At some time in the month after Melchor’s visit – it would have been impossible to put a finger on the exact moment – the child turned a corner. Her fever abated, and a pale ring of healed skin spread slowly round the sores and grew inwards, very delicate and tender at first, but clearly healing. A day came when Josefa returned to the infirmary from the kitchen and found that Amara had climbed out of bed and was moving slowly round the floor. She ran to Josefa at once, reaching for the dish she was bringing. Josefa, on impulse held it high, out of reach. The child pulled herself up, dragging on the bedstead with one hand and reaching out with the other. She was half standing before Josefa let her have the dish. The moment she had it in her hand she tipped it, and spilled it, and went down at once upon the floor to lap it up, but Josefa had seen the way forward. She had seen also that the child’s legs were crooked at less acute an angle than before. She massaged Amara with renewed energy, born of hope, and she began to talk to her about the outside world, about walking in the woods, or by the shore, or buying fish and bread from the markets.
By teasing her with the dish, the dish of ever thicker and more nourishing gruel, or with the meat she was still allowed each second day, it was possible by and by to make the child stand briefly on her hind legs to reach it. Later, Josefa’s walking backwards in front of her, holding it out, would make her take two or three staggering steps, half upright. Very slowly the crook in her legs was unlocking, and she was able partly to straighten up if she urgently wanted to. She had become accustomed to the people she saw every day, though she still ran away and hid in corners from anyone else. She seemed to be reconciled to clothing some of the time, and would even try to struggle into her shift when she was hungry, holding it clumsily in her unpractised hands. Days passed all the same at Sant Clara, except for the slow swing of the seasons, and the time all this was taking did not worry anybody; they knew no reason why it should matter if it took half a lifetime to achieve.
Then months of tending the child suddenly overcame Josefa, and she herself fell ill.
17
On reflection, Beneditx felt some relief at the failure of his a priori proof. If the a priori proof were really unanswerable, then it would be difficult to see how to defend anyone who had ever heard it from the charge of apostasy from the truth. Beneditx, who was a man of the utmost gentleness, revolted from the idea that by putting an indefeasible proposition to his opponent he had entrapped him into condemnation. Seen in that light, it might appear that he was engaged in a lethal trick, played upon a helpless fellow man. But St Thomas had rejected the ontological proof, very fortunately. Beneditx knew his books. He knew also the peril in which Palinor stood. The Church was not likely to persecute an adherent of a strange religion, merely for having been born in the wrong country, having learned a false creed, being ignorant of the truth. Such a person could be in good faith; and in good faith or not, did not affront the pious true believer unless he proselytized. But a person who had once received the truth, who had been a member of the Holy Catholic Church, fell for ever under her jurisdiction. For someone who has known the word of God to reject it, then pursue false gods, there is no defence. The sin of rejecting the truth once it is known is so terrible that those who commit it must be hunted down, forced to admit their guilt, and punished by death. Beneditx had never doubted this.
The contumacious and rebellious folk who brought this down upon themselves were usually Christian heretics – Cathars, Donatists, Pelagians, or the nameless confused who were seized of some garbled version, some misunderstood doctrine, and refused to be corrected and chastened by their Holy Mother, the Church. Beneditx, who had seen every possible confusion arising among his students at the Galilea, who had seen how swiftly a thinking man needs guidance, and who knew very well how little teaching the common people had from their parish priests, felt as much sympathy for error and hatred of inquisition as any man could.
The problem was that Palinor could not avail himself of the argument that any Saracen or exotic foreigner could use – that he was of another allegiance, and outside the scope of the Church. Not, that is, if what he was denying was not some particular part of the teaching of the Church, but something known to all men, either by innate illumination, or by the light of natural reason. It simply was not open to him to deny God. It was a most impudent and terrible blasphemy, worse than any heresy about the nature of Christ, or the foreknowledge of God, or free will or any such thing. And what excuse could be imagined for such an error in such a man? Not for him the exculpation of the stupid, that he had been misled, mistaught.
