The Son, The Sudarium Trilogy - Book Two

by Leonard Foglia

  “You haven’t changed a bit,” said Hannah.

  “Delicately put,” responded Teri with a laugh. “You’re the one who looks just the same. I knew you would. Same blonde hair. Hardly a wrinkle in your face.” And then before sentimentality overwhelmed her entirely, she added, “You little shit!”

  Gathered around a dinner table piled high with food that night, they sat and ate and reminisced, as if reminiscence could hold the world at bay. Did they all know it was a respite? A moment’s pause in the rush of events beyond the green hills?

  “You know your parents were married right there by the fireplace,” said Teri to the children. “Your Uncle Billy and I were the best man and the maid of honor. Technically, the matron of honor. I had a spouse then, God save me. Did we all drink champagne afterwards?”

  “Champagne?” countered Jimmy. “I think I managed to find a bottle of cider in the basement.”

  “And I made lasagna,” chimed in Hannah. “Remember?”

  “You still make lasagna,” observed Little Jimmy dryly.

  “Yes, I still do, and you will continue to appreciate it,” remarked Hannah.

  Teri turned to Mano, “And the first time I saw you, young man, you were in diapers and were lying over there in a laundry basket.”

  “You saw me in diapers?’ marveled Mano.

  “Saw you without them, too, if truth be told!”

  Mano chuckled.

  “Was my mother pretty?” asked Teresa.

  “What do you mean ‘was’? But, yes, Teresa, she was the prettiest bride I ever saw. And your father cut a dashing figure, as well.’

  “It was so cold and icy that day,” said Hannah. “Then it started to snow and I remember thinking that all our imaginary guests – the relatives and friends who didn’t even know we were getting married - were throwing handfuls of confetti at the cottage.”

  The image hung in the air for a minute. Then Jimmy stood up. “It was here that we became a family. So I’d like to propose a toast to family. And that includes you, too, Teri. Without you, this family would not exist.”

  Glasses were lifted and everyone shouted, “To family!”

  Teri’s mascara had started to run again.

  The sky was clear and the night was unusually mild, so they decided to take a walk by the lakeshore. Lights flickered in a few houses, but most of them were dark and the piers and boathouses, which would become hives of activity in a few more months, projected a ghostly sense of purposelessness. Even where the water usually lapped the beach, there was stillness. Sensing Mano and his parents would appreciate some time alone, Teri walked on ahead with the children, her eye partially on the look out for bears, even though she’d been reassured several times there were none.

  Mano and Jimmy sat down on a large boulder that jutted into the water, and Hannah sat between them, feeling comfortable and secure.

  Jimmy spoke first. “Your okay? Your side isn’t bothering you.”

  “It’s just a flesh wound.’

  “Your mother and I want you to know we’re sorry.”

  “Sorry?”

  “For all you’ve gone through. We had always hoped we could keep you from having to bear this burden.”

  Mano took a deep breath and leaned back so he could see both his parents’ faces. “You didn’t give me this burden. You tried to protect me from it. But we’ve found out it is impossible to protect me from it. Because it is who I am. And I would never want to be protected from who I am.”

  “It will be different,” Hannah promised, “when we return to Mexico. We’ll find a way to deal with the crowds. We’ll move, if we have to. Together, as a family, we can face this.”

  Mano took a deep breath, before speaking. “I’m not going back. Not right away, anyway.”

  Hannah tried to keep her voice calm, but her body registered an involuntary twitch of surprise. “What do you mean? It’s your home. We’ll stand by one another.”

  Jimmy gazed off into the mist hovering over the lake uncertain what to say. “Why don’t you want to come home?”

  “Because I am no longer certain where home is. What is clear to me is that what you call my burden is, in fact, a gift. An opportunity I must pursue. I know this will be hard to understand. It’s hard for me to explain. But remember those three days I spent buried in the mud? I felt something so pure and real then - beyond anything I had thought possible. I found that when the world - its distractions and its diversions, even the awareness of my own body -were taken away, I still felt something. Something beyond words. A mingling of me and the earth, as if the two were inseparable. It was as if I were at the beginning of creation itself and the world had yet to split itself into millions of pieces. Into all its many species and its myriad beliefs. It was still all possibility, potential, harmony waiting to be. I need to find that place again.”

