by Ronald Malfi
Outside, I cross the street, my head down. Construction workers have gathered around the bed of a large truck, the steam from their cups of coffee mingling with the vapors of their breath. They laugh with great noise; their conversation consists of prehistoric grunts, grins, and snickers.
There are children in the streets, laughing and racing through the snow, scooping the slush from the gutters and packing it into balls of ice. They shout and cry and wing packed balls of ice at each other. They are ignorant to my approach; I am able to walk straight through their battlefield unscathed. Like a ghost. They are only aware of the vehicles that slide, much too fast, toward the intersection where they play, the tires skidding and locking up as the cars slide toward them. They scatter like cockroaches as the cars strum through the intersection before resuming their war game.
Meandering, I navigate the avenues, skulking by the rust-colored buildings and yellowed, sun-bleached tenements.
From an open window, a woman’s a cappella singing drifts down—
Eres mi amor, mi amor
Eres mi amor,
Somos amantes y somos amigos
Eres mi amor, mi amor
Eres mi amor…
There is a quaint stone church at the end of the street. It looks European, with its stone face and wood-plank doors and the narrow, mullioned windows with ornamental dormers surrounded by an aging, gothic parapet. Aside from the aesthetic appreciation, I feel nothing in looking at it. I am neither infused with reverence nor overwhelmed by skepticism.
As I step into the church, birds swoop from rafter to rafter above my head. Feathers light onto the floor of the narthex while the rustle of their wings disturbs the pamphlets tacked to a bulletin board. Straight ahead, the nave is flanked by two walls of flickering candles. Shafts of daylight slide through high windows; motes swirl in the vaulted ceiling. I walk down the aisle toward the pulpit, smelling the incense, breathing in the oldness of the ancient stone church, passing through panels of sunlight. The place, though as silent as the floor of the sea, is not empty; there are the random bowed heads and hunched shoulders staggered among the pews.
Instantly, I am overcome by the notion that I am someone else’s daydream. This stranger—that stranger. I pull my left hand up in front of my face, fearful that the address will be gone from my palm, and that I will begin to fade now that I have discovered the truth of my own nonexistence…but the address is still there. I do not fade. I am as solid and real as the little stone church.
I slide into the first pew. Directly in front of me stands the chancel, surrounded by an elaborate lattice and adorned with candles and poinsettias. The sound of feet shuffling on the scuffed floor echoes down the nave. I do not turn; I do not take my eyes from the pulpit. The ribs of an old pipe organ, tarnished and unpolished, stand against the far wall. Looking at the organ, I think, I can play you. I don’t know how I’m able, but I can play you.
“Well,” says the voice of a mouse. “Hello, son.”
I turn and, indeed, almost expect to see a mouse seated on the pew beside me.
“The cold,” says the nun. She is sitting farther down the pew, her voice low—a reverent whisper—her body a collection of knitted bones cloaked in a dark apostolnik and robes. “It comes through the walls. They are old walls.”
Despite the cold, I am sweating in my clothes. “It’s a beautiful church,” I say, my voice equally hushed.
The nun works her way closer to me until she is close enough to reach out and touch me. She looks ancient—as old as the church itself—and moves with the pained delicacy of the chronically tortured. The simple movement of her hands seems to cause her great pain, though she fights it off with a stoic countenance. Her skin hangs from her face and there is a great hollow divot at the base of her neck. She is swimming in her robes. Gravity and age pull down the rheumy lower lids of her eyes.
And she does touch me—rests a skeletal hand, the skin blotchy and the fingers twisted into twig-like corkscrews, on my right knee. I fear a strong wind might knock her over. I am careful not to move, not to breathe. This close, I worry the sound of my voice might rupture her ancient eardrums.
“Here,” she says, and a vibrating, fossilized fist materializes from beneath her robes. It hovers, unsteady, in the air until I hold out my hand beneath it. A rosary spirals from her fist into my palm. “Pray.”
I don’t know how, I think, but cannot say it to this poor creature. So I lean forward and press my hands together, the rosary clasped between them. What religion am I? Have I ever prayed before in my life? Because I don’t know how to do it now.
Instead, I think, No sa’wich now.
I think, Zap.
When I feel enough time has passed, I ease back in the pew and smile tenderly at the nun. Handing back her rosary, I am careful not to touch her flesh.
“You need a good meal,” says the nun. She is looking at me but her eyes are so completely opaque with yellow cataracts it is a wonder she can see anything at all. “You are skin and bones.”
“I’m okay.”
“And your head?”
I realize I am rubbing the back of my head. The headaches have not subsided. They are a torment but, at times, the pain is all there is to assure me I am real, I am alive. I say, “Just—I’ve just got a headache.”
“See a doctor.” The old woman looks immediately disgusted with me. And I almost feel like a disappointment. “For headaches—see a doctor.”
“I’m thinking about it.”
“Don’t think,” she reprimands. “Do it. It is good advice for me but not for you?”
“No, of course not…”
“You feel the pain, go see a doctor. Sometimes they can catch it in time, fix what is wrong. Other times they cannot. Maybe then it’s best not to know, but you sometimes don’t know what you don’t know until they tell you.”