But of course, if Beneditx could convert him by force of reason, the question of what he ought always and from birth to have known would have only a historical interest, being overtaken by a present enlightenment. Beneditx could not believe that the pleasant and intelligent man who confronted him could really be unconvincible – Beneditx was a man who had faith in reason. He set about preparing to expound the proofs St Thomas did think valid; there were five of them, when one, surely, should be enough. And having prepared himself, he went cheerfully to his next encounter with Palinor.
In a green and shady garden walk, with a brooklet channelled to run beside it, making a pleasant sound beside their steps, the two men walked slowly. ‘Firstly, nothing in nature moves, unless it be moved by something else,’ Beneditx opened. ‘As a rod that is brandished is moved by a man who holds it. But this mover must itself be moved by some other thing, and that other thing by yet another . . . This cannot go on endlessly, receding to infinity, because then there would be no first mover, and consequently no other mover. Therefore it is necessary to arrive at a first mover, put in motion by no other, and this everyone understands to be God.’
‘I am to answer this?’ asked Palinor.
‘Wait; I will lay three stout foundations of belief before you, and you will see if you are not convinced by them.’
‘I am in your hands, my friend,’ said Palinor. He spoke gravely, but with an undertow of affection, amusement almost. He was experiencing the pleasure a cultivated adult feels in the presence of a marvellous child, whose perception is acute, and innocent. Besides, nobody could mistake the eagerness Beneditx evinced in his efforts to persuade him, or fail to see how well-meaning, how would-be benign, was the attempt. Obviously Palinor could see more clearly than Beneditx how hard a thing was being embarked upon; but as in the case of the romantic ambitions of a child, it was kinder not to be too crushing.
‘So, secondly,’ Beneditx continued, ‘in the sensible world around us, we find that there are chains of causation. One thing causes another thing, and in its turn is the effect of some previous cause. Nothing can be its own cause, for to do so it would have to be prior to itself, which is impossible. But it is not possible for the chain of causes to recede to infinity, because then there would be no first cause, and therefore no effects, since to remove the cause is to remove the effect. The presence to our senses, therefore, of causes and effects compels us to put forward an uncaused cause, a first efficient cause, to which everyone gives the name of God.
‘Thirdly, we find in nature things that could either exist or not exist, since they are generated and then corrupted, they are born and then die. It is impossible for these always to exist, for that which can one day cease to exist must at some time not have existed. Therefore, if everything could cease to exist, then at one time there could have been nothing in existence. If this were true, then even now there would be nothing in existence, because that which does not exist comes into being by something already existing. Therefore, if at one time nothing was in existence, it would be impossible for anything to come into existence, and thus even now nothing would exist, which is absurd. Therefore, not all beings are merely possible, but there must exist something the existence of which is necessary. But a necessary thing has its necessity caused by something else; and we cannot go to infinity in a chain of necessary things, as we saw in relation to movers and to causes, so we cannot but postulate t
he existence of some being having of itself its own necessity and not receiving it from another, but rather causing in others their necessity. This all men speak of as God.’
There was a silence while Palinor contemplated this. They reached the end of the garden walk, where it opened upon a prospect down the valley, a widening and gently sloping outlook on orange orchards and the silvery green colour of the olive trees beyond, lightening and darkening in the breeze of morning like wind on lake-water.
‘These arguments amount to the same,’ said Palinor. ‘Everything that moves is moved by something else; therefore there is something which moves everything that moves. Every effect is brought about by a cause; therefore there is some cause which has brought about every effect. Or, to continue, every road goes somewhere, therefore there is somewhere to which every road goes; every river has a source, therefore there is some spring which is the source of every river ; every son has a mother, therefore there is someone who is mother to every son; every tool serves a purpose, therefore there is a purpose which is served by every tool . . . Need I go on?’
