Curious Affairs

by Mary Jane Myers

  But now, the dog scratched on the door. “It’s locked, dear sweet little pup,” she said, reaching down and petting him. “See, it won’t open.” She pushed against the bronze to demonstrate. To her surprise, the door sprang open on well-oiled hinges. The dog padded just inside, paused, and shook the whole of his body, from nose to tail, his fur spewing water drops that glanced on the parquet floor. He bolted pell-mell into the interior and disappeared.

  Charlotte hesitated. To enter must be against myriad rules and regulations. Of course any punishment meted out by modern carabinieri must be more farcical than frightening. The dungeons of the Doges’ Palace were simply a stage prop for the titillation of tourists. And after all, she should chase after the dog and bring him back outside. She walked into the gloomy room, leaving the door ajar. A calm feeling flooded over her. Her muscles felt as relaxed as after a long soak in the warm mineral spring of a desert spa. Her coat and jeans no longer felt clammy and cold against her skin.

  All was quiet. The air was gelid and stale. She peered into the dark, searching for the dog. No sign of him. Suddenly, the bulbs of immense floor lamps clicked, illuminating the entire room. Startled, she looked around. Who had turned on the lights? There was no sign of a caretaker. The system must be automatic. Now, she noticed, the front door was shut. The hinges must be self-closing. Still no dog. Where could he be? There were no openings except for two doors at the far end, which were fastened tight. He must be somewhere inside this room.

  But she forgot about the dog as her eyes adjusted and focused. On the walls flashed the bright colors of breathing and pulsing painted figures, set within vistas infused with the opalescent light of Venice, the sun shimmering through the clouds of the lagoon. Smiling, she recognized the pictures. To her immediate left a youthful golden-haired St. George crowed over the bloody carcass of a dragon snarling even after death. Where was her favorite, the scene of that moment in sacred time when a divine voice announces to St. Augustine that his mentor St. Jerome has died? Aha, there it was. She stepped over to study the panel.

  The painting depicted the well-appointed studiolo of a humanist Renaissance scholar. Venetian light streamed into the sanctum from a window. Several dozens of vellum books and manuscripts and musical scores lay scattered about. A Ptolemaic armillary sphere, symbol of the new learning, hung suspended from the ceiling. In the foreground near the window, the monk Augustine sat writing at a wood table raised on a dais. In the instant captured by Carpaccio, a voice from the heavens had interrupted the saint. He had turned his head, and gazed toward the window, his quill pen poised in mid-air.

  Charlotte glanced at the far left of the composition. In profile a small white dog pointed his black nose toward the window, as if listening also to the divine revelation. Her heart fluttered. Was she perhaps only jet lagged or sleep deprived? Or intoxicated by the dream of Venice, of Serenissima? No, this must be the delirium of a madwoman. For in every detail the image resembled the mutt who had rescued her only a short while ago.

  To view the painting described in this story, visit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Augustine_in_His_Study_(Carpaccio)

  The Miracle of the Shellflowers

  IN THE WILDS of the Sila Massif in Calabria, in the ninth century, near the “toe” of Italy, which in ancient times had been called Magna Graecia, forty monks dwelt in a monastery built on the craggy peak of a steep mountain. There was but one dirt road winding up from the base of the mountain to its crest, a two-hour journey by donkey. The cloisters and refectory abutted a church. Near the building complex a spring of frigid water flowed from a deep cavern.

  During the summers a dozen peasants, the youngest a boy of ten and the eldest a graybeard of sixty, left their families who lived in a village on the broad plain below. These simple men tended their sheep and goats in the pastures on the mountainside. When the weather turned cold in October, they drove their flocks back down the mountain.

  Every summer Sabbath the shepherds gathered in the church to hear the midday Mass. The monks sat upright on oak benches near the altar. With their hands folded in their laps, they chanted the Psalms a cappella, praising God and all His creation in their native Greek tongue. Centuries ago the holy Brother Phantinos, whose moldering bones lay in a crypt under the mosaics of the floor, had translated these poems from the Hebrew of King David. The shepherds stood in a circle in the back of the nave. On their reed pipes they played the Grecian tropes bequeathed from time immemorial to their forefathers, and now to them. The sound of the pipes wove a soprano tapestry over the tenor and baritone voices of the friars. The harmonies spilled into every corner of the church, echoing on the granite stones, sweeping along the aisles of the nave, and, muted by the massive bronze doors, whorling into the courtyard filled with sunlight.

