by Marele Day
Carla liked blood. She liked the taste, the smell and the colour. She liked the clots of it on Christ’s hands and feet, the crown of drops hanging from his crown of thorns. It was so hard to dye wool this shade of red, so hard to get a true red. Even real blood when it faded was no longer blood red. Even in the Bible the red was starting to fade. The Children’s Bible she had looked at many times, its pictures smeared with the blood of martyrs and saints. The Roman soldiers had shields and swords, and great flourishing helmets with red feathers in them. Athena also had a shield and a sword and a helmet, all made of gold.
Carla felt too lazy and comfortable to think about pictures in books. The afternoon sun was playing on her belly, shafts of it penetrating her skin. This was how the Virgin Mary had become impregnated with the Son of God. Right through her like sunlight through a window. Without even moving a finger, without helping even a tiny little bit, her body stirred. Carla could feel warmth flush into her cheeks, her own warmth, and see orange light filtering through the thin membrane of eyelid. It was as if just beneath the skin her body held clusters of buds, all of them clamouring for the teasing fingers of sun. ‘Kindle me with the bliss of Your burning love. Let me be Your servant, and teach me to love You and make me serve You, loving Lord, so that Your love alone be ever all my delight, my thought and my longing.’
Carla waited for God’s reply. She could hear birds twittering, movement in the canopy of leaves as the birds went about their business. A downy feather floated down, avoiding the web, and came to rest on her belly. Spring. New lambs, baby birds. Everything bursting forth again.
Into all the familiar sounds of this sunny afternoon came another. The sound of an animal pushing its way through undergrowth, the scrape and crackle, twigs snapping. Probably Agnes Teresa looking for her lamb, perhaps smelling its blood on Carla’s outgoing breath. Carla closed her mouth to keep the smell in.
The animal came crashing through. ‘Damn!’ Carla sat bolt upright. ‘Damn, damn, damn,’ the voice repeated in a low grumble.
Carla rolled over and peered through the grass. It was a creature with four legs, shaking its head from side to side. Before her very eyes it stood up. On two legs. Miraculous! It was dressed in black from head to foot with a white band of collar around its neck. There was a scratch of blood on its cheek. It wiped it off and looked at the streak of red as if it had never seen blood before. Carla remained crouched in the grass, still as stone despite the gonging of bells in her head. It wiped its hand clean then took out a folded sheet of paper from its pocket. It was too far away for Carla to see the detail. It looked at the paper then looked around, as if trying to get its bearings. It started to walk, in the direction of where the monastery gates used to be, before they disappeared in the vegetation. Carla eased herself away, breaking the spider’s web, oblivious to the stickiness wrapping itself around her head. She stood up. Then she ran and ran and ran.
Though the youngest and fittest of the three, Carla was panting and out of breath when she burst into the courtyard where Margarita and Iphigenia were butchering the meat. Margarita stopped in midstream, as if she’d seen an apparition, cleaver up ready to separate the ribs into cutlets, eyes open wide to this sight in front of her.
Carla wanted to speak but her lungs were too greedily siphoning off all the air, in and out like bellows, for any of it to pass over her vocal cords to shape words. Margarita lay down her cleaver and went to Carla.
‘What, child?’
Carla was holding one hand against her chest and wildly gesticulating with the other. ‘Fa … Fa … Father John,’ she blurted out.
‘Horns stuck in brambles?’ asked Margarita with concern.
She shook her head vigorously, her chest still heaving. ‘In black. With white …’ She drew her thumb and forefinger about a collar-width apart around her neck.
Sister Iphigenia looked up. ‘A man,’ she said, bringing her chopper down on the bony part of the lamb’s leg. ‘A priest.’
The other two stared at her, puzzled. She might as well have said a giraffe, it seemed so extraordinary. More extraordinary was the fact that Iphigenia showed no surprise, almost as if she’d been expecting it.
‘This is a monastery. Entirely normal that a priest come.’
It was not entirely normal, they hadn’t had any sort of visitor for years.
