The Expected One

by Kathleen McGowan

  “The guidebook simply refers to this as ‘Pietà, eighteenth-century Italian.’ Of course, a traditional Pietà shows the Virgin cradling her son after the crucifixion. The inclusion of Mary Magdalene in this piece is highly unorthodox, yet…deliberately ignored.” Sinclair heaved a dramatic sigh and shook his head with the injustice of it all.

  “So what is your theory?” Peter asked, a little more sharply than he had intended. Something about Sinclair’s arrogance was getting under his skin. “That there’s some Church conspiracy to exclude mention of Mary Magdalene?”

  “Draw your own conclusions, Father. But I’ll tell you this — there are more churches dedicated to Mary Magdalene in France than to any other saint, including the Holy Mother. There is an entire region in Paris named after her — you’ve been to the Madeleine, I presume?”

  Maureen was struck by the realization. “It never occurred to me until now, but Madeleine is Magdalene in French, isn’t it?”

  “Quite. Have you been to her church there in the Madeleine? An enormous structure, ostensibly dedicated to her, and yet within all of the art and decoration there were originally no images of Mary Magdalene inside. Not one. Odd, isn’t it? They added the Marochetti sculpture above the altar, which I am told was originally titled The Assumption of the Virgin, and changed it to The Assumption of Mary Magdalene because of pressure put upon them by…well, by those who cared about the truth.”

  “I suppose you’re now going to tell me that Marcel Proust also named his cookies after her,” Peter cracked. In contrast to Maureen’s instant fascination, he was irritated by Sinclair’s offhand assuredness.

  “Well, they’re shaped like scallop shells for a reason.” Sinclair shrugged, leaving Peter to contemplate the riddle while he joined Maureen near the Pietà.

  “It is almost as if they tried to erase her,” Maureen commented.

  “Indeed, my dear Miss Paschal. Many have tried to make us forget the Magdalene’s legacy, but her presence is too strong. And as you have no doubt noticed, she will not be ignored, particularly…”

  Church bells began to chime the midday hour, interrupting Sinclair’s reply. Instead, he hurried them across the church yet again. He pointed out a narrow bronze meridian line embedded in the church floor, running directly across the north–south transept. The line ended at a marble obelisk, fashioned in the Egyptian style, with a golden globe and a cross at the top.

  “Come, quickly. It is now midday and you must see this. It happens only once a year.”

  Maureen pointed to the bronze line. “What does it signify?”

  “The Paris Meridian. It divides France in a most interesting way. But watch, look up there.”

  Sinclair pointed to a window above them across the church. As they turned to look, a beam of sunlight shone through the window and shot down to illuminate the bronze line embedded in the stone. They watched as the light danced across the floor of the church, following the brass. The light moved up the obelisk until it reached the globe, perfectly illuminating the golden cross in a shower of light.

  “Beautiful, isn’t it? This church is aligned to mark the solstice perfectly.”

  “It is beautiful,” Peter conceded. “And I hate to burst your bubble, Lord Sinclair, but there’s a legitimate religious reason for that. Easter is marked as the Sunday after the full moon following the vernal equinox. It was not uncommon for churches to devise a means of identifying the equinoxes and solstices.”

  Sinclair shrugged and turned to Maureen. “He’s quite right, you know.”

  “But there’s more to this Paris Meridian, isn’t there?”

  “Some refer to it as the Magdalene Line. It’s similar to the line on the map that I sent to you, the one that begins in Amiens and ends in Montserrat. If you’d like to find out why, meet me at my home in the Languedoc in two days and I will show you the reason for this, and much more. Oh, I almost forgot.”

  Sinclair removed one of his luxe vellum envelopes from an interior pocket.

  “I understand you are acquainted with the delightful filmmaker Tamara Wisdom. She will be attending our costume ball later in the week. I hope the two of you will join her. And I insist that you stay with me as guests of the château as well.”

  Maureen looked at Peter to gauge his reaction. They hadn’t expected this.

