Dies Irae

by Ruby Spinell

  He found six books by Thomas Merton; two he’d read as a young man. Now there was a regular guy; you could talk with him if you met. Fat chance of that, though, him being cloistered and dead. His fingers wandered along the spines of the books. How did Prompt Succor differ from the Trappists Merton belonged to or the Franciscan Poor Clares or, his hand stopped on the Book of the Foundations by St. Teresa of Avila, translated by one E. Allison Peers?

  Encouraged by the quiet—not at all like the college his youngest attended, where the entire student body went to survey the territory or be picked up—he pulled three volumes from the shelf, went over to a soft corner chair, and sat down.

  Less than twenty minutes away by car, a woman was striding, smelling the dirty-sock scent of autumn on her three acres. She tried to scatter the leaves off to either side as she walked, but they had matted into the u-shape of the paths, decomposing into a slick that only a determined rake could dislodge. Not feeling like turning back to the shed for the rake, she picked her way, finding a tuft of grass here and there for her Nikes. She noticed at fifty that if she strode as always, she occasionally landed on her bottom. And so one tried for circumspection, for the sake of oneself, of course.

  Mirari Buttrick Janah’s parents named her Mirari—to be surprised at. As she learned a little Latin she realized how lucky she was. It could have been disastrous. Her father with his penchant for the classics could have named her after his favorite sheepskin, “Pellis Ovilla.” Or after the Muse of Poetry and Dance—Terpsichore. At fourteen, when she found him eating a plate of oysters with great gusto, she sighed and thanked God. It could have been Ostra. Brrr.

  Whatever was going on when her sister was born resulted in the name Denique—finally, at last; Denique always claimed she was the Frenchie one. Five years elapsed, and one day her mother came home from hospital with: Quin—why not? Life! so many pressures lift with the emptying.

  Her father had almost been a priest. But then, of course, if he had been a priest she wouldn’t be here. He was twenty-six, finished with the Diaconate and ready to go into private retreat before ordination, when his mother became seriously ill. In those days the gates did not swing easy. But he received the necessary permission to visit her in the hospital, and there he encountered the nurse’s aide.

  For Mir, now, it had been three years since she had walked these paths, three years since her breakup with Eli. It took that long to heal, took that long to realize she wanted to live in her own house. The very instant she knew this she called the real estate agent and pulled the rental off the market.

  She was fairly tall, about five eight. Against the autumn cold she wore a threadbare hooded sweatshirt in two kinds of green material; the sleeves had shrunk and been extended with the fluffy stuff of a toddler’s sleeper. She had a square chin in a long face and blue-green, sometimes grey, eyes with heavy lids. A man sidling up in a diner once told her she had the softest eyes he had ever seen. Another time, from another man, she heard about a plastic surgeon who could take care of her problem.

  Mir was fifty that year, but she always said she was fifty-three or four or five. Fifty seemed too young to her. She felt too good to be only fifty. She had married twice, had given birth to five children in various states of incomprehensible anguish, euphoria, excitement, and despair. All were presently, for the most part, healthy young adults going blessedly on their individual ways. Her former husband said she was hurrying to her death by claiming years she did not have. Swept along, she felt was more like it. In these times to stand in one place seemed like hurrying.

  The denim about her calves and thighs was full of snags from briars and cats. In long, slow strides she walked down the hill to the house. If she halted and gazed west at this point her eyes would dart, swallow-like, over all the houses and most of the trees. In 1910, the builders of the huge modified gambrel had built far from civilization. Even today, the land dropped abruptly and the swallow skimming her roof would not see another house through a vast ocean of leaves.

  The schist to the south of the house sparkled in the angled sun, flat as a table, so good for driving small, three-wheeled cars, bottom-loaders, dumpsters. Just to see it triggered mechanical memory, the kind activated by alliances that rub.

  A second type, logical memory, was fading with age. It was this that she had used when her son Pete was in his troublesome teens, memorizing names and phone numbers of all his (loosely called) friends, in case she had to trace him.

