Absent a Miracle

by Christine Lehner

  Lalo claps his hand over his left eye, and keeps it there as he talks. It is a painfully touching gesture. I realize I am in danger when such a simple gesture sets me tingling and aching for him. My whole system needs realignment. It needs to aim straight north.

  "Nelson yanked the arrow, pulled out his entire eyeball, and threw it overboard. So now you know how Lord Nelson's eye came to rest at the bottom of the Rio San Juan."

  Ezra says, "That doesn't seem possible. Your eyeballs are attached by lots of blood vessels."

  "Well, I wasn't there," Lalo says.

  We are back in the sala VIP with the would-be Miss Nicaraguas serving drinks. The flight from Miami lands, disgorges, and four priests enter the lounge, surrounded by assistants, factotums, translators, and bearers.

  The man at the center of it all is tall and dressed in purple silks. A medallion hangs around his neck. I know this man. Holy cow, not only have I seen this man before, but I know about him and his sad story.

  I tell Lalo. "That man. He's the monsignor from the club. The Hagiographers Club. What on earth is he doing here?" A young woman—her breasts defy gravity—hands me a glass of pale yellow fruit juice. It stings pleasantly going down.

  Lalo says, "He's from the Vatican. I told you. They've come about La Matilda's incorrupt body."

  "He used to cry all the time," I say.

  "Who?"

  "The monsignor. There was a terrible tragedy. A drowning at sea."

  "I remember that," Ezra says.

  "You do?" This should not surprise me.

  "Dad said it had to do with his tear ducts, and something else I won't say." Ezra wears the biggest grin I've seen in days.

  "I have no idea to what you refer," Lalo says in an attempt to sound testy. But I am unconvinced.

  "He's a friend of Hubert's. At the club he read all day long, and wept because his entire family drowned off of Sardinia. They were sailing champions."

  "They cannot have been such very great sailors," Lalo says. This too sounds out of character for Lalo. It is as if as we approach the plane he is inching toward another persona, a persona I can bear to leave behind.

  "It was a terrible storm. Even champions get tossed in a storm," I say.

  Ezra says, "He must be feeling better now."

  "I'm going to say hello. Do you think he'll remember me?"

  I hand my fruit juice to Lalo and walk over to the monsignor. He is the picture of calmness amid the clamor. He fingers the medallion. He looks like a Medici portrait.

  "Monsignor Giacometti. Do you remember me? From the Hagiographers Club?"

  He drops the medallion and gathers up my right hand and presses his lips to the air just above it. "My dear signora," he says. "Of course I remember you. Hubert was devoted to you and your cause."

  I demur, "Hardly. But Hubert was a wonderful help. A great librarian."

  "He has a gift," the monsignor says. "But tell me, to what do I owe this pleasure? To meet such a dear friend here, of all places. I can barely find this place on the map!"

  I'm glad Henry is not here to hear him say that. Even if it's meant in jest. I explain about the Llobets and Tristána, briefly. I tell him that we are now returning to New York to bury a dead dog. I regret that. Ezra doesn't know yet. And it sounds so trifling compared to an entire family drowned at sea. He is nothing if not sympathetic. I take him to meet Lalo.

  "Abelardo Llobet, a sus órdenes."

  "Paolo Giacometti, envoy of the bishop of Rome."

  "You are here to examine the body of La Matilda, that they say is incorrupt."

  "Among other things. Many other things," the monsignor says.

  "I am afraid we have nothing to compare with the splendors of Rome, but you will still find much to interest you in our little country."

  "I have no doubt. I have no doubt," the monsignor replies. "And now, before I return to my labors, please tell me about our dear Hubert."

  "He's terrified of skunks," Ezra says. Where has he been? Consorting with the ex-Miss Nicaragua runners-up?

  "I see the resemblance," the monsignor says. The ways in which I resemble my sons are not visible to the naked eye. "A handsome young man."

  Lalo speaks solemnly. "While you are in my country, you must visit the Virgin of El Viejo. She resides outside of Chinandega, upon an altar of chased silver unrivaled anywhere except Potosí. The Virgin came here with Rodolfo, the brother of Santa Theresa of Ávila."

  "I will certainly make every effort to see this Virgin," says the monsignor. "So that I can better understand the Nicaraguan church. I am always happy to learn the truth of local devotions."

  "Perhaps you will," Lalo says. This all sounds way too subtextual for me.

  And then formal pleasantries are repeated and Monsignor Giacometti is gone, reabsorbed by his posse.

  "Why didn't you say something about Tía Tata?" I ask Lalo.

  "What would you have had me say? That she loved a priest and he loved her?"

  "I think you're overreacting to those letters," I say. "I thought some of them were very sweet. And not incriminating."

  "So you say. I saw Carolina de la Rosa when we entered the terminal. She must be here to meet the papal delegate."