“All right,” I say.
“How long has it been now?”
“The headaches?” I have no idea. Since birth, really. In a way. “A few days,” I say.
“It is why you did not come to Sunday service?”
“Oh,” I say, “I don’t come here. I just happened to pass by and…” And my voice trails off. Because I am a stranger to myself. Because I do not know where I go or where I do not. “You’ve…you’ve seen me here before?”
“You are just a stubborn boy.” Something akin to a smile creases the woman’s face. “You are a superman, right? Of course. You do not need a doctor. You will live forever. Yours is good advice for an old woman like me, but you needn’t heed it yourself, eh? Is that it?”
“Please,” I plead, and it takes all my restraint not to grip the woman’s cloak and pull her closer to me. “Do you know who I am? Have you seen me before?”
“Oh, Matthew,” says the nun, “you are ill.”
Matthew. It resonates throughout my body.
“You have the fever,” she says. “You are sweating now badly.”
When I find my voice again, I say, “I’m really confused right now. Please—you know who I am? My name is Matthew?”
We stare at each other for a millennium.
Then, just when I think the world will come screeching to a halt and all life as I know it will cease to exist, the withered old nun says, “Matthew.” She says, “Come with me.”
ELEVEN
There is a small rectory across a snow-covered courtyard behind the church. The building looks as old and forgotten as the church itself, but there are curtains on the insides of the windows and, hanging from some windows, the suggestion of flowerboxes buried under heaps of snow. It tries hard to look lived-in.
It takes the old nun an eternity to walk across the courtyard. At one point, I am certain she will freeze and die out here before we ever get to the rectory. Twice, clergymen pass us by, smile and nod, and address the old nun as Sister Eleanor. Sister Eleanor, much to my mounting frustration, actually pauses in her campaign to turn and wave at the clergymen.
Inside, the
rectory is stiflingly hot, the heaters working full force. The first floor has many rooms and, although I see no one, I can make out the hushed intonations of chatter emanating through the walls.
Sister Eleanor’s room is at the end of a tight, poorly-lighted corridor with a low ceiling. The room itself is just that—a single room with a child-sized bed against one wall, two shelves groaning with books, a table at the room’s center surrounded by four chairs, a miniature refrigerator on a countertop, and a portable radio on one windowsill. There are a few random photographs on the walls in modest frames, mostly of young black children with their arms around each other or playing on a swing set in some urban park. A closet door stands open and, like the closet of a cartoon character, I make out a file of black frocks and robes, each one identical to the next.
“Have a seat, son.”
I sit at the table while Sister Eleanor goes directly to the cupboards. She removes a plate and sets it on the counter. Then she goes to the refrigerator and takes out cold cuts and bread. I listen to an invisible clock tick and tick and tick as the old nun makes me a sandwich. By the time she sets it in front of me and sits across from me at the table, I have nearly grown a beard.
“My name is Matthew?” I say.
“Eat,” she insists, so I take a big bite of the sandwich. Ham and Swiss cheese with mayo.
“Good,” I say, my mouth full. “Thank you.”
“Your name isn’t Matthew,” she says finally. “I think we both know that by now.”
“I don’t understand…”
“When I first met you, it was John. Maybe you forgot in the time you disappeared. But I never forget.” She brings up a hooked index finger, gnarled and angry-looking, and presses it to her temple. “I am old and there is a lot wrong with me,” she says, “but none of it has anything to do with my mind.” Again, that wry smile appears. “Also, I have committed myself to this life from an early age. I was just a young girl when I heard the call of God. Do you think I’m unfamiliar with Matthews and Johns, with Lukes and Marks? That each time you give me a name you are glancing down at one of the Bibles in the pews?” She wags that crooked index finger at me. “Eat, eat.”
“How many times have you seen me here? How often have I been coming?”
“What has it been? It is not consistent. You disappear for a time and I worry about you. I think of asking Father Griegsheim if he has seen you at a different service, but what do I say? I talk about the man with the shaved head whose name I do not know?” This talking seems to exhaust her. Breathlessly, she adds, “Anyway, I do not want to bring attention to you.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know, child. You tell me—why?”
“So I’ve been coming here, on and off, for some time now? Giving you different names?”
“The first time was early in the summer. You had more hair then, more meat on your bones. Now you look like a shadow of yourself, but you looked healthier then. We talked and it was very pleasant.”
“I’m sorry,” I say. “I don’t remember any of it. Please tell me more.”
“It is very clear to me. You said your name was John. You looked lonely and hurt so I talked to you for a long time. I told you about the stomach pains. You convinced me to see a doctor. That is how they diagnosed the cancer. Don’t you remember? It was far along, but I am strong. I am still here. And will be for some time still, God willing.”
“And then what?”
“And then you left. And came back maybe two months later. Again, we talked. I had to soften you up because you seemed uncomfortable talking this time.”
“Like I didn’t know who you were?”
