The Priest's Madonna

by Hassinger, Amy

  “Possibly. But the caskets are the more likely place, don’t you think?”

  I shrugged, affecting nonchalance. “Perhaps.” I hesitated, considering whether or not to tell him what I knew.

  “What are you going to do with it?” I asked. “If we find it?”

  He gave me a surprised look, as if he had expected I already knew. “Why, I’ll finish what the old priest started. What he didn’t have the strength to do.”

  “Burn it, you mean?”

  But Bérenger did not answer me: he was grunting beneath the weight of one of the planks of wood covering the hole.

  I continued, my words gaining force as I spoke. “But you can’t really believe that the Church would be threatened by such a thing. Even if the Austrian were to get his hands on it and publish it, what lasting effect could it possibly have?”

  “It wouldn’t topple the Church, of course. But it would be one more corrosive element, one more thing for the freethinkers to use to undermine the Church’s authority, to cast her in the mud.”

  “But what about your own doubt? Your estrangement from God? Everything you said last night?”

  “What about it?”

  I was silent.

  “Marie,” he said softly. “It has occurred to me that perhaps God has set this task in front of me as a test. A chance to prove my loyalty. If I can find this heretical book and destroy it, then he’ll come to me, he’ll finally grace me with his presence.”

  “A test. Like you’ve thought of me. As a test.”

  He gave me no answer.

  “Why would God concern himself with an old book full of a crazy woman’s delusions?”

  “Everything concerns God, Marie. Every last thing.”

  His resolution wounded me. It was clear that our passion last night was not likely to be repeated tonight, nor ever again, perhaps. Not only that: I saw how despite our most valiant efforts, we could never truly be intimates, not in the way I had envisioned for us, united in thought, married in mind. He clung to the rotting vine of the medieval Church; I stood before the same vine, pruning scythe in hand.

  “Will you help me, Marie?” he asked.

  “Of course,” I lied.

  We descended the steps once more, myself in front with the lanterns, while Bérenger staggered behind me under the burden of the tools. I managed to convince him that we should begin with the older rooms, reasoning that Jeanne Catherine’s confessor would have wanted to hide the book as deeply below ground as possible. As we passed through the first room, I quickly surveyed its contents again, singling out the few smaller caskets, the ones that appeared to belong to children. One, stacked atop two other larger coffins, bore a tarnished brass plaque boasting the name of Berthelot, but I did not stop, for fear of drawing attention to it. I followed Bérenger through the second room, then down the steep stone staircase to the lowermost room of the crypt. Our lanterns cast a brighter light than the candle had, diminishing the room’s ominous quality. The rust-colored walls, the stacked and scattered bones, the stone sarcophagus, and the mountain of earth were all illuminated. I wondered once again whether the earth had slid naturally by some disturbance, a mild earthquake perhaps, or whether the dirt had been piled there by human hands.

  Bérenger set the shovel and hammer on the floor, keeping hold of the pry bar, and stood before the sepulcher. He muttered a few phrases in Latin and made the sign of the cross, then wedged the pry bar beneath the lid, knocked it in with the hammer, and leaned on the bar with all his weight. The lid did not budge. He repeated this several times, up and down the length of the casket and along both ends, until finally, his forehead glistening, his face red with effort, he broke the seal with a pop.

  I rushed to him as he slid the lid aside. The must of centuries assaulted us; we both reeled. Bérenger covered his nose with his arm; I used my blouse. We stepped forward again. The lantern cast a warm light over the contents: a skeleton, with a few scraps of colorless cloth still draped over the ribs and pelvis. Just beneath the left hand was a simple gold band, presumably having dropped from the finger when the flesh fell away. Beside the right hand lay an ornamental dagger of intricately carved jet. At its feet was a collection of smaller bones, the skull elongated, the rib cage broad, the four legbones tiny: a lapdog, buried with its master. Next to the lapdog was a small effigy of a ram with garnets for eyes and nostrils, and rubies lining its golden horns like knots in the branches of a tree.

  “Dear God,” Bérenger whispered.

  I thought of Childeric’s tomb, the cloisonné bees, the gold and garnet bull’s head. “How old do you think this is?” I asked.