  The gentlest of the friars was called Brother Elias. He was learned in the art of distilling plants into medicines. It was said angels whispered the mysteries of healing to him. He slept in a bare stone cell that overlooked the herb garden near the cloisters. The abbot had given him permission to break with the schedule followed by the rest of the monastery. When the bell for Vigils sounded, he arose and meditated alone in his cell. As the roseate dawn lightened, and until midmorning, the garden received his careful tending. Every afternoon from the melting of the snowcap in April to the first blizzards of November, while the other monks copied manuscripts in the scriptorium, he meandered over the entire mountain. He collected specimens of lichen and porcini mushrooms and wildflowers in a large goatskin sack secured at its top with a leather thong. The sun shone bright and fierce, and often toward four o’clock white cumulus clouds piled high on the horizon, sometimes darkening to gray and showering the meadows with balmy rains.

  On the day of the summer solstice, Brother Elias hiked to the far side of the mountain, to an outcrop of dolomite boulders. All was quiet, save for the buzz of bumblebees and the hollow tapping of woodpeckers. A slight breeze stirred the curling leaves of the gnarled oaks and rustled the needles of the sentry pines. The sun blazed at the fortieth degree, at three o’clock, the hour of the death of the Christos. As was his custom, the friar bowed his head and murmured the Lord’s Prayer. At the final “amen” he opened his eyes, and noticed a mass of bushes growing out of cracks in the boulders. He walked closer to examine them.

  Mauve flowers with tracings of delicate blood red spider veins bloomed on the tips of waxy evergreen leaves. The blossoms were the size of almonds and spiraled counterclockwise. They resembled the shape and color of a certain type of shell in the monastery’s conchological collection, assembled from rare specimens brought by pilgrims from faraway lands and seas. A black ewe was munching contentedly on these flowers. When she saw the monk, she paused a moment to baah, and then returned to her grazing.

  A shepherd’s pipe sounded in the air. Soon a youth of fifteen summers who was called Arsenius appeared from behind a ridge. His black hair curled to his shoulders. Goatskins covered him from his shoulders to his knees. His calloused toes stuck out of his leather sandals, the frayed bindings dark from moisture. By his side trotted a white Maremma sheep dog named Sibari.

  “Ah, there you are, Zoe, you silly sheep, you are forever straying from your sisters.”

  He whistled, and Sibari barked and chased Zoe, who bleated as she scrambled down the rocks, the dog nipping at her heels and herding her back to the flock.

  Brother Elias greeted Arsenius.

  “Young man, do you know this plant?”

  “Good friar, I do know it. Every midsummer these evergreens bloom but for one hour, and then the flowers fall and turn to pink dust.”

  The monk thought a moment. He recalled that he had seen commentary on this shrub in a Greek translation of the Natural History of Pliny the Elder. Moreover, Brother Alexios the librarian had shown him a translated codex authored by the Coptic Desert Father Sabbas that contained a formulary for a healing elixir concocted from the flowers. Sadly, the vellum pages were torn and the description broke off in the mi
ddle.

  “Ah, I have read of this plant, but have never encountered it. The blooms appear just before three o’clock, the hour of the death of our Lord. It is written that for every blossom a saint is gathered into the heavens, and the angels leave the dust behind.”

  “If only I could learn the letters. Then I too could read. I would know the wisdom of our Lord.”

  “My good youth, you already have learned more from simple observation than many scholars ever learn from their reading.”

  “Alas, my elders despair of me. For I often wander off, and neglect the sheep.”

  “And what do you do when you wander?”

  “I watch the flight of the hawk and smell the fragrance of the pines.”