‘Wait,’ said Beneditx. ‘You speak like a man who, seeing that a twig springs from a branch and that many twigs spring from many branches, denies the existence of a trunk to the tree. Follow the multiplicity back and back, and you will find the single trunk.’
‘Follow it further and you will find the dividing multiplicity of roots. And stand back, you will find the tree one of thousands in the forest. The trouble here, Beneditx, is that you assert that things in the world around us are impossible, and require an explanation, and you offer God as the explanation. But the world around us is not, to me, in doubt, nor does it stand in need of explanation. It seems to me that what exists before our eyes and to our touch and taste and smell is possible; and what is possible is not impossible. Whereas I do not see a need for God.’
‘You will,’ said Beneditx, in sudden passion. ‘I will bring you the proofs from degree and design – you will see!’
18
Without Josefa the child became recalcitrant again. She would not wear her shifts, she would not attempt to go upright, she sulked and snarled, and resumed the habit of skulking in corners. Sor Blancha tried to coax her back to her best behaviour, but truth to tell the sister resented every moment of it, because she was anxious about Josefa and wanted to nurse and coddle her. It was probably just fatigue that had led Josefa to tumble suddenly in a dead faint in chapel, but her lassitude had lasted now for days. The sisters took turns to sit with her, clucked over her, brought her little gifts of flowers, cherished her, and tried to evoke a wan smile on her face.
Meanwhile, the snow-child fretted and prowled, going again on all fours and trying to the limit the patience of whichever nun was guarding her. At first Sor Blancha took no notice of the funny snuffling and coughing sounds the child made while she sat with her. She had brought a task of grinding herbs, and sitting on a stool in the corner of the room to which the child had been consigned, and holding the pestle between her knees, she worked the mortar round and round, taking no notice. The child came closer. She was shaking her head violently, like a person who sneezes. ‘Ssfa! Ssfa!’ She crept close to Sor Blancha, and pulled at her hems. Then she lolloped to the door, and scratched at it, coughing away, ‘Ssfa! Ssfa!’ and whimpering.
Sor Blancha looked up. She tried to find some compassion for the poor wretch, so baffled and incapable, and now lacking her most familiar attendant. What was it she wanted, scraping the door and crying like that?
‘Josefa will be back . . .’ she began to say.
‘Ssfa! Ssfa!’ the child uttered.
Then, with her spine tingling, and her scalp prickling, Sor Blancha realized what she was hearing. She put down her mortar of herbs, and taking her skirt in her hand, and flinging open the door, she seized the child with her free hand, and ran with her, calling her sisters, calling the abbess. Like fluttered doves in a coop, the nuns came running at her call, flocking to the courtyard. The child loped around them, looking up into the ring of faces and whimpering. ‘Ssfa!’ she said. ‘Ssfa!’
‘Listen!’ said Sor Blancha. ‘Oh, listen to that!’
‘Praise be!’ said Sor Agnete, ‘She is trying to say “Josefa”. She is speaking to us at last!’
‘It must work,’ said the abbess. ‘She must find that it works. Take her to Josefa at once!’
When the door to Josefa’s cell was opened, the child stopped short, as though she could smell sickness. Then she loped in and brushed her face against Josefa’s limply dangling hand, and said again the ‘Ssfa, Ssfa,’ sound. Then she bounded up onto the bed and curled herself at Josefa’s feet. Josefa opened her eyes, and said to Sor Blancha, hanging over her anxiously, ‘Is it Amara? Can she stay?’
The nuns retired to the chapel to give thanks to God, for they were forbidden to let the child hear them. But this simple limping pair of syllables having opened a vista of hope to them, they battered the ears of the Almighty day and night for weeks that he might let his servant the wolf-child find tongue and bear witness to his glory.
From that moment, instead of just chattering to the child, the sisters began to teach her. They began the great game of pointing and naming, greeting mumbles and broken sounds with pleasure, and rewarding anything remotely like the desired word with smiles, and praise, and promises of meat. Josefa got up and applied herself so eagerly to this task that she had to be ordered to take her hours of sleep. But her eagerness was matched by everyone else’s. That instinct to foster, to cherish and teach, that flow of tenderness towards the helpless which was dammed up in the nuns by their childlessness, suddenly found an object and a purpose – a purpose moreover which was blessed by sacred obedience.
