.
Then the dog got up and walked through the door and into Sophie’s house. She could hear Polly barking.
“Jack.”
Jack said, “She’s housebroken. I’ve seen to that.”
“It’s not that. It’s that your dog has just run into my house.”
“She’s not my dog.”
“She’s not your dog.”
“No.” Then he said, “She is not my dog. But I like her.”
“Whose is she? Was she Stella’s?”
“No. She’s yours.”
“She’s what?”
“Yours.”
“Mine.”
“Yours.”
“What the hell,” Sophie said. “Now just a frigging minute.”
Jack said, “She’s yours if you will accept her.” Since you’re doing more venturing out these days, I thought you might like a companion. As Tintin had in Snowy.”
Polly had gone silent. The dog with no name appeared in the interior threshold, sat, and then lay down.
“What the hell, Jack,” Sophie said again. And then she walked right up to him and gathered as much as she could of such a tall man into her arms.
Notes & Citations
1. Darwin, Francis ed. 1887. Charles Darwin: his life told in an autobiographical chapter, and in a selected series of his published letters [abridged edition]. London: John Murray. Volume 1. Wyhe, John van ed., 2002- The Complete Work of Charles Darwin Online (http://darwin-online.org.uk/) back ↗
2. Genesis 1: 1-4, New Revised Standard Bible back ↗
3. Book of Job 38; 1-7, New Revised Standard Bible back ↗
4. Darwin, Francis ed. Charles Darwin: his life told in an autobiographical chapter, and in a selected series of his published letters [abridged edition]. London: John Murray. 1892. John van Wyhe, ed. 2002—The Complete Works of Charles Darwin Online (http://darwin-online.org.uk) back ↗
5. Litchfield, H.E. ed. 1904. Emma Darwin, wife of Charles Darwin. A century of family letters. Cambridge: University Press printed. Volume 2. Wyhe, John van ed., 2002- The Complete Work of Charles Darwin Online (http://darwin-online.org.uk/) back ↗
6. Browne, Janet. Charles Darwin: Voyaging. Princeton: Princeton University Press. 1995. back ↗
7. George MacGregor, from Burke’s Confession. The history of Burke and Hare and of the resurrectionist times: a fragment from the criminal annals of Scotland. Glasgow, 1884. back ↗
8. John 13: 1-17, New Revised Standard Bible back ↗
9. Darwin, Francis ed. Charles Darwin: his life told in an autobiographical chapter, and in a selected series of his published letters [abridged edition]. London: John Murray. 1892. Wyhe, John van ed., 2002- The Complete Work of Charles Darwin Online (http://darwin-online.org.uk/) back ↗
10. Rookmaaker, Kees ed. Darwin’s Beagle diary (1831-1836). English Heritage 88202366] In John van Whye, ed. 2002—The Complete Works of Charles Darwin Online (http://darwin-online.org.uk) back ↗
11. Rookmaaker, Kees ed. [Darwin’s Beagle diary (1831-1836)]. [English Heritage 88202366] Wyhe, John van ed., 2002- The Complete Work of Charles Darwin Online (http://darwin-online.org.uk/) back ↗
12. Darwin, C. R. 1839. Narrative of the surveying voyages of His Majesty’s Ships Adventure and Beagle between the years 1826 and 1836, describing their examination of the southern shores of South America, and the Beagle’s circumnavigation of the globe. Journal and remarks. 1832-1836. London: Henry Colburn. Wyhe, John van ed., 2002- The Complete Work of Charles Darwin Online (http://darwin-online.org.uk/) back ↗
13. Rookmaaker, Kees ed. [Darwin’s Beagle diary (1831-1836)]. [English Heritage 88202366] Wyhe, John van ed., 2002- The Complete Work of Charles Darwin Online (http://darwin-online.org.uk/) back ↗
14. Darwin, Francis ed. Charles Darwin: his life told in an autobiographical chapter, and in a selected series of his published letters [abridged edition]. London: John Murray. 1892. Wyhe, John van ed., 2002- The Complete Work of Charles Darwin Online (http://darwin-online.org.uk/) back ↗
15. Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London. March 14, 1837 back ↗
16. Darwin, C. R. ‘This is the Question Marry Not Marry’ [Memorandum on marriage]. Wyhe, John van ed., 2002- The Complete Work of Charles Darwin Online (http://darwin-online.org.uk/) back ↗
17. ‘Our poor child, Annie’ [Darwin’s reminiscence of Anne Elizabeth Darwin] (30.04.1851). CUL-DAR210.13.40 Transcribed by Kees Rookmaaker, edited by John van Wyhe (Darwin Online, http://darwin-online.org.uk/) back ↗
18. Darwin, Francis ed. 1887. Charles Darwin: his life told in an autobiographical chapter, and in a selected series of his published letters [abridged edition]. London: John Murray. Volume 2. Wyhe, John van ed., 2002- The Complete Work of Charles Darw
in Online (http://darwin-online.org.uk/) back ↗
19. Darwin, Francis ed. 1892. Charles Darwin: his life told in an autobiographical chapter, and in a selected series of his published letters [abridged edition]. London: John Murray. Wyhe, John van ed., 2002- The Complete Work of Charles Darwin Online (http://darwin-online.org.uk/) back ↗
20. Darwin, C. R. 1882. The formation of vegetable mould, through the action of worms, with observations on their habits. Seventh thousand. Corrected by Francis Darwin. London: John Murray. Wyhe, John van ed., 2002- The Complete Work of Charles Darwin Online (http://darwin-online.org.uk/) back ↗
21. Browne, Janet. Charles Darwin: The Power of Place. Volume II of a Biography. Princeton: Princeton University Press. 2002. back ↗
22. Syme, Patrick. 1821. Werner’s nomenclature of colours with additions, arranged so as to render it highly useful to the arts and sciences, particularly zoology, botany, chemistry, mineralogy, and morbid anatomy. Annexed to which are examples selected from well-known objects in the animal, vegetable, and mineral kingdoms. 2d ed. Edinburgh: William Blackwood. Revision History: Scanned for Darwin Online by the Huntington Library, San Marino, California; transcribed (single key) by AEL Data, corrections by John van Wyhe 8.2011. RN1 back ↗
23. Wallace, A. R. 1883. The debt of science to Darwin. Century Magazine 25, 3 (January): 420-432. back ↗
24. Darwin, Francis ed. 1887. The life and letters of Charles Darwin, including an autobiographical chapter. London: John Murray. Volume 1. Wyhe, John van ed., 2002- The Complete Work of Charles Darwin Online (http://darwin-online.org.uk/) back ↗
25. Spufford, Francis. Unapologetic: Why, Despite Everything, Christianity Can Still Make Surprising Emotional Sense. London: Faber and Faber. 2012. back ↗
26. Shakespeare, William. The Tempest. back ↗
Acknowledgments
The Crossings evolved as a product of the many communities of which I have been blessed to be a part. Though this book is a work of the imagination, Charles Darwin figures prominently here; I could not begin to represent him as a person without studying his life and using excerpts from his own brilliant, graceful writing. In this I have been inspired and aided by Janet Browne, Aramont Professor of the History of Science at Harvard and the author of Charles Darwin: Voyaging and Charles Darwin: The Power of Place. John van Wyhe, Historian of Science at the Department of Biological Sciences and a Fellow of Tembusu College/National University of Singapore became a tireless and gracious responder to my queries and requests for permissions. Dr. van Wyhe is also the founder and Director of Darwin Online. Let me be clear: any portrayals, framings, or conjectures regarding Darwin in this book can be ascribed solely to Sophie Nordlund, my main character.
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