  “But how?” protested Hannah “Where do you have to go?”

  “Out there,” He gestured up at the sky. “Or down there.” He pointed at the ground. “Or in here.” He put his hand to his gut. “I just know I have been afforded an experience of wholeness, of a universe undivided. It was a glimpse, no more, and I want to experience it again. Only more fully.”

  “But those people are still out there, seeking to use you,” said Jimmy. “You can’t face them by yourself. We will stay together and handle this as a family.”

  Mano laid his hand gently on his father’s knee. “No. This is something I have to do alone. You are right when you say that people in the world are conspiring to define me, before I even know who I am. They are telling me what I mean, when that definition eludes me. They want me to behave, according to their interests. I can’t accept that. That’s why I have to go.”

  “And if I were to ask you not to?” said Jimmy quietly.

  “I know you wouldn’t do that. I saw Monsignor Gallagher this afternoon.”

  Surprise registered on Jimmy’s face. “He’s still…”

  “Alive? Yes. He told me about your calling.”

  Jimmy’s thoughts reverted to those days, days he rarely spoke about but which remained constantly with him. “It was a special time in my life.”

  “But you made the choice to sacrifice it all.”

  “It wasn’t a sacrifice, even though it probably disturbed Father Gallagher deeply. Your mother and you were the greatest gifts God could have given me.”

  “So there was no choice. Your path was clear.”

  “As clear as the lake in front of us. From the time I was a child, I always knew where I had to go and what I had to do. And when my calling changed, it was really no different. The path was even clearer to me than before.”

  Mano shifted his gaze to Hannah. “And you, Mom?”

  “Me?” She instinctively put a hand to her cheek to hide the flush of self-consciousness, even though it was undetectable in the blackness of night. “I was lost. I didn’t know what it meant to have choices. I was never clear about anything until you came along. It was you who brought clarity into my life. Then your father and now Teresa and Little Jimmy.”

  “But you were looking, searching for something?”

  “Well, I knew that I didn’t want to waste my life. The thought that occupied my mind constantly was, I want to be of use.”

  “So do I! See, you both took paths that no one else understood. That’s all I am asking to do. Take my path. Find that clarity.”

  Hannah and Jimmy let his words sink in. There was no need for any more talking. They did understand, and their silence was the most eloquent way they could communicate their acceptance. Jimmy put his arm around his wife’s shoulders and Mano lay his head in his mother’s lap. Looking up at them both, he whispered, “So you see, no matter what anyone says about us to the contrary, I am your child.”

  2:48

  Before the first light - that’s when he knew he would eventually set out. But not right away. He was not running away from anyone this time. He was beginning a journey.

  So for the
next few days, he went rowing on the lake with Little Jimmy, looked for wildflowers in the woods with Teresa and enjoyed family dinners that began early and lasted late into the evening. The electricity went out one night, and Little Jimmy got upset when the kindling he’d so carefully laid out on the charcoal grill failed to ignite. To the few passers-by there were this time of year, they looked like an ordinary American family on a holiday. And, for a while, they were.

  Hannah and Jimmy, although knowing that things would never be so easy or so simple in the years ahead, felt for the first time that a weight had been lifted. The truth had been spoken and it seemed to have released a collective sense of adventure and optimism. But happy as he was, Mano knew that this contentment, too, could eventually become a distraction. Ease and comfort were just as seductive as wealth, and every bit as debilitating as poverty. They were many, the distractions of the world. He couldn’t allow himself to be diverted from this ephemeral place he was seeking.