  “Lord Sinclair,” Peter began, “Maureen has traveled a great distance to make this appointment. In your letter you promised her some answers…”

  Sinclair cut him off. “Father Healy, people have been trying to understand this mystery for two thousand years. You can’t expect to know everything in one day. True knowledge must be earned, no? Now, I’m late for an appointment, and I must rush off.”

  Maureen put her hand on Sinclair’s arm to stop him. “Lord Sinclair, in your letter you mentioned my father. I was hoping you would at least tell me what you know about him.”

  Sinclair looked at Maureen and softened. “My dear,” he said kindly, “I have a letter written by your father that I think you will find very interesting. It’s not here, of course, it’s back at the château. That’s one of the reasons you must come and stay with me. And Father Healy, of course.”

  Maureen was floored. “A letter? Are you sure it was written by my father?”

  “Was your father’s name Edouard Paul Paschal, spelled the French way? And did he reside in Louisiana?”

  “Yes,” Maureen answered in barely more than a whisper.

  “Then the letter is most certainly from him. I found it in our family archives.”

  “But what does it say?”

  “Miss Paschal, it would be a terrible injustice for me to try to tell you here as my memory is simply abominable. I will gladly show it to you when you arrive in the Languedoc. Now, I really must go. I’m late as it is. If you need anything before then, ring the number on the invitation and ask for Roland. He will help you with anything you need. Absolutely anything, just name it.”

  Sinclair rushed off without saying good-bye. He threw his parting shot over his shoulder. “Oh, and I believe you already have a map. Just follow the Magdalene Line.”

  The Scotsman’s footsteps echoed through the cavernous church as he strode out of the building, leaving Maureen and Peter to look at each other helplessly.

  Maureen and Peter reviewed their strange meeting with Sinclair over a lunch at a Left Bank café. They were of decidedly different opinions about him. Peter was suspicious to the edge of irritation. Maureen was fascinated to the point of enthralled.

  They decided to walk off the meal with a stroll through the Jardin du Luxembourg.

  A family with a gaggle of raucous children was enjoying a picnic on the grass as the pair passed. Two of the younger kids were chasing a soccer ball, and each other, as the elder children and the parents cheered them on. Peter stopped to watch them, his expression wistful.

  “What’s wrong?” Maureen noticed.

  “Nothing, nothing. I was just thinking about everyone back home. My sisters, their kids. You know, I haven’t been back to Ireland in two years. I won’t mention how long it’s been since you went back.”

  “It’s just a little over an hour away by plane from here.”

  “I know. Believe me, I’ve been thinking about it. We’ll see how things go here. If I have time, I may hop over there for a few days.”

  “Pete, I’m a big girl and perfectly capable of handling this by myself. Why don’t you take advantage of being here and go home?”

  “And leave you alone in the hands of Sinclair? Are you out of your mind?”

  The soccer ball, now in the control of the older kids, flew toward Peter. He handled it deftly with his feet, kicking it back to the children. With a little wave to the cheering kids, Peter continued his walk with Maureen.

  “Do you ever regret your decision?”

  “What decision? To come here with you?”

  “No. To become a priest.”

  Peter stopped suddenly, shocked by the question. “What o
n earth caused you to ask that?”

  “Watching you just now. You love kids. You would have made a great dad.”

  Peter resumed the walk as he explained. “No regrets. I had a vocation and I followed it. I still have that vocation and I think I always will. I know that’s always been hard for you to understand.”

  “It still is.”

  “Hmm. You know what’s ironic about that?”

  “What?”

  “You’re one of the reasons I became a priest.”

  It was Maureen’s turn to stop in her tracks. “Me? How? Why?”

  “Outmoded laws of the church turned you against your faith. It happens all the time, and it doesn’t have to. And now there are orders — younger, scholarly, progressive orders — trying to bring spirituality into the twenty-first century and make it accessible to youth. I found that with the Jesuits I first encountered in Israel. They were trying to change the very things that drove you away. I wanted to be part of that. I wanted to help you find your faith again. You, and others like you.”