Like any child, Amara played one sister off against another, ran away and hid when Josefa looked for her to massage her legs, refused to eat at mealtimes, and then begged pitifully for food an hour later, discovered quickly where the soft hearts and swiftly relenting natures were to be found. ‘She doesn’t lack native wit, thank heaven,’ said Sor Agnete, talking to the abbess.
‘Why should she?’ the abbess asked. ‘She could hardly have survived in the mountains without what you are calling native wit. And she must have survived there for some time.’
‘It is just that it had occurred to me to wonder . . . The strangeness of such a child might be the result of her having been abandoned to the wolves. Or she might have been abandoned to the wolves because there was something wrong with her.’
‘Keep that thought to yourself,’ said the abbess.
Through the mild winter and the brief spring and into the heat of summer, Amara went on learning easily. She knew several dozen words, and added several more each day. She knew ‘meat’ and ‘milk’ and ‘water’ and ‘out’; she knew ‘bed’ and ‘blanket’; she could call ‘Yossefa!’ and ‘Blancha!’; she could name chickens and cows, and olives and oranges, she even began to sing, a sort of tuneless humming, joining Josefa’s voice when Josefa sang to her. And at last Amara’s legs would straighten, and she could stand upright. She had changed so little for so long and was now changing so fast that Josefa was dazzled. Standing upright, she came to Josefa’s shoulders – she no longer looked very small, very young; it was possible to believe that she might be thirteen or fourteen. She did look pitifully thin – a whiplash, narrow figure, her shift hanging loose on her, a tumble of dark hair surrounding a narrow face. She hung her head slightly, and looked on the world from under a tilting brow, with eyes that seemed never to catch the light. Seeing her moving carefully across the cloister, a stranger might not have noticed anything odd; not unless he saw her eat.
At home in Taddeo Arta’s house, Josefa had had the care of her two brothers. When she remembered them, she was troubled. Not about them; she trusted her father to look after his sons. Nor even from missing their company, they had been rough and lordly with her, troublesome and rebellious. No; rather it was the difference her recollection cast between her growing brothers a
nd the wolf-child’s growth. Those brothers had never sat still for an instant, knew not an idle moment, tumbled, climbed, fought and ran every moment of the waking day, made treasures out of toys, stones, olive pits, cried ‘Mine!’ and came to blows or tears over possession of them, nosed into every box, crook and cranny of the house, their inexhaustible curiosity leaving trails of cracked crocks, lost pins, spilled bottles, overset baskets wherever they went. They came weeping to Josefa to be comforted for the tiniest scratch; if she asked them for something or commanded them in something – ‘Give me that’ – or ‘Come here’ – they obeyed or argued at once. Their chatter was full of yesterday and tomorrow: yesterday Father had taken them to the rope-walk with him, tomorrow they would visit Aunt Ana, and ride her donkey.
Amara needed to exercise, and ran in the orchard for an hour each morning. But once indoors she simply sat down and stayed, for hours at a time. Her stillness was not thoughtfulness, nor boredom, it seemed to Josefa, but simply that of one who needed no occupation. She had been given things: her own bed, in a cell next to Josefa’s; a little duck carved in wood by one of the gardeners, a string of beads made from a broken rosary. She left things lying as indifferently as the stones in the path, she showed no attachment to anything, and could not be taught the word ‘mine’. Josefa could show her things, like the inside of her little workbox or the farm sheds where tackle and harness and plough were stored, but she never looked into anything herself, or opened any lid or door. She seemed to feel no pain, and sought no sympathy, and if Josefa had not watched carefully, Amara’s feet and hands would have been covered with unwashed and unregarded cuts and grazes and nettle-stings.
Knowledge of Angels Page 13