  "You saw her? Did she see you? Why didn't you say something?"

  "She was distracted. She looked radiant. I wasn't inclined to speak just then."

  "Oh."

  "And now your flight is boarding."

  We say goodbye. Ezra is right here, but that is not the reason we say nothing at all about our love, if it was love, and lovemaking in the darkness. Lalo says nothing about my perfect breasts. I say nothing about his perfect skin and throb-inducing eyelashes. Neither of us alludes to a future meeting. I do not reveal that the bottoms of his cotton pajamas are in my suitcase. Ezra says nothing about Carmen. The tropical air between us swallows it all like quicksand. Ezra and I step out into the torrid Nicaragua afternoon and cross the steaming tarmac.

  When the pilot announces that the coast of Cuba can be seen from the left side of the plane, I know it is now or never.

  "I need to tell you something before we get home."

  "Shoot."

  "There was an accident in front of the house. The garbage truck hit Flirt, and she was killed. Flirt is gone."

  "Flirt? Are you sure?"

  "Ez, honey, your dad told me."

  "Dad wouldn't lie about that," Ezra says. He turns away to gaze down upon the island of Cuba and the shimmering blue Caribbean. "Why does everyone like Dandy best? Flirt was bigger and stronger."

  "You're right, Ez. She was our alpha dog. People always prefer underdogs. But someone had to be the alpha. And that was our Flirt."

  Ezra bites his lip and presses his forehead to the porthole. He can press hard enough to make a red rectangle on his forehead, press with all his might, but the window won't budge. Poor Ezra, he can't get off this plane until Miami, and he can't make Flirt come back. That seems like an overdose of reality for a little boy who just a few days ago had pain in every bone in his body and couldn't keep down a thimbleful of water.

  "Will that make Dandy the alpha now? What if he doesn't want to be an alpha dog?"

  "I don't know. I don't know if he has a choice."

  "Carmen had a dog once, named Wally. He was a German shepherd and they had to shoot him after he took a bite out of someone's leg."

  "She had a dog? When was this?" Nothing about this should be so very surprising. Lots of people have dogs, and some of them even have German shepherds. So it was with Carmen sitting by his sickbed that Ezra has already plumbed the sorrow of a dead dog, while I was elsewhere.

  I need a job.

  Over the Florida Keys I remember Edith. But the power of Edith is gone. Somewhere between the coast of Cuba and the U.S. mainland, it dissipated. I am lighter now. So light I may need to nail my feet to the ground.

  In customs in Miami, I phone Waldo and read aloud to him the sign above the baggage carousel:

  USE THE RED LANE IF
YOU HAVE:

  1. Dogs

  2. Cats

  3. Nonhuman primates—monkeys

  4. Turtles, turtle eggs, tortoises, terrapins

  5. Etiological agents and vectors:

  (a) Any living insect (bedbugs, fleas, lice, mites, etc.);

  (b) Any animal known to be or suspected of being infected with any disease transmissible to man;

  (c) All living bats;

  (d) Unsterilized specimens of human or animal tissues (including blood, body discharges or excretions, or similar matter);

  (e) Any culture of living bacteria, virus, or similar material;

  (f) Snails and mollusks.

  "Well?" he says.

  "Well what?" I demand. "Isn't that extraordinary? The possibilities."

  "Do you have any? Etiological agents or vectors?"

  "Poor, lonely, sad Dandy. Is he bereft?"

  "Henry says he is grieving. To me he just seems quiet."

  "Waldo, guess what. I have an idea for a new radio show. The name will be Saint Radio, and Hubert would be the hagiographer on call."

  "Have you asked him?"

  "No, but I'm sure he'd love it. What do you think?" The truth is, I have just conceived of this radio show this very minute, standing here sweatily holding our passports.

  "It sounds ... You can explain it when I see you. You might want to ask Hubert first."

  "Fine, they're calling our flight."

  "I have news for you too," Waldo says.

  "Tell me!" I shout. Really, it's more of a bark that involuntarily erupts from the pit in my stomach.

  "Sydney's pregnant. Dick is going to be a father. More little Fairweathers are on the way."

  "Posey must be ecstatic."

  "Don't miss the plane."

  We fly up the eastern seaboard in mostly darkness. Somewhere over the nation's capital, Ezra asks me about etiological agents, and points out that no one would willingly, or knowingly, travel anywhere with bedbugs or fleas. Which makes the sign rather dopey, or illogical.

  Ezra tells Waldo and Henry about how Admiral Lord Nelson lost his eye in the Rio San Juan, the southern border of Nicaragua.

  Individually, silently, alone in corners of the house, we each hold Dandy and whisper words.

  And then at last, sleeping next to Waldo is like finding a pocket of air that is my shape exactly.