  A third type, heart memory, occupied the place of honor now. Simply put, the more deeply moving the event, the more gratitude it brings back. As she gazed at the flaggies, she realized that far from triggering mere mechanical memory, the flaggies were definitely heart.

  A wine-colored cat and the muse went out … The poem stopped abruptly. Two cats moved into her peripheral vision, gauging how sedentary she was going to be. A blue fire started in the apple. The cobalt dragon hissed a stream of saliva and steam drooling from its mouth. Metallic blue winking, triangular shield-like spines sprang up along the top of the dragon. The memory that makes it with you, my friend, is outside time and place.

  The older cat jumped easily onto Mir’s thighs and settled there. The younger, after standing on tiptoe, hooked her claws, pulled, but could not quite make it, her stubby legs flailing the air. Mirari caught her bottom in her palm, and lifted.

  The heat from the fire grew. She thought of her article on Paul Valery; she had two weeks to draw it together. Valery has Socrates in the Architect talk about the infinity of act. He reserved for this transcendence every bit of energy not actually necessary for everyday living. She put the cats down on the carpet.

  She slipped out of her jeans and underpants, as an afterthought taking off her shirt. Leaning back she opened long legs to the heat.

  Attention is very important. Apple gives a lovely flame. Shifting to low sucking sounds the dragon dared to be dipped, dared to be spread over thighs, swirled around a smooth belly. A beaded blue dragon steamy in its center dropped heavy on her breasts. The aureola metamorphosed. Silky fine cheek of newborn suddenly reacted. Tumult, upheaval. Prehistoric nipple, becoming intact darkened plug from which years of sediment had washed, stood sentinel.

  She lay in her own liquid, her own light. A wind moaned at the entrance to the chimney. The dragon whipped a jagged tail. Yes. You I do as if you were a stranger, her hand slid over the wet. In the eyes of the mob there is no carpet on which to throw the cats when the god arrives.

  She woke on the floor wrapped in the queen-size down coverlet, breathing ash. One arm wooden. A small bundle of fur fell off her back as she eased herself up. Clam, watching Chowder bury turds in the cooled hearth, dislodged from her perch, made herself comfortable on the pillow. A downdraft sent another cloud of ash her way, she coughed, decided it was cold, lay back all in one motion.

  She lay on her back feeling the steady ground; there was no rumbling beneath her, no tremors through the silent timbers of the house. It was quiet. No background roar of traffic punctuated by horns despite the fifty-dollar fine. No sirens.

  A jet leaving a long, straight, white tail flew into the face of the wind. The tail became a squiggly line, then broke into Morse code. By the time it reached the far window, its passage was erased.

  Coffee! She stumbled over the comforter, caught herself, headed for the kitchen followed by the two cats who saw action with possible food consequences. Scrabbling about in boxes is not what I like to do first thing in the morning … then you should have established some order last night. The dialogue ended with a smile of triumph as she pulled a sack of fresh grind with the Cheese Emporium logo in pink and black from the bottom of a box of dried cereals, nuts, and grains. Everything was going to be all right.

  Soon the perc of the hot bean warmed her enough to discard the bulky garment she was dragging about while feeding the cats. Then, picking it back up and wrapping it about her, she settled in a rocker and drank the first of eight cups of coffee black.

  Sh
e’d never done an article on Valery. Too close? Like writing of a lover and a friend? He hadn’t been college fare when she went to school. Over the years when his name was mentioned, more often than not she noticed a blank stare or vehement emotion, usually negative.

  He had strange grey matter. He was a hybrid much like Monsieur Teste, all idea, no act. They abhorred him, thought him precious. Yes, precious. “The life of the intellect is an imcomparable lyric universe.”

  A woman drowning in snowsuits and rubber boots, school schedules and broken toys read it, squared her shoulders and breathed deeply. Running babysitters back and forth, she thought Valery. Substitute teaching, she read Valery. Nursing a child, she held the child and Valery, pitting her intellect against everything of his she could find to read. Without this she would have died.