  Maureen was staring at him, fighting the unexpected tears that welled behind her eyes.

  “I can’t believe you never told me this before.”

  Peter shrugged. “You never asked.”

  …Easa’s final suffering was pure torment for all of us, but it took a large part of Philip’s being to cope with it. He cried out in his sleep often and would not tell me why or allow me to help him. Finally the truth came to me from Bartolome, who advised that Philip didn’t want to harm me with such terrible memories. But Philip was haunted each night by the thought of Easa’s agony, by the way his wounds had been described.

  The men give me honor as I am the only one of us who witnessed Easa’s passion.

  During our time in Egypt, Bartolome became my most dedicated student. He wanted to know as much as possible and as quickly as possible. He was eager, hungry for it, like a man starving for bread. It was as if Easa’s sacrifice had created a hole in Bartolome that could only be filled by the teachings of The Way. I knew then that he had a special calling, that he would take the words of Love and Light out into the world, and that others would be changed by him. So each night when the children and the others slept, I taught Bartolome the secrets. He would be ready when the time came.

  But I did not know if I would be. I had grown to love him as much as my own blood, and I feared for him — because his beauty and purity would not be understood by others the way it was understood by those who loved him best. He was a man without guile.

  THE ARQUES GOSPEL OF MARY MAGDALENE,

  THE BOOK OF DISCIPLES

  Chapter Seven

  The Languedoc region of France

  June 22, 2005

  The greenery of the French countryside flew past the windows of the high-speed train. Maureen and Peter were far from focused on the scenery; their attention was totally absorbed by the assortment of maps, books, and papers laid out before them.

  “Et in Arcadia ego,” Peter mumbled, scribbling on a yellow legal pad. “Et…in…Arca-di-a…ego…”

  He was engrossed in the map of France, the one with the red line drawn down the center. He pointed to the line. “See how the Paris Meridian runs down to the Languedoc, down here to this town. Arques. Very interesting name.”

  Peter pronounced the name of the town, which sounded similar to “Ark.”

  “As in Noah’s Ark or Ark of the Covenant?” Maureen was very interested in where this could be leading them.

  “Exactly. Ark is a versatile word in Latin — it generally means container, but it can also mean tomb. Wait a minute, let’s look at this.”

  Peter picked up the legal pad again, and his pen. He began doodling the letters of Et in Arcadia ego. He scrawled ARK across the top of the page in black capitals. Below it, he wrote ARC in the same lettering.

  Maureen had an idea. “Okay, what about this? ARC. ARC–ADIA. Maybe it’s not a reference to the mythical place of Arcadia; maybe it’s several words run together? Does that make any sense in Latin?”

  Peter wrote it out in capitals: ARC A DIA.

  “Well?” Maureen was dying to know. “Does it mean anything?”

  “Looking at it this way, it could mean ‘Ark of God.’ With just a little imagination, the phrase could mean ‘and in the Ark of God I am.’ ”

  Peter pointed to the town of Arques on the map. “I don’t suppose you know anything about the history of Arques? If the town had a sacred legend attached to it, this could mean ‘and in the village of God I am.’ I know it’s a stretch, but that’s the best I can come up with.”

  “Sinclair’s estate is just outside Arques.”

  “Yes, but that doesn’t tell us why Nicolas Poussin may have been painting it four hundred years ago, does it? Or why you heard voices in the Louvre when you were looking at this painting. I think we have to look at these things that have been happening to you as separate from Sinclair for a minute.”

  Peter was intent on diminishing Sinclair’s importance in Maureen’s experience. She had been having Magdalene visions for several years, long before she had ever heard of Bérenger Sinclair.

  Maureen nodded her agreement. “So let’s say that if Arques was known as sacred ground for some reason, was ‘the village of God,’ Poussin was telling us that something important is there, in Arques? Is that the theory? ‘And in the village of God I am?’ ”

  Peter nodded, thoughtful. “Just a guess. But I think the area surrounding Arques may be worth a visit, don’t you?”