  So it was on the third evening at dinner that he casually mentioned he would be setting off on a hike the following morning. Little Jimmy immediately piped up that he wanted to come, but Mano explained that he would be hiking far into the forest and sleeping on the ground at night. Maybe next time, he said. “Ick!” exclaimed Teresa. “You’ll never catch me sleeping on the ground. You can tell me about it when you return.”

  “I will,” Mano promised.

  Only Hannah and Jimmy knew the reality: there was no knowing when they would be seeing him again. They told themselves that it was like any child going off to college or getting married, rituals of passage that every son and his parents go through. But in their solitary moments, they would look at one another and know, without speaking, that it was more than that. Mano kissed his brother and sister goodnight and told them he would be heading out before they woke up.

  “Why so early?” Little Jimmy wanted to know.

  “It’s important to leave before the first light. That way you lead the day.”

  “Just don’t get lost,” Teresa said, as she climbed the stairs to her room.

  “I won’t,” Mano said. And one by one the bedroom doors closed.

  Early the next morning, Jimmy helped Mano organize his oversize backpack, complete with sleeping bag and camping essentials. Hannah cooked food and wrapped it in tight tinfoil packages. Finally, when everything was packed, Jimmy hoisted the backpack onto Mano’s shoulders. It looked as if he was going to climb Mount Everest.

  Outside, a fragrant dew covered the pastures and the orchards. A tiny sliver of blue light pierced the eastern horizon. They all hugged - longer than usual - and before letting go, Mano said, “Remember, I’ll never be far from you.” Hannah and Jimmy stood side by side and watched as Mano disappeared into the leaves and the branches and the morning gloom of the forest. He blended in so quickly that it was as if he had been touched by a magician’s wand and vanished. The suddenness of his departure left them both startled and they remained in front of the house for a long while in the hope that if he looked back, he still might be able to see them.

  Mano walked slowly though the woods, smelling the fresh moss and feeling the leaves brush up against him. Most people, barely able to see a few feet in front of them, would have been frightened by the forest’s sudden surprises. But for Mano, every branch and bush and vine that rubbed up against him was like a hand, reaching out in welcome.

  At the top of the first hill, he took off his backpack and paused to gaze up at the sky, which was streaked with blue now. He could make out the hills and valleys that lay ahead. The brisk morning temperature turned his breath into a wisp of vapor that hovered briefly in front of his face, drifted upward, then drifted away, like pipe smoke, even as his youthful lungs were preparing the next breath (and the next wisp) to replace it. He exulted in the physical sensation, the drawing in and the breathing out, which was the rhythm of life itself.

  “I am,” he said out loud, although no one was present to hear him. His breath formed another evanescent cloud of vapor, as if the words themselves had materialized for an instant, so that he could verify with his eyes that they had been spoken.

  He felt a caress on the back of his neck. He turned and faced the rising sun. The first rays wrapped their warmth around him and then, like the mud of the Sierra Gorda, they began to penetrate his body. And soon he had the impression that they were filling the infinite space between each molecule of his being. As the sun rose higher, each new ray pierced his skin, like arrows, but arrows that left no wound or pain, only the ineffable sensation of their passage, until he could no longer tell where he ended and the sunlight began.

  3:1

  The group of eight men, conservatively dressed in white shirts and black pants, took none of the major entrances to the Metropolitan Cathedral that dominates the Zócolo, Mexico City’s biggest public plaza. They could have passed under ornate evangelists or ecstatic angels, inspirational representatives of Faith, Hope and Charity, or even St. Peter piloting the Ship of the Church on turbulent seas of time —- all sculpted stone that was proving less eternal than the subjects they depicted. Time, unfortunately, was eroding the venerable edifice that stood for Christ’s triumph in a land previously dedicated to pagan gods.

  But the eight men, indifferent to such architectural degradations, barely cast an eye upwards as they marched past the crowds and made their way to the eastern façade of the cathedral. Here the view was much less magnificent. A construction yard, closed in by an ugly fence made of dented corrugated tin panels, kept curiosity seekers at bay. The sun was setting and the lights of the Zócolo proved ineffectual. Only someone looking closely would have discerned a door in the expanse of corrugated metal and the painted injunction, “entrada prohibida,” would have discouraged further exploration.