‘Did you know? Was there … a letter?’ asked Margarita. The idea of a letter after all this time was outlandish. Even more outlandish was that one could arrive without them all knowing about it. But one extraordinary thing could surely only be explained by another extraordinary thing.
‘No letter,’ said Iphigenia. ‘Our guest shall eat meat, roast potatoes, cheese.’
‘Nettles, turnips,’ said Margarita, trying to gain some ground and status with Carla who was the first to see him, and Iphigenia who must surely have had a premonition.
‘Nuns’ food. Priests eat well.’ Iphigenia turned to Carla. ‘Where?’
Carla explained. It was quite close to the outer wall although that was hidden from view by the brambles and other vegetation that had gradually engulfed it over the years.
‘And then?’
Carla explained the direction he’d taken and told Iphigenia about the paper he was looking at.
‘Hmm,’ pondered Iphigenia. ‘Map. He is looking for the path.’
The path was now covered in brambles. ‘Won’t find us?’ suggested Margarita, not sure whether she wanted to be found.
‘Hide?’ suggested Carla, as if it might be a game.
‘We will prepare for him. Then we will wait.’
Perhaps it was the smell of the roast that led the man to the courtyard because he was there well before nightfall. They watched for his coming. Sitting back to back, each of them facing a different direction so they would not miss him. Carla saw him first—stopping every now and then, wiping his forehead, pulling the chafing collar away from his neck, swatting away little insects trying to sup off his sweat.
They watched as the chapel and cloisters came into his line of vision, the astonished look on his face when he saw the plume of smoke from the fire curling up into the sky like a genie. His moment of hesitation then his quickened, determined step.
He approached from the west and warily entered the cloisters. He looked around, at the walls, the roof, the arches. The bleating of a sheep rose into the still air. He stood alert, waited. Agnes Teresa emerged from the chapel and entered the courtyard. She nuzzled into Sister Margarita’s skirt, smelling her lamb on Margarita’s body. She seemed to pay no heed to the smell of the leg roasting in the oven.
As he started on his journey down the cloister the three nuns turned to face him. A panoply of smells spurted from him. The pungent accord of acetone, petroleum, rich redolent tobacco, stale meaty sweat, drops of urine, spicy apple, a faint whiff of frankincense. Tiny darts of nervousness in a booming elemental mustiness. Iphigenia was drenched in the tidal wave of his odour.
They stood up as he came out of the striped shade into the sunlight. He was a young man, thin. Dressed in black, as Carla had described. There were still spots of bright shiny polish on his shoes even though they had gathered a bit of mud and dirt. His face and hands were scratched, his trousers were torn at the knee but in spite of it all they maintained a crisp crease down the front.
‘Father John, I presume?’
‘Father Ignatius, actually. And you … ?’ His voice trailed off.
‘Sister Iphigenia. And Sister Margarita and Sister Carla.’
He looked at them in utter disbelief. ‘Sisters! I didn’t expect. Actually, I was led to believe that the property was uninhabited. Had the Devil’s own job locating it.’
A tiny suspension in the rhythm of the nuns’ breathing. Devil. It was many years since this word had been uttered in the monastery.
‘Cup of tea?’ invited Iphigenia. The nuns resumed their breathing.
‘Why yes, that would be delightful. I’ve got some mineral water back in the car b
ut I didn’t think to bring it with me. I didn’t expect—’
‘Car?’ said Carla. It was part of her name.
‘Yes, the car. Seems to be stuck, I’m afraid. I couldn’t call anyone, the battery on the mobile phone has run down.’ From his trouser pocket he produced a black rectangle with rows of numbers on it. He whipped up the short antenna and gave the nuns a demonstration of how it wouldn’t work.
A telephone? It did not look like one.
‘Where’s the cord?’
‘Cordless,’ he said, stretching his hands open and waving them around like a magician demonstrating to his audience that there were no strings attached. ‘Battery operated. But it needs recharging. I should have brought the spare up with me, always best to be prepared,’ he babbled on. ‘Do you have a power point? Electricity?’
The sun had dropped from the sky and outside the walls night was gathering. As if called by some invisible shepherd, the rest of the sheep entered the courtyard, bleating occasionally, filling it with their lanolin smell.