  And when the self started falling back away from the newly emergent she was not fearful. Having read of his own intellectual crisis, her subsequent choice of conscious over secondary self was supported. Woman needs like minds when the choices she must make are so utterly frowned on by society. How much she owed him for the pure and absolute form of his work!

  At the Monastery of the Annunciation, morning work was not going smoothly. The three women in the low, white room under the naked light bulb glanced toward Sister Damian, her press making great gurgling sounds, the metal trough-collar filling. Multiple white rapids shot over the edge while she lunged for a dish towel with which to cut off and dam up the flood racing toward Sister Anne across the counter top.

  She could feel the reproof in the brown eyes. Nothing would be said that evening, no good-natured joke made in reference as would have been the way when they were in the novitiate together. The drawn lines were getting too intense, the increasing factionalism leaving little room for humor. With a wry sense of shame, she thought, how divided a house of prayer can become!

  But the splitting of the community into enemy camps is one thing, she lectured herself, your mind-wander since yesterday is something else! Twenty-three years in religion and you call this custody of thought? She was a reproof, a humbling to herself, and feeling so incredibly jumpy. At least six cups of seared batter hung in loops and onion rings on the baker.

  She shot a look of apology toward Anne, but the smaller nun was bent devoutly, her hands making little patting gestures along the edges of two stacks of pure, white unleavened sheets reading them for the cutting after Vespers. Since the violence of the world had turned up under her nose yesterday Damien could not shake the nagger.

  Can you bring this sort of thing down on yourself? Yes! the nagger answered, shaking a bony finger like a metronome, ‘and the inner shall be outer and outer shall be inner … You attract what you deserve.’

  When the wooden clapper sounded its nada nada nada to end morning work period, all twelve-inch diameters of stainless steel shone, but she had not yet begun to chip the dough hardened on the back hinges. And the feet which held the heavy apparatus with its domed lid eight inches off the counter wore cotton between the toes.

  She’d speak to Reverend Mother for more time to clean up. Putting six good sheets above her on the shelf and covering them with a clean cloth, she threw the yellowed ones under the counter in the discard bin. Burned. As burned as any first year novice called down for her pride to do penance before the refectory cross.

  Who wants to be handed the burned body of the Lord at the altar? Now, if they were still laying the host down where they used to you might hang it on bad breath.

  She thought of Johnny Nelson. He was such a devil. His mother, somehow perceiving this, brought him routinely to Mass hopeful that the atmosphere was catching. She pictured him getting his in his own grubby paw. Squinting, then holding it up, ‘Hey Father, mine’s burned!”

  “That order has to be out by three. How much more time do you think you’ll need?” Reverend Mother Michaels, looking diminutive in a Sears white nylon blouse sprinkled with blue forget-me-nots, had great black circles under her eyes.

  “Are you all right?”

  “I should be asking you that.”

  “I’m sure I can finish by Vespers if I go directly from noon meal.” Sister Damian tried to breathe confidence.

  Mother Michaels thought the tall woman in the long, heavy, wool habit was doing very well, considering. She herself hadn’t slept at all last night.

  Only the senior sisters had been given the stark details. But, of course, everyone knew something was not right. The tension in the house was too thick to wish away or disguise.

  Damian was far and away the most extraordinary woman. Thank God, it had been she on the turn. A chill went through Michaels; remembering froze her whole body, and she wished she was wearing the old, heavy wool again.

  To think that what they wore had been an actual matter of concern a few days ago. When she initiated changes, she expected that some of the older nuns would not take well to drip dry. She had given quite a few talks on poverty, stressing the cost of woolens. After all, they were not yuppies, and she preferred something simple that could be purchased by mail.

  Half the sisters were now wearing something from the Sears catalog. They had even asked permission to purchase a perm kit. Looking over the community from her vantage point at the back of the chapel, she saw an assortment of stripes, flowered blouses, and skirts as well as floor-length habits.

  Clothes seemed so inconsequential now. The person or persons who did this thing could not be in their right mind. She felt extremely threatened. The police assured her the sisters were not at risk, but how could they be sure?