  “I couldn’t say, truthfully,” he replied. “Sixteenth century, perhaps?”

  We stood together, both wanting to handle the treasures, neither of us daring.

  “Such a piece of art, Marie, would be worth thousands of francs,” whispered Bérenger. “At the very least. And the dagger—” He finished the thought with an awe-filled silence.

  We opened several more caskets that night—I held the lantern as Bérenger pried open the lids—and found treasure after treasure: a golden bracelet studded with sapphires; rings of gold and silver, bearing jewels of varying weights and sizes—polished jet, luminous amber, a diamond cut in the shape of a star; a necklace of pearls the size of knuckle bones. And the weapons! Swords fashioned most commonly from iron but occasionally from silver or copper and set in hilts of arabesquing brass, shaped and hammered gold; daggers, the leather of some sheaths still partially intact; shields, emblazoned family crests; dirks with handles of engraved horn; sabers, cutlasses, rapiers—all manner of blades, lavishly and plainly decorated. Occasionally, a casket contained nothing other than bones, though almost always we found at least one artifact that had been buried with the owner: a ring or bracelet with the women, a sword or dagger with the men.

  We touched nothing, not at first. We were too awed by the enormity of what we’d found, too cowed by the age and the contents of the coffins. My thoughts of the book of visions, of Jeanne Catherine and her unfortunate son, even of our kisses, were all but forgotten.

  Resurrection

  In the city, Miryam made her way to the rooms her family always rented. She stood before the entrance shyly, unsure how she would be received. Her father came to the door, embraced her, and ushered her in, praising God for returning her, and her whole family gathered around her—her mother, sisters, grandmothers and aunts, uncles and cousins. She wept with relief. When she told them of the exorcism of her demons, her parents knelt in grateful prayer, her mother holding fast to Miryam’s hand. They led a joyous feast that night.

  But though Miryam rejoiced at the homecoming, she could not celebrate with a whole heart. She sang the songs absently, for her thoughts were with Yeshua. After the lamb was eaten and the bones burned in the fire, after the table had been cleared and the dishes all washed, after she had sat around the fire with her father and uncles, telling them of her travels and the miracles that Yeshua had worked, they had finally all fallen asleep, made drowsy by the four cups of wine and the festivities. She remained awake, looking out the window onto the empty street.

  Was Yeshua that savior that the Lord had promised to his people Yisrael? Was it he whom the prophets—Mosheh, Daniel, Yeshayah—spoke of? It was written: a star would come forth out of Yakov, a new king to rule the world. Yerushalayim would be rebuilt in a troubled time and an anointed one would come, but would eventually be cut off, left with nothing. Was this, then, Yeshua?

  Yeshua had prophesied, too, made puzzling, troublesome statements that Miryam could not pretend to understand. He had declared his coming would bring anguish, fire, dissension, and war—not the unity of nations, as Yeshayah had foretold. Sometimes he spoke as if he were the Lord himself, declaring himself to be present in the heartwood, in the soil beneath a stone. And his statements about the Kingdom, the coming end, were changeable and various: sometimes he spoke of an end like the one foretold by the prophets: the destruction of th
e Temple, war and calamity, and then the reigning of the Prince of Peace over the living and the resurrected dead. At other times, his vision of the kingdom was more ill-defined and yet more illuminated: a kind of inner dwelling, a place of peace that existed now, out of the sight of men, a place that demanded the renunciation of all else in order to be found. Away from him only hours, she was already losing sight of him. Who was he? What did he offer the world?

  Finally, just before the cock crowed that dawn, she fell asleep on the floor next to the window. She did not wake until several hours later, when it was too late.

  SHE HURRIED TO Gulgulta, having heard on the street of Yeshua’s capture. When she arrived, he was already close to death. She called to him, shrieked until her voice broke, but he remained motionless, pinned against the sky like a skinned calf. She wrapped herself around the cross and shimmied toward him, splinters gouging her thighs and hands. When she reached his feet, she clung there, nuzzling them, kissing away the blood that snaked from his wounds. Her arms trembled with the exertion, but she held on, praying for God to topple the cross, to restore him to life.