  The next morning, Waldo sits on the edge of Ezra's bed. "Fezzy Ezzy, do I have news for you. And Abelardo."

  "I'm asleep, Dad."

  "That Nelson story is hogwash. Baloney. Hooey. Pure fiction."

  "Huh?"

  "Nelson did lead an expedition to Nicaragua and he caught yellow fever there. They all did. But he recovered and returned to England with all his limbs, and both his eyes, attached. Later, in 1794, at the siege of Calvi—half a world away from poor muddy Nicaragua—he damaged his right eye and lost his sight. He was fighting the French, not the Spanish, not pirates. These are all facts. Sorry to have to break the news."

  "I'm still sleeping, Dad. And you're not sorry."

  I call to Waldo. He sits on the edge of the bed, rocking back and forth.

  "Isn't it a little early for history lessons?" I ask.

  "It's never too early for history," Waldo says. "Left to our own devices, Henry and I ended up reading the Guinness Book of World Records at dinner. Sad, huh?"

  "Where's Calvi anyway?" I ask.

  "Corsica, the northern coast of Corsica."

  "Oh. Isn't that near Sardinia?"

  "Next door," Waldo says. "Why? Do you have more travel plans?"

  "No. Far from it."

  At dusk we bury Flirt's ashes in the backyard. Susie and Bogumila come to pay their last respects to a dog they trusted with chickens. I am wearing black, but I am dry-eyed and distant, with Damnificados! Damnificados! playing in my head like a top-forty song that will not quit, until Henry takes my hand. Those five strong fingers, that palimpsest palm, those dirt-filled fingernails grab hold—and I am back on firm ground, I am linked to metamorphic and igneous rocks, to once-tilled Hudson Valley soil, to the parched grass, the poison ivy vines, the spartina and the anthills.

  Susie suggests we sing a hymn, and Waldo, naturally, is rolling his eyes. Out of the blue, or rather, out of a DPW truck, Teddy Gribbon shows up. Poor Teddy. His eyes are red, and he is carrying a bouquet of carnations. His arms reach toward Waldo, then he withdraws and hands the carnations to me. "Flowers are a universal sign of respect at a funeral," he says.

  "Thank you, Teddy. You didn't have to."

  "You don't hate me?"

  Before I can utter the appropriate platitudes, Henry pipes up. "Teddy, do you know about catharsis?"

  Teddy smiles ruefully. "I know about transmissions and carburetors, but not that one."

  Henry says, "I read about it in the grief manual. It's what we're doing here. By crying and expressing our emotions, we end up feeling better. So it's a good thing you are here."

  Now Susie rolls her eyes.

  Waldo is still reading One Hundred Years of Solitude. This pleases me because if he were reading a new and strange book I would not have known how to proceed. He rolls toward me and says, "I almost forgot. A rather interesting new book is out."

  "You mean the one about the Hagiographers Club? Hubert told me."

  "I have no idea about that. It's about the invention of the telephone." Waldo pauses. I think I can hear the barking of dogs in the backyard, but I am wrong. "You'll never believe this. But you of all people should believe it. After all the grief I've taken, it turns out the telephone really was invented by Henry Fairweather."

  "Holy cow." I stare at the blackness of the individual window-panes. "Oh, I get it. You made this up."

  "Al! That's the whole point. I did not make this up. That's what you've thought all along but now it turns out I was right and there is even proof. Some guy from Delaware has discovered that Bell stole all the ideas of Great-Great-Uncle Henry. And then manipulated the story." Waldo is grinning, grinning. "This will change everything."

  "Like what?"

  "Don't be so literal. And guess what else. I can't come up with a limerick. My brain just freezes when I try to rhyme telephone or invent or even Graham Bell. Odd, don'tcha think?"

  "How about fishbone"? Chaperone? How about serpent? Incandescent? Rodent? Leave it to me, Waldo!" I say. And he does.

  It's the Feast of Saint Margaret of Antioch, who escaped from the dragon's belly by tickling his tonsils with the cross she carried. She's one of the Fourteen Holy Helpers, who were ever so popular during the black death. She was an apocryphal virgin, and I need to expand my repertoire beyond virgins. Waldo asks if I have called Hubert, to tell him about the likely noncanonization of Tía Tata and my idea for Saint Radio. Not yet, I reply. Waldo asks if I have called Lalo to let him know we arrived safely in New York, and to thank him for his tropical hospitality. Not yet. Before I call Lalo I will tell Waldo, and I don't know what will happen then but I am not racked with guilt, not about Flirt and not about Lalo.

  Waldo asks what I have been doing. There was a message from Gordie at WBLT, I tell Waldo, and when I returned the call he told me that Trudy had been fired for sexual misconduct (details at a later date) and that he is now producing the morning shows. Do I have any ideas?

  I have just the thing.