  Why had they been chosen for this singular gift? She had issued very strict orders about the use of the grounds. All outgoing letters were to cease for Advent. She had to tell the community, and being unable to write home about it would cut down talk. It was her responsibility to protect the nuns, and she had never felt more inadequate.

  Their life was so much more than what they wore on their poor bodies. But there was no doubt about it, she looked at Sister Damian standing before her, the habits were beautiful.

  “Sister, when are you due to go back outside?” Clothes might be individualized, constitutions interpreted more in the light of the times, but no one argued against active work in the world one year out of every four. Three years within cloister. One year outside. Their foundress had been very wise.

  “Twelve months. Mother.”

  “Thank God you’re here now!”

  “We’re going to weather this!” Sister Damian heard her voice; it sounded much more confident than she felt.

  “Your cuffs are pretty worn, Sister.” Michaels gestured to Sister Damian’s sleeves. Women talk about inconsequentials when something too big for words rides heavy on their hearts.

  “Take whatever time you need for the order. I think the chapel in the new development is pulling quite a following.”

  Chapter Three

  Luciano Pavarotti sat in an empty concert hall, arms outstretched, index fingers touching the poles. Eli put fresh masking tape under the sagging corner of the poster, rubbing a sweatered arm to secure it. Never, never tape! If you can’t frame, pin. He heard and did not care; he and Luciano were not for posterity.

  He sat back down in the breakfast nook, lifting the lukewarm coffee. Pavarotti reminded him of a modern day Buddha, feet up, arms out, bottom down, stretched nonetheless, trying to contain it. Trying to hear it first, then contain it. Like one of those rotund Eastern hermits of Mir’s wandering their cloud scrolls, eternally hiking the Karst mountains of Guillin. He would like to visit those rounded bolder mountains of China. No one outside China believed at first that they actually existed: they thought them poetic license.

  He glanced around at the neatness of the tiny kitchen. Someone had been quite bold to run pipe up the turret of the old three story Victorian, placing the kitchens in triple rounds of light. The neighbor below, a woman in her thirties, grew a profusion of plants. He had glimpsed the lush green when, her door open, a slightly plump bl
onde dipped turds from a pan into a coffee tin and added fresh litter from a sack in the hall closet. She was often engaged in this activity when he came home from work, no matter what the hour. She was always pleasant, but he passed on, climbing up to his own landing, feeling courtly and ready to retire.

  He’d never found the casual look. One of his daughters called him the dapper detective. Sounded like something out of a murder novel. Well, dapper hadn’t spirit according to Mir, dapper wasn’t spontaneous. Was it dapper that got you in a three-room apartment by yourself at a time when you looked for a mellow wife in your life? No one answered.

  Not bad, though, he thought. Sitting up ’til all hours reading about contemplatives and contemplation made a man reflective.

  As he stretched his long legs to the cushion of the opposite chair, the phone rang. Putting his feet back under him, he rose upright in one easy movement without touching the table. When I have to pull myself up, then I retire!

  “Dad, great day huh?” The voice did not need an introduction. It didn’t wait. “Awesome!” It was always difficult to pinpoint what his son was referring to as currently awesome. “Did you know Mom moved back into the house?” And the whirlwind came out of the north and their work was as a wheel in the midst of a wheel. Like a pop-up toaster, his memory brought the warm beginnings of Ezekiel; had Zeke or Mir nudged it?

  “No, I didn’t know. Did you talk?”

  “I tried to call but the phone isn’t connected.”

  Eli thought of Mir’s periodic drifts into spirit stuff, times when she would not or could not pay attention to the details that held the body stuff together. How angry he would get! And now, he wondered if she had filled the oil tank; did she have food in the house? Did she make plans or did she just land back in their old home?

  “How did you know?”

  “Rosie’s best friend works at Kippingwood.”

  The young lady’s name was new; he deliberately did not refer to it. She was probably one of the family, as indeed his son told him they all were, all the young ladies. As heartwarming as this might seem, this extended family embarrassed him. Occasionally, over the years he had given man-to-man monologues on sexual intimacy, AIDS, and herpes while his sons smiled indulgently.