  Yet this was the door the eight men took after their leader, pressed a generous wad of bills in the paw of the lone guard, happy to look the other way for a few seconds. The stonemasons had quit for the day and the men walked briskly across the desolate site, dodging old stones awaiting rehabilitation and new ones yet to assume their form and place in the ancient building.

  “Cuidado con las lamparas…Pay attention to the flashlights. They can be seen,” was all the guard cautioned, noting the men had removed flashlights from their back pockets. “Keep them focused on the ground.”

  The eight men redirected their flashlights to illuminate a series of narrow spiral metal staircases that seemingly corkscrewed several hundred feet down into the bowels of the cathedral. The feeble beams were no match for the blackness that lapped at the group like the night tide and threatened at each turn to engulf the group. No one talked. Only the occasional squeaking of the metal steps and the occasional stubbed toe disrupted the silence.

  “Ya estamos,” announced the leader, as the staircase finally wound to an end. The foundation, at least in this section of the cathedral, rested on a moist layer of clay, the bottom of the lake that had once covered the entire valley now inhabited by modern Mexico City. As time passed the lake receded, the population grew and the water tables dropped, leaving the bed of soft clay on which the colonial capital had been constructed. Which meant that the Cathedral, a mighty fortress and a weighty one, was sinking slowly into the ooze on which it had been constructed. Floors tilted as in a fun house, twin bell towers, once parallel, leaned their separate ways. Chapels risked crumbling. Attempts to shore up the edifice had only contributed to the labyrinthine underbelly of the church.

  The men followed the leader cautiously - ducking under massive concrete beams, squeezing between columns that still bore symbols of the Aztec temple that occupied the spot before the Spanish conquest of Mexico and the relentless destruction of its pre-Christian past. The flashlights projected their silhouettes on the claustrophobic walls, heightening the nightmarish impression. Without their leader to guide them, it would take the men more than a map to retrace their steps; it would take the instinct of the rat or the homing pigeon.

  At la
st the narrow passageway opened on to a room no bigger than eight feet by eight feet. A ceremonial center once in Aztec times or the mere accident of modern architectural planning, it was hard to know which. There were no explanatory markers. A small table, covered with a white cloth, sat in the center of the room. Three candles sat on the table, along with a crucifix and a red cotton runner, emblazoned with what appeared to be a large letter Y.

  “Extinguish your flashlights,” instructed the leader, overweight and breathing heavily from the descent. His face was dominated by pendulous jowls that made it hard to distinguish the contours of his chin. In the mass of flesh, only his eyes stood out, small and dark and sharp, like rusty nails. The shadows on the wall took on hallucinatory proportions.

  “Christ Our King,” we offer thee our labor,” he announced in a thunderous voice. “Hear our pledge. To God.” He struck the table with his massive fist.

  “To God,” repeated the followers in solemn unison, and they, too, struck the table.

  “To Country.” Again the leader’s fist came down heavily on the table.

  “To Country,” was the collective response, followed by the assertive gesture.

  “To El Yunque!”

  “To El Yunque!!”

  And suddenly the significance of the gesture was apparent. “El Yunque” was the word for “anvil.” The men were like modern-day smithies, striking an imaginary forge. Just as no amount of hammering could destroy the unyielding anvil, so nothing could alter the determination of their oath. The words traveled down unexplored passageways, turned faraway corners and came back as a clear call to action, “TO GOD … GOD … GOD … To COUNTRY … COUNTRY … TO EL YUNQUE … EL YUNQUE.”

  When the echoes faded, the leader resumed talking, his eyes darkening even more, the voice stern with conviction. “Our God, we offer thee our work in this session with the hope that you will give us the strength to face danger, the wisdom to avoid evil, and the ability to recognize both. Sometimes your ways are mysterious and we struggle to understand thy will. But this is not such a time.”