  Brother Elias smiled. This boy spoke in poetic rhythms so similar to his own. He thought back thirty years. At this young man’s age, Elias had met an anchorite, a holy man who changed his life. Elias was the scion of a merchant family in the Byzantine port of Rhegium. His father and uncles traded in silks and spices. He had learned his letters early from a secular philosopher Leontios, who tutored the boys of wealthy families. Elias committed to memory the sagas of Homer. On the Sabbath, he attended Mass in the cathedral with all his relatives. But as a peach-fuzzed man-boy of fifteen, he fell into a habit of carousing with six boon companions. Several nights a week, the drunken gang staggered through the narrow alleys that radiated out from the quay. They swore oaths in loud voices. Black rats as large as martens scurried over the wharves slick with green algae. The youths unsheathed their swords and sliced these creatures in two, laughing as the blood spurted from the writhing carcasses. Early one morning, just at dawn, dazed from a night of revelry, Elias slumped against a porphyry column in the courtyard of his father’s warehouse. The golden-red rays of the rising sun slanted through a door facing the wharf. A figure loomed in the doorway. Through bleary eyes Elias saw the brown robes cinctured with a leather belt, the weathered face, and the straggly gray beard of the hermit Nikolaos, who wandered occasionally through the town. Brother Nikolaos stared at Elias and pointed a scrawny finger.

  “Repent, repent. Even Noah in his drunkenness feared the Lord.”

  And Elias, who in the last few years had mocked all religion, all prayers, scoffing that such fancies were for old women and weaklings, noticed the rosy light of the sun. As if he were sleepwalking, he followed the old monk toward the east, to the caves of the hermits just beyond the city walls. For five years Brother Nikolaos taught Elias to fast and pray. As he lay dying, the aged eremite blessed his young protégé and said:

  “Go, seek out the holy mountain, where the Lord, Blessed Be He, has breathed His healing into the plants that flourish there. Study the flora, my son, and the Lord will vouchsafe miracles and wonders.”

  Brother Elias looked again at the shellflower bushes. Already the blooms were falling, at first one or two fluttering in the air like butterflies on a calm August afternoon, and soon many, swirling like wet snowflakes in a March breeze.

  “Young man, could you help me harvest these flowers?”

  “Blessed friar, you do me great honor.”

  The monk and the boy gathered enough blossoms to fill the goatskin sack. Brother Elias threw the sack over his shoulders.

  “My dear lad, how are you called?”

  “They call me Arsenius.”

  “Ah, Arsenius. You are a good youth. My name is Brother Elias. Come visit me in the monastery in mid-morning. Always I am in the herb garden.”

  “I humbly thank you.”

  Arsenius took up his pipe. He blew a lilting tune, imitating the trill of a lark as it greets the morning sun. He stepped over the ridge back to his flock. Brother Elias set off in the opposite direction on a path toward the monastery. Pine needles and tree nuts and crumbly brown leaves crunched under his feet as he walked, and a hawk rode the wind high overhead. To what good end could he use these shellflowers? He prayed for guidance. Of course he would research all the manuscripts in the library. The librarian Brother Alexios would assist him. God would reveal the mystery, mayhap in a codex, or by other transcendent means.

  Brother Elias entered his cell. He laid a sheepskin parchment on the ground and set his sack on top of it. Odd that the goatskin had flattened. He pulled the leather thong apart and peeked inside. No flowers remained, but only three handfuls of pink dust that smelled both sweet and pungent, as if lavender and bergamot orange blossoms mingled with the musk of truffles.

  That night, the midsummer night, as Brother Elias slept in his hair shirt on his stone bed, a brittle full moon cast a blinding white light through the narrow aperture high on the wall. An angel appeared in the shape of a youth wearing a mauve tunic. The angel sang:

  Brew a potion from pink dust of shell flow’r.

  See the formula in black letters writ.

  God will work wonders in the dark hour,

  When bodies lie jumbled and necks lie slit.

  When the monk awakened the next morning, he knew he had dreamt of the shellflowers, but could not remember the details. He glanced at the parchment. A formulary was written on its surface in minuscule Greek script. Ah, an angel must have inscribed the parchment during the night. The friar was not surprised. He often had visions and was accustomed to the esoteric ways of the Divine. God had chiseled the commandments in paleo-Hebrew on the tablets of Moses, and dictated the Gospels to the evangelists in Hellenistic Koine. Now, in the present day vernacular, He communicated formulas for healing medicaments to his faithful servant.