‘Do you have a flock?’ asked Iphigenia.
‘Flock?’ At first he seemed not to understand, then it dawned on him. ‘No,’ he said. ‘I’m not a parish priest, I am the Bishop’s secretary.’ He smiled grandly.
Iphigenia was tiring of the conversation, of the listening and the doing. Her tongue felt thick in her mouth, as if not used to making these awkward shapes. Telling a story was different. That was like finding the end of the yarn, seeing the way it was wound in the skein and then just pulling to unwind it. She wondered whether it wouldn’t have been better to have hidden after all.
‘Vespers,’ announced Iphigenia, to end the conversation. ‘Father John?’
‘Ignatius. Father Ignatius,’ he corrected her. ‘I’d be pleased to lead you in Vespers.’
He walked piously towards the chapel, displaying his knowledge of the layout of the monastery.
One or two confused sheep started following him, but the nuns remained exactly where they were, eyelids lowered, lips moving, chests rising and falling as they breathed the Holy Spirit in and out.
‘Ahem,’ he cleared his throat. ‘The chapel?’
Calmly they opened their eyes. Without any further discussion of the matter the three rose and entered the chapel.
The last rays of the setting sun seeped through the holes, through the windows. The warm red hues surrounding them gave the impression that they were inside the body of a large benign animal. The blood-stained Eucharist table only added to the effect. Preparing to lead them in Vespers, the priest rested his hand on the table and discovered a purple-red stickiness.
‘Wine?’ he suggested.
‘The blood of Our Lord, Jesus Christ, through which we have eternal life,’ said Sister Iphigenia.
Sister Margarita felt that somehow Iphigenia had said too much but couldn’t quite put her finger on it. Nevertheless, the words appeared to placate the priest. He brought his blood-sticky hands together in prayer and began intoning. He did not raise his eyes to the hook above the Eucharist table from which the lamb had hung just a few hours ago. It had been a very unusual day, reflected Margarita, and it wasn’t over yet.
‘Why is he here?’ whispered Margarita as they prepared the evening meal.
Iphigenia surveyed the dinner table. A plate, a cup, a knife for each person. And one fork each. Was that enough? Priests came for lunch or afternoon tea with the abbess but they never stayed for dinner. Iphigenia’s memory threw up a picture of bright shiny forks in a special box lined with plush blue velvet. But the forks on the table had been found in a bundle at the back of a drawer. The tarnish remained, despite a vigorous rubbing on the nuns’ woolly aprons. ‘He will tell us. Or we will find out. Meat on his plate first.’
He had washed the stickiness from his face and hands, smoothed his hair close to his head. He was sitting waiting to be served.
After the ordeal of getting here, Ignatius was prepared for anything. The sight of the smoke had filled him with both relief and apprehension. He knew he was too far away from the car to make it back before nightfall but who might he find at the source of the smoke? Gypsies? Hunters? He had quickly intoned a psalm and with the strength of the Lord’s rod and staff comforting him, had continued. He certainly hadn’t expected three old women dressed in a motley collection of woolly rags. At first he thought they were Gypsy women who had taken up camp in the monastery and wondered whether there were menfolk about somewhere, sons or brothers more suspicious of strangers than the women appeared to be. He was sitting at their table now but he was not entirely comfortable. Things could easily turn nasty. He felt like one of the mission priests in deepest darkest Africa.
They were unkempt, practically savages. Their teeth were yellow, their skin lined and leathery. They wore no shoes. Everything about them suggested that they let nature just take its course. Except the close-cropped hair. It gave them an odd monkish look.
They brought the food to the table. The one with the dark glittering eyes and black hair sat down opposite him. Carla. Younger than the other two, she stared blatantly, expectantly. The tall one, Iphigenia, the one who had first greeted him, had a nervous twitching nose. Her eyes were clouded with cataracts. The shortest of the three, Margarita, had hefty arms and double chins.
The smell of the roast lamb and roast potatoes made Ignatius realise how truly ravenous he was. He hadn’t eaten a proper meal since yesterday’s breakfast. He’d brought an apple from the car but that was hardly a meal.