“Like that, yes. And you said your name was Mark. I knew then, right then, that you were in trouble. So I convinced you to attend Sunday mass. And you did. And we talked after Mass every Sunday.” Sister Eleanor frowns, dragging her wrinkled face down to her chin. “You do not remember any of this?”
“No, I don’t.”
“So maybe it has something to do with your headaches.”
“I think maybe you’re right.” I finish the sandwich and Sister Eleanor is already up, filling me a glass of milk. “You said you knew I was in trouble. What did you mean?”
She sets the glass of milk on the table and retakes her seat. “After so many years, it becomes easy to recognize the downtrodden, the needy, the folks who’ve found themselves too far down the wrong path. The second time I saw you—the time you were Mark—you looked haggard and weak, tired and too thin. Your mind seemed preoccupied. I told you about the cancer, and how they were treating the cancer, and you only smiled and continued looking preoccupied. Also, you never talked about yourself. Nothing specific, anyway. It was always about the weather, or about books you’ve read, or you would ask questions of me.”
“All right…”
“Then the names, the fake biblical names. It didn’t take much for me to figure it out.”
“But I still don’t understand. Figure what out?”
“That you are running from someone,” she says. “That it could be the police or it could be people more dangerous than the police. I wasn’t sure and I’m still not sure. And you don’t have to tell me about it now, either. It is none of my business. I am here to talk, and to make sandwiches and pour glasses of milk.”
“And in all this time—during all these conversations—I never said anything specific about myself? Where I was from, if I was married, what I did for a living?”
“Never,” Sister Eleanor says, “and I never asked. It wasn’t my place. I figured if you didn’t want to tell me then there must be a reason.”
“There’s a reason,” I admit, “but I don’t think it has anything to do with running from the police. Or gangsters.”
“You are trapped in an increasing state of unrest,” the old nun tells me. “Each time I see you, I can sense it more and more. Your soul radiates distress. You are not sleeping, not eating properly. Your eyes tell it all.”
“Earlier this week I woke up on a bus and couldn’t remember who I was,” I say, and I go from there. I tell this old woman everything I can remember—from the address written on my hand to my attempt to locate my rental agreement from the apartment complex to my adventures with Clarence Wilcox. I tell her about the young Chinese fortune-teller and her advice about retracing my steps—or how I interpreted her advice to mean that, anyway—and how I decided to do just that. Which has led me here.
When I finish, I do not know what to expect from the wizened old woman. Childlike in her too-big robes, her sour-milk eyes never leaving mine, she only sighs and rises, with great difficulty, from the table. For one horrible moment I anticipate her telling me to get out and not come back. But instead, she crosses to the cupboard and pulls down two short glasses. From another cupboard, and to my astonishment, she produces a bottle of Maker’s Mark whisky. She carries the items to the table and proceeds to pour a shot into both glasses.
“Your stomach cancer,” I suggest.
“I have lived for eighty-six years with that stomach. The cancer is a relatively new occupant. My loyalty is with old friends, not new ones.” She sets one of the glasses in front of me. “Here. I think maybe you could use it.”
“I think maybe I could.”
I sip it and Sister Eleanor takes a healthy swallow. Setting her glass down, she remarks how she will pay for it later.
“I’ve started today retracing my steps. I’ve gone through all the places I’ve been to in the past few days. Next,” I say, “I’m going back to where the bus let me off that night.”
“And then what?”
“I don’t know. I’m hoping something will happen once I get there.”
“But what if it doesn’t?”
“I don’t know. I don’t want to think about that part.”
“Have you gone to the police?”
“No. I guess I’m afraid.”
“Afraid of what?”
“Of what they might tell me. Like, if I’
m wanted. If maybe I really am being chased by the cops.”
“If you’re afraid of what they might tell you, then you don’t really want to know. You might just be happier not knowing.”
“No, that’s not true. I feel lost. Of course I want to know.”
“Lost,” she says, “but free, too. To start over.” She says, “All your past mistakes no longer belong to you.”
“Yes,” I say, and I hang my head. I am looking at the inked address on the palm of my left hand. “That seems to be everyone’s opinion.”
“And not yours?”
“I’ve got no past mistakes but I’ve got no past accomplishments, either.”
“Then what about going to a hospital? There may be a medical reason for your condition.”
“I guess I’m just afraid of what they might tell me, too. Like I’ve got two weeks to live or something.” The callousness of my comment registers just a moment after I’ve already spoken the words. My face burning, I say, “Oh, hey, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—”
“Sounds to me you don’t really want to find out who you are.”
I shake my head. “I just want to know who I am. I mean, I don’t know what foods I like, what music I listen to, what friends and family I have. No decision I make is based on anything other than animal instinct. Today I bought a bottle of water because it was the cheapest thing to drink and I knew I needed to conserve what money I had because I don’t know where any more money will be coming from. But I don’t even know if I like water.”
“You are wrong.”
“How’s that?”
“Not everything has been instinct. Some things are trickling into your conscious mind from your past memories—your past emotions and beliefs and preferences.”
“Like what?”
“Like coming here,” she says. “You always keep coming back here.”
TWELVE