  That afternoon, Elias retired to his laboratory. He spread the parchment on his oak workbench and pored over the formulary:

  Crush three handfuls of pink shellflower dust with four thimblefuls of woolen hairs from a black ewe yearling. Dissolve in two small earthenware jars of spring water drawn from the cloister well. Distill over fire until the liquid has reduced in half to a pink elixir. Store in glass bottles in a cool and solitary place.

  He kept on hand black ewe yearling wool in an apothecary jar because it was the leaven in many of his remedies. Black sheep were beloved of the Lord, so energetic, so curious, so brave. With his marble mortar and pestle he ground together the pink dust and the black wool. He walked out to the cloister and drew water from the central well into a large wood bucket. The well tapped into the cavern spring, and Brother Elias knew from long experience that the water had curative properties.

  In the laboratory he emptied the water into an iron cauldron set on a high trivet on the hearthstone, and stirred in the two ingredients. He kindled a fire under the cauldron, and brewed the mixture for an hour. After the pink liquid had cooled, he decanted it into two glass bottles. He stoppered the bottles with cork and stored them on the top shelf of his oak chest.

  To what use could he turn the elixir? He knew not what powers it might have. He could not recall anything more of his dream, though he had faith that in the proper season the Lord would guide him.

  A few days later, Arsenius began to visit Brother Elias, at first three times in a week, but then every morning. The youth left Sibari behind to guard the sheep.

  “Now be a good dog. This is our secret. The others must not know. I will return in a few hours.”

  The dog would woof and lie down in the grass, while the flock of three dozen sheep grazed. Just as the bell rang for Lauds, Arsenius appeared in the herb garden. The monk leaned on his spade. He wore a straw hat and wool gloves. Arsenius pulled weeds and watered, plucked off dead leaves and collected seeds, spread sheep and goat manure, and performed any other task that Brother Elias needed. The monk spoke to him, teaching him, guiding him. Brother Elias could see that the boy was growing, even as the plants in the garden grew from thumb-sized seedlings to luxuriant bushes. He sensed that the boy might be attracted to the sacred calling of the monastic life.

  All that summer, during the long evenings after the communal supper, Brother Elias walked over to the scriptorium. Brother Alexios brought him every manuscript to examine, at least a chiliad, tho
ugh many were uncatalogued. He found only the two references he had recollected, that of Pliny and of Sabbas. The glass bottles filled with the pink elixir remained on the shelf.

  These years were the time of the Saracen dangers, celebrated in the lore of that countryside. The forces of the Mohammedans swept north from Arabia across the seas, enlarging their territories and subjugating the populace in the name of Allah.

  In September, just before the equinox, the Saracens encamped some four hundred kilometers to the south. The Caliph sent ahead scouts to reconnoiter the countryside. At dawn, four Saracens galloped up the mountain road on their chestnut mares. Halfway up the mountain, in a grassy meadow, ten shepherds slumbered around the embers of a campfire. Their dogs guarded the sheep and goats that were dozing nearby. The horsemen caught sight of the shepherds and surrounded them. The shepherds awoke and jumped up, looking to right and left for escape. They were cornered. The soldiers blindfolded the shepherds, lined them up in a row, and kicked them in the shins from behind. The prisoners thudded to their knees. One of the warriors, who seemed to be the leader, went down the line of captives. While the other three men shrieked an ululating battle cry, he slit each of the shepherds’ throats and sawed off their heads with a bronze knife. Bright red blood soaked the ground. The dogs howled and dashed pell-mell around the perimeter of the meadow. The flocks milled about, and then, sensing a world gone mad, they stampeded in all directions. The soldiers pointed at the melee and guffawed among themselves.

  It so happened that Arsenius had lain down with his comrades near the fire the previous evening. He slept very little, waking often with a sense of foreboding. He had risen shortly before daybreak, and with Sibari at his heels walked some two hundred meters up the mountain to sit on a favorite boulder and watch the sunrise. He had much to ponder. Brother Elias had taught him to read several of the letters of the alphabet, the alpha and the omega and the gamma. He now knew the formulas for a score of herbal potions. He desired, with all of the force of his slender body and his agile mind, to don the robes of a friar, to follow Brother Elias. His elders said that God had predestined him, like all boys born in his village, to herd sheep. Still, he felt the finger of God tugging at his heart.