They bowed their heads for grace, their soft whispers scattered in the boom of his voice. Carla picked up a slab of meat and took big chunky bites out of it, the juices and fat running down her hand and disappearing into the pad of her woolly sleeve. Margarita picked up a potato, the calloused thick pads of her fingers immune to the heat of it. Iphigenia speared a piece of marinated cheese with her knife and gulped it down.
Despite his hunger, Ignatius proceeded at a more civilised pace. He cut off a small piece of potato, a small piece of meat, assembled them on the prongs of the fork and popped the lot into his mouth. The one with the slab of meat watched, fascinated. He stopped, chin long, teeth apart inside his closed mouth. Self-conscious now with her eyes on him.
She picked up her fork and copied his movements. When she got the fork to her mouth she bit down on it. She made a face, threw the fork to the ground and went back to using her hands.
Ignatius resumed chewing. He tried to begin a conversation but all he got in return were grunts. They were like pigs at a swill trough, tearing off chunks of food, swallowing almost without chewing, as if they were in some kind of competition to see who could finish first.
It was the one who had previously done most of the talking, such as it was, who won the competition. Sister Iphigenia. She pushed her plate to the middle of the table and fetched the kettle from the fire. She threw some leaves into a teapot then poured in the steaming water. Carla was now licking the palm of her hand, looking across the tops of her fingers at him. Margarita was gnawing on the end of the leg.
The arrival of the teapot on the table seemed to be some sort of signal. The plates were whisked away, even his own, though there was still a good piece of fatty meat on it that he had been saving till last. A tea the colour of swamp water was slopped into thick ceramic cups. Grimy hands were wiped down grimy garments and baskets of knitting were brought out. A ball of greasy wool and a pair of needles were held out in front of him.
‘Knit, Father John?’
Father Ignatius, his mind shouted out. How many times did he have to repeat this? ‘No thanks,’ he said politely, as if they’d offered him a biscuit.
‘Story?’
‘A story?’ he repeated.
‘You must know stories,’ Sister Iphigenia insisted.
‘My turn for a story,’ Carla reminded her sisters.
‘We have a guest,’ Iphigenia quietly chided her.
‘No, no, go ahead. Ladies first,’ he said, almost choking on the word ‘
ladies’. ‘You can show me how it’s done.’
The women placed their hands together on the edge of the table and started a whispering murmur that he took for prayer. He bowed his head, with no prayer of his own, one eye half open waiting to see what would happen next.
Carla stood up. ‘Briar Rose,’ she announced.
‘There was once a king and queen who had been married for many years. At long last a daughter was born to them and they called her Briar Rose.’
He watched the women pick up their knitting and start looping the wool around their fingers, working the needle in and out of the stitches. ‘At her baptism they decided to hold a great celebration. There were thirteen Wise Women in the realm but the king and queen had only twelve gold plates so they decided not to ask the thirteenth. But she came anyway. Uninvited,’ Carla added ominously.
He settled back in his chair and sipped the tea which he found to be pleasantly aromatic. He recognised this story, though under a different name—‘The Sleeping Beauty’. And they weren’t wise women, they were fairy godmothers. Glossing over these details, he relaxed and let himself be carried on the rhythms.
‘At the feast each of the Wise Women conferred on the baby princess their gifts. The thirteenth Wise Woman came out of the shadows, causing a ripple to pass through the assembly. “My gift is the greatest of them all,” she said, her voice cracking like lightning. “On her thirteenth birthday the child will prick herself with a spindle and die.” There was a great cavernous gasp from the assembly, led by the king.’
Carla went on with the story, about how the king decreed that every spindle in the realm and every object that could draw blood be destroyed. As Carla took the girl on her journey up to the attic which housed the old woman and the fateful spindle, Ignatius had a vague feeling that something had been omitted, but he was entranced by the story now and didn’t want her to stop. This tatty woman in front of him, who had previously barely been able to grunt out one syllable was now transformed into a creature of eloquence and fluency. The knitters knitted on, looking up occasionally when they came to the end of a row, or reaching for new wool.