  It was market day in the village of Quillan, and the town at the foot of the French Pyrenees bustled with the activity of the weekly event. Residents of the inland Languedoc region hurried from stall to stall, stocking up on fresh produce and fish brought in from the Mediterranean.

  Maureen and Peter moved through the marketplace. In Maureen’s hand was the print of The Shepherds of Arcadia. A fruit peddler recognized it and laughed, pointing at the print.

  “Ah, Poussin!”

  He began to give them directions in rapid French. Peter asked him to slow down, taking in the instructions. The merchant’s ten-year-old son watched Maureen’s confusion as his father spoke to Peter in French and decided to try out his broken but intrepid English.

  “You want go to tomb of Poussin?”

  Maureen nodded with excitement. She didn’t even know that the tomb in the painting actually existed, until now. “Yes. Oui!”

  “Okay. Go to main road and down. When you see the church, left. Tomb of Poussin is on the hill.”

  Maureen thanked the boy, then reached into her bag and pulled out a five-euro note. “Merci, merci beaucoup,” she said to the boy as she slid the note into his hand. The child smiled broadly.

  “De rien, Madame! Bon chance,” the fruit peddler called out as Maureen and Peter retreated from the marketplace.

  His son had the last word. “Et in Arcadia ego!” The boy laughed, then scampered off to spend his newly earned euros on sweets.

  Between them, they managed to piece together the directions of the father and son, which ultimately took them to the correct road. Peter drove slowly as Maureen scanned the region through the passenger window.

  “There! Is that it? Up on the hill there?”

  Peter pulled over beside a gentle slope topped by scrub trees and bushes. Behind the cluster of shrubbery, they could see the upper edges of a rectangular stone tomb.

  “I saw this same style of freestanding tomb in the Holy Land. There are several of them in the Galilee region,” Peter explained. He stopped for a moment as a thought struck him.

  “What is it?” Maureen asked.

  “It just occurred to me that there is one of these on the road to Magdala. It looks very much like this one. It may even be identical.”

  They skirted the side of the road, looking for a path that would lead up to the tomb. They found one that was overgrown. Maureen stopped at the base of the path and kneeled down.

  “Look at this, the overgrowth.
It’s not living vegetation.”

  Peter knelt beside her and picked up some sticks and brush that had been placed over the entrance to the path. “You’re right.”

  “Looks like someone has deliberately tried to conceal the path,” Maureen observed.

  “That may just be the landowner’s work. Maybe he’s tired of people like us stomping through his land. Four hundred years of tourism would make anyone cranky.”

  They moved carefully, stepping over the growth and following the path to the top of the hillock. When the rectangular, granite tomb was immediately ahead of them, Maureen took out the print of Poussin’s painting and compared it to the landscape. The rocky outcropping located behind the tomb was mirrored in the painting.

  “It’s identical.”

  Peter approached the structure and ran his hand over the face of the tomb. “Except the tomb is smooth,” he observed. “There’s no inscription.”

  “So was the inscription Poussin’s invention?” Maureen let the question hang in the air as she circled the sarcophagus. Noting that the rear of the tomb was covered by brush and overgrowth, Maureen tried to move the obstructions. A clear view of the back of the tomb caused her to cry out for Peter.

  “Come here! You have to see this!”

  Peter came around to her side, helping to hold back the overgrowth. When he saw the source of Maureen’s excitement, he shook his head in disbelief.

  Inscribed on the back of the tomb was a pattern of nine circles surrounding a central disk.

  It was identical to the design on Maureen’s ancient ring.

  Maureen and Peter spent the night in a small hotel in Couiza, a few miles from Arques. Tammy had chosen the location for them because of its proximity to an enigmatic place called Rennes-le-Château, known in esoteric circles as the Village of Mystery. She was flying into the Languedoc late in the evening, and the three of them had agreed to meet in the breakfast room the following morning.