  A pair of hands grabbed her hips and pulled her down. On the ground, she cursed at the soldier who had pried her off. “He’s done nothing!” she screamed. “Take him down! Take him down!” He swatted her across the mouth with the back of his gloved hand. Her lip split. She broke for the cross once more, but the soldier knocked her to the ground. Pain shot through her wrist.

  “Try that again and I’ll beat you to death,” the soldier growled. She spat in his face. He moved off.

  She stared at Yeshua. He was so still, his belly flat and unmov ing. Then, suddenly, he gasped, straining at his bindings. She cried out, looking around for someone to cut him down. He was dying. How could they let him die?

  A short distance away, Yeshua’s mother knelt, staring mutely at her son. Miryam went to her, knelt beside her, took her hand.

  A while later she saw Kefa peering in their direction from the city wall. “Coward,” she murmured. He stayed several minutes, then disappeared.

  Late that afternoon, Yeshua’s spirit rattled through him one last time, then departed. His corpse slumped. Finally, the guards took it down. A council judge and another well-dressed man stepped forward, giving orders.

  “Where will you take him?” Miryam asked.

  “There is a new tomb in a small garden near here. We’ll lay him there,” one of the men said.

  “Whose tomb is it?”

  “His now,” the well-dressed man said, and Miryam gathered that it had once belonged to the man himself.

  They laid Yeshua’s body on his mother’s lap. That Miryam cradled it, letting her fingers travel over the wounds: the blood-encrusted holes in the wrists and at the ankles and the scabs at his forehead and temples where the thorny crown had been placed. Miryam of Magdala watched her, filled with sympathy. To be the mother of such a man.

  Someone brought a bucket of water. Miryam of Magdala dipped the hem of her cloak in it and gingerly wiped Yeshua’s wounds. When she was finished, the men lifted Yeshua and placed him in a cart. As they did, Miryam offered a ladleful of water to the other Miryam, saying “Drink, mother.”

  She took it, but did not bring it to her mouth. “He loved you,” she said.

  “Shh,” Miryam said. Gently, she helped Yeshua’s mother lift the ladle to her lips and said, “Drink.”

  At the tomb, the men anointed the body with myrrh and aloe, wrapped him with linens, and laid him down. When they rolled the stone over the opening of the tomb, Miryam felt as if it rolled across her own body, crushing bone and organ, preventing breath.

  ON THE MORNING after Shabbat, Miryam of Magdala rose at dawn and went to the tomb. When she arrived, she saw that the rock had been rolled back. She thought first of Elazar and was immediately fearful, imagining Yeshua, skin a ghastly pallor, emerging weak and monstrous into the dawn. She approached the tomb with trepidation. But when she looked inside, she saw no body, only the strewn linens that had covered him. The tomb smelled still of myrrh and aloe.

  Who has done this? she thought. Who has taken him? She rushed into the garden, thinking only of his missing body, her eyes senseless to the beauty of the dew that silvered the new flowers. But she was stopped in the garden by a voice that called her name with the passing breeze on her cheek. She breathed, listened, and then, with the fresh morning air, a rapture penetrated her heart and enlarged it beyond all containment. It seemed to fill the whole of her body and mind, making the blood beat at her fingertips and the inner drums of her ears. “Yeshua,” she whispered, and heard, within that glorious expanse of her new heart, his response: “Miryam.”

  She saw him then, not with her eyes, but instead with this sudden great heart: Yeshua wholly transformed. He was not embodied—he was instead a radiance, a shifting emanation of light that took shape now as the glint of silver in a dewdrop perched on the lip of a petal, now as a flash of brilliance cast across the surface of a wet stone, now again as the shimmer on a moth’s wing, glinting and fluttering with the speed of a thought, and now once more as an elliptical flame, bending and twisting as in a wind.

  “Rabboni,” she cried. “Wait. Wait!”

  The patterned light dissipated into the bright morning. She cried out once more. “Where are you? Where have you gone? Don’t go!” But she saw nothing more. The breeze caressed her cheek.

  When the wind stopped, Miryam looked around, noting now the beauty of the garden: the orchids and the meadow-saffron, the cyclamen, the lilies and the irises, the milk-vetch and the rock rose, the panicles of henna, and the almond tree with its white blossoms, all jeweled with quivering drops of dew. She breathed deeply, catching the sweet scent of the wet narcissus petals and the heady urgency of the mandrake, and exhaled, letting the breath shudder from her lungs. She still felt her swollen heart, its pleasant pressure against her throat, her chest, her belly, even her thighs, the spreading peace that came with each pulsation. It was the peace she’d felt when he first healed her, that astonishing sense of newness, the unfamiliarity with herself. And she felt the knowledge, newly born within her, as evident as the empty tomb, that she was with child.

  Chapter Eleven

  WE RETURNED TO the crypt night after night. Bérenger was careful not to touch me, not even casually, not even in the protective darkness of the church. I gathered he regretted our indiscretion, and though I was sorry, I did not blame him.

  Our pace in opening the caskets was rapid. I feared we would reach the little Berthelot coffin and the book of visions I felt sure was hidden inside within the week, and that Bérenger might set fire to it there and then, without even allowing me to handle it, so convinced he was of its poisonous qualities. Once again, I considered telling him Madame’s story in full, explaining her family history and her rightful claim to the book in the hopes that he might see reason. But he had never harbored kind feelings toward Madame. He suspected it was she who had reported him to the State so many years earlier. And, perhaps because of his suspicion, he tended to take the point of view that she had been at least partially responsible for the mayor’s suicide. It was not likely he would soften his stance for her benefit.

  So I had to find the book before he did. It would be difficult, for he seemed intent on opening every casket as quickly as possible. The sight of so much treasure energized him; he barely slept.

  I thought, then, of involving Madame. If I could tell her where the coffin was located, and instruct her how to enter the tomb, she might be able to search for the book alone while I kept Bérenger occupied with some other task.

  I went to Madame the following day, a few days after Christmas Eve. Mme Siau opened the door as usual, and asked me to wait while she called for Madame. Mme Laporte came to the door a moment later dressed in a black gown, her face washed and rested.

  “Hello,” I said. “You look well.”

  “Thank you, Marie. I feel better. You look a bit peaked, yourself.”

  “I haven’
t been sleeping.”

  “Come in, please.”

  I followed her inside. She guided me to the parlor. Stacked against the far wall were several large crates I had not seen before.

  Madame had hardly sat down before I blurted out my news: “I’ve been exploring the tomb the past few nights. With Monsieur le curé.”

  “Have you?” Madame said. Her face betrayed no expectation. “And what have you found there?”

  “It’s incredible. The bones, all stacked as high as our heads. And the numbers of coffins. Dozens upon dozens! I’ve spotted the one I think belongs to Jeanne Catherine’s son, but we haven’t opened it yet—”

  “Opened it?” Her gaze was uncharacteristically judgmental. “You’re not opening them, are you?”

  “Well, yes.” My enthusiasm for our project withered.

  “What for?”

  “To find the book, of course,” I said impatiently. “It must be in the little boy’s coffin. It’s the only place it could be.”

  “It seems dreadfully morbid.”

  My heart sank. I had never before felt her disapprobation, and it wounded me. I didn’t dare tell her what we’d found in the coffins. “I thought you’d be glad, madame. You wanted to find the tomb. And I thought you hoped to see the book.”

  She took my hands in hers. “Marie. You are kind to want to help me. But please, I do not want you to disturb the dead for my sake. The story you’ve told me is enough. Truly. It’s given me a good deal of relief, knowing that my Jeanne Catherine’s tale was honored enough to have been written down. I find I have little desire to read the visions myself. Even if they were to be found. I would rather leave the contents of that book to my imagination.”

  I nodded as though I understood. “I thought it might help you. To read what she’d written. It might be a kind of proof.” Though as I spoke, I knew it wouldn’t: a book like that, of one individual’s visions, could never prove anything.

  “You’re very kind, Marie. But I don’t require proof any longer, thank goodness. What I require is peace.” We regarded each other for a long